#Joshua Hong x Reader

[heechwe]

behind holy doors | 𝐣𝐡

୨୧ pairing: hong (joshua) jisoo x fem!reader || ୨୧ word count: 0.3k || ୨୧ genre: smut || ୨୧ tags: dirty talk, unprotected sex || ୨୧ synopsis: "When we get home I'm cuffing you to the bed and going down on you all night until my jaw is sore." requested by anon!

↪ WANT A DRABBLE DIARY ENTRY? REQUEST ONE.ᐟ

In the eyes of his congregation, Joshua is the most pristine follower of God. He’s respectful to all the elders in the community, lovely with children, and incredibly well-mannered with the young ladies. Maybe it’s because of his father being the priest at your small church for decades, maybe it’s because he’s just at face value a perfect man.

If only they knew the husband you do so well. You don’t deny he’s perfect, but he’s not so clean when you’re both behind closed doors.

He slipped next to you with a smile shared between your mother and the other older women in the church. Yet, that sweet smile didn’t meet his words when he said, “When we get home I'm cuffing you to the bed and going down on you all night until my jaw is sore.”

Sure, he told you the dress you wore to church was beautiful, but you didn’t imagine it made him feel like this.

But, true to his other attributes of honesty and steadfastness, he does have you strapped to your headboard and his mouth lapping at your essence a few hours later.

You whimper and whine as he licks quickly and beautifully across your folds, the pace he’s set and the passion behind his tongue evidence of how long he must’ve been waiting to do this since he saw you in your outfit for earlier's festivities. You can't tug on his hair, touch the skin on his neck or his shoulders to prove how good it feels, the only proof you have being the rhythm of your hips against his face.

You come moments later to the sound of his groans against your cunt and intense attention focused on your clit, your essence covering the bottom half of his face.

He wipes his face with the back of his hand and then lines the head of his cock with your entrance, unashamed to slip it inside hard. Then, like a devil in disguise that he is, he says, “You need to wear that fucking dress more often.”

@gyubakeries @loserlvrss @okiedokrie-main

𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 ౨ৎ˚₊

@kstrucknet @k-films @kvanity-main @lapydiaries @moadiarynet @sweetvenomnet @onedoornet @violetanet @whipped-kpop-creators

[pochaccoups]

i’m so horrid at putting things into words but it was basically shua being whiny & straight about GROVELLING during pegging i hope you see the vision 😓 that picture made me giggle though SKAKAJAJAB

cw — pegging, sub!joshua, MINORS DNI

“How does that feel, Joshuji?”

Your boyfriend whimpers at first, small and pathetic. Then, “it’s… big,” he admits.

“Does it hurt?”

“N-no! It’s just… new.”

You ease yourself further into him, drooling as you watch his taut ass swallow every inch of the silicone cock strapped to your hips, revelling in his sweet noises that grow louder the deeper you push yourself into his guts.

The whine he gives when you’ve finally bottomed out is utterly depraved. It’s pornographic, wrecked, obscene. It’s not a sound that your pussy could get out of him—only the feel of a cock nestled against his prostate.

“You good, baby?” you ask, reaching over him to run your fingers through his honey brown hair.

“Yes, fuck, please fuck me,” he gasps, arching his back even deeper, rutting his hips against you like a desperate whore. Well, you know exactly what that feels like.

“So pretty when you beg, I can’t say no, can I?” you grin, pulling your hips back before fucking back into him hard. Then again. And again and again until you fall into a rhythm, driving your hips into your boyfriend over and over, eyes locked on the way the cock slips in and out of him with a slick sound.

God, you’ve never heard Joshua sound so wrecked. His moans are broken and cracked and he’s practically sobbing in that pretty voice of his. It’s your name, it’s swears, it’s pleas, all sung in the most sinful, desperate way. It’s no wonder he’s got you wrapped around his finger. You thought you’d take it slow for his first time getting fucked, and all you want now is to give him what he wants: to cum.

“What’s the matter, Shua?” you ask, kneading at one of his firm ass cheeks, never faltering in your pace.

He responds with another cute, high-pitched whimper before telling you, “‘m close…”

“Yeah? Gonna cum for me?” you coo, and with a grin you reach under him so that you can wrap your hand around his neglected, leaking cock and pump at it, all while you pound away at his hole.

Not to your surprise, it’s mere moments before Joshua’s cries reach a crescendo and his length twitches in your hand as he shoots cum all over the sheets below. When he’s no longer writhing with his orgasm, you pull out in spite of his squirming.

You’re breathless, he’s spent, and you both collapse to the softness of the mattress together, his hands immediately searching for yours so that he can knit your fingers together.

“Did you like that?” you ask him, gentle.

“I did. A lot. Did you?”

“Yeah, but… how the fuck do you have the stamina to do that regularly?”

[mochacoda]

too nice | hjs

Pairing: Hong Joshua x GN!Reader

Synopsis: Joshua Hong is nice. Too nice. He’s the kind of nice that makes people think twice about their relationship to him, wondering if they might be special. The answer is, no. Problem is, he's your coworker and your neighbor.

Content: Fluff | Coworkers to Lovers, Neighbors to Lovers | Office AU

Tags: slightly insecure reader, totally inspired by the Youngji chocolate milk grandchildren interview, lots of elevators, lots of tension, a bit of drinking, mutual pining, "sweetheart" as a petname, gentleman agenda indeed, except he goes a bit mad at the end, seungkwan is a comedic genius, woozi is the wingman of the year, konglish w/ context clues, reader is scared of loud noises, no "y/n"

Word Count: 10K

Masterlist

────୨ৎ──── Monday

Joshua Hong is nice. Really nice. He opens the door for you every morning walking into work. He insists that he carries heavy file boxes from your boss’ office to your desk. He buys you coffee from the cafe down the street, knowing that the instant machine is almost always broken. Whenever he passes you in the hallway, he always smiles and mouths “fighting!” He notices when your enthusiastic mask slips and your tiredness peaks through. He tells you not to work so hard, and asks if you’ve been sleeping well. 

He’s the kind of nice that makes people think twice about their relationship to him, wondering if they might be special. 

But the answer is, no. 

“He’s just like that. He’s nice to everyone. Get a grip.”

You sigh, staring at your reflection in the mirror hanging above your vanity. You’ve been absentmindedly rubbing moisturizer on your cheeks for the last three minutes, at least, thinking about your coworker. How have you gotten to the point of talking to yourself in attempts to rationalize the thoughts of him clouding your mind?

All of a sudden, your alarm rings. You jolt upright, reminded that you have to leave your tiny apartment and head over to your equally small office cubicle. 

You quickly stand up from your vanity chair, then walk over to your closet to grab a jacket. Relying on muscle memory, your hand moves toward the hook it always lies on, only to swipe at air. 

The one and only winter coat you own isn’t there. 

You groan, remembering that you’d put it in the laundry bin after staining it with beer over the weekend, at that disastrous company “bonding” event. You look down at the taupe sweater you’re wearing, pinching the material to guess if it’d be warm enough. It’s barely a centimeter of fabric. 

Glancing at the time on your phone, you decide that the thin sweater would just have to do. 

You turn back to the mirror to do one last check of your appearance, when something catches your eye. Sitting on your bedside table is the plushie Joshua had won for you at the arcade. The bunny stares back at you innocently. You’d placed it there last night before crashing out on your bed, fatigued from the chaos of the company outing—or, more specifically, the secondhand embarrassment recalling your attempts at trying to be normal around Joshua.  

You shake your head roughly. You could cringe at yourself on the way to work. Grabbing your work bag and shoving your shoes on, you rush over to the door. 

Squaring your shoulders, you open it and walk out. And for a moment, as you’re turning your key to lock the door, you think that you’ll be alone for the commute to work for once. 

But then you hear a familiar voice.

“Good morning!” 

You tense, heart beginning to race, then turn around with a weak smile.

“Hi, Joshua.” 

Somehow, you’re not only coworkers with your crush, but also next door neighbors. 

“Hey,” he says, then takes a sharp breath. “It’s pretty cold today. Is that sweater going to be warm enough?”

“I’ll be fine,” you say, avoiding eye contact as you drop your keys into your bag. “It can’t be that cold.” 

You adjust the bag strap on your shoulder and walk toward the elevator on your floor, pressing the down button. It immediately opens.

“You sure?” 

You nod as the two of you walk inside the elevator. 

Hoping he’ll stop pushing you on your lack of a coat, you ask, “Did you look into the McKinley and Lee file yet?”

“Come on, it’s not even 9am and you’re already attacking me with work!” Joshua dramatically clutches his chest, then lightly punches your arm. “What’d we say about 워라밸, huh?”

You feel your face getting hot, your right hand reflexively going up to where he’d touched your left arm. Was it always this toasty in the elevator?

Meeting his eyes for the first time today, you say, “Yeah, yeah, work-life balance. You’re right.”

His lips turn up and his eyes crinkle into bright crescent moons. You find yourself smiling back at him, despite having tried so hard to avoid his stupidly sweet gaze.  

“I’m just teasin’, you know?” he says, leaning casually against the steel walls of the small elevator.

“Yeah, yeah,” you mumble again, rubbing the handle of your bag and tapping your foot to give yourself something else to focus on, suddenly aware that the two of you were alone. 

God, could the elevator move any slower? Fidgeting with the loose threads of your sweater, you were on the verge of melting from being near his vicinity for so long. 

Ever since Joshua Hong had arrived two months ago as a transfer from the Seoul branch, you haven’t gone a day without running into him. It was HR’s fault, really. The Human Resources department had placed him in yours, and also gave him the company-funded apartment next door to you. 

He’d spent so much time around you that, if you didn’t see the people who regularly flocked to him, you’d think you were his only friend in the States. It was, and still is, ridiculous. His constant presence has meant that you are constantly aware of yourself. Of how you’re breathing too loud, and how your heart is beating too fast, and how you were in too much of a rush to do your full routine this morning. He makes you care more than usual about how well you perform at work, and, worse, he makes you think about how happy and funny you appear to be. 

The way he teases you for being nervous (although that’s only because he’s around practically all the time) and the way he always notices when you aren’t feeling well—it’s as if he sees right through you. Yes, he sees right through you, and it’s incredibly scary knowing he could confront you at any time—maybe even in this elevator—and say that he’s known all along that you’ve had feelings for him. And what’s worse is that you know he’d be polite with his rejection. He’d be a gentleman, carefully letting you down with—

“Hello? Hellooo?” Joshua says, waving his hand in front of your face.

You jump, blinking rapidly. “Huh? Sorry, what?”

“We’re here, sweetheart,” he says gently.

“Oh,” you reply lamely. 

He gestures with his hand for you to walk out of the elevator first. Inside the lobby, he walks by your side. As the two of you approach the door, he reaches it first, and opens it for you to head outside. 

You’re immediately hit with a blast of winter and harsh winds. Your arms instinctively tighten around your stomach, trying to prevent the cold air from rushing up your sweater. 

Joshua turns to you, brows furrowed. His eyes glance over your sweater again, and you can tell he’s about to say something. Certain it’s an I told you so, you quickly say, “Before you start, I’m fine. It’s really not that cold, and the bus is coming soon anyway.”

You march forward toward the crosswalk before the bus stop, knowing he’s following behind you. Once you reach the start of the white lines, you slow down to a stop, waiting for the signal to change. 

Still behind you, Joshua says, “거기 있어봐.” 

“왜?” Though confused, you listen to his request to stay where you are. You shift your weight from one foot to the other, feeling somewhat awkward just standing with your back turned to him. 

He doesn’t answer your question why, but you hear a shuffle and the sound of fabric rustling. Then you feel a warm coat draped over your shoulders. 

You turn back to face Joshua with a start, opening your mouth to protest.

But before you can get a word out, he takes his pointer finger and lightly presses it against your lips. 

“Shh,” he says with a smile. “Tomorrow, wear a jacket, okay?” He pats the top of your head. 

Speechless, you barely bring yourself to nod, then remember to shut your jaw. Let’s just survive this bus ride, you tell yourself. God, it was unfair how nice he was. It only made it harder for you to believe he was like this with everyone—or to stop hoping that, somehow, you might be the exception. 

────୨ৎ──── Tuesday

Ever since you showed up to work on Monday wearing Joshua’s coat, your coworkers have been speculating nonstop about your nonexistent relationship with the man. More specifically, your two closest friends in the department, Boo Seungkwan and Lee Jihoon, have had a lot to say. 

Today would be no different. Huddled around the coffee table in the break room with Seungkwan and Jihoon, you’ve been roped into listening to their comments. 

Eyes darting between the two of them, you silently sip on your coffee.

“I’m a hundred percent sure now. I swear it’s real, he likes her,” Seungkwan says, waving his hands in the air like a madman. 

Jihoon raises his eyebrows. “Are you sure? Remember when you said that the delivery guy had a crush on this one,” he replies while pointing at you, “only for it to be me? Your 촉 is trash.”

Seungkwan scrunches his nose, and huffs in your direction, as if you’re going to defend his skill of guessing office relationships. (You’re not.)

“Your hunch is horrible, I said,” Jihoon says, goading him. 

“No,” Seungkwan frantically shakes his head. “That was a one off. Remember when I said the nepo baby in Finance liked Director Chun’s secretary? He kept staring at her and nobody believed me but I was right!” 

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Lucky guess.” 

“No, no, no, my 촉 is excellent, thank you very much.” Seungkwan turns to you, all pouty. “You trust my 촉, right?”

Finding the entire conversation ridiculous, you can’t help but shake your head and laugh. Though Seungkwan prides himself on his supposedly superior hunches, he is really only accurate half the time. 

You raise your coffee cup to your lips and sip on the liquid inside, a perfect state in between steaming hot and lukewarm. 

“Kkah, this coffee is great,” you say to Seungkwan, ignoring his question. 

His eyes suddenly widen, and he frantically waves his pointer finger at you. “Oh, oh! Another thing! He always gets you coffee from that expensive place next door, Cafe whatever. He never gets us coffee, but he always gets you coffee.”

Taken aback, you put the cup down, saying, “No way, he does that for a lot of people. He bought coffee for the receptionist like, last week.”

“That’s because it was her birthday,” Seungkwan says. 

“And how’d you know that?” you ask.

“Because there were happy birthday balloons next to her desk?” Seungkwan says matter-of-factly. 

“Well—” you retort, before getting cut off. 

“You know,” Jihoon suddenly interjects. “I hate to agree, but it’s true. Joshua doesn’t do that for anyone else.” 

“Right?” Seungkwan exclaims, nudging your arm with his elbow. “Come on, I’m so right. Woozi said I’m right. Trust the 촉.”

You rub your temples, feeling ambushed by your loud friends. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” You wave them off as you stand up from the little coffee table chair you’d been sitting on for the last few minutes. “I’m going to head out.”

“Where are you going?” Seungkwan asks.

“Away from you,” you joke.

“I know you’re going to the vending machine,” Jihoon accuses. "You always get a snack after coffee."

You raise your hands in mock surrender. 

“Can you get me a granola bar, then? You know the one I like, the blueberry one.” Seungkwan asks.

“Oh, and a Coke Zero for me?” Jihoon adds. “Y’know, not everyone has a coffee fairy named Joshua, like you do.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “You know it’s not like that. Besides, you guys just love using my money, don’t you?”

“Guilty,” Jihoon grins.

“Come on, I paid for karaoke last Friday,” Seungkwan complains. “That was way more expensive than a granola bar and a Coke.”

“Coke Zero,” Jihoon says, emphasizing the “Zero.” 

“Tomato, tomato.” Seungkwan wrinkles his nose, enunciating the “ay” and “ah” in the two pronunciations of the word.

“Apples, oranges,” Jihoon insists.

“Okay, okay, let’s not fight, children. A blueberry granola bar and a Coke Zero, on your way.” You give a pretentious salute.

Grasping your coffee, you down the rest of it and get up from the table. You crumple the cup and toss it into the trash can before leaving. 

Walking through the main hallway, you pass the vending machines on your department’s floor, which are known to swallow dollar bills without offering products in return. Between the youngest employees in the department—people like you, Seungkwan, and Jihoon—you’ve discovered a secret spot that has better machines. 

Once you reach the elevator, you tap on the down button. When the doors open, you walk inside and press on the “G” and “Door Close” buttons. 

The elevator doors close smoothly, and you tap your foot as you watch the numbers at the top right corner go down from 8. It reminds you of the awkward elevator ride from Monday morning, but you quickly shake those thoughts out of your head. 

It’s best not to think of Joshua when you don’t have to.

The garage is a relatively far trek from floor 8, but it’s a worthwhile time sacrifice. The other floors (and by extension, their vending machines) are locked by key cards for employees of their respective departments, so it’s either you take a chance with the floor 8 machines or head to the basement. You, Seungkwan, and Jihoon have all found that you’d rather not take that chance. 

The elevator announces your arrival to the ground floor with a ding, and as the doors open, you make a beeline toward the machines. 

Seeing that someone is already using the vending machine closest to the elevator, you walk past it toward the machine closest to the doors leading out of the hall and into the garage. 

“Blueberry granola bar, Coke Zero. Blueberry granola bar, Coke Zero,” you repeat to yourself under your breath.

Coming to a stop by the vending machine, you scan the snacks inside. Grabbing your wallet, you fish some dollars out and double check the numbers of the items before lifting your right hand up to the combination pad. 

Jihoon first, because he was slightly less annoying than Seungkwan this morning: Coke Zero, number 405. You punch the numbers into the machine. When it flashes $2.00, your eyes widen. 

“Two dollars for a soda is robbery,” you groan. 

Still, you count two dollars out from the wad of cash in your left hand, then feed it into the machine. The machine begins whirring, the spiral in 405 moving forward. But just as you think the drink is going to come out, the spiral stops. 

“Oh, come on,” you mutter. 

You press on the small button next to the number pad that you guess is made for delivering change, but it doesn’t return your money. 

Maybe putting in two more dollars would make the machine move and spit out two drinks? Immediately acting on the thought, you punch 405 in the number pad again and feed two more dollars into the machine, only for it to whir without delivering the Cokes again. Another two dollars later, and the same happens. 

Taking matters into your own hands, you begin banging on the front of the vending machine. After around five seconds of failing to make the machine respond to physical force, your arms fall from the screen back down to your sides. 

Clenching your fists, you sigh and count out two more dollars from your left hand. Then, your right hand stalls. 

On second thought, you really don’t want to lose more money to the machine. Maybe you should try to force it out one more time? You shove the remaining cash into your back pocket. 

You raise your clenched fists again, but before your hands meet the vending machine glass, a voice suddenly comes from right behind you. 

“Whoa, whoa.” 

Unfortunately, you’d recognize that honey-coated voice anywhere. 

You spin around wide-eyed, coming shockingly close to Joshua Hong. His face is dangerously near yours, and his arms have wrapped around your body to clasp your hands in his.

“Shua? Wha—” Your voice is breathless, trailing off like you’ve forgotten how to speak.

“Hey, don’t fight the machine. You’ll only end up hurting your hands.”

His words are soft, but the way his thumb grazes your knuckles leaves a faint hint of warmth, like he’s lit a match against your skin. You should pull back—really, you should. But the closeness, the weight of his presence, keeps you frozen in place.

Your heart stutters in protest. This is nothing. He’s always like this. Always caring, always thoughtful. Always too close.

And yet, remembering what Seungkwan and Jihoon said, some part of you also wonders: Why does it feel different when it’s me?

Scowling, you drop his hands and take a step back, like distance will save you. "It's fine. I'm handling it."

His brow arches at your defiance, and for a moment, his gaze searches yours, like he’s looking for something you’re not ready to admit.

"Are you?" he asks, the words laced with amusement.

Your hands ball into fists at your sides, both in frustration and to keep them from reaching out for him again and betraying you. 

“I am,” you insist, though the heat rising in your cheeks threatens to undermine your confidence.

But then, just as quickly, he tilts his head, and his lips curve into a smirk—soft, upturned at the corners, with those faint dimples that could bring a fortress down.

And for a moment, just a moment, you wonder if you’re the only one feeling this way.

But before you can think of a sharp retort, his voice cuts through the haze in your head.

“You should’ve just asked me for help—like always.”

The softness in his tone, the familiarity, pulls you up short. It’s almost unbearable how easy it is for him to say things like this. Like it’s normal. Like it’s not turning your brain into static.

It’s too much. He can’t keep getting away with this, with being so nice to you all the time. It’s not fair.

“Stop being so nice to me,” you blurt out, clenching your fists tighter. You’ve got to hold your ground.

Joshua cocks his head slightly. “I thought you like it when I help you?” 

Your face gets, if possible, even hotter. 

Honestly, what can you even say to that? 

Desperately avoiding his face, you stare at the much safer collar of his shirt. It’s an off white color, like the fur of the stuffed bunny he’d gotten you at the arcade. It remains on your nightstand because you still have no idea what to do with it. 

Realizing that you didn’t answer him, you finally deflect. “Where’d you even come from? I didn’t see you.”

“Over there,” he says softly, pointing at the vending machine by the elevator.

“Oh.” You press your lips together, belatedly realizing that the person you’d passed on your way to this vending machine had been Joshua all along. 

“So, what’d you need? I’ll fix it for you.” 

You feel your face getting hot again. “Coke Zero,” you mumble.

“I thought you didn’t like Coke?” Joshua asks. 

He remembers?

“It’s not for me,” you explain. “For Woozi.”

“Woozi?”

“Oh, I mean Jihoon.”

Strangely feeling like you have to explain yourself to him, to let him know that you’re only friends, you say, “We went to college together. Me, Jihoon, and Seungkwan. We just happened to get into the same department here.” 

Joshua hums in acknowledgment. “No wonder, I always saw the three of you together. Made me feel left out.”

Your heart drops. Eyes wide, you cross your arms repeatedly, saying, “I never—we never meant to exclude you at all!”

“That’s okay, I have you to talk to, right?” he says with what you can only describe as an upside down smile. 

You swallow and nod. 

“Y’know I was just teasing,” he says casually. “I wasn’t offended.” 

Before you can confront him about the mental whiplash he’s putting you through, he grasps your shoulders and maneuvers you to the right, so that he can stand in front of the machine. His touch was fleeting, but your heart skips a beat anyway. 

You watch as he grabs two dollars out of his wallet, then punches 405 into the keypad. As the spiral whirs, he sends two precise kicks to the bottom left of the machine.

Doubting his method, you raise your eyebrows in uncertainty. But just as you do, the whirring is accompanied by the sound of the soft drinks falling.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! 

That actually works? 

Joshua bends down and sticks a hand into the bottom flap of the machine, pulling out the drinks that had just dropped from slot 405. 

“Four Coke Zeros, at your service. Anything else?”

“Oh, a blueberry granola bar for Seungkwan. And those chips for me,” you say with mild surprise, pointing at slots 201 and 302. 

“Sure thing.” He taps the corresponding numbers and slips some bills into the machine. 

Thankfully, 201 and 302 are very cooperative, unlike 405. 

“Thank you, you didn’t have to pay for those,” you say, your fingers brushing against his as you accept Seungkwan’s granola bar and your bag of chips. The faint contact sends an unexpected jolt through your chest, one you force yourself to ignore.

“Oh, it’s not for free,” Joshua replies, his lips curling into a smile that’s soft yet pointed. “You owe me a coffee from next door.”

You blink at him, caught off guard. “Tomorrow morning, then?”

He nods his head slightly, a gesture so casual it almost feels calculated. “How about today, after work?”

Your heart stutters. The way he’s looking at you—his eyes shining, eyebrows raised a little, with a faint crease between his brows—feels strange. It’s somewhat vulnerable, like he’s waiting for something.

No, surely not. Surely, he’s not—

The thought dies before it can fully form, drowned out by the thundering sound of your heartbeat.

“Sure,” you manage to squeak out, your voice embarrassingly small in the space between you.

His smile widens, but there’s a flicker of something else in his expression. Relief? Satisfaction?

You swallow hard and grip the snacks in your hands like they’re a lifeline. You need to get a hold of yourself. Joshua Hong is not asking you out. He’s just nice. That’s all.

────୨ৎ──── Wednesday

“You’re joking. You’re actually joking.” Seungkwan’s voice rings throughout his waterlogged apartment. 

“Most unfortunately, I’m not.” You blink, feeling a droplet of sweat getting dangerously close to your eyes. 

You carefully wipe the sweat that’s gathered at your forehead using your forearm, since your hands are gloved up. You definitely don’t want the nasty residue from the rubber gloves getting on your face. 

Seungkwan glares. “You didn’t tell me that you were on a date with You Know Who! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called you.”

“Well, you did,” you say exasperatedly, grabbing an antique-looking lamp and lightly placing it in the box of items to throw away. 

“Tell me what happened, exactly. Don’t leave a single thing out!” Seungkwan barks, waving at you from across the room, where he’s dismantling a chair to put in the box. 

In the middle of clearing out Seungkwan's damp furniture, your mind drifts back to yesterday afternoon, to the cafe where…

────୨ৎ────

…The soft hum of coffee grinders and the steady chatter of customers make you feel warm inside, easing the tension from earlier that morning. You sit across from Joshua at a tiny table near the main window, taking in how the late afternoon sun casts a golden glow over his face. He looks like royalty, and you think you could watch him for forever. 

