#Nct dream fluff

[nmhdreamscape]

wanna bet? ✧ l.dh

pairing | non-idol!haechan x fem!reader word count | 6.4k words synopsis | a bet with your enemy where the winner gets whatever they want, what could possibly go wrong? besides, you weren't one to lose, especially to lee haechan. content | enemies to lovers (one-sided), flirty, smut, lots of back and forth, they love to cut each other off, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex (stay safe!), teasing, hair pulling, some marking, messy request | haechan + 1 (as part of valentine's gift series)

meeting up with your friends after class was almost routine at this point. your chosen hang-out spot was the small garden area at the centre of campus, always sitting on the grass as the tables were always taken. the small group of you would take it as an opportunity to debrief and vent about your days. however, today was different. when you had agreed to meet with everyone like you always do, you were expecting an opportunity to vent about the group assignment coming up or how your latest essay was marked way too harshly. instead, you were greeted by talk of date night plans and romantic gifts.

it was valentine’s day, and you hadn’t even noticed. cursing yourself for not noticing, you reluctantly sat down alongside your friends, preparing yourself for an hour of listening to just how great everyone else’s love life was. 

you were barely paying attention when the sound of your name brought you back to reality. it seems that your friends had all finished talking about their plans. all eyes shifted to you, it now your turn to detail your valentine’s plans. being the only single one of the group, you didn’t know exactly why they were asking. You decided to indulge them anyway. You began to rattle off something about how you had decided to spend the holiday alone. Too engrossed in coming up with a plausible story, you failed to hear the sound of footsteps coming up behind you.

“alone on valentines, a little sad, isn’t it?” you froze, recognising that voice from anywhere. you turned to look up at a smirking haechan. your eyes immediately narrowed, looking away from him with a scoff. you hated how he always seemed to have this air of smugness around him. hated how he seemed to command the attention of whatever room he walked into. you hated how he now sat across from you, giving you the same look he always seemed to give you. a knowing look as though he had you right where he wanted you to be, like it was only a matter of time before you fell for him like everyone else seemed to.

you hate lee haechan. and you would never give him the satisfaction of falling for him.

“god you’re annoying. didn’t your mother ever teach you to not interrupt people when they’re speaking” you spat, arms coming to cross underneath your chest. you didn’t miss the way that haechan’s eyes travelled downward to watch the movement before snapping back upward again, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

“she did, but i’m sure you can teach me some more… creative ways to shut up.” haechan leant back down onto the grass, body spread out and on full display and a hand brushing through his hair. your eyes scanned his body as he did so, feeling a slight heat rising to your ears at the sight. he was attractive, not that you’d ever let him hear that. you were stubborn, not a liar. if only his personality better matched his looks, maybe then things would be different between the two of you.

haechan just couldn’t seem to wipe the smirk off his face. he had clearly noticed the way you had noticed him. it was clear to you now that his actions being done with the intent of you gawking over him. you hated the way he got some sort of sick enjoyment out of getting a rise out of you.

“you’re actually disgusting.”

this was the normal routine between the two of you. whenever your friends has the displeasure of being in the same room as you both, they would watch your back and forths like a tennis match. haechan would always open like he had tonight with some teasing remark, always seeming to know how to push your buttons just right. you would then follow up with some kind of insult, only for haechan to then turn it into some vaguely sexual innuendo. your back and forth would continue like that until you both felt satisfied. your friends now knew better than to try to intervene after being reprimanded many times before, instead choosing to take a backseat to it all.

so that’s what your friends did, choosing to watch on in silence as you continued to go at one another. and while they knew that haechan’s comments came with the intention of driving you mad, they would have to be blind not to notice the obvious tension between the two of you. they were just waiting to see who would cave first.

“why don’t i do you a favour and take you out, that way you won’t be lonely.” haechan suggested. he now had a certain look in his eye, as though he would be doing you a favour by taking you out. you tried to barely pay it any mind, fobbing his comment off.

“i don’t need you to take me out, if i wanted to have a date, i could go out and get one.”

“really? want to bet on it?” now that caught your attention. “if you get a date by midnight you win, if you don’t, i win.” haechan continued, now sitting back upright. 

“what does the winner get?”

“anything they want, so long as it isn’t too crazy.” you thought it over. knowing haechan, this was probably some sort of trap. and yet, you couldn’t seem to figure out what the downside could be. sure, there were many things haechan could force you to do if you lost. but you don’t lose, and you weren’t planning on starting now.

“bagging a date and getting to see the look on your face when i win. how could i refuse?” you sated, returning haechan’s smug attitude. 

the two of you fleshed out the details together, while your friends carried on their own conversations. you needed to secure and go on a date before valentine’s was over. it could be anyone, so long as it was a legitimate date and not just some friend you had convinced to play along. you also had to make sure to get some sort of evidence of your date, such as a picture or a gift. once it was past midnight, you would meet haechan outside his dorm room and determine who was the winner. 

the winner would get whatever they want from the other person, so long as it is within reason. the two of you went back and forth about what exactly ‘within reason’ meant. haechan eventually suggested that there be some sort of veto system whereby you could bypass a request, stating “i’m not an asshole, i’m not gonna force you to do something you don’t want to do.”. that was before immediately suggesting that using the veto would be the ‘cowards way out’ and something that ‘he would never do’. after thinking it over one last time, you held out your hand in agreement. haechan simply smirked at this, reaching forward to take your hand into his own. you firmly shook hands, sealing your agreement.

finding a date was going to be so easy, you had nothing to worry about.

fuck dates. fuck valentine’s. and fuck people who had dates on valentine’s.

turns out, finding a date at 6pm on valentine’s day wasn’t as easy as you thought it would be. though the universe did seem to enjoy making you suffer, so you don’t know why you were surprised. anyone you had been talking to or were casually interested in seeing were busy, already having made plans for the night. 

at 7pm, you messaging anyone you had come in to some sort of contact with in your classes to see if they were free. anyone from people you’ve done a group project with to the people you’ve simply exchanged greetings with. all seemed to be busy with their own plans.

by 8pm, you were stalking the social media pages of your exes, trying to figure out if any of them were single and would be willing to take you out. much to your dismay, they all appeared to be in some sort of relationship that would prevent them from taking you out. and even though you knew some of them were shitty enough to take you out despite having someone else in their lives, you weren’t about to step on anyone's toes.

9pm brought with it desperation. time was well and truly ticking now, and you still had no hope in sight. that’s how you ended up with a horde of freshly installed dating apps staring back at you. you must have broken some kind of record trying to set them all up, cursing whoever decided that you needed to hand over your life story in order to have a complete profile.

once you got in, you immediately began swiping right in every profile that came your way, not caring if your efforts came off as desperate so long as you won. matches trickled in at a snails pace it seemed. half of them were looking for a hook-up, you now being traumatised by multiple unsolicited dick pics. the other half seemed unwilling to meet you straight away.

10pm signalled you losing hope. you finally just began to be brutally honest with the people you were matching with, hoping one of them would take pity on you and take you out. you weren’t having much luck with that strategy either, even having one of your accounts banned after one match was particularly concerned for your well-being. 

11pm was when you were meant to meet the one guy crazy enough to take you up on your offer. you had thanked any holy figure you could think of when you matched, the guy being both close to campus and not scared off by your whole date-to-win-a-bet thing. you had agreed to meet at the 24-hour café on campus. and yet as the time ticked on, your match was nowhere to be found. 11 became 11:15 then 11:30 and still nothing. at 11:45 you accepted your fate, you had been stood up.

well that’s embarrassing.

but nowhere near as embarrassing it will be to admit defeat to haechan. when the alarm went off on your phone signalling that it was now midnight, you could have cried. you had actually managed to lose. you begrudgingly grabbed your things and left the café to make your way over to haechan’s dorm. after six hours of hopelessly searching for a date, you don’t think you were mentally prepared to deal with his antics. but a deal’s a deal.

pushing the door to haechan’s dorm building took more out of you than you would like to admit, your dignity seemingly vanishing into the wind. as you approached haechan’s dorm room, his figure came into view. he was wearing the same ripped jeans and sweater as before now paired with a pair of thick dark frames you had only ever seen him wear before on days when he had forgotten to put his contacts in. he chose to lean against the wall and play with his phone as he waited for you. you had taken notice of the outfit before, as you thought he looked particularly nice today. how did he manage to look this good, so late? shouldn’t he be dishevelled and in his pajamas by now? 

but it also got you thinking. did haechan even have a date of his own? you knew he didn’t have a girlfriend to go out with, but maybe someone else? that would explain why he was still so well put together so late at night. but during your hangout, he never mentioned having a date of his own. and he hadn’t posted anything to indicate he was going out. did he stay all dressed up because he was meeting with you? surely not.

the sound of your platform boots against the floor altered haechan to your presence. he put his phone away in his back pocket, his eyes finally looking up to meet yours. a smirk immediately graced his lips. it was clear on your expression, he had won. you positioned yourself on the wall on the other side of the hallway with a huff.

“you can wipe that smug grin off your face, just tell me what you want as a prize.” you conceded with a roll of your eyes. you hated losing, but this was even worse. you absolutely hated giving him the satisfaction. at least you could say you tried. 

haechan simply watched you, revelling in your dismay. he didn’t seem to even mull over what he might make you do, having already thought it over with the assumption that he was going to win. you knew he already had something in mind, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered the deal in the first place. what exactly was he planning?

“for my prize, you owe me a kiss.” your eyes went wide, looking at him in pure horror. as much as you wanted to believe that you had misheard him, he was crystal clear in his request. images started flashing through your head of what it would be like to kiss haechan. him having to lean down to meet your lips, hands coming to grip at your waist. how good it would feel to have him pressing against you, fingers running through his hair as he claimed his prize.

what. the. actual. fuck. since when did you think about him like that? you would slap yourself for thinking like that, but haechan had a habit of sniffing out weakness, and you didn’t want to let him see you sweat. haechan narrowed his eyes at the lack of a clap back, expecting a more explosive response. you finally decided to indulge him.

“are you serious?” you exclaimed, ignoring the slight heat you felt on the tips of your ears. 

“deadly.”

“out of all the things you could get, a kiss?” haechan simply nodded, looking at you expectantly. the thoughts from earlier came rushing back to you, cheeks flaring red now.

“i’m not kissing you!” you shouted before slamming a hand over your mouth, hoping that you hadn’t woken anyone in the dorm with your antics. haechan let out a small laugh, shaking his head. 

“that’s unfair! it was part of the bet, i won fair and square. it’s a perfectly reasonable request!” he justified with a huff.

“to you maybe!”

“does the idea of kissing me turn you off that much?” haechan pouted, arms crossing over his chest. you had no reasonable response to that question. because despite what you insisted you felt for the man in front of you, the idea of kissing him was not turning you off. in fact, it was kind of doing the opposite. this had to be the result of sleep deprivation, or mental overexertion from trying to find a date in such a hurry. and well… he’s attractive, who wouldn’t want to kiss an attractive man?

lee haechan was trying to coax you into kissing him. and it was working.

you studied the expression on his face. at first, you thought he was playing it up, acting all pouty in an attempt to get you to cave. but underneath it all, there was something else. had your rejection managed to genuinely upset him? it seemed like it had. the back and forth between you had always been mostly lighthearted. and while you hated his attitude, you would never deliberately want to make someone upset.

well, that’s what you would say to justify what you were about to do.

haechan watched as somehow your cheeks managed to flush an even darker red, taking a couple steps forward so that you were well and truly in his personal space. you leant upwards to press a chaste kiss on his cheek, just below the mole on his cheek bone. you immediately scurried back to your side of the hallway, watching as haechan just processed what you did.

haechan was stunned. you had actually gone through with it. sort of. his eyes scanned over your blushing figure with a smirk, fingers coming up to trace where your lips had been. you watched on in horror, coming to grips with what you had just done. you could already hear the teasing remarks he was about to spew, most likely about how you hadn’t actually fulfilled your end of the deal. 

he had managed to reduce you to a fumbling, blushing, rambling mess at the mere proposal of a kiss. which is probably why you jumped to speak before he could make fun of you.

