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onceupon · 3 years

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London Boy - Part 4: Just friends

summary: You wake up to find Rafe Cameron in your bed. Even though nothing happened, you’re still left trying to make sense of it all.

pairing: Rafe x reader (slowburn)

warnings: swearing, drinking

word count: 5k

a/n: thank you so much to all of you who have been reading along <333 sorry in advance if you want this to progress faster haha, it simply must be this slow, sorry I don't make the rules (even tho I do lol). Not canon Rafe!!

masterlist

Your eyes slowly flutter open as the early morning rays wake you up. You didn’t even remember falling asleep. As you slowly gain consciousness you’re startled by the weight of Rafe’s arm draped across your body. What the hell? When did that happen? He spent the night in your bed?

Your mind races at a million miles an hour as you slowly slip out from under his hold. You were careful not to wake him up, not wanting to face any awkwardness. You throw on fresh clothes and grab your backpack, desperate to make your escape. You had wanted to get to school early today to work on some homework anyways, never before so eager to trade in the comfort of your bed for the library.

After a quick pit stop to pick up a coffee and a croissant, you swing the heavy wooden doors open. You liked campus at this hour, the morning light still soft, the air crisp, and the atmosphere silent. As you scan your eyes for a spot to sit, you notice the unmistakable sight of fluffy brown hair hunched over a table.

“Liam?” your whisper. “What the hell are doing here?”

That classic cheeky grin spreads across his face as he looks up to find you standing in front of him. “I go here, Y/n. Forget already?”

You roll your eyes, “I just didn’t know you were the studious type.”

“Not gonna lie to you babe, I’m not. But Rogers is already all the way up my ass over this class, and I’m not letting that prick hold me back a year.”

You pull out the chair across from him and go to sit down, spreading your books out on the table.

“Who said you could sit with?” he asks, and you shoot him a look. You’re not in the mood. “Geez alright, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed… you good Y/n?” he slows, taking in your disheveled appearance. You hadn’t so much as brushed your hair.

“Can you promise not to tell anyone,” you stare dead into his eyes.

“On my life,” he extends his pinky, and you accept.

“Rafe… slept over last night…”

“Oh shit!” he exclaims, and your eyes widen at his echoing voice.

“Not like that,” you hiss, not wanting to draw anymore attention to the two of you. “Nothing happened… like he just came over to watch a show and then we talked for a while and just accidentally… fell asleep. I panicked when I woke up and realized he was still in my bed so I ran out of there as fast as I could and now…. well now I’m here.” You nervously chug your coffee, heart racing.

“So he hung out with you all night and didn’t make a move?”

You nod, nervously awaiting his analysis as you take a bite of your croissant.

“Damn, boy must really like you,” he muses.

“What? Definitely not,” you scoff.

“Y/n, let me tell you a little something about guys. If we really like you, we’re gonna make the time to hang out with you, no matter what. The fact that he’s coming over your room to watch a show and hanging out with you until he physically can’t stay awake - I mean I can’t make it any more obvious to you.”

“I don’t know I just don’t think so… You don’t know Rafe like that, he’s a total player back home. He can pull any girl he wants, so if he liked me like that he would’ve done something by now. This is probably how he is with all his friends and I’m just reading too much into it. I’m sure Lily Colts will be in his bed soon enough,” you mumble. That last part stings in particular, you had already thought it, but saying it out loud made you feel… icky.

“I may not know Rafe like that, but I know guys like him. I am guys like him. He likes you Y/n. So what if he pulls a lot of chicks, he doesn’t actually care about them. But he cares about you, probably can’t even understand why, and now it’s like bam Uno reverse. He can’t pull the cards he normally does, and now you’ve got him confused and he doesn’t know what to do. Man’s down bad. Give him time though, he’ll come around,” he explains to you calmly, stealing your coffee cup from you and taking a sip.

“Honestly can I just start paying you to figure my life out for me. You make everything seem so simple.”

“Because it is simple. You insist on complicating it. But I know how you could pay me,” he adds with a wink and you shoot him a glare. You know he’s just joking (partially), he loves pushing your buttons.

“Well whatever. I’ll believe it when I see it,” you resign on the Rafe matter. You wanted to believe what Liam was saying but it didn’t quite make sense to you. You were only going to drive yourself crazy trying to read between lines that you weren’t sure existed. Rafe was just used to situations like this with girls. To him last night was probably no big deal. It was to you though. You would never let ‘just a friend’ stay over like that, with his arm around you no less. But Rafe didn’t need to know that, you decide.

—-

You manage to avoid Rafe all day, not having any classes with him on Friday’s. As soon as your last class is over, you sprint home, relieved when you’re the first back at the flat and can quickly slip into your room undetected. You set down your bag and sit on the edge of your bed. Your hand slowly runs over your comforter, still ruffled from where Rafe had been laying the night before. The indent of his head is still on your pillow; you can almost smell the scent of him lingering in your room and hear the sound of his soft whispers. You wonder what his first thoughts were when he woke up in your bed alone - was he confused? Embarrassed? He probably thought nothing of it at all. You can just picture him casually getting up with a stretch, like it’s the start of any typical day.

You slip into the shower and let the water wash over your body. It’s warm and soothing, and it’s reminding you of Rafe laying next to you, of his arm wrapped around you. God if there was only a way to shut your brain off once in a while. As much as you tried to suppress it, there had been a tiny part of you that was happy to have woken up in his embrace, giddy like a school girl with a crush. You’d always wondered how a moment like that would feel, or how a moment like that with him would feel. You had conveniently failed to mention the “arm” detail to Liam, maybe because in the back of your mind you knew it would only help prove his theory right.

When you make your way back to your room, your phone buzzes and the Royal Fam 🇬🇧🇺🇸 group chat appears.

Olivia: who wants to go out tonight 😈

Topper: me and Rafe have to be up early tmrw for soccer - rain check on this one ladies

Olivia: :(

Olivia: girls night out??

Millie: you know I’m there!

You’re a little bummed that Rafe won’t be there tonight. But a girls night sounds like just what you need to get him off your mind.

Y/n: I’m in :)

Not even a few minutes later Olivia and Millie are barging into your room, causing you to let out a startled yelp.

“My god, heard of knocking,” you exhale with your hand coming to your chest. Your statement falls on death ears.

“Which jeans with this top,” Olivia asks, holding the clothing items against her body.

“Should I curl or straighten my hair with this,” Millie follows, holding her outfit up.

“Uhh,” your mind scrambles, “those jeans Liv. And straight, Mills,” you reply, shocked by your own decidedness. “But now you guys have to help me, I have no clue what to wear.”

“Say less,” Olivia flashes a smile.

Within minutes they tear through your closet, picking out your outfit. Things were always much more clear with a fresh set of eyes. The three of you discuss the night’s logistics before making your way to the kitchen - couldn’t go drinking on an empty stomach. Rafe and Topper are already there, and you try your best to act natural even though your stomach ties itself in a knot the moment you catch a glimpse of his face. You haven’t seen him since you ran out this morning.

“Uh hey I’m gonna run to Sainsbury’s real quick, I wanna get a chaser, anyone need anything,” you ask, avoiding eye contact with Rafe. Your nerves get the best of you and in terms of fight or flight, you were ready to flee.

“Hey wait I’ll come with you. Gotta pick something up for dinner,” Rafe stands grabbing his jacket, and before you can interject, he’s leading the way down the hall and out your shared flat.

“So what are you chasing tonight?”

“What?” you ask startled, his question pulling you back to reality. Your mind had been running in a loop, trying to read him and the thoughts in his head. You wished now more than ever that you knew what Rafe was like behind closed doors back home, so you could somehow make sense of it all.

He chuckles at you, lost in your own world. “You said you needed a chaser?” Those intimidating blue eyes have found their way to yours again and you hastily look away, focusing in front of you instead.

“Oh yeah- uh just for the vodka,” you laugh nervously.

“Basic,” he mocks. You scoff in surprise and lightly hit him on the chest as the laughter leaves your lips. He’s sporting a shit-eating grin, having successfully egged you on.

“You’re funny if you think I’m gonna do shots of whiskey before going to a club.”

“Well you do owe me one…” he says.

“Oh so he remembers?” you reply, amused.

“Of course,” he states so calm and so sure. Your head swirls at that, his cool confidence making you melt. The automatic doors slide open in front of you, fluorescent lights stealing your attention from the boy you were finding dangerously more attractive by the second.

“I thought we’re supposed to take it together? But someone’s being lame and not coming out tonight,” you say sarcastically, playing it as cool as you can manage. Rafe’s confidence seemed to come naturally, but you were more of a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of gal.

“Hey you know I have soccer,” he defends. The Kook Prince was not one to turn down a party without cause.

“Excuses excuses,” you shake your head.

“Actually, speaking of soccer, you uh- you and the girls should come tomorrow. If you’re not doing anything. Or not too hungover I should say. Game’s at 12.”

“Can’t make any promises Cameron, but we’ll see,” you smile, earning a satisfied smile from him in return.

You make your way to the frozen food aisle, Rafe explaining to you how they call a soccer field a football pitch here, as you laugh at him grabbing 5 frozen pizzas (dinner solved for the next week, of course). You ask him which chaser you should pick. He points out a cola, so naturally you decide to get blackberry seltzer water, Rafe twisting his face in disgust (who would voluntarily drink that tv static). You always felt so nervous at first, to be in Rafe’s presence, but all it ever took was a few minutes for you to completely relax around him. He was intimidating, yet inviting. Mysterious, yet open. He was somehow the cause of your anxious nerves and yet the source of your comfort. The fear of facing Rafe after running out this morning had paralyzed your thoughts all day, and now you could hardly remember why. He hadn’t mentioned it at all, as if nothing happened. His normalcy confirmed for you that him sleeping over was in fact no big deal, and you almost want to laugh at yourself for how much you had worked it up in your head. You two were just friends, and perhaps Rafe was used to being… a friendlier friend than what you were used to. But that was okay, you could learn to be friendlier too.

—-

Rafe and Topper had decided to accompany you guys in the kitchen as you pregamed. They slowly sipped beers as you, Millie, and Olivia pounded back shots, laughing at the way you guys got progressively drunker and progressively louder before finally heading out. And much to your surprise, the boys were still seated in the same spot hours later, when the three of you stumble back into the flat, McDonalds in hand.

“Oh look who’s still up,” Olivia slurs, taking a bite of her cheeseburger.

“We can’t go out, we have soccer,” Millie mocks, almost falling to the floor as she trips over her heel, Topper and Rafe not making any effort to hide their clear amusement.

“Fun night huh?” Topper quirks his brow.

“The funnest,” Millie holds her head high, sinking down against the wall until she’s sat on the floor. You had made a beeline for the dining room table, silently admiring your chicken nuggets. In that moment, they were the best thing you had ever tasted.

“I want Jake,” Olivia pouts, and before anyone can say a word she’s turned on her heel, burger in hand, off to crawl into her boyfriend’s bed.

“Alright you drunk, let’s get you to bed,” Topper laughs, scooping an incoherent Millie up to her feet by her elbows.

“M’not drunk,” Millie protests, even though she’s leaning her full body weight against Topper who sarcastically nods at her, escorting her down the hallway. Rafe sits on the couch, silently playing with the cards in his hand again, not the least bit uncomfortable with sharing your company in silence.

“I’m mad at you,” you say matter of factly, taking a bite of a french fry. At this point, the alcohol is doing the talking.

“Mad at me?” Rafe stops shuffling the cards and raises his head to look at you, intrigued.

“Yeah because you didn’t come to the club,” you furrow your brows, chucking a fry at him. He catches it instantly, laughing to himself with a shake of his head.

“Don’t worry I saw all your guys’ snaps, I feel like I was practically there.”

“That’s not the same,” you frown, throwing another fry which he catches yet again.

“I’ll try to be there next time,” he laughs.

“That’s better I guess,” you grumble, eating another chicken nugget. The room grows quiet, Rafe training his attention back to the cards.

“When are we watching the next episode Cameron,” you break the silence, chucking another fry. He barely has to look up to catch your latest throw, shaking his head with a chuckle. He puts the cards down and makes his way over to the dining table, standing right above you now.

“Come on, time for you to go to bed,” he beckons you toward him with his arm, to which you only furrow your brows in indignation.

“I’m not done with my food,” you protest.

“Now you are,” he says, grabbing your last fry and finishing it with one bite. “Now c’mon.” You reluctantly grab onto his extended arm to help you get up. You walk down the hall together and he opens your door for you, letting you in as he leans against the frame. You immediately fall back and collapse on to your bed with a gasp, you didn’t remember it feeling so soft when you were sober.

“Goodnight L/n,” Rafe laughs, staring down at you.

“Goodnight Rafe,” you mumble, seconds away from passing out. He smiles to himself at the sight of you still in the outfit and shoes you had been out in, bent in surely the most uncomfortable position possible, legs half way off the bed, yet somehow already asleep. He’s about to head back to his room, but he hesitates, turning back to you with a sigh. As slowly and quietly as he can, he pulls your shoes off for you, lifts your legs onto the bed, and covers you in your blanket. And just as quick, he slips out of your room and back into his.

—-

You wake up the next morning, letting out a groan when you realize you’re still in the outfit you had worn clubbing. Your head dully aches and your throat is desert dry so you force yourself up and to the kitchen. When you see the aftermath of McDonald’s containers on the table, vague memories start flooding your brain in horror. You couldn’t have… could you? Did you actually throw french fries at him? You close your eyes and slowly run your hand over your face in realization. Great, you think to yourself, Rafe probably thinks you’re an annoying idiot. Good grief.

You hear the door of the flat opening and Olivia appears in the kitchen, holding a plate of breakfast sandwiches, your mouth watering at the sight.

“Thank the lovely lads in apartment 4E,” she laughs, placing them on the table. “Oh god, we went hard last night didn’t we,” she says, taking in the sight of the flat.

“A little too hard…” you remark.

“No such thing, darling! Now eat up and get dressed, we’ve got a match to catch,” she declares before disappearing down the hall where you can hear muffled groans of Millie being reluctantly dragged out of her bed. You sigh and sink down into a chair, grabbing a sandwich and taking a bite. Heaven. You make a mental note to thank Jake for his chef skills. You had completely forgotten that you and the girls were supposed to go watch Rafe and Topper’s match today. Your worries about having to face Rafe yesterday had been quick to melt away, but today they were back with a new vengeance.

—-

“Okay no one wander off when we get there. Y/n, fair warning, these games get… rowdy,” Millie says, as the three of you walk toward the field, arms linked.

“Things get pretty crazy at Kildare too,” you laugh, “so yeah, don’t fucking let me out of your sight.”

The three of you shake off your fits of laughter as you stumble toward the stands, finding a spot amongst the already packed crowd. You’re finally able to take in your surroundings, glancing at the field ahead. The opposing team is warming up on the pitch, clad in red. Westheath’s team is off to the side, the boys stretching and getting ready in their white uniforms. The dirty blonde immediately catches your eye. He’s jumping and jogging in place, headphones in as though he’s tuning out the physical noise around him, and probably the mental noise too. You wonder if he’s listening to one of the songs he showed you the other night.

He pauses his jogging to stretch out his arms, his eyes glazing over the stands, when suddenly they lock with yours. Your cheeks flush pink, embarrassed at having been caught staring, but his face just pulls into a wide grin and he gives you a wave. You wave back, and he does a quick hand motion that everyone does at Kildare games back home. You laugh and do the responding gesture, as he smiles cheekily at you before a teammate comes up to him, pulling his focus away. The exchange was brief, but oddly intimate. There was a whole field and a couple dozen people between you, and yet you two were the only witnesses to the interaction. You smile to yourself, relief in the fact that maybe getting a french fry chucked at him wasn’t enough to make him hate you after all. You wonder briefly if Rafe spends half as much time overanalyzing things the way you do. Liam was right, you do insist on overcomplicating things.

“Hey, earth to Y/n!” Olivia laughs, waving her hand in front of your face. “The game is starting!”

—

The final score flashes on the screen: 4-2, a win for Westheath. The students are going nuts, rushing the field. Olivia and Millie lead the way, pushing through the crowd until you guys reach Rafe and Topper.

“Let’s go boys!!” Olivia yells, jumping up and down with the sea of bodies and beer around you. Rafe and Topper react with equal enthusiasm, pulling each of you in for a hug. You and Rafe are the last to hug, him pulling you in brief but close against his large sweaty body, arms wrapped around you. You don’t even mind the stickiness of the hug, feeling deja vu at the warm feeling of being in his embrace again; a feeling that is foreign yet familiar, one you hadn’t felt before.

“Did you guys see Rafe’s goal in the second half!?” Topper asks, clapping his friend on the back.

“Of course we did, super star!” Millie cheers, giving Rafe a high five as he humbly shakes his head and laughs at his friends. The mental image of his goal was burned in your head, one that your mind would certainly play for you involuntarily over the next coming days.

“Alright we gotta go do some stuff with the team, but everyone’s going to Central Bar later. See you guys there?” Rafe asks.

“You got it,” Olivia replies, and they jog off with quick waves, you meeting those blue eyes in silent acknowledgement once again. It was that gaze that always made the rest of the world seem to disappear while his eyes met yours, making your heart skip a beat. He’s just a friend, you remind yourself. Just a tall, attractive, soccer-playing friend…

—

“Y/n! Liv! We’re doing a round!” Jake calls you and Olivia over to where him and Liam are already at the bar, four shot glasses ordered and lined up.

“On three! One, two-“ Liam chants, as the four of you down the alcohol. Central Bar had been buzzing with what felt like half of Westheath’s student body all day. After the game, you and the girls had gone back to your flat to nap and eat, before meeting up with Jake, Liam, and the rest of their boys to head to the bar. Rafe and Topper were already pretty buzzed when you guys got there, playing a round of table tennis with you before the rest of the soccer team and their other friends pulled their attention away. You couldn’t help the way your whole body tensed when Rafe greeted Lily with a tight hug, humbling you with the confirmation that Rafe’s actions toward you weren’t anything special. You resolved yourself to a night of drinking and dancing your worries away with Liv and Liam instead.

“Alright, round of table tennis? You two against me and Y/n?” Liam challenges.

“Please, I saw Y/n playing before, you guys have nothing on us,” Olivia flashes an evil smile, her competitive side coming out.

“Oh it’s on Liv,” you laugh, as your foursome stakes your claim at the pong table. While Olivia and Jake gather the balls and paddles, you notice Liam grimacing off into the distance. You follow his line of sight, landing on Topper and Millie drunkenly dancing together across the bar, a bit too close for comfort.

“What is she doing with that geezer,” he mumbles.

“Liam! Jealousy is unbecoming of you,” you gasp in mock disbelief.

“I’m not jealous,” he scoffs, and you quickly realize that he actually is, even though you had just been joking. Your jaw falls slack as you put two and two together. Liam and Millie were always by each other’s side, at school, at the pub, when you were all watching a movie at his apartment a few nights ago. He would tease her relentlessly and his own words rang in your ears If we really like you, we’re gonna make the time to hang out with you, no matter what.

“Shut up! Shut up!,” you whisper yell, hand coming to your mouth. “I should have realized this whole time… of course you like Millie! Everything you’ve been telling me you think exists between me and Rafe has actually been about her! She’s your Uno reverse card!” You’re shocking even yourself at these revelations.

“No no no, you can’t use my own words of wisdom against me, that’s not how this works Y/n. So what, maybe I slightly give a shit about Millie? Who cares. Her and I both know that’s never gonna happen. I still stand by everything I said about you and Rafe so don’t think your getting off so easy on that.”

“Then tell me why you’re staring at Millie while Rafe hasn’t so much as glanced my way since the minute Lily Colts got here, hmm?”

“Oh Y/n, Y/n Y/n Y/n,” Liam tuts, shaking his head laughing as he turns to the game your group of four is about to begin. You don’t have the energy to argue with Liam over the matter right now, oblivious to the fact that Rafe had indeed been glancing your way, several times. In fact, he was glancing at you right now, as Liam reached his arm over yours to help you actually hold the paddle the right way. You just hadn’t been glancing back to notice, scared of what you may or may not see between him and Lily if you did.

—

The night dies down and it’s time for the pilgrimage back to your building. You’re walking with Millie when Liam quickly falls in step with you two. You give him a knowing smirk, to which he responds with a glare behind Millie’s back, but you let the two banter as you fall behind, now walking alone. You stare ahead, eyes mindlessly settling on Lily walking in between Callum and Henry at the front of the pack. You don’t notice the pair of legs that begin moving in pace next to your own.

“Tonight, by the way,” Rafe’s voice startles you as you jump next to him. He chuckles at the confusion written all over your face. “You asked last night when we’re watching the next episode. And my answer is tonight, L/n,” he states.

“Haven’t you been up since like the crack of dawn? Aren’t you tired?” you ask incredulously.

“Too tired for Game of Thrones? Never,” he scoffs, Liam’s words ringing in your ear. If we really like you, we’re gonna make the time to hang out with you, no matter what.

“Well then tonight it is,” you smile. “Sorry about the french fries last night by the way,” you say meekly, looking down at the sidewalk in front of you, cheeks burning.

“Seriously L/n, talk about a horrible throw. Room for improvement,” he jokes with a comforting smile, saving you from yourself.

“Good game by the way,” you add, grateful for the way he was letting you off.

“Thanks,” he looks at you, shoving his hands in his pocket. You turn to look at him too, and after a few moments laughter is taking you both apart. Nothing funny was said. Neither of you knew why you were laughing. And yet it felt natural, not an ounce of awkwardness in the air.

As your whole group walks into the building, people begin to peel off, splitting towards staircases and off elevator stops.

“I’m fucking beat,” yawns Topper, as you and all your flatmates file into your hall.

“I’m gonna sleep like a baby tonight,” Millie yawns in agreement. One by one everyone files off into their rooms. You open your door, backing into yours, Rafe across the hall from you backing into his. Laughter tugs at both your faces once again, as you let your doors close. You manage to change into your sweats and brush your teeth before you hear the light rap on your door. Rafe enters, in a t-shirt and gray sweatpants, your weakness. But you feel comfortable being alone with him now. The Rafe jitters had finally began to subside.

“Alright L/n, episode 4, you ready for this?” he asks, plopping down in his spot next to you.

“Oh I’m very ready,” you reply, sitting up to reach for your laptop which was resting by your feet. As you lean back, you find yourself in Rafe’s arm. He had extended it out before you sat back, effortlessly catching you against him. His hand rests casually on your arm, and you gulp, pressing play. You pray he can’t feel the way your heartbeat quickens and your body flushes. So much for those jitters being gone.

The episode plays, you and Rafe making comments here and there before your chatter eventually dies down, leaving just the sound of the show to fill the room. You can feel Rafe’s body lean further and further down, becoming heavier and breathing slower. You very slowly turn to check, and sure enough he’s fast asleep. You sigh, and shut your laptop, careful not to stir him. You could easily shake him awake, tell him to go to his bed, but for some reason you don’t. You don’t mind him here. In fact, you almost prefer it, his body heat keeping you warm. He had already slept over once before and it clearly hadn’t been a big deal, so what was the harm in letting it happen again? You’re just friends after all, you remind yourself, not sure who you’re trying to convince. And so, the two friends fall asleep in the same bed again.

---

🏷: @hopebaker @pogueslandia @mardema

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron imagine

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ayybtch · 3 years

Text

Bread

Wanda Maximoff x f!Reader, Baker!AU + Friends to Lovers

Chapter 5 of Made With Love

Word Count: 3,292

Chapter Warnings: Our two favorite idiots are so blind it’s not even funny, lots of yearning, some brief mentions of alcohol consumption towards the end

A/N: Hey guys! Thanks for being patient with me on getting this posted. School and work have been crazy, but I’m almost done for the semester so hopefully it won't be as long for the next update. Shout out to my Grandma for sending me her paprikash recipe so I would actually know what I was talking about for this chapter. We literally never speak but she did me a real solid on this one and I will be adding paprikash into my regular cooking schedule once fall hits. Full disclosure though, I literally Googled “What wine pairs with chicken paprikash” and the wines mentioned are what it gave me. Please let me know what you think! I love reading your guys’s comments, it really makes my day.

Hey, so everyone is going to be out on a mission tomorrow night except for me. Any chance I can cash in on that raincheck? There’s a Bewitched marathon happening.

You smiled at Wanda’s message, quickly typing out your response. Definitely! Would you like to join me for bread day tomorrow?

She responded almost immediately. YES!

You couldn’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm. She had been wanting to make bread ever since the two of you made snickerdoodles. She brought it up almost constantly, mostly as a joke to get back at you for all of the times you teased her about it.

Up to this point, Wanda refused to accept any of your attempts to say thank you for helping you out through the cupcake debacle, saying that this was the sort of thing that friends were for. It only felt right that this should be the next thing to bake as your own special way of saying thank you.

As excited as you were to spend time with her and teach her how to do this, you couldn’t help but feel incredibly nervous at the same time. Why had Wanda decided to share her sexuality with you after all this time?

Okay, scratch that. You understood why she shared it with you when she did. The real question is what to do with the information now that you had it.