He’s nursing a cappuccino, his slender fingers tracing absent patterns on the side of the mug, while you sip on a mocha latte, its foam already starting to lose its shape. Staring at the latte, you think it’s about time you moved on from small talk.

“You really didn’t have to pay for my drink,” you say, though your voice lacks conviction. It’s hard to argue with him when he wields his secret weapon every time. 

He smiles, that same boyish, disarming grin he always gives you. “It’s just coffee. I get you one almost every day, y’know?”

“Yeah, but I was supposed to—”

“Exactly,” he interrupts, eyes sparkling. “Think of it as payback. For all the mornings you made brighter just by showing up.”

Your cheeks warm at his words, heat spreading down your neck as you lower your gaze to the coffee table, suddenly fascinated by the faint scratch marks on its surface. “You’re too nice,” you manage, the words feeling as flimsy as tissue paper.

“Only to you,” he says, and though his tone is light, the words feel impossibly heavy. Like they’re carrying something you’re both too afraid to name.

Your heart twists violently as your eyes snap up to meet his. The way he’s looking at you—steady, unyielding—makes your breath hitch. This is Joshua, you remind yourself, the nicest guy you’ve ever met. And yet, you can’t ignore the way it feels like he’s waiting for something. For you.

“You don’t mean that. I don’t believe that.” The words spill out before you can stop them, shaky and uneven. But even as you say them, a part of you aches with the knowledge that it’s not entirely true.

Because deep down, you want to believe him. You want to hold onto the idea that he’s different with you, that the warmth in his voice and the way he looks at you isn’t just another facet of his kindness but something more.

But that hope is dangerous.

If you believe him and you’re wrong—if this is just Joshua being Joshua, warm and selfless to everyone he meets—it’ll break you. So instead, you tell yourself that it’s impossible. That he can’t mean it.

You clutch onto every reason why: the way he always holds the door open for others, how he buys coffee for the entire team sometimes, the way he seems to know exactly what to say to make anyone smile. It’s who he is, you think, not just with you.

The idea of reading too much into his words—of exposing your heart only to realize you’ve misunderstood everything—is unbearable. So you push it away, burying the small flicker of hope before it has a chance to grow.

But even as you deny him, there’s a quiver in your voice, a hesitation that gives you away.

He leans forward slightly, his arms resting on the table, shrinking the distance between you. “You should. Don’t you ever wonder why?”

Your breath catches. His words hang in the air, heavy and charged, and for a second, you think he’s about to say something that will upend everything you’ve convinced yourself to believe about him.

“Joshua, I—”

Before you can finish, your phone buzzes loudly on the table, shattering the moment. 

You scramble to grab it, breaking eye contact as you glance at the screen.

It reads: “Kwannie Kwannie Kwannie.”

You sigh deeply but answer the call, putting the phone to your ear. “What?”

“Help!” Seungkwan’s voice comes through in a panicked shriek. You take the phone a few inches away from your ear, wincing at the sound, then stiffen. His tone did not sound like one of his regular, made-up crises. Bringing your phone closer to your ear, you hear him shout. “My apartment’s flooding! There’s water up to my knees, my coach is floating! I don’t know what to do! Jihoon’s useless with this kind of stuff, and you’re the only person who knows where my emergency shutoff is—”

“Okay, okay, breathe. 4-7-8 method. I’ll be right there,” you say, shooting up from your chair.

Joshua watches you, his brows knitting together in concern. “Everything okay?”

“Seungkwan’s apartment is flooding. I have to go help him,” you explain, grabbing your bag. 

“I’ll come with you,” he immediately offers, already standing.

“No, it’s fine. I’ve got it.” You force a smile, though you’re still buzzing with the tension of whatever had just happened. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Before he can respond, you rush out the door, heart racing—not just from Seungkwan’s crisis, but from the words Joshua almost said. You hear him calling your name, but you’re unable to bring yourself to look back, afraid you’d cave. 

If you had, you would’ve seen a crestfallen Joshua still standing by the table, frozen in place...

────୨ৎ────

...Seungkwan drops a chair leg. 

If the water hadn’t already been drained (by you, yesterday, when you figured out how to use Seungkwan’s emergency shutoff valve), the metal leg would have made a small splash and floated in knee-deep waters. Instead, it fell obnoxiously loudly onto Seungkwan’s hardwood floor, ringing throughout the half-empty apartment with full force.

“Ah! Seungkwan!” You jump, nearly dropping your drill, which you had been using to unscrew the legs of the coffee table while retelling what had happened Tuesday afternoon.  

“He was about to confess,” Seungkwan says slowly and robotically, as if caught in a trance. 

You can’t bring yourself to deny it.

“He was about to confess,” he repeats.

Letting out a major sigh, you hop up onto the dining table, tapping it. “You know, we have to dismantle this too.” 

“He was about to confess!” His sudden shout startles you again. “And where the hell is Woozi when we need him?”

“Probably on his way, as he was when you checked 20 minutes ago?” you say dryly. 

“He needs to get a load of this. I was right!” Seungkwan waves the chair leg in the air triumphantly, far too close to the ceiling for comfort. 

“Dude,” you laugh, “you’re going to scratch the ceiling, put it down!”

Seungkwan pouts. “But this is my victory leg.”

“Tell that to Woozi,” you grin. “I think you should show him the leg, first thing.”

He lights up. “Excellent idea.”

All of a sudden, you hear someone knocking on Seungkwan’s door. Jumping off of the table, you skip across the living room down to the narrow main hallway. Once you reach the door, you crack it open a few inches—as far as the chain link will let you. 

“Woozi, you’re so late!” Your face breaks out into a smile upon seeing your friend. 

“My bad,” Jihoon says with a chuckle. 

“`Y’know, Kwannie has a big surprise for you?”

“I can’t wait,” he says with a sigh. “How bad is the damage?”

“See for yourself.” You take down the chain lock and swing the door fully open with a smile, only to falter at the sight of the one person you thought you’d successfully avoided all day. 

Joshua. 

For there he was. 

“Here to help,” he says shyly, hands folded behind his back. 

You give Jihoon a panicked look. 

Jihoon explains, “I was heading out of the office when I caught him in the hallway. He said he was down to help Seungkwan, and I figured the more, the merrier.”

The sight of Joshua standing in Seungkwan’s doorway makes your stomach drop. It’s like all the tension from earlier has come rushing back in, this time amplified by the unexpectedness of his arrival.

You plaster on a polite smile, though you’re sure it looks more like a grimace. “Great,” you manage to choke out, turning on autopilot to lead him and Jihoon down the hallway.

But inside, your thoughts are spiraling. What is he doing here? Does he know you’ve been avoiding him all day? Did Jihoon tell him anything on the way over?

Your chest tightens as you think about Seungkwan waiting in the living room, blissfully unaware of Joshua’s presence. You can already imagine the chaos—Seungkwan, ever the open book, accidentally blurting out something incriminating.

What if he says something about the coffee shop? What if he mentions the way you couldn’t stop talking about Joshua just now?

You’re half a step ahead of them, your mind racing through ways to keep the situation from unraveling, but drawing nothing but blanks. 

But then, out of the corner of your eye, you catch a glimpse of Joshua. He’s walking casually beside Jihoon, his hands tucked into his pockets, a beanie snug on his head. He looks different, less polished than usual, but still effortlessly himself. And for a moment, you falter.

Because despite your panic, there’s a part of you that’s almost glad he’s here. A part of you that can’t help but wonder what it means that he came at all.

When you reach the living room, you come to a hard stop, frantically making a small X with your arms. 

But Seungkwan has his attention focused on that blasted chair leg, and of course, he immediately opens with: “Guess who has the biggest news of all time! The biggest action since the Great Orange Plaza Incident—”

Cue the obnoxiously loud laughter from you. “Joshua’s here! Say hi!” 

Seungkwan turns to the hallway, where, indeed, Joshua is standing. Shocked, he drops the metal leg, and it announces its contact with the ground through a loud clang. 

Wincing at the sound like earlier, you accidentally shift your body backward into someone behind you. 

“Sorry,” you say, hoping it was Jihoon. 

His arms come up to grasp your waist, holding you steady.

“No worries,” comes Joshua’s voice. 

You shut your eyes, somehow both drowning in embarrassment and burning up at the spot where he’s touched you. 

You quickly step out of his hold, trying not to let your flustered state show. “Right,” you say, clearing your throat. “Let’s go now.”

Joshua chuckles softly, his voice like velvet. “그래, 바로 가자.” Right, let’s go straight away.

Seungkwan, thankfully, is too caught up in his shock to notice the moment, though Jihoon raises a single eyebrow in quiet observation.

As you guide Joshua and Jihoon into the living room, you internally rehearse all the ways you can deflect or redirect the inevitable awkwardness. But before you can settle on anything, Joshua is already rolling up his sleeves. You avert your eyes from his biceps.

“What needs moving?” he asks.

You glance around the room, desperate for something to hand off to him. Your eyes land on the dining table—big, heavy, and far too ambitious for one person to handle. Perfect. “The dining table,” you say, trying to sound casual. “We need to get it downstairs to the lobby for pickup.”

Seungkwan perks up. “Oh, that thing’s a beast. Good luck.”

“I’ll help,” Joshua says immediately, a soft smile playing on his lips as he looks at you.

You blink, caught off guard. “Uh, okay. You and Woozi can move it.”

But Jihoon smirks, catching on. “Actually, I just remembered I promised to help Seungkwan with,” his voice trails. “Something else. You’ve got this, right?”

Before you can protest, Jihoon grabs the metal chair leg and joins Seungkwan in the corner, leaving you and Joshua alone with the daunting table.

“Looks like it’s just us,” Joshua says, his teasing smile widening.

You swallow thickly, resigned. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Together, you begin maneuvering the table toward the hallway. It’s heavy and awkward, and you struggle to find a good grip on the edges.

“Here,” Joshua says, dropping his side of the table and moving closer. His hands brush over yours as he adjusts your grip, lingering for a moment longer than necessary. “That should help.”

The contact sends a jolt through you, but you force yourself to focus. “Thanks,” you mumble, your voice barely above a whisper.

By some miracle, the table fits in the elevator, though the tight space forces you and Joshua closer together. You’re much too aware of how little distance there is between you, the faint scent of his cologne making your heart race even faster.

“This reminds me of Monday morning,” Joshua says suddenly, his voice soft.

Your head snaps up to meet his gaze. What is he talking about? The elevator? The coat? Both?

He nods, his expression unreadable. “Yeah. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

Your stomach twists. “What about it?” you ask cautiously.

His eyes searching yours. “I just,” he hesitates for a moment, before continuing. “I feel like we keep dancing around something. Don’t you?”

Your breath catches, and suddenly the space feels even smaller. “What do you mean?”

Joshua steps just a fraction closer, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I mean,” he pauses for a second or two before picking up again. “This. Us. I feel like there’s something you’re not saying. And I’m not sure if I should say it first.”

The elevator dings, announcing your arrival at the lobby, but neither of you moves.

You swallow hard, your heart pounding in your chest. “Shua, I—”

Before you can finish, the doors slide open, and an older woman waiting outside peers in, her curious gaze snapping you both out of the moment.

“Uh, sorry,” you stammer, quickly stepping out with your end of the table.

Joshua follows, but you can feel his eyes on you, his earlier words hanging heavy in the air.

As the two of you set the table down near the designated pickup area, he leans in slightly, his voice low. “This isn’t over.”

Your heart threatens to jump out of your chest, but you force yourself to nod, avoiding his gaze. “Yeah. Okay.”

Even as you head back to Seungkwan’s apartment, your mind is racing with the possibilities of what he might say—and whether you’re ready to hear it.

As you reenter Seungkwan’s apartment, the weight of Joshua’s words hangs like a thick fog in the air. It’s almost suffocating, the way your heart beats erratically at the thought of what he might say next. 

You glance over your shoulder, half-expecting Joshua to be right behind you, but he's still out by the lobby. The sound of Seungkwan and Jihoon’s voices floats down the hallway as they continue their discussion, oblivious to the tension that’s spiraling in your chest.

You step inside, but you can’t shake the feeling that everything is about to change. Joshua’s words—“This isn’t over”—echo in your mind, repeating with every beat of your heart. What did he mean? What does he expect?

“Everything okay?” Seungkwan calls from the living room, looking up with a raised brow as you walk in.

“Yeah,” you chirp, trying to act normal, but your voice comes out too high.

He narrows his eyes. “You sure? You look a little off. Everything go well?” It’s unsaid, but you know there’s a “with Joshua” attached to the end of his sentence.

You force a smile, but it’s shaky at best. “Yeah, the table's gone now.” You can’t tell him. Not yet. Not with the weight of Joshua’s unspoken words still pressing against your chest.

Seungkwan studies you for a moment, his gaze flickering toward the hallway. “I’ll take your word for it. So, you two, huh?”

Your eyes widen involuntarily, and you try to laugh it off. “아니, 아니! 그런거 아니야, it’s really not like that.”

Seungkwan raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying it. “Uh-huh. Sure. Anyway, me and Jihoon are going to go to the bar. Want to come?”

The offer hangs in the air, and you realize, suddenly, that it’s the perfect distraction. You need space from your own thoughts. You need to calm your racing heart. Maybe getting out of here will help.

“I’ll go,” you blurt, before you can second-guess yourself. “Haven’t gone weekday drinking in a while. Let me just grab my bag.”

Seungkwan gives you a knowing look but says nothing more. As you step into the hallway to grab your bag off a high-hanging hook, your mind is still whirling with the unanswered questions about Joshua. 

Walking further down the hallway, you find Seungkwan and Joshua standing near Jihoon. 

Jihoon’s already at the door, his hand on the handle. “Come on, let’s go. I need some drinks in my system after today.”

You nod, attempting to shove your thoughts away for the night. The cool air outside greets you, and the cacophony of the city feels like a welcome distraction. As you make your way to the bar, Seungkwan and Jihoon immediately dive into their usual banter, but your mind is elsewhere. You keep glancing over at Joshua, who seems uncharacteristically quiet tonight, his usually playful energy subdued.

By the time you reach the bar and order drinks, you’re beginning to relax. Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s the fact that you don’t have to think about what’s going on between you and Joshua, but you can’t help but feel like you’re walking a thin line between tension and relief.

But as the night goes on, Seungkwan and Jihoon quickly fall into drunken antics, leaving you and Joshua alone on the quieter side of the bar. The air between you both is thick, like an invisible thread is pulling you closer, yet neither of you dares to speak.

You fiddle with your glass, wondering if you should speak up first. You only have so much courage, though. 

Thankfully, Joshua clears his throat, his voice low. “넌 좀,” he hesitates for a bit, before deciding to call you out, “조용한데?” 

Well, it’s no secret that you’re being quiet. He was, too, at least until now.

You glance up, meeting his gaze for the first time since earlier. His eyes are intense, his lips pulled into that soft, half-smile you know and adore.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier,” you murmur, your voice barely above a whisper. The words hang between you like a dare.

Joshua leans in just slightly, his breath warm against your cheek. “What part?”

Your heart races, but you hold his gaze. “About how this isn’t over?”

He’s quiet for a beat, then smiles—just a little. “I meant what I said.”

And in that moment, you realize you’re in way deeper than you thought.

You swallow hard, feeling the weight of his words settle in your chest, like a stone sinking deep into water. You want to ask him more, to press him, to demand answers, but the words feel trapped in your throat. Instead, you look away, fidgeting with the rim of your glass, your fingers tracing the condensation. The alcohol has started to mellow your nerves, but the tension still hovers in the air between you two, thick and almost palpable.

“You’ve been quiet too,” you manage to say, keeping your voice steady despite the jittery feeling in your stomach. “What’s on your mind?”

Joshua doesn’t answer right away, his gaze flickering toward the noisy group in the corner where Seungkwan and Jihoon are laughing too loudly, practically leaning on each other for support. The laughter echoes in the background, a sharp contrast to the quiet bubble that has formed around you and Joshua. 

It’s the kind of moment that feels too intimate, too close to the edge of something that could change everything.

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and his voice is soft, thoughtful. “I guess I’m trying to figure out if you’re really as clueless as you act, or if you’re just pretending.” His eyes meet yours, and there's something almost vulnerable in his gaze, a flicker of hesitation that’s rare for him.

You feel your heart skip a beat, caught off guard by the question. “Clueless?” You repeat, the word tasting strange on your tongue. “I’m not clueless.”

“그래? Are you sure about that?” he asks, his smile barely there, his tone teasing but with an edge of something else—something deeper.

You narrow your eyes, a little irritated by how easily he toys with you. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, and then immediately regret it. It sounds too defensive, too much like you’re trying to cover something up.

Joshua leans in slightly, his expression serious now, no longer playful. “I think you do. I think you’re scared.” His voice drops, barely above a whisper, but it lands like a truth you can’t deny. “You’re scared of what might happen if you admit what you feel.”

Your breath catches in your throat. The world feels like it slows down, the noise of the bar fading into the background as his words settle in your mind. The truth in them stings, and you don’t know how to respond. 

He’s right, but you don’t want to admit it. 

Not yet. 

Not to him.

Before you can say anything, Seungkwan stumbles over, dragging Jihoon along with him. “You two are too quiet,” Seungkwan says with a grin, clearly tipsy. “What’s going on here? Trying to plot against us?”

Joshua straightens up quickly, his smile returning to its usual playful, disarming self. “Nothing like that, we were just talking,” he replies, his voice smooth and easy.

You take a deep breath, trying to push the moment away, but the tension still lingers in your chest. You force a smile, though it feels weak. “Yeah, just talking.”

Jihoon gives you both a sideways look, too drunk to notice the underlying current between you and Joshua. “You two really are something, huh?”

Seungkwan laughs, waving a hand as if dismissing Jihoon’s comment. “Yeah, yeah, don’t mind them. They’re just having a little ‘moment,’” he says, emphasizing the last word with air quotes.

You don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Contrary to Seungkwan’s comment, the moment’s long gone now, robbed by the chaos of their antics. But you can’t shake the feeling that something has shifted, that you and Joshua are standing on the edge of something—something both terrifying and irresistible.

And for the first time, you decide that you’re ready to see where it leads.

────୨ৎ──── Thursday

You wake up on Thursday with a start, the events from last night already feeling faraway. Joshua had dropped you off, and you had spent most of the night restlessly thinking of him, going over how to confess.  

The bright morning light filters through the blinds, causing you to squint at the time on your alarm clock. It’s much earlier than you’d usually get up. You fight the urge to go back to sleep.

With resolve, you push yourself up off your bed and run through your morning routine with extra care. And by the time your last alarm rings, you’re ready to tell him. 

You walk over to the front door, waiting for the telltale signs of movement coming from the apartment next door. Only, you hear nothing. Not even footsteps shuffling around. 

Your elevator ride is silent. Your bus ride is silent. 

Joshua had left before you’d even woken up—and you’d woken up pretty damn early—and his absence only made you more aware of the pressing silence between the two of you. 

When you reach your cubicle, your eyes graze over the desk repeatedly, finding something is wrong.

“Hey, what’s gotten into you?” Jihoon asks from the cubicle next to you.

“Nothing.” Everything. 

You stare at the spot where Joshua puts a cup of coffee from the cafe next door every day. It’s empty. 

“설마,” you whisper. No way. Did he decide to drop you because you didn’t answer him? But what else could explain his radio silence? You haven’t gone to work alone in over a month. 

“설마 what?” Seungkwan asks, dropping into his office chair to the left of you at 9 on the dot.

When you don’t answer, he asks Jihoon, “What’s going on over here?”

Jihoon shrugs. “Probably drama with You Know Who.”

“Oh,” he says, and the two of them drop it. 

Before you know it, the clock has hit 5pm, and you’ve spent the entire workday soullessly typing on your keyboard, lifting your head up every time you’ve seen movement in the room. Only, the man you were looking for was nowhere to be seen. 

You miss the stolen glances and bright smiles you used to exchange. The silence had been stifling. You really did want to talk to him, to clear the air today, but he just never showed. Heart sinking, you pack up your bag and put on your coat. You stall for a moment remembering how he’d given you his coat just a few days prior. Did he really decide to give up because you weren’t responding well?

The bus ride back to your apartment is silent, but your head is full of speculative thoughts. When the driver announces your stop, your heart settles into a newfound determination. 

Maybe he could let go, but you can’t. You won’t let him go.

“I’ll just barge in! Say my piece, then let him talk,” you mumble under your breath, pushing the lobby doors open.

Is it a good plan? You aren’t sure, but hopefully he’d forgive you for being hesitant for so long. You honestly don’t know how he did it—how he was able to stand your wishy-washiness?

Eyes tracing the ground, you make a beeline for the elevator, continuing your whispers. “And what am I going to say? God, I need a good opening line. Something like, please please take me back? Actually, we were never dating, so I guess that doesn’t make sense. Please please like me back? Is that too desperate? Well, I am desperate, so—”

Out of the corner, you see the elevator beginning to close.

“Hold the doors, please!” you shout, running as fast as you can. Speed is of the essence, so you can confront him as soon as possible.

You make it across half the lobby in record time, panting as you enter the elevator. 

“Thank,” you say in between breaths, hands on your knees, “you—”

When you look up, your heart stops.

Joshua Hong. Dressed dapper in an all black suit and carrying, of all things, a briefcase?

“Shua?” you say breathlessly, immediately straightening.

Joshua looks down, his usual calm expression faltering for just a second when he sees you out of breath. For a moment, the two of you simply stand there in silence, the elevator’s gentle hum filling the space between you.

“Where were you?” you ask, your voice quieter than you'd intended, a hint of nervousness creeping in despite your earlier determination.

Joshua clears his throat, a slight blush creeping onto his cheeks. “Director Chun had me accompany him to the Lee meeting. You?” he asks, his gaze softening as he watches you catch your breath.

Your mouth suddenly feels dry. The reality of the situation hits you hard. 

This was it. 

This was the moment. 

But now that you’re face to face with him, you’re unsure of what to say. You should’ve prepared a real speech, practiced your words properly. Instead, the dreaded silence lingers.

“I,” your voice trails off. “I just—” You let out a shaky breath, then shake your head as if to clear the mess of thoughts swirling inside. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About things. About us.”

Joshua tilts his head slightly, a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. “About us?”

You nod, trying to steady your breath. The elevator seems to be going slower than usual, as if the universe itself is giving you more time to process, to speak. You feel a strange mix of nerves and determination pushing you forward.

“I didn’t handle things right. I was,” you pause for a moment, carefully choosing your next words. “Unsure. Confused. And I thought maybe if I stayed quiet, I’d be able to ignore everything. But I can’t,” you say, the words finally coming out in a rush. “I can’t ignore you. I don’t want to.”

Joshua’s eyes soften, his posture shifting, his briefcase clutched tightly in his hands. “You’re not the only one who’s been confused,” he admits, his voice low, almost vulnerable. “I didn’t know what to do either, but I couldn’t let you slip away without at least trying. I care about you. A lot.”

The elevator jerks suddenly, and you both look up in surprise as the lights flicker. A loud noise rings through the space, and with a groan, the elevator comes to an abrupt halt. You both freeze, and your heart jumps into your throat.

“Shit,” you gasp, instinctively taking a step back from the elevator doors, but your foot catches in a brief moment of panic, and before you know it, you’re pulled toward Joshua.

He catches you effortlessly, his hand impossibly warm at your back, steadying you as you stumble. “괜찮아?” His voice is gentle but concerned. 

You can’t help but laugh nervously, shaking your head. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

For a moment, the two of you simply stand there, him holding you in his arms, your heart still racing from the shock. Then you both realize the situation. No Wi-Fi. No way to call for help. Just the two of you, stuck in this tiny box, the tension thick in the air. The sound of your heavy breathing fills the silence as the elevator remains motionless.

Joshua clears his throat, his voice teasing again. “Well, if you think about it, this isn’t that new.”

In response, you lightly laugh, thinking back to all the times throughout the week where he's kept you steady. The you of Monday morning never would have thought you’d be in this position now, not to mention the you of two months ago.

You glance up at him, mind still racing. The unexpected turn of events had thrust you into a corner. And yet, in some strange way, you felt it was just the kind of moment the two of you needed. 

Alone. 

No distractions. 

No running away.

“Well, at least we have some time to talk now, huh?” you say with a small, tentative smile.

Joshua meets your gaze, his eyes full of understanding. “Yeah. Looks like we do.”

And for the first time in days, the silence doesn’t feel suffocating. Instead, it feels like an opportunity, a moment to finally clear the air.

────୨ৎ──── Friday

You’ve been in the elevator for hours, but it doesn’t feel like it. Somehow, conversation just flows.

“I liked you first,” you find yourself saying, voice barely above a whisper as you rest your head on his shoulder.

“그래?” comes Joshua’s soft reply, so close that you can feel the vibrations in his chest. Really? 

You can’t believe he even has to ask. Yes, really. You were so obvious about it. So affected by him that you couldn’t even look at the stuffed bunny he’d gotten you on Sunday, reminded of his soft, kind eyes. 

So you nod, “Mm-hm.” 

Your eyes flutter shut for a moment, your body still adjusting to the peaceful rhythm of being near him. You’d been thinking about this for the longest time, but now it feels so natural, so certain, and you can’t help but regret all the time you’d spent secretly pining over him. God, you’d even asked him to stop being so nice to you out of pure desperation. Who does that?