“you never specified where you wanted to be kissed. if you wanted it to be somewhere specific, you should have said. i think i did you a favour by kissing you on the cheek. if anything, i think that’s a more valid form of kissing, more intimate even. i swear i read a study that said-” your rant was cut off by the feeling of lips against yours. you froze in place, eyes finally focusing on the image of haechan in front of you, his eyes having fluttered closed as he kisses you in the way he had originally intended to happen.

and for some reason that you would definitely have to unpack later, you began to kiss him back.

now that it was happening, your imagination did not do it justice. the way his soft lips left against yours. how he chose to cup your face with his hands instead of resting them on your waist. how he pulled you in closer to him as you reciprocated, his movements becoming more rushed as you leant into him. you gripped onto his sweater tightly as his tongue slid into your mouth, eliciting a sigh from the back of your throat.

it was a few minutes before the two of you parted, out of breath and panting into each other’s mouths. you stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, coming to some silent agreement, before haechan turned around to open the door to his dorm room. you quickly shuffled inside, haechan following close behind as he closed and locked the door behind him. 

you barely had time to kick your shoes off before he was on you again, lips pressing against yours in a way you could only describe as desperate. you returned his kiss with a giggle, hands coming up to tangle in his hair. at the feeling of you tugging on his hair, haechan let out a groan. he nipped lightly at your bottom lip before trailing kisses down the column of your neck. he seemed to find your most sensitive spots with ease, paying them the most attention as he basked in whatever small noises he could coax out of you. 

he slowly began to move you both towards his bed, lips coming up to meet yours again. with the back of your legs hitting the edge of the bed, you felt haechan lightly push against your shoulder. now separated, you fell back against his mattress with a huff. you quickly shuffled further up the bed, watching as he crawled to be on top of you. 

haechan paused when he came face-to-face with you. he stared down at you with an expression you couldn’t quite place. your cheeks grew warm at the intensity of his gaze, hands coming up to hide your face. haechan wasn’t having any of it, moving your hands to pin them either side of your head. 

“what?” you finally questioned, unable to suppress the goofy smile forming on your lips. haechan let out a hearty laugh, leaning down to resume kissing you.

“you know, you could have easily won today.” he stated when he decided to pull away from you once more. you looked up at him in confusion.

“how?”

“you could have asked me out.” now you were even more confused. to accept your invitation for a date would have meant an automatic loss for him. did he want to lose?

“but that would mean you lost?”

“yeah, but it would have been worth it so see how happy winning made you.” oh. well that caught you off guard. you don’t think you had ever heard haechan say something so… romantic. and he was so genuine in his sentiment, that’s what caught you off guard the most. 

haechan took your silence as an opportune moment to go back to pressing kisses against the sensitive spots on your neck. his fingers began to work at the buttons on your shirt. you watched in amusement as he struggled slightly.

“where’s all this sappiness been hiding?” you questioned, finally giving in and helping him to take off your blouse. 

“it’s always been there. teasing you is just more fun.” he winked, quickly taking his own shirt off before resuming his trail of kisses down your collarbones and to the swell of your breasts. 

“you’re actually evil.”

“yeah, but don’t act like you don’t like it that way.” haechan teased, movements pausing so he could rest his head on your chest and look up and you mischievously. you looked down at him and scoffed, mind beginning to conjure an appropriate retort. however, any rebuttal you had died on your tongue when haechan’s fingers slipped underneath your skirt to palm at you through your panties. he watched on with a smirk as your expression shifted from one of reprimand to pleasure. 

haechan let out a quiet curse as he felt how wet you had gotten. he hastily pushed your panties aside, fingers coming to part your folds. you let out a moan as his fingers found your clit, drawing small circles around it. haechan positioned himself directly above you again, crashing your lips together in a hurried kiss. he ate up every single noise you gave him, tongue teasing them out of the back of your throat. 

you felt him slip his middle finger inside of you, shallowly thrusting it in and out as his thumb came to resume the ministrations against your clit. you involuntarily parted from him with an elongated whine, back arching and head lulling back in pleasure. you felt yourself growing flushed at the depravity of it all. haechan fingering you underneath your skirt, groaning into the nape of your neck at how good you felt, spit slicked lips pressing against your skin with every noise.

“not so evil now am i?” he smirked, finally letting his finger slip all the way inside. you let out something between a laugh and a moan at the sensation, haechan somehow being able to angle his finger in just the right way to hit your most pleasurable spots with every thrust.

he was very clearly taunting you with his words, thinking he had rendered you incapable of engaging in the back and forth he enjoyed so much. the first time you attempted to respond, he slipped a second finger inside of you, resulting in you cutting yourself off with a gasp. haechan let out a small laugh at your reaction. it was like he knew you were about to make a smart ass comment. after a few more quiet moans made their way past your lips, you managed to respond. 

“that’s debatable.” haechan watched you in amusement. it was clear from the way you were now gripping at his sheets that he was doing something right. and yet you still wanted to push him for more.

“how do i show you i’m good, then?” he asked with feigned innocence, removing his fingers from you entirely. you let out a high-pitched whine at the loss of pleasure. he backed off of you entirely, straddling your lap as he waited for a response. you let out a frustrated huff at his teasing. 

haechan sat there silently, smirk growing wider with every moment. he wanted to do some good? then you were gonna tell him exactly how. you pushed yourself up into a sitting position, now once again face to face with the boy in your lap. 

“by shutting up and putting that mouth to better use elsewhere.”

you let out a giggle as haechan pushed you back down into the mattress. he shimmied further down with his target in mind, trailing kisses along your abdomen as he moved downward. when he reached the waistband of your skirt he simply flipped the pleats up, dragging your panties down your legs and flicking them where he had flung all your other clothes.

he then positioned himself in front of your now exposed sex, letting out a string of curses at how good you looked to him. he began trailing kisses along your inner thighs, taking his time to leave some evidence behind that he had been there. on reflex, your thighs came to close around his head. he let out a groan at the feeling, hands coming up to hold them apart.

you sat up onto your elbows, letting out small noses at the feeling of his lips against your thighs. although you were a little confused. why hadn’t he taken your skirt off? surely it was just getting in the way at this point. just as he was about to move on to the main event you gripped at his hair, holding him in place. he looked up at you with an irritated look, disappointed you had just prevented him from getting a taste.

“you’re keeping my skirt on?” you questioned, your hold on haechan’s hair loosening. he furred his eyebrows in response.

“yeah? is that a problem?”

“yeah it is.”

“why?” you knew it wouldn’t be as simple as him agreeing and moving on, it never was. you were beginning to feel embarrassed by your protest, remaining in silence instead of answering. haechan sensed your reluctance, rubbing soothing circles into your thighs. “i can’t help you if you don’t tell me.” he added, looking up at you with genuine concern.

“i wanna watch you.” you admitted quietly, avoiding his gaze. haechan felt himself relax in knowing that he hadn’t done anything wrong. haechan pursed his lips as he contemplated his response. he could give in, but where was the fun in that? 

“well i think you look really fucking hot in this skirt, so i’m gonna keep it on.”

“but-“

“y/n, relationships are about compromise.” haechan said with a mocking tone. the situation was almost comical. you two were probably the only people who would start bickering over the way you were about to be eaten out.

“we’re not in a relationship!” you corrected with a huff.

“just give me about five minutes and i’ll convince you otherwise.” he said with a wink, hands reaching up to grab at the hem of your skirt. he pushed it up in your direction, waiting for you to grab onto it. you did so despite your confusion, looking down at him in disbelief.

“what does that even-“ you cut yourself off with a loud moan, haechan licking a stripe up your pussy. you clung onto you skirt for dear life as haechan began to tongue at you. you watched on intently as his tongue moved against you expertly.

that didn’t last very long though, as the sensation of him finally paying attention to your clit again drove you back down into the mattress. you were sure the noises you were letting out now were loud enough for his dorm mates to hear, but you didn’t care. you released your hold on your skirt to grip at haechan’s hair, hips bucking against his face as he continued to suck on your clit. 

haechan let out a groan at the feeling of your nails against his scalp. he was trying to focus on getting you off. but fuck. the sight of you was practically pornographic, expression contorted in pleasure, lips wide open with continuous moans pouring from them. haechan couldn’t help himself. he began to buck his hips against the mattress, clinging on to the small amount of pleasure that was providing.

you were well and truly lost to the pleasure at this point, fucking yourself against haechan’s face in search for your release. you untangled one your hands from his hair to push the cups of your bra aside, boobs spilling out. you began to pinch at your nipples eliciting a high whine from the back of your throat. haechan watched on in amazement, growing even more turned on if that was possible. 

you were getting close, movements becoming more frenzied and desperate. haechan seemed to pick up on this. he slipped two fingers back inside of you, curling them to hit your sensitive spot just right. he felt you clenching around him, wetness dripping down his fingers and onto his sheets. that’s a problem he would gladly deal with later. you had a vice-like grip on his hair, chasing after your orgasm with little care for anything else.

your climax rushed in, suddenly clouding your senses. your eyes screwed shut as your back arched up off the bed in pleasure. haechan let out an audible whine against your clit at the way you tightened around his fingers, having to halt the movement of his own hips to avoid cumming in his pants. he helped you ride out your orgasm, only removing himself once you started letting out small whines of overstimulation. 

you fell back against his mattress with a content sigh. you watched as haechan cleaned up his fingers using his tongue. when he caught your gaze he sent a wink your way. you simply shook your head with a laugh, this in contrast to the way your thighs clenched together at the sight. when you had regained some energy you came to sit up next to him. haechan looked at you expectantly, the same smug grin he wore earlier in then day now once again on his lips.

“have i convinced you?” he asked, pressing a quick kiss against your lips. you didn’t let go get away that easy. you pulled him back in, tongue slipping into his mouth. he gladly returned your movements, letting out a groan when you backed up to suck on his tongue. after a few moments, you pulled away from him, suppressing a giggle at his disappointed expression from your separation.

“almost.” you beamed. haechan looked back at you in exasperation.

“jesus woman! what more do you need?” he whined, bottom lip coming forward in a pout. it was now your turn to smirk at him.

“lie down.” you commanded. haechan complied without much thought, lying back against his mattress. you turned to straddle his thighs, reaching forward to open up his jeans. he watched on, wide-eyed, as you pulled his jeans and boxers down simultaneously, getting them off without much help from him. you bit your lip as his cock sprung back against his abdomen, tip leaking at the lack of proper attention it had received. he let out a groan as you grabbed his cock. you shifted yourself forward, your other hand coming to align yourself with him.

once his mind came back to him, haechan scrambled to stop you. he didn’t want you to think that he had only done all of this in order to get something in return. you looked back at him confused, wanting to know why he was hesitating.

“hey, you know you don’t need to do this. i wasn’t expecting anything. i’m totally fine if you leave now. i’ll be even better than fine, i’ll be amazing, spectacular even. here, i’ll just-“ you cut him off by sinking down onto his cock. you both simultaneously let out a moan at the feeling. you relished in the feeling of haechan stretching you out, while he let out strings of curses at the feeling of you being wrapped around him. once you were fully seated, you leant forward to press a quick kiss against haechan’s lips.