Was it just a general knowledge sort of a deal? Or was this her way of trying to say she was interested?

You groaned and put your head in your hands. This is why you hadn’t dated someone since your last relationship ended. You needed big flashing lights that screamed “I want to date you!” before you’d catch on, and even that didn’t work sometimes. If someone tried to be subtle, you were an absolute lost cause. You did your best to recall every interaction you had with Wanda that could even remotely be considered as her flirting or expressing interest.

She did smile at you a lot, even more than she smiled at Sam and Bucky who she clearly adored. She also certainly didn’t shy away from physical contact and had even initiated it several times. She had also remembered your coffee and bagel order from the one random time it came up weeks ago...

Suddenly, everything started to add up. All of those glances that had left your heart racing, all of those little touches...maybe Wanda was interested in you?

Your heart felt ready to burst out of your chest with joy.

Wanda didn’t arrive at the bakery until almost noon. The majority of the bread had been baked already; the only bread left to make was hers.

The two of you said your hello’s and caught up a bit as she stepped in to put on her apron and began washing her hands. Once the conversation slowed, you started your rundown for today’s bake.

“Bread is actually a lot easier than it looks but there are a couple of points we’re going to need to be careful at. I’ll remind you about them as we go about but I figured it would be good to have them all in your head now.

“We’re going to be very conscientious about temperatures this entire bake in a way we haven’t really needed to before. When we’re dealing with the yeast, we need the milk around 110 to 115o so the yeast activates properly. We also want things to be warm during the rise times, which shouldn’t be too much of an issue given the ovens have been on most of the day. Once it’s in the oven, we aren’t going to mess with it at all until the last couple minutes and that’s only if we need it to brown further.”

Wanda nodded along as you spoke. “I don’t know how much of an actual problem this is because you’re here, but I always hear a lot about overworking or underworking the dough. How do I know if it’s been kneaded enough?”

“Ah, good question! If the dough keeps getting really flat and not holding its shape, it’s underworked. If the dough is overworked, it gets kind of hard and not easy to work with. The good news is that we’re kneading by hand since it’s your first time and it’s a lot less likely to happen that way than in a mixer.”

She looked unconvinced but nodded. “Okay, so where do we begin?”

The first fifteen minutes of the bake flew by quickly. The yeast mixture had been prepared and was almost ready for the rest of the ingredients to be mixed in. Wanda was completely in awe at how the mixture looked.

To be fair to her though, the yeast mixture does look very weird if you’re not used to seeing it.

Once the flour, salt, and eggs were mixed in, the true fun began. Everything was mixed just enough to be combined into a rough, sticky ball of dough before being taken out of the mixer and onto the floured counter. Wanda followed along as you sprinkled some flour on your dough and began to knead, doing her best to mirror your motions.

You watched her out of the corner of your eye as you worked the dough, waiting to see what she would do. It was hard to hold back your giggles as you watched her. She was practically just squeezing the dough in different directions. You gave her a few minutes to see if she would work things out, but eventually, you set your dough down and moved closer to her.

“Here, let me help,” you said. Your hands moved so they were on top of hers, you tried guiding her through the motions, only for things to fail miserably.

“Okay, can I try something that might be a little weird? It’s just that I’m not used to kneading at an angle like that so it’s throwing off my muscle memory.”

She nodded and you adjusted yourself so you were now standing behind her. Your arms slid around either side of her waist and your hands rested on top of hers. This time, your hands knew what they were doing and you were able to help guide her through the motion. Even after she got it, you remained standing behind her, your chin resting against her shoulder.

The feelings that washed over you as you stood there with her were hard to describe. There was nothing necessarily comfortable about the position you were in, but your whole body felt more relaxed than it had all day. At the same time though, everything felt electrifying. You hoped she couldn’t feel the way your heart was thumping against your chest.

It wasn’t until you realized Wanda had paused and turned back slightly to face you slightly that you stepped back. An apology rose up in your throat only to die as you noticed the small smile on her face. You shot a smile back at her before moving back to your spot, turning your attention back to the job at hand.

The rest of the bake went smoothly, despite Wanda’s fretting about if the bread was rising enough. It didn’t take long before you had two perfectly round loaves of bread sitting next to each other on the cooling rack. Wanda had not stopped smiling since they came out of the oven. Even though that was her usual response, this time felt different.

For the second time that day, you were left trying to describe impossible feelings. Was it her eyes that felt different? They were lit beautifully, radiating so much joy it was impossible to not feel just as excited. But how was that any different from usual? Her eyes always captivated you and left you breathless. Maybe it was the new shade of pink lipstick she had on. It was perfectly accentuating the shape of her lips, to the point you couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like to feel them pressed against yours.

You may not be able to pinpoint what the look was, all you knew is that you were grateful to be a part of why her smile was so big.

After she finished taking pictures of the loaves, she turned to you. “That was incredible! I had no idea bread could be that simple.”

You nodded along, unable to hold back a smile. “I told you it wasn’t too bad, there are just a couple spots you have to be sure to navigate well. And clearly -” you gestured towards the loaves, “- you did. Maybe I should start worrying about you stealing my job.”

Her laughter filled the kitchen at your teasing.

As her laugher began to die out, her focus turned back on to you. “Okay, so what time were you thinking of coming over? I’m making us dinner and want to try and have it finishing up right around the time you get there.”

You glanced over at the clock and then back to the to-do list written out on the whiteboard above your desk before answering, “I think it’ll probably be close to five if I had to guess. I still have to finish cleaning some stuff here and I promised to go help Charlie work out some menu options for that picnic thing that’s coming up.”

Wanda nodded along, “Are you going to that?”

“I’m working it, so I, unfortunately, don’t have much of a choice.”

She nodded again. “Same here, actually. All of the Avengers are required to be unless there’s some sort of alien invasion again or something…” She trailed off a moment before continuing. “I was planning on making paprikash. Is that okay with you? I don’t know if there’s anything you can’t or don’t like to eat.”

“I’ve actually never had that before so that would be wonderful! I’m pretty easy when it comes to food. The only things I don’t like are mushrooms and zucchini, but I’ll still eat them if I have to.”

Wanda gasped, “You don’t like mushrooms? How do you not like mushrooms?”

You just shrugged, “Okay, I’m actually pretty neutral on mushrooms. I’ll still eat them. I just don’t go out of my way to make them for myself. Zucchini is a firm no, though.”

She gave you a side-eye but relented. “Well, there are no mushrooms or zucchini in this, but just know I’m going to have to keep an eye on you from now on. I don’t know how we’ve made it this far into our friendship without me knowing you’re an anti-mushroom heathen.”

The two of you joked around for a few minutes longer before she left to start preparing for dinner.

Planning the menu with Charlie didn’t take very long, which you were grateful for. He already had a decent idea of what he wanted to do, so the main thing left was to figure out how much food to order to prepare it. The two of you also agreed upon what you needed to make. Most of your responsibilities centered around desserts, specifically pies, though you agreed to make some fresh rolls and soft pretzels as well.

You were thankful for the meeting to end though because it meant the remaining time you had left could be spent getting ready to go see Wanda.

‘Getting ready’ was perhaps a bit dramatic. You were just changing out of your usual work clothes into something a little cuter. It was nothing particularly fancy, but it was an outfit you felt both confident and comfortable in. You had also made sure to pack some toiletries that morning, allowing you to freshen up your deodorant and brush your teeth as well.

As you stepped into the elevator and pressed the button, you couldn’t help but feel a bit jittery. The past few times you’ve made your way to that part of the building you’ve been nervous about the other Avengers not wanting you there. This time though, all of your nerves could be attributed entirely to Wanda. You weren’t sure what to expect of tonight, but you were determined to have a fun night filled with food and good company.

The warm smell of paprika filled the air and made your stomach grumble as soon as you stepped out of the elevator. Once you were inside, you found Wanda in the kitchen, stirring in some additional seasonings.

“This smells incredible,” you said, setting the two loaves of bread down on the counter.

Wanda beamed. “Thanks! This is my great grandmother’s recipe and is one of my favorite things to make.” As she set the spoon down, she walked towards the fridge. “I bought some wine to go along with dinner if you would like some.”

“Yes please, wine sounds amazing right now.”

“I have a chardonnay and a Barolo, which would you prefer?” she asked, turning back towards you.

You shrugged, “Whichever one you want.”

She nodded and pulled out the Barolo. It didn’t take long for the bottle to be opened and to have a glass of wine in your hand.

It wasn’t until you took your first sip that you realized Wanda had also changed. Your breathing hitched as you looked her up and down. Gone were her jeans and old T-shirts, replaced by a pair of cut-off shorts and a stylishly oversized T-shirt. If it weren’t for the fuzzy wool socks on her feet, you’d assume she was camera-ready. Hell, even with the funny socks she was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen.

You realized you were staring and abruptly began looking around the kitchen, trying to find something to do that would take your mind off of how hot Wanda looked. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Wanda shook her head no. “There’s not really anything to be done, this just needs to simmer for about another five minutes and we’ll be good to go. Why don’t you go have a seat at the table and I’ll be over in just a moment with some bread slices and butter. Once this is ready I’ll bring it in as well.”

You nodded and made your way out of the kitchen and towards the table.

It wasn’t until you were seated that you realized how well the table was set. Both seats had beautiful flatware laid out, with silverware organized neatly to the side. Underneath was a crisp, pure white table cloth. What caught your attention the most though were the two lit candles sitting between your chair and hers. It wasn’t until you noticed the candles that you also noticed the music playing softly in the background.

Everything about the setup screamed ‘fancy first date’.

Before you had much of a chance to dwell on the thought, Wanda arrived with several slices of bread and a small dish of butter. You thanked her before she walked back towards the kitchen. She returned soon after with the pot of paprikash, setting it on the hot pad in the center of the table. She walked around to her seat and soon both of you had your plates filled and began to eat.

It was impossible to hold back a satisfied sigh as you took your first bite. It tasted just as delicious, if not better than it smelled. The chicken was cooked perfectly and all but melted in your mouth. The paprika added a nice rich flavor and added extra depth to the creaminess of the sauce.

“Wanda this is incredible.”

She smiled at you brightly, “If you think it’s good by itself, try dipping the bread with some butter in it.”

You did as she said and this time instead of a satisfied sigh, you let out a satisfied moan. “You are going to have to give me this recipe. This is so good I don’t even know what to say, all I want to do is keep eating.”

Wanda laughed at your enthusiasm. “Tell you what, I’ll teach you how to make it sometime. It’s about time I taught you something in the kitchen.”

Dinner was a blast. The two of you spent more of it laughing and talking than eating. The bottle of Barolo was finished before dinner was done. It didn’t take long before it was replaced by the chardonnay.

Once dinner was over, you fought Wanda to let you help clean up the kitchen. Her argument that guests shouldn’t help was shot down as you pointed out she’s technically a guest in the bakery, yet she always helps clean up after she’s been in there. She grumbled about it but quickly conceded. It didn’t take long for the kitchen to be cleaned up and even less time after that for her to drag you over to the couch.

The first-ever episode of “Bewitched” was halfway finished by the time the two of you had settled into your spots on the couch. Currently, Samantha and Darrin were at his ex-girlfriend's house for a dinner party and the girlfriend was doing everything she could to make Samantha feel inferior. Samantha, of course, wasn’t having it and was willing to fudge her promises of not using magic to level the playing field.

Wanda laughed along perfectly in time with the sitcom track. The more she laughed, the more your attention turned from being on the TV to be on her. This was the most relaxed and happy you had ever seen her. She had a small, almost imperceivable smile that grew as she became more and more emerged into the episode. Each time she laughed, you noticed how her nose would scrunch up in the cutest way and it took everything you had to not lean over and kiss her.

What you wouldn’t give to make her as happy as this show.

It wasn’t until the end credits were about to roll that you forced yourself to look back at the screen, unsure of how she’d respond if she caught you staring.

As the next episode cued up, she reached out and grabbed her glass of wine before turning to face you.“So, what do you think? Could I have been a Samantha in another life?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Definitely, though I can’t see you being willing to hide your powers just because a man wants you to.”

Wanda nearly choked on the sip of wine she had taken. “You got me there.”

She finished the glass and set it back on the table before letting out a loud yawn. “Sorry, I probably should’ve warned you beforehand that wine makes me a little sleepy.” She paused for a moment before she continued, “It also makes me incredibly cuddly…”

A rush of emotions washed over you as you processed her words. Was she asking to come cuddle with you?

The hopeful look in her eye suggested she was.

Pure, unadulterated joy swept over your body and you had to fight the urge to jump up and down from excitement. You did your best to collect yourself before you replied, hoping that the answer was indeed what you were looking for.

“Is that your way of asking if you can come snuggle?”

She smiled at you sheepishly, which made you laugh. You moved over on the couch, moving around some of the throw pillows so you could lay down.

“Well, what are you waiting for then?”

Wanda didn’t hesitate for a moment and soon was laying on top of you, her head resting on your chest. One of your arms wrapped loosely around her back after she settled in.

A comfortable silence fell over you as you laid there together, watching Bewitched until you fell asleep.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff x y/n #wanda maximoff fan fiction

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norarigby · 4 years

Text

Iwaizumi Hajime - The Little Things

The Little Black Box Masterlist

Pairing: Iwaizumi Hajime x reader

Warnings: Just Iwaizumi Hajime (27) Athletic Trainer being a big, clingy baby

Word Count: ~1.2k

A/n: Day 1 of the Little Black Box series complete! Even though I don’t want to focus on proposals with this series, I loved this idea so I feel like it’s fine. Enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow with some Sakusa!

Iwaizumi’s keys jingled as he unlocked the door to your shared apartment. He sighed as he took off his shoes and set down his bag. As he stood back up, his eyebrows furrowed. It was oddly quiet in the apartment. Where were you? Even if you couldn’t meet him at the door, you’d usually at least shout a welcome home.

Iwaizumi walked around the front of the apartment to try to find you. You weren’t in the kitchen making dinner or on the couch taking a nap. Iwaizumi then padded softly to the bedroom. When he got to the door, he stopped and his features softened as he saw you deeply enthralled by whatever book you were reading. He couldn’t wait to have you tell him about it later.

He watched from the doorway at your face contorted with concentration. You were even chewing on your thumbnail, hooked on every word.

Iwaizumi loved these moments. He loved watching you when you thought no one was looking. Sometimes it was during the first light of morning just before he would get up for a morning jog. Sometimes it was when you two would be watching a movie and you would get just a little too into the scene that was playing. Whenever it was, he cherished the moment always taking a mental picture before it was over. You’ve caught him a couple times and every time you teasingly called him a creep. And every time he would just smile wider and attack your face with kisses.

But as much as he loved this moment, he wanted to cuddle with you just a bit more. So he walked over to the bed and plopped his body on yours. He tightly wrapped his arms around your waist and snuggled into your stomach.

You raised an eyebrow and lifted up your book so you could see the top of his head, “Well hello to you too.” Iwaizumi just grumbled an incoherent response. “When did you get home?”

“Couple minutes ago.” He mumbled.

You sighed and marked the page you were on. The book would have to wait. Iwaizumi was definitely not a clingy type, but a tired Iwaizumi meant that you had a very clingy Iwaizumi on your hands. And he could get very upset if you didn’t give him enough attention. So you set your book down on the dresser, laid down further on the bed so you were more comfortable, and began to gently run your fingers through his hair.

You hummed, “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you and come to say hi. How was you��re day?”

Iwaizumi recounted his day while stealing one of your hands so he could play with your fingers while he talked. These softer moments were rare, usually saved for mornings that were slept in or when one of you had a bad day. And while he hadn’t necessarily had a bad day, he must’ve missed you especially today. You hummed in response to his stories and even interrupted every once in a while to add your own commentary.

After he finished his account of his day, he propped his head on your stomach to look at you, “How was your day?”

“I had lunch with some of the executives and I think it went well. They liked my pitch and we’ll start really working on making it happen tomorrow, so I took the rest of the day off.” You stopped running your hands through his hair and cupped his cheeks, “Speaking of, aren’t you home a little earlier that usual?”

Iwaizumi frowned, “No? I pulled in at about 5:30 like usual.”

Your eyes widened before you groaned, carding your hands over your face, “I meant to start dinner at 5! I must’ve lost track of time!”

Iwaizumi shifted so that his forearms propped him up just above your face, “No worries. We can always just order takeout. It can be a celebration of your work accomplishment today.” In all honesty, a night in with some takeout and some dumb movie sounded really good to him right now.

Your hands lifted from your face and you lit up in excitement, “You mean it?”

He couldn’t resist smiling at your reaction, “Of course I mean it. Pick whatever to eat and we can even watch one of your movies if you want.”

“Iwaaaa,” You whined. “You’re too nice to me! What did I do to deserve you?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Iwaizumi planted a kiss on your lips before getting up to change into something more comfortable, “Order something delivery. I’ll even pay for it. I think my wallet’s in my bag.”

You bounced up from the bed an placed another kiss on his check before going to get his wallet from his bag. You checked the main pocket. No luck. You checked the big side pockets. No luck.

“Hajime, what pocket is it again?” You shouted.

“It should be in the small front pocket.” Was his response, but it barely registered in your head. When you opened the front pocket, you quickly realized that it was definitely not the right pocket. And you definitely should not have seen what was in that pocket.

“Babe? Did you find it? It’s just in the front-“ Iwaizumi had peeked out to see if everything was alright and instead was met with you standing above his bag, staring at something in your hand. You turned fully towards him and looked up slowly. Iwaizumi’s eyes immediately saw what you were staring at and his eyes went wide. They darted between the small box in your hand and your eyes.

The two of were absolutely silent, just looking at each other. A minute passed. Then another. Finally, the two of you bursted into laughter. He came over and hugged you as you both continue to laugh. He should’ve known he would never get to properly propose to you. As your laughter died down, he pulled back and held the box between the two of you, “Well this is not how I saw it playing out, but I was going to propose sometime soon anyway.”

Iwaizumi opened the box, planning on showing you the ring, but found the ring missing. He looked at you again in panic, but softened when he saw you showing the ring on your finger. You smiled as you wiggled your ring finger in his face, “Had to make sure it fit.”

He rolled his eyes and smiled, “You tease me too much.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck and his hands settled on your hips, “But you know you’re going to have to properly propose to me at some point, right? My mother will never let me live this down if she found out this is how we got engaged.”

Iwaizumi leaned down so your foreheads were touching, “So does that mean you’re saying yes?”

“Iwaizumi Hajime. I cannot give you a proper answer until you properly propose to me.” You cupped his head in your hands, “I’m going to get in some sweats. Find your wallet and then join me so we can decide what to eat and watch, okay?” You returned your head to rest against his. “I love you.”

Iwaizumi made a mental note that you were still wearing the ring and hadn’t even made an attempt to take it off. So even if you didn’t give him a verbal answer, he knew.

He smiled and spoke softly, “I love you too.”

(Posted on February 22, 2021, 11:03 AM)

#haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu!!#reader insert #haikyu x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu x y/n #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu iwaizumi #iwaizumi fanfic #iwaizumi x y/n #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi fluff #aoba josai x reader #aoba johsai #haikyu #littleblackbox

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ghostofbambifanfiction · 3 years

Text

Part 1 of ?????

Started writing this fic a while ago and then lost faith in it. Should I continue? Feel bad for not posting much lately so I thought I'd share this. Read on and weigh in.

COME OUT TONIGHT

You don't have to fucking shout?

Said the pot to the kettle?

Oh you grandmother The caps were an accidental by-product of voice-to-text Blame Siri if you're going to blame anyone

You have a Samsung Galaxy S20.

HAD. It got smashed. Worst luck. Listen, come out with me tonight.

Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm tired!

https://www.boots.com/wellness/vitaminsandsupplements/vitamins-supplements-shop-by-ingredient/echinacea

Hah (indifferent)

Just come out with me! Isaac has to go see some godawful student performance of the Antigone in wherever the fuck Chichester is and it's Sirius's flatmate's birthday party so I have to go and I don't know any of his weird mates

You don't HAVE to go.

Have to/want to Semantics

I'm not in a birthday party mood. I'm having a stressful week. My arse has been tense since Tuesday.

I will wade into the deep and massage your arse if I have to, just come It's a swank pad in Belgravia! I bet they'll have all sorts of expensive nibbles!

I read that as expensive nipples.

Those too!

Partying it up with the children of wealthy Tories. Sounds super fun.

Just come out with me, for fuck I'll pick you up at 7 and we can steal their silverware if it's boring as the grave

URGH I'll go but I'm NOT dressing up!

You don't have to dress up!

FINE!

take the drawings down please i'm begging you i'm actually begging you

Nah mate

siriusssssssss pleeeeeease

Nah

PLEASE

Nah

PLEASE ffs it's MY birthday!!!! there are going to be PEOPLE there! standing around! AT EYE LEVEL

I don't see what the problem is.

EVERYONE will see what the problem is! they literally will not be able to IGNORE what the problem is!

Sounds like a recipe for lively discussion to me tbh

that is NOT what i want people talking about at my birthday!

If I take them down, I'll have to take all the nails out and that'll leave nail marks all over the walls. It would be unsightly.

MORE UNSIGHTLY THAN YOUR DICK, SIRIUS?

My dick is bewitching.

DIE

She walks in expecting to find herself the infiltrator of a Made in Chelsea/Royal Ascot/Henley Regatta netherworld, filled with a gaggle of giggling, SW-postcode socialites wielding suspiciously powder-edged Harrods Amex cards in the place of horses and boats, but that's not what actually greets her on the other side of the lacquered front door.

What greets her is really quite ordinary.

Aside from the naked drawings of Kingsley's mate, which aren't.

Otherwise, the whole affair is pretty relaxed. People her age are clustered in their small groups, swigging beers. There's a table of oven-heated party foods, salty snacks and rapidly depleting ramekins of guac. She spies more band shirts than there are dress shirts. There's a round of Fortnite in full swing on the TV.

It's all just...startlingly normal. A normal birthday party.

And that's sort of embarrassing, really.

Where are all the visible Tory toffs, she wonders? Where is the braying laughter? The Eton alumni reunion? The glimpse of hunting-happy tweed and shotgun barrels as a coat cupboard door swings shut? Where's the indelible air of sneering superiority, of "we're richer and more privileged and better than you, so fuck the NHS and death to foxes!" that she'd been expecting? There's a fucking Henry Hoover in the corner of the hall, for Christ's sake. Lily came here to smile through her teeth at them all, to listen to the champagne problems privilege that bubbled from their lips and tell herself that she was the one who knew better, who thought better. Her plain white tee and skinny jeans and scuff-toed, high-top trainers were supposed to be a statement, a subtle setting-apart, but she's not even the most underdressed person in the room.

She pre-judged a house full of people. What's that about?

There's a lesson to be found in this. Perhaps.

James covered all of the dicks in Paw Patrol stickers that he bought from the newsagent on his way home from his mum's, but Sirius peeled them all off while he was taking a soothing lavender bath, so what's the bloody point in birthdays anyway?

It's early in the evening, and he's wedged—against his will—between the dining room bar and Shane Ruttle, who has just pointed at one of the many lamentable dicks and asked, "Is this one of yours?" which James kind of wants to thump him for. It's bad enough that he looks like a madman who stuffed his house with naked drawings of his brother, now people are actually assuming that he drew the damn things, even though most of the compositions are appallingly far beneath his skill level. He's a professional illustrator, for the love of god, and Shane is really standing before him like the posturing prick he is, asking him if he's the one who drew Sirius with one arm disproportionately longer than the other.

He knows that he should cheer up.

It is his birthday. There is cake.

Good cake, too, not the kind that gets buried in too-thick fondant that he has to pick off before he can eat what's underneath.

The problem is, there's also a party, and his friends are his friends, Peter and Sirius included, and Peter and Sirius can both get drunk much faster than James can. When Peter and Sirius get drunk, serious injuries tend to follow, Remus tends to fuck off in a flash and James tends to be the one who calls for an ambulance or mothers them back to health—physical, mental or otherwise. He has just turned twenty-six, and these repeated, drunkenly dramatic medical emergency scenes are starting to wear a little thin.

Can't a man get comfortably drunk and have a laugh at his own birthday party?

No, he can't, because Peter's already halfway to trashed, wobbling unsteadily towards the French doors that lead to the terrace, wearing that look on his face that says I'm definitely going to vomit or maybe even shit myself like I did on that one night we all spent in Munich with the Belgian handball team and the creepy tour guide who couldn't keep his sleazy hands to himself. For the sake of sparing the lawn such a punishment, James hastily removes himself from Shane, grabs Peter by the collar, shoves him in the direction of the downstairs loo and retreats to the safety of the living room, where there are, at least, no naked drawings of Sirius gracing the walls.

Most of the people in here are transfixed by Saffy Stephens, who is down to the last three in her Fortnite game and cursing like a sailor, but there are a small pile of birthday cards on the end table where James and Sirius normally keep their keys. He perches on the sofa arm, sets his half-drunk beer bottle on the carpet, pushes his dark, disheveled hair away from his forehead and begins leafing through them. It's a necessity when one lives with Sirius, who thinks nothing of swiping gift cards when the mood strikes him and he's had enough to drink.