“Since when?” His voice is smooth, warm, like a soft melody, and you can’t help but feel drowsy with the way it lulls you into comfort.

You pause, eyes drifting to the floor of the elevator as you try to gather your thoughts. “Since when?” you repeat, the memory taking you back.

It was a chaotic day, the kind of day where everything felt so loud and full of people. You were at that welcome party for the new transfer—Joshua—but it had been too overwhelming. So, you’d slipped away, finding solace in the quiet of the cafe next door. You’d gotten a coffee to-go, and you sat outside on a bench, letting the world pass you by as you listened to your audiobook. That was your kind of perfect Saturday.

You never saw him that day.

But you did see him a week later, in the hallway of your apartment building. You’d just locked your door, ready to head out when you noticed the man next door fumbling with his own keys. His moving process had seemed slow, but that day, you finally got to exchange quick introductions before stepping into the elevator together. And somehow, in that brief exchange, you found yourself already falling, the way his laugh filled the space between you, the way you both laughed at the coincidences stacking up—the apartment, the floor, the building, the department. It was electric, the start of something special. 

You glance up at him now, still leaning against his shoulder. “When we first met, in the hallway,” you finally say, voice soft.

Joshua smiles, a glint of fondness in his eyes. “That was when we first met?”

You furrow your brows, confused. “Wasn’t it?”

Joshua laughs quietly, the sound like a comforting hum in the otherwise still elevator. “I remember differently,” he says, poking your cheek gently.

You tilt your head. “If not the hallway, what was it?”

“The first day I came here, sweets,” he says, his fingers brushing a lock of your hair from your face.

Your mind races, wondering if you’ve forgotten an important memory. “But we didn’t meet, did we?”

Joshua hums, the kind of hum that carries a story behind it. “I guess you didn’t see me, but I saw you.”

You blink, unsure if you heard him right. “When?”

He leans back slightly, eyes distant as if replaying the scene in his head. “I remember being bombarded by all the office workers. God, it was so chaotic. I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out, so I said some BS excuse about needing a drink.” He chuckles softly, then his expression shifts, softer now. “I went to the drink station by the window, grabbed whatever they had, and just stared out. I was wondering how long I could hide before it was socially acceptable to go home, when I saw you.”

You shift, intrigued by his words.

“You sat outside on the bench. You weren’t even aware of the crowd inside, just focused on,” he pauses, thinking of the right word, before continuing, “Existing? Listening to something, I guess. I watched you for a while. You were so still, so peaceful in the middle of all that noise. It made me stop and think. I’ve never really done that before. I’ve always been in ‘go, go, go’ mode. But there you were, just being, and I don’t know. I think that’s when I started thinking about you.”

His words settle over you like a blanket, warm and unexpected.

“I decided then to keep giving you coffee after that,” Joshua adds with a shrug. “You’re my elevator to my small enlightenment, if you will. You made me slow down, sweets.”

At that, your heart flutters in your chest. “I never knew,” you murmur. “I thought you were just nice to everyone. All this time, you’ve been looking at me like I’ve been looking at you.”

Joshua smiles softly, his fingers brushing against yours. “I’ve been thinking about you for a lot longer than you’ve been thinking of me.”

“Only a week!” you protest. 

Joshua’s eyes shine as he looks at you, crinkling into crescents. His hands steadily clasp yours, thumb rubbing against the back of your left hand. “Still think I’m too nice?”

“No,” you say, burying your face in his chest. “Keep being nice to me.”

When the elevator finally dings, and you can hear firefighters shouting things past the doors, it’s a few minutes past 12am. But neither of you moves, content in making up for lost time late into the night. 

Masterlist

Author's Note: yes they were stuck in an elevator for like 7 hours from thurs after work to midnight, 내 마음이야

Disclaimer: nothing i write is representative of how svt acts off camera, take their names as stand-ins for oc's!!

Taglist: @syluslittlecrows - @junplusone

[seungcheorry]

thinking about joshua bonding with his daughter through making bracelets together.

the living room is a war zone, with tiny little colorful beads of letters and numbers all over the floor, and a little bit bigger ones in shapes such as flowers, butterflies, hearts, and stars.

"i need a V, have you seen any?", his daughter says, pouting. "i can't seem to find it."

"um, let me check", joshua stops making his own bracelet - his daughter's name in lilac tones, adorned with stars and moons - to look around.

both joshua's and the girl's tiny hands start to play with the beads, turning them around to find the needed V letter.

"oh, here it is!", he exclaims with a smile. "but is orange colored, is it okay?"

"yeah, it's fine", the girl takes the bead from her father's hand. "thank you, dad."

and they go back to silently making the bracelets, humming a song and sometimes making comments when they can't find the beads they need. it's peaceful, and it warms joshua's heart whenever he makes his little girl laugh.

after a while, when joshua has already made three bracelets - one for him, one for his daughter, and one for you -, the girl finally beams with happiness.

"okay, i'm done!"

she grabs joshua's wrist, carefully sliding the bracelet on it. her hands clasp together in anticipation, the most beautiful proud smile on her lips; and when joshua reads what is written on the bracelet, he proudly smiles too

"svt right here", he says out loud, ignoring how the girl misspelled 'right' as 'rihgt' because, in truth, it only made the gift more special. "i love it, baby!"

"do you think uncle seokmin will like one too? i could do it for his birthday!"

joshua smiles, pulling his daughter closer. "we can think of something else to give him, i like the idea of being the only one who has one of this."

the daughter laughs and nods. "yeah, okay."

[fruithoughts]

PRINCESS TREATMENT

‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤh. joshua x fem!reader  ⪩⪨

01.ㅤۗㅤ𝙼ember .  ⎯⎯⎯  joshua.

02.ㅤۗㅤ𝙲𝚆 .  ⎯⎯⎯ multiple pet names, possessive thoughts, mentions of blowjobs(m.) and sex, just a very gentle guy who loves his girl more than anything.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua whose instagram is filled to the brim with pictures of his beautiful girl, sometimes he forgets to tag you but it’s okay because it takes no sherlock holmes to figure out your username since he only follows your account and a naruto fanpage. 

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who wants you to meet his parents in less than a month into the relationship, it’s extremely important to him to make it as clear as possible that he is serious about you, leaves no room for overthinking at all, always a step ahead of you in the “would you still love me if i was a worm?” department, the best boy indeed. 

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who would rather take a bullet than let you pay for literally anything, because how dare you even suggest paying for your own things? as if you don’t know the only reason he works so hard it’s exactly so he can pamper you endlessly? the absolute nerve of you, better get on your knees and start apologizing.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who is the sassiest and most dramatic guy you’ve ever been with, but can not for the life of him handle the thought of you doing any work at all, in every aspect, which, ironically, sometimes makes you work even harder to get what you want.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who makes it the world’s most difficult challenge to accept receiving head from you for the first time, he enjoys being the one doing all of the work to make you feel good, he just couldn’t see how blowing him off would please you at all so he kept denying(while completely ignoring the tent forming rapidly in his grey sweatpants) until you begged too sweetly, so softly, looking at him with so much adoration and love, like you wanted nothing more than to please him, he could have finished right there but instead he shook his head and sat down in the bed, ready to give his princess anything she could ever want, just like he promised he would! even if what she wanted was to kneel in front of him and try to fit his thick cock into her little mouth for a while.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who uses every opportunity that stumbles across his way to show off his huge arms, it’s a win-win scenario, he gets to feel all hot and manly and you get to hold onto your boyfriend’s strong biceps everywhere you go and get carried on bride style after a night out that, honestly, didn’t even leave you that drunk, but since he offered to carry you, who would ever say no?

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who adores your nails and is always super excited to see the results of your nail appointments, asks for pictures during the whole process, sends you food when it’s taking too long, and finally when the nails are done, he’s there to pick you up in his shiny car, more than ready to do the last step of your nail day, which is putting them to the test, the scratch test. 

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who just can’t help but adore when you leave him all marked up, he loves it, and how can you blame him? was he supposed to be normal about having proof straight on his body of just how good he made you feel last night? how could you even consider he'd do such a thing? this man is not normal about you in general. 

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who knows your entire wardrobe like the back of his hand, half of it because he bought it, the other half because of how often he’s watching you, definitely a “i look at you more often than you think” kinda guy. he’s very proud of just how well he knows his baby.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who remembers all of your food preferences and orders, knows all of your allergies, all of your icks and all of your friend’s gossips because he’s just so well behaved! he won't tell anyone, he never would! he's your joshy! you can trust him to keep all of your secrets, forever.

⪩⪨ boyfriend!joshua who’s very open about the fact that he wants to marry you, live the rest of your lives together, maybe with a kid if you’re into that, maybe just dogs if that’s better for you, he got his own wishes when it comes to creating a family, but at the end of the day; this man has one priority, and she has a name. whatever is best for you, it’s the best for him.

⪩⪨ husband!joshua who no matter how long it has passed since you got married, has not lost even a little bit of his obsession with you. his precious flower, his cute little thing, his darling, his sweet girl, that’s all you’ll ever be to him, all his to love and protect, forever.

[nonranghaes]

"i have a confession." joshua's fingers are laced with your own now, his jacket slung over one shoulder as he walks with you down the street. "and... it's really, really dumb."

you look up with a hum. "yeah? how dumb are we talkin'?"

"oh, super dumb," but he's smiling all the same, a little flustered. "so... back when we first started dating... i told you i was scared of horror movies."

something about his bashful smile piques your interest. this can only go one of two ways. "and?"

"i'm not," he chuckles. "i just really, really wanted to hold your hand. but when i brought up horror movies and you went off about how much you loved them... it kinda ruined my plan to try and tell you that you could hold my hand if you're scared. so... i lied."

slowly, it all sinks in. a few months ago, the first few dates the two of you had were mainly comprised of going out to see whatever horror movie was in theaters, new or old being shown again, and then a meal afterward. but he'd brought up the subject casually the first time you were getting coffee together, though, and when you immediately leapt onto the topic and started gushing, he'd matched your enthusiasm with a blushing 'but i still get scared of them.' you'd just smiled and offered to hold his hand if he got scared, hopeful that he'd be just as happy at the idea of it. but... he lied just to still get the chance to hold your hand?

you just laugh, and squeeze his hand a little tighter.

"don't laugh!" he says, but he's laughing, too. "every time i talk to jeonghan or cheol, they keep asking when i'm gonna come clean!"

"you're adorable," you say, stopping just to lean in and kiss his cheek. "you don't need an excuse to hold my hand, silly."

he flexes his fingers just a little, regaining a hold on your hand as he presses his palm firmly against your own. but you see the way he goes shy now, just for a moment over his own silly lie. "i'll keep that in mind, then."

[hoshifighting]

Can you pleaseeee do staff joshua?

staff!joshua

WARNINGS: smut, figurine malfuncion, getting caught fingering, mentions of penetrative sex, limping after sex, dirty talk.

staff!joshua who was basically an angel in a designer hoodie, swooping in like he was born to save the day. he’d been recommended by an artist friend who was finally leaving the chaos of tour life behind, and, honestly, you’d had your doubts. you weren’t looking for another “helpful” stranger who’d end up tangled in the cables backstage or handing you the wrong mic.

you remember him showing up that first day, eyes bright and wide like he was taking in every damn inch of the chaos with some kinda awe. it was… annoying, actually, because who the hell has that much enthusiasm? the whole team couldn’t stop talking about him, whispering like he was some savior sent from above. you’d watch from across the dressing room, pretending not to notice, like, “oh sure, he’s cute or whatever,” but then he’d catch your eye and smile.

staff!joshua who somehow found himself in the middle of the most last-minute disaster ever. the accessories box—the one holding all your necklaces, rings, and that one choker that practically defines your stage look—got left at the hotel across town, hours away. designers scrambling, panic in the air, your manager about to lose it. you’re standing there, just praying that the team doesn’t fully spiral, and then joshua steps in, calm as you like. he asks for a spare box of beads, like it’s no big deal.

he actually sits on the floor, in the mddle of the dressing room, legs crossed like he’s chilling at some park, and starts putting together these bracelets. fast. you remember being half-stunned, watching him loop bead after bead with ridiculous speed, like he’s been doing it his whole life. and they weren’t just some random bracelets either—they actually looked good. he handed them over, “here you go, should work in a pinch.” like, who does that?

staff!joshua who ended up with half the crew wanting to know where he learned to make accessories like that, and he just shrugged, all humble, “oh, just a thing i used to do in high school.” as if that made sense.

next show, next country, you look out and see rows and rows of fans with identical bracelets. like, those beads? they’ve become a thing. suddenly, everyone wants one, and your socials are blowing up with people asking where they can get cute and colorful bracelets. you’d joked with him after, “might as well start selling these on the merch table,” and he’d laughed, soft and shy, scratching the back of his neck like he wasn’t used to the attention.

staff!joshua who, honestly, makes you wonder if he’s real, he’s always got everything covered, it’s late nights and early mornings, but somehow, he’s always there, making sure you have your coffee just the way you like it, that your schedule isn’t packed to the point of breaking. he’s the one who keeps track of your favorite snacks and stashes them in your backpack, knowing you’ll dig around for them at some ungodly hour.

staff!joshua who insists on walks when there’s downtime to make you less tense, taking you through narrow city streets, where he points out little cafes he researched beforehand, claiming it was just “a lucky find.” he laughs off your suspicions, saying, “it’s just a coincidence,” but you know he’s been studying maps like a tour guide, making sure you get to see more than just hotel lobbies and dressing rooms. he’ll hold your things so you can snap photos or just take in the sights, occasionally stepping back to give you a moment. always there, hovering just close enough to shield you if a crowd forms or if you need a break from everything.

staff!joshua who’s not just watching out for you but keeping an eye on every single person who shows up at airports or outside venues. he scans the crowd with that gentle look in his eyes, like he’s really seeing each one of them, making sure no one’s fainting or overheating. if he notices someone looking a bit off, he doesn’t hesitate, signaling to security or even paramedics to help them out, all while giving them this reassuring smile that somehow calms them down.

staff!joshua who knows when fans come up to you during your downtime and sees that look in your eyes, the tiny hesitation. he’ll lean over, voice soft, asking, “do you want to?” like it’s totally up to you, and it’s cool either way. if you’re not feeling it, he’s got the most polite, warm way of explaining, “i’m so sorry, but it’s y/n’s break right now.” no harshness, no impatience—just enough kindness that no one feels brushed off. but if you nod and say yes, he’s right there, practically crouching to make sure the angles are perfect, even telling the fan how to hold the camera for the best lighting. he gets the shots that’ll probably be framed on some bedroom wall or locked screens forever.

staff!joshua who goes from quietly fussing over your needs to casually slipping into a role that makes every fan interaction feel like the best one of their life. he’s got this way of making them feel comfortable, throwing in a gentle “don’t be nervous,” or even laughing softly to ease the anxiety.

staff!joshua who, without you even realizing it, has gone from that fresh-faced kid with the soft smile to a full-on bodyguard. he’s bulked up over time, muscles straining against the sleeves of his shirts, and when he’s guiding you through a crowded airport or weaving through backstage chaos, you catch more than a few fans sneaking glances his way. he doesn’t seem to notice—or maybe he does, but he brushes it off.

staff!joshua who makes it a point to be in the hotel gym at whatever strange hour you decide to work out. he’s on his own schedule, of course, but he’s catching your attention even mid-workout. he doesn’t say much about it, but you know he’s thinking about your safety, wanting to be strong enough to keep you shielded with his... big chest.

staff!joshua who tries to stay professional when your hand naturally drifts to his arm. it’s like a habit now; his biceps have become your security blanket, something to hold onto when you’re being rushed through a crowd or stepping out of a car in sky-high heels. he’ll give you a quiet amused look, lips pressing together like he’s trying not to smile, but he never says anything about it.

staff!joshua who feels the burn of your touch whenever you steady yourself by pressing your hand against his muscular chest. maybe it’s to fix a shoe strap or straighten your skirt, his breath hitches every time, it’s like a test of his equilibrium, and you can tell he’s struggling to keep himself in check, especially when he catches your smirk.

staff!joshua who’s always one step ahead, guiding you with a gentle but firm hand on the small of your back when you’re navigating a crowded room.

staff!joshua who instinctively stands between you and the flash of cameras, positioning himself just enough to cover you from the harsh lights and endless stares. he doesn’t need to ask; he just knows when to move, leaning close “just stay behind me”

staff!joshua who never complains when you tug at his sleeve for attention, even if it’s the fifth time that hour. attentive look, ready to listen to whatever you need, whether it’s fixing a wardrobe mishap or finding the perfect hiding spot when the crowds get overwhelming.

staff!joshua who’s confused when you grab him and pull him into the wardrobe corner, pointing at the zipper like it’s some life-or-death situation. his face goes a little pink as he takes in the view—your tits all squished up, struggling against the fabric, and his hands practically itching to fix it. “are you sure?” he mumbles, glancing from you to the zipper and back, but there’s no time to pause; you’re due on stage any second.

staff!joshua who keeps his eyes fixed on that zipper, swallowing hard as he tries to get a grip on himself and on the stubborn thing trapping you. his fingers brush against your skin, and you feel him tense up, his breath quickening just slightly. he’s so close you can smell his cologne, fresh and warm, mixing with the backstage chaos, and it’s making it way harder for you to focus on anything else. “just… stay still..” he mutters, his voice a little shaky.

staff!joshua who practically loses it when the stylist finally throws up her hands and says, “just rip it off, joshua! we don’t have time.” his eyes go wide, panic flickering over his face, but then he nods, taking a deep breath. he plants his hands on either side of the fabric, his biceps flexing under his shirt as he grabs hold and gives one solid yank. there’s a loud rrrriiip, and the zipper splits apart, fabric tearing away like it’s nothing under his grip.

staff!joshua who is definitely not prepared for the way the fabric slips, your tits practically jumping in his face, leaving him blinking, wide-eyed, desperately trying to look anywhere else while you scramble to pull on your next outfit. he’s frozen for a second, like he’s processing what just happened, then quickly steps back.

staff!joshua who always insists on separate rooms whenever you’re on tour, like it’s some line in the sand he won’t cross, because he’s all about “boundaries.” but thank god for that, honestly, because the last thing you need is him realizing just how often your mind wanders to him in the quiet of your room after a show, the adrenaline still in your veins. nights like that, when you’re alone and all you can think about is the way he’s looked at you backstage, muscles tense as he keeps everything under control—never fails on making you horny.

staff!joshua who doesn’t know how many times you’ve slipped into your bed and imagined him there with you, his big hands choking you, slapping your face, his mouth kissing you, sucking you, that quiet and respectful control of his breaking just for you. you let yourself get lost in the thought of him, and in the safety of your own room, you give in to all those bottled-up feelings, whispering his name under your breath, touching yourself, feeling your pulse race as you imagine him actually being there.

staff!joshua who has no clue that some nights, you’re too far gone to even muffle the sounds you make, pressing a hand to your mouth as you cum, breathy little sighs slipping out, like he’s actually there. you always tell yourself you’ll be quieter next time, but every show seems to make it worse, every touch from him leaving a trail of him that lasts long after he’s gone.

staff!joshua who probably wouldn’t know what to do if he ever caught you like that—caught you in the middle of one of those late-night moments, your head thrown back, his name slipping from your lips, no shame. the thought alone is almost too much to handle, but you keep going back to it, night after night, letting yourself imagine just a little more.

staff!joshua who, one night, knocks on your door to deliver something you left behind in the venue dressing room, completely oblivious to the fact that you’re in there, already lost in thoughts of him. you dont even hear the knock over the sounds of your own pussy, and you don’t realize he’s actually come in, quietly calling your name, until you see his shadow across the wall.

staff!joshua who stands there frozen for a second, just staring, his fingers fumbling with the doorknob like he’s trying to make a quick exit but forgot how doors work.

when he finally remembers to turn the handle, ends up pulling it the wrong way, the door making this awkward little squeak as he fumbles to open it again. he’s all flushed and stuttering out apologies, but he’s rooted in place, eyes darting back to you like he’s trying to process what he just walked in on and failing miserably.

your heart its almost jumping from your chest, but you let the duvet slip just a little, the fabric falling away from your legs, exposing the curve of your thigh, the soft line of your hip. his eyes follow it, widening just slightly, his fingers gripping the door handle even tighter.

staff!joshua who, when you tug his wrist gently, doesn’t resist, he lets you pull him closer until he sits by your side, as you whine “joshua… come here,” in that low, inviting way, and something shines in his eyes, like you’ve struck a nerve he’s tried so hard to keep hidden.

staff!joshua who finally presses his lips to your neck, his hand moves up your thigh, fingers fastly pushing the duvet away, leaving you naked. when he finally slides his hand over you, through your damp folds, the feel of his fingers brushing your swollen clit, making your nipples harden.

his thumb presses the clit savoring the reaction he’s getting from you. you can tell he’s testing every little gesture, finding what makes you pant, what makes your hips move toward him.

staff!joshua who presses his fingers in, slipping past the wet folds, to the gummy walls, the first slide inside so warm, so deep, and you let out a moan—that you don't have to hold anymore, afraid that he would hear from the next room—your pussy already clenching around him. he groans softly, leaning over you, his arm flexing as he presses deeper, his other hand coming up to grip one of your wrist up your head, holding you steady as his fingers curl impossibly tight. you can feel the tension in him, the restraint, but the way his fingers move, lets you know he’s not holding back with his touch, at least.

“like that?” he asks, and you nod, swallowing down a shaky breath as he picks up the pace.

staff!joshua who starts to move his fingers a little deeper, making a funny wet sound, until you’re gripping the duvet, your head tipping back.

staff!joshua who, lets out a low chuckle everytime you moan a little louder. “what was that hm? a moan? for me? tell me..”

staff!joshua when he notices you squirming under his touch, about to cum he teases more “so needy... you don’t even have to say it.” he pauses, letting the fingers sink in, as you feel his other hand come up to grip your thigh, holding you as he continues. “what would they all say if they saw you right now?” he muses. “you know, you make it so hard for me to be professional sometimes.”

staff!joshua who, when he notices you clenching your fists in the duvet, laughs softly, a low, wicked sound. “go on,” he whispers, his fingers curling just right. “let me hear everything.”

staff!joshua that after every single time you thought you’d caught your breath, would lean down, “not done yet, sweetheart,” before sending you spiraling right back. destroying your poor swollen cunt after cumming multiple times..

staff!joshua next morning, is already at the hotel breakfast with the crew, sitting perfectly, like he didn’t just ruin you the night before. he watches you walk in, eyes glinting as he sees the way you’re moving—trying to walk normally, but the subtle limp gives it all away.

staff!joshua who has the audacity to pat the empty chair next to him, tilting his head with an innocent expression as if he’s not the reason you’re struggling to walk. “sleep well?�� he asks, but you know he's holding back a laugh. you shoot him a glare, but he just raises an eyebro.

staff!joshua who leans in, voice quiet enough that only you can hear, and whispers, “if you need me to help you up to your room after this, just say the word,” his fingers brush against your knee under the table, so subtle that no one else would notice, but it’s enough to remind you of every. single. thing. he did to you last night.

staff!joshua who has no problem keeping that perfect poker face as the morning goes on, answering questions, making small talk with the crew, all while casting you the occasional glance. every time he catches you shifting in your seat, trying to get comfortable, he hides a smirk behind his coffee mug, thoroughly enjoying the sight of you flustered and sore, his own private victory.

[kittyhui]

~ the ways seventeen kiss/makeout~

Seungcheol - come onnnn. he’s definitely the best kisser in seventeen. his hand placement when he plays the paper passing game. he definitely is a hard kisser; knocks the breath out of whoever he’s kissing. type to push someone against a table or wall just to get closer and kiss deeper.. addicting

Jeonghan - okay hes one of my biases so im a bit biased but hes such a tease, i just know he has experience. he has such natural ‘fuck me’ eyes. he would stare you down and reduce you into a flustered puddle and kiss you so good. he’s a soft kisser unlike cheol tho. pets ur hair and holds your waist so softly. A LOT OF TONGUE

Shua - another tease. likes u underneath him (lowkey has a sizekink oops) he will practically eat your lips up. he hands wander alot and he groans oml. hes not too messy but he’s a nipper. he loves bitting yours lips and having his lips ghost yours so you chase after them. overall, he’s a meany

Jun - i think hes awkward at first but the moment he gets into it its so passionate and heated. hes the type to smile into a kiss and giggle. his lips just look very soft and he probably would need someone to initiate the kiss first but after that.. god. he get really into it and could kiss for a long time so energetic hes a loud kisser tho, will whine and groan into your lips because you just taste and feel so nice.

hoshi - he’s so messy. he loves to be underneath cuz he just gets so overwhelmed when kissing and will need you to take the lead. he loves kissing he will practically make out with you any chance he gets and with no shame at all. he love the feeling of your lips on his, especially when you’re wearing sticky lip gloss.. he loves that he can see the faint shimmer on his lips afterwards but to the dismay of the makeup team on schedule days

Wonwoo - he likes to kiss slow and passionate. his “quick” kisses before he leaves the house always have an air of sultry-ness and it leaves you wanting more even though he just wants to kiss you goodbye innocently. whenever you’re making out with wonu he’ll either have you in his lap or will have you pinned down, one of his hands on your waist and the other cradling your cheek, and he’ll kiss every part of your body, saying how much he missed you and that he loves the way you make him feel. he doesnt like long makeout sessions tho.