“you won the bet, now enjoy your prize.” you smiled. haechan returned your expression, smiling up at you brightly. you pushed back on his shoulders to position yourself up right again. you stared down at him as you lifted up your hips before slamming them back down again. 

haechan watched intently as you rode him. the focused look on your face, the way your tits bounced against your bra with every movement, the way you frustratedly flipped your skirt out of the way when it was messing with your chosen rhythm. he loved how you were letting him see you like this. not the uptight and well put together person he always saw, but another side to you entirely. desperate and messy, doing whatever you could to get a sound of pleasure out of him.

“you look like a fucking mess.” haechan let slip. your movements faltered slightly, the comment flustering you. you weren’t normally like this. haechan always seemed to bring out different sides to you, and you were beginning to realise that you really enjoyed it.

“do you ever shut up?” you snapped back with a particularly harsh bounce. haechan let out a whine, hands coming to grip at your hips, halting your movements.

“i mean in a hot way! you look so fucking hot right now.” he clarified, worried he had accidentally offended you. in response, you rolled your eyes, hips rocking slightly on his cock in impatience.

“you still haven’t answered my question.”

“i’ll shut up if you make me.” challenge accepted. your lips came together in a mess, almost missing each other entirely. once haechan settled on sucking on your bottom lip, he began to thrust up into you. you let out a loud curse at the sudden movement, giving him the go ahead to take over.

haechan used his grip on your hips as leverage to continue thrusting into you, finally allowing himself to chase his own orgasm. his sharp and rough movement were sure as hell taking you along for the ride, finding yourself meeting his movements as you cried out in pleasure. haechan’s head came to rest in the nape of your neck, using it as a way to suppress his whines and groans.

as his movements became sloppier, you could tell that haechan was close. the feeling of you clenching around him was definitely helping that along. you felt your own release building up once again, hands coming to grip at haechan’s shoulders for leverage. nether of you were lasting much longer, and you were both perfectly fine with that.

haechan came first, groans morphing into whines, which morphed into a loud string of curses as he released inside of you. you continued to ride him, chasing after your own release. haechan let out whines of oversensitivity as you rode him to your own completion. you came with a loud moan, nails digging into his back, almost guaranteeing that there will be marks left there in the morning. 

you let out a whine as you moved off of his cock, feeling his release leaking out of you. haechan shot off of the bed, racing to get a cloth for you to clean yourself up with. you let out a lazy laugh at his swiftness, thanking him for the cloth when he handed it over. haechan pulled you into his chest when he returned to the bed, wrapping his arms around you as you nuzzled into his chest.

“so… what now?” you asked, playing with his fingers. 

“well, did i convince you that we should be together?” 

“you haven’t even taken me on a date!” you exclaimed, looking up at him with a teasing look. haechan took a moment to think it over before he shot out of bed once again, reaching for where his boxers had landed. he slipped them on before reaching for his pants, you looking at him in confusion.

“what are you doing, i’m tired.”

“too bad. get up, we’re going on a date.” you shot up in the bed in shock, looking at him like he was crazy.

“now?!”

“i’ve waited for you long enough, we’re going out now.” you let out a scoff at his suggestion. you looked down at yourself, thighs covered in bruises that your skirt barely covers, said skirt being crumpled and creased from having two sets of hands gripping on to it. you didn’t even want to think about how your hair or makeup looked right now.

“i look like a mess!” you whined, slamming your hands down onto the mattress.

“i thought i made it clear to you that i’m into that.” haechan stated, wiggling his eyebrows at you. you let out an annoyed sigh. his insistence had worked, and you were giving in to his request. 

“fine! just give me a second.” the second you attempted to walk away from his mattress your legs refused to comply, faltering and causing you to stumble back onto the mattress. haechan burst out laughing at your display, your cheeks blazing red at his reaction. 

“holy shit! i mean, i knew i was good, but i didn’t know i was that good.” haechan joked, going around the room to pick up the various clothing items of yours that had been flung around during your activities.

“god, you’re annoying!” you complained as haechan began to help you back into your clothes. he even went so far as to help you slip your shoes back on, tying and zipping them up. you watched on with a soft smile on your lips, cherishing the romantic gesture. haechan looked up to catch you staring down at him with your love struck smile. he let out a small laugh, standing up slightly so that he was now face to face with you.

“don’t act like you would have it any other way.” haechan whispered against your lips before giving them a peck. you hated that he was right, but you couldn’t help but smiled at how well he could read you. he let you go and fix your hair and makeup quickly, watching you in the mirror of his bathroom as you did so.

once you were done, haechan outstretched his hand for you to grab. you took it gladly, being pulled into his embrace. his arm wrapped around your shoulders as he guided you out of his dorm room, going on about how he was going to give you the best post-sex date you’ve ever had. you don’t think that either of you had ever had one of those before, but you weren’t gonna correct him, simply looking forward to whatever he was pulling out of his ass as a last minute plan.

and at that moment you decided that maybe liking lee haechan wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

valentine's gift masterlist main masterlist requests and asks are open!

[yara0546]

Nct dream reaction when leave voicemails for you while they’re away

Anonymous asked : hi can i request what types of voicemail, 7dream would send to you while they're away?

୨୧ Pairing : nct dream x reader

୨୧ Genre : Fluff,Romance,Humor,Slight Angst

୨୧ Word Count : 600–700 words.

୨୧ Disclaimer : This is a work of fiction from our imagination. It is not intended that the plot, theme, original characters, idols, etc. portray any real-life events/people. Plagiarism is NOT tolerated on this blog. If you believe we have copied an existing authors’ work, please message us privately. thank you and enjoy :)

Masterlist

Mark

"Hey, it's me... Mark. Uh, I know you’re probably busy, but I just wanted to call and check in. I miss you. Like... a lot. Tour is great and all, but it’s not the same without you, you know? Anyway, I hope you're eating well, sleeping enough... and not staying up too late watching those dramas without me. Save the good ones for when I get back, okay? Call me when you get this. Or text me. Or just... yeah, you get it. Bye."

Renjun

"Jagiya, why aren’t you picking up? Are you ignoring me? I know you saw my message. Sigh. I just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you. It’s been a long day, and I could really use some of your energy right now. Also, please tell me you’re not skipping meals. You always do that when I’m not around. If you don’t take care of yourself, I’ll be really mad. …Okay, maybe not mad mad, but still. Call me back, alright? I love you."

Jeno

"Hey... just checking in. I know it’s late over there, so you’re probably asleep. I just wanted to say I miss you. Today was kinda hectic, but thinking about you made everything feel easier. Ah, that sounds cheesy, doesn’t it? Don’t tease me about it later. Just... take care, alright? I’ll call again soon. Sleep well."

Haechan

"Yah, why aren’t you answering? You know you should always pick up when I call. I’m the highlight of your day, aren’t I? Laughs. But seriously, I miss you. A lot. Don’t go falling for any other handsome guys while I’m gone, alright? I know I’m irreplaceable, but still. Anyway, I’ll bring you something cool when I get back. But only if you answer my next call! Love you, dummy. Byeee."

Jaemin

"Baby, are you asleep? I bet you are. You always doze off early when I’m not there to keep you entertained. Chuckles. I just wanted to hear your voice, even if it’s just your voicemail. I miss you so much. You have no idea. Everything reminds me of you here, and it just makes me wish I could teleport back to you. But soon, okay? I’ll be home soon. Until then, keep dreaming of me. I love you."

Chenle

"Ayo, my favorite person! I’m calling because I know you miss me. Don’t even deny it. I bet you’ve been pouting all day because I’m not there to annoy you. Laughs. But really, I miss you too. It’s kinda boring without you around to tease. Make sure you’re staying safe and not doing anything reckless without me. I need you in one piece when I get back. Okay? Okay. Now call me back before I leave another voicemail."

Jisung

"Um... hey. It’s me. I, uh, don’t really know what to say, but I just wanted to hear your voice. Even if it’s just your voicemail. Nervous chuckle. Today was kind of tiring, but I kept thinking about you, and it made things better. I hope you’re doing okay. And... yeah. I miss you. A lot. Call me when you can? No pressure though! Uh... okay. Bye."

[stuckonmark]

accidents. mark lee

18. i’m vegan

three knocks at your door. that’s all it took for you to jump in your bed. after everything that happened at the last game, you haven’t been your usual self. you had asked winter for some space and karina offered for winter to stay with her for the time being. you’re really grateful for your friends. they always understood you and always supported you. you just wish you were able to open up more to them when things like this happen, but you just always find yourself falling back into your shell whenever something like this happens.

it took a lot of energy for you to get out of bed. honestly, you were kind of scared. you didn’t know what to expect. “hey yn.” looking down at you was a heavily breathing mark, who was holding so many grocery bags that you couldn’t see his hands anymore. your heart stopped for a second, not expecting to see him. “a little help?”

quickly shuffling to him, you try your best to grab the bags and your hand slightly grazed his. you and mark bring the groceries onto your table and you both take a seat. “so how’s everything going?” you hesitantly looked up at mark, not sure how you wanted to answer him. honestly, you didn’t even want to see him. you hated to admit it, but he was the reason you weren’t focusing on your life.

“i’m good.” the dry response is deafening. you felt bad, but you felt even worse having mark in your presence.

mark slowly nodded his head, as he awkwardly cleared his throat. “jaehyun’s worried about you. you’ve been ignoring his texts.” you were trying to think of the best way to answer mark without giving him too much or too little. “i guess tell him to not worry. i’m doing good. just need my space from everyone.”

he softly sighed, looking defeated. you thought the conversation would die out and that he would get up and leave until he looks straight into your eyes. “you have people that care about you yn. we just want to help. you’re allowed to lean on people. i care about you yn.” you weren’t sure, but mark looked like he was yearning for you. you just didn’t know if it was an act or not.

“mark. i don’t need your help. for all i know, you’re the one who’s making me lose focus. i need to lock in right now. i can’t be goofing off anymore. i have actual things in my life that matter.” you hated how harsh you came off, but mark hugging mina definitely hurt you more than a few words could hurt him.

mark began to open his mouth, but slowly closed it and looked down. “i think it’s time for you to go. thanks for the food, but i can’t have half the stuff you got me. i’m vegan.”

previous — m.list — next

notes. new character incoming?? 😏 also so sorry for so many written chapters.. ngl i have a few more 😭

taglist. open! @mmjhh1998 @haluenx @urlocalbeaner5 @cloudmrk @dudekiss3r @iluv7tn @jae-n0 @kikookii @remgeolli @lyleo @wumutititititi @kittydollzz @nctdreamchaser @kodasity @sibwol @worldwidecutiemaya @bbykaixx @luvsooby @luvvhaechan @awktwurtle @gomdoleemyson @morkiee @orangenbluetenbaum @fairyoflia @mxnhoeuwu

[v1si0n]

ch. 18: me and the voices☺️

ch.19:

masterlistΣ(-᷅_-᷄๑)

TAGLIST: @sunghoonsgfreal @jenohyun @n0hyuck @tywritesstuff @dinonuguaegi @slayhaechan @botchedbrat @spicyryujin @jenoleeaesthetic @yizhrt @nctrawberries @meowtella @insaneanddrained @blamingontheboogie @jich3nle @flamingi @mmjhh1998 @byeonwooseokabs @qiankunslove @conwunder @sunflowerhae @lotties-readings @keeryverse @jae-n0 @hyucksworldsblog @kukkurookkoo @4yunogf @cigsaftersuh @gomdoleemyson @bitchzitschimi @iseos1 @flaminghotyourmom @beomgyusonlywife @nahyuckers @jisungsleftcheek @remgeolli @kpopwh0r3 @tenjyucat @sibwol @princesscutsmahwrist @blondemrk

NOTES: im sorry its the middle of the night this is when i cook👁️👁️also i thought i lost this chapter and almost crashed out. im SOOOO excited im seeing 127 soon and i hope you guys have fun if you’re seeing them at any stops!!!!