They're mostly from his female friends, and all pretty standard, until he reaches the middle of the pile and finds a card bearing a picture of a moustached tabby and the caption: Have a Purr-fect Birthday!

The inscription inside is written in a lovely, swirling hand.

To Jasper/Jack/Jason/maybe Ja Rule?/J-something idk

(see above: everything I've learned about you from the friend* I came here with, verbatim)

(*who can't remember your name)

Happy Birthday! Thank you for (not) specifically inviting me, a stranger, to your party to celebrate this momentous event in your life. Please enjoy this festive card/social nicety/convention from me to you. My friend brought rum which you may prefer.

I'll be around. Not that you'll know.

James lowers the card and twists on the sofa arm at once, eyes darting around the room in search of its author, as if they might be laying in wait to watch him read it and see how he reacts. Nobody appears to have ducked behind the couch, however, so the situation merits further scrutiny.

Obviously, he needs to meet this person.

A mystery! At his birthday party!

He perks right up after that.

She's coming out of the downstairs loo when a short, blonde man in a garish Hawaiian shirt barrels past her and pukes all over the chequerboard tiled floor, narrowly missing her jeans.

"Oh no," he moans into his wet hands. "Oh no—"

"There there, mate," says Lily consolingly, never one to judge somebody for getting drunk early at a party. She pats him on the back before squeezing past him and rejoining Kingsley, who is standing in one of this meandering Georgian house's many hallways, chatting to a bloke in a houndstooth sweater vest and holding two glasses of something very, very sparkly that she must try at once.

"It's like...it's like everything and nothing at the same time," Houndstooth Bloke is saying when Lily draws close, gesturing to a huge canvas painting of a rain-soaked fairground at night.

"Is it?" Kingsley asks.

"Mmm. Very." Houndstooth shakes his shoulders like he's slipping out of a robe. "Meant to be esoteric, I suppose."

That sounds suspiciously like pretentious bullshit to Lily, who doesn't find the concept of a merry looking fairground all that difficult to absorb. Kingsley knows more about the art world than she does, but he must agree with her assessment because he grunts and shoves her glass into her hand when she stops beside him, and more roughly than she deserves, as if she's the one who landed him in this mess of a conversation to begin with.

Trust him to find himself stuck with the only dick (not etched by a 4B Steadtler graphite pencil) in the building, and trust her to be stuck with the person who got himself stuck with King.

"What are we talking about?" she asks brightly, just to fuck with him.

"Drink your champagne, there's a good little hen," King mutters, his teeth clenched together, hallway lights bouncing off the smoothly waxed dome of his bald head.

"We've been discussing this piece." Houndstooth nods to the painting, but his limpid eyes narrow on Lily's face. "Christ, you're very redheaded, aren't you?"

It's decided. She'll wait 'til Houndstooth is drunk and trip him up with Henry Hoover's hose.

"Ergo soulless, yes," she agrees.

"And you...enjoy that?" he asks, as if being redheaded is her profession.

"Very much, thanks."

"Hmmp. Well. I came here with Saffron," he announces, pronouncing it Sef-ron. As if Lily is supposed to know who that is. "Platonically, of course. Actually, we're some sort of cousins, I think. What do you think the artist is trying to convey?"

He's very pointedly asking her, so Lily blinks at the painting, her eyes on the outstretched arm of a child on the carousel.

"I like the pretty colours," she decides aloud.

"Right," says Houndstooth, "but that's not—"

"And the lights, too. The lights are really pretty."

"But—"

"I love funfairs, actually," she brightly continues, finding a strange satisfaction in playing dumb in front of Houndstooth and his overbleached fade. Although she does really like the colours. "Haven't been to one in years!"

"Yes, good, whatever, but what is the artist trying to convey?"

"What artist?" comes a voice from behind them.

Lily glances over her shoulder and finds herself looking up at the man whose penis she's spent the past thirty minutes avoiding eye contact with, though he is taller, better proportioned and infinitely more beautiful than any of those crudely drawn depictions could possibly convey. He is also beplumed and bejewelled like a pirate, wearing a sumptuous velvet jacket over a loose white shirt, numerous rings on his fingers and an assortment of silver chains around his slender neck, while his grey eyes and elegantly high-set cheekbones are framed by a tumble of black hair that genuinely looks like silk.

The man is so beautiful, in fact, that Lily immediately wonders why he's been taking sketches home from the life drawing class that he and Kingsley pose for—hence their acquaintance and Lily's presence at this party—when nothing she's seen tonight has done him any justice.

Most happily, his penis is tucked safely out of sight.

"Alright, Sirius?" says King.

"Alright, Marvel?" Sirius claps a hand to the taller man's massive shoulder. Kingley's muscles bulge in a way that cannot be hidden by modern habiliments. "What are we talking about?"

"Not much." Houndstooth looks put out by the arrival of yet another person. "We were just mesmerised by this piece."

Lily refrains from gesturing to the painting with both hands and a "ta-dah!" choosing instead to sip her champagne.

It's very good champagne. Mmm. Yes.

"Oh, yeah, it's really something," Sirius agrees. He brushes past Kingsley and runs a finger over the illegible squiggle of a signature on the canvas. His nails are beautifully manicured. "Local guy, young up-and-comer. I assume you've heard of Algernon?" he asks Houndstooth, fixing him with a steely-eyed stare.

"Er, yes." Houndstooth's gaze slides from Sirius to the painting. "I know him."

Sirius's eyebrows lift. "Know him personally?"

"Well—"

"That's so weird, I heard he never speaks to people."

Houndstooth chews on the inside of his cheek, weighing up the challenge. "How…funny."

"Funny?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just, I know I've spoken to him before, and since you've bought his painting I assumed that you'd have—"

"That is funny, actually," Sirius interrupts, "because the artist is my brother, and Algernon is the name of his cat."

Kingsley has been tugging on his earring and almost rips it out of his ear as his body convulses, champagne spraying from his nostrils, while an alarming red flush sweeps across Houndstooth's face and he begins to sputter on his own self-importance. Sirius has clearly decided that he's done with all of that noise, however, because he turns back to Lily instead, looking her up and down with great and sudden interest.

"Who's this then?" he asks Kingsley, cocking his head to one side. "James's present?"

The champagne glass swings down and Lily fixes him with a deadpan stare. "Excuse me?"

Sirius slants a grin at Kingsley, a quick flash of teeth. "This one's queenly, isn't she?"

Kingsley wipes his nose with the back of his hand and laughs again. "Hardly."

"This is Primark, mate," Lily retorts, tugging on her t-shirt.

"Queenliness is a state of mind," says Sirius, "not a state of wardrobe."

"You had me marked down as a prostitute not ten seconds ago."

"Oh, that. I was only joking," he sighs, and grips her arm at the elbow, his long fingers cool against her skin. "But still, you're far too attractive to stand here talking to this clown. Come with me and I'll find you someone better."

James's friends are useless.

And drunk. Useless and drunk—or sort of drunk, in Saffy's case. Remus is certainly already pissed, but Remus is on meds so often that he drinks but once in a blue moon. One cocktail is usually enough to set him off, and he's been hard at the gin since he turned up with Peter at six.

"I don't know anyone with those initials," Saffy declares, once she has read, examined and even sniffed the birthday card for clues. "Except for Lisa Edelstein."

"Who's Lisa Edelstein?"

"Cuddy from House," says Remus, lowering the negroni from which he has been drinking deeply.

James pulls a face. "What the fuck is a Cuddy?"

"Oh, actually, it could mean le?" Remus suggests.

"Yes!" Saffy points at him like he might be onto something. "Like the French word for the?"

"Exactly, like—"

"It doesn't mean that!" James interrupts, unwilling to allow such profanity in his home. "That doesn't make sense, why would somebody sign their name as the?"

"Now you're asking me to explain how French people think?" says Saffy derisively, adjusting her bra strap beneath that burnt orange waistcoat she loves, the one that makes her look like she's directing a pornographic movie in the 70s when she pairs it with her tortoiseshell-framed aviators. It clashes wildly with her electric blue buzz-cut. "Am nooooo drunk enough for that."

"They could be one of those one word moniker pop stars, I suppose," Remus pipes up, smiling slyly. "You know, like Madonna?"

They think James doesn't realise that they're taking the piss out of him, but neither of them are sober enough to attempt their gambit with any kind of subtlety or grace.

"You know that's actually her real Christian name?" says Saffy.

Remus turns towards her with interest. "What, Madonna?"

"Yeah!"

"Really?"

"Yeah!" Saffy repeats. "I thought it couldn't possibly be her real name because, I mean, Madonna, yeah? But then I looked it up and apparently that's the name her mummy gave her, just goes to show—"

"I'm sorry," James interrupts, "but is Madonna relevant to this conversation?"

"Yes, always," says Saffy.

"She's an international pop megastar," Remus seconds.

James stares at his friend incredulously. "Drinking really chips away at your wit, y'know?"

"Does it?" Remus grins lazily and jiggles his cocktail in the air. "Oh, well, I'm negronly joking."

Saffy does a spit-take without the spit and clings helplessly to Remus's shoulder as she laughs, knees buckling, bangles tinkling, but James fights his own urge to start snickering.

"It's not that funny," he lies, and Remus eyes him with an alarmingly teacher-like shrewdness, despite the tellingly intoxicated flush that has crept into his thin, freckled face.

James's love of puns is tragically well known.

"You didn't get it." Remus points at his drink. His speech is starting to slur. "This is a negroni, what I said was—"

"Yeah, I got that part, I just—"

"Jesus fuck, look at her!" Saffy suddenly hisses, staggering sideways into Remus and sending him into the wall in a flurry of giggles—Remus giggling?—her voice hushed and urgent. "Who the hell is that?!"

James does look, following the direction of Saffy's gaze. Sirius has just entered the living room, casually clutching the elbow of a……

……goddess.

An actual. Like. Goddess.

A goddess. In James's house. In his living room. In the place where he eats his chocolate boulder cereal and rewatches Scrubs (even season 9, which is hilarious, and very unfairly disparaged by Joe Public) on Saturday mornings.

She's a goddess. A real one, and cleverly disguised as a mortal, sure, with her slouchy white t-shirt and her big hoop earrings and her light blue jeans that are torn at the knees, wearing her shoulder-length red hair half up, half down and slightly messy, but that doesn't hide what she is.

"Oh my god," he murmurs. His heart is pounding all of a sudden, which is so...utterly bloody stupid, but Saffy's right, bloody look at her, Jesus fuck.

"Surely she can't be with Sirius?" Saffy murmurs back.

"No, she—" He watches Sirius lean down to mutter something in the redhead's ear. A ghost of a laugh flits across her beautiful face. "She's not his—he isn't—"

"D'you think—"

"No, I—"

"Good," says Saffy firmly. She lets go of Remus and rises, lengthening her spine. It is a battle stance of some sort, presumably. "Because I saw her first."

"No!" James cries, wounded, and the redhead shoots him a curious look with a pair of eyes that are startlingly emerald green, even from all the bloody way over here. He spins to face Saffy and lowers his voice, face burning. "It's my house!"

"What are you arguing here, ownership rights?"

"No but it—it's my birthday!" James retorts, jabbing at his own chest. "And, actually, and—"

"It's in the bloody post!"

"—you didn't get me a present!" he finishes in triumph, not that he knows what he's arguing for, because the likelihood is that his tongue will glue itself to the roof of his mouth if he even dares to look in her direction one more time. "Plus I set you up with Vanya Petrich, with whom, as I recall, you enjoyed four years—"

"Stop throwing that in my face!"

"—four blissful years—"

"Is it my fault that you've never fancied any girl I've set you up with?!"

"—promised me an Easter ham for setting you up with her and I never got it—"

"So now you'll trade a woman for a ham?" Saffy accuses, though her face is too lit up, her brown eyes too crinkled at the corners—she's having fun with this and she isn't going to fool him and she knows it. "That's so low, even—"

"Don't start with that," James scathingly cuts in. "You offered me Sean Connery's autograph for Bonnie Grogan's number—"

"Which you never gave me!"

"Because you forged the bloody signature!"

"And now she's bloody married!"

"Yeah, well, Isabella wouldn't give me a counterfeit present, would she?" he retorts, and Saffy lets her shoulders drop, smirking. "This is pointless, Saf, we can't—"

"She's just left with Sirius," Remus informs them, and burps.

#Jily #Part 1 #Of 3?#Honestly I just wanted to give you guys a treat

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babylonhockey · 3 years

Text

GENERAL/FLUFF PROMPT LIST

“you’re so needy.”

“you will be the end of me someday.”

“are you wearing my shirt?”

“I don’t fall in love with people very often, I just can’t believe it was you. Out of everyone, you just had to steal my heart. That’s very rude, you know, to steal?”

“are you flirting with me?”

“i wish we could stay like this forever.”

“you’re hot when you’re angry.”

“it’s cute when you get jealous.”

“i love you.”

“i’ll protect you.”

“you’re so pretty.”

“i’m not going anywhere.”

“you are so dumb, i love you though.”

“don’t look at me like that.”

“stay with me?”

“i think we’re soulmates.”

“stop looking at me like that.”

“i adore you.”

“someones clingy today.”

“seriously? I got a detention because of you.”

“i think i’m in love with you.”

“you’re mine. i don’t share.”

“don’t you trust me.”

“I know you might not think so, but you look really good right now.”

“i can’t live without you.”

“it’s not funny!”

“you have nothing to be insecure about.”

“i’m going to marry you someday.”

“how much did you drink?”

“aw, you’re so cute.”

“what did you do?”

“i asked if you were having a party. i didn’t tell you to have a party.”

“this is the opposite of what i told you to do.”

“well, it’s the thought that counts.”

“You need sleep.”

“wait, no, don’t take kissing away from me.”

“okay, where are all my jumpers?”

“oh, you’ve started stealing my socks now?”

“yeah, okay, but i’m cooler.”

“I’m pregnant”

“you owe me a kiss.”

“how did you get in here?”

“for starters, that’s impossible.”

“how did you fail a survey?”

“yeah, well, if you weren’t so drunk maybe i would.”

“that’s not even fair.”

“you promised me a cookie!”

“did i ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?”

“ew, that is so sappy, i might vomit.”

“i’m not playing truth or dare.”

“you’re not very intimidating.”

“i love you.”

“well the probability of that is 0, but you go ahead.”

“that was, by far, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

“You’re blushing”

It’s freezing. Come here.”

“I’ve got you.”

“I’ve always wanted to thank you, but was never sure how.”

“Look, a shooting star! Make a wish.”

“All I wanted was for you to be happy.”

“why don’t you take a picture? it’ll last longer.”

“How can you still look so attractive while crying.”

“Everything ends up being about you somehow.”

“OH you’re jealous!”

“Your eyes are so pretty.”

“maybe not.”

“I’d hurt anyone who ever left a scar on you.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone this much before.”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

“why the hell is there glitter everywhere?”

“well, i’m pretty irresistible.”

“Just breathe, okay?”

“how much money would you give me to flip this table, right here, right now, in the middle of class?”

“If we get caught I’m blaming you”

“We’re meant for each other.”

“Do you want to kiss as bad as I do right now”

“detention? again?”

“Im too sober for this”

“I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me”

“Am I your lockscreen?”

“Truth or Dare?”

“The stars wish they were as bright as you.”

“Are you finally confessing to me? Because I feel the same way.”

“I missed you so much.”

“I heard you weren’t having that great of a day… These are your favourite candies, right?”

“I’m right where I belong.”

“I love you, please don’t go.”

“Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together.“

#fluff #angst #fanfiction #prompt list #masterlist #babylonhockey #obx #harry styles #harry potter #bo burnham

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no-stabbing-wednesdays · 4 years

Text

The Conspiracy Job

I made a post about the “Eliot’s semi-famous identities” conspiracy here and @what---i-dated-a wanted a fic, which got my muse going. So, here it is, and also on AO3

An amazing version of the same concept by @copperbadge was linked in the notes and I recommend you all read that too! The Job Interview Job

The Conspiracy Job

“Oh, not again!”

The others, busy drawing up plans for their latest con, looked over at Hardison.

“What is it?” Sophie asked.

He brought his display up on the large screen at the front of the room.

“Someone’s just searched a bunch of Eliot’s old aliases, all at the same time.”

Parker frowned as she looked at the screen. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Eliot was on his feet immediately, concern clear on his face.

“Who is it? CIA? FBI? KGB? Mossad?”

“Give me a second,” Hardison said. “No, I don’t think so. They’re not being flagged on any databases. Someone’s just googling them.”

Eliot relaxed slightly and rolled his eyes. “It’s not those damn conspiracy forums, is it? I thought you got rid of those.”

“I did! They haven’t posted anything, they’re just looking. Oh, they’re here in Portland.”

Eliot tensed again at that, but Hardison shook his head.

“Relax, man. It’s a family house; a couple of dentists and a fifteen year old. If they post anything I’ll take it down, nothing to worry about.”

On the other side of Portland, Julia stepped into her friend Marcie’s bedroom and her eyes widened as she took in the scene before her. Marcie was connecting red threads between grainy, printed-out images on her corkboard and empty bottles of Gatorade littered the desk.

“You have to cool it with this, dude.”

Marcie turned to face her, her hair a mess and her eyes red from lack of sleep, and Julia sighed.

“You look like freaking Charlie Kelly!”

“There’s something here, Jules. I’m sure of it.”

“It’s a couple of athletes and a singer who happen to look similar. It’s hardly the scoop of the century.”

“Look similar? Look similar? Julia, they are completely identical! There are exactly three possibilities.” She held up three fingers in her friend’s face as she counted them off. “Triplets, clones or one ridiculously talented guy.”

“Okaaay, and which one do you think it is?”

“I don’t know,” Marcie answered, turning back to her board. “Triplets? Why would they have different names and hide it? One guy? He’d have to be able to sing and play guitar, baseball and hockey. Why wouldn’t you own up to having that kind of talent? Why go to different places with different names? Clones? I’m leaning clones.”

“Clones? Come on, Marcie.”

“It’s the most logical explanation.”

“You think someone cloned a human being just to create a one-hit-wonder country singer and some short lived athletes?”

Marcie shrugged. “It could be a trial run or an experiment or something. And you remember that anything I ever said on the forums would mysteriously vanish? I went to look after Jacques Labert turned up and every single forum post was gone! Every one! Doesn’t that sound like a government conspiracy to you?”

“It’s weird,” Julia admitted. “But I think you might be taking this a little too far. If the government were making clones, why would they let them get famous so people could discover it?”

“But they weren’t that famous. Think about it, what were the chances that someone would connect them? There were only ever a couple of us posting on the forums. If I hadn’t happened to be visiting my uncle in Palmerston when Roy Chappell was playing and then gone to Saddle and Spurs for my birthday, I’d never have known.”

Her eyes widened as a horrifying thought occurred to her . “Then Jacques Labert turned up in my city! What if I’m the connection?”

She swung back to the board and began to write her own name. Julia grabbed her hand.

“Marcie! You’re not the center of a government conspiracy! Besides, who’s this fourth guy again?” She asked, tapping one of the photos in the corner. “You didn’t have anything to do with him, did you?”

“No,” Marcie conceded. “And I told you about him, remember? He’s an animal rights activist who was on the news in San Lorenzo a couple of years ago, talking about dog fights in the Presidential Palace. And he’s Canadian. That’s why it’s so exciting that, after almost two years of nothing new, Jacques Labert, Canadian hockey player, suddenly appears. Was the guy on the news Jacques Labert? If there really is more than one of them in the first place!”

Julia grimaced, increasingly worried about Marcie’s obsession with this wild conspiracy. “He was on the news where?”

“San Lorenzo. It’s this tiny European country. Here look.” Marcie sat at her desk, tapped the name into Google and turned her laptop towards Julia.

Julia scrolled through a few pictures of the idyllic Mediterranean island, then stopped suddenly and pointed at one of them.

“Wait, who’s that?”

“Oh, that’s Rebecca Ibañez. It’s a tragic story,” Marcie explained, as she clicked on the link and showed her some clearer pictures. “A couple of years ago, the same time maybe-Jacques Labert was there, there was an election and her fiancé won. But, just as the results were announced, supporters of the former president tried to assassinate him and Rebecca stepped in front and took the bullet for him.”

“She was assassinated?”

“Yes, isn’t it awful?”

Julia shook her head. “She can’t have been.”

“What?”

“She’s my brother Zachary’s acting teacher.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I went to see his play last week and I met her. Her name’s Sophie Devereaux and she’s definitely not dead.”

Marcie looked at her in amazement, a grin breaking out across her face . “And she was in San Lorenzo at the same time as Jacques-Roy-Kenneth! There might be even more to this than I thought!”

Julia, almost as invested as Marcie now that her brother’s odd director was mixed up in this, pulled up a chair and looked on excitedly as her friend brought up another google search.

Back at the Brewpub, the crew were working out the kinks in their plan while waiting for any sign of the internet sleuth trying to share their ideas about Eliot’s multiple identities.

When the computer pinged again, they all turned to see which of his aliases had been flagged this time, only for their eyes to widen in horror as the search term flashed on the screen.

“Rebecca Ibañez” “Sophie Devereaux”

Sophie gave a gasp that almost turned into a choke. “Wha- wha- what?”

Eliot turned to Hardison, furious. “Oh sure, just dentists and a teenager! Fix. This.”

“I’m trying!” Hardison said. “I can’t find any connections to anything. They look clean.”

“Then look harder!”

Wait, I have something. It’s the kid’s computer.”

“Who’s the kid?” Nate asked.

Hardison pulled up a Facebook page. “Marcie Taylor. She’s a sophomore. She used to post on those stupid Eliot forums that I had to take down every week after Memphis. It was pretty harmless, but I’ve no idea why she’s suddenly looking at Sophie’s aliases.”

He scrolled down the page looking for any kind of hint, when Sophie called out to him to stop.

“Who’s that with her? She looks familiar.”

A few more clicks and Hardison had a name.

“Julia Gutmann. She’s in the same class.”

Gutmann?” Sophie groaned. “I know why she’s familiar. That’s Zachary’s little sister.”

“Zachary? Your acting student Zachary?” Nate asked disbelievingly.

“Yes, she came to our play last week.”

Nate shook his head. “I told you to use an alias at that theater.”

“But I wanted to do this as me,” Sophie protested.

Eliot turned back to Hardison. “So, let me get this straight. The aliases and digital trail that you set up to be uncrackable by international governmental organizations are about to be blown apart by a couple of high schoolers?”

Hardison glowered at him. “They’re only looking at old aliases and they were all burnt when we had to leave Boston anyway. It’s not that bad.”

“Sophie’s still using Sophie,” Eliot argued, nearly yelling now. “And I was only just Jacques Labert and in this city. Now they’ve tied me and her together. How did they even do that? That’s way more than some fifteen year old girls should be able to accomplish on Google.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t panic. They were looking at photos of San Lorenzo. That’s how they found a picture of Sophie."

Sophie glared at him.

"Hey!" he protested. "You're the one who jumped in front of the cameras! I can't control the entire internet you know, and I think the people of San Lorenzo would have noticed if every image of their martyred heroine suddenly vanished.

“It’s just bad luck that Julia had met you. But why were they looking at…” Hardison groaned. “They found that video of Eliot and the puppy somehow.”

“Why didn’t you take that down?” Eliot snapped.

“It’s a thirty second feature on the news from two years ago in a country smaller than Iceland! It wasn’t my top priority!”

“Dammit, Hardison!”

“So, our cover’s going to get blown by kids?” Parker asked, incredulously.

“No,” Nate insisted. “Well, maybe. But we can manage this. Hardison, don't let them post anything. Sophie, call Zachary. Let’s go steal ourselves some silence.”

#leverage #eliot spencer #the eliot conspiracy #alec hardison #parker #sophie devereaux #nate ford #leverage fic #my fic #this is basically crackfic #purely dumb but hopefully entertaining

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taeyohonic · 4 years

Text

the trophy wife (m)

summary: the proposal doesn’t go as planned (established relationship, idol au, fluff and angst) pairing: min yoongi x fem!reader rating: explicit (18+) warnings (containing spoilers): swearing, robbery, pandemic, vomit, description of injuries and blood (very abstract), mentions of depression, insomina and periods, a hella lot ugly crying info: when i tell you that this is a super-duper fluffy piece, i’m not lying! it was 99% sweetness, so i added a little... angst (but like... only 10%) related work: the stalker | baby, what’s wrong? | favoritism (m) | the trophy wife words: 5.7k

“would you still love me if i became your trophy wife?”

yoongi snorts into his iphone, your grimace too adorable to be taken seriously.

“how bad are these papers?”, he asks. jungkook next to him is stealing curious glances at his hyung’s screen. to hear your voice so distressed makes him worry. you’re the best thing that ever happened to his member – your well-being comes right after his need for homemade kimchi.

“how… can they not know which products contain dairy? how yoongs?”, you vent eyeing the ungraded test in front of you.

“i ate… so much yogurt. the whole class did. we tested so much dairy products… like… so much. we drank all of the banana milk… how can they get this wrong?”, you continue. unbeknown to you, the maknae is now furrowing his brows at your words. wait a minute…

“noona, did you steal my banana milk last week?”, jungkook questions and moves closer to yoongi. before you can hide you see his big eyes joining your boyfriend on the screen.