Jihoon - He’s definitely not the most experienced but he definitely knows what he’s doing. he’d have you straddle his lap, hands running up and down your back, sending chills down your spine. he also has massive “fuck me” eyes and his cheeks always look so flushed even before you do anything. he lets you initiate, letting your lips catch on his, pulling you closer and kissing you deeper. his tongue game is unmatched, he’ll have you gasping for air. if he’s making out with you.. hes making out with you. he will be doing everything in his power to get you riled up. calls you pet names like ‘pretty’ & ‘baby’

Minghao - god… hes so dominant yet so passionate. you’ll want more from him but patience is key with minghao and he’ll kiss you how he likes. he know how to work his tongue in your mouth and will just lead you so well. kissing like this is almost always foreplay. he loves being passionate like this with his lovers. also his lips are just.. so soft and plump. perfect for kissing

mingyu - a big puppy. he is practically always begging for kisses, leaning on you and holding you waist, pouting for your attention and most importantly, your lips. kiss him for longer than 10 seconds and he’s practically humping your legs and whining for more. hes so messy and so much tongue. will suck on your tongue freak makeout sessions always end with him cumming in his pants..

Dokyeom - this baby. he’s such a good kisser god but hes so messy. he needs to be led cuz he just gets so lost and overwhelmed. he bites lips alot and he kisses so wet. a big puppy really. has to stop every so often during makeout sessions cuz he just cant handle it all at once :( i just want to kiss him dumb oml

Seungkwan - type to kiss you stupid and then get shy afterwards. if kwan wanted to kiss you he’d act so sly about it; bringing your hand up to his lips, kissing each finger before kissing your shoulder and neck. hes a tease aswell. he gets addicted to kissing 100% and he will kiss every part of you before finally getting to your lips; pecking them slowly. his lips are so soft and he loves to suck on the other’s bottom lip..

Vernon - unpopular opinion but vernon is so subby. he is also a pillow prince.. he will not do any work when kissing/making out; you have to initiate everything. its not tiring though cuz his big brown eyes when he’s asking for a kiss are hypnotic. he is so soft when kissing, lips chasing yours when you remove your lips. he’s pretty quiet when making out but he will rut against you and is another cum in his pants type LOL

Dino - he’s so good. another one who needs to be led. no tongue or anything. he likes to peck alot, longer kisses are not for him. he will make you so needy with the short kisses, traveling up and down your neck. his hands always rest on your nape and kind of massages it. not too messy but he loves it when you bite his lip. hes a bit freaky sometimes….

a/n: finally a ot13 post LMAOOOO

this isn’t grammar checked so sorryyyty

[straylightdream]

I didn’t plan it

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: husband! joshua hong x afb! reader

sometimes you don’t fully plan on things happening. something little slip ups are supposed to happen.

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞(𝐬): established relationship, romance, fluff

𝐚𝐮(𝐬): nonidol

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.6k

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: angst?, unplanned pregnancy, crying, self doubt

𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: unprotected sex, breeding kink, sex at a party (it’s in a bathroom and absolutely no one is around), fingering, dirty talk, hand on the throat, creampie, nicknames: baby (hers), shau (his)

𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 18+ nsfw

𝐚𝐧: a little belated birthday post for Joshua. This is apart of my series of stories with SVT as fathers and husbands called my only one. This isn’t as edited as I would like it to be.

𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬.

Life has been tough recently. Work has felt like it’s been eating you alive and Joshua has been traveling more for work than ever before. Recently you feel like you have been losing your mind.

It doesn’t help that last week you realized your period was beyond late. You haven’t seen your husband in two weeks and you didn’t really feel like burdening him with the idea that you might have accidentally gotten pregnant. At close to midnight on a Thursday night you took a solo trip to a convenient store to buy a pregnancy test.

You and Joshua had been so good about using condoms while you were inbetween birth controls. Well you were really good about using condoms until one night you got horny at Seungcheol’s house party. Gripping your husband's hand you led him off to the master bathroom away from all the party goers. Sitting on the edge of the counter he pushed your panties to the side and rubbed two fingers through your already wet folds.

“Are you already that turned on? Your panties are so wet they’re sticking to your pretty pussy.” He loves teasing you when you’re like this.

“Can you please fuck me?” You practically beg. Your panties have been uncomfortable for the last hour.

“Do you want my fingers?”

“I want your cock.”

He shakes his head as he pumps two fingers inside your wet core. Earning a wonton moan. “We don’t have condoms, baby.” If you were smart you would have made Joshua put one in his wallet for emergency situations like this.

“Does Cheol?” You can’t help but whine.

“No baby he doesn’t. His wife is pregnant and before they were on a mission to get her pregnant. Condoms are the last thing on his mind.” The heel of his palm rubs your clit as he rubs your gummy inner walls.

“Can you pull out?” You sound like a whore in heat with how you’re begging him to fuck you. “Or you don’t have to pull out. You haven’t filled me up in so long.”

“What if I get you pregnant?” He’s clearly trying to be the ration one here.

“I thought you said I would look hot pregnant?”

“I’ll fuck you but I can’t guarantee I’ll pull out.” Stepping back he unbuttons his pants and pulls his already hardened cock from his jeans. “You’re so damn needy,” he teases.

Running his length through your wet folds he earns another moan with his head nudges your clit. “Spread your legs more.”

Blindly you listen. He pushes into you with one quick thrust. One hand rest on your throat and the other grips your thighs. Your thigh is bound to have bruises from his grip tomorrow, but you don’t care. It will be a nice reminder of this moment. This reminds you of when you were both horny college kids back in the day. Back then you use to commonly have sex in bathrooms at parties. But back then you weren’t worried about not having condoms. Your iud was your form of birth control back in the day.

Fingers tangled in his dark hair pulling his lips to yours. Moans are muffled as your lips move together. He fucks you at a rough and quick pace.

“Baby can I come inside you?” He pleads.

“Please fill me up,” you moan.

The crushing wave of your orgasm hits you as Joshua moans your name not pulling out. His thrust are sloppy as he paints your walls with his thick white ropes. Slowly he pulls out as a little of his release trickles out.

Your lapse in both of your judgement is definitely what led to you getting a positive pregnancy test. The morning sickness you have been experiencing is another side effect of your romp in the bathroom at Seungcheol and his wife’s house.

You have about another week before your husband returns from his trip. It will be nice to finally tell him that he’s going to be a father.

The whole time he’s been gone since you found out you’re pregnant you can’t help but think about the fact that neither of you have brought up the idea of having children. Outside of you switching your birth control you’ve never had a slip up. Sure your husband tends to have what you jokingly call a breeding kink. But he’s never actually mentioned wanting to be a father anytime soon.

The final week you were home alone you just focused on work. You didn’t want to think about the fact you're pregnant. The only time you really think about it is the morning when you can’t help but be sick.

It’s a blessing you're off today you can’t hold anything down and you’ve been sitting on the bathroom floor for two hours. Joshua can’t get home soon enough.

The front door opens and you hear your husband call your name. You yell letting him know you’re in the bathroom.

Peeking his head inside he instantly has a look of worry on his face as he sees you sitting on the floor.

“Baby what is wrong?” He crouched down in front of you.

“I was hoping this was going to be way more romantic,” you sigh. Your eyes are brimming with tears. You feel like you suddenly want to cry.

Resting his hand on your cheek. He slowly drags his thumb across your skin. “Baby you need to tell me what’s wrong.”

“It turns out I’m pregnant.” His eyes go wide as he stares at you looking completely caught off guard. He moved so he’s sitting on his butt in front of you. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, he just stares. You can see the gears moving in his brain as he’s trying to process what you told him. “I know we never really talked about kids since we got married. I know back in the day we both said we wanted to be parents. This timing probably isn’t the best with either of our jobs.” You’re rambling on. You can’t seem to stop talking.

“Baby-“ he finally cuts you off. “I want to be a father. I just got caught off guard. We weren’t exactly trying to have one at the moment. But I’m still happy you’re pregnant.”

A sense of relief instantly washes over you. Tears start sliding down your cheeks. Your husband moves so he’s sitting right in front of you. His hand reaches up again brushing away your salty tears. “Baby why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad. I’m just relieved. I was so worried we weren’t ready for this.”

“Why wouldn’t we be ready?” He asked, smiling.

“Well my job is a mess, and you’re traveling so much right now.”

“Baby if you need to quit you can. I make plenty to support us.” Joshua is literally perfect. He’s always been so emotionally supportive of you. “I’ll let them know that soon I won’t be able to travel like I am. I don’t want to leave my pregnant wife home alone.”

“Okay we’ll figure it out.” Joshua leans forward pressing his lips to yours for a gentle kiss. “I’m pretty sure our baby was conceived at a party.”

He tugs your body close to his. Sitting on his lap he holds you close to him. “It might sound strange but I had a strange feeling that I knocked you up that night.”

“Why is that?”

“We’re always so careful, but that night when you asked me to fuck you raw I just had a feeling.”

Pulling back a little you get a good look at him. “Are you sure that’s just not your breeding kink?”

Rolling his eyes he lets out a breathy laugh. “I can’t wait to watch your belly grow.”

“My body is definitely going to change.”

“You'll be more and more beautiful each day.” Sometimes you fear Joshua is too charming for his own good.

“You can lay off the charm you already knocked me up.” He instantly laughs.

“You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“We’re gonna have a baby not too long after Cheol’s baby is born.” You can’t help but smile at the idea of your unborn child being friends with Seungcheol baby. “My whole friend group seems to be having babies right now.”

“We’ll be adding another to the bunch.” Leaning forward you press your lips to his for a gentle kiss.

“Why don’t I make dinner to celebrate?”

Crawling off his lap he helps you stand up. Your evening is spent watching your husband cook dinner. He made your favorite pasta you always ask him to make. Being with Joshua has always made you happy. You haven’t ever loved anyone like you love him. He truly is your person.

When nightfall arrives you lay in bed with your husband curled up next to you. He has the shirt pushed up, leaving your stomach on full display for him. Gently he draws shapes on your soft stomach.

“Did you want to find out what we’re having?”

“I would like to. Especially so we can pick out names.” You had actually thought about that quite a bit while you were waiting for home to come home.

“I can’t believe we’re gonna be parents.” He looks so proud when he says that.

You might not have planned to have a baby, but maybe this was the universe telling you it was time. You couldn’t wait to experience another stage of life with Joshua. This next chapter together was going to be parenthood. You just knew Joshua was going to be the best dad ever.

“I love you Shau.” You whisper as he continues to draw shapes on your stomach.

“I love you too darling.”

If you have asked to be tagged I request that you please reblog. If you could leave comments and or tags that would be greatly appreciated.

[xinganhao]

11:59 PM ⏰ joshua x reader.

there's only one thing that joshua wants for his birthday: to kiss you at the stroke of midnight, come the 31st. with a little help from his friends, this might just be the year that he finally succeeds.

ⓘ mentions of alcohol consumption. writing (word count: 1.7k) under the cut. happy shua day! ૮₍˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

TIME CHECK: 9:34 PM. 

Joshua Hong is in love with you. 

He’s been in love with you for eight birthdays (counting yours and his), four Christmases, and two shitty Valentine’s (one for each of you). 

Has he done anything about it? Not really. 

Will that stop him from trying? Absolutely not. 

The two of you had promised to make it to Minghao’s by 9:30 sharp, but the song on the radio had been just a little too good as he pulled the car into park. It’s in those four extra minutes that Joshua is reminded just why he’s been so infatuated with you all this time. 

The enthusiastic way you sing along to the AJ Rafael track. The giggles you let out when you trip over the lyrics only to barrel right on to the next verse like nothing happened. The upturn of your lips, the ghost of a smile— 

God, he is so in love with you. 

He plays the part. He pretends the steering wheel is a drum. He bobs his head up and down in time with your off-tune crooning. He belts when you ask him to, his riff of maybe you could save me from this crazy world we live in breaking off into a laugh when your voice cracks. 

The final verse is still playing when you finally give up, nudging Joshua’s shoulder. “Let’s go,” you prompt. “Before Seungcheol blows a gasket.” 

Of course Seungcheol would be the most upset if the two of you were late. Joshua chuckles at the mental image of his friend pouting the whole night. “Alright, alright,” he concedes. 

He’s out of his seat in the next second, jogging past the front of the car so he can open the passenger door for you. You have that exasperated look on your face— the same one you wear when you’re about to insist that he doesn’t have to do this— but it’s softened by fondness. 

“After you, m’lady,” Joshua says loftily, selling the whole act with a little curtsy. 

You’re laughing as you take his hand. “Don’t mind if I do.” 

Once you’ve stepped out of his car, you surprise him by not dropping his hand. “C’mon,” you urge, instead keeping your hands clasped as you tug him forward. 

He stumbles on his first step but follows easily, the biggest smile beginning to spread on his face. The song from the radio is playing on repeat in the back of his mind— a refrain that could be as good as a promise, if he squinted. 

We could happen, Joshua thinks dazedly as you drag him up to Minghao’s front door. We could happen. 

TIME CHECK: 10:42 PM. 

“Oi, loverboy.” 

The pet name snaps Joshua out of his reverie. His head snaps over to Seokmin, who had been chatting his ear off for the past couple of minutes. 

“Don’t call me that,” Joshua grumbles. 

His friends are merciless. Seokmin snickers. Jihoon bites back a smile. Jeonghan rolls his eyes. 

“We were asking what your birthday wish was,” Seokmin repeats. 

Jeonghan chimes in, “Y’know, after we all pulled lies out of our asses to make sure you could spend the day with the love of your life.” 

“Stop,” whines Joshua, the tips of his ears already beginning to flame red. He composes himself just enough to huff, “And I can’t tell you what my birthday wish was. Otherwise it won’t come true.” 

Jihoon mumbles something like ‘true’, but Jeonghan and Seokmin are relentless. 

“Give us a hint,” Jeonghan insists. 

Seokmin raises his index finger and his thumb. “Just a teensy, little hint!”

Autonomously, Joshua’s eyes flick over to where you are. You’re across the room, engaged in conversation with Mingyu and Vernon. The distance is far enough that Joshua can’t make out what’s being said, but it must be a good one; you’re grinning, nodding, gesticulating. 

He holds back the urge to swoon. It’s a futile attempt; his friends all share looks before bursting into raucous laughter. 

“No hint needed,” Seokmin says amusedly. 

As much as Joshua hates to admit it, the man is right. The answer to what he wished for is clear as day, is in the very same room as him. 

TIME CHECK: 11:10 PM. 

Unbeknownst to Joshua, there’s a plan in motion. It’s a rather simple plan, too, and the boys had been convinced they could see it through. 

After all, they only had to make sure that you and Joshua were at each other’s side by 11:59 PM. 

Simple, right? 

Except Seungkwan, Soonyoung and Wonwoo are knocked out of commission after sharing a champagne bottle. 

Minghao gets into a spat with Junhui over one thing or another. Seungcheol and Jeonghan bicker to the point that Seungcheol has relegated himself to one corner, his arms crossed over his chest as he sulks. 

“These idiots,” Seokmin huffs disbelievingly. Must he do everything himself? 

He checks his watch. He has forty more minutes. 

He could probably afford one more drink. 

TIME CHECK: 11:43 PM. 

Joshua can’t believe his friends. 

If they’re not drunk, they’re feuding. Seokmin— who had earlier been so insistent on seeing the telecasted ball drop— is sprawled out on the couch, knocked out cold. 

“That’s one way to usher in the new year,” you muse. 

Something in Joshua’s chest thrums. 

“Guess it’s just us,” he says smoothly. He thinks he deserves a standing ovation for just how even his voice sounds, betraying nothing about the hammering in his chest. 

His nerves are somewhat eased by the smile that breaks on your face. “It’s just us,” you repeat, and you don’t sound particularly opposed to the idea. 

You even sound… excited? 

Joshua tries not to overthink it. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat, just to keep himself from reaching out for you. “The view of the fireworks might be better from outside,” he says. “What do you say?” 

It’s a selfish offer. Joshua is trying to mastermind his way into being your New Year’s Eve kiss. God forbid a man try to make a move. 

“I say that sounds good,” you respond, and Joshua barely holds himself back from breaking out into a little dance. 

TIME CHECK: 11:57 PM.

Out on the sidewalk, it’s just the two of you.

The streetlamps cast a warm halo over your head. The fireworks bathe you both in multicolored flashes of light. There’s the sounds of bells ringing, and children screeching, and trumpets being blown. 

All of it feels inconsequential to the thrill running through Joshua’s veins. 

You’re standing by his side, talking about your resolutions for the new year. And you’re so lovely. And there’s nothing Joshua wants more than to finally, finally— 

“Oh?” You fish your phone out of your pocket. “Ah, sorry. Give me a minute, yeah?” 

Joshua’s hand twitches at his side, like he’s tamping down the urge to keep you. “Take your time,” he says. 

His eyes follow you as you hurry off, ducking someplace where he can’t quite see you. Joshua tears his gaze away to look up at the night sky instead.

TIME CHECK: 11:59 PM.

Most of the apartments in Minghao’s building have left their windows open. Some superstition about inviting in good luck.

While Joshua is standing outside, he can faintly hear a blaring television beginning to count down the seconds. 

“Seventeen… sixteen… fifteen…” 

Joshua exhales, his breath coming out as a visible puff of air. His eyes flutter close, the image of the full moon burning behind his closed lids. The thought of being underneath it without you makes the earlier thrumming in his chest twist into something that almost aches.

He supposes that some wishes aren’t meant to come true. 

TIME CHECK: 12:01 AM. 

“Shua!”

Joshua startles. He hadn’t noticed your return, and he’s momentarily distracted from his thoughts as his eyes snap open. You look panicked; it makes his chest squeeze with concern. 

“Hey,” he says immediately, his hand instinctively resting on the side of your arm in a bid to soothe. “What’s wrong?” 

“I missed it.” 

“Missed—” 

“Missed you!” 

Before Joshua can question your words, you’re already ranting. “The clock on my phone is a couple of minutes behind, and I thought I had enough time. I just wanted to pop a mint, put on some lipstick, maybe—” 

The implications of your words hit him like a truck. His eyes widen, and then something almost like a laugh breaks from the back of his throat. 

“You— for what?” he manages, even though he already knows the answer. 

“For this,” you say, and then you’re standing up on your tiptoes. 

The press of your lips against his is better than every goddamn firework in the world. Joshua is sure that absolutely no one in the world feels the way that he does right now. 

He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t freeze up for a minute. His free arm snakes around your waist, gently pulling you flush against him. His other hand goes to rest at your cheek as he tilts your head ever so slightly, just so he can deepen the kiss. 

When the two of you break apart for air, Joshua lets you breathe for all of five seconds before he’s kissing you again. 

You giggle against his mouth. And it’s dizzying to him, the way the two of you are smiling as this unfolds; the way the rest of the world is a flurry of noise, but he’s standing still with you in his arms. 

“Shua,” you say his name like a reprimand, gently pushing at his chest to get him off you for a moment. 

His body doesn’t seem to register it. His head instinctively ducks to follow your lips. The sheer desperation of it makes you smile. 

“I’m sorry for being late,” you say, almost shy in your apology.

“My fault,” he responds hastily. “Told you to take your time.”

And, to hell with his dignity— 

“One more, please?” he asks, his tone just a little breathless. 

You’re laughing, again. Not at him, hopefully. He can’t bring himself to care, though, because your hand is already at the back of his neck, tugging him down. 

“One more,” you murmur.

Birthday wishes be damned. A quiet voice in the back of Joshua’s head whispers a disbelieving this is happening as he goes to kiss you again, knowing fully well by the way you respond that this won’t be the last time. 

It’s a fulfilled promise. 

This is happening. We’re happening.

↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺ we could happen by aj rafael. what are you doing new year's eve? by zooey deschanel and joseph gordon-levitt. 7PM by bss and peder elias. tell me it's not a dream by 10cm. fallen by lola amour.

240525 #joshua 🦌 carats, thank you always. i will work hard to live up to the love that carats give me. so i'll be continue to be in your care. yoshi yoshi~ carats, the moon is pretty.

› scroll through all my work ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ my masterlist | @xinganhao

[channiesbakery]

chronically offline stalker —

prompt / request — "when’s the last time you ate something?"

pairing — reader + boyfriend!joshua

word count — 467

genre — fluff

joshua damn near barged into your apartment, startling the hell out of you. “you know for a gentleman, that entrance wasn’t very gentle,” you tell him, shutting your laptop.

“you,” he points a finger at you and you raise an eyebrow. “hello to you too,” you say. “when’s the last time you ate?” he asks.

“uh, i had lunch earlier,” you lie, only realizing now that you had skipped a meal. “liar!” joshua exclaims.

“what? have you been stalking me or something?” you raise an eyebrow at him. “no, I’m not that crazy,” he rolls his eyes.

“but you always post an instagram story of your food whenever you eat. you haven’t posted anything today,” he accuses.

“for someone who’s so chronically offline, you’re very caught up with my social media,” you say. “this isn’t about me! you haven’t eaten!” he says like it’s the worst thing you could ever do.

“babe, relax. i just got caught up with my work. besides, I’m not hungry,” you shrug and he just steps over to you, grabbing your wrist and dragging you into the kitchen.

“nope. we are going to have a nice, healthy meal together. so sit your pretty ass there and let me cook for you.” joshua says, pulling out the stool for you to take a seat at the counter while he put an apron on.

he goes through your fridge and cupboards, looking for ingredients to whip up something quick.

his cooking was going well… until it wasn’t. he tried making you kimchi fried rice and it started off great until he started substituting ingredients that you didn’t have.

“i think it’s a bit burnt, babe,” you say, peering into the pan. “and i think you might’ve also ruined my pan,” you point out when the rice seemed stuck to it.

“I’ll buy you a new pan– actually, I’ll buy you a whole new set of pots and pans, but right now, I’m taking you out for dinner,” he grins, placing the pan into your sink and tossing the apron onto the counter.

“wait the mess–” you start as he leads you out. “I’ll clean after we get some food,” joshua wraps his arm around your shoulders, leading you out of your apartment.

“just not fried rice,” you say and he sighs. “you’re never letting me live this down are you?” he asks and you just laugh.

“hey shua?” you start as he opens his passenger door for you to get in. “yes honey?” he hums, leaning down to meet your eyes as you got into the car.

“thank you for always making sure i remember my meals,” you say and he smiles warmly, kissing you softly. “of course, i love you,” he starts.

“enough to break my chronically offlineness to stalk your instagram stories.”

[ncteenv]

what are friends for?

joshua hong x fem!reader cw: 18+ mdni, smut, protected sex, lewd language, casual hook up, mild flirting and seduction ncteenv: this was supposed to be absolute filth but towards the end i gave in to lovemaking

a sweatshirt?

you turned in the mirror again, eyeing yourself from the side and then the front.

it was one of your favorites, a deep red cable knit with a hole worn into one of the elbows because you favored it over all the others. and it was comfortably a few sizes too big, reaching past your hips and covering your butt enough to walk around your apartment without pants.

you grabbed the hem and pulled it over your head, tossing it to the side.

now simple black laced panties and bralette stared back at you in the dim reflection of your mirror.

too much?

the panties left nothing of your ass to the imagination, so you shrugged the sweatshirt back over your head along with a pair of shorts.

turning away from the mirror, you faced your bedroom and scanned over everything to make sure it was… right.

it wasn’t too clean or too messy, but casual. because that’s all that this was. a casual hook up.

the curtain lights over your window illuminated the room in a warm glow. you all but dropped your phone when it buzzed in your hand, receiving a single text.

‘i’m here. let me in.’

the clicks of your keyboard were all to be heard through your apartment as you made your way to the front door. you ditched your shorts on the way over.

[an hour earlier]

“wait,” joshua laughed on the other line, “you’re telling me that you and gyu never—“

“no, we never did it. but, what i’d give for a good fucking.” your voice came out in a low groan.

he was silent, processing. you on the other hand had a heart beating absolutely out of your ribcage in this moment, and wanted him to say something.

anything.

“hm..” was all joshua could come up with.

it wasn’t unlike you both to end up on the phone like this for hours at a time, and the subject was no surprise either.

“is it okay to say that i’m craving a good fucking?”

“you can always say it, y/n,” he reassured you, “but what can you do about it?”

“fuck you?”

you nervously chewed your thumb nail, deciding on whether or not to lead the conversation in the way you’d been intending all along.

“what?!” the statement seemed to have caught him off guard.

“what what?”

“y/n, be serious.”

“i am. it’s been months since i’ve had cock.”

“y/n.”

“joshua,” you answered, heart still pounding. it was cute, really, but you both knew where you’d ultimately end up. “look, i’m not proposing a one night stand or that we’d become friends with benefits.”

“no. that is exactly what this sounds like.”

“well— we’ve kissed plenty of times before without things becoming awkward.”

“but it was never deep, tongue-filled kisses. only light pecks.”

you sighed, becoming annoyed with his hesitation. “you seem to have an explanation for everything.”

a low groan, most likely accompanied by a slow drag of his hand down his face, echoed in your ears. followed by a soft chuckle.

“but.. why me?” joshua suddenly asked.

“who else better?”