[lelezip]

me think yes mark

( 𝓜 ). 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐁𝐎𝐘!𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐘 //

──drabble. gif fic. drama. ; tags. flirty!mark. ; w.c. 301 ╱ check out my library .ᐟ

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐔𝐒

fratboy!mark spots you before you even get the chance to pretend you don’t see him.

you barely make it to the kitchen when he’s there, leaning against the counter like he’s been waiting for you, solo cup in hand, that signature smirk already in place. he tips his head slightly, eyes dragging over you with blatant interest before locking onto yours.

“didn’t take you for the party type, pretty girl.”

you huff, grabbing a drink without sparing him a real look. “i’m not.”

mark just grins, shifting so he’s a little closer, just enough to make you aware of him. “then why are you here? could’ve just texted me if you wanted to see me that bad.”

you shoot him a look. “you wish.”

he clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “see, you keep saying stuff like that, but here we are, talking. again.” he takes a sip from his drink, smirking over the rim. “starting to think you might actually like me.”

you scoff, crossing your arms. “you think every girl likes you.”

“not every girl,” he corrects smoothly, eyes flicking to your lips for half a second before meeting your gaze again. “just the ones that i know do.”

you inhale sharply, forcing yourself not to react. “you’re insufferable.”

“and yet, you’re still here.” he shifts even closer, his voice dropping just enough to make your breath hitch. “how about this—let me take you out. just one date. if you don’t have a good time, i’ll stop bothering you.”

you narrow your eyes. “…and if i somehow do?”

his smirk deepens, teasing and entirely too smug. “then you admit you like me.”

you roll your eyes, turning away, but not before he chuckles, tapping his cup against yours. “think about it, pretty girl. i’ll be waiting.”

—

[johnnysuhbmarine]

Too Good to be Fake

Pairing: Jaemin x reader Description: If there was one thing Na Jaemin was known for, it was being a fuckboy with no interest in commitment. If there was one thing you knew him for, it was being your best friend…and long-time crush. When his group of guy friends gets tired of the roster Jaemin seems to be running through, they propose a deal - they’d each give him $100 if he could settle down with one girl for at least three months. But that was easy money to Jaemin. After all, he could just fake-date you. Content warnings: swearing, talk about sex, mentions/consumption of alcohol, a panic attack (not the reader), one punch gets thrown, reader has a somewhat bad relationship with her parents, their obliviousness to the other’s feelings makes you want to slam your head against a wall, some angst but it’s mainly through unaddressed fluff. Please let me know if I’ve missed anything. Word count: 31,947 A/n: I didn’t know I could write this much, but after making my smau, I was ITCHING for written work ahahahhahahahaha. Please enjoy, though who am I to tell you what to do…as always, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I love you :) also because I must tag @fullsunstrawberry in everything I do...here you go - I love you the mostest!

The semester was in full swing for just over a month, and Haechan was already tired of the amount of girls Jaemin had brought over to their apartment. The first two years of university cemented Jaemin’s image as resident fuckboy, but no one cared about the fact that they couldn’t keep him for more than a night because he was hot enough to make the one night worth it. Similarly, Jaemin couldn’t care less about being labeled a fuckboy - at the end of the day, all it meant was that he was able to get his dick wet with no added pressure from the expectation to ever commit; the concept seemed like heaven to him.

However, the start of junior year had his best friends thinking it was time for a change. As Jaemin sat down in one of their usual cafés for lunch, all eyes were on him. “Alright, Jaemin, we figure you’ve had your fun for the past two years now,” Chenle said with a gleam in his eyes. 

“Too much fun…” Haechan adds under his breath.

Jaemin looked around at the group with furrowed brows. “Whatever is going on, can we stop it and just have our coffee and sandwiches like normal? Why am I being targeted for the amount of fun I’m having? You’ve all had your fair share of fun, too.” 

Jeno let out a small laugh at Jaemin’s defense. “Yeah, but we aren’t nicknamed the campus fuckboy. Plus, we’ve all been in actual relationships during our time in college.” 

Jaemin’s face drops, no longer interested at all in the conversation they were clearly wanting to have. “I could be in a relationship if I wanted to be, I just don’t want to,” he’s quick to mutter in reply. 

“Why not?” Renjun asks, raising his eyebrows in wait.

Jaemin lets out a scoff. “All that love and commitment is stupid. You guys put so much effort into your previous relationships and yet, we’re all currently sitting at this table single. There’s no one who makes me want to even try being in a relationship. Why would I want to risk wasting all that effort on someone?”

His six best friends eyed each other around the table, either not buying it or not caring. “Look man,” Mark starts, getting Jaemin to turn his attention over to him. “Regardless of how you feel about love, Haechan is tired of listening to you and whatever girl you bring home that night…and he’s especially tired of it always being a different girl to walk in on him while he’s singing in the kitchen making breakfast. So, to maybe help him out, and also to test your ability because honestly, I don’t know if any of us think you’re capable…in the nicest way possible, of course. We wanna propose a bet- or a deal is probably the better word for it.” Jaemin shoots his gaze over to the rest of them, but no one bore a look of amusement, they were all curiously locked in. “If you can get a girlfriend and settle down for at least three months, we’ll give you $600.”

Well originally, Jaemin had no interest in any part of this, but if everything worked out the way his brain was planning it, that $600 could potentially be easy cash…not to mention a lot of it.

“I’m in,” he pipes up immediately, truthfully stunning his best friends at the table. Nevertheless, they all shake on it, and then Jaemin only has one thing to do…after finishing his coffee and sandwich, of course.

One day later, you get a text from Jaemin. Free to catch up today? Your cheeks blush warmly at the message. It wasn’t anything special, but after being glued to each other’s sides during high school, college saw you and Jaemin having considerably less time for each other; so it was always nice to see you were still a thought in his mind because truly, you missed your best friend like no other. 

Free to catch up everyday :)) You respond, and Jaemin’s reply comes instantaneously.

Perfect ;) meet you at the café in two hours

You check the clock before mapping out how you would spend all your time in between now and then, quickly deciding most of it should be directed towards making yourself look presentable, seeing as you’ve done nothing but rot in bed all morning.

Fast forward two hours and you were already sitting at one of the café tables when the bell rang as Jaemin walked through the door. He scans the inside before his eyes find you and he lights up. “Hi, best friend!” He says overenthusiastically as he pulls out the chair across from you. You furrow your brows at his tone, not to mention his usage of ‘best friend,’ when you think you remember Jaemin calling you that only once before when you were both still in high school, and had since never labeled you like that again - not that it was an incorrect label, but one that he typically didn’t make a huge deal about unless…

“Oh, god,” you start sarcastically. “What mess did you get yourself into now?”

“Hey!” Jaemin shoots back in mock hurt, moving a hand over his heart as if you’ve just shot him. You let out a light laugh, rolling your eyes.

“Sorry, Jaem, please continue.”

He immediately ducks his head to face his lap, his tone bearing a fraction of the force it previously had. “Okay so, I got myself into a mess.” You can’t help the genuine laugh that escapes you as you shake your head. Jaemin whips his head up to face you in response, but as you manage to stop your laughter, all you can do is meet his gaze with a softness in your eyes that perfectly balanced the playful smirk on your lips.

“I’ve missed you a lot, you know,” you respond, and Jaemin rolls his lips inward to try and stop the smile as he directs his gaze somewhere off to the side. 

“Yeah, hoping you’re still thinking that after I explain,” he replies hesitantly, and your face falls in an instant.

“You got me into a mess?!” You ask in disbelief, and Jaemin lets out a light sigh.

“Not yet, but that’s kind of the goal,” he answers, scrunching up his facial features as he waits for your reprimanding. Though it never comes, and instead, you speak plainly through a sigh.

“An explanation needs to come out of your mouth in three, two-”

Jaemin curls himself into a ball as best he can while sitting in the café chair, wanting some kind of physical defense before explaining himself in a rush. “I need us to fake date for three months so can you please please please be my fake girlfriend?” When he doesn’t get coffee thrown at him, he takes a moment to unfurl himself and look over at you again, his gaze met with your indifferent expression. 

“Why?” You ask neutrally, and it seems to finally hit Jaemin that you were still the same sane, comforting presence you always had been, even if the two of you hadn’t properly hung out in over a year. He settles more decidedly into his chair, though he still frames his words through a lens of embarrassment, figuring that might be the best way to get you to agree - if you knew he knew he was stupid.

“$600 and to prove something to my friends,” he replies, his words light but his demeanor dead serious.

“And why me?” You toss back, causing Jaemin to roll his eyes as he throws his gaze off to the side again with a scoff. 

“Cause every other girl I know has a crush on me and it’d make this very weird. I’m not trying to actually be in a relationship. That’s the last thing I want.” His words this time are firm enough to match his demeanor, and it has you taking a sip of your coffee to fight back the awkwardness you would’ve otherwise choked on. 

“...Right,” you say in agreement, because out of all the times you could come clean about your huge crush on your best friend, right after he tells you that he doesn’t want a relationship is probably the worst time to do so. 

“So?” Jaemin inquires hopefully, snapping you out of your thoughts. You flick your gaze up to him before immediately darting it back to your coffee on the table, one of your hands messing with the straw absentmindedly. Then you give in, because you suck at saying ‘no’ to your best friend.

“...Fine, but then we’re making a contract,” you say plainly, swirling the ice around in your americano. Jaemin lets out something like a laugh, shaking his head.

“Y/n, you’re taking this so seriously-” He starts, but you whip your head back up to him in an instant, cutting him off with sincerity. 

“They’ll see right through it if we don’t,” you state, and you watch Jaemin’s adam's apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallows awkwardly. 

He shakes out of it before putting his hands up in defeat. “Okay, whatever. Go ahead,” he replies, disinterested. You roll your eyes, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from your backpack. Then you get to writing, because you were gonna need to set some intense boundaries if you were hoping to make it out of this alive. 

“Alright, I think this should be good for right now,” you say after a few minutes, sliding the piece of paper his way. He takes one glance at it before letting out a laugh and directing his gaze back to you with raised brows.

“‘No kissing?’ I don’t mean to alarm you, but that’s actually the quickest way for them to see right through it,” he quips. You run your fingers through your hair awkwardly as you dodge his gaze, finally nodding your head with a sigh. 

“Okay fine, we can change it. No kissing unless they bring it up or get suspicious. Good?” You ask, finally looking up at him again. He lets an amused smile paint its way across his lips as he stares at you across the table.

“Ha, we’ll keep it for now,” he agrees before turning his attention back to the paper and looking over the next thing you wrote. “‘No weird nicknames?’” He reads, popping his head back up to look at you for clarification. You roll your eyes, slightly embarrassed. 

“Yeah, like sugar, pumpkin, honey, buttercup, sweetie, sweetheart, cutie pie, baby, babe, darling-” You’re cut off by a genuine laugh from Jaemin, helping you realize you’ve missed the sound of it a lot, and not at all helping the awkward situation you’ve gotten yourself into. 