“wow, jungkookie – your undercut looks so good. damn!”, you say. it’s not a total deflection; he does look extremely handsome after his haircut.

“noona, i thought i sleepwalked”, he whines, not caring for your compliment… right now.

“taehyung even made a meme out of it”, he complaints and you have the audacity to coo at him. yoongi tries to hide his smile, but he can see his reflection grinning on the screen.

“it was oppa’s idea!”

and now his smile freezes as jungkook moves his accusing glare to him. you don’t usually call yoongi by this name. and he’d be all too happy to shut you up in your shared bedroom. but now he and the boys are in the outskirts of seoul to film the newest music video, far away from you and your treacherous mouth.

“hyung?”, jungkook asks with the voice of a cheated wife ready to sign the divorce papers.

“it’s for the kids, maknae”, your boyfriend defends himself to which jungkook only huffs in irritation.

“there was a time when i was the kid – what happened? am i not cute enough anymore? noona? am i not the most adorable?”

his deer eyes stare at you – big, brown and full. you can’t help but to take a screenshot of these two – your rapper visibly done with his member and jungkook in the middle of a banana milk breakdown. you’ll have to frame this picture.

“you’re the most adorable thing there is, jungkookie”, you reassure him. yoongi just snorts when he sees the faintest flush on his bandmate’s face.

“that’s enough praise for him, baby. save it for your students.” there is no humor in the smile you send him. after a beat of silence in which you burry all your frustration deep inside the pits of your stomach, you try to change the subject.

“how is nature?” they’ve been in the woods for weeks, completely closed off from all the city drama. you’ve never seen jimin so excited to drive – while namjoon’s sour face reflected how much the latest failed drivers test bothered him.

“jin-hyung nearly died in the water today. it was epic”, your friend instead of your boyfriend answers and you have to shift a giggle at yoongi’s eyeroll.

“be gone, maknae”

rudely blunt – just how you liked your partner. jungkook just winks at you in a silent goodbye and gets up. he’s nearly out of the picture before his upper body shoves against the rapper. his nose is way too close to the screen and you’d be worried about his eyes – if you didn’t know how often the singer spends his nights in front of his computer.

“noona, you’ll replace the milk, right?”

“jungkook”, yoongi growls in responds. the boy is not acknowledging his colleague, so you give in and nod.

“of course, kookie. it’s already waiting in the fridge for you to come back”, you tell him. as soon as these words leave your mouth, the maknae is satisfied and gone.

“you don’t have to baby him that much, ____”, yoongi says while moving the phone closer to his face. you can see the dark circles under his eyes better now.

“what’s keeping you up at night, yoongs?”, you ask instead of answering his complaint. the rapper smiles faintly at the screen.

“you, baby, always you” yu snort and let yourself lie down on the couch – the papers can wait another day, or a lifetime.

“i wish”, you say truthfully. you’d sell one of your kidneys to relax with the boys far away from the pandemic madness. after having yoongi to yourself for two weeks non-stop, you are way too spoiled. even though your legs are deeply grateful for this recovery time, you miss the constant calm radiating off of your boyfriend.

“i’ll be back soon, baby”, he reassures you and draws lines across the screen. your cheeks look colorless and it worries him just as much as his lack of sleep bothers you.

“make it sooner”, you mutter and close your eyes when you hear his chuckle in responds.

“have you had dinner yet?”, yoongi asks but you don’t want to open your eyes, not ready to face his criticism.

“nah, i’ll wait till sungho gets here.” you don’t need your eyesight to feel his disapproval.

“that’s not very socially distance of you, ____.” yeah, no baby anymore. still, you remain shut off.

“he’s just a friend. one friend. one work friend. one work friend that needs help with the new school cloud. the online grading program is a pain in the ass.”

“and why do you have to do that at six on a friday night in our home?”, yoongi notices the tiniest of smiles on your lips as he mentions your shared home. he, too, loves your little flat with a pandora of memories.

“because i am a loner and don’t have anything better planed for the weekend and my boyfriend is camping in the woods and oh – there is a global pandemic”, you snort and open your eyes to watch your boyfriend’s tensed expression.

“if you’re a loner – what am i then? a stone?”, yoongi asks sarcastically.

“maybe a boulder”, you shoot back with a soft smile that melts his jealousy away… nearly.

“just… don’t let him touch my stuff”, yoongi orders. he’d trade his own maknae to be the one at the other side of your door when he hears a distant knocking sound.

“that’ll be him, yoongs”, you say and move off the couch with as much dignity as one can muster after a whole work week and no motivation left in the bones.

“promise to call me back when you’re in bed?”, your boyfriend pleads, reluctant to let you go. with him going on world tours this phone conversation isn’t your first and it won’t be the last. still, his small request fills you with yearning.

“of course”, you promise, eyes still on him as you open the door without a second thought.

a fist connects with your skull while your eyes widen at the sight of two ski-masked men. the pain is instantly blinding your senses and you start to scream with tears clouding your vision. you fall to the floor before they push their way inside your home. one of them, muscle clad with wide shoulders kicks you in the stomach just to move you out of their way. the other, smaller in statue, crushes your phone with his shoe, the cracked screen frozen with your boyfriend starring at you in horror.

namjoon will never forget the bone chilling scream waking him this evening from his nap. he’s never heard yoongi’s voice filled to the brim with pain. not even registering his movements, he tumbles into the living room where is friend is still yelling your name, his face a mask of panic.

“hyung, what’s wrong?”, namjoon asks as footsteps behind him signal the arrival of his bandmates.

yoongi’s hands shake as his eyes stay fixed on the screen of his form. the leader moves first, not able to watch his friend losing himself. when joon steps behind yoongi’s figure to calm him down, a cold shower travels through his body. the screen shows you lying on the floor with red dripping from your mouth. your eyes are closed, but namjoon notices the uneven rise and fall of your chest – you’re breathing.

“jin, call the police”, the leader orders without turning around. his hands try to pry the phone out of yoongi’s fingers, but they are white with pressure and unforgiving. his lungs are still screaming and namjoon’s heart breaks at the scene.

“hyung, - just… calm down”, he says, not quite believing in his own words. he wouldn’t calm down either in yoongi’s position.

“what am i reporting?”, seokjin asks, close enough that the question answers itself as soon as he peaks over yoongi’s shoulder.

“i’d like to report a break-in – there is a person, hurt. the address is-“

yoongi can’t hear his oldest colleague, the voice drowned by his worry for you. at first, he doesn’t register namjoon’s chest pressing behind his back, but then his body shudders when the fellow rapper hugs him from behind.

“hyung, we – sh – it’s gonna be okay. it’ll be okay, she’s okay… we… you have to calm down, yoongi”, namjoon sooths his friend of ten years and rocks them both from side to side.

“taehyung, call the building manager – there should be security in the foyer”, seokjin commands the young man who watches the scene in front of him passively. as soon as he hears his name though, the singer moves to grab his iphone with shaky fingers.

“look, hyung, she’s awake”, joon points out and yoongi shakes his head to move these stupid tears out of his vision. indeed, your eyes are open as you try to even your breathing. it looks like you are crying as well and yoongi has never felt this kind of searing pain before. to see the love of his life in tears and burglars destroying your home while he is in the middle of fucking nowhere, makes him sick. when he sees you trying to get up, only to drop back onto the floor, his stomach turns. yoongi vomits onto his lap and namjoon has to hold his friend upright as he loses consciousness.

you’ve never been this glad for the heavy painkillers your boyfriend has tugged away in the bathroom due to his immense shoulder problems. the icepack pressed to your forehead cools for body down; still, you are shaking with adrenaline as you watch the security guard pace in front of you.

“yes, sir, yes – no, of course sir, negative sir”, he looks at your shaking form and grimaces before answering. “minor injuries”, the guard holds his phone further away when his caller answers a few decibels too loud.

“the paramedics are on their way”, he responds, not daring to look you directly in the eye. after another game of “yes and no”, the security ends his call.

“how are you, ma’am?”, the man in uniform asks, but remains standing a few feet away. when he first got here after receiving a hectic message from his boss, you were crying on the floor – alone. his colleague is already checking the floors, while another is combing through the surveillance footage. it’s been five minutes and you still look like a ghost.

his instructions were crystal clear – don’t touch the subject. but his heart clenches when he sees your trembling form trying to calm yourself down.

before you can answer him, two paramedics arrive through the door. they zero in on the blood drying across your forehead. their hands press gently against your skin and ask you questions you try to answer. soon, they move you to a standing position, with your head wound dressed and your vitals checked.

“we’ll take you to the hospital, ma’am”, the older woman explains. with a few steps you are at the door – there, right on the threshold where your nightmare began half an hour ago, stands sungho, chinese take-out and laptop in hand. your fellow teacher looks at you with widened eyes.

“_____ - what the hell?”, he curses and nearly drops his food when you smile at him – your teeth unbeknown to you still tinted red.

“are you her partner?”, the paramedic asks.

“just a friend”, he answers, not letting you out of his sight.

“we have to get her to the hospital – will you accompany us?”, the medic questions and sungho nods. your little crowd moves to the elevator and the security guard closes your door with a soft click. the police will be here soon, he thinks as he watches your beaten figure step onto the elevator.

“this cannot be the way to do this, ___”, sungho exclaims while you are staring at the iv-drip connected to your arm in distress. you hate needles.

the hospital’s v.i.p room is normally reserved for celebrities, but they made an exception for you, the girlfriend of min yoongi. sejin’s hunched form outside the room might have played a role in that. bangtan’s manager arrived half an hour ago, worried and disheveled. his posture calmed when the doctors reassured him, you’d be okay. now, he’s waiting for seven idols in various stages of panic to arrive.

“it’s the way this works – just… do as i say, okay?”, you huff. there is a part of you not willing to let the last hours crash into you; not without your partner here. so, you’ve spent the last sixty minutes showing him how to use your new school cloud – the easy way, not the right one.

“but the course still doesn’t show in my settings”, he whines, and you roll your eyes while pushing cold pad thai in your mouth. the rich flavor appeases your hungry stomach and you swallow the take-out down in one breathe. songho is a godsend for bringing the ordered food with him to the hospital. it’s a much-needed distraction from the horror of your cracked rib and light concussion.

“you have to set the course to ‘official’ – it’s still private”, you explain with another mouthful of oily noodles slurring your speech.

sungho’s brows furrow in concentration when you hear heavy footsteps in the hall. the boys are there – and they are not slowing down.

before sejin can even try to greet the idols, yoongi pushes through the door – all six of them only a breath behind.

the second you see him, the tears start without your consent. yoongi looks crazy – his eyes gleam with insanity – as he sucks in the hospital air through his mask.

you’re here. you’re alive. you’re safe. you’re here. he’s here. you are both here. his thoughts are running in circles – not ready to slow down, not ready to expand.

your boyfriend resembles a statue; just standing in front of the hospital bed. his face screams for help and it breaks you as the first cry leaves your throat. in a flash yoongi is moving to you, bumping into a shocked sungho. his finger brush against your wet cheeks like you’d break under his touch, while your body collapses.

“baby”, he whispers – the first word his members have heard since he regained consciousness.

“yoongs”, you answer and throw your arms around his neck. the smell of vomit and sweat makes your nose crunch up, but your boyfriend hugs it all away. his forearms rest on each side of your head – supporting his weight – as he lets you hold on to him, the boyfriend who was playing idol life in the woods instead of being at home with his girlfriend. even through his mask he can breathe in your unique smell, clouded by disinfectant.

“noona”, the youngest whimpers from the doorway. jungkook is silently crying, his mask discolored from the tears. every member looks at you with sorrow, the younger ones visibly not as professional at keeping their emotions together. namjoon looks like he’s aged a decade, but there is a small smile pressing his eyes together behind his mask. you try to reciprocate his smile, but yoongi’s head his pressing against your cheeks with vigor.

“why don’t we give them some space?”, sejin says to which your coworker nods instantly. he’s your friend for sure – but this is a level of intimacy he’s not willing to share with you.

the members need more convincing as hoseok tries to gently pull jungkook back. the maknae vehemently shakes his head, not ready to leave you and yoongi alone.

“we’ll wait right outside, kookie”, seokjin coax him out of the room. he’s still reluctant so go, but jimin’s small body pushes against his back. soon, namjoon closes the door, leaving you alone.

your tears won’t stop and you try to move closer to your boyfriend – you want to feel him all around you. without words yoongi understands your need and presses his body down on yours. there is a sharp pain when his stomach meets your fractured rib.

“ah”, you breathe, hurting. yoongi extracts himself from you in a flash; every fiber of his being furious at your injury.

“baby”, he calls out as his fingers ghost across your ribcage.

“it’ll… it’ll heal soon”, you say timidly.

“how could this happen, baby?”, he asks, still more interested in your upper body than your eyes.

“i-i i should-d have che-checked the door before, ah before answering”, you whimper, ready to face the blame.

with yoongi’s lifestyle comes a certain level of danger. you’ve been trained to be more cautious with everyday things like grocery shopping, inviting new friends over, answering the door without checking the cam.

“no, no, no, no – baby – no…”, he hushes you. “they should have never been able to pass the foyer, nor should they have been able to move to the penthouse level.”

“i-i was so scared”, you admit, linking your fingers with his and pressing them close to your still beating heart.

“i know, baby, me too”, yoongi soothes you and flexes his fingertips against your warm skin.

“i’ve never felt this worthless… you got hurt… right in front of me… and i … i couldn’t do anything.” his voice shakes with emotions and slowly his stare moves to your bruised face. the madness has nearly died in his eyes – but there is still so much pain hidden behind his brown iris.

“i- i could have lost you”, he whispers darkly, speaking a truth into reality he is not ready to face. your crying has stopped now that the both of you are calmer and connected.

“nah, never, remember?”, you say with some form of humor behind your words. “i’m your trophy wife. trophy wives don’t die. first, they’d kill their rich husband”, you remind your boyfriend of your conversation half a lifetime ago.

“it’d be an honor getting murdered by you, baby.” his mask is gone in a flash and then you feel the warmth of his lips against your temple. “just let me finish my third mixtape first.”

“don’t move, noona”, jungkook pleads as the warm sunlight irritates your skin. the fresh air is caressing your body while the youngest tries to finish his painting. trees surround the both of you, resting on a soft picnic blanket. it’s the first time since your release from the hospital that yoongi has left you out of his sight. granted, you’re still not totally alone with the strongest bangtan member watching over you like a hawk. but it’s definitely a much-needed break from yoongi’s fretting.

after nearly throwing a tantrum in front of his manager und some staff members who wanted to continue the filming of their new “in the soop” show, all the members knew they’d have to handle their rapper with care. leaving you alone wasn’t an option, so taehyung and seokjin packed your suitcase with essentials and after your doctors determined you ready to rest at home, all eight of you moved back to the chill vacation home in the middle of nowhere.

the last few days have been difficult – the filming staff getting more and more irritated because the members flocked around you 24/7. sejin had to come up with a different schedule allowing every bandmate time to reconnect with you as well as time to do their work. only yoongi was allowed to not leave your side most of the day – him working on the new music being the cover for his absence.

but after days of your boyfriend breathing down your neck, you’ve had enough. so, now yoongi is out on the water with seokjin fishing, while you’re spending time with jungkook.

“when did the police say they are coming?”, you ask the painter. his nose is crunched in concentration as he tries to outline your hipbone.

“they should be here before lunch – if your boyfriend even manages to catch some lunch”, he answers. you snort, messing up his grasp of your proportions.

“i do have faith in seokjin’s ability.” jungkook chuckles but keeps his eyes on your drawing. you look so delicate, so soft, he can’t believe they nearly lost you.

“i got robbed – i didn’t die, kookie”, you read his mind as his eyes darken.

“you got hurt”, he responds through clenched teeth.

“and they’ll pay for that”, you vow. the police had called this morning with the news of your robbers being captured during another crime. you’re still not sure how the officers can be so sure they’re the same criminals, but you’re eager to close this chapter with your statement later that day.

your painting session gets interrupted by namjoon. “the detectives are already here, ____.”

jungkook is by your side in a flash and together with the leader the both of them help you up. the rib is healing and harsh movements still hurt. yoongi had a near meltdown when you tried to ride him yesterday morning only to topple over in pain.

“yoongi and jin don’t have a signal out in the water – but they won’t be long”, namjoon explains and guides you indoors to meet the two officers.

“ms. ______, a pleasure to meet you”, the older policeman says in greeting. the younger one only shifts uncomfortable when he sees you flanked by two famous idols.

“thanks for coming all this way”, you respond and bow slowly, not to put extra pressure on your rib.

“is there somewhere we could talk – uhm- privately?”, the old man asks and you show them to one of the office rooms in the back. jungkook reluctantly leaves your side and joon only squeezes your hand in passing.

“just holler when you need us, _____”, he says before ordering the maknae to clean the art supplies.

with both officers sitting across from you, you nervously fiddle in your chair.

“the two intruders were caught this morning while pawning off their haul”, the younger policeman states and shows you a surveillance picture of two familiar men. their figures alone invoke iced fear in your heart, and you push the picture out of your sight. after a moment of silence, you collect yourself enough to absorb the information.

“what did they steal? i – i didn’t report anything missing, sir”, you question. sure, they trashed the painting yoongi brought for you during your last vacation in italy. and some cloths were thrown across the bedroom – but there was nothing stolen. you even signed your statement last week before leaving for the woods.

the officers look at you like you’ve grown a second head.

“miss, you reported the item missing days ago. there is even a harsh voicemail left with your fiancé demanding a swift investigation.” you shake your head at their words – no, you didn’t.

“which item?”, you ask the men with narrowed eyes. you’d been off the pain meds for days now. but to call yoongi your fiancé? clearly, they’d switched up cases. the older officer opens his briefcase to retrieve a plastic bag with a… ring in it.

“in my days, my wife would have never forgotten about her engagement ring”, the man snickers as you watch the cold metal in front of you. it’s beautiful – it’s so yoongi, you wouldn’t be surprised if he himself crafted the asymmetric diamond set on roughened silver.

you’d dreamed of this moment for over a year – to lay eyes on the ring cementing your future in stone – or diamonds.

never would you have imagined it to be this tainted with two officers starring you down and the jewelry wrapped carelessly in plastic – a piece of evidence – while your boyfriend is fishing with kim seokjin.

“uhm”, you hesitate as emotions swirl around your brain. he was going to propose? to you?

“i had half a panic attack carrying it around with me the whole day – that thing could pay off all my debt, as well as my kid’s college fees”, the officer jokes, still not recognizing your surprise as genuine.

“uhm”, you try again to form words.

“we’ve all the papers here for you to sign; after that we’ll be ready to get out of your hair… for now”, the youngest states and moves different documents across the table. they lie next to yoongi’s engagement ring – your engagement ring.

“uhm”

giving up on forming a coherent sentence, you move along and sign your name on the different protocols. the paper from your insurance company makes your heart still – reading all the zeros on the price of your ring.

this… is by far the worst engagement set up you’ve ever heard of. your hands shack and your signature looks just terrible, but it’s enough for the two detectives. they still don’t seem to find your reaction odd as they collect their stuff and bid you fare well. like a zombie you get up and follow them to the front door, your ring clutched between your fingertips.

jungkook and jimin are waiting for you next to the foyer and jump at the sight of your pale face.

“everything alright?”, jimin asks and places a protective hand on your back. your slow nod does not convince them and their eyes sour at the policemen.

while the younger officer takes a step back, the oldest just chuckles at your idol friends.

“all is well, kids”, he sooths them. then both bow to you and you can only muster an awkward smile, the jewelry heavy in your hand.

“happy wedding planning, ms. ____”, he winks at you before they leave. the soft click of the closing door is the only sound in the hallway. you’re not even sure you’re breathing.

after a beat of silence you flinch at the sound of jimin’s high-pitched squeal.

“weeeedding”, he asks, way too loud and way too joyful. the mochi-cheeked idol excitedly jumps up and down, not really caring that you remain silent.

jungkook on the other hand looks … really upset. “you told the police but not me?”, he whispers betrayed.

you could cry as you feel the headache from your concussion clouding your mind. this is… too much.

“uhm”, you’ve decided to stick with your running-gag answer and push both idols out of your way.

your feet carry you out of the house, through the terrace door and before you know it, you’re running across the green gras. the smell of the lake invades your nose while you search for you boyfriend. yoongi’s boat is still on the water and you spot both men resting against each other with their rods, ready to catch your lunch. sunshine shimmers on the lake’s surface as you run onto the dock. your bare feet press against the wood while your hair rushes around you – the wind breezing through the unkempt strands.

“is… is that _____, yoongi?”, seokjin asks his fishing buddy who’s more focused watching the water for prey than his surroundings.

“huh?”, he hums, not really listening to his friend.

“i- i think your girlfriend wants to talk to you, yoongi”, the old singer says hesitantly as he sees you jumping up and down on the wooden dock. this can’t be good for your health.

swiftly, the rapper turns to the spot seokjin is pointing at. and there you stand – beautiful and barefoot, dressed in his t-shirt and some old leggings. your hair is a mess and the sun dances across your skin like the tiniest firework.

“MIN YOONGI”, you shout at the top of your lungs. your boyfriend flinches hearing your loud voice across the water.

“she sounds angry”, seokjin whispers.

“YOU FOOL”, you continue to yell and see seokjin’s shoulders shake with silent laughter.

“oh, i hope the crew gets this on tape”, he says with glee while yoongi really, truly tries to find a reason for your anger. he’s left you alone today, at your request. maybe you didn’t really want him to go? was it a test to see how much he wanted to stay with you? did he fail?

“I GOT YOUR RING!”, you shout and flash the evidence bag high in the air.

immediately, the rapper shoots up from his sitting position, rocking the boat dangerously form side to side.

“yah, yoongi, what the hell?”, seokjin swears but your boyfriend’s eyes rest on you, holding your engagement ring in a plastic bag. there is no air in his lungs – he’s been thinking about this moment for the last two years. he dreamed of your joyful tears, how soft your hands would feel while pushing the silver banner on your finger.

and now… he’s an ocean away from you holding on to the jewelry that got you hurt weeks ago.

“DO YOU WANT TO ASK ME SOMETHING, MIN YOONGI?”, you scream and your boyfriend’s eyes widen when they see the smile on your lips; do you – do you find this funny?

without thinking, he takes a step forward.

You can only watch seokjin’s helpless grimace as yoongi brings the boat out of balance. both idols topple over and splash into the cold sea.

the icy water doesn’t bother the rapper as he pushes to the surface. the sun shines high up while he speeds to the dock. you’ve never seen your boyfriend this determent – his laps forceful and quick, leaving a still shocked seokjin behind.

your fingers shake as you watch him come closer and closer to you. in mere moments he’s close enough for you to hear his heavy breathing.

yoongi heaves himself out of the cold, his shoulder screaming in pain, and then he is dripping in front of you. your boyfriend looks like a wet dog, the black hair plastered to his forehead as he steps forward. you can smell the sea salt across his drenched clothes.

the engagement ring screams from the bag to be acknowledged and yoongi is just… staring at you deeply.

“i had it all planned”, he whispers wringing his sweater. the gush of water drops on the deck, but the idol only looks at you. “weeks ago.” his fingers wrap around your writs, a silent plea to give the ring to its rightful owner – for now.

“i wanted to take you to the restaurant where we had our first date”, he admits and opens the bag. your first date had been a disaster – you’re still vividly remembering the food poisoning.

“then all the restaurants closed down; we were both so stressed… and… life went on”, yoongi continues as the ring dances between his fingertips. it looks like art without the plastic cheapening its presence.

“i... wanted it to be perfect.” his whispered words fall to the floor as he kneels in front of you. warmth is coloring your face, seeing your idol submitting to you.

“baby… you know how much i love you… how much you inspire me every day to become the best version of myself”, yoongi’s voice cracks against his words and you can’t help the softest coo from leaving your lips.

“i promise i’ll make you the best trophy wife of south korea.”

you snort as you hear boyish snicker from behind you at yoongi’s joke.

“will you spend the rest of my life with this ring on your hand?”, he asks and without waiting for an answer, he pushes the silver band on your finger. it fits perfectly.

“am i not supposed to agree first?”, you respond as your eyes stay on your future husband.

“oh baby, you agreed the moment you ate my burned pasta.” yoongi gets up and pushes a lose strand of hair behind your ears.

“you agreed the moment you moved in with me, a struggling insomniac.” his hands cradle your face, framing the expression of love between his palms.

“you agreed the moment you let me change your tampon because you were too drunk to move.” he gives you airy butterfly kisses.

“you agreed the moment you didn’t kill me for stealing your favorite ice cream from the freezer.”

“that actually was a close call”, you chime in, only to hear his soft chuckle.

“you agreed all those nights staying with holly in our shared bed while i traveled across the globe.”

a kiss is planted on the fresh scar across your temple. “you agreed all these moments where my depression was too much, where i was trapped in my own misery.”

a line of kisses travels to your mouth. mere millimeters from your lips he stills. “you do, right?”

under all the layers of love, confidence and familiarity, there is still a shy boy unsure of his worth. your smile is infused with giddiness as you close the gap, pressing your lips together in the softest kiss.