“i just assumed you and mingyu—“

“then i can ask mingyu instead. he’d have no problem with—“

“you can stop that now. that’s not going to work on me, y/n.”

you bite your bottom lip, the conversation coming to a brief silence. you could only hope your forwardness didn’t make him uncomfortable.

“will you come over?” you asked, adding a sweet “please?”

joshua paused for a second. he was probably pondering. considering.

“just,” he sighed, “give me a moment. i’ll be there soon.”

your cheeks burned.

and he hung up.

[now]

your chest tightened when there was a soft knock at the door. with a deep breath, you turned the knob.

joshua stood in front of you and you couldn’t hold back your smile the moment you made eye contact.

he was dressed clean, as if he’d just spent a weekend in the hamptons. the sunlight caught in his hair, created a halo effect that made your heart skip a beat.

“so,” you giggled, “is this a booty call or?”

he opened his mouth, pretending to be offended. “i haven’t been invited in yet, i can leave right—“

you grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, shutting the door to push him against it.

“don’t think either of us want that, shua.” your voice was barely above a whisper, lips dangerously close.

he shifts you suddenly so that you’re the one being pressed against the door and leaned in to give you a single kiss, short and sweet.

“y/n?”

“hmm?”

joshua nosed down to the skin of your neck pressing gentle kisses there, as well. you turned your head to the side to give him more access.

“are you truly sure that you want to do this with me?”

you were too distracted by the way his lips were ghosting over your collarbones, humming in response to his words.

“i want to give you the fucking you’re craving,” his finger hooked under your chin, guiding your face to look at him, “but i want to be able to look at you afterwards and not feel like i’ve ruined our friendship.”

you searched his eyes as if you were weighing his words carefully, finding sincerity and genuine concern there.

“promise me.”

you nodded, tugging at the curls behind his ears, “i promise.”

joshua wasn’t afraid to take the lead on things and gingerly parted your lips with his tongue, eliciting a small moan from your throat. his fingers still held your chin protectively as he deepened the kiss, gently thumbing over your cheek as he did so.

you whined as he pulled back, subconsciously leaning forward into him with a pout. “hey…”

he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself, drawing in a deep breath.

“we should move to the bedroom.” joshua spoke lowly.

“yeah..”

taking his hand, you dragged him into your room, kicking your shorts into a corner on the way.

joshua had been in your room many times before. often crashing on your bed if movie night ran too late or he had a long practice. and waking up the next morning cuddled in his arms was no big deal, but this time was different.

he stood in the doorway, watching over your silhouette until you turned around, noticing he’s stopped.

“come here.”

“are you sure you want this?” he asked again.

“joshua,” you laughed, “i’m pretty horny so yeah, i want this. i promise. i’ll say it in korean if it’ll convince you.”

“don’t. your korean is terrible.” he mumbled.

you patted the empty spot on the bed next to you. he sighed with a smile and made his way toward you.

without a second thought, he pushed you backwards into the pillows at your headboard and smothered you in kisses.

your hands that hungrily searched under him, tugging at his pants, were suddenly pinned against the mattress by joshua and stood no chance against his strength.

“if we’re gonna do this,” he looked you in the eyes, “then we have to do it right.”

you squirmed beneath him to let him drag your clothes off, and barely contained your squeal at his mouth trailing lower.

“is this.. my sweatshirt?” joshua tugged at the hem.

you hummed in thought. it very well may be his. and it was probably the reason you loved it so much.

“just take it off. please.” you begged.

he obliged, as the sweatshirt was pulled over your head, you felt a rush of cool air on your skin, followed by the warmth of joshua’s hands as he touched your bare shoulders. his fingers trailed down your arms, leaving a path of gentle caresses that sent shivers down your spine.

he took a moment to appreciate the sight of you and you bashfully look up at him. “what?”

“you’re pretty.”

a smile twinged at your lips, “yeah?”

“yeah,” his mouth returned to yours, “really, really pretty.” you felt the tension between you build as he deepened the kiss.

your hands, still pinned beneath his, strained against his grip, eager to touch him back. but joshua held firm, controlling the pace of intimacy.

as he broke from your lips, you gasped for air, only to have him claim your neck once more, and you couldn’t help but arch into his touch.

“joshua,” you whispered urgently, “please.”

he paused, looking at you with an intensity that made your heart skip a beat. “what do you want?” he asked softly.

you swallowed hard, trying to find the words to express the desperation building inside you. “i want.. i want to feel you, too.”

a slow smile spread across his face as he released your hands from their pinned position. you immediately took advantage of the freedom to explore his body, tracing the contours of his chest and abdomen through his shirt, and began to shed his clothes piece by piece until you’re both lying there in nothing but skin and anticipation.

you took the lull into action as an opportunity to rid your chest of the bralette and pushed yourself back against the bed, assuming the position you’d been in just seconds before.

watching joshua was a treat in and of itself. he was measured in how he placed his rubber over his tip, rolling it down his length.

he hovered above you, his face trying to read yours.

“are you sure this is what you want?” he asked for the last of what felt like a thousand times.

“yes. don’t you want me?” your cheeks began to prickle with heat. he wasn’t answering. “joshua?”

he had never wanted you as much as he did right now.

“more than anything.” he answered lowly.

your breathing escalated and became rushed when you felt him remove your last item of clothing, tossing your panties to the floor.

like missing pieces of a puzzle you fit together perfectly. the pressure that had surged on entry vanished when you remembered it was joshua inside of you. you felt slightly smug knowing that if you weren't compatible in any other way at least you were here. holding you so close to him, you moved slowly in unison.

joshua’s left hand twisted in your hair as his right held your waist, keeping you in motion with him. you couldn't think, you couldn't breath, your body and mind were going insane with pleasure. you let out short, quick gasps pulling at his hair and clutching on to his back.

his pace quickened now and your back began to arch involuntarily. joshua propped an arm beneath it, holding you in place while his other arm clasped your right leg around his waist, allowing for deeper movement. he was inhaling and exhaling loudly, the chill of his breath smouldering your skin in an all too good a way. some of the weight he was holding off he allowed to push down, grinding into you. lifting you, your back slammed into the headboard. it should have hurt but you didn't feel the pain.

joshua’s eyes looked quickly into yours, alarmed, afraid he'd hurt you. you pushed your lips into his, emphasizing that you were okay. no harm done. while being held against the board, his hands clasped around your thighs, you let your hands wander over every part of his body, taking in every inch of his skin. no imperfections to be found, just layers of astonishing beauty.

tangled together you mimicked each other’s movements. he didn't need to confirm your thoughts, he knew exactly what you wanted and when you released your legs slightly from his waist he moved you back down underneath him again. the board had been chaffing a bit and you were glad to feel the pressure of joshua’s weight, covering you from head to toe like a silk blanket.

relaxing his body so you were barely moving at all, joshua delicately ran his lips along your jaw, stopping at your hairline and kissed your forehead tenderly. the warm ache that had been emerging from between the both of you was sitting on standby, intensifying and waiting. He knew this, his crooked smile was knowing.

"joshua," you choked as he placed a playful kiss on your nose, "please don't stop!"

smiling, he started kissing you hungrily again, bringing your pace back up to speed, the passion thickening more than you thought possible. rising, soaring you both came fast and thrilling. you gasped loudly trying to keep your head from spinning off with all these new feelings taking over.

joshua buried his face in your neck, his moans filling your ear as you hugged and stroked his head, fingers tangling in his hair.

nothing compared to how incredible this felt. pulsing, pulsing and then the calm.

[ode2cheol]

- arm wrestle!

not proofread, thrown together in five minutes after seeing the clip of joshua at a fan sign smirking while arm wrestling a fan and me feeling bad about not posting for like two months

“give me your hand babe” you mumbled, sitting up from your place on the couch.

today was a pretty slow day for you and joshua. neither of you had the energy to go out to do some activity but you were both incredibly bored sitting around on the couch all day.

joshua raised an eyebrow in curiosity but gave you his hand regardless. with your other hand, you pulled the small table closer to you so you could both rest your elbows on it.

“what’re we doing love?” joshua eyed you curiously.

“arm wrestle” you answered flatly. “1 2 3.. go!”

joshua’s arm remained still for a few seconds before he processed what was happening.

despite him being caught off guard and putting little to no effort to stop you, you still couldn’t get his arm too budge while you were exerting most of your strength.

your boyfriend smirked a little but his eyes remained fond before he helped you a little by moving his arm on his own.

being the annoying boyfriend he is though, joshua wasn’t going to let you off without teasing you and making it seem like he was about to win.

he entertained it for a minute or two more before giving up and letting your arm pin his down.

“you won!” joshua gasped and cheered for you, laughing at the sour expression on your face. “what’s with that look?”

“you’re so annoying” you huffed jokingly, going back to your original position next to him.

“you love me”

“i guess”

[seungcheorry]

svt when you tell them "it's getting late, i should probably go home":

seungcheol: "oh, okay. let me drive you home, then 🥰" and expects you to invite him in because he doesn't want to let go.

jeonghan: "do you have any plans for tomorrow?" - if you do, then he's ordering you an uber; if you don't, then he's asking you to stay a bit longer.

joshua: "do you want me to walk you home?" and will insist on doing so, even if you say it's not needed - please, let him spend more time with you!!

junhui: "oh... ☹️" but doesn't say anything to try to make you stay because he doesn't wanna be clingy.

soonyoung: "nooo, let's talk some more, please?" and it's crazy how a tiger can master such pretty puppy eyes so you have no choice but to stay.

wonwoo: he mumbles a tiny "yeah, okay" and then guides you to his car. "what are you doing?" "taking you home, isn't it obvious? 🤨".

jihoon: hates when you say that, starts longing for you as soon as he orders you an uber and then write a song about it.

dokyeom: "for real? 🥺", and then says he'll walk you home. you can try and say he doesn't need to, but it's the only way to make him smile again so you let him.

mingyu: wraps his hands around your arm and pulls you closer. he just keeps walking so you think he ignored you, but then you realize he's starting to walk into your neighborhood. really smooth.

minghao: doesn't fight you, cause you know what's better for yourself. he offers himself to drive you home, shutting you off when you say he doesn't need to. "i want to" - and that leaves you speechless.

seungkwan: "but it's early yet~". he tries to argue with you, pouting when he loses. will definitely walk you home, jokingly picking on you to make you laugh. please kiss him goodbye at the door.

vernon: "you sure?" and if you say yes, he will take the subway with you or wait until you're in an uber; if you look even the slightest hesitant, he will just laugh it off and keep the conversation going.

dino: he's bold, so he will say "you wanna head to my place?" (but also his cheeks are burning, that's why he's not looking at you when he says it). if you decline, he'll order an uber for you and be like "text me when you home".

[bluehoodiewoozi]

Lies and Butterflies

Joshua Hong x Fem!Reader

Genre: fake dating au; mostly fluff.

Word Count: 19.2k

Warnings: injuries & blood (injury is not explicitly described). joking death threats made between friends. mentions of drinking and alcoholic beverages. lying to parental figures. reader is written as single and desperate and moderately unwise (she’s actually me).

[Series: Serenity Street 17] Your roommate begged you to pretend to date him while his mom is in town for the month. The little crush you’ve had on him will either become your best friend or worst obstacle on this quest.

note: the fact that this fic came out as longer than my master's degree thesis will never not amaze me.

Your friends thought you were a naive fool for moving into Serenity Street 17, apartment 3A. Not because the neighbourhood or building was bad (if anything, they often commented about how cosy it was), but because you signed the rental agreement knowing full well you’d be sharing an apartment with a man you didn’t know. 

In your defence, you’d been hesitant to do so. However, after several reassuring comments from the building manager about how your roommate would be a perfectly sweet young gentleman (but mostly the influence of the looming end of your old rental agreement with a remaining budget from hell), you had done the insane thing and signed the agreement.

Fortunately, Joshua Hong, your new roommate, seemed like a true angel at first sight – both visually and metaphorically. Upon your arrival, he’d spent the entire weekend helping you move the heavy boxes and unbox everything (all the while you were trying your hardest to not feel weak at the sight of his gorgeous face and straining biceps). He assured you repeatedly that he’d do the dishes and cook for himself. He sent you off to work every morning with a sweet smile, a wave and a thermos full of hot coffee to start your day. 

You’d quickly learn why the neighbourhood aunties called him “Serenity Street’s gentleman”. And at first you thought he truly deserved the title.

That is until you had lived with him for a month and realised he was the dictionary definition of unpredictable. Sure, he wasn’t completely insane and most of the time he was truly the perfect roommate (as well as eye candy), but the moments when he did unleash his inner demons? Even now, many months later, you were still trying to decide if that side of him amused or scared you.

It was to the point where you and Chan, your neighbour from across the hall, had started keeping a shared list of Joshua’s wildest moments (a tradition which several of your other friends in the building soon joined). 

For one, there was the time when he decided to perform EXO’s ‘Love Shot’ with a truly unhinged choreography at the building’s monthly drunk karaoke night. The kicker? He didn’t start drinking until after the cover (probably to bury the shame he felt). 

Or the time when he mistakenly watered a fake plant for weeks and then, upon realising his mistake, proceeded to gaslight himself and everyone you knew that it had at one point been a real plant and someone must have snuck into the apartment to replace it with an identical fake one (you didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was fooling no one (but Minghao had been more than happy to share the news with him for you )).

There was also, of course, the time when he had a life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself made to decorate the living room and you couldn’t have reminded him enough of how terrifying of a sight it had been at 4 am on your way to the bathroom. To his credit, he moved the cut-out behind Jeonghan’s apartment door a week later to terrify him instead. Jeonghan has since sworn he’d get back at your roommate for it one day (and you dearly hoped he would).

Needless to say, your roommate had you living on the edge of your seat at all times. So it didn’t surprise you much when he knocked on your bedroom door at 11 pm before walking in and throwing himself head-first onto your bed.

Used to his shenanigans but well-aware of his need for attention, you just sighed and lowered the book you had spent all day looking forward to. “What’s up?”

His response was unintelligible, muffled against the sage green sheets. 

You waited a moment for him to lift his head. Nothing happened. For a moment you wondered if he’d fallen asleep. So you nudged him with your foot. “Shua?”

With a groan, he leaned upwards, resting on his elbows as he stared ahead and told you, “Do you think I’m too single?”

Amused and confused by the question, you blinked rapidly. “Is that even a thing? I think all single people are equally single, no?”

“I haven’t dated anyone in five years,” he told you.

“And?”

“I haven’t gone on a date in three.”

“So?”

“My mom thinks that’s too long.”

You took mild offence to that as you had been left out on the dry shores of Singleness for well over a decade – if your three-day middle-school playground marriage even counted towards this statistic, that is. If Joshua had been single for too long by his mom’s standards, then you surely must have seemed like a completely hopeless case. 

You shook the thought off and tried to seem like a supportive friend (even though your mind and soul were already lost in faraway lands, riding horses with dreamy fictional men that oddly looked like Joshua). “Why does that matter?”

“Because,” he started as if you should know this already, “she wants me to go on a blind date with her friend’s daughter. She wants to discuss it tomorrow over lunch.”

Was it too soon to tell him you sometimes daydreamed of your mom appearing at the door with a handsome young man and demanding you to go on a date with him? Maybe. Was that too desperate? Probably.

“You’re an adult man, Shua,” you told him with a scoff. “Just say no.”

“I can’t say that to my mom!”

“Why not? Because she’d be disappointed and sad?” you guessed, eyeing him with annoyance. 

He widened his eyes and all you saw in his brown irises was pure terror mixed with just a hint of frustration. “She’d lecture me!”

“Oh no,” you didn’t even try to feign any kind of an emotion before lifting your book back to your eye level, eager to get back to your reading where men didn’t trouble you with their mommy issues. “Your mom’s nice. You’ll live.”

“You could try to be more empathetic, you know,” he remarked before resting his cheek on the mattress and sighing. “What are you reading anyway? Another one of your historical romances?”

“And what if it is?” you asked.

“My mom would tell you to get off your ass and get an actual boyfriend.”

“Good thing she’s not my mom then. Men are disappointing and I only like the ones written by women.”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me a disappointment right now?”

There were many words you could use to describe Joshua, but a disappointment? – not one of them. Really, the only disappointing thing about the man in front of you was that he thought your valiant flirting attempts over the past six months had been a funny joke. Even if you thought he could be incredibly frustrating, you were not immune to his charms, and everyone but him seemed to know.

Still, if there was anything you liked more than being the sole object of Joshua’s attention, it was getting on his nerves as much as he did yours.

“Absolutely,” you told him with a straight face but your facade fell fast at his offended grimace. You couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course you’re not a disappointment. I actually like you.”

Would he pick up the hint (and was it even a hint if you were practically confessing your feelings?) … ?

“I hate you,” he mumbled and buried his face back in the sheets.

… No. The answer was no.

Aside from his wild shenanigans, another thing that frustrated you about your roommate to no end was the fact that he. never. read. his. messages. And yet, when he messaged you, he expected an answer ASAP. 

And if you didn’t reply within 2 minutes … ?

Your phone vibrated and rang, his contact photo bright and colourful on your phone screen. You could barely keep back from cursing under your breath before offering your co-workers an apologetic smile and rushing out to the breakroom to answer the call. 

You took a deep calming breath before putting on your best customer service-able smile and speaking into the microphone, “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” came the short reply. Was it just you or did he sound winded? 

As if he could see you through the radio waves, you theatrically glanced around the building before deadpanning, “At work. Like every Tuesday at 1 pm.”

 “Right,” he breathed out after a pause and suddenly you were worried. 

The Joshua you knew never hesitated to match your sarcastic remarks with ones of his own. There was rarely any bite to his words but you appreciated that he at least tried to match your energy (or maybe you had unknowingly matched his and you were fated to meet). But this? This hadn’t been a sarcastic remark.

“Are you okay?” you spoke, tone softening. “Did something happen?”

“You know how I had that lunch thing with mom today?” he asked after a sigh. 

You nodded before realising he couldn’t actually see you. “Yeah?”

“She brought up her friend’s daughter again and I panicked and–” He cut himself off with a laugh but it sounded anything but joyful. No, it sounded frustrated and disbelieving and like he was about five seconds from a mental breakdown. You found yourself holding your breath as you waited for his laughter to stop. When it did, he sighed again. “Can you come home early?”

The answer was obviously no. You couldn’t just leave your job to cater to your roommate's frenzies. You had made it a point to never ask for any unnecessary time off at all, eager to prove yourself at the office. You had only worked here for five months. Besides, you had goals and a dream and–

“Please?” he added. He sounded so soft, so fragile, so worried.

You squeezed your eyes shut and lied to yourself that your boss wouldn’t hate you if you just told him you had a horrible, perhaps borderline ER-worthy migraine and needed to go home ASAP. Or was that too risky? Would he ask for a doctor’s note? What’s the other option?

“If my boss emails you and asks if our apartment was flooded today, you tell him yes and that you almost drowned,” you finally told him, unable to believe you were about to blatantly lie to your boss, before swiping across your screen to end the call. 

“You’re home,” he breathed out when you stepped through the door half an hour later. 

You found him sitting on the living room sofa. He was still wearing his best white shirt and if it weren’t for the mess of hair on his head, he would’ve looked like he had just gotten ready to go out.

You shrugged off your jacket. “I would really like an explanation.”

“Yeah,” he sighed and rubbed his face. “Where do I start? Um… Well, my mom’s coming to stay with us for a month.”

Your jaw dropped. “A month?! Why? Did something happen to her house?”

“No,” he seemed almost pained to tell you so. With a gentle grip on your hand, he led you to sit next to him on the sofa. “You know how she was trying to set me up with her friend’s daughter?”

You nodded, raising a brow. “What about it? Was it, like, an ex or something?”

“Well, no, but,” he took a deep breath and turned to stare at the wall, eyes wide as if he was expecting something to crash as he spoke, “I might have panicked and said something bad.”

“Such as?” you urged, leaning closer.

Getting red in the face, he really looked like the words he needed had wedged themselves in his throat and were rebelling, refusing to come out. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to make even a single sound, but you still heard nothing. 

Your patience was running thinner by the second. “Joshua, I lied to my boss because of you. Spit it out or, I swear to god, I will make that lie a reality and drown you in the bathtub.”

The threat seemed to motivate him plenty. He let out a soft whine before blurting, “I told her I can’t go on a date with Mary because we’re dating.”

This man never failed to surprise, scare and worry you. And this time you were scared for the both of you. “You told her what?! We?! As in you and me?!”

“I’m sorry,” he immediately dropped to his knees in front of you, looking up at you with desperate and terrified sparkling doe eyes. “I wasn’t thinking! I didn’t want to make her feel bad and I panicked and I lied and I swear I’ll make it up to you! Whatever you want! Anything. I am so, so sorry.”

You didn’t even have the words to say. Frozen in your seat, you stared at him, trying your hardest to get your brain to reset so you could discover you simply had fallen asleep at your desk and this was all a dream. Was it a dream or was it a nightmare? You’d decide later.

When you hadn’t responded for nearly a minute, Joshua gently nudged your hand. “Hey, are you okay? I’m sorry, okay?”

But when you still remained silent without even as much as moving your eyes, he quickly added, “I’ll just fess up, yeah? I’ll tell her I panicked and lied and I’ll go on that date. Just please don’t be mad at me, okay?”

You held your hand up to stop him. “It’s fine. I just… I need a moment.”

“Yeah…” He breathed in relief before nodding and agreeing, “Yeah. Anything you want. I’ll…I can…  Do you want water? Tea? I could make cocoa.”

“Just water’s fine,” you told him almost robotically as you stared into space, rubbing your temples as if that would somehow make it easier to process the absolutely bizarre situation you had found yourself in because, no, unfortunately (or fortunately?) this was not a dream. This was your reality.

As he scurried over to the kitchen, you tried to wrap your mind around … well, everything. 

It felt like a cruel joke. All these months of pining after your handsome roommate, making him heart-shaped toast and pancakes, fixing his shirt collar as he prepared to leave for work, practically flat-out confessing to him – and here he was, practically throwing himself at you. 

But none of it was real. He wasn’t actually into you. It was just a panicked reaction. He’d just thought of the first age-appropriate woman that came to his mind – it was only you because you were roommates and spent so much time together. There were no feelings involved on his end. 

But on yours? You willed your heart to stop fluttering and pounding and threatening to beat out of your chest at the mere idea of dating Joshua Hong. 

“Here,” he spoke softly as he placed a cold glass of water into your hand and took his seat next to you. He watched for a while as you took a miniscule sip and continued staring into nothingness, lost in your thoughts. He hesitated to speak. “I really am sorry. I just wasn’t thinking straight. I was scared and–”

“I seemed like a safer option than Mary?” you finished for him, giving him a knowing look. “C’mon, is she really that bad?”

No, you’re just that much better is what you wished he’d say. Then you’d have at least something to hold onto.

Joshua offered a half-hearted smile. “Mom said Mary is really into haunted buildings and ghost hunting, so…”

Did that make you much better than her? Very debatable. But you were willing to take just about anything reminiscent of a win.

“Sounds dreadful,” you replied, matching his smile. “So what happens now?”

“Well,” he seemed hesitant all over again, as if no progress had been made at all. He quickly forced himself out of that headspace and met your eyes, “I could call my mom and tell her I lied…”

You sensed an ‘or’. Raising an eyebrow, you silently asked him to finish the thought.

He took a stuttering breath before grimacing. “Or we go on with the lie and pretend to date for a while.”

Option B is what your heart shouted. Please pick option B, even if it’s all a lie.

“A while being…?” you forced yourself to nitpick instead of immediately jumping into his arms and agreeing. 

He kissed his teeth. “A month-ish.”

“A month?!”

“Mom didn’t fully, entirely, really believe me,” Joshua supplied with an apologetic look, “so I bluffed a little and she said she’d come stay with us for a while to see it for herself and… I sort of agreed to let her stay a month.”

A month of (fake) dating Joshua Hong, your hot roommate, the very subject of your daydreams? You weren’t sure whether you wanted to scream in joy or cry in despair.

“Okay,” you breathed out and gulped. “We can– We can do a month… right?”

“Right.” He didn’t seem any more sure of than you.

“How long ‘til she comes here?”

“Two days.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

[DAY 1, FRIDAY]

Having read and watched a fair share of romantic comedies, you were adamant that there was no need for a ‘fake dating contract’. You and Joshua were roommates and good friends; surely just a verbal agreement of boundaries would suffice. You’d just tell him your boundaries and he’d tell you yours. 

In an ideal world, that is.

But in the real world, there was a knock on the door before you could even begin to whisper about the idea of boundaries.

While sharing a startled look with you, Joshua crept towards the door and peeked through peephole. 

“It’s her,” he breathed out and offered you one last grimace before opening the door. His voice went from tormented to overjoyed so fast you felt it give you a whiplash, “Mom! Hi! Let me help with your suitcase.”

Showtime (except this was not a theatre, and you didn’t have even the semblance of a script to play out, and you sucked at improv). Putting on your best smile, you stood up just as they entered the living room. 

“There she is!” his mother called out and rushed over to give you a warm hug. “Look at you! As good-looking as always!”

Your cheeks felt a little warm at that. “You look great too!”

“Oh, I know,” she joked and gave your shoulder a friendly pat. Then her friendly expression morphed into something more sinister. “So, dating, huh?”