“Okay, you’re just naming every pet name imaginable,” he counters as though you were crazy. 

You roll your lips inward, hesitating on how to respond before opting with a near-whisper. “I don’t like them,” you admit quietly, and Jaemin’s demeanor falls from playful to understanding. He opens his mouth to reply but closes it again before any words get out, instead taking another moment to think. 

“They’re gonna expect me to call you something,” he finally says, speaking as though it were an apology. 

You sigh, knowing he wasn’t lying. Idly messing with your hands, you reply quietly. “...are they gonna expect me to call you something, too?” You ask, and Jaemin contemplates with a sorry nod.

“Yeah, probably. Look, you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with, and if that’s just ‘Jaem,’ that’s fine.”

A more lenient answer than you were expecting, you shoot your head up to look back at him again, though your brows slightly furrow as you address the part he didn’t. “What about you?”

Jaemin lets out a soft sigh. “How about I just limit my usage of pet names, and I won’t call you anything food-related,” he suggests lightly, figuring those nicknames having made up your first seven examples meant you hated them the most. You roll your eyes but a smile crosses your face regardless because he was right, after all…and caring enough to actually realize that.

“I can live with that,” you relent, and a big grin comes back onto Jaemin’s face at the progress. He moves his attention back towards the contract, but immediately is whipping his gaze back to you in hurt. 

“Why can’t I be the one to break it off?” He pouts, and you have half a mind to laugh, but you know he’s serious. 

“If you date me for exactly three months and then break up with me, no matter how believable we make it, they’re either going to know it was set up or they’re going to assume you learned nothing and probably not give you the money,” you explain, and Jaemin’s pout turns into an impressed nod.

“You have a point…” He breathes out, causing you to smirk.

“I know.” 

He bites on his bottom lip, deep in thought before turning back to you again. “We probably shouldn’t date for exactly three months then, either,” he adds, and you flash your eyebrows in recognition.

“That’s also true,” you say before putting together a calendar in your head. “Well, if today’s September 27th, three months is December 27th, so…we could have New Year’s Eve be our last night together?” You suggest awkwardly. Though, when you look back up towards Jaemin, he’s putting your timeline together with a nod.

“Works for me,” he cedes, scribbling your end date somewhere off to the side before continuing to scan down the list. His next question comes with the very last bullet point on the contract. “‘Come home with me for Christmas dinner?’” He reads before looking up at you in confusion. You shake your head with a laugh.

“Well, you didn’t think I’d do this for nothing in return, did you?”

Jaemin flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “Okay…so why Christmas dinner?” He asks, and you drop your gaze back to your coffee. 

“My family keeps riding my ass about not having a boyfriend. If you come back with me and pretend to be my boyfriend there, too, then even when we end things, they’ll at least be off my case for a while,” you admit, embarrassment tainting your voice before you rush to make the request sound more appealing. “And it’s not actual Christmas dinner! It’s that first weekend after finals week. You remember the big dinner we always had with other family friends and all that,” you drag off with an awkward laugh.

“Okay,” Jaemin agrees immediately, and you look back up at him in shock.

“Really? You’re agreeing to that?” You question, but he just shrugs his shoulders. 

“Y/n, you’re getting me $600, the least I can do is one dinner with your family. Besides, they’re practically my second set of parents. I’m pretty sure I had at least a hundred dinners with them during high school,” he jokes, and the tension in your shoulders falls. You guys were really doing this…all of this. The two of you left the café and parted ways soon after agreeing to the terms of the contract, Jaemin feeling $600 richer already with how easy this was going to be.

Jaemin picked you up from class on the first day you would be meeting his friends, five days after the two of you signed your contract to fake-date. He greets you with an easy smile outside of your classroom door. “Hey, you ready?” He asks, and you send a nervous smile back up at him. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” you reply with a laugh. He flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement, feeling much the same way seeing as this was probably the least conventional thing he’s ever done. 

He leads you outside and towards the guys’ regular lunch spot at one of the tables set up in the campus commons. Jaemin had told his friends beforehand that he had gone and gotten himself a girlfriend and thus, to start the three month timer, and they were the ones who begged him to bring you to one of the lunches so they could meet you, and now here you were - walking casually towards the lunch table with Jaemin…too casually, Chenle noticed, because you weren’t even holding hands. He keeps quiet, but lets an easy smirk come across his face as you and Jaemin sit down next to each other. 

“Alright, guys,” Jaemin starts as the rest of the friend group pins their full attention on you. “This is y/n. My girlfriend,” he says with a smile. The label sends ice through your veins. You could not believe Na Jaemin was introducing you as his girlfriend…it didn’t matter that the label was fake, the words sounded real coming out of his mouth. You turn your head to look at him, as if to get some kind of confirmation that it really was Jaemin next to you, calling you his girlfriend. By the time your gaze reaches him, he’s already looking over at you with a cheesy grin, nudging your side playfully with his arm and getting you to relax a little. 

The guys go around introducing themselves, but as they make their full way around the table, Jeno immediately speaks up.

“So, how did the two of you get together?” He asks curiously. A valid question, which is why the guys all lean forward in interest, because of course they would be dying to know how their fuckboy best friend got an actual girlfriend rather than a hookup. It was a horrible question though, because it was one you forgot would ever come up, and you had no game plan to go about answering this. Though, it seemed all you had to worry about was keeping your eyes from going wide, because Jaemin did have a game plan for this, and he answered smoothly.

“I just asked her out,” he says with a shrug. “It’s always been so easy with y/n, I take it for granted most of the time. Every time I’m with her, I’m reminded that it takes no effort to breathe, that I’m standing on solid ground. We met up for coffee the other day and she said she missed me and I-” He falters for a moment, and you finally bring your gaze up from your lap to face Jaemin, just to see him shake his head as if he were breaking himself out of a nostalgia trip. “I wanted to hear that again and again,” he finally says seriously, and you can’t stop the smile from reaching your face. “So, though now it just sounds embarrassing saying it out loud, I straight up asked her to be my girlfriend right after that,” he adds through a laugh. “I had been waiting for the butterflies that everyone always talks about, but the fact that I’ve never really felt that with her just made me more sure I wanna be with her - there’s no discomfort or anxiety,” he says, and with your head ducked back in to face your lap, you miss it when he turns to look at you softly. “She’s just always felt like home.” 

Jaemin’s answer seems to have done its job in convincing everyone, and it definitely did its job in reminding you that you were in deep trouble. Though, as the rest of the guys take in Jaemin’s words with an impressed nod, Mark tries to fill in his holes. “Wait, how long have you known each other?” He asks, which was another valid question seeing as Jaemin talked about you with history even though you had never met his friend group before.

“We’ve been friends since high school,” Jaemin says coolly, though this time, you’re the one to nudge him with a laugh.

“Best friends,” you add teasingly, and Jaemin chuckles as he looks over at your figure before nodding his head.

“Yeah, best friends,” he agrees fondly. “But, I’ve liked her for a while now,” he says, turning back towards the group as his face falls and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I just- obviously have the image that I do and I never wanted to get her tied up in it. She deserves more than being labeled as some fuckboy’s latest infatuation,” he says, and as you furrow your brows at him, he just shakes his head, moving on with a light smile. “Though, obviously, I saw her last week and couldn’t help it anymore.”

Sorry smiles cross most of the guys’ faces - they were no help when it came to keeping labels away from Jaemin, and he was sure putting on a convincing show, making it almost seem like it was their fault the two of you hadn’t already gotten together. 

Haechan swings his gaze over to you with raised eyebrows, shifting gears to try and not to let the dampened mood actually settle in. “And you? How long have you liked him?” He asks, and you have to stop the laugh from leaving your system. Instead, you just shake your head fondly.

“Forever,” you answer truthfully, turning to face Jaemin before immediately pulling your gaze back down to your lap in embarrassment. “Any girl will tell you, it’s impossible not to fall for Na Jaemin.” At this, all the guys roll their eyes, but Jaemin just turns to study you softly, biting on his bottom lip in contemplation as he tries to sort out whether any part of your statement was true or if you were just really good at acting.

However, with the rumbling of Jisung’s stomach, he quickly discards the topic of you and Jaemin, deciding that after all the intro questions were out of the way, food was much more interesting. The guys laugh along as Jisung rips through his paper bag lunch, but it does its job in getting them to focus on their own food in front of them, too. 

Casual conversation occurred over lunch, and you were pleasantly surprised to find it wasn’t awkward at all. Not that you were expecting the guys to be awkward with each other, but you typically weren’t great at meeting new people; and now you were meeting six of them at once, somehow fitting right in, your occasional remarks causing the whole table to laugh - something you’d have to pat yourself on the back for later. The only disturbance comes from Chenle, who had begun leaning way back from the table, carefully balancing his weight on the bench as he seems to examine the ground by your feet. 

The entire friend group eventually catches on to his antics, turning their attention towards him with raised eyebrows. “What are you doing?” Renjun finally asks, the question coming out as though he thought Chenle were crazy…which probably wasn’t too far from his actual stance on the matter.

Chenle shakes his head, pulling himself back into a normal sitting position as he locks his gaze onto you and Jaemin. “Don’t most couples have a hand placed on the other’s thigh or something while sitting? Why are you guys like- a foot away from each other?” He asks plainly. Your face drops and your eyes widen.

“We are not a foot away from each other,” you remark firmly, but then Jisung peaks beneath the table as well, pulling back up with a shrug.

“Uh, you kinda are,” he says, causing Jaemin to roll his eyes.

“Didn’t think you guys were big pda enthusiasts,” he says, trying to laugh it off, but Chenle is relentless.

“Have you kissed yet?” He asks immediately, and you almost choke.

“What?!” You return in shock, but Chenle looks between the two of you with uninterested brows.

“You’ve liked each other for forever and you’re this awkward?” He shoots back in a taunt. You sigh, collecting yourself because you knew what you were about to have to do. 

“You’re right, Jaem,” you say, pulling his attention your way as you place a hand on his cheek and smile in disbelief. “Your friends are annoying,” you continue, and then you lean in and kiss your best friend and long time crush. 

Admittedly, you’ve imagined this moment more times than you could count, but none of those fantasies could have prepared you for what it actually felt like to kiss Na Jaemin. His lips were perfect, he was perfect, and you knew that already but now you felt it. You remind yourself of where you’re at, why you’re kissing him in the first place, and bring yourself to pull back after the one soft kiss, trying your best to make it seem as though that alone didn’t cause you to lose your breath.

As the two of you pull away from each other, Jaemin’s gaze locks on you, running over every inch of your face with an unreadable look in his eyes to contrast the softest of smiles on his lips. “Yeah, angel, they are,” he says through an exhale, and as your face goes completely pink, his smile eases into a familiar smirk. “But if you kiss me every time they piss you off, I might have to have them stick around.” 

You roll your eyes, nudging him in the side again as you focus on the playful banter and not on the fact that Jaemin just rewired your brain chemistry with one ‘angel.’ “Whatever, we both know I kiss you all the time anyways,” you tease, but as you try to shift away again, Jaemin catches your hand in his and looks at you as if you were crazy.

“No, I kiss you all the time,” he rushes to correct, and though you whip your head back to face him in offense, your eyes instantly soften upon contact, a tight smile playing at both of your features instead.

Your only thought was to kiss him again, and you’re thankful when Chenle cuts off any chance of that happening. “What is going on?” He asks in disgust, causing Renjun to laugh and shake his head.

“Hey, you were the one jumping their asses for their lack of public romance. This is your fault.” 