“i do”, you whisper in his mouth, only to meet his tongue with your own in a joyful dance. the boys around you are cheering, while the soft waves of the lake clash against the dock. you’re in pure bliss, kissing your wet fiancé fiercely.

and then you hear a loud thud, a wet slash on the wood. surprised, you both jump away a step – only to see a heaving seokjin lying flat on the deck, chest rising at a fast pace.

“i near- i nearly died for th-this engagement, ____. if – if i’m am not the be-best man, i’ll… will cast a spell on all- all yo-ur children.”

____

ah, this fic is crazy and totally not what i imagined it to become. i hope you enjoyed the read! there is only one chapter left (the stalker) – who’s excited for it? i hope you are doing well! to you, your family and/or loved ones i wish only the most festive time this week! love, dana

#btswriterscollective #bangtanuniversity #yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #bts x reader #bts established relationship #yoongi idol au #bts idol au #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #min yoongi

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gukyi · 5 years

Text

if i told you | jjk

summary: in order to pay for university, jeon jungkook decides to market his most valuable asset to the wealthy socialites of campus: himself. donning a suit and tie, tousled hair, and glasses (to look smarter), he becomes every rich daughter’s dream: the perfect boyfriend to bring to balls, dinners, and business gatherings. all while you watch from the sidelines, only able to dream of having that much money to buy yourself what you really want: him.

{friends to lovers!au, college!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst, we’ve got it all folks word count: 22k warnings: slightly underage alcohol consumption, mention of words that could be spoken on an crime documentary series but nothing graphic, ravioli-stealing, idiots to lovers, as per usual a/n: finally! here is the long awaited jungkook fic that i have literally been slaving over since the beginning of january. was this fic supposed to be 10k? yes. did i somehow end up writing 22k anyway? of course! in any case, please enjoy my absolute baby who i love and cherish!

check out the post-script drabble here!

Jeon Jungkook loses his job at the university call center on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 2:07PM, seven minutes after he normally starts his job at the university call center.

He’s lucky that you’re the only one who doesn’t have class in the 2PM hour.

“Y/N!” He shouts through the thin wooden door, his voice probably echoing down the thin hallway of your apartment complex.

You open it before the second knock—you only rush to the door to get him to shut the fuck up, and not because you’re excited to see him, you swear—to see him standing on the other side, XXL university hoodie draped over his figure, down to his mid-thigh, baggy hood pulled over his head like a sad college-aged Star Wars character. He looks exactly like a jaded sophomore year college student would. He is beautiful.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the call center right now?” You ask in lieu of a normal “hello” or even a “what the fuck are you doing here, it’s 2PM”. Jungkook does not wait for you to invite him inside your apartment, immediately kicks off his shoes by the entrance and tugs on your apartment slippers that are a size-and-a-half too small for his feet, and marches over to your shared fridge to fish through the tupperware containers with your name written on Post-it notes for a mid-afternoon snack.

Jungkook waits until he’s got an entire piece of frozen supersized ravioli shoved into his mouth before he responds. “I was fired,” he says over a mouthful of pasta and cheese.

“What?” You ask, eyes widening as Jungkook shuffles through your kitchen drawers for a fork, which means that the first piece of ravioli that he ate he did so with his bare ass hands. Like a heathen. Like a ravioli-craving twenty-year-old heathen.

“I was fired,” Jungkook repeats. He stares at the microwave resting on your kitchen counter for a good ten seconds before he continues to eat the cold, unheated pasta. Every time he’s in your apartment (which is frequently), he tells you how it’s a fire, water, and explosive hazard to have your microwave on the counter like that. As if there is any other place in your apartment for it to go. Maybe out on the tiny balcony you have that overlooks the busiest street on campus.

“Care to offer an explanation as to why?” You ask, coming up next to him. Jungkook is nearly finished with your tupperware of ravioli, and normally you’d shout at him for it, but seeing as he was just fired from his only source of income as a money-starved college student, you’ll cut him some slack. Just a little.

“You remember that old, angry alumnus that told me that asking for donations in order to benefit low-income-slash-first generation students was selfish and rude of me, and that I wouldn’t be in college if it weren’t for what his generation accomplished?” Jungkook asks.

You remember that vividly. Jungkook spent an approximate two hours and thirty-seven minutes on FaceTime with you ranting about this one “old man bitch” who he had to speak to during his day at work, all while you did your economics problem set to the sweet, mellifluous sound of Jungkook’s shrill shrieks.

“The one you lost your temper at and shouted at for being ungrateful and elitist?” You ask pointedly. You have a feeling you already know where this conversation is going.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes. He finishes the ravioli (goddamnit, now you’re going to have to find something else to eat for dinner at 11PM tonight) and turns around to place it in the sink. For once, it is not piled high with dishes from up to a week ago, so Jungkook even squirts a bit of Dawn onto a sponge and washes the plastic container for you. “Well, as it turns out, telling an old racist elitist that he’s old, racist, and elitist does not go down well with my boss.”

“Why does that not surprise me,” you muse. Jungkook sighs, walking over to where you’re taking it easy on the couch. “Oh no,” you say, eyes widening as he grins, plotting something. “Do not, Jungkook. Jungkook, do not!”

He jumps, catapulting himself onto the couch and landing on top of you with a thud. You let out a groan as the weight of his body hits you, foreheads nearly knocking into each other. Jungkook is a good foot-and-a-half too long for this dinky leather couch that’s always sort of smelled, feet and ankles hanging off the opposing arm rest just so he can nuzzle his face into the crook of your shoulder like he always does. You hate when he does this. Hate when he jumps onto the couch while you’re casually reclining just so he can collapse on top of you. Hate the feeling of his body resting against yours, soft breathes against the skin of your neck. Hate how it always makes you want more, how it will never be enough.

“Have you been working out?” You mumble against the fabric of his t-shirt. “You’re more muscle-y than usual.”

“I added weights to my routine,” Jungkook tells you mindlessly. If your roommates walked into your apartment right now and saw the both of you on the couch, you’d never hear the end of it. “Taehyung said it would make me more swole.”

“As if you need to be any more buff,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Jungkook’s the most athletic person you’ve ever met in your entire life. He could probably pick up your dinky couch with you sitting on it without batting an eyelash. Even Superman would tremble at the sight of him. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jungkook mutters into your skin. “God, what the fuck am I gonna do now? I need money to pay for everything in my life and my one source of income is now totally invalid because an old guy got what he deserved.”

“Are there any work-study positions still available?” You ask, hand reaching up to stroke at his hair, smoothing it down. Jungkook’s preferred cuddling position is big spoon, but he still demands that he be coddled as though he were the little spoon.

“No,” Jungkook says with a huff, “they’ve all been snagged by try-hard freshmen who need money like me.”

“I distinctly recall you being a try-hard freshman who also needed money,” you tell him. “That’s why you applied to work at the call center, isn’t it?”

Jungkook sits up, the weight of his figure crushing your legs as he rests on top of them. If you stayed like this forever, you’d probably lose feeling in your lower body, but you’d also get to stay with Jungkook forever, which is a trade-off you would genuinely consider. “Yeah, but the call center hires everybody. You just need to be like… decent at communication. And I’m pretty decent at communication.”

“You never text me back,” you tell him pointedly.

“That’s because I prefer showing up unannounced at your apartment or other places you frequent,” Jungkook reminds you excitedly. He’ll never let you forget about the time you were wrapping up a small seminar with your history professor and Jungkook burst through the doors with a whole thing of carrots and hummus because you had texted him that you were hungry. You could not look your history professor in the eye for the rest of the semester. “I’d say that’s pretty decent communication.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure out another way to market your decent communication skills to get another job,” you tell him. “Have you considered the boba place on Oak? You could get me employee discounts.”

Jungkook leans over just to pinch at your cheek, fingers gripping onto your face and pulling like a grandmother. “You just want me for my money.”

“You’re my best friend, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him. “Of course I do.”

This is what Jeon Jungkook’s obligatory university Facebook group introduction post read:

Hi, I’m Jungkook and I’m thinking of majoring in visual studies or computer science (really different lol I know)! I played soccer in high school but don’t think I’ll be continuing in college because I was pretty bad at it. I’m looking for a roommate and I’d really like to live in New East House, but anything works for me as long as it has a bed. Hit me up if you think we’d made a good match, but I like talking with everyone lol.

I’m really into music and can play the guitar, drums, and piano. I like listening to all types of music (yes, even country which slaps kinda hard sometimes) but my favorites are The 1975, Frank Ocean, Troye Sivan, and Khalid. Will bop to Justin Bieber on occasion as well.

I play Ultimate and am really interested in joining the club team here so hit me up and we can practice sometime because my skills are a little rusty. I also do a little skateboarding but I am definitely not a skater.

Hit me up if you think we can be friends lol I’m excited to meet you all!

It was accompanied by several pictures, a couple of which are selfies at that anime girl angle, one of him with his friends at prom all doing that Frat Boy pose, and a couple of him with his family. To an outsider doing a very quick glance, it pretty much reads the same as a rather extensive dating profile.

The truth of it all is, as you were scrolling through the hundreds of obligatory university Facebook group introduction posts in search of a freshman year roommate, you stumbled upon Jungkook’s intro post and you thought this: No. Way.

The moment you laid eyes on his first above-the-head angle selfie, you knew that it would be unlikely that you and Jeon Jungkook’s paths would ever cross. He played guitar and did Ultimate Frisbee, and you wanted to audition for your university’s symphony orchestra. He was beautiful but in that sort of college frat boy who can crush you at beer pong kind of way. Craziest of all, he was a computer science major, and you were walking in as an undecided humanities concentration.

Impossible. There was no way the two of you would ever meet, and you accepted that right off that bat. At a school your size, you would go through these four years not knowing a majority of your class. Jeon Jungkook was just one of the casualties.

On the very first day of orientation, Jeon Jungkook comes up to you on the sidewalk, wearing a white t-shirt, a backwards baseball cap, and shorts, and asks you if you’re here for orientation as well? He’s lost.

Jeon Jungkook is the type of guy you imagine getting eaten up by any girl who meets him almost immediately. He’s charming and endearing the same way a baby deer is, but has no problem wearing clothes that remind you of how fit he is. He is, for lack of a better term, extremely good looking.

“Yeah,” you had said on the sidewalk, squinting to look up at him since the sun was in your eyes. “I’m heading to the auditorium right now. Wanna walk with me?”

“Okay, sure,” Jungkook had replied, smiling with all of his teeth. Even in the sweaty summer heat, he looked even nicer in person. “Thanks, by the way. I’m Jungkook. What’s your name?”

You knew that already. How could you have forgotten?

You had grinned up at him. The universe has always worked in mysterious ways. “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

When Jungkook doesn’t know what to do, he stress eats. Most often, you are the single witness to this action, which has literally no effect on his body mass whatsoever since he immediately burns off every calorie (and then some) at his next gym session.

That is precisely why you are sitting in the second-best dining hall on campus eating a pretty measly salad and french fries, while Jungkook returns from the serve-yourself cafeteria with his sixth plate of food. Next to you is your mutual friend Chaewon, a filthy rich international student from Korea who is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met.

“I think I’ve called every cafe, bubble tea shop, clothing store, and paid internship within a five-mile radius of this place and nothing,” Jungkook says with a sigh, keeping Chaewon updated with his job-search antics. It’s been several days since he was fired, and while being keenly cognizant of your bank account isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when it means that Jungkook refuses to leave campus because he is in hyper-saving mode, it sort of rustles your jimmies.

“Have you tried babysitting?” Chaewon supplies helpfully.

You laugh aloud at the mere thought of Jungkook stuck in some middle-aged parent’s house with their toddler for hours on a night where he could be living it up on campus. Jeon Jungkook? A babysitter?

“Wow, what the heck is wrong with me being a babysitter?” Jungkook questions, offended.

“First of all, you don’t even let me beat you in Mario Kart on your Switch and I am your best friend. If you ended up gaming with a four-year-old boy, your over-competitiveness would take over you and you’d crush the poor kid and his spirit,” you remind him pointedly. Not to mention the fact that the man cannot cook to save his life, and you can’t even entrust him with microwave dinners because of his irrational fear of modern oven technology.

Jungkook pouts. He knows you’re right.

“It’s not like you were going to look into babysitting, anyway,” you say with a shove, nudging his shoulder with your own.

Jungkook sighs, and despite all of the shit you give him on a daily basis (part of the responsibility of being his best friend), you do genuinely feel bad for him. Even if his job at the call center wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating nor morally rewarding, he didn’t absolutely hate it and he made a pretty decent earning off of it. He unzips his backpack and fumbles for his laptop, opening it up to reveal a Google Chrome window with approximately thirty-seven tabs open of places to work on and around campus. Meanwhile, Chaewon’s phone buzzes on the table, and she heaves out a great, exasperated exhale before picking up and immediately launching off into incredibly speedy Korean.

“If only the bubble tea place was hiring,” you lament, kissing goodbye all of the free bubble tea you had been dreaming about if Jungkook got hired.

“I’m glad I don’t work at the bubble tea place,” Jungkook tells you with his eyebrows raised, “otherwise I’d have to see you every day!”

“You already see me every day!” You should back, but it’s not like Jungkook doesn’t know that already. He’s the one always barging into your apartment or sitting down next to you in the library when you’re trying to study.

“But maybe you should try drinking less bubble tea, otherwise you’re gonna blow up like a tapioca pearl like that one girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Jungkook warns, pinching your cheek as if to make your face round like a tapioca bubble.

“I can think of nothing I’d want more than to be a tapioca pearl for the rest of my life,” you state simply. It would be much less stressful than to be a college student.

“If you were a tapioca pearl, I’d eat you!” Jungkook says, and you, out of the security of both your head and your heart, choose not to think too much into it.

As Jungkook teases you about your slight obsession with bubble tea, Chaewon finally puts the phone down after what very well was several minutes of angry Korean. She lets out this deep, long sigh, like all of the pent-up rage within her is exiting through her exhale.

“You good, Chae?” You ask her, a little concerned. Even after knowing her since the beginning of your freshman year, you’ve never once seen her get mad, though she looks pretty close to it now.

“Yeah,” she says, exasperated. “My mom is having this stupid company ball here and she really, really wants me to attend.” It is obvious that Chaewon does not, in fact, want to attend. You’ve seen Chaewon nearly every day for over a year, and you’ve never even seen her wear a pantsuit. You couldn’t imagine her joy at having to dress up in a ballgown.

“But fancy free food,” you point out. Even if she does have to be trapped in a penthouse ballroom with her parents’ stuffy business friends, the catering company will probably be god-tier.

Chaewon pretty much bangs her head on the dining hall table.

“Wow, I didn’t know someone could hate catered food so much,” you say, a little alarmed.

“It’s not that,” Chaewon says, rubbing her forehead. The pasta on the plate in front of her has remained untouched for nearly ten minutes now. You wonder if she’s even hungry anymore. “My mom wants me to bring a plus-one.”

Your eyes widen. An excuse to dress nice and eat good food? Hell yeah.

“And it can’t be you, Y/N, it has to be a date,” Chaewon says. It’s pretty obvious she’s not interested in dating whatsoever, no matter the gender of the object of her affection. You pout. Damn. “My mom said, ‘he can be whoever you want!’ but that means that he has to be an attractive Korean guy who’s got a future job in finance.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jungkook says over a mouthful of broccoli.

“You will?” Chaewon asks. Jungkook just single-handedly saved Chaewon from a night of unbearable business talk with a boy she doesn’t know and cannot relate to.

You scoff. “You’re just a regular Korean dude, Jungkook,” you tell him.

Jungkook pouts, bottom lip turned out. “You don’t think I’m attractive?”

You refuse to answer that question. You’re afraid of what you might say if you open your mouth.

“Seriously, you’d do that for me?” Chaewon turns to Jungkook with platonic stars in her eyes.

Jungkook shrugs. “Sure. I’ve got a suit. I’ll ask my friend Jimin for a crash course in finance before the thing. When is it?”

And just like that, you and Jungkook’s weekly Friday Mario Kart night gets a rain check.

Jeon Jungkook is the sole best decision of your life.

And it’s funny and twisted and wonderful, because he is the one thing you had failed to account for in your life. He stands there on the sidewalk in the blazing sun, black baseball cap nestled safely onto his dark brown hair, and in the split second it takes for him to open his mouth and say hello, everything changes.

But no longer is the image you conjure in your mind when you think of him a picture of him on that very first day of orientation, lost and excited all at once. It is of him barging into your apartment and eating all of your leftover ravioli. It’s him laying on your dinky couch like it belongs to him, surfing through all of the Netflix shows available and eventually just settling on old Gilmore Girls episodes like he always does. It’s him standing in your closet to judge your latest clothing purchases and take back any items that you’ve stolen from him over the years.

It’s imagining him not as a guest but as a permanent fixture in your home, in the place that makes you feel safest. Because that’s who Jungkook is, now. He is that place. He stands in your apartment rattling off a list of why microwaves are a severely underestimated killer, and it takes every inch of your being not to ask him to stay. To spend night after night cuddling on the couch, or make a home-cooked meal together on a Sunday evening, or get lost underneath the sheets on your bed.

Jungkook stands in your apartment like he belongs there. And only in your wildest dreams could you ever imagine that coming true.

Such is the case of that Friday night, when he’s supposed to accompany Chaewon to her terrible, awful, brain-melting parents’ business gala. You haven’t seen him all day, too busy with your club meetings to make time for him after your classes are finished for the week. College is never-ending in that horrible, unstoppable way.

It’s nearing two in the morning when you hear the knock on your door. Two of your roommates are at a rush event for their sorority, and the other sleeps through your smoke alarm on a regular basis, so you are tasked with the job of opening the door.

On the other side is Jungkook, as he frequently is.

Your heart practically freezes in place, like his eyes have shot right through it. Instead of his usual baggy outfit and a bucket hat, he’s standing outside of your apartment in a crisp navy suit (complete with a pocket square), rings lining his fingers and hair tousled in that effortlessly-styled kind of way. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a young, successful CEO. Like the love of your whole fucking life.

Coughing to distract from the fact that you’re practically drooling, you say, “Wow, you clean up nicely.”

Jungkook looks down at himself, almost as if he had forgotten he’s wearing a full suit entirely. “The pocket square is Jimin’s,” he explains, “but yeah. I didn’t want to let Chaewon down by not dressing up to code.”

He’s got remnants of makeup left on his face, having faded and smudged throughout the night. There’s a bit of black underneath his eyes from the liner, a smoldering effect that makes the dark brown of his irises even deeper. “You look tired,” you comment. “Why are you here, why don’t you go home, Jungkook? Get some sleep.”

Jungkook shrugs, looking over your shoulder to see if his arrival has woken up any of your roommates. “Your place was closer,” he says like it’s nothing.

Like it doesn’t make your breath catch in your throat, stop in its tracks. He spends an evening dressed up in a stuffy suit and tie surrounded by old businessmen and their preppy daughters with whom he has nothing in common, and when it’s nearly two in the morning and he can finally relax, he drives to your place instead of his own. Like it means nothing. As if it means anything at all.

Jungkook runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, and even knotted and messy it still looks flawless. “If I’m bothering you, just let me know. I know it’s late.”

It’s so hard to say no to him.

“Just come inside already before you wake up the neighbors,” you tell him, sighing to pretend like it’s a minor inconvenience. And even running on barely any sleep with makeup smudged underneath his eyes, Jungkook grins as you let him inside your apartment, caving in, just like you always do.

The first thing he does when he’s inside is take off his fancy loafers and peel off his suit jacket, resting it against the back of the couch. You fumble around in the kitchen for the kettle, instinctively starting to make two cups of tea. Routine.

Looking up, you watch as Jungkook loosens his tie and takes it off, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his white dress shirt. By the counter, you turn your back to him so he doesn’t see you mentally combust. It’s impossible that he doesn’t already know what he does to you.

The kettle finishes boiling the moment Jungkook settles onto your couch. He keeps the television off so he doesn’t wake your roommates, and scrolls on his phone with his knees tucked underneath his chin. Thirty seconds later, you’re joining him, handing him the cup of tea before sitting down next to him, severely underdressed in comparison.

“Did you at least have fun tonight?” You ask.

“The food totally slapped,” Jungkook tells you. “Chaewon’s parents really pulled out all the stops.”

“So I’ve heard,” you muse.

“We spent most of the time lounging by the catering table and distracting each other by making up stories about all of the rich people there.” Jungkook laughs.

“Please tell me you didn’t embarrass yourself, though,” you say. Perhaps Jungkook could withstand a few blows to his ego, but Chaewon’s future pretty much depends on her impressing her parents and their comrades.

“No!” Jungkook tells you defensively. “Jimin told me everything I needed to know, but all of Chaewon’s friends and their filthy rich CEO parents thought I was so handsome that I didn’t even need to speak.”

You roll your eyes. Of course Jungkook wouldn’t give up the chance to remind you of his hellishly good looks.

“You just stood there, looking pretty?” You ask. Not as if he doesn’t do that already.

“You think I’m pretty?” Jungkook teases, a greasy smile sent your way, like he doesn’t know the answer anyway.

You huff. “Dressed up like this? Anyone would.”

“Chaewon said I was like her fake trophy husband,” Jungkook jokes. “She did all of the schmoozing. It’s not like I could have contributed anything anyway. Unless everyone wants to hear about C++.”

“Ooh, I love it when you talk all tech to me,” you tease, nudging him with your arm. “So sexy, keep talking.”

He laughs. “If we keep talking about Python I might get a little too excited.” He wiggles his eyebrows just for good measure and you giggle, holding onto this moment for dear life as you let it etch itself into your brain permanently. Times like these, you know you can’t forget, saving them for a rainy day thirty years down the line when you’re in love with someone that’s not Jungkook. When you look out the window and think about what might have been, if only things back in college had been a little bit different.

Jungkook’s phone buzzes on the table. He’s got two notifications, one from Instagram of Chaewon tagging him in a post, and another from Venmo.

“Fuckin’ damnit,” Jungkook swears, letting his phone drop on the couch cushion.

“What?” You ask, turning to look at him.

“Chaewon just Venmo’ed me a hundred dollars,” Jungkook says with a sigh. And it’s not one of those times when you see your bank account balance go up and get happy because yay, money!, it’s when your friend pays you anything over what they actually owe you out of the goodness of your heart, and you refuse to accept it.

“She did?” You ask, eyes widening. A hundred dollars? That’s more than Jungkook would make in three shifts at the call center.

“‘Thanks for bailing me out tonight. You definitely deserve more than 100 but then you’d be mad at me. But please don’t be mad at me!’” Jungkook reads off his phone. “I just stood there looking like eye candy. I didn’t do a thing to help her, what the heck?”

You pull out your own phone to check Chaewon’s latest post.

It’s a picture of them together in the skyscraper penthouse the gala was held in, Jungkook looking dapper in his suit with a glass of champagne in his hand, and Chaewon in a dress worth more than a semester’s tuition throwing up a peace sign like the trendy Asian she is. They look like a K-drama couple. Like two celebrities basking in their fame and wealth.

Shoutout to my one and only Jeon Jungkook for being my fake date tonight! Thanks to your good looks and charming personality for impressing all of my parents’ rich friends and their daughters. Love you 3000 💕

“Wow, whoever took this picture of the both of you knows their shit,” you say, impressed. You had always thought it impossible for Jungkook to look better in pictures than in real life, but this photo is coming rather close. If you were any more shameless, you’d ask Chaewon if she has any more photos of him. Just him, preferably.

It’s not as if she doesn’t know about your gargantuan crush on him anyway.

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good in a photo in my life,” Jungkook says with a laugh. Impossible. He yawns, placing his empty mug on the little end table next to the couch.

“You should set it as your profile picture,” you suggest, leaning your head on him and pretending like this is normal. He yawns again, stretching out as he rests his body against yours. “Hey, we should go to sleep. Unless you want to go home?”

Jungkook groans, snuggling in closer. “No, your bed is big enough for the two of us.”

And who are you to resist?

You wake up to the sound of a phone buzzing furiously on your bedside table. You crack open one eye just a sliver to see who the culprit is and immediately eradicate it, when the sun filtering through your Venetian blinds hits your cornea. You groan, shutting your eyes once more as you smack your hand around to get it to shut off.

The movement, however, causes the bedsheets to shift beside you, and when you turn, you find Jungkook nestled up tightly beneath your duvet, an arm stretched over your side as he hums in his sleep.

You’re best friends.

This is normal.

(The feeling of your heart beating out of its chest has become rather normal, as well.)

He’s wearing a raggedy old t-shirt of yours that has always been too big on you but fits him just perfectly and a pair of joggers that he keeps at your place “just in case”. Just in case he stays the night. Just in case you ever need them. Selfishly, you will yourself to fall back asleep, shutting your eyes tightly and pretending that maybe, if you never wake up, this moment will freeze in time, locking the two of you together for eternity.

He mumbles to himself in his sleep, a murmur of nothing as he shifts over slightly, hand dragging up your side.