If your cheeks had felt warm before, they were positively burning now. You tried to find your voice again, even offered a look to Joshua who could only respond with an equally nervous wide-eyed look. Finally, you cleared your throat and answered, “Yeah. We’re still kind of getting used to it ourselves.”

“I always knew you two would end up together,” she gushed, smiling ear to ear and winking at you between sentences. “Took you a while though. I was already starting to worry about my Joshua.”

“Yeah,” you heard him mumble, “me too.”

“Will you join us for dinner?” you asked her, trying to steer the topic away from the inevitable chit-chat about your almost-non-existent relationship.

She hummed in thought – a habit Joshua must have picked up from her, you realised – and nodded as she looked around the living room. “Of course. Let me just get settled in and put on more comfortable clothes. Where can I unpack?”

Your “boyfriend” and you shared a wide-eyed look. This is why you never did improv! 

“You can have my room,” Joshua finally spoke all the while still having that very same panicked expression. “I’ll get it set up real quick.”

His mother paused, confused (and was that a glint of suspicion in her eyes?). “You don’t sleep together?”

You could’ve fried an egg on your cheeks with how hot they felt. “Oh, we–”

“Like she said,” Joshua interrupted, forcing a smile that almost looked convincing, “we’re still kind of settling into this whole relationship thing. We’re taking it slow.”

“I’m glad to give you a push in the right direction,” she told him with a chuckle. “You can’t leave someone like (Y/n) just waiting. She’ll get bored of you, and then what?”

He laughed shortly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Like always.”

He nodded before tugging on the crook of your elbow to drag you with him. “Sweetie, why don’t you come help me set up mom’s room?”

You thanked the heavens he had enough mental capacity to not leave you alone with his mom. “Of course!”

“Help yourself to anything you want in the kitchen, yeah?” Joshua told his mom as he reached to pick up her suitcase with his free hand, his left one still holding onto you like you were his lifeline. “Coffee, tea, a snack – anything.”

She replied with a smile and continued her (no doubt thorough) tour of your apartment. 

Once you were in his room, he closed the door so that it was just a bit ajar as to not seem suspicious and turned to you with a look of terror. His whispers were so loud and harsh that you wondered if there was any point in pretending otherwise as he asked, “What do we do?”

“We clean your room and make your mom feel at home,” you suggested, not entirely sure what he was getting at.

Joshua gave you a look that said he was holding back the urge to call you dumb. “I meant us. She’s taking my bed. Where will I sleep? I can’t sleep on the sofa – she’ll figure out we’re lying.”

Oh. Yeah, that was an unwelcome problem. Mostly because the only viable solution you could think of involved Joshua sleeping in your room and you not getting any sleep because he’d be so close to you. What if you fell asleep and talked in your sleep, confessing your everlasting love? Worse!: what if you had a dirty dream about him – one involving his gorgeous biceps and soft lips and– dear god, you’d never be able to look him in the eyes again. Hell, you probably wouldn’t be able to be in the same room as him. 

Joshua stared at you in silence, expecting a solution. Before you could offer one though, he shut it down with a “I’m not sneaking out to sleep on Chan’s pull-out couch either.”

Damn it. 

“Then there’s only one solution,” you whispered back, unable to believe your own words. “We’ll have to share my room.”

“There’s no room for another mattress there.”

It’s not like either of you even knew where to find a spare mattress. But you didn’t tell him that. And the look in his eyes said you didn’t have to because he knew it just the same and that left only one solution.

“We can share my bed, but if you touch my teddy bear, I’ll make sure you go missing under mysterious circumstances,” you told him and left the room to get some clean sheets for the bed (and calm your heart).

The rest of a day went by in a daze of terrible half-believable lies that just kept elaborating at their own accord because of course she couldn’t be satisfied with just a simple answer. No, she had to ask questions to clarify, as if she was a detective trying to figure out a suspect’s background.

And so you bluffed and lied and shared panicked looks with Joshua. Your collaborations added up to a decent backstory – at least that’s what you thought because at least your lies were not completely out of the realm of reality.

Who confessed first? You both did, in a moment of drunken chaos at Seungcheol’s housewarming party (you failed to mention there was no alcohol provided at said party). 

Where was your first date? A picnic at the park not too far from your home just a few short months ago (and she didn’t need to know it was an outing with all of your neighbours – something not Joshua but Jihoon had organised to help the people in the building become closer).

What was your first kiss like? You had kissed him under the streetlights when he walked you home from work because you’d be damned if you let a man make the first move (in Joshua’s opinion, this was the most obvious lie of all but he chose not to argue because the other option was to look his mother in the eyes and tell her he’d made the first move to kiss somebody on the mouth).

The little lies added up and by the end of the day, you weren’t entirely sure where one started or another ended. Hell, you were pretty certain you wouldn’t remember most of them the next day. 

But that wasn’t the hard part – not the real hard part anyway. No, the real problem was the evernearing night. Between the improv performance of your life and the general feeling of butterflies, you hadn’t had any time to come to terms with the fact that you’d have to share a bed with your handsome, hot, absolutely amazing roommate under the guise of being his girlfriend.

And now the reality was looming.

His mother was the first to head to bed, leaving you and Joshua to stare at each other in a relieved silence across the dining table as she went about her bedtime routine. Neither you or Joshua dared to move to head to sleep next. Neither of you wanted to make the first move. 

Sensing you were faced with a similar dilemma, he finally suggested, “We could watch a movie.”

“We’ll have to go to bed eventually,” you told him with a sigh. “We can’t spend the whole night watching TV.”

His silence told you he thought otherwise. 

And you were in no mood to make the first move or argue about pillow barriers and teddy bears. So, begrudgingly, you dragged yourself over to the sofa and turned on the TV. 

He joined you soon after, two cans of soda in hand. He handed one – already opened – to you as you flipped through the movie selection.

“You know, sugar really isn’t good for you before bed,” you remarked offhandedly. “Makes it hard to fall asleep.”

He just scoffed and opened his can with a pop and a fizzle. “Good thing we’re watching a movie and not sleeping then.”

“Rom-com or action?”

“Action,” he answered a little too fast before sipping his drink as if to distract himself. 

“We could watch Transformers,” you half-joked. “It’s got a good runtime.”

“Might as well,” he sighed and made himself comfortable as you clicked on the title. 

As you pulled a cushion into your lap for optimal comfort, Joshua remained sitting far from you. It was funny, really – it seemed that he was sitting further from you as your “boyfriend” than he ever had as just your roommate. 

You wanted to blame the movie for how silent the living room had become. Only Optimus Prime’s voice sounded in the apartment, and even that was quiet to not disturb your guest’s sleep. But the reality was that something had shifted between you. You were officially stuck in an arrangement that both benefited and ruined you, and the reality was sinking in fast.

Now there was no chance to take back the lies and the faking. The only option was to keep going and keep up with your elaborate plan to trick the sweetest woman you knew, all because your roommate didn’t want to date some girl called Mary and you had agreed to be his cover because you were infatuated with him. 

How does one process this situation? Where do you go from here? Can you do this for a month without thinking too hard about it? And what happens when the month is up?

“Hey,” Joshua’s soft voice startled you from your tortured thoughts. You turned to find him watching you with a somewhat wistful smile. “You did great today, you know?”

“Whatever do you mean?” You chuckled but it sounded pained even to your own ears. “I was just being a good girlfriend.”

He snorted a laugh. “You can stop acting. I’m pretty sure she’s asleep by now. It’s okay. ”

“How do you know if she’s asleep?” you whispered, eyeing his – no, her – bedroom door. “Would suck to get caught lying on the very first night.”

Joshua’s smile looked a little more real now, almost reaching his eyes as he still watched you like you were a beloved family puppy who had learnt a new trick. “She snores pretty loud.”

Tense in your seat, still eyeing the door, you listened and waited. Before long, you discovered he was right. There it was, a soft snore accompanying Bumblebee’s action scene. Closing your eyes, you breathed out in relief and relaxed into the plush fabric of the sofa. 

“Do you think she bought it?” you wondered.

“If she didn’t, we’ll just have to work harder tomorrow,” he replied before reaching over to brush your hair off your face. 

You willed the butterflies to just go to sleep already and let you be. They remained relentless and you could only pray Joshua wouldn’t notice how flustered his touch made you feel.

“We just have to do this for another 29 days,” you said to distract yourself. “It’ll be fine.”

Did he have to keep stroking your cheek so gently? How much hair did you even have stuck on your face? Maybe you were hallucinating and he wasn’t touching you at all – that seemed almost plausible. 

“We’ll be fine,” he whispered and he sounded to be closer now. His warm breath brushed against your temple. Maybe you weren’t entirely out of your mind yet. “It’s just a month.”

“Just a month.” 

You weren’t yet sure whether you wished it would last less or more.

[DAY 2, SATURDAY]

Three things had greeted you when you woke up: the smell of fresh coffee, the brightest sun you had ever had the displeasure of waking under, and someone’s arm around your waist. You almost hadn’t cared whose arm it was because it was holding you to a warm body, safe from the evils of the morning chill.

Begrudgingly, you had eventually opened your eyes and glanced around. You had fallen asleep on the sofa instead of your bed – a work-around for last night’s problem if you’d ever seen one, even if it was horrible for your back. And the arm belonged to none other than your roommate who looked like an angel as he slept, resting his head on your shoulder… 

“And how is any of that my problem?” Chan yawned over his cup of coffee as he watched you pace around his kitchen ten minutes later. He didn’t really have any plans anyway but it’s not like he enjoyed having neighbours march into his apartment to rant about their love lives (even if it was great material for the building’s gossip group chat which he would no doubt update as soon as you’d leave).

You offered him a glare. “You’re supposed to be a supportive friend.”

“You must have me mixed up with someone,” he deadpanned and took a sip of his hot drink. “What’s so bad about waking up next to him anyway? It’s not like you’ve never shared a bed before.”

Your face felt like it was burning at his words. “How do you even know that?”

Unimpressed, he raised a brow. “You did the same thing the last time it happened – ran in screaming and crying and giggling like a schoolkid.” He paused, narrowing his eyes a little as if a thought was occurring before adding, “You actually do this a lot. It’s a little concerning.”

“Whatever,” you groaned and slumped in the bar stool across the counter from him. “What do I do?”

“Seize the day and appreciate the fact that you’re dating your crush?”

“Fake dating,” you corrected him with a mild glare. And you had only revealed so much to him because he was your best friend and confidant (and because you had made him swear on his life that he wouldn’t tell anyone else).

Chan scoffed a laugh. “He might be faking but there’s no way you are. You suck at improv. Just embrace it and go with the flow.”

You stared at him. Were all your friends this unhelpful or was this just a trait unique to Lee Chan? 

“Why do I even come to you for advice?” you thought out loud. “It’s not like you can even get a date yourself.”

He sputtered and coughed up the sip of coffee he had unfortunately taken just seconds before. His ears turned red. “At least I’m trying.”

“So am I!” you whined. “Come on, give me something to work with. I’m in the middle of a crisis.”

“All of which is self-inflicted.”

“I hate you.”

“Maybe, but you love Joshua,” he teased, winked, and narrowly dodged the apple you threw at his head. He laughed heartily before taking another sip of his coffee. “I’m serious though. You might as well take advantage of your arrangement. Just forget about the fake part and just think of yourself as his girlfriend. I’m sure he won’t complain about your authenticity.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Well, then take advantage some other way,” he suggested, appearing a little frustrated (which was fair; you had, in fact, interrupted his much needed me-time and breakfast for one). “What are you getting out of this arrangement anyways? He gets his mom off his back, and you? Is getting to live out your late-night fantasies the only perk?”

You stared at him. For a moment, he feared you were getting ready to hurl another fruit at his head. But then, instead of reaching for an apple, you slumped in your seat and let out a curious noise. “Huh.”

“Huh?” he mimicked, still tense in case it was a fake-out and you were going to throw something at him regardless.

“You’re right,” you said and he worried even more. 

He glanced towards the nearest door from the corner of his eye, wondering if it was close enough for a safe escape. You never said Chan was right – that just wasn’t a thing. It never happened. He had a bigger chance of getting struck by lightning than to hear you say those two words. Chan was fearing for his life.

“I’m right?” he echoed hesitantly.

“I’m getting nothing out of this arrangement,” you said with a scoff of disbelief. “That little scammer! I’m out here improv-ing my ass off to please his mother and all I get in return is daydream material? Screw that!”

Across from you, Chan still wasn’t sure if this was a healthy development or if he should call Jeonghan for back-up. Regardless, he decided it was safer to just play along. He let out an empathetic cheer and agreed, “Screw it! Yeah! He’s too nice to say no anyways.”

“I’m gonna make him pay!” you decided and marched out of his apartment.

The moment you were out of his sight, Chan breathed out a sigh of relief. 

But you? You froze in the hallway. You just had to cross the hall and demand your due payment. But what would you even ask for? 

As your mind raced for ideas – a new laptop? a new wardrobe? –, the door of your apartment opened. As if you were cursed, Joshua’s head peeked out. 

“Oh,” he spoke and his voice was so soft and welcoming that you almost convinced yourself you couldn’t take advantage of him any more than you already were, “there you are! We were starting to worry.��

“Worry?” you parroted dumbly.

“Yeah,” he laughed and reached out a hand as if to invite you in – as if your name wasn’t on the lease right next to his –, “we were about to have breakfast. Mom made french toast.”

“Oh.” You silently wondered what had happened to the woman you had been two minutes ago in Chan’s apartment. The spine you had grown seemed to have disappeared as soon as Joshua flashed you a smile. You were capital S Screwed.

Deep in your thoughts, you hadn’t noticed Joshua staring at you, confused and puzzled, his hand still outstretched for you to take. He cleared his throat to call your attention and forced his smile to brighten as he wriggled his fingers as if to entice you. You sighed quietly before faking a smile and taking his hand, finally letting him pull you to the kitchen.

“There you are,” his mother called out the moment she saw you. She was already at the table, sipping her tea and eyeing the fresh toast. “We were just beginning to wonder where you had gone.”

“Yeah,” Joshua agreed before frowning at you as he pulled a chair out for you to sit, “where did you go?”

What would be a convincing lie? A half-truth – at least that’s what Joshua himself had once told you in a drunken giggle fit.

You took a deep breath and lied through your teeth, “I remembered I promised to help Chan with something.”

“Chan?” She looked at you and there was an odd glint of something in her eyes. Amusement? Judgement? Suspicion. That’s what it was – it was clear cut suspicion and you had to shake it off before she caught onto your plan.

“Our neighbour from across the hall,” Joshua said quickly. Too quickly. You thought he must have recognised that glint in her eyes as well. “He and (Y/n) get along great.”

She hummed thoughtfully, giving you one last glance before declaring, “Well, let’s eat before it all gets cold, kids.”

[DAY 3, SUNDAY]

You had managed to avoid this twice already. This being the act of sharing a bed with the very man who had been the main character of your beautiful love-struck dreams for the past 7 months. 

The first time had been a lucky break – falling asleep on the sofa with a Transformers movie playing in the background. It had been believable enough.

The second time – last night –, had been less of a lucky break and more of a Joshua scheme. Whether it was because he couldn’t fathom the idea of sharing even a room with you (hurtful, but valid) or because he was afraid you’d be uncomfortable (absolutely valid), he had gone to hang out with his friend Jeonghan and the newest inhabitant of the building Choi Seungcheol and didn’t return until noon. And even now he was still hungover from their late-night activities.

But this time? It seemed that three was not a magic number after all. 

Dressed in your least revealing pyjamas, you stood next to Joshua, collectively staring at the twin bed in the corner of your room. 

The silence was deafening and suffocating you. And the butterflies in your stomach seemed to have doubled since this arrangement started. 

“Do you think it’s too late to call Jihoon and ask for a spare mattress?” you wondered out loud without really meaning to. 

You wanted to slap a hand over your own mouth – all these months of pining but when the opportunity is served to you on a silver platter, you’re a coward. What was it that Mina had called this? 

Self-sabotage? Sounds about right.

Joshua glanced at the time on his phone before sighing and looking at the bed again. “It’s already past midnight. And you have work at 8.”

“Oh.” 

“Whatever,” he sighed, blinking his eyes closed and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’ll take the window side. You take the wall side.”

Any love-blind or anxious thoughts jumped right out your third floor windows. Why did you even have a crush on this man who cared so little for your sleep? Making you sleep against the wall? When his shoulders were almost as wide as your whole bed? 

To quote the wise words of Lee Jihoon: Joshua? A gentleman, my ass!

You scoffed. “No way! Last time I let you do that, you almost squashed me.”

Frowning, he shushed you and pointed at the door. “My mom’s next door.”

You rolled your eyes and continued in a whisper – because unlike him, you were considerate of your friends’ feelings and needs –, “I’m not sleeping against the wall.”

“Fine,” he agreed with a soft scoff of disbelief, his eyes widening, “I’ll sleep against the wall.”

“And what? Push me off my own bed?”

He stared at you like you had grown a third head. But really he couldn’t argue – he knew he couldn’t because you had a perfectly valid point. And besides, he had lived with you long enough to know there was no winning against you. 

“Then what do you suggest?” he asked, defeated.

No ideas were popping up. You stayed quiet. 

After a few minutes of silence, you relented and suggested, “... Rock paper scissors?”

“You didn’t like either idea,” he reminded you.

“Just pick a side to defend. Whatever. I’m voting I get the window side.”

“But you didn’t want–”

“I want the window side,” you insisted half-heartedly but you both knew you were lying. There was no winning for you – not with a bed this size.

“Why did I choose you?” he thought out loud as he lifted his hand in the starting position. 

You almost scoffed at his words because it’s not like he actually had any other choices anyway. You were the only one crazy enough to agree to his scheme. Joshua had exactly two partners in crime and you doubted Jeonghan would have agreed to pretend to be Joshua’s boyfriend for a month. So, really, you were his one and only option.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot,” you softly counted in unison.

Your rock was swiftly beaten by his paper. You weren’t sure why that annoyed you – you were on the losing end of the bet either way.

Joshua stepped back and grandly gestured towards the bed with a sarcastic smile, “My love.”

“I hate you,” you told him with a groan and got in the bed before pulling yourself to the side against the wall. You already knew this would be a miserable night. 

Your roommate chuckled and followed suit, settling on his own side. Immediately, you regretted getting in the bed with him. Joshua took up more than half of the bed, easily and even when he was trying to be considerate, rolling to his side to take up less space, he was too close for comfort. 

Perhaps, you wondered, he wouldn’t bat an eye if you got out right now and pulled an all-nighter on a report you desperately needed to work on before the morning (the report being your Netflix catalogue; Bridgerton was calling your name).

But before you could even open your mouth to lie, Joshua pulled the blanket up to your neck, tucking you in with a gentle smile. “We can switch tomorrow, if you want. Just get some sleep now. You have an early day.”

As he closed your eyes and subconsciously leaned closer to you, you wondered if it would be so hard to take advantage of the situation after all and pretend it’s real. Would it really hurt to just forget about the ‘fake’ part of your fake dating plan and just… lean a little closer and rest your head on his pillow instead of your own? 

His hand was so close to yours, fingers just inches from touching. 

What would happen if you just reached out and wrapped your hand around his? What would happen if you pressed a single affectionate kiss to his knuckles? 

Would he smile in his sleep? 

Or would he be appalled?

You shook the thoughts out of your head and squeezed your eyes shut. This was going to be a long night.

[DAY 4, MONDAY]

In your months of living with Joshua, you had shared more than a few breakfasts. Hungover, sick, or even after a foul fight over who’s turn it had been to take out the trash – none of those breakfasts had been nearly as unpalatable as this one.

You could hardly look at him from across the table. Mortified. Ashamed. Certain he wouldn’t even want to look at you. You avoided his eyes and he avoided yours as his mother fussed about and piled waffles upon waffles onto your plates. 

It might have been rude to not listen to your guest’s morning rambles about the weather and the news channel, but you were still too caught-up in your embarrassment to pay her any kind of attention. 

You knew you shouldn’t have fallen asleep. You should’ve ignored the fluffy sheep and refused the offers of the Sandman. You really should have because you hadn’t and now you were forced to live the knowledge that Joshua had to gently shake you awake from his spot underneath you. 

From UNDERNEATH you. Meaning you had fallen asleep on top of your very handsome roommate. 

And now you couldn’t even look him in the eyes again. 

“Are you kids alright?” his mother wondered all of a sudden and a jolt of fear went through you. 

On instinct and instinct alone, your head snapped to share a look with your “boyfriend”. Remembering the morning incident, you immediately looked away again and feigned nonchalance even as your cheeks and ears burned (out of the corner of your eye, you saw him do the same – there went the small chance that he had thought nothing of it).

“Yeah, why?” Joshua replied after clearing his throat.

“You’re usually not this quiet,” she said and you found her looking at you with concern. “Did something happen? Did you two fight?”

“What? No!” you protested without really meaning to. In your head, you reminded yourself that it was just a reflex and the desperate need to fulfil your part of the deal. “We’re completely fine.”

“Are you?” she still worried, hands on her hips as she took turns looking at the two of you. “Be honest: is me being here a problem? You seem so awkward, like even being in the same room is a chore. Did you fight because I came to stay here?”

“No, no,” you and Joshua protested in unison. 

You shared another look, forgetting your embarrassment now that your plan was in jeopardy.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I really didn’t want to cause you problems. If I’ve done something to upset either of you–”

“Mom,” Joshua assured her with a gentle smile that didn’t look entirely genuine, “(Y/n) and I are fine. We’re just…”

“Stressed from work,” you supplied when he trailed off in thought. “You know how it is.”

She didn’t fully seem to buy it, still eyeing the both of you with a mix of suspicion and worry. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” She scoffed as if she had realised the gravity of her words and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What am I even saying? You wouldn’t lie to me.”

As if your morning couldn’t get any worse.

“We should go get ready for work, honey,” Joshua suddenly excused himself and you, pulling you up by the crook of your elbow. “Wouldn’t want you to be late to work with all those big projects you have.”

You wondered what big projects he was talking about. Your higher-ups barely even allowed you to proofread the company documents and fix typos. But the look in his eyes said he needed you to play along.

“Right, right,” you sighed and went with him, offering his mother one last sweet smile before the bedroom door shut behind you and Joshua practically trapped you against it. 

“She’s onto us,” he told you quietly, all the while still avoiding your eyes. “She’s onto us and she’s probably already setting up a blind date with that Maria-girl.”

“Wasn’t it Mary?” you wondered.

Joshua replied with a half-hearted glare and a sigh. “We need to fix this.”

“But how?” You crossed your arms over your chest, mostly to convince yourself that there was enough space between your and his body to not have the butterflies go absolutely wild. “We just, what, kiss and make up?”

His eyes lit up and you feared for your life. “You’re a genius!”

“Shua, I was being sarcastic.”

He didn’t even seem to hear your protests. “If we kiss, she has no reason to suspect we’re not together. And she’ll be off our backs. It’s perfect.”

The things you would’ve done to kiss Joshua Hong and his beautiful, plump lips… 

Joshua must have mistaken your eager expression for one of dismay or maybe fear because his eyes widened. He lifted his hands in a way that just screamed ‘I was just kidding, please don’t hit me’ before quickly adding, “Not that I want to kiss you – I’m sure you’re a great kisser. We don’t have to kiss though. Because–”

“Because we’re friends,” you finished for him with a smile that you hoped wouldn’t betray your disappointment, “and it would make things awkward, right?”

“Right,” he breathed out and visibly relaxing – slumping even – in front of you. “I’m sorry I even suggested that. It’s dumb. You’re my friend – you shouldn’t have to kiss me if you don’t want to just because of a stupid scheme to please my mom.”

If you don’t want to. If you don’t want to. You almost scoffed in his face – he had no idea what he was saying.

You wondered what was the formal and correct way to inform your roommate that you had the biggest, fattest, most ridiculous crush on him and would sell your left kidney for one kiss – if only he wanted to kiss you back.

“Well, we have to convince her somehow, right?” you pointed out as you prepared to start doing your hair. “I doubt a hug will make her less suspicious.”

Joshua chuckled. “You noticed it too?”

“She was acting like she expected us to slip up and confess at any moment,” you reminded him with a quirk of your brow, eyeing him through the mirror. “What did she say? ‘You wouldn’t lie to me’? Oddly specific, no?”

“We’re so screwed if we don’t figure something out,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair (it took you great strength to resist the urge to reach over and give his fluffy utter mess of dark hair a pat as well).

You schooled your expression, willing the beginnings of a blush to go away, as you suggested, “We could still do something kiss-related, you know. Just this once, to get her off our backs.”

“I’m not kissing you,” he argued instantly, ears reddening.

Why was he so god-damn difficult? Why did he have to go on an anxious mental tangent about the wrongs of kissing one’s roommate? Why couldn’t he just kiss you already?! It was his idea anyway!

You almost rolled your eyes as you came up with an alternative, “I could kiss you on the cheek when I leave. Not as good as a kiss but–”

“That could work.”

“Okay, great, we’ve figured it out,” you told him with a chuckle and gently pushed him towards the door. “Now, get out. You haven’t dated me long enough to earn the privilege of seeing me naked yet.”