With the conclusion of lunch, Jaemin kept you company on the walk back to your dorm. As soon as you’re out of sight from the rest of the guys, you let out a heavy sigh and accompanying drop of your shoulders. “Well, there goes rule number one…” You say in defeat. If you couldn’t even follow the first rule during your first outing as a ‘couple,’ the rest of these three months were not going to bode well for you. 

Instead of matching your demeanor, Jaemin takes offense. “What, no! We changed rule number one to no kissing unless they brought it up or were suspicious, and they both, brought it up and were suspicious,” he claims firmly, but the playful tone underlying his words makes it so that all you can do is let out a small, wry laugh.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” you say with a shake of your head, though the smile has made its reappearance on your face. Next to you, Jaemin stops walking, pausing for a moment as he stares at the pavement beneath your feet. As soon as you notice his absence at your side, you turn back around to face him and his small grimace.

“Thank you, by the way,” he says gently, and any remaining tension you were carrying falls away; because any time Jaemin fell softer, you were reminded of how you’d do anything for your best friend. “I don’t know if I really thanked you for letting me talk you into this. I know it’s stupid, but it’s nice to have them attacking me for whether or not I’ve kissed you rather than attacking me for my body count,” he finishes, and it feels as though all your joints had immediately locked up again. 

Jaemin’s title as the campus fuckboy was not lost on you, but talking about anything close to relationships was never a strong suit for you guys; and with him quickly finding his place within a new friend group here at college, it meant you were even less in the know of his whereabouts on any given day. The last thing you were expecting was for Jaemin to keep you updated on who he just fucked, but the entire realm of conversation was always so unreachable for you two. You knew nothing of what the campus fuckboy was truly getting up to; there was sometimes talk in your class when a girl would come in beaming as she told her friends she managed to spend a night with Jaemin, but instances like that were all you got informed by, and you never dared pry deeper into those overheard conversations. 

Sometimes your jealousy would damn near kill you - all these girls boasting about the fact that they had spent a night with Jaemin…you wanted to turn around half the time and tell them to forget about one night because you’ve spent countless days with him; that your entire high school career was covered in his handprints and bright smile which you were sure was laced with drugs - a smile you knew he wasn’t throwing around in the bedroom. 

You never did snap, though, because it was easier to keep your ‘best friend’ label with Jaemin under the radar at college, unless you wished for tens upon hundreds of girls to line up in front of you and ask your advice on how to win his heart. Jokes on them, you were still figuring that out, yourself.

“What is your body count?” You ask with a hesitant swallow, your curiosity getting the better of you now that he’s finally brought it up. 

Jaemin shoots his head up to face you but instantly dodges your eye contact again. For the first time since you’ve met him, he looks genuinely embarrassed. “Another time, y/n,” he says in soft dismissal.

You swallow harshly, in disbelief at what you were about to tell him, but as much as it would sting, it would keep your own feelings at a very needed bay. “If you still want to have sex, you can. I don’t mean to force you into celibacy. Just make sure it’s at the girl’s house so Haechan doesn’t find out,” you say lowly, and Jaemin immediately makes wide eye contact with you.

“Really?” He asks in something like shock. You act as though it’s no big thing, and you’re sure it probably shouldn’t be, anyways.

“Yeah,” you respond with a shrug.

Jaemin takes in your words with a contemplative head nod, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth before his eyes light up in alert, finding another caveat to address. “What do we do if the girl starts talking about the fact that she hooked up with me?” He asks seriously, but you’ve finally found humor in the situation, shaking your head as though there were hardly a need for the question. 

“Jaem, just about every girl wants to sleep with you, or at least make it seem like she did…a random girl claiming to have hooked up with you one day is just going to sound like she’s desperate for attention. No one’s gonna take it seriously,” you say with a playful roll of your eyes. Absolutely nothing you said was wrong, and with a deep breath, Jaemin seems to accept that fact.

As he exhales, he resumes his continuation on the walk back to your dorm, a light nod of his head accompanying his next words. “Okay. Thank you-” His casual start is broken as he turns his head back over to you at his side in question. “Are you gonna be okay? Are you gonna like- hook up- uh…with other guys?” He asks curiously. All you can do is laugh at him.

“Casual hookups aren’t my thing and no way am I getting an actual boyfriend while we’re doing this, but of course I’ll be okay. I’m pretty sure your sex drive is at least ten times greater than mine. I can handle three months,” you reply lightly, and seemingly all of Jaemin’s worries about this new implementation fade away - it seemed perfectly doable without getting caught. 

As you get to your dorm entrance, you and Jaemin turn to fully face each other. “Thanks again for today. I think we got them somewhat convinced,” he says through a small laugh, and you flash your eyebrows in acknowledgement. 

“No reason to thank me for that - you did most of the talking,” you rebuttal playfully. 

Jaemin’s laugh turns into a knowing smirk. “You were the one who kissed me,” he teases, and you shake your head, but a wide grin spreads across your lips, regardless.

“It's not my fault that they both, brought it up and were suspicious,” you remind him, putting your hands up in defense. Jaemin takes a moment to laugh again before settling into a more fond look that was reminiscent of your high school days.

“We’re gonna have to start hanging out more again since they think we’re dating, but even before all that, I think it’d make me happy if we started hanging out more again just cause I’ve missed you…and I know it’s my fault we haven’t talked as often! I got a friend group of guys and an- agenda…with girls, and as such, my entire college career up to now has unfolded in that way. But I miss you because you’ve always been my friend, not because of some agenda or fake-dating scheme.”

“Mmmmmm, best friend,” you correct with a sure smirk, making Jaemin drop his head with a laugh of defeat.

“Yeah, best friend,” he cedes, and your smirk turns into a soft smile. 

“I never do anything, so just text me when you wanna hang. I’ll be there.” 

He looks back up at you with a small grin and a nod. “Same goes for you,” he replies. Then, all that was left was saying ‘goodbye’ in a much more awkward way than usual, before you went back up to your room to decompress from whatever the hell just happened. 

It was a week after that first lunch when you were alone and bored in your dorm. None of the guys mentioned anything about having plans for the weekend while at lunch, which you had begun to join in on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So, although you just saw him, you figured Jaemin wouldn’t have anything better to do than hang out with you some more today. You shoot your gaze over to the clock, agreeing there was more than enough time left in the day to make a hang out worth it, and then grabbing your phone to text Jaemin.

Hey, I’m bored. Wanna do something? You send, and Jaemin’s reply is instantaneous.

With a girl rn

For a text that’s letting you know he’s following your directions, it hurts more than you thought it would to read. You know it’s for the best that this be your reality. Jaemin had been your best friend for so long now, the last thing you wanted was to ruin that with your feelings; and while fake-dating wasn’t helping, this reality-check definitely did. He’s not just your best friend anymore, he’s the campus’ heartthrob…the campus’ fuckboy. It was the entire reason behind the bet his friends made in the first place - a circumstance like this was only expected. So, you’d have to forget about the hollow feeling in your stomach right now and instead support your best friend in a best friend way, cause no matter how many times in the next three months he’s destined to call you ‘angel’ or look over at you softly every time you talk in the group, ‘best friends’ is all you are to each other. Oh, look at you go! I figure I’m your alibi, so I guess I’ll stay in for the rest of the night so there’s no possibility of one of your friends seeing me

His reply this time took about thirty minutes to get to you, and even his last text didn’t prepare you for the brick wall that faced you with this one. Thanks 

Jaemin isn’t selfish, Jaemin is busy. It’s the mantra you kept repeating to yourself, because you know he’s not selfish; and while you were expecting a reply more aligned with an apology for forcing your Friday night to be spent indoors and alone, taking the time to text that out probably was not something Jaemin could manage while another girl was surely sucking him off. 

The next Thursday, it’s Jaemin’s idea to hang out after classes. The two of you decided to chill at your place so that you didn’t have to constantly pretend around Haechan, should he be in their apartment. As you swing the door open to Jaemin’s presence, he looks at you with a big grin on his face. “Hey, angel,” he says, patting the top of your head as he walks into your dorm. You track his figure deeper into the living area, looking at him quizzically because the whole purpose of him being here was that he didn’t have to call you ‘angel.’ 

You just shake your head with a smile as he plops down on your couch. “Hey, Jaem.” 

He looks up at you with innocent eyes. “What did you want to do tonight?” He asks, and you shrug your shoulders with a laugh.

“You’re the one who wanted to come over; my plan was to do homework.” Your answer has Jaemin’s face falling, and you watch as he gets up from the couch and immediately walks out the door, leaving you completely dumbfounded. You didn’t think homework was that repulsive to him. Though, moments later, there’s another knock on your door, and you answer it to be met with Jaemin again, this time his own backpack slung across his shoulders. “Wha-?” You question with a laugh of disbelief.

Jaemin sends a smirk your way before once again walking past you and towards the couch, immediately unzipping his backpack and placing its contents on the coffee table. “Homework,” he says casually, looking up at you with raised brows and a smirk. “Best friend, fake girlfriend, study buddy…you get all the fun labels,” he teases, causing you to shake your head before relenting and joining him at the coffee table. 

It was an incredibly normal night. After the two of you finished up the last of your assignments - though getting distracted every five or so minutes with stupid jokes, complaints of coursework, or a sudden remembering of a story that needed telling did not help push things along, the two of you watched a movie. You ended up making hot cocoa, because the privilege of thermostats meant that it wasn’t a crazy option, regardless of the outside temperature, and then sat on the recliner, Jaemin taking up considerably more space on the couch in response. 

The two of you had always been good movie watchers with each other. You both liked to enjoy movies in the same way - the lights off, no talking, no distractions from phones…even if it was a movie you had seen a hundred times. The two of you took movie nights seriously, mainly because with each other, you could. At least, you had yet to find anyone else who would sit and watch Coraline with you and not take a break to say something about how they find it creepy or flatout don’t like the movie when it’s not even halfway over. Though, Jaemin always happily watched, saving his only comments (typically about how “they just don’t make movies like that anymore”) for the credits. 

Just like that, it was like a night from high school, and it ended much the same way - a side hug with Jaemin and his promises of getting home safe, though it was you rather than your mother that he was making that promise to now. 

Walking back into his apartment, Jaemin immediately catches the attention of Haechan, currently making late night ramen in the kitchen. “Did you just get back from y/n’s?” He asks, pulling his attention away from the stove to turn his head towards Jaemin.

“Yeah,” Jaemin answers casually as he makes his trek through the front space and towards his room, only getting distracted when Haechan speaks up again with a playful lilt and a matching smirk on his face.

“Good night?” He asks, causing Jaemin to furrow his brows before realizing what Haechan was actually getting at. 

“What-? Oh, shut up,” he dismisses. Turning back around to face Haechan revealed him to be completely distracted from his ramen - his back now leaning against the countertop as his casual crossed arms added to the tease in his raised eyebrow. Jaemin rolls his eyes at the antics, especially considering Haechan was the main reason this whole deal was made in the first place - because he was tired of Jaemin having sex. “We didn’t have sex. We did normal couple things,” he states confidently before turning around again to actually make his way inside his room and behind his closed bedroom door. 

This meant Jaemin missed the way Haechan’s playful brows furrowed in confusion, his face falling flatter as he spoke through a soft exhale. “What?” Any more time he could have had to actually question it was overridden with the need to tend to his now boiling over ramen; so Jaemin got off easy the rest of the night. 

Haechan was not as forgiving the next time he saw the guys at Monday lunch, though. With you still nowhere to be seen and Jaemin in his line of sight ordering food, he addresses everything in a more serious tone than any of the guys were expecting. 