God.

Next to you, the phone begins to buzz erratically again, and wide-awake, you look over to realize that it’s Jungkook’s, and that it’s Chaewon on the other end.

This is at least the second time she’s called, which means that, despite how tempting it is, you probably shouldn’t silence his phone and go back to lying in bed with Jungkook and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

Sighing, you pick up.

“Jungkook!” Chaewon shouts on the other side. For a brief moment you wonder why on earth she’s so energetic so early, but it’s less that and more the fact that you are overwhelmingly lethargic rather late in the day. “All of my friends said you looked really good in those photos I posted of us. Do you think you’re free next Wednesday night? Seunghee wants you to accompany her to a double date her parents are forcing her to go on!”

“Chaewon—”

“Oh, Y/N! How’s it going?”

“I just woke up,” you mumble quietly as Jungkook stirs beside you.

“Of course you did,” Chaewon says, and you can see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the line. “Wait, why do you have Jungkook’s phone if you just woke up? Oh my God, don’t tell me—”

“Shh!” You hiss into the phone. Jungkook is slowly beginning to wake up, and you can only pray that he isn’t listening in to the conversation between you and Chaewon. “No, we did not. He got back after your thing and we promptly passed out in my bed, fully clothed,” you whisper loudly.

“Jungkook went to your place last night? He was so tired, I thought he was going straight back to his. We even got dropped off outside my apartment.”

What? Chaewon and Jungkook live within a three-minute walk of each other. Your apartment is ten minutes away from both of them.

“You did?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing.

“Who’s that?”

You turn around to see Jungkook lying on his back, head resting on a nearly-deflated pillow of yours as he looks up at you, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair is mussed, some parts styled and stiff with hair gel, and some parts tangled and unkempt. He looks like he’s been lying in that position for a while, hand resting behind his head as he gazes up at you.

“It’s Chaewon,” you tell him softly as she laughs on the other end. “She just called your phone. Are you free next Wednesday?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook, still half-asleep. “When?”

“Next Wednesday,” you repeat, a hand on the phone like it’s going to do anything to stop Chaewon from listening to you two. “Chaewon says she has a friend who wants you to accompany her to a double date she’s been set up to go on by her parents.”

“Mmmrph,” Jungkook mumbles. It’s clear he hasn’t even thought about his plans for the rest of the day, let alone next Wednesday.

“He’s not available right now,” you say into the phone. Chaewon snorts.

“Fine,” Chaewon says with a sigh. “Can you pass the message on when you guys are done pretending that you aren’t fucking behind my back?”

You suck in a breath. “Chaewon!” You hiss. “We are not—” you quickly turn back to Jungkook, who, by the looks of his hooded eyes and bewildered expression, isn’t listening in, “—fucking!” You whisper. “You know we’re not!”

Chaewon laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Call me later, Y/N, we should grab ice cream or something.” She hangs up.

“Who was that?” Jungkook asks sleepily, eyes still half-lidded as he sits up in your bed, soft skin, brown hair, pouted lips amongst a sea of white, bundled up in your thick duvet as if sitting on a cloud.

“Chaewon,” you tell him.

“Oh, why was she calling?”

“She wanted to ask if you were free next Wednesday.”

“To do what?”

Maybe you were worried about Jungkook listening in to Chaewon grill you about your relationship (or serious lack thereof) for nothing.

“She has a friend who wants you to go on a parent-mandated double date, trophy boyfriend style,” you explain. Jungkook groans.

“Pretending to know business is mentally, physically, and morally draining. It feels like I’m selling my soul to capitalism,” he says with a sigh, collapsing back against the mattress. “I just wanna stay here forever. It’s so cozy.”

“Come on, Kook,” you say, tugging the duvet off of him to reveal the rest of his body. He curls into himself at the exposure, refusing to budge. “You’ve encroached on my apartment long enough.”

“Y/N,” Jungkook whines, drawing out your name for good measure. “Noooooooo.” He reaches out to cling onto your wrist, which means that if you want him out of your bed, you’ll have to drag him out.

“Jungkook, you’re swole, you know I can’t tug you out of my bed,” you say with a pout. He knows every trick in the book to use against you, and worst of all, he knows you’re weak to all of them.

“Good,” Jungkook says with a loopy smile, pulling you back onto the bed like it’s nothing. You yelp as you come crashing on top of him, your body bumping into his as he wraps his arms around you and flops back onto your bed. You laugh and shout at the feeling as Jungkook cuddles up in the warmth of the sheets, pulling you in tightly to his body. “It’s so warm here, let’s stay like this forever.”

“What about food?”

“You keep a stash of Clif bars under your bed, we’ll eat those,” Jungkook suggests.

You attempt to wriggle out of his grip, hoping to escape before he holds you long enough to get addicted, hooked on the feeling of his arms around you, his body against yours. But Jungkook is nothing if not persistent and clingy, and he wraps his arms tightly around your torso like a koala, warm and soft. “Come on, Jungkook. It’s nearly noon. Let’s be productive today.”

“Gross.”

“Let’s not sit in bed all day.”

“Grosser. Let’s just stay in your bed all day and pretend that we don’t have any real responsibilities.”

“Given that we’re in college, that may be slightly difficult.”

“Fuck that, your GPA doesn’t matter anyway. Unless you have plans on going to grad school?” He asks with an eyebrow raise, turning to look at you.

“No way, I’m not paying for another four years of this shit,” you immediately declare. Let the capitalist system of higher education extort another two to four years worth of tuition out of you for the same degree? Absolutely not.

“Then why move?” Jungkook says with a grin.

“Because,” you say, stumbling for a real answer.

“Not good enough.” He grins cheekily. “I vote to stay in bed.”

“I vote to do my readings, your CS homework, and get back to Chaewon about Wednesday.”

“God,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “What’s Wednesday?”

“Oh my God, you need to call Chaewon. Right now. Before you ask me what you have on Wednesday one more time after losing all of your brain cells lounging around in my personal bed and refusing to leave,” you say, eyes wide as you worm your way out of his grip, dusting yourself off and heading to your closet.

“Noooooooo,” Jungkook says, reaching out a desperate hand. “Y/N, come back.”

“Call Chaewon. Call her!” You order, fishing around in your closet for some fresh clothes. You’ve been wearing the same one since Thursday night. You are disgusting.

Jungkook groans but obeys, picking up his phone and pressing her contact. “Hey Chae, it’s Jungkook. Listen, I’m literally going to Venmo you back what you paid me because you? Literally didn’t need to pay me at all? And I’m actually mad at you for it? Wait, what do you mean am I up to getting paid on Wednesday—”

The phone call presents the perfect opportunity for you to dash out of your bedroom and into the bathroom, where you splash yourself with cold tap water like a model in a face wash commercial (who already has perfect skin, so why does she need this new face wash, seriously?) to clear your head. It’s been a weird twelve hours. Even weirder knowing that across the hall, Jungkook is sitting in your room, on your bed, in your clothes, under your bed sheets. Knowing that maybe, in another universe, on another timeline, you would be in the exact same positions, only everything would be different.

You wash your face, hoping to wake yourself up. Convince your mind that the past twelve hours have been nothing but a dream, and that when you walk back into your room, Jungkook will have vanished. Or he would have never been there in the first place.

You leave the bathroom and return to your bedroom to see Jungkook tugging on his suit jacket, wearing the same clothes he had on when he knocked on your door at 2AM last night. He’s still on the phone, wrapping up the conversation with Chaewon.

“Yeah, yeah, tell her that I’m down. She can just text me, give her my number. I’m happy to do this for you and your friends, Chae. Plus, she’s gonna pay me and I feel less bad about it because it’s a service and she’s not a close friend like you are. Yeah, it’s all good,” he looks up to see you standing at the door, leaning against the frame. “Yeah, Y/N just got back so I’m gonna go. Maybe we can grab dinner or something tonight? Cool. Bye.”

“Dinner without me?” You ask with a pout.

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. “You’re always invited.”

“Have you figured out what’s going on on Wednesday?” You tease him as you walk him to the door.

“Chaewon has a friend, Soojin, who wants me to accompany her on a parent-mandated double date with a business partner’s daughter,” Jungkook explains. “Apparently all of Chaewon’s friends realized I make a pretty good fake trophy boyfriend.”

You rub his shoulder. He’d make a great real boyfriend too. Not that you think about that all of the time, or anything. “Gonna put that on your resume, big guy?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiles. “Dinner tonight? We can go to the ramen place you really like.”

“Sure thing, is Chaewon coming?”

“If she wants to. Otherwise, it’ll just be us.”

“Sounds good,” you tell him. “See you then.”

“Hopefully before,” Jungkook says. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night, by the way.”

“Anytime,” you say. Maybe one day, it’ll be true.

Next Wednesday, there’s a knock on your door at midnight.

Who else could it be?

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. And then it was supposed to be just a two-time thing. And before you knew it, Jungkook’s number and his services were circling through the ring of wealthy international students, jumping from phone to phone as people crammed to get him to accompany them on their next double date, next business gala, next ballroom dance.

You had always had a feeling that his charming, charismatic personality would eventually draw everybody towards him, so electric and magnetic that you couldn’t help but want to know him, make friends with him, be close to him. From the moment you saw his Facebook introduction post, you knew it was only a matter of time before everyone on campus knew his name.

[October 17th, 4:12PM] You: do u want to get dinner tonight

Jungkook: would love to but have to go to kim family business dinner with dahyun sorry :(

You: ok next time then!

[October 23rd, 1:03PM]

You: yo what r u doing You: i have so many readings to do rip You: do u wanna come to greene w me and study

Jungkook: heejin is taking me shopping for a fancy suit for her family’s event tomorrow i can’t :/ Jungkook: but i am going to get macaroons for u at the mall so we can see each other later!

You: yummm sure thing!

[October 30th, 9:58AM]

You: hey ik you’re asleep rn but we are still on for tomorrow right? 🎃 You: can’t let our one (1) year long halloween tradition of buying last-minute candy and watching the nightmare before christmas together die

[October 30th, 11:13PM]

Jungkook: omg i just saw this now im so sorry Jungkook: uh yeonjoo wants me to go to her sister’s halloween party tm so idk if i can make it this year

[October 31st, 2:02AM]

You: ok You: thanks for telling me

It’s no fun watching The Nightmare Before Christmas by yourself, you realize this Halloween. All of your roommates are out frequenting one of the hundreds of parties being thrown on campus tonight, and although you’d normally be up for getting drunk and dropping it low, you just aren’t in the Halloween spirit this year. Wonder why.

Armed with the knowledge that your roommates probably won’t be back until three or four in the morning, you shut your laptop and decide to go to bed early. Early being midnight, but it’s early for you and that’s all that really matters.

You don’t know why you’re being such a stick in the mud this Halloween. It’s always been one of your favorite holidays, never one to pass up free candy nor the option to dress up, but this one has been particularly lame. You don’t have a costume, your local drugstore is out of mini Skittles packets, and you don’t have someone to spend it with.

Realistically, you have no reason to be sad that Jungkook isn’t available tonight. It’s not as if spending Halloween together is some ancient tradition from birth that binds the two of you together. You did it for the first time as freshmen, and you were foolishly hoping to do the same thing as sophomores. It’s not a tradition if it only happened once.

You look in the bathroom mirror, stained with nail polish and dry shampoo and old skincare, and you sigh. Jungkook has every right to prioritize his current and only source of income over a night spent lounging on the couch doing nothing. It’s not as if you haven’t seen your best friend in over a month and this was the only night you both had free. Jungkook drops by after every single event he goes on. Every single one. He stands outside your door dressed in a fancy suit, or a silk button down, leather shoes and expensive jewelry bought for him by the girls he goes out with.

No matter the time, he knocks on your door and says hello, steals a cup of tea and a bit of your heart along with it, before bouncing out of your living room and off to his own apartment. He doesn’t stay the night anymore, doesn’t worm his way underneath your duvet and refuse to move until morning comes. It’s hard to tell if you’re grateful about it or not.

Sluggishly, you peel off your clothes and wash your face, changing into some old sweatpants from the tenth grade and a t-shirt with an embarrassingly large hole in the armpit. This Halloween, you are dressing up as a lonely college student who is going to bed early on Halloween night because she has nothing better to do!

There’s a knock on your door.

Your first instinct is to freeze up. When there’s another knock, your second instinct is to grab the closest object to you (which happens to be your water bottle) for self-defense.

And then, you hear,

“You’re not watching The Nightmare before Christmas without me, are you?”

To spare yourself the shame, you won’t say that you practically leapt out of bed the moment you heard his voice. You calmly removed the covers, and casually walked to the front door. That is what you did.

When you open it, Jungkook is standing behind it, grinning, wearing the greasiest police officer outfit you’ve ever seen in your entire life. This flew at a marketing company’s heir’s Halloween party? He’s even got what looks to be a fully-loaded water gun in his holster.

“Don’t tell me this is what you wore to some fancy-shmancy Halloween party,” you say disapprovingly, eyebrows raised as you look him up and down and pretend that you aren’t just ogling his figure.

“It was fine, Yeonjoo’s sister just graduated college. If anything, she was more okay with it than Yeonjoo was,” Jungkook says with a shrug. You don’t even need to let him in at this point, just watch as he tugs off his shoes and steps inside your apartment like it belongs to him.

“What was Yeonjoo dressed as?”

“Princess Leia. We made for a very mismatched pair,” Jungkook says, chuckling to himself. “Ooh, did you guys get new tea?”

“You can have some if you want,” you tell him, shutting the door as he eagerly pulls out a box of teabags, turning on the electric kettle on the counter. “I think it’s Wild Berry Hibiscus.”

“Sounds good already,” Jungkook says, and he lets out a sigh that sounds so exhausted, so tired and aching, as he leans back against the countertop, head resting on the cupboards above it.

“You could have gone home, you know,” you tell him. Even from the couch you can see the droop in his shoulders, the bags under his eyes. He’s been going out several times every week for the past month, and he still has a truckload of CS assignments on top. He spends precious hours schmoozing with wealthy businessmen and women, shaking people’s hands and posing for pictures in the fanciest clothes he owns and then some. The selfish part of you wants him to stay. The part that loves him knows it would be better if he went home. “You still can.”

“No,” Jungkook insists, shaking his head. “We have a tradition to uphold, don’t we?”

Even though The Nightmare Before Christmas is seventy-six minutes long, the night ends long before that. You haven’t even reached “This Is Halloween” before you feel a head hit your shoulder, and crane your neck to find Jungkook having fallen fast asleep beside you, half-full cup of Wild Berry Hibiscus next to the laptop in front of you. He’s still wearing his stupid police officer costume, the navy blue uniform tight against his body. His lips are parted ever so softly, eyelashes fluttering as little non-sounds exit his mouth, hints, whispers of snores.

He hasn’t slept over since the first time. You’re not sure if you want the trend to continue, or if you just want to be a little bit selfish tonight, greedy, taking and taking and taking. He’s so beautiful like this, so innocent and gentle and soft. It would be such a shame if you had to wake him.

And so, gingerly, you rest your head against his own, breathe in the quiet little sounds that leave his parted lips, memorize the feeling. It’s not the first time Jungkook’s accidentally fallen asleep on you, but there is something about this moment, sitting on your couch a few minutes past midnight, as the rest of the world celebrates around you, that is so intimate. Like here, in your apartment, you and Jungkook have your own little bubble, tucked away in a corner of the universe far from the noise of the rest of the world. And it’s here that you wish you could stay forever, for once never wanting the feeling to end. Wanting time to freeze in its very steps, the clocks stop and the orbit halts, and it is just you and Jungkook, forever. Like characters in a movie, on pause for eternity.

The moment ends when Jungkook shifts beside you before eventually coming to, slowly opening his eyes as he turns to look at you. You smile at him, dazed and tired, as he sits up properly, staring down at your half-opened laptop and the half-full cup of tea next to it.

“Thought you’d end up sleeping here again tonight,” you joke, even though it isn’t really a joke. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside you, in the crevices between your bones and the dark corner of your heart, you had hoped that he would stay.

“Oh, did I fall asleep?” Jungkook asks, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. It’s nearly two-thirty in the morning.

“Just for a bit. I didn’t want to wake you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to head back to your apartment or anything,” you tell him.

Jungkook nearly jumps up off the couch at that, like he’s got springs in his shoes. Suddenly he’s wide awake, brown eyes blown open as he scrambles to gather his belongings, taking the cup of tea and quickly dumping it out in your sink.

“Hey, don’t you want that?” You ask.

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll come by some other time and have some, it was really good, I just fell asleep while drinking it,” Jungkook sputters, words moving a mile a minute as he tugs on his heavy black officer boots, scuffed at the tips from wear and tear. It’s as if he’s desperate to leave. Like your apartment has somehow offended him. Or worse, you.

“If you want to stay, Jungkook, you can,” you tell him, standing up to run to the door before he pulls the damn thing off his hinges with how fast he’s moving. “I don’t mind. My bed is big enough for the both of us.”

“No, I should—I should get going. My… plants need watering. Right now. I totally forgot.”

It’s not a completely bullshit excuse. Jungkook has a fair few pothos amongst his other worldly apartment belongings, hanging from his ceiling or potted in old mugs and janky shoes. But it’s still a pretty bullshit excuse. It’s dark. Jungkook waters his plants every Sunday, and it’s Friday. It’s obvious he wants to get the hell out of your apartment for whatever reason.

All you can do is hope and pray that it isn’t you who’s driving him away.

“Oh—okay,” you tell him, opening the door as he furiously laces up his other boot.

“Thanks for doing this. Next Halloween will be more fun, I swear. I won’t fall asleep on you. Or anything.”

“Okay, see you soon, then?” You ask, searching for a clue, a hint, anything that will tell you that it’s not you, that he hasn’t found you out yet. That you can still be friends, be best friends, because even if you want to kiss him, hold his hand, roll around in bed with him, loving him from afar is good enough.

“Yes, yes, definitely. Dinner? Uh… sometime this week? I’ll text you. I have to go. Plants. See you!”

He dashes down the hallway.

And you end your Halloween the same way you started it. Alone.

Jungkook ran out of your apartment the other day like it was infested with cockroaches. Or the Black Plague. Or your microwave had just beeped. It was as if simply being inside it was going to scar him for life.

Maybe your apartment is cursed. Jungkook does believe in ghosts. That’s another reason as to why he fears the microwave. Tiny ghosts could be living inside the microwave chamber and you’d never know. But Jungkook knows better. He knows that they’re there.

“He just… ran out?” Chaewon asks, clearly bewildered. The two of you have been working on the first floor of the library all day, obviously doing everything in your power to not actually complete any of your assignments.

“Yeah, something about his plants.” You sigh.

Chaewon narrows her eyes, the same way she does when she’s plotting something. “Interesting.”

“What?” You ask, nudging her to see if you can worm a less mysterious response out of her.

“Nothing,” Chaewon says with a nonchalant shrug. She clearly has something to say.

“What?” You repeat forcefully. Chaewon doesn’t get to go all cryptic on you just because Jungkook ran out of your apartment like it had set fire.

“I know I’ve only known you guys for, like, a year and a bit now, but you two have the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen,” Chaewon comments like it’s nobody’s business when it is, in fact, specifically two people’s business.

You scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just…” She pauses, thinking. In the silence, she begins to pack up her belongings, shoving her laptop into her bag and gathering up the small pile of candy wrappers slowly amassing in front of her. “I’ve never seen two best friends have a relationship quite like yours.”

“Thanks?”

“What are you doing for dinner? I’m eating with Yoonji, but you’re welcome to join if you want,” Chaewon offers. Even though you have no idea who Yoonji is, Chaewon would never exclude you from eating with them.

“I’m getting Korean food with Jungkook, but thanks for the offer,” you say, only to be greeted with Chaewon rolling her eyes. He said he’d meet us outside?”

Sure enough, when you head out of the glass doors at the front of the library, Jungkook is waiting dutifully on a bench close by, headphones in as he nods his head and taps his feet to the beat of the music, lost in his own world. He doesn’t even realize that you’ve left the library until you’re two feet in front of him, when he recognizes your beat-up white sneakers and looks up at you in glee, eyes crinkled into crescents.

“Ready to go?” You ask happily. Your stomach has been rumbling ever since Jungkook suggested you go out to eat this morning.

“Hell yeah I am,” Jungkook says, putting his earbuds away as he stands up. “You coming, Chae?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m eating with a friend.” There’s nudge against your shoulder, and when you turn to face her, she winks. “But you two enjoy yourselves! Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Before you can publicly berate her for being so goddamn obvious, she’s rotating 180 degrees on her heel and speed-walking in the opposite direction, zooming off so you don’t get the chance.

“I feel like we haven’t seen each other in ages,” you comment mindlessly. Twenty-four hours away from Jungkook feels like a lifetime and a half. Forty-eight is a light year.

“I’ve been busy,” Jungkook says vaguely, shrugging his shoulders.

“Doing what, going out to fancy restaurants and galas?” You half-tease. It’s sad but true—Jungkook spends his nights living a life you could only dream of. And all of these rituals you share, from studying in the library until three in the morning to crashing at his place and taking naps on separate couches, get put on the backburner.

“Hey, it’s hard work pretending to be rich,” Jungkook pouts. “Besides, the craziest thing about going to those things is that rich Korean people don’t serve Korean food at their fancy gatherings. They serve shit like caviar.”

“Is that why you’re so desperate to get Korean?” You ask pointedly.

“Yes,” Jungkook emphasizes. “Man, I just want some tteokbokki.”

“Then we’ll go and eat all of the tteokbokki you can dream of,” you promise. You round the street corner and on the edge of the main road and an alleyway sits a tiny Korean restaurant the size of a bedroom, no more than six cramped tables inside. It’s run by a family who passes it down through each generation, dependent on the starving college students nearby to keep it alive.

It’s Jungkook’s favorite place. The owner gives him a discount every time he sees him.

(It’s impossible not to fall in love with Jungkook. Impossible to not be drawn to his presence, his personality. Like moths to a flame, you can’t help but come closer.)

“Ah, Jungkook!” The old man behind the counter greets as the bell above the entrance rings. “Sit! Sit!” He points to your favorite table, a round one in the far left corner that’s right next to the biggest window. “Usual?”

“Tteokbokki, too, please!” Jungkook shouts. The man gives you both a thumbs up and heads back into the kitchen.

“It’s been a while since we came here,” Jungkook notices. You both usually eat lunch on campus and Jungkook has been largely unavailable for dinner.

“Almost sounds like you missed it,” you poke fun.

“God, I missed it so much,” Jungkook exclaims, tilting his head back in exasperation. “I didn’t realize that it would be so much work to get dressed up in a suit and look hot.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a drag.” You frown. Jungkook needs to put in literally zero effort to look hot. Sitting across from him in this tiny Korean restaurant as he wears nothing but a massive hoodie and black joggers, he looks hot. When he wakes up in your bed in a raggedy t-shirt, he looks hot. When you catch him at three in the morning in the library after eighteen straight hours of studying, he looks hot.

Jungkook sits there and radiates light. Radiates warmth and joy and beauty. Laughter and hope. He’s the college version of a Disney prince. Perfectly imperfect and completely out of your reach.

“I wish I could take you with me, you might enjoy it,” Jungkook sighs. “Plus, I have literally never seen you wear something fancier than business casual. Imagine you in a ballgown!”

“In your dreams, Jeon,” you rebuke. “Free catered food sounds nice but having to mingle with the 1% does not.”

“Touché,” Jungkook concedes. “I don’t know how Chaewon does it.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“Indeed.”

Jungkook pours you a cup of water from the pitcher that the old man dropped off, and then pours one for himself. “Chaewon said that I did well, though.”

Not surprising. Jungkook excels at everything he does.

“Of course you did, you sexy beast,” you chide.

“She said I’d make a good boyfriend.”

You choke on your water as the man’s son brings out your food, and you desperately attempt to avoid eye contact as you sputter and cough into a napkin, gaze pointed away from both a surprised waiter and a concerned Jungkook, who awkwardly thanks the man and leans over to pat your back.

“You good?” He asks, brows furrowed.

Coughing, you say, “I’m okay, I’m okay. It just—it went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.” Jungkook doesn’t buy it, and the little coughs escaping your throat don’t do much to corroborate your claim. “Seriously, Jungkook. I’m okay. It’s just water.”

“You looked like you were on the verge of death,” Jungkook frowns.

“That’s just my face,” you fire back. “Just keep talking about what you were saying earlier. What was it?”

“Being a good boyfriend,” Jungkook says, and with no water near your lips to distract you this time, your mind bears the full force of his words, weighing down on your shoulders like a calculus textbook.

It’s not as if you aren’t already aware that Jungkook would be the best boyfriend in the entire world, bar none. Not as if you don’t sit in bed and dream of a parallel universe, a life other than the one you’re living in right now, where Jungkook is lovely and wonderful and yours. He knocks on your door at a random hour in the afternoon with Chinese takeout from the local restaurant. He remembers your homework assignments when you forget them. He sits in bed with you and judges the Instagrams of the guys on the latest Bachelorette season. It’s as if he was already yours.