He snorted a laugh at that – you were half sure it was because he had, in fact, at one point seen you naked, under very different and less than ideal circumstances involving one too many shots of Bacardi – before leaving you to your thoughts and doubts and the knowledge that your roommate did not want to kiss you at all.

[DAY 7, THURSDAY]

While there was an extensive list of reasons why Joshua Hong was the most infuriating man you had ever met (and you meant this very affectionately, which your friends found hilarious), there was an equally extensive list of reasons why Joshua was the ideal man.

His looks were definitely on the list – his doe-like brown eyes, his little bird’s nest of morning hair, his bright smiles to name some of the points.

But it wasn’t all that superficial. You loved his sense of humour. You liked his unlimited patience and kindness. 

Most of all, you loved his cooking.

On most evenings, you got home from work and found your roommate beginning to prepare dinner. He’d offer you a wide smile and ask if his plan of tomato rigatoni suited your tastes. And then he’d just let you rant about your day as he cooked, a drink in your hand.

This tradition had been briefly broken by Joshua’s mother taking over kitchen duties. She felt it was only fair as she was staying in your apartment for free for such a prolonged time. But as much as you loved her food (which almost rivalled Joshua’s), you just missed your daily gossip sessions. 

So, when you got home from work and found your roommate, friend, and fake boyfriend extraordinaire sorting through ingredients on the kitchen counter, you almost cried of joy. You had so many tales to share and you were eager to listen to his stories as well (your last gossip session had ended on a cliffhanger on his part). 

“You’re cooking?” you asked him, leaning over to look at the ingredients, before even remembering that was not how you were meant to greet someone. 

Joshua jumped at voice before resting a hand on his chest and taking a deep breath. “Oh my god…”

“Did I scare you?” you laughed at him and offered an apologetic expression when he turned to glare at you. “So, what are you cooking?”

“I was going to just make some vegetable soup,” he informed you with a tired chuckle. “Mom’s feeling a little under the weather so…”

You couldn’t help but melt at the implications. The grand scheme of fake dating aside, Joshua was a great son to his mother. Yet another reason to add to your ever-growing list. 

And perhaps it was the melting of your heart that affected your brain activity because the next thing you knew you were doing the unthinkable.

“Can I help somehow?” you asked him. 

Even Joshua was startled by your question. And you soon realised why.

In disbelief, you scoffed. “C’mon, I’ve helped you before.”

“Have you?” His head tilted to the side in a manner resembling a curious cat but his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You never offer to help cook. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you use a pan.”

“Shush,” you told him and gave him a gentle slap on the bicep. “What do you need me to do?”

Looking at the various vegetables on the counter, he puffed his cheeks out in thought. Then he shrugged. “You could help with the potatoes.”

“What do I do with them?”

He sighed theatrically. “This is why I never let you help.”

“Hey!”

“Just peel and cut them into pieces, okay?” he finally instructed with a laugh that suggested he did not have a lot of faith in your ability to do so. “Not too small though.”

“I know how to cut potatoes, Shua,” you told him as you got out a knife and cutting board. “I’m a big girl.”

When he offered you another suspicious and perhaps worried glance, you decided it was time to prove a point. He didn’t think you could peel and cut a potato into perfect pieces for a soup? You were going to prove him wrong and you were going to make him eat his words.

It started out great. The first potato was a breeze, peeled and cut in record time. The second and third potato were a joy to turn into smaller chunks and chuck into the bowl Joshua had provided for you. While working on the fourth potato, you started sharing gossip from work and it didn’t affect your task at all. 

For a moment you were certain Joshua would regret doubting you. You were sure there was no way you were going to mess this up and make him question your cooking abilities ever again. 

That is until you reached the last potato. It was two chops in when you let out a whimper, dropped the knife and cradled your hand to your chest.

Joshua’s head snapped up immediately.  Eyes widening in concern, he rushed to your side. “Are you bleeding?”

“Yeah,” you sighed and reached for a towel to dry the blood. “It’s no big deal though, so don’t worry. I’ll g0 find some band-aids and–”

“Don’t get any blood on the potatoes,” he warned with a serious frown and your jaw dropped.

You smacked him with your good hand when his scowl turned into a mischievous smile.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” he laughed and left the room. He returned just moments later with the first-aid kit. “Come here, silly. Let’s get that fixed up.”

When he reached for your injured hand, you snorted out a laugh. “You know, I can put the band-aid on by myself.”

“Who knows,” he teased all the while focusing on your wound, “maybe you’d mess that up as well.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” you told him but made no move to escape from your handsome nurse.

Leaning ridiculously close to you, he gently applied the band-aid. When you let out a soft hiss at the pain (mostly just to mess with him), he pouted and pressed a soft kiss to the spot. “That better?”

It was just your luck that his mother decided to come for a glass of water at that exact moment. She let out a soft gasp of delight before feigning nonchalance when your heads snapped to look at her. 

Clearing his throat, Joshua immediately leaned away, straightened up, and offered her a taut smile. 

“Don’t mind me, lovebirds,” she spoke in a theatrical whisper and rushed over to the cupboard to get a glass. “I’m not even here.”

You fought a grimace and turned back to your cutting board. The potato wasn’t going to cut itself and the pot of broth was already calling its name. 

“You’re making soup?” she wondered and lifted a glass of water to her lips, barely even bothering to hide a smile. “It smells delicious.”

Joshua chuckled. “It will be, once (Y/n) finishes the potatoes and we add them in.”

Her jaw dropped and she lowered her glass of water. 

“Joshua!” 

Her voice could only be described as the dictionary definition of the tone of a mother scolding her children for getting into trouble. It sent a shiver of fear down your spine until you realised it wasn’t you she was yelling at.

Your roommate offered you a panicked look before turning to look at his mother, offering her a tight-lipped, fearful smile. “Yes?”

“You’re not actually going to make your girlfriend cook when she’s injured like this, right?!” she demanded to know, her brows furrowed into a furious frown. “She’s bleeding!”

“She’s fine,” Joshua started to argue but his voice trailed lower and lower with every syllable until it faded into silence and his gaze dropped to the floor in shame. 

She glared at him and reached to drag you away from the counter by the sleeve of your blouse. “Come on, sweetheart. You can come watch a movie with me while Joshua thinks about what he’s done.”

As you made your escape from the heat of the kitchen, you glanced over your shoulder to find Joshua looking at you with a dramatic grimace. You replied with a bright smile of victory and a playful wave before joining his mother in watching Mamma Mia.

[DAY 12, TUESDAY]

As far as ways to throw your roommate’s mom off your trail go, cheek kisses were good enough for the first couple of days. You quite grew to like them and, judging by the pinks of his ears and cheeks, so did Joshua. Every morning, you’d leave for work with a kiss to his cheek, a sweet smile and prep to your steps.

Then, of course, his mother made an off-hand comment about how it seems that Joshua never kisses you and he, of course, took that as a challenge. So, he began sending you off with forehead kisses and warm hugs. You like those even more, honestly. 

But you both knew you were delaying the inevitable. Eventually, the cheek and forehead kisses would not be enough proof of your relationship. Paired with no late-evening love-drunk giggles and movie night cuddles, the morning kisses were barely enough to convince anyone and eventually you’d have to up your game.

You had simply hoped you’d have more time to come to terms with the fact before it happened.

“Mom’s starting to get suspicious again,” Joshua simply stated in a hushed tone as he helped you put on your coat. 

Your heart dropped at the mention. When you turned to look at him, he was looking at everything but your eyes. “Is she asking questions again?”

“She told me to stop eating so much garlic bread because it would make my breath stink,” he said while staring at the fake plant sat on the shoe rack. “That feels like a hint.”

“Well, you don’t want to kiss me, so,” you pointed out with a shrug and shook your scarf to unravel it. “Just tell her it’s my breath that’s bad.”

“No way. Everybody knows your breath smells like roses and vanilla,” he joked and you choked on a laugh. He took your scarf from you and untangled a knot in the middle. 

With nothing to do but stare at him, you came up with a mutually beneficial idea. “We could just fake it.”

“How do you fake a kiss?” he wondered, eyes narrowing and brows furrowing.

You shrugged. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what they do in movies? We just have to get the angle right.”

“How does that work?” 

It turns out it’s hard to answer any questions when your crush is standing in your personal space – so close that you could smell his shampoo and conditioner. Your brain stalled, blanked and desperately tried to restart all necessary systems while you stared at him. 

“Like this?” you heard his voice say but it sounded distant over the sound of your heart pumping.

Not seeming to notice your daze, Joshua placed the scarf around your neck gently. Carefully, he tugged on the two ends of it, pulling you closer inch by inch until you were so close that you had to fight yourself to not actually kiss him. He leaned closer and closer still, his nose brushing against yours, his hands still wrapped in the scarf to keep you from escaping. If you focused really hard, you could almost feel his lips brushing against yours ever so slightly.

The sound of the coffee maker starting and a mug being placed on the counter awakened you again, harshly forcing you back into consciousness. You let out a soft gasp without really meaning to. 

“That– That was–” Joshua stammered, stepping away from you like he’d been burned and running a hand through his hair. 

You cleared your throat. “That could work… I guess…”

“Right.” 

“Yeah.”

“Have— Have a good day…”

“Yeah.”

You couldn’t find another word to say until you reached your office. There, you slumped into your almost-comfy chair and stared at the ceiling. 

“Fuck.”

[DAY 16, SATURDAY]

Brunch is meant to be fun. It’s meant to bring joy. It’s breakfast without the hassle of waking up at 8 am – what’s not to love?

Well, you weren’t sure you liked brunch that much anymore.

Traumatised (a bit of a hyperbole) and furious (the scientifically correct term), you walked into your room and shut the door behind you before turning to glare at Joshua.

While you had gone out to eat with his mother – at her insistence and with a promise of free food –, your roommate stayed home with the excuse of a headache and snuggled into your blankets like it was his rightful place.

“You.”

His eyes blinked open. “Me?”

“Why do you never read your damn messages?” you burst out but tried to keep your voice low to not catch his mother’s attention. “I sent you, like, fifty.”

“You did?” He seemed genuinely surprised. Which meant that he hadn’t even looked at his phone once in the hours you were gone. Why did he even have a phone in the first place?

Your hands clenched into fists. “What if I died?!”

“My mom asking you to brunch isn’t really a deadly occasion.”

“I barely survived! She asked me about grandkids!”

“Oh.”

Your glare was unrelenting. You hoped it would somehow telepathically convey how much you wished to strangle him if only it weren’t illegal and you weren’t desperately in love with him.

“Well, what did you tell her?” he then wondered and you almost actually jumped to tackle and murder him.

“What do you think I told her, Joshua?” You scoffed. “I just said we hadn’t thought about it because this is still new and you know what she did? Do you want to know what she did?”

He raised a brow. “I guess so?”

“She started giving me the whole ‘you don’t have forever’ and ‘I’d like grandkids before I turn 70’ spiel,” you informed him and groaned. “It went on forever.”

“You’re a good actor,” he assured you with a small smile that almost seemed amused, “I’m sure you got your way out of it.”

“You’re sleeping on the floor tonight,” you told him with a roll of your eyes.

He gasped. “Because my mom asked about grandkids?!”

“Because you don’t read my texts.”

Joshua paused. “Yeah, that’s fair, actually.”

[DAY 20, WEDNESDAY]

Enough was enough. You could put up with many things – your roommate’s pranks, Chan’s endless fantasies about how he’s secretly the most sensible inhabitant of the building, Joshua’s mother staying for a month with little to no notice – but you even your charitability had its limits.

When you’d woken up this morning, your back positively aching and your joints sore from being stuck between Joshua’s wall-like form and the actual wall, the first thought you had was something Chan said:

“What are you getting out of this arrangement anyways? He gets his mom off his back, and you? Is getting to live out your late-night fantasies the only perk?”

And that was when you decided that you had finally reached your limit. With a shove that was far from affectionate or fond, you awakened Joshua and declared before he could even rub the sleep out of his eyes that he’d better keep his evening schedule and a sizable number on his bank account free for you.

What followed had been a shopping trip that dismayed him and exhilarated you. You had, after all, wanted a proper big bed for a while now. Finally, a chance to sprawl out and live out your starfish dreams without the worry of falling to the cold hard ground at 2 am. And more importantly, no more being pushed against the wall like an undignified cushion every other night.

But the thing you enjoyed most of all was Joshua’s hair getting progressively more messy and unkempt as he tried to decipher the IKEA instructions all on his own while you curled up in your desk chair and watched him with a cup of hot cocoa in hand.

“I thought you’d be better at this,” you noted passively upon hearing his frustrated sigh and seeing him unscrew what you assumed was meant to be one of the legs of the new bed. “Maybe I should’ve asked for Jeonghan’s help instead.”

The glare he sent your way was scathing but his tone remained as delightful as always when he assured you, “I’ve got this, don’t worry.”

You made a show of glancing at the time on your laptop – a rerun of Friends playing in the background in an effort to entertain your poor IKEA slave of the night – and announced, “I’m just saying. It’s almost midnight and you’ve only managed to add one leg to the frame.”

He groaned. “It’s not my fault this thing is so complicated. Why couldn’t you pick out a different frame? Something more easy to assemble, for one.”

“I wanted this one,” you teased.

“The oak one you looked at at first would’ve been better. And cheaper.”

“If you want me to keep playing along in your little improv show, you’d better be happy I only asked for a 700,000-won bed in return,” you pointed out and took a sip of your cocoa. 

You sighed happily at the warmth the drink provided. Oh the joys of girlhood. You thought you could get used to this: free furniture, free assembly, and a handsome man to do your bidding.

Joshua’s lips and eyes squeezed into a sarcastic smile as he slowly turned to face you. “Don’t forget the mattress, darling.”

You shrugged. “I didn’t see you protesting at the check-out.”

His smile dropped into yet another glare. “That’s called being in shock. My bank account is dying because of you.”

Without another word, he sharply turned back to his task of assembling the frame.

“This benefits you too, sweetheart,” you replied with a roll of your eyes. “I sleep better, you sleep better, everybody benefits.”

“For ten days,” he muttered and practically slammed two pieces of wood together now that he was sure they were meant to go together. “And then you have a new comfy bed and I just have poverty.”

You snorted. “I’m willing to split custody if you’re nice to me.”

It didn’t take a genius to know he was rolling his eyes. “Yeah right.”

“Besides,” you adjusted your position so you could nudge his back with your foot in an affectionate manner, “you barge in here to gossip every other night anyways. You’re benefiting plenty.”

“Remind me to never ask you to be my fake girlfriend ever again,” he pleaded.

You knew (or perhaps wished) he only half-meant it. But even so there was a pang in your chest. A feeling of sadness as the reality once again sank in. It was easy to forget that this was just an act and he had only bought you this bed because he felt guilty and not because he loved you. The feeling would nag you late into the night.

[DAY 22,  FRIDAY]

You had learnt early on that karaoke has the magical ability to heal wounds and erase bad memories, even if just for one night. Tonight you hoped it would once again prove true.

The building’s monthly karaoke parties were organised by Vernon and Jihoon in an effort to bring the community closer together. On every third Friday of the month, the lobby of the building would be lit with stage and string lights, decorated with colourful banners and dollar store party supplies, and a small stage would be built in the corner. As was tradition, everyone brought some snacks and drinks to the snack table and enjoyed the evening, getting progressively more drunk between karaoke and socialising. 

You thought it was the perfect solution to your problems. With the help of loud music, your nosy friends and alcohol, you would for sure soon forget your heartache and worries. 

There was, however, one problem you had forgotten: Joshua’s protective nature.

You had successfully managed to avoid him for the better part of the evening, sneaking between people, hiding behind Mingyu’s wide frame under the guise of playing hide and seek with your roommate (something Mingyu was very happy to help with; you suspected he just liked to feel useful), and running at every mention of Joshua. 

Seamlessly, the karaoke soon worked its miracle. You found you had missed the liberty that came with hanging out with your friends and not worrying how everything appears to Joshua’s mother. For this one night, you were not Joshua’s fake girlfriend, not someone’s pretend-daughter-in-law, and not an actress struggling at improv – you were once again just (Y/n), a simple woman in love with her best friend, eyeing him from across the room and giggling with your friends about it.

By the time you remembered you were hiding from him, you were far from sober and your thoughts were getting a little jumbled as you made conversation with Minghao, laughing between every other word because saying things was hard and your tongue felt heavy in your mouth. Minghao didn’t say a word and only smiled at you fondly, like one would at a kitten trying to chase after shoelaces, as he listened to you. 

His attention was caught by something behind you and you saw him give someone a gentle nod and a bright smile. Then, before you could even process the situation or ask any questions, he placed a hand on your shoulder and turned you around, bringing you face to face with him. 

You weren’t sure what it was about the dollar store lighting in the lobby, but you had always thought it made Joshua look even more delectable. It was hard not to stare at the shadow his lashes cast on his cheeks or the definition of his muscles visible through the thin fabric of his button-up shirt.

“Hi!” You greeted him with a wave and an intoxicated giggle, momentarily forgetting about the freshly opened can of beer in your hand and letting it slosh in your hands. “Oh! Sorry, my bad!”

A situation you would’ve once thought to be mortifying only made you laugh harder tonight as you searched for tissues and began to dry your hand. You didn’t notice when Joshua had taken the drink from you but you also wouldn’t notice he never gave it back.

He watched you with a smile. “Having fun?”

“Oh my god, I’m having so much fun,” you rambled, eyes shining as you looked at him, already forgetting your quest to dry the floor. “Did you see when Seungcheol and I did ‘Alcohol-Free’ together? It was so much fun–”

It was hard to finish your thought when he looked at you with those pretty eyes, and smile, and– 

He adjusted the sleeves of your dress for you and you almost melted. All thoughts gone. Words? Never heard of those.

You were silent for so long that he chuckled. “You awake?”

“I– Yeah, totally,” you replied, blinking your eyes to force yourself to focus again. “How about you? Are you having fun?”

He shrugged. “I usually have more fun when you’re with me.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t even sing ‘Breaking Free’ with me tonight,” he complained playfully but you thought you saw a hint of actual sadness in his eyes. “I’m glad you’re making friends with Seungcheol though.”

You hummed and nodded. “He’s very nice. Very handsome too.”

His eyes widened and you couldn’t quite figure out why. 

Not that you even wanted to figure it out. You were, in all honesty, more preoccupied with memorising how pretty he looked with his doe eyes. The purples and yellows and pinks of the lights reflected back from the browns of his eyes and you thought it was the prettiest sight you had ever witnessed. No sunset, sunrise or wild landscape could compete with this view. 

And you wanted to tell him that; but words were so hard when your blood was buzzing with alcohol and adrenaline. So you thought you should show him somehow. 

Your eyes closed briefly. You leaned forward just a bit. Then your lips pressed against his. For just a moment. You couldn’t help but smile as you leaned back and opened your eyes again.

If you had thought his eyes were pretty before, they were positively the most gorgeous sight now as he stared back at you in wonder and confusion. There were not enough words in the dictionary. You thought they ought to fix that problem and add a few just to be safe. 

“The girl who wins your heart will be so lucky,” you told him softly and pressed another gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I wish I was her.”

“(Y/n), I–” he started and you felt the alcohol leave your blood in an instant, the warm buzzing replaced with a cold rush. 

Before he could say anything in response, you ran out of the party. 

[DAY 23, SATURDAY]

Seokmin had always heavily advertised the building’s monthly karaoke parties as “life-altering”. He wrote that in large letters with a bright red marker on every karaoke party notice he saw and he said the exact phrase to every person he talked to in the week leading up to the event. Which was especially funny because 1) he wasn’t on the advertising team, 2) there was no advertising team to begin with, and 3) he never even volunteered to help organise the events. You had concluded that he was just very incredibly enthusiastic about karaoke (and with a voice like his how could one not be?).

But you now feared he was right after all.

Upon realising your mistake, you had, for a moment, contemplated going home and hiding in your room before you realised it would be the first place he’d look for you.

So, instead, you sent a silent apology your best friend’s way and took the spare key from under the doormat before letting yourself into Chan's apartment. 

Even as the morning arrived, you didn’t dare face Joshua. Not after what had happened. Not after you had kissed him and told him you wished he’d fall in love with you and kissed him again. You could never go home again. 

Chan looked away from his laptop screen just to give you a look with one of his brows raised. “You literally live with him.”

“That’s the whole point. I can’t go home,” you told him, lying face-down against his thigh. 

Turns out it’s surprisingly easy to make physical contact with men when you’re not attracted to them. You silently wondered if that could be the solution to your obvious touch-starvation problem – why else would you drunkenly kiss your roommate?

He rolled his eyes. “Then what’s your plan, drama queen?”

You didn’t answer, mulling it over in your head. There really weren’t a lot of options. 

Maybe it was a sign – finally you could fulfil your life-long dream of adopting a new identity and moving to Iceland to become an anonymous sheep herder. It sure sounded more tempting than facing Joshua Hong again.

Before you could open your mouth to suggest a viable idea, Chan beat you to it with a click of his tongue. “You’re too poor to move to Iceland. And no, you can’t move into my place either.”

There went your plan A as well as plan B.

“Fuck you,” you told him and rolled over to face the ceiling. “Then what do I do?”

“What you always do, I guess,” he sighed and turned back to his online shopping addiction. “You complain a bit, throw an apple at my head, and then pretend nothing ever happened between you and Joshua.”

You blinked. “Do I always do that?” 

“Without fail.”

You hadn’t realised there was a pattern. Perhaps this whole thing was worse than you had thought. Perhaps taking a new identity and running really was your only option. And who knows, you thought, maybe you’d find a nice man in Iceland and fall in love with a not-Joshua instead. Then you’d at least be free of one problem, even if at the expense of a new set of issues.

“Instead of catastrophizing, you should use this opportunity,” Chan broke the silence, eyes still on the screen.

You suddenly understood why throwing an apple at his head was part of the pattern. Fortunately for him, the apples were just out of your reach and you were too comfy and hungover to go get even one. “To fake my death and go into hiding? Absolutely.”

“What? No!” He frowned at you as if you had suggested 2+2 was 5. “What is wrong with you? You need to face this whole thing head-on instead of making escape plans!”

“I’d honestly rather go missing under mysterious circumstances.”

“Or,” he started and flicked your forehead with his fingers, making you curse at him as he rolled his eyes, “you could accept the fact that you confessed to your crush and see what he thinks of that.”

“He looked horrified last night.”

“You were drunk and kissed him without permission,” he reminded you helpfully. You failed to see how that information would soften the blow. If anything, it was making you feel like a predator – and not even a very clever one. You grimaced. “Give the poor guy a minute to process before jumping to conclusions. He was just surprised. If you stuck around instead of pulling a Cinderella, maybe you would’ve found out it wasn’t that big of a deal. Who knows, maybe he even likes you back.”

“Pull a Cinder–” You sputtered and glared at him. “Why do I ever come to you for advice?”

He offered a smug smile. “Because deep down you know I’m right.”

You were certain he wasn’t. You couldn’t imagine any scenario outside of your daydreams where the situation could’ve been resolved with a smile and a confession from Joshua Hong. You could, however, imagine a thousand scenarios of him running away or being so disgusted by your behaviour that he’d call off the fake dating scheme once and for all.

Seeing your hopeless expression, Chan sighed. “Instead of making doom’s day plans, try to look at the bright side of things.”

“What bright side?” you asked, closing your eyes and wishing the month would end already. “I embarrassed myself in front of my crush. What’s the bright side, Mr Positivity?”

His silence spoke louder than any words ever could have.

[DAY 24, SUNDAY]

After two nights at Chan’s apartment, you finally decided it was time to face your nightmare. If Joshua hadn’t unilaterally called off the scheme yet, his mother must have for sure been worried about the state of things. You thought you owed him at least these last 7 days of fulfilling this nonsensical plan. 

So, after two cups of coffee and a pep talk from Lee Chan, you braced yourself and walked into your own apartment for the first time all weekend. 

It was silent. Of course it was, you thought and facepalmed: it was only 8 am on a Sunday. Just because your sins and demons had kept you from sleeping in didn’t mean Joshua and his mother would be awake at this damned hour.

You were just about to come to terms with the fact when a soft pitter-patter of feet interrupted the silence. The steps came closer and you took a deep breath to calm yourself, praying it wouldn’t be who you thought it was.

But you knew it was a useless hope. You had lived with Joshua long enough to recognise his footsteps and the rhythm of his snores in your sleep. 

He let out a sigh that seemed almost relieved once he reached the living room. 

“Where were you?” you expected him to ask and put on his best impression of an overprotective dad. 

“How dare you come back here?” you half thought he’d say and glare at you as he’d shove a bag full of your clothes into your arms and kick you out.

But he just watched you in silence for a moment as if to make sure you were real and not a figment of his overactive imagination. And only once you had been pushed to the point of awkwardness where you couldn’t help but put on a tight-lipped smile and a shrug did he finally open his mouth to ask, “Did you eat yet?”

You had almost forgotten what he sounded like and it was a pleasant feeling to listen to him again. The soft murmur and slight sleepy growl to his voice sounded like home and it made the butterflies in your stomach come back to life with a roar of fluttering wings, free of shame and fear.

Your smile almost felt genuine when you replied, “I was going to make pancakes…” 

… To make up for what I did went unsaid, but you suspected he knew they were there nonetheless. 