“Does anyone else find it odd that they haven’t had sex yet?”

Eyes go wide at the rest of the table. “They haven’t?!” Jeno practically shouts before immediately getting embarrassed and making himself as small as possible. Haechan just shakes his head.

“They haven’t even spent the night at each other’s places yet. He always comes back home after hanging out with her and it’s always just him.”

“Maybe they’re taking it slow,” Mark replies with a shrug, but all eyes lock on him with ample skepticism. 

“Does ‘slow’ seem like a Jaemin thing?” Haechan rebuttals. “I mean, come on. We’re talking about the guy who’s notorious for getting his dick wet at any available opportunity.”

“So, we think they don't really like each other? They’re faking it?” Renjun asks with pursed contemplative lips. 

Haechan’s the one to shrug this time in mystery. “$600 is a hefty amount. He’d do anything he can for that, including but not limited to getting a fake girlfriend and lying to us,” he states more firmly, but that’s as Jaemin joins the table; his brows furrowed and mouth hanging slightly open as he looked around at the guys in something like disgust.

“What in the world did I just walk in on? Y/n is not my fake girlfriend. The deal money is nice but I’m at least honorable about these things,” he argues, and immediately all the guys whip their gazes towards him, varying expressions on their faces as Jisung speaks up in genuine question.

“Why haven’t you slept with her yet?” The seriousness of the question and the sheer interest in the rest of the guys’ faces gets Jaemin to roll his eyes.

“You guys are atrocious, you know that?” He says in place of an answer. 

Chenle raises his brows. “The question remains,” he taunts with a smirk.

Jaemin looks him dead in the eyes as he responds. “She means more to me than that.”

“Means more to you than that?” Jeno reflects back with a laugh. “Jaemin, are you forgetting your love language?” This is the first thing you can pick up as you finally get to the table after questions from your classmates held you for more minutes than should be allowed. Regardless, you immediately jump right into conversation.

“Love language?” You echo with a smile. “There’s something I’m knowledgeable about. How’s my words of affirmation boy doing?” You continue, all your attention directed towards Jaemin as you shed your backpack from your body.

He looks up at you still standing by his side, eyes soft and speaking through a small smile. “Better now that you’re here,” he answers, and you don’t stop the bashful smile from coming across your face as you finally get situated sitting down next to him. The gentle moment is broken, though, with Jeno asking a question in total shock.

“Words of affirmation??” He begs for clarification, and the rest of the guys lean in at the table some more in apparent interest. You look at them all as though there was some joke you weren’t getting. 

“Yes? What did you think it was?” You question back, and they respond in almost perfect unison.

“Physical touch.”

You can’t stop the small laugh from leaving your system as you look back at all of them seriously. “Jaemin’s good at showing love through physical touch, no doubt, but words of affirmation is by far his favorite way to receive love, it’s not even a question. And sure, part of that is how he smiles like an idiot whenever I tell him he’s the most handsome guy on the planet - which is stupid because ‘handsome’ honestly doesn’t even begin to describe it…” You trail off awkwardly before shooting your head back up to face everyone. 

“But have you ever seen him receive a compliment that has nothing to do with his body or looks? The way his eyes light up like something just clicked for him? I mean, he’s so many more things before he’s physically attractive, and all he was waiting for was someone to recognize that. Every time we meet up after class and I say something like ‘I’ve been longing to be in your presence all day,’ or ‘thanks for bringing me more happiness than I’ve ever known,’ he’s practically on the verge of tears every time. It’s why when I told him I missed him that one day, all he could think to do was ask me to be his girlfriend. He’s been waiting to be missed on a level that had nothing to do with his body. He’s been waiting to be affirmed in a way that isn’t physical.”

That seemed to get everyone else at the table to shut up, swallowing awkwardly as they instead turned their attention to their food. You let out a small sigh of relief as you dig into your own sandwich, but Jaemin doesn’t think he can even take one bite anymore; a weird feeling in his stomach and his mind going a million miles an hour. When he does pick up his sandwich, it’s not because he’s finally convinced he can keep it down, but because not eating now would be incredibly suspicious to everyone…including you. 

Jaemin walked you back to your dorm after lunch, something that became typical since it wasn’t always possible to pick you up from class for lunch. You were walking in comfortable silence; in fact, an element of awkwardness was only introduced once Jaemin spoke up with a strange sort of cough and hesitant words. “I didn’t know I was a words of affirmation guy,” he finally says after a couple of minutes. 

With the two of you out of sightline and earshot of the others, you let your actions and reactions express more naturally. So, you paused completely, making him eventually stop and look over his shoulder at you in question. “Oh…really?!” You say in light shock before shaking your head and resuming your pace so you could catch back up to him and continue casually. “I mean, maybe you’re not then, but just from what I know-”

You’re cut off with a small laugh from Jaemin as he shakes his head softly, matching his contemplative tone. “No, I think you’re right. Everything you said I- I think you’re right.” He says it as though he were almost embarrassed by the fact, and you decide that’s the last thing you’re gonna allow him to feel in this situation.

“Oh, well, would you like me to affirm you more often then?” You ask seriously. “We aren’t exactly meeting up after class everyday and I’m not exactly telling you I’ve been waiting for that very moment, but I can.”

Jaemin is quick to dismiss the idea. “No, it’s okay. No use doing that when this whole thing is fake. I mean, rule number three or something is that everything is immediately dropped when we’re in private,” he tries to play off with a laugh, and as you finally reach the entrance to your dorm, you turn around to face him solemnly. 

“Jaem, that’s not me putting on an act. You do know I love spending time with you, right? And-” You shake your head, frustrated with yourself that this is something you obviously didn’t do a good job of communicating earlier. “Take us out of this whole situation thing,” you command, finding your footing in what you’re wanting to say. “Just- as friends. I love spending time with you. I want you in my life forever, yeah?” You finish softly, and when you look back up at Jaemin, he’s quick to break eye contact. 

“Yeah.”

The next few weeks saw to it that you and Jaemin were hanging out more than ever. What you saw as insane luck meant that every time you texted asking if he could hang out, he was never ‘with a girl’ at the time; and Jaemin was texting you and being the one to make plans at a far greater rate than you were, anyways. Instantly, your relationship reflected that during your time in high school - the only difference was that sometimes in the midst of trying to pretend you didn’t have the hugest crush on your best friend, you were also having to pretend you did have the hugest crush on your best friend. 

Hang outs were still mainly at your place so that the two of you never had to worry about Haechan, though sometimes you’d purposely have a night in at Jaemin’s to keep Haechan convinced. This was not one of those times. Instead, you opened your door to Jaemin as you have for the past three Friday’s now, which the two of you decided would be ‘date night’ in everyone else’s eyes while really, you’d just keep a low profile and do whatever you wanted. Due to schedules, you always had an hour for homework before you’d be met with Jaemin’s presence, and he was right on time today. “Hey, Jaem!” You greet with a smile as you swing the door open and step back to allow him inside.

“Hey angel,” he replies casually, because calling you ‘angel’ was now a very typical occurrence, regardless of who was around to hear it. He flashes a smile in your direction, but instead of beelining for the couch like normal, he stops to stand kind of awkwardly in front of you before continuing hesitantly. “Mark is having a Halloween party if that’s something you’re interested in…we could go together. I know parties aren’t really your thing.” He speaks as though it were an apology, and all you can do is chuckle at his antics.

“Don’t worry about that. I am your fake girlfriend, aren’t I?” You tease in reply, and Jaemin raises his eyebrows as though he didn’t know where you were going with this.

“...Yes,” he draws out slowly, and you just shake your head at him fondly.

“So, if you’re going, then I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” you answer sincerely, and though you’d never be able to convince yourself of it, you made Jaemin blush - just the tiniest bit. 

He lets out something like a sigh of relief before nodding his head in acknowledgement. “Okay, I’ll tell Mark we’re going, then,” he says happily, and then suddenly it’s right back to routine as he heads for the couch to chill before the two of you could decide what all you actually wanted to do that day. 

The next time you saw Jaemin was two days later when he asked if you wanted to accompany him to the store. It was all light and casual conversation as you strolled through the aisles, most of the time pointing at random items and saying ‘you’ to try and see who could get the other to laugh more. The bit promptly ended when you pointed at a Scrub Daddy to relate Jaemin to, but he instead teased you endlessly for using an item with “daddy” in the name. The only thing to veer his topic of conversation away from that was when you passed the aisle that had been repurposed into Halloween decorations and costumes, making him stop in his tracks.

“Have you decided on a costume for the party yet?” He asks curiously, and you turn back around to face him and redirect your path to peruse the Halloween aisle, touching random bits of costumes before dropping them back to the rack with a shake of your head. 

“Well, I was gonna go as an angel since that’s kind of what you call me now, but if we do it as a couple’s costume, then you’d end up as the devil or a demon or whatever, and I don’t love the idea of that. So…would you wanna go as Team Rocket instead?” You ask in return. Jaemin swallows awkwardly as he takes in everything you just said, but he can’t take too long to explore the slightly comforting feeling brought on by you saying the idea of him as a devil wasn’t your favorite…because that wouldn’t be very ‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks’ of him. Instead, he resorts back to a familiar tease, an eyebrow raised as a playful smirk crossed his lips.

“Who said I wanted to do a couple’s costume?” He shoots back and your face immediately goes red as you scramble for words.

“Oh! You don’t- I was just- it’s not-” You’re cut off with a warm laugh from Jaemin.

“Breathe, angel, I was just messing with you,” he reassures with a shake of his head.

“Maybe you would make a good demon,” you deadpan in return, and Jaemin’s eyes light with fire as his jaw drops.

“Hey!”

“Just messing with you, Jaem,” you banter back, and Jaemin bites on the inside of his cheek to stop a wide grin from making an appearance at your behavior. 

“I’m fine going as Team Rocket, as long as I get to be James,” he says with a mock seriousness, effectively getting you to smile as you roll your eyes.

“Well, I wasn’t going to suggest you be Jessie,” you assure in the same manner, and Jaemin nods his head, seemingly content with the plan before another question comes to mind. 

“Are we dying our hair?” He asks, and this time he’s actually serious. You think about it for a second before giving into the idea with a contemplative nod.

“We can get the spray that lasts up until you wash it,” you suggest, and with a nod from Jaemin, your Halloween costumes were set - all you had to do was make them. 

Fast forward a week and the only thing left to do was iron on the ‘R’ decal on Jaemin’s top, which was exactly what you were doing in his apartment as he took the time to spray blue in his hair. You look up from the heat press as Jaemin walks out of the bathroom. “Huh,” you let out involuntarily, and if you were any less close with Jaemin, you would’ve been embarrassed beyond words. However, he just looks at you with furrowed brows and a curious grin.

“What?” He asks, and you shrug your shoulders as though it were nothing big.

“You look good with blue hair,” you answer, trying your best to be casual about it.

Jaemin’s curious grin had turned into a shiteating one. “Oh, yeah?” He digs, trying to get under your skin; though, you thwart the attempt immediately, instead responding with nonchalance - the exact opposite of what he was reaching for. 

“Well, no more than normal,” you reply, and Jaemin’s brows raise impossibly.

“Now, what does that mean?” He asks playfully, but you just shake your head.

“You’re the fuckboy, Jaemin. You know what I’m getting at.” With that, your attention was back on the iron as it beeped and let you know his shirt was ready. You pull it out from under the heat and turn it around so Jaemin could see the final product, and with a nod of approval, he grabs it from your hands and heads back to the bathroom.

“Looks great, angel,” he finally says, studying his appearance in the mirror before walking back out to the living area. You just drop your head as you feel your face heat up at the compliment. 