“Believe me,” you scoff. “The people know how great of a boyfriend you are.”

“It’s fake, though,” Jungkook reminds you. “It’s only for a night. An evening, really.”

“Better than nothing,” you sigh. “If only I had enough money to rent myself a fake boyfriend for a night.”

“If only your parents were the CEOs of a multibillion dollar cooperation,” Jungkook adds on.

“Truth,” you say, and you and Jungkook toast to that. Toast to knowing that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Toast to knowing that some of those people can get for themselves something you can only imagine in your wildest dreams—a night with Jungkook. More than just a night. A night spent dressed up in your fanciest clothes, arms wrapped tightly around each other. A night spent as a couple, rather than you and Jungkook.

Toast to knowing that even if you’ll never get to have him like that, you get to have him like this, and you’d rather it be like this than nothing at all.

“You don’t need to rent a fake boyfriend for a night, Y/N,” Jungkook tells you once you’ve downed the water in your glasses (stay hydrated!). “You shouldn’t feel pressured to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.”

You don’t understand, you sigh. I’d give anything to spend time with you.

Jungkook pays. He says that he’s made more money accompanying wealthy socialites—even ones that don’t go to your school, because word gets around—than he would in a month’s worth of shifts at the call center. He says he’s never looking back. He’s probably not going to give up the gig for a while, either.

“Just because you have cash now doesn’t mean you get a free pass to pay for everything we do together,” you warn. You’ve always split the price of meals, split the price birthday cakes for your friends. In the beginning of freshman year, Jungkook ate a quarter of a bag of goldfish you had and paid you fifty-three cents to account for his consumption, which you immediately sent back to him. You still fight over it, finding surreptitious ways to incorporate it into the Venmo payments you make to each other.

“I’m rich, I can do whatever I want with my money,” Jungkook proclaims. “And if that means treating my best friend to a meal, then that means I’m gonna treat her to a meal.”

“That’s very rude of you,” you tell him pointedly. “Zero out of ten, worst best friend in the entire world. Will not accept my Venmo payments.”

Walking down the sidewalk, side by side, Jungkook wraps an arm around you and pulls you in for a side hug as you come to a stop at a traffic light. “You always do so much for me and Chaewon. You deserve to be treated once in a while, Y/N.”

“Why, ‘cause I go out to CVS at ten at night to get you Nyquil after you catch the common cold from some sweaty guy at the gym?”

“That,” Jungkook nods, conceding, “and also because you’re one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. The people who know you are lucky to get to say your name.”

If only Jungkook knew that he was the exact same. It’s an honor to know him. It’s a blessing to love him.

“What fancy clothes do you own?” Chaewon’s lying on your bed, scrolling mindlessly on her phone.

“I don’t know,” you respond, brows furrowing. You get up from your desk chair to start fishing through your closet, “I have, like, some business casual stuff.”

“How about a dress?”

You whip around suspiciously, eyeing Chaewon as she lounges around in your room and acts like she isn’t plotting something nefarious. “Don’t you think you could tell me what you’re trying to convince me to do before you ask me if I have the appropriate clothing?”

Even lying on her back, Chaewon still manages to roll her eyes, sitting up to meet your gaze. “There’s a gala tonight to celebrate some big business deal being closed and I want you to come with me,” she says like it’s a chore, exasperated.

“Me?” You frown. “Why not Jungkook?”

“He said he had some thing to do for some other girl,” Chaewon says. The topic clearly is not at the forefront of her mind. It’s a little too obvious that it’s at the forefront of yours. “Besides, I was given no date restrictions and you deserve to have a little fun tonight. It’s a Friday!”

“I just want to stay in bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you tell her.

“You’re already out of bed,” Chaewon points out unhelpfully.

“Well, then I want to get into bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you rephrase.

Chaewon pouts. “Noooo, please? It’ll be fun, I swear,” Chaewon pleads. “It’s a huge party and hundreds of people are going to be there. Everybody gets to bring a plus one. You won’t be the only person who doesn’t know anything about business and has to cling onto their date in order to survive.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes me want to go so much,” you deadpan.

“Seriously, Y/N. When was the last time you went out on a Friday?”

A while ago. You and Jungkook started having Mario Kart nights on Friday in the middle of your freshman year after you both came to the conclusion that every frat party smells, sounds, and tastes like the same fifty shades of college regret. You haven’t gone out since.

“Not that long ago,” you lie. It’s been months.

“Yeah, right,” Chaewon scoffs. “Don’t think I don’t see your Bitmoji on the SnapMap sitting in your damn apartment on a Friday at 11PM,” she scolds.

“I’m gonna turn off my location,” you declare. You’ve had enough of Snapchat exposing you and your location. People can live in mystery about your whereabouts from now on. They don’t need to know. Chaewon certainly does not.

“No excuses, you’re coming with me to the gala! You must have something to wear in that closet of yours, don’t you?” She slides off of your bed with a thud and joins you as you stand in front of your clothes. None of them scream fancy. None of them even whisper it. You stand back as she shuffles through your clothes, hangers squeaking as she shoves them along the rail. Chaewon tears through your clothing faster than you skim through your economics readings. “Aha! What do we have here?”

She whips out a dress from the very back of your closet, right behind the blazer you never wear because you’d rather be caught dead than in business attire. It’s old—you don’t think you’ve worn it since the beginning of your freshman year when you thought you actually had to dress up for parties. Needless to say, you dry-cleaned it the following Monday and never wore it again. You don’t even recall bringing it to college this year.

“This is perfect!” Chaewon cries. “Really says ‘I can fucking dress myself’, don’t you think?”

“Are you implying that I can’t dress myself?”

“You should definitely wear this,” Chaewon decides, dodging the question. “Gucci and Louis Vuitton are overrated, anyway.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I.” Chaewon thrusts the dress towards you.

Chaewon shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.”

Three hours later finds you one makeup and hair session later, standing in the lobby of a magnificent skyscraper wearing a dress that maybe could have done without the cup of frozen yogurt that you ate before you arrived. Now you remember why you haven’t really worn it since the beginning of last year. Has it shrunk?

“I feel like a loser, Chaewon,” you hiss as she bats her eyelashes and gets directed to the private elevator that will lead you both to the top floor. “A money-less, jobless loser.”

“At least you’re honest, Y/N,” Chaewon whispers back as you step into the elevator. Despite being nearly an hour and a half late (“Fashionably so!” Chaewon exclaims.) you are crowded into the back corner, several other couples stepping inside to join you, all of them wearing clothes that cost more than your tuition for all four years of college, combined. “That’s better than most of the people here.”

Nothing separates the rich from the poor like morality.

When the elevator doors open, you and Chaewon are the last group to step out, milling about in the corner until the path is free. And when you turn your gaze away from her, you realize just why Jungkook’s so keen on going to events like these, why he never turns down an offer when it lights up his phone screen.

In movies, rich people flaunt their wealth so extravagantly that it almost looks fake. From gigantic ice sculptures to ten-feet-tall chocolate fountains, entire orchestras and dresses worth thousands of dollars, it makes you wonder if rich people really do see those items as necessities when throwing a party. They rent out entire European castles and the press publicizes every one of their actions. To you, it looks contrived, unrealistic. Even if rich people have enough money to sustain the bottom 99% for hundreds of years, how could they spend their money on nonsense like this?

As it turns out, the ice sculptures and chocolate fountains are only half of the story.

At this gala, the hosts have spared no expense. The entire penthouse is made purely of glass, from the ceiling, to the floor, to the walls in between, giving you an absolutely breathtaking view of the city lights dozens of feet below you, of the stars millions of light years away. It’s as if you’re standing in a bubble, frozen in time, the world sparkling and twinkling and shimmering around you. You didn’t even know a place like this existed on Earth. The price to book it must be astronomical. The view, even more so.

“Holy fuck,” you murmur, mouth dropping open at the sight. It’s a movie come to life. It’s a picture straight out of a fairytale.

“Pretty sweet, right?” Chaewon says, clearly proud of herself for convincing you to join her. “The Parks and the Ohs really felt like celebrating.”

“No shit,” you say, dumbfounded. Chaewon wraps her arm around yours and leads you out of the elevator, her poise and grace akin to that of a princess. She’s been to this place before. She could do this in her sleep.

“Pictures first, then we eat, and then we mingle,” Chaewon instructs, and you nod diligently. She’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this night unscathed. Without her, you don’t know what you’d do.

On the average day of an average life of an average person, pictures means getting a stranger to take a single pic on your shitty iPhone at your worst angle, which you will begrudgingly post to your Instagram later after extensive editing.

But this is not your average day, and these are not average lives of not average people. Pictures means professional photographers with entire setups, standing with their cameras held up to their eyes, poised and ready for the next shot. It means couples, one by one, stepping in front of a gorgeous backdrop and posing, over and over, as five photographers at once cram to get their best angle, the cleanest photo.

You don’t know how to pose for photos. You barely remember what the proper formatting is for your essays, depending on the citation structure. And yet, Chaewon is ushering you over in front of the photographers, immediately striking one of her classic, perfect poses as you flail about, trying to figure out what to do with your hands.

“Just relax,” Chaewon advises. Even standing beside you, she can see you panicking in her periphery. “And smile. You’re beautiful, so show them that.”

Eventually, as the photographers switch positions to get different angles, you stop worrying about your hands, stop worrying about your bag, your feet, your head tilt, and just grin. You may not have millions of dollars to your name, but it’s a Friday night and you’re living the life of a billionaire with no responsibilities. You deserve to live a little.

When the next group comes up, Chaewon nudges you out of the way and whispers to one of the photographers, who nods dutifully in response. Wrapping her arm around yours once more, she guides you to the massive catering setup, tables and tables lined with delicacies from every country you could imagine. And of course, a gargantuan chocolate fountain in the middle of it all.

Your stomach rumbles. Clearly, the frozen yogurt was not enough to hold you off. Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been eating college dining hall food for weeks now, and are probably going to throw up if you have to have dry beef one more time.

“If you want to, you should try the caviar. It’s delicious. Avoid the eggplant, it tastes like foot, but the brussel sprouts are delicious. Kimchi’s good, too. Classic,” Chaewon instructs as you walk around the tables, placing servings the size of quarters onto your plate just so you can have a taste of everything. Chaewon sticks to some ribs, pan-seared salmon, and a vegetable so expensive you’ve never even heard of it before.

“Im Chaewon, is that you?”

“Mrs. Kim!”

A strange older woman comes up to the two of you as you’re dishing up, and Chaewon’s face immediately lights up. The woman goes in for a hug, a barely-touching pat of the shoulders and hands. Over her shoulder, you watch as Chaewon rolls her eyes and pulls a face.

“How are you, dear? You look so grown up,” Mrs. Kim says. You watch as the light slowly fades from Chaewon’s eyes with each second that passes.

“I’m very well, Mrs. Kim. Did you get your hair done? It makes you look so youthful.” Chaewon’s a master. She glares at you when Mrs. Kim isn’t looking, raising her eyebrows as if to say learn, young padawan. This is how it’s done. They go on for a couple minutes, showering fake compliments on each other as you slowly begin to eat. You scrunch your nose up. Chaewon’s right. The eggplant does taste like foot.

“And who is this?” Mrs. Kim asks, turning her focus onto you. You look up like a deer in headlights, a brussel sprout puffing your cheek. You were not meant to mingle and eat at the same time.

“This is one of my closest friends, Y/N,” Chaewon introduces for you. You nod your hello, chewing the brussel sprout in the most nondescript manner possible in an effort to save whatever is left of your dignity. “She’s pre-law.”

You are not pre-law.

“Oh, how wonderful! You must have a lot you want to accomplish in life,” Mrs. Kim says. God, you couldn’t care less about how Mrs. Kim feels about you.

“Yes, definitely,” you say awkwardly.

“We really must be going, Mrs. Kim. My parents will want me to make sure I do my rounds,” Chaewon says, a hand on your arm as she makes to get you both the fuck out of there.

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Kim concedes, sending you and Chaewon one final goodbye before moving on to find her next victim.

When she leaves, Chaewon seems to let out the biggest exhale of her life. “Holy fucking shit, I thought she’d never leave,” she exclaims, grabbing a flute of champagne and downing it in a single go. “She’s an associate of my father’s, so she’s always trying to kiss my damn ass. Like, sorry that you need to brown-nose your boss and his daughter just so you bribe your idiot son’s way into college.”

“You like mingling, I take?” You joke.

“Just murder me.”

“Have any tips?”

“Flex as hard as possible without actually flexing. Try to speak to people your age because they are usually more bearable than people older than you. The best conversationalists are anybody under the age of ten,” Chaewon tells you. She picks up another glass of Prosecco. “Want some champagne?”

“You have it,” you tell her. “I think you need it more than I do.”

Chaewon shrugs. Not as if they’re running out any time soon. She gulps it down and places it on the tray of one of the caterers as they whiz by her.

The rest of the night passes by in the same way the beginning of it did. Chaewon drags you around the penthouse, talking with her father’s business partners and associates and their sons and daughters and husbands and wives for no more than two minutes each before moving on. She’s got her technique down pat. Greet, compliment, shade, flex, compliment, say goodbye. It’s foolproof, because you immediately notice that everyone else in the room has adopted the same approach.

Business gatherings like these are just one big game of who can be the most-liked and the least-liked at the same time. And the answer: everybody, all at once.

Halfway through the evening, Chaewon collapses against the back wall, totally unafraid of the possibility of the glass giving out behind her. She doesn’t care. If it breaks, it breaks.

“Tired?”

“I just need a break,” Chaewon declares. “Because everyone in here is so fucking fake, and you’re the only one I can talk to without wanting to rip out my eardrums.”

“I’m honored,” you say sarcastically.

“When I say you’re the only honest one here, I mean it,” Chaewon says. You lean back against the wall next to her, looking out into a sea of people in fancy clothes with fancy food and fancy friends. “Look at all these people, Y/N. All these fucking people, and you’re the only one who’s true.”

And then, you spot him.

He’s far away, standing in a group of people you don’t recognize, a hand on the small of another girl’s back. He’s wearing a navy blue suit, tight-fitting and tailored, a silver watch sparkling on his wrist as he adjusts his sleeves. One of the other young men in the group says something funny, and he tilts his head back to laugh, chuckling as the girl beside him curls into his arms.

You suppose it would have been ignorant of you to assume Jungkook was elsewhere on a night like this, at a gathering where everybody who knows anybody is here.

Jungkook must not know you’re here. He mustn't, otherwise he would have come over to find you. You must have entered at different times, spent the night wandering around different parts of the penthouse. Clinging onto Chaewon’s arms, you must have avoided his gaze, and he, yours.

Chaewon hasn’t spotted him either. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better, if you’re the only one stuck with the knowledge that he’s here tonight. Chaewon would pity you. Other people would ask you how you knew such a worldly, experienced man like him. And you would spend the night wallowing in sadness, wondering why it’s never you that gets to spend the night next to him.

From this distance, you can see Jungkook perfectly. The light from the moon shines down on him like a goddamn spotlight, catching the sparkling on his wrist, leaving a silver gleam in his slicked back hair. You watch as he laughs, smiles, talks, grins and beams and socializes. Of course he’s here. Of course. He’s so good at this, so good at being real and genuine and happy.

Chaewon says the only person in the room who is true is you, but how can that be? How can that be when Jungkook, the most honest, wonderful, real person you know, is standing in front of you? You aren’t honest. You aren’t true and real and whole. You stand on the sidelines, a wallflower in a room of daisies and roses, and pine from afar. Watch as he pretends to date a girl that’s not you, wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her cheek, and you act like everything is alright.

It sucks, being trapped like this for fear of him seeing you. You know that would be worse—if he saw you standing alone and decided to take matters into his own hands. Seeing him up close in a penthouse like this, a movie set, shimmering and sparkling, it would be worse. Jungkook pulls the girl beside him in close to his side, smiling as he listens to someone else speak. She’s the perfect height in those heels, just tall enough to rest her head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder. You imagine them walking into the room together, hand in hand. Imagine them posing for the pictures like a real couple, a pair of celebrities.

You suppose you have no reason to be jealous of her, of him, of what they have. Jealousy is when resenting someone for having something that you once had. You never had a life like that with Jungkook. You’ll never have a life like that with him. Never get dressed up to go out, never get to be his date to an event. Never get pictures taken of you as a couple, never feed each other candies and strawberries dipped in chocolate. You can’t be jealous of her. You were never in the running to begin with.

“Ready to get back out there?” Chaewon asks, placing a firm hand on your shoulder.

A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne flutes, offering it to the both of you.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Chaewon tells you as she takes a glass for herself.

You sigh, casting another glance over at Jungkook. He and his date are moving around now, joining another social circle on the opposite side of the penthouse. He looks so at ease, so comfortable. He belongs there, in the middle of it all, talking and laughing and grinning. And you? You belong back at home, underneath your duvet covers playing a game of Mario Kart. Not here.

You shake your head. You could use a drink or two in this state. “I’d love one, actually. Thank you.”

That night, you stay at Chaewon’s place.

“You’ve been acting weird.”

“Hello to you, as well,” you say with a scowl as Chaewon sits down across from you at the local ramen place.

“Listen,” Chaewon begins, “I’ve been thinking. You need to confess to Jungkook.”

You nearly spit out the complimentary water you were served. “Excuse me?”

“You need to. You’ve been acting weird and that’s the only thing that’s going to fix it,” Chaewon declares.

“What do you mean I’ve been ‘acting weird’? Care to explain?” You ask, offended. You haven’t been acting weird. Well, that weird. Maybe a little weird.

“Jungkook told me you haven’t seen each other for the last eight days,” Chaewon points out. Eight days? It’s more like seven and a half. Not that you’ve been counting, or anything.

“So? We’re busy people,” you defend. It’s a good enough excuse. You’re sophomores in college. You have classes. Clubs. You have to meal prep.

“So? You guys are best friends. You make time to see each other at three in the fucking morning if you haven’t seen each other yet that day. And you haven’t seen each other for eight whole days? What’s wrong with you?” Chaewon demands.

“Nothing! What the heck, I invite you out to a best friend ramen date and you just blaspheme all over me like this?” You accuse. This is not how you imagined today to be going. This isn’t how you imagined this week to be going. “Besides, it’s only been seven and a half days. He’s over-exaggerating.”

“Seven and a—holy fuck, you are literally the worst. Can you just stop resisting? If you tell him, everything will be fine and go back to the way things were,” Chaewon says, blinking, flabbergasted.

“No, they will not,” you hiss. “Everything will change if I tell him. We’re best friends, Chae. Imagine if I told you that I loved you. What would you do?”

“I’d love you back, that’s what!” Chaewon tells you. “You deserve to be loved back, Y/N. Nothing would change between us. I already love you. You’re one of my most favorite people ever. I would never regret something if it was with you.”

“It’s different with him, though,” you try to explain. You don’t know why—you just know that it is. The way you’re friends with Chaewon and the way you’re friends with Jungkook are entirely separate. You love Chaewon. You’re not in love with Chaewon.

“Is it? How?” Chaewon says.

“I don’t know, I just—it’s different with him.” There’s no way to describe it. Jungkook appeared in your life and it was as if everything just clicked into place. There isn’t a single thing in your life that makes more sense to you than Jungkook. “It’s always been different with him. With you, I—I knew that we would become really close friends once we started talking a lot more in the beginning of freshman year. But with him—I don’t know. From the moment I met him, I knew that I would fall in love with him. When he said hello to me, I was fucked. There’s never been any hope for me, Chae. I just have to live like this forever.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes. “No, you don’t. You don’t even see what the fuck is right in front of you.”

“You?”

“God, I’m friends with idiots. Literal idiots. How you guys have made it through nearly a year and a half of college is beyond me,” Chaewon says to nobody in particular. “Seriously, tell me, Y/N. What do you think will happen if you tell him? Just out of curiosity.”

“I don’t know—” you pause. A lot of things. He tells you he just wants to stay friends. He rejects you because he’s not interested that way and you can’t really be friends anymore because it’s weird now. He’s already interested in somebody else. He’s already dating somebody else and you never even knew. He’s not looking for a relationship right now. Things get awkward because you confessed to your best friend that you’re in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same. You end up never speaking to each other. You never see each other. You go through the rest of university seeing each other on the Green by chance and not knowing what to do. You graduate and move on with your lives. And suddenly, he’s just a past friend you used to have. No longer a part of your life. No longer given the chance to. “He rejects me. We never speak again and have to avoid each other at all costs. He lets me down easy and I feel like a total loser for having confessed in the first place. There’s a lot.”

“Jesus, Y/N. Aren’t you forgetting a possibility?” Chaewon says, eyebrows raised high.

“I’m omitting a lot of them,” you tell her. Including the one where, in the next three years, you end up in a hellish dystopian wasteland and you have to band together to survive but it’s awkward and terrible because you love him still and he doesn’t feel the same, never has and never will, and now you have to fight off zombies and a corrupt autocratic government all while dealing with your own goddamn feelings. That may be the most unbearable one of them all.

“How about the one where he actually feels the same?”

“Too unrealistic,” you tell Chaewon. It’s the truth. Why else would Jungkook be traipsing around with beautiful, rich, worldly girls on his nights off? He does it for the money, sure, but he likes it. He loves the experience, loves living that sort of life. You’d never be able to provide that for him. “You know that’s never going to happen, Chae. We’re just friends.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, he thinks that we’re just friends. And I’m not gonna fuck everything up by telling him that I’ve been madly in love with him for the past year and a half.” You can think of nothing worse.

“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe he thinks that the two of you are just friends because you refuse to actually show him how you feel?” Chaewon asks pointedly, eyebrows raised in disapproval. She looks about ready to walk out of the restaurant. “You never do things to give him a reason to think otherwise.”

“Why would I?”

When your ramen arrives, Chaewon takes a deep breath, downs the rest of her glass of water, and moves on. It’s clear that if she thinks about this any more, her head will explode.

Nothing’s ever going to change between you and Jungkook. You knew, when you first met him, that it was always going to hurt like this. That loving him was something you had to sacrifice to stay close to him. He lights up every fucking room he walks into, and it’s all you can do not to sit there and bask in his warmth. You would rather catch a single one of his rays than be in the darkness. And if being friends with him means that friends is all you’ll ever be, then so be it. You’re lucky to have him like this. Why take the plunge?

“Just—” Chaewon says as you begin to pull apart the noodles in your own bowl. “I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now. And you deserve to be happy, Y/N. You deprive yourself of all of these wonderful things, and I just want you to know that you deserve every single one of them. But telling him? That’s something that even I know would make you the happiest. You shouldn’t live like this, Y/N. You have no idea what you’re missing out on if you do.”

The streak of not seeing Jungkook ends the next day, when you come back from an evening grocery store run to find him standing outside your door, hand about to knock on the wood. He’s all dressed up again, button-down and slacks, hair styled and parted, and you watch as he takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s waiting for the best time to knock.

“Jungkook?”

He practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of your voice, nearly tripping over his own feet as he lays his eyes on you.

“Oh, Y/N!” He exclaims. “I was just about to see if you were home.”

“You could have just texted, you know,” you say jokingly, joining him at the front door as you fumble for your keys.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Jungkook admits sheepishly.

“Well, make it up to me by helping me unpack these,” you demand, kicking the door open as you reach down to grab your reusable canvas bags filled with groceries. Immediately, Jungkook is leaning down to grab all of them for you, hauling them inside like they weigh nothing. You stare as he heads over to your kitchen without breaking a sweat, biceps clenching as he lifts the groceries up onto the counter.

“What’d you get?” Jungkook asks, slowly beginning to take out the groceries. He’s in your apartment so often that he’s memorized where all of your food goes, from the correct shelf in the fridge for produce to the proper cabinet for cereal.

“Just like… groceries. I saw a box of peppermint chocolate bars that I thought you might like, they’re in there somewhere,” you say mindlessly, pointing to a random canvas bag. Immediately, Jungkook abandons his putting-away-groceries duty to fish through each of the bags, hunting for the box of goodies. “And I got some cheap Trader Joe’s wine. You know. Just for emergencies.”

“Trader Joe’s wine and peppermint chocolate bars,” Jungkook comments, nodding in approval. He finally finds the box and tears it open sideways. “Sounds like a perfect dessert if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What, did you eat already?” You ask, busting out the wine and a couple of mugs, because you don’t own any wine glasses. Nothing says cultured like drinking seven-dollar wine out of mugs with kitschy sayings like “don’t talk to me until this is empty” or “coffee is my first love” written on them.

Jungkook shrugs. He grabs the box and heads over to your couch, already kicking back and relaxing. “Yeah, I went to some restaurant for another double date,” Jungkook says. “It was one of those places where everything is so expensive but the portions are the size of my fist. Of your fist.”

“You sound hungry,” you note, filling up the mugs and joining him. “And mad.”

“I’m getting reimbursed for the money I spent tonight, so I suppose I could be angrier. But I’m starving. Let’s finish this entire box of chocolates and do nothing else.”

“Your words, not mine,” you say, although his proposal sounds more than appealing to you.