He yawned in a way that didn’t seem entirely real, as if he was putting on an act to ease the awkwardness. After glancing at the clock he spoke again, “I kind of want to go eat breakfast outside today.”

“Oh.” 

You felt a little dejected at the thought but you understood. If someone had done to you what you had to him – someone you thought was your friend suddenly kissed you and confessed to you, even drunkenly –, you probably would have needed more time as well. If he didn’t want to eat breakfast at home with you, it was his right. You were sure his mother was better company than you anyways.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt you though. You turned your head to fight back the tears that threatened to make a comeback. You didn’t think you had any right to cry but that didn’t mean you didn’t want to. 

But before you could spiral further, Joshua chuckled, “Don’t worry. I’ll pay. You can get as many waffles as you want.”

Your head snapped to face him again, eyes blinking rapidly. You pointed at yourself. “You want me to–”

“Get dressed, silly. I’m too poor to pay for both you and mom, you know.” He could hardly keep from smiling. “Besides, we need to talk, just you and I.”

And talk you did. Or at least you would have if you weren’t so distracted by waffles and a sense of impending doom. You could hardly sit still in your chair, feeling uncomfortable sitting across from him. 

Any moment now, you thought, he’s going to say you were an awful person. Any moment now, he’s going to say it was all a big mistake and he should’ve just asked Jeonghan to fake date him instead. 

But maybe Chan was right and you were a fair bit overdramatic. 

“So about the other night,” Joshua finally started with a heavy sigh and put down his coffee cup. He avoided your eyes (not that you would’ve noticed because you were too busy avoiding his anyway) as he searched for words to say. 

“I’m sorry about that,” you blurted out, abandoning your waffles. 

He paused. “Sorry?”

“I’m sorry for… you know…” You couldn’t even say the words because it was so dumb and ridiculous and shouldn’t have ever happened anyway. How does one apologise for kissing someone? You forced yourself to look him in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have done it. I was just drunk and dumb and silly– You know how I get.”

He nodded. “Right. You were just… drunk.”

“Yep.”

“And you just kissed me because…”

“I was excited to see you,” you half-lied and avoided his eyes again. “I just hadn’t seen you all night and there you were and I guess I got a little…” Carried away? Lovestruck? “It doesn’t change anything, I swear. I was drunk.”

Silence. He was silent for so long that you were half-convinced he’d gone and left you to your own devices. Paying for the breakfast would’ve been the least of your worries.

When you looked up to see if he was still there, you saw him looking down at his food. He seemed… sad? Disappointed? Upset with you for making such silly excuses maybe? You shuddered to think what that odd dim look on his face meant.

The butterflies that had woken up just an hour ago went back to rest, ashamed of their work. You could just hope he wouldn’t hate you forever or kick you out of the apartment. 

Finally, after what felt like forever and then some years, Joshua forced on a smile that was a little too bright to be real. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re back. Where did you even go after the karaoke?”

“I–” You were both overjoyed and taken aback by his question. He cared. He cared and he didn’t want you gone from his life. “I kind of broke into Chan’s apartment and stayed there.”

Brows furrowing and the corner of his mouth turning downwards, he scoffed. “Instead of just coming home? I was worried sick!”

“I’m sorry!” you squeaked and somehow it was the most sincere apology you had uttered today. “I was just so embarrassed and I didn’t think you’d want to see me, so–”

“I always want to see you,” he argued with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re my best friend, (Y/n). I could never be so mad at you that I’d never want to see you. You had me so worried! I thought you’d gone to sleep in a dumpster somewhere.”

There he was – the Joshua you had fallen so hopelessly in love with. Your silly, protective, way too sweet and dramatic Joshua. And you didn’t feel ashamed to be in front of him. 

A smile forced its way onto your lips at the thought.

“What are you smiling at? This is serious!” He could hardly fight a grin himself, already bordering on giggling at your argument. “I was worried about you. And mom kept asking about you and I almost told her you’d moved to Iceland like you always dreamed–”

“Okay, okay,” you interrupted him with a laugh. “I’m sorry, again. You can stop being a worry-wart now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Next time I’ll just leave you to freeze in the dumpster.”

“I didn’t sleep in a dumpster!”

“Chan’s place is not much better.”

[DAY 26, TUESDAY]

You had hoped that your Sunday breakfast apologies would be the last your actions would haunt you aside from the regular night-time program of nightmares. You had apologised, you had made up, and you were friends with Joshua again as if nothing had happened at all.

Had there been a small, minimal, miniscule glimmer of hope in your heart that Chan’s words would be true and Joshua would tell you he liked you back? Sure. 

Had it been crushed to the point of no revival? Absolutely. 

“Oh, hey, (Y/n),” Vernon greeted you when you entered the building’s lobby after a long day of work. 

You glanced around and noted that, as per usual, the clean-up of the karaoke party was taking five days longer than the setting up. It was only natural, you supposed, as Jihoon was too busy to bother with this and Vernon – as per Junhui and Seungkwan’s accounts – was not the biggest fan of cleaning. Today, four days after the party, he was taking down the last string lights.

“I see some things never change,” you told him with a good-natured chuckle. 

Though it took him a moment to understand what you were implying, Vernon rolled his eyes once the realisation hit. “You’re welcome to come and help.”

You had walked right into that one and so you sighed. “Alright, what do you need?”

He laughed. “I was just joking. I’ve got this. I planned this entire thing anyway.”

“Wouldn’t you rather spend some time with your girlfriend?” you wondered. You could barely wrap your mind around how people with dating lives didn’t just spend all their free time cuddling and being in love.

“Ella’s fine,” he told you with a shrug. “She’s got Rocket and Mango to keep her company.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I think she’s probably sick of me, anyway.”

“Why?”

“... I ate the last ice cream.”

You snorted a laugh. “Might as well send in the divorce paperwork already.”

“Right?” he joked before raising his brows. “How about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why aren’t you at home, making googly eyes at Josh?”

You froze. Did he know about your crush? Vernon – the master of not noticing the things around him – had noticed your crush? How obvious had you been?

 “Why would I do that?” you asked after clearing your throat.

He scoffed. “Oh, come on, we all saw you at the party.”

It appeared the magical karaoke regrets would never stop haunting you. You cursed under your breath. 

Barely noting your silence, Vernon turned back to the lights but asked, “So, are you finally together? Did he finally confess?”

“Confess?”

You cringed as you felt like a broken record forced to perform, but your brain was too far in overdrive to maintain its normal operations.

“I mean, he’s been in love with you since like… forever, really,” he told you oh-so-casually, as if he was discussing the Monday paper or the weather. “I thought the dumbass would never confess. If he hadn’t, I’m sure Jeonghan and Seungkwan would’ve set up a ploy to get you to date.”

And just like that you found yourself on Chan’s sofa once again. He had only greeted you with a deep, heartfelt sigh and a nod that said he had expected this. 

As he fell next to you on the sofa, he took a sip of beer and said, “Do your thing, drama queen.”

You stayed silent, still pondering your existence and the ups and downs of your (non?)existent love life. 

Mouth agape in surprise at your lack of complaints, Chan waved a hand in front of your face. “Earth to (Y/n)? What happened? You know, it’s good to let your feelings out. I might complain about it sometimes but–”

“Vernon said Joshua has a crush on me,” you finally blurted out, staring ahead, still deep in disbelief. “It can’t be, right? He’s probably being silly. But what if he isn’t? What if he’s right? What if Joshua has a crush on me? What if he had a crush on me and then I kissed him and now he thinks I’m gross?”

It did feel good to let your feelings and thoughts out. And now they just sounded even sillier. Why? Well, because it was ridiculous – Joshua would never have a crush on you.

Chan blinked. “Vernon said that?”

“Do you think he’s right?”

He kissed his teeth. “And if I say yes?”

“Then why didn’t he say anything?” 

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because he can’t possibly like me!”

He rolled his eyes and leaned back. “There you go.”

“Why hasn’t he confessed? He could’ve told me to not apologise. He could’ve kissed me back. He could’ve–”

“Maybe he’s a coward and he’s waiting for you to confess first,” Chan guessed. “You know, kind of like how you’re doing right now.”

“You are entirely unhelpful,” you told him with a mild glare that one could almost mistake for fond. “I can’t just confess to him. Not after what happened.”

“Says who?”

“Can you stop asking questions and help me,” you whined before practically slamming your head against his shoulder in a search for comfort. “This is a serious crisis. Do you think he could actually like me?”

Chan hesitated. “You didn’t hear it from me, but…”

“But?”

“I’m pretty sure I overheard Jeonghan, Seungcheol and Joshua talking about you. And I’m pretty sure Joshua said he could never live with himself if you rejected him.”

“He did?”

“You didn’t hear it from me,” he reminded you and patted your arm in a brotherly manner. “So I say you go and confess and live happily ever after.”

You groaned. “Or miserably.”

“If that’s what you want,” he joked. “But you should still give it a try.”

“But not today though.”

“Definitely not today. You look like a mess,” he blurted. “He’d have to be pretty far gone to accept your confession, Ms Frankenstein.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and tensed as if he expected you to hit him – with an apple, you guessed – and you just scoffed out something akin to a laugh.

“I’d kick you if you weren’t such a good friend,” you told him instead and gently patted his cheek. “Thank you for putting up with me.”

[DAY 27, WEDNESDAY]

The alarm still had a few minutes before it would go off. 

You stared at Joshua as he slept soundly beside you. It was tempting to smooth down his hair and press a soft kiss to his forehead. But you had other things to do before you could do that. 

You took a deep breath and opened your lips to just whisper the words – as practice for the real confession you would definitely, 100%, certainly make in a few days – but no sound came out. 

You sighed and slumped back into your pillow. Confessing is harder than it looks in movies and books, even when he’s asleep and can’t hear you.

Joshua’s phone began ringing, notifying both him and you of the beginning of a new day. He stirred beside you. You pretended you’d been asleep this entire time.

[DAY 28, THURSDAY]

It was cold. So, so cold. Of course fate would have it that the first snowstorm of the year would hit without warning on the one day the last bus home was over an hour late. And of course it had to be on the one day when your boss asked (or, rather, begged) you to work overtime. 

But maybe fate wasn’t entirely cruel and useless, you thought as Seungcheol’s car stopped in front of the bus stop and he invited you inside with a worried smile and a wave.

“What are you doing out so late?” he wondered as he cranked the seat warmers up to the maximum. “Didn’t you watch the forecast?”

Oh. So they had issued a warning after all. 

“I’ve been a little distracted, I guess,” you told him with a sheepish laugh before thanking him for giving you a lift and wondering, “What about you? It’s not exactly driving weather.”

“Every weather is driving weather,” he joked and offered you a bright smile that for the shortest moment had you wishing you had fallen for him and not your stupidly endearing roommate. “I’m sure Joshua’s worried.”

You hadn’t even thought to check your phone until now. Frankly, judging by its recent battery life, you’d be shocked if it had any charge left at all.

“He’ll live.”

“Are you– I thought–” He hummed in thought, brows furrowing. “Are you not together?”

How you wished you were.

“No,” you sighed. “But I was going to confess tonight until, you know, my boss decided we needed those reports two days ago.”

Seungcheol nearly swerved his car in surprise. He was quick to fix his error – it went fairly smoothly with how empty the streets were this late at night. “I’m sorry. I really thought you were together. He’s been talking about you so much. I thought–”

“Apparently you’re not the only one.” You laughed. “I don’t know how he’ll feel if I do confess though. Maybe he’ll kick me out.”

“He won’t. No way,” he said and it almost sounded like a promise. “But if he does, tell me and I’ll kick his ass.”

“So you think I should confess?” 

“Do it. I think you’ll like the outcome.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just say I have some experience with love.”

[DAY 29, FRIDAY]

Back home, Joshua felt like he was going to go out of his mind. The clock on the wall was mocking him, moving forward even as his worry deepened. 

It was already almost midnight. You were usually home by 7. And yet there was no sign of you.

Sighing, he fell back onto the sofa and checked his phone again. He wasn’t sure how many times he had done that already. Fifteen? Fifty? Five hundred, perhaps? 

Still no calls back. Still no sign that you had read his messages. When he tapped on your contact to call you, it went to voicemail and he almost went insane.

“I’m sure she’s safe. She’ll be home soon,” his mother comforted him with a gentle pat on the shoulder. But her words were hard to believe when she was staying up later than usual with him, her third cup of peppermint tea sat on the coffee table in front of them.

The clock ticked midnight and Joshua jumped to his feet. “I’m going out to find her.”

“You’re going out? In this weather?” She didn’t need to use harsh words for him to know that she was scolding him. 

But he didn’t care. He couldn’t care when you weren’t home. 

So he ignored her warnings and pulled on his coat, his boots, and grabbed his car keys. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he called over his shoulder as he left the apartment. He heard her call something out to him but he couldn’t be bothered to listen when he was half-certain you were buried in a pile of snow somewhere. 

He was halfway down the stairs, somewhere between the first and second floor when he heard your voice. He could’ve sworn life returned to his veins at the sound. He sighed in relief and picked up the pace, hurrying to see you.

But then he heard another voice. Seungcheol. 

“If you like it, keep it,” the man from 5A spoke, his voice rich and low in a way Joshua just knew would have any woman weak at the knees. And how was he supposed to compete with that?

He heard you laugh – giggle, really. “That’s so sweet, Cheol.”

Cheol? Joshua almost scoffed in disbelief. It had taken him two months to get to the nickname stage with you and this man comes and reaches it in less than a month? 

He wasn’t sure what this feeling in his chest was. Anger? Bitterness? No, he was just lying to himself. He knew exactly what this feeling was: jealousy. And he’d be damned if he let this continue.

Dusting off his black wool coat, he picked up the pace again and rushed downstairs to meet you. 

The acting lessons his mother had signed him up for when he was a kid paid off now as he feigned surprise at the sight of you. Eyes widening, lips falling apart, and a gasp of air to really sell it. He ran to you from the bottom of the staircase.

“Sweetheart!” he called out as he practically tackled you in a hug. He didn’t even have to pretend as he held you close, one arm around your back and one pushing against the back of your head to keep you as close as humanly possible. “Where were you? I was so worried. Are you okay?”

You had squeaked in surprise and he almost laughed. He let you go (all the while making sure to keep one hand on your back) and asked again, “Are you okay, baby?”

You seemed to be speechless, staring at him with wide eyes full of confusion. 

Seungcheol cleared his throat and Joshua almost glared at him just to prove a point. “I should leave you with your…”

“Boyfriend,” Joshua quickly supplied with a smile he hoped came across as both friendly and venomous. You let out another squeak of surprise. 

“Right.” Seungcheol raised a single brow before sharing a funny look with you. “I’ll see you some other time then, (Y/n). And don’t let your boss make you work overtime again.”

With that, he climbed up the stairs, leaving just Joshua and you.

“You worked overtime?” Joshua wondered, visibly relaxing once Seungcheol was out of range. “How long?”

“Just until 10,” you replied but it sounded almost robotic. 

“It’s midnight,” he reminded you and took your hand to check if your hands were cold. He sighed in both relief that they were warm and disappointment that he didn’t have an excuse to play with your hands now. 

You scratched your head. “The bus was late. I don’t know if it even came.”

“So, then you called Seungcheol?” 

The implication hurt him. He thought he was your first call no matter what happened. He had been all these months, after all. Even if he sucked at reading messages, he never failed to answer the phone on the first ring. 

“I think my phone died. Cheol just happened to drive past,” you told him and, for once, he felt better. 

He sighed in relief and closed his eyes, taking the situation in. It felt like he could finally breathe and think again now that you were back home. 

“Joshua,” your voice interrupted his thoughts and he hummed, “are you okay?”

He opened his eyes and looked at you. The urge to pull you back into his arms was overwhelming. “You had me so worried.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I should’ve called but–”

“I can’t keep doing this.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. He really hadn’t. But that hadn’t stopped him at all. 

You seemed startled at his words, not in a good way. In a way that made him wonder if you ever expected anything but the worst when he spoke to you. He had to put a stop to it. 

But before he could, you scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re acting like I do this often.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Also, what just happened with Cheol?” He wasn’t sure what had set you off, but he felt himself matching your energy, getting agitated. “Since when are you introducing yourself as my boyfriend to our neighbours? If you wanted to do that, you should have warned me.”

“I lied,” he blurted out before you could continue. “I’ve been lying to you a lot.” 

You froze. “You… You lied? What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath. “When I lied to my mom, when I told her we were dating – it wasn’t random. I said I was dating you because… I guess I just wanted it to be real. I wasn’t nervous because I lied to her. I was nervous because I thought you’d be disgusted and upset and hate me. But I’ve liked you since the day you moved in and I’ve been in love with you since the time you borrowed my sweater in August because the moths ate all of yours.”

“You like me?” you asked dumbly and he actually laughed.

Joshua nodded. “I’m in love with you in a way I didn’t think I could ever be with anyone.”

“And… you’re choosing to confess now?” You glanced around at the empty lobby, only a single sconce lamp lighting the way into the building. “Here? Like this? Why?”

“Seungcheol–”

Your jaw dropped. “Because you’re jealous?!”

Joshua scratched the back of his neck and avoided your eyes. He didn’t have a single excuse. He was an impulsive man. He rarely thought of the consequences or even of what he was doing in that moment. Especially when it came to you. He looked down at his feet.

“I mean,” you continued with a chuckle, “I guess I’m no better. I kissed you at the karaoke just because I thought you were pretty.”

“I should’ve kissed you back,” he told you earnestly. 

You blinked. And then you blinked again. Then he saw a mischievous glint in your eye. “You should. Right now.”

You couldn’t have been serious. He didn’t think you were. There was no way.

“You can’t just confess to me like this and then not kiss me,” you told him and you didn’t sound mad at him. “You owe me that much after that scene with Seungcheol and confessing to me in the building lobby, Mr Gentleman.”

Who was he to argue? 

Taking another long gulp of air, he leaned closer. Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, unsure if you were serious or not. 

It was his turn to squeak in surprise when you grabbed him by the collar of his shirt coat and pulled him closer to kiss his lips. 

“So,” he wondered, voice soft and dazed, when you pulled away, “you like me back?”

“You can ask Chan for proof, if you want,” you simply told him before kissing him again. 

He didn’t care to ask for an explanation. Not when he was finally getting everything he wanted.

 [DAY 30, SUNDAY]

Turns out fake dating becomes a lot easier when you just actually date. Who could’ve guessed?

The agony of sharing your bed and being pushed against the wall no matter the size of your mattress was replaced with the domestic joy of being able to cuddle your boyfriend. By the second night of dating Joshua, you had found your favourite position was letting him lie half on top of you, his head resting against your chest at the perfect angle to play with his hair. 

The awkward breakfasts full of lies… Well, they still had a few emergency lies here and there, but for the most part it was stealing bites off his plate and nudging each other while giggling as his mother watched you with a mildly amused look on her face.

And the kisses. You couldn’t get enough of the kisses and neither could the butterflies in your stomach, still fluttering the same as they had during your first kiss even now as he kissed you for the fiftieth time (yes, you had kept count). 

It was only a shame that the real dating started so late into the scheme. After only two days of domestic bliss, it was time for his mother to pack her bags and go home.

Dressed in a warm coat and wrapped in a large scarf, she offered her son a warm hug, whispering endearments and gentle scoldings into his ear as you waited in the lobby. You suspected her taxi driver had fallen asleep by now.  

She then gave you a hug as well. A short and sweet one with a warning to treat her son well. And then she added, “Oh, before I forget, I left something on the kitchen table for you. Read it later, okay?”

You nodded and sent her off with a smile.

Joshua joined your side, resting a hand on your back (a new habit of his that you didn’t quite mind). He wore a smile.

“What did she tell you?” you asked him. “When you were hugging.”

“Told me to stop leaving the toilet seat up,” he told you and you suspected it was only half the truth. “What about you?”

“She said she left something on the kitchen table for us to read.”

He paused. “A book?”

“You think? What if it’s a poem?”

“Maybe a letter?”

“It’s possible.” 

You shared a look. His mother’s taxi barely managed to leave your sight before you and your boyfriend (you could never get enough of calling him that) were dashing up the stairs to solve the mystery.

True enough, there was a white envelope on the table.

“Maybe it’s pocket money,” you guessed as you picked the envelope up. “For hosting her or something.”

“If it is, you should give it to me,” he told you and you weren’t entirely sure he was joking. “There’s a hole in my bank account because of you.”

“You’re never letting that go, are you?” you sighed and opened the envelope. You were pleasantly surprised to find out you had been right – a handful of cash had been stashed into the envelope, probably enough to cover your rent for the month.

Barely bothering to hide his smirk, Joshua extended a palm. You gave him a look. Stared at him. Then sighed and placed the cash in his hand. He smiled bright and put it away in his pocket.

But the cash wasn’t all. There was a folded piece of paper. A letter.

You opened it, half-expecting a scolding or a motherly warning. But this letter – as short as it was sweet – exceeded all expectations.

Sweethearts

I hope you know I’m not unwise. I know all about your little scheme – neither of you are very good actors. Joshua, you should know better than to lie to your mother. 

But it was entertaining and I am glad to have given you some incentive to finally take the proper steps and start dating. You make a cute couple when you’re not acting. 

Can’t wait to see you two again soon

Your jaw dropped. 

“What does it say?” Joshua wondered, leaning over your shoulder to read. He let out a scoff soon afterwards. “She can be so mean.”

“She knew this whole time?” you cried out.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I should’ve known. It was too easy.”

“I mean, I thought she was suspicious of us, but this?”

“Do we really suck at acting this much?”

“Whatever,” you sighed and put the letter down. “I’m going to sleep. I can’t handle an existential crisis right now.”

“Right, let’s go sleep,” Joshua agreed, leading you away from the kitchen with a gentle tug on your arm. 

It was only when you were stood in front of the two bedroom doors, nearly identical and stood side by side, that you paused and a realisation hit. 

Was it appropriate to share a bed anymore? Surely Joshua would want to go back to his own room now that it was free again? 

You almost groaned out loud: you had thought the doubts and useless problems would cease after the confession. Everything was good and great and wonderful, so why were the stupid worries back?

Having probably reached the same conclusion, Joshua seemed just as stumped. He stared at his bedroom door for a while and you were certain he’d go to sleep in his own bed for the night, ending your most favourite part of newfound domestic bliss.

“I paid for the bed,” he suddenly said with a laugh and gently pushed you towards your room, following closely after. “You’re not getting rid of me now, sweetheart.”

“So you’re just inviting yourself into my room now?” you joked, nudging his side before letting yourself fall onto the bed. 

He laid down next to you, resting his head on his arm after rolling to his side to face you. He grinned. “It’s our room now.”

You loved the sound of that and you were certain he could see it on your face.

“So what will we do with your room?”

Joshua pondered for a moment. “We could turn it into a guest room. something tells me mom’s going to want to visit again soon.”

You paled at the mention of her. “I don’t think I can ever look her in the eyes again.”

“Me neither,” he sighed and leaned over to hide his face in the crook of your neck. “Let’s not think about it any more.”

“You’re the one that brought her up!” You laughed.

“Let’s just go to sleep,” he said. “I love you.”

The butterflies went crazy. You couldn’t and wouldn’t fight the smile that appeared on your face. “I love you too.”

[nonranghaes]

heads up: reader wears glasses and can't see SHIT.

joshua prides himself on being a gentleman to you. he's always been respectful of your boundaries, he's careful with his words when he knows you're having a rough time, and he always walks you to your door after every date just to make sure you get inside safely. he's a gentleman, even though you've heard his witty comments and seen how playful he can be... and heard from his friends about the pranks he's pulled on them. a gentleman with a sense of humor, you'll say.

so when he pulls out the chair next to you while you're doing graduate school work, already smiling like he has a plan, you don't know what to expect. you glance up at him over the rims of your glasses, giving him a little smile and a 'hey,' before you go back to your work.

"may i?"

again, you look up, curious of the vague request. he reaches forward, fingers careful as they come to the sides of your glasses. he's just as careful when he slowly pulls them off, mindful to not accidentally poke you in the eye in the process before he turns them around and puts them on. "how do i--"

and then he stops. he squints at you. you fight back a smile as you watch him, eternally thankful that he's sitting close enough that you can see the horror on his face (albeit a little blurry--there's a reason why you have to hold things so close to your face if you misplace your glasses, after all).

"oh my god," his voice is softer now, and he blinks at you a few times, "how do you see anything?"

you close your textbook. you can finish these notes later: you wouldn't have invited him to join you if you couldn't. "well," you rest your head in your hand, "i wear glasses for that."

joshua doesn't take them off yet. he slides them down his nose a little so that he can look at you, and he's a little too cute when he does it. "yeah," he's smiling, a tinge of laughter coloring his voice, "you look cute in them." he licks his lips a little as he quickly debates whether he should go through with the initial plan. "... do i?"

"eh." you don't bother fighting back your smile. "they're not your style."

"what, so i'm not a sexy librarian?" he grins as he leans in, his fingers under your chin to draw you in a little, "or, i don't know--a hot professor? i think i could pull it off."

you just close the distance between the two of you for a quick kiss. "ask me when i can actually see you again."

the mischievous glint in his eye tells you that he absolutely will. but he keeps your glasses for a moment longer, just long enough to take a picture with you. you pretend not to notice when it becomes his new lockscreen later.