You turn the television on for some background noise, switching to a channel showing old reruns of unsolved serial killer cases, because nothing sets the mood better than the words “then, slowly, he took the knife with which he killed her and began to slice away at her body”. Jungkook doesn’t seem to pay the television any attention, though, instead focused entirely on the chocolate in front of him, calling his name.

He takes an enormous bite out of one before moaning far too sexually for your liking, tossing his head back in bliss. “Oh my God.”

“Good?”

Jungkook moans again in response.

“Please don’t orgasm on this couch. Who knows what other bodily fluids were on here before we bought it,” you ask calmly.

“I’d say that’s nasty, but you guys did cover this with one of those couch covers, so it’s not like my body is coming into contact with other people’s body stains,” Jungkook reasons. The couch cover is the single best purchase you’ve made this entire year. Possibly your entire life. “But they’re delicious. You made a good purchase.”

“I thought you would like them,” you say. “You’re the only person I know who actually likes the combination of mint and chocolate.”

“People who say that it tastes like toothpaste are brushing their teeth with the wrong kind of toothpaste,” he tells you pointedly. “I don’t understand. This is God’s combination. It’s perfect.”

“As long as you love it, that’s all that matters,” you tell him with a pat on his back, breaking off a square of the chocolate bar for yourself. It is pretty good, even if mint chocolate ice cream does sometimes taste like toothpaste. But you’d never tell Jungkook that, of course.

Jungkook takes a swig of the wine, picking up the mug and gulping down about half of it, the wine bitter on his tongue. “Goes great with this wine, too,” he jokes. You take a sip yourself. It’s… not very good. Actually, rather sticky. No wonder it was only seven dollars.

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know it tastes like ass,” you tell him honestly. To be fair, you and Jungkook have both had worse. Compared to the shit served at frat parties, this may as well be beautifully-aged Malbec.

“It only tastes a little bit like ass,” Jungkook compromises. “But it doesn’t not taste like ass.”

“Let’s finish it now so we don’t have to have any more of it later,” you decide. “You’ve probably had some of the best alcohol in your life this semester.”

Jungkook thinks back, tilting his head to the side as he begins to recall all of the instances in the past few months when he’s had anything to drink. “Soju’s still my favorite. But yeah, I’d say I’ve had wine that probably costs more than my textbooks for this semester if I hadn’t pirated them all.”

“The beauty of being a CS student,” you muse.

“You know it,” he says, holding his half-empty mug out as a toast to himself. “But seriously, even if this Trader Joe’s wine literally tasted like garbage, it would still be better than all of that other shit.”

You turn to him, skeptical. Even the single night you spent with Chaewon, in a penthouse amongst the stars, drinking champagne and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, was more than you could ever dream of. You woke up the next day on an air mattress in her bedroom and wanted nothing more than to go back to basking in the luxury, desperate for another taste. It was addicting. How could Jungkook ever prefer what he has right now to what he had last night?

“Really? Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” you tell him. You can take it. Jungkook has every reason to prefer the fancy meals, the penthouses, the suits and ties to your janky little apartment and old clothes from high school. The two aren’t at all on the same level. They’re not even in the same goddamn game. If you could drop everything to have what Chaewon has, what the other girls and boys who pay for Jungkook’s company have, you would.

“I’m not,” Jungkook tells you seriously. “I mean it. I would rather sit in your room, hunched over your tiny Switch because you lost the HDMI cord to plug it into the television, playing Mario Kart than out there, pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“But it was fun in the beginning, wasn’t it? Getting to be rich without the moral ambiguity that comes along with being part of the upper class?” You ask. It must have been. Jungkook looked so happy when he first started doing these gigs, coming back to your apartment in a state of bliss, a little tipsy from the expensive champagne and steak. He’d knock on your door and tell you all about the night, from how older businessmen handed him their cards and offered him jobs, to the hundreds of ice cream flavors you could only ever dream of eating. Everything seemed so wonderful to him.

Jungkook shrugs, pouring himself more wine. “Yeah, I guess, but it gets so old after a while. Like, no wonder Chaewon was so desperate for me to go with her that first time. It sucks the damn life out of you. You walk around and mingle and pretend that you’re the greatest person on Earth, talking about yourself and kissing up to the other people for an entire night. Honestly, sometimes it’s worse than my CS homework. And I hate that shit.”

“Chaewon mentioned that the eggplant usually tastes like foot,” you add. Jungkook nods in agreement.

“Yeah, it does. She warned me about it the first night and I, like a fool, tried it because I usually like eggplant. And it still tasted like foot. Never again,” Jungkook says, shivering at the mere thought of it. It’s funny, actually, because you did the exact same thing. “But the food is like, the one thing I pretty much don’t have the right to complain about. It’s delicious and usually free.”

“But I hope that you’re having fun,” you tell him honestly, because you do. When you’re sitting in your room, eating two different pints of Ben & Jerry’s, you hope that Jungkook, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, is enjoying himself more than you are. Because he deserves it. You never want there to be a time when he’s sad, when he’s unhappy or bored. Jungkook deserves to live the happiest version of life he possibly can. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I do,” Jungkook says. There’s a second half to that sentence. “I do—it’s just that… It's so fake, you know? I feel like such a goddamn actor when I’m there. I get to live this extravagant lifestyle for a few hours but in return I don’t even know who I’m looking at when I look in the mirror.”

Oh?

“Like, I pretend to be this business student, when I’m not. I pretend to have millions of dollars to my name, when I don’t. I hold hands and pose for pictures with people Chaewon is vaguely familiar with and nothing, literally nothing, feels real. I don’t know.” Jungkook takes another swig from the mug. “Even the relationships I have when I’m there are fake.”

“Do you hate it that much, then?” You ask him. If it’s so awful and terrible, then why does he keep doing it? Keep dressing up and going out, holding hands with and wrapping his arm around them?

“No,” Jungkook says, sighing as he leans back into the couch. “I don’t hate it. I just—I wish I had something real afterwards to come back home to.”

Real? Like what? Like you? You aren’t real. You sit next to your best friend and pretend that everything is fine. That nothing hurts. You’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since you laid eyes on him, and you’re doing everything in your power to make sure that he’s the only one that doesn’t know.

“That’s why I’m always coming back to your apartment afterwards,” Jungkook says. He chuckles, but it isn’t his usual laugh. It sounds forced, contrived and fake. Jaded. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it almost immediately. Then, he breathes, long and slow. Thinks. The silence is almost unbearable. Waiting to hear what he has to say, even more so. “You’re the most genuine person I know. What we share—it’s real.”

Tonight is the least lonely you’ve felt in a long time.

Even though Jungkook has something tonight, you aren’t aching to be by his side, desperate to spend more time with him. He told you that he was really looking forward to this one, that it wasn’t going to be some stuffy gala or blind double date. He said something about going to karaoke with the girl and her friends, singing Britney Spears songs and taking shots of soju for hours on end, screaming his voice hoarse. And even if you aren’t there with him, you’re happy because you know that he’s happy, that he’s genuinely enjoying himself.

So, you aren’t that lonely.

Content with the state of your life as it is, you take the night off, ready to prepare yourself for a weekend that will almost certainly consist entirely of just work. Chaewon’s voice echoes in your mind (“I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now,” she had told you), but it’s different now. Because you are happy. You are happy, because Jungkook’s happy. The two of you see each other just as frequently as you used to. He texts you about his terrible CS homework and the Shiba Inu he just saw being walked across campus. It’s all gone back to the way it used to be. That’s what you had wanted.

You were prepared for this. You knew that it would eventually boil down to this, down to whether or not you could take Jungkook not knowing how you feel any longer. But right now, you don’t care. Jungkook not knowing has always been a part of your friendship. The love you hold for him, in the spaces between your bones and deep in the cracks of your heart, that has always been there. You see it, hear it, feel it, whenever you’re with him. Even when you’re not with him, it will remind you, appear in the silence, the emptiness. It will always make itself known, because it’s become a part of you. From the moment you met him, it had settled into your heart.

Staring out of the window by your living room, overlooking the ugliest parking garage on campus, you sigh. You can’t see the stars from here, not even in the dead of night, but that’s alright. There is something so peaceful about the navy blue sky. About how mysterious and unknown it is. It calms you. You put on a movie that you’ve genuinely been wanting to watch for a while, sit down in your bed, amongst your duvet and sheets, pillows and plushies, and enjoy yourself, for once. It’s a good night.

And then, much like most aspects of your terribly convoluted, over-complicated and confusing life, it all comes crashing down.

There’s a faint thud from outside, a soft little non-noise that you assume is coming from the street. Not wanting to interrupt your movie—she’s just about to confess, holy shit—you ignore it. It’ll go away eventually.

Then another thud. You pause, leaning towards your window to see if you can figure out the source. Silence. You’re just about to press play, when you hear it again. And again. It gets louder and louder, making up in volume what it lacks in rhythm and order, until you realize it’s someone knocking on your door. And not just knocking casually. It’s as if someone is shoving their whole body into it, shoulders and chest and feet hitting the wood as they bang on it.

“Y/N?”

Oh, God.

Pushing off your duvet, you tug on your slippers and wipe away the crust around your eyes as you rush towards the door. You know who’s on the other side. You’re not sure if answering it is the better or worse option.

You’ve always had an uncanny ability to pick the latter.

When you open the door, Jungkook, in a fancy sweater pulled over a white button down and black jeans that could almost pass for dressy slacks, is standing on the other side.

Correction: he’s sort of standing on the other side. He nearly topples over when you pull open the door, having clearly been leaning on it, and you barely have time to reach your arms out to catch him.

“Oh! Y/N!” Jungkook exclaims, as if he’s surprised to see you inside your own apartment. “I was hoping to see you.”

“I figured,” you tell him, laughing. You guide him inside, and even in his state he remembers to tug off his clean white sneakers, kicking them towards the shoe rack. “It’s so late, Jungkook, you should go home.”

“No,” Jungkook whines. “I wanted to see you. I missed you.”

“We saw each other this morning, Jungkook. And this afternoon, right before you went out,” you remind him. The words go in one ear and out the other, and he pulls you in close to him, wrapping his arms around you as he presses his body against yours in a sweaty hug. His grip is tight around you as he rests his head on your shoulder, breathing you in as if you’d been gone for years. Slowly, after a few seconds, you pull away from him, a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at you through his too-long bangs, hanging over his eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong? I’m right here, don’t worry. I never left.”

“I had a lot to drink tonight,” Jungkook tells you, blinking rapidly. “Like, a lot. They just kept ordering soju and I just kept drinking it. It was really good. Have you had strawberry soju? It’s delicious.”

“I might have had it once or twice,” you fib, not able to recall having it one way or another. “Come on, sit down,” you point him towards the couch, but he refuses, clinging onto you even as you make your way towards the kitchen. “Jungkook, please, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“But I missed you,” Jungkook repeats. “I missed you a lot. I thought about you the entire time I was there.”

You can’t say you didn’t do the same.

“Next time we’ll do something together then, hey? Something really fun, like going to an arcade or bowling,” you promise him with a pat on his shoulder. “But you need to drink some water, JK. Can you please sit down?”

“No, I want to be with you,” Jungkook says like it’s nothing. Like the feeling of him wrapped around you like this, holding onto you and telling you that he misses you, that he thinks about you, doesn’t mean anything. You don’t think your heart has beaten since you opened the door to see him standing on the other side.

(You don’t think it’s beaten since you met him. Since he came up to you on the pavement, asking you for directions. Since you told him your name, and he told you his.)

“Ah, fine, just be careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” you concede, because it’s so easy to let him have his way, so easy to say yes to him. You manage to grab an empty water bottle and fill it up with what’s left in your Brita, too lazy to refill it after it’s left bone dry. Slowly, you make your way to your bedroom, out of view of the central living space, where your roommates could burst through the door at any moment and see you taking care of your drunk best friend on the sofa.

Slowly, you settle on your bed, sitting off of the edge of it as you cajole him into drinking some water, whispering soft nothings to make sure he finishes the whole thing.

“Does your head hurt or anything?” You ask him, already looking around for the stash of Advil you usually keep on your nightstand.

“No, no, I’m fine, Y/N, seriously,” he promises, even if you can see the glazed-over look in his eyes, the way his sweaty bangs stick to his forehead. “You’re too nice, you know? Always treating me when I show up at your place. Even when you don’t invite me.”

“You know I never mind seeing you,” you tell him. “You can come over whenever you want. I’m always here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jungkook says with a pout, and it makes you furrow your brows. When have you not been? Jungkook’s been going out to events ever since the beginning of the semester, and without fail, you’ve always been waiting for him at home, knowing he’ll turn up one way or another. Except, there was— “That one time a couple of weeks ago, I went to this crazy big gala with Eunha, there were so many people there, and I came back home afterwards and knocked on your door, and your roommates said they hadn’t seen you all day. Where were you that day?”

He had come? You didn’t know if he would.

(Or maybe, you did. You knew he would show up at your door once he got back from that night, and selfishly, not wanting to see him after the fact, the leftover version of him, the part he leaves behind when he goes out. You knew he would be there and you couldn’t bear the thought of being the second girl he spends the night with. The other option. Maybe, you’ve known all along that you’ll never quite stack up to the girls he goes out with, and that sometimes, when you see him all dressed up while you’re in your hoodie and sweats, it reminds you is nothing more than a casual friendship.)

“I must have been out late with Chaewon that day, I’m sorry,” you apologize, letting him rest his head on your shoulder. “I didn’t know you would come.”

“I always come after my events. You know that.”

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to,” you correct.

“I’d never forget about you,” Jungkook says, the alcohol erasing his filter. Making him honest. “I really missed you, that day. I had been waiting the entire night to see you.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” you promise, and this one is for real.

“You know, today?” Jungkook says, pulling his head back so he can get a good look at you, your eyes meeting his own. “Today, I was so sad on my way here. It was so terrible, because I was drunk and sad and I missed you.”

“You were sad? What happened?” You ask, leaning in. Jungkook? Sad? Who would do such a thing to him? Who would erase the smile on his face, his crescent eyes, and replace them with tears?

“This girl and I, she was a lot of fun. We sang a couple duets together and we were pretty good,” he hiccups, “kept winning. It was fun. She and I talked for a long time. I definitely liked her the most out of all of the girls I’ve gone out with. Besides Chaewon, of course.”

“What happened? Did she do something you didn’t want? You know you can tell me, Jungkook,” you ask, a hand on his arm.

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was fun and I was drunk. We were on our way back in the Lyft when she leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed her back, and it was kind of nice. I haven’t really kissed someone like that in a while,” Jungkook tells you. And even though you’re hearing these words from him, hearing how he had all of this fun with a girl who isn’t you, how he kissed her in the backseat of a car, you rally, blinking away the tears you can feel forming in your eyes. It’s none of your business, you tell yourself. You and Jungkook aren’t together. You don’t get to feel bad about him kissing someone else.

“Did you like it?” You ask, each word a pin in your chest.

“It was pretty nice,” Jungkook admits. “We, uh, we made out a bit in the back of the car until we got to her place. And then we got out of the car and she asked me if I wanted to go back with her, to her room. And—and I almost said yes.” Jungkook looks about ready to combust. At his side, his fists are clenched so hard you’re worried he’ll pop a vein.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” you tell him, looking him in the eyes so he knows that you don’t mind, that he can tell you these things without worry. Jungkook may be the love of your life, but he’s your best friend, first. He’s always been, before anything else, your best friend.

“But there is!” Jungkook cries, standing up in anguish. “There is, Y/N, you don’t understand! I almost had sex with her!”

“You’re allowed to, Jungkook!” You assure him, standing up to reach out to him.

“No, Y/N, you don’t get it,” he tells you coldly, pulling his hand away. “Why aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry that I nearly had sex with her?”

“No, what the fuck, Jungkook, why would I be mad?” You shout back at him. “You can do whatever you want with your body, it’s not my job to police it! I’m your friend, not your mom!”

“But don’t you want to be more, Y/N?” He rounds on you. “Don’t you want to be the one kissing me, fucking me? Why aren’t you jealous?”

“Were you trying to make me jealous, Jungkook? Is that what you were trying to do? You wanted to get a reaction out of me because my best friend nearly fucked someone else and then didn’t? What the fuck, Jungkook? What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to tell me you fucking love me back!”

“Jungkook, what—”

Jungkook, eyes dark and furious, pushes you against your closet door as your lips part, feeling the breath get knocked out of your lungs. He’s so close. He’s right there, you can see him, watch as he looms over you, hands clenched in your hoodie as he presses you against the wall. And then, wordlessly, he’s leaning down, crashing your mouths together.

Suddenly, your heart starts. You gasp into the kiss, the feeling of his mouth on top of yours. It’s fervent, hot and angry and passionate, his body against your own as your hands reach out to press against his head. You seize up at the feeling, almost as if in shock, before melting into his touch, leaning into him, desperate. You can feel his breath mixing in with your own, feel the way his chapped lips meet your overly-moisturized ones, feel how his hands drift from where they’re bunched up in the front of your hoodie to your waist, your hips, your thighs. Jungkook kisses ruthlessly, kisses like he’s trying to prove a point. Holds onto you like he’s afraid to let go.

When you part, gasping for air, Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, blinking.

“Jungkook, you’re drunk—” you tell him firmly, refusing to let get your hopes up if what you have in front of you is really just an intoxicated best friend. Your heart is beating miles a minute, about ready to thump right out of you, chest heaving and mouth agape.

“That doesn’t matter,” Jungkook argues back. “Even when I’m sober I love you. Don’t tell me I’m confused because I’m drunk.”

“You show up at my place at one in the morning, tell me about how you made out with some other girl and almost slept with her just to get me angry, kiss me, and tell me not to tell you you’re confused?” You demand. “Jungkook, I’ve never been more confused in my life than right now, can you please just—”

“I love you, Y/N,” Jungkook says, and even though he’s angry, red in the face and sweaty, when he says it, it’s soft. It’s a whisper, a murmur. He says it not to convince you, but so you know. “I’ve been in love with you for so goddamn long, ever since I fucking met you. And I thought you might like me back but you never did anything about it, and so neither did I.”

“You need to go home, Jungkook,” you tell him, hiccuping. When you blink, you feel the warm tears streaming down your face. You hadn’t even noticed them. “You can’t just come into my apartment and tell me shit like that. How do you think it makes me feel?”

“Do you feel the same, Y/N?” Jungkook asks, looking you in the eyes. He’s angry, that’s for sure, but even underneath, you can see the desperation, see how he’s just waiting for an answer.

“Go home, Jungkook. Please. Let’s talk about this when you aren’t drunk, okay? I’m confused and I need to clear my head,” you plead, pushing him towards the door. “Please, okay? Be safe, too. I’ll call Chaewon to give you a ride,” you tell him, grabbing your phone.

Jungkook puts a hand on your wrist. “I’ll be okay, Y/N. I just… Please, tell me. Did that kiss mean anything to you?”

“Yes, it did, but Jungkook, I can’t—”

“It meant something to me, too,” he tells you firmly, lets the words sink into the air around you. He heads for the door, pulling on his shoes. He looks so sad. “Good night, Y/N.”

You place a hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Jungkook.”

It’s barely nine in the morning the next day when a knock wakes you up. It’s soft at first, one every couple of seconds, before it gets progressively louder. Slowly, you get out of bed, trying to tame your hair as you rub the sleep from your eyes.

“Y/N’s in her room. Is that for her? That’s so cute. Yeah, she’s probably awake. You can just knock.” It’s your roommate.

You scramble to make your bed, pouring some water from the water bottle by your nightstand into your hand and splashing your face, wiping it away with an old t-shirt as you run towards the door, pulling it open just in time.

On the other side is a much more tired, much less drunk Jungkook, one hand raised and about to knock, the other holding a bouquet of daisies.

“Hey,” he says shyly, mouth breaking into a smile the moment he sees you.

“Hey,” you say back. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, head hurts like hell, though,” Jungkook says. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, s-sure, of course,” you say, stepping aside to let him into your bedroom.

“These are for you.” Jungkook holds out the bouquet towards you, wrapped up neatly in cellophane and tied at the stems with a bow. “So you don’t have to keep Febreze-ing your room all of the time.”

“They’re beautiful, Jungkook,” you tell him, grinning as you take them from his hands. Today feels different from yesterday. It feels lighter, fresher. New. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I—” He pauses, taking a second to think, “I meant what I said, yesterday. Maybe not all of it, but. Most of it, yeah. I meant it.”

“Why did you try to make me jealous, Jungkook?” You ask him. “Why did you think that would work?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook admits. “I shouldn’t have, and I fucked up. I just got so… so tired of waiting to see if you’d ever come around. I just wanted you to tell me. And then I guess I got so fed up that I told you instead.”

You place the bouquet on your dresser before walking towards him, reaching a hand out. “Yeah, that was a pretty big asshole move of you,” you chide, grinning to yourself.

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighs.

“But I’m happy you’re here,” you tell him. “And happy that you meant what you said. Maybe it could have been said in a less angry way, but hearing it made me happy.”

“I’m happy that you’re happy.” Jungkook grins. “You’re my favorite person, Y/N.”

“When you asked me, yesterday, if that kiss meant anything to me? And I said it did?” You begin, Jungkook nodding in front of you. He’s positively beaming. “It still does. I want to do that every day, Jungkook. Every hour. Every single second for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“You do?” Jungkook asks.

“I love you, Jeon Jungkook. From day one, it’s always been you.” You smile, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Feels like you’re fucking flying. Like you’re weightless.

“I love you, too, Y/N. I never want to be away from your side,” he declares, and like a cheesy, rom-com movie, like the shitty novels you used to read in eighth grade, he pulls you in close and presses a kiss against your lips. Wraps his arms around your waist as he holds you tight, kisses you in the middle of your bedroom, in your hoodie and sweatpants, a bouquet of daisies on your dresser. He kisses you because he can, because for every second of every day for the rest of your goddamn life, he can kiss you, over and over and over.

“We owe Chaewon an apology,” you tell him when you’re parted, sitting on your bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“Hell yeah we do,” Jungkook agrees. “She’s been on my ass for ages about telling you.”

“Mine too.”

“She’s such a great best friend,” Jungkook comments. “Knew all this time that her two friends were madly in love with each other and didn’t say a damn word to either of us. That’s loyalty.”

“We should do something for her, to make up for it all,” you suggest.

“You know,” Jungkook says, grinning, “I know this guy who made bank this semester by going on fake dates with a bunch of really rich girls. Maybe he could help.”

“I know him, too,” you joke. “He’s the love of my fucking life.”

Jeon Jungkook quits his job on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 7:18PM, eighteen minutes after he normally heads out on one of his many dates.

“Y/N!” He shouts, banging wildly on your door. You rush over to open it, letting the pasta water on the stove boil over and sizzle on the heat. He’s barely gotten in a second knock when you turn the doorknob to reveal your smiling boyfriend in his oversized hoodie.

“Don’t tell me you’re blowing someone off for me,” you say, inviting him inside. He places a kiss on your cheek on the way in, taking off his shoes and coat as you rush over to take care of the pasta.

“Me? Blowing someone off? Never,” Jungkook says, mock offended. “I actually quit the dating thing, this afternoon. A girl asked if I was free and I said that I wasn’t, because I have to go home to my girlfriend making me a meal. Don’t you love the sound of that?” He asks, pleased with himself.

“You quit? I thought you liked doing that stuff,” you say, using the spaghetti fork to move around the linguine. “Hope you’re cool with boring old pasta for your meal tonight. You could have had caviar if you hadn’t quit.”

“I don’t care, it smells so good,” Jungkook tells you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he stands behind you, watching you cook from over your shoulder. “Look at you, being all domestic and shit. It’s very cute.”

“Stop rubbing in the fact that you’re the better cook, I get it. Pasta is all I got right now.” You pout, turning down the heat as you move to pour yourselves two cups of tea. Jungkook follows you the entire way to the kettle, grip on your waist never faltering. “You can keep going on those dates, you know. I don’t mind. I get to see you in a suit when you get back, and then I get to take it off of you. It’s a win-win.”

Jungkook pinches your waist in response. “If you have a thing for suits, you can just tell me, you know. I won’t be mad.”

You turn around to whack him with the spaghetti fork. “I do not!”

“Alright, Y/N, guess I won’t wear a suit next time you call me at two in the morning—”

“I never said you couldn’t,” you interrupt, making Jungkook laugh.

“You’re so cute, Y/N,” Jungkook coos as you begin to dish up the pasta, making sure to add peas because Jungkook loves peas with his spaghetti. “But I quit because I have enough money to sustain me for the rest of the semester. I’ll work over break and get a new job next semester when the new work-study positions open. Don’t worry about me,” he assures you.

“But didn’t you like going out and everything? Getting dressed up and drinking fancy champagne?” You ask, setting the plates down at your dinky kitchen table, a single scented candle lit in the center.

Jungkook thinks about it for a split second, and then he shakes his head. “Nah. I like hanging out with my girlfriend more.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” you reason with a grin.

Jungkook laughs, leaning over the table to plop a kiss on your lips. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Yeah, you pea-eating loser,” you chide, “I love you too.”

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↳ check out the post-script drabble here!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #w: if i told you #god this fic.... i cant believe i wrote this.... how did i do it

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