“I’ll uh- go get ready,” you say quietly, and then you grab your own costume and hair spray before trading places with him in the bathroom. 

Jaemin doesn’t hide his small smile as he watches you walk back out to the living area in your matching costume with him, and you try your best to pin your focus anywhere other than his soft gaze. “Um- drinking at parties isn’t really my thing so- I can drive us back here afterwards. You can drink however much you want,” you get out awkwardly before moving to sit down next to him on the couch.

Jaemin chuckles lightly in response to your behavior. “Are you sure?” 

You nod your head profusely. “Of course. You enjoy parties a lot. I don’t want you to change an aspect of it just because I’m there, too. So, however much you normally drink…go for it.” 

Jaemin studies your figure with ample doubt covering his features. “I don’t know. Me drinking while knowing I have a ride home typically means I turn into too much to handle,” he jokes, but any form of negative self-talk from him always grounds you, and you’re quick to refute it.

“Not for me,” you say, turning your head to make eye contact with him. “Never for me.” Your soft reassurance has Jaemin simply staring at you, and you quickly turn your head back to face your lap as you overthink every little embarrassing thing you’ve already done tonight. On the other hand, Jaemin didn’t even think twice before leaning over to place a kiss on your cheek. 

Your cheeks puff out with a smile in immediate response to the contact, but as you lift your gaze back up to face Jaemin, your attention is caught by Haechan, who had just walked out of his room in costume - a vampire costume that was already iconic and he hadn’t even done anything yet.

Your soft smile turns into a full-on grin as you address him. “Woah, Hyuck. You look great!” You say with a laugh, and Jaemin whips his head around to face his roommate just to fall into his own bout of laughter.

“Oh, fuck off,” Haechan replies with a playful roll of his eyes as he walks towards the door. “Are you two gonna head out soon?” He asks more seriously, and Jaemin gives a light nod.

“Yeah, we won’t be too far behind you. Y/n just isn’t a huge fan of parties, so we opted for fashionably late rather than fashionably early.” 

Haechan flashes his eyebrows up in acknowledgement before turning back from the front door to face the two of you again. “Alright. Don’t violate the couch too much in the meantime. It’s my favorite couch,” he banters, and this time it’s you and Jaemin to roll your eyes.

“You fuck off,” you say through a grin, and Haechan drops his head with a loud laugh before bringing his gaze back to the two of you with a soft smile.

“I’ll see you guys soon,” he says happily, and with that, he’s out the door.  

It was about thirty minutes later when you and Jaemin entered the party house hand-in-hand. As soon as you got in, you realized your friend group was a lot more popular than you ever thought, because seemingly everyone you went to school with was here. For parties already feeling overwhelming, parties where you could hardly move without bumping into someone were even more so. Though, in the midst of the blaring music, a hundred different conversations, and all the dancing, your attention is turned to your interlocked hand with Jaemin as he gently rubs his thumb across the back of your hand.

You shoot your gaze up at him just to see he’s already staring back down at you softly. Unlike you, he looked completely at home in the party scene, though you figure one can’t truly get labeled a fuckboy without being so. That’s also why you assume he was able to tell you were already uncomfortable from the second you stepped inside. 

Hardly a few feet from the entrance, he leans down to you at his side, speaking slowly in your ear so you could make it out from the rest of the noise. “We’ll stay only as long as you want, okay? If you wanna turn back around right now, we can.”

You shake your head minimally, turning to face him and realizing that action placed your lips dangerously close together. You roll them inwards in hesitation before shifting your gaze to his own. “I’m not going to make you leave super early. You like parties.”

A smirk plays on Jaemin’s lips as he raises an eyebrow at you. “I like you more,” he replies playfully. 

You dart your gaze off to the side, ripping your hand away from his in the process. “I’m fine. Let’s just go find our friends.” You take a step out from the entryway but quickly notice Jaemin isn’t following. You whip your head around to face him just to see his hand outstretched for you again.

“If we’re going to go find our friends, your hand better be in mine,” he quips, causing you to roll your eyes before obliging and lacing your fingers back together. He gives your hand a light squeeze as he flashes you a wide smile and drags you to where he already saw Haechan, Jeno, and Renjun. 

“Hey, you guys look great!” Jeno says with a bright smile as the two of you join their circle. Jaemin finally slides his hand out of yours to instead place it on the small of your back. Despite yourself, a small smile comes onto your face, not at Jeno’s words, but at Jaemin’s touch, and you relax a bit more against his hand.

Jaemin is the one to actually respond as the other two guys turn their attention to the both of you as well. “Thanks! My incredible, beautiful girlfriend made the costumes,” he says, tossing his gaze over to you at his side. You roll your eyes at him, but your smile grows. 

“Making it is not the same as making it look good. You did that all on your own,” you shoot back earnestly. The three guys in front of you throw on a look of disgust, as if they weren’t the ones telling Jaemin he needed a girlfriend. Jaemin just looks over at you with a soft gleam in his eyes, his mouth straining as he tries to conceal a smile. He opts to just kiss you on the cheek instead, then reaching for your far shoulder and pulling you his way. He snakes his arms around you to keep you there in a hug from behind, his thumb gently rubbing up and down your waist. The five of you stood in a circle just talking for at least an hour. Occasionally, one of them would leave to grab drinks for the group, though you were sure to just stick to water the entire night as everyone around you became a comfortable state of tipsy. 

Eventually, Jaemin unwound his arms from your figure, causing you to turn your head and look up at him in question. He lets an easy smile paint his lips. “I’m just running to the bathroom real quick. I’ll come find you again in a few.”

You nod your head, and your eyes follow Jaemin for as long as they could before he became completely indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd. You turn your attention back to Renjun, Jeno, and Haechan. “I’m gonna go find Mark,” you start with an awkward laugh. “I don’t know if he even knows Jaemin and I are here.” The three of them nod at you, Renjun racking his foggy brain for where he thinks he last saw him. You nod, thanking them for their company so far, and then heading off towards the kitchen under the guidance of Renjun’s memory. 

When Jaemin steps out of the bathroom, he almost immediately runs into the body of another guy. Opening his mouth to apologize, the guest beats him to words.

“Jaemin, nice costume,” he says, and Jaemin loses his tension at the compliment.

“Oh, thank you-” He starts, but is quickly cut off again by the stranger.

“You got another one of your hoes to match with tomorrow?” He slurs with a smile, throwing an arm around Jaemin’s shoulder.

Jaemin’s eyes widen as he snakes out under the touch, guiding their hand back down to their side. “Uh, no, y/n’s my girlfriend. It’s just her and we’re just out for tonight,” he replies, turning his gaze away from the man to instead scan the crowd and try to lay eyes back on you.

“Ha! Good one,” the guy laughs out, and Jaemin snaps his gaze back to him in confusion.

“Good one?” He echoes back in question, but with a hard slap on his back that Jaemin thinks was meant to be playful, his conversation partner quickly leaves. Jaemin stands there for a moment puzzled, but he tries to shake out of the uncomfortable feeling as he directs his gaze back to the big crowd, looking for where you may have wandered off to once he sees you’re no longer with the previous group.

He quickly realizes he wouldn’t be able to find you by standing in one place, so he picks up his feet and starts weaving through the crowd again. When he feels a hand on his back, he assumes it’s you, and he whips around towards the figure. His face quickly drops when he realizes it isn’t you, and suddenly he’s extremely conscious of how everyone’s been touching him tonight. 

“Such a shame your costume shows so little skin,” the girl says with a small pout and a fake innocence in her eyes. Jaemin tries to take a step back, just to bump into more people dancing and forcing him back into close proximity. He swallows hard, accepting the fact that he was having to engage in this conversation now.

“My girlfriend picked it out,” he says firmly, and the girl in front of him just tilts her head to the side, now rubbing a hand up and down his arm.

“Well, she’s ruining the fun,” she replies, something like pity in her eyes as she looks at Jaemin. He furrows his brows, his breath getting heavier as the air seems to get thinner. 

“Um, I- I think I’m still fun without showing skin,” Jaemin fumbles out, and the girl just laughs, finally letting her hand drop from his arm as her doe-eyed expression turns mean.

“You’d like to believe that,” she says, shaking her head and walking off.

Jaemin stared after her in a weird mix of hurt and confusion that he hadn’t ever felt before. “What?” He asks in defeat, but there was no one there to give him any clarification. 

He desperately starts looking around for you again. If he could just get back to you, if he could just slip his hand into yours, he was sure the heavy weight that’s found its way onto his chest would disappear. He was shaking, he didn’t know when he had started shaking, but it seemed to take the place of his breathing, and now he was worried about whether or not he would even have time to find you before he suffocated. Almost all the effort he was placing into finding you was now being placed into holding back his tears. Everything was too loud, he couldn’t hear his own thoughts, couldn’t hear his voice if he spoke aloud, suddenly not sure if he was even getting any words out when he opened his mouth, which only worried him more because he was dying and he couldn’t tell anyone. 

Holding your hand, it was the only positive thought he could seem to cling to, the only thing keeping him from collapsing to the floor in a ball - he had to find you, he wanted to hold your hand. He thinks it’s a miracle that his feet are able to start moving again, especially when someone definitely put 50 lb weights in his shoes without him knowing. 

He finally lays eyes on you, now in the kitchen talking with Mark, Chenle, and Jisung. Though you were maybe ten feet away, it might as well have been miles, as another hand gets placed on his chest from a random girl in front of him. “James, let me know if you get bored of Jessie later. I can give you a good time,” she says with a smirk, and Jaemin feels like he’s going to throw up; though he can’t quite tell if that was because of her words or the whirlwind of the past three minutes. In fact, if he knew just how badly he was shaking, he would’ve questioned how she didn’t feel it when she placed her hand on his chest. 

He shakes his head as quickly as he could without getting too dizzy to continue his trek towards you. “No, I quite like Jessie,” he says through hiccups, not sure when the first stray tear made its way down his cheek. He pushes past the girl without giving her time to respond and make him feel worse. All he wanted was you, and when he finally got close enough to place his shaky hand in yours, all he could manage were whispered words that he prayed would reach you, or at least leave his mouth at all. 

“Please don’t leave me.”

Still in conversation with Mark, Chenle, and Jisung, you don’t turn too much attention to Jaemin slightly behind you as you settle your hand into his touch, but that’s when you feel how badly he’s shaking. “Jaem, are you okay?” You ask at your side, though your eyes remained trained on Chenle as he told the least dramatic story in the most dramatic way.

“There’s a lot of people here,” Jaemin whimpers out, the answer confusing enough to pull your focus away from Chenle. 

“I know-” You start, your gaze following from your interlocked hands up his arm and to his face, but that’s when you actually see the state he’s in and your face instantly falls into worry. A steady stream of tears cascaded down his cheeks, his eyes tightly shut to block out the extra stimulation, only opening them to look at you before promptly getting embarrassed and turning away. You immediately squeeze his hand a little tighter in your hold, getting him to train his eyes back on you. You pick up your words as he does so, careful to hide your immense worry in your tone and instead speaking softly for him. “Hey…let’s get you to a quieter room, okay?”

Jaemin nods his head minimally, able to let out a choked response. “Okay.” You take no extra time in telling the others that you were going to have to get filled in on the story later. Instead, you just make sure your grip on Jaemin’s hand is enough to not lose him while navigating through the crowd as you immediately lead him upstairs and into an empty room. 

“Talk to me, what’s going on?” You say, closing the door and turning on a soft lamp light before you whip back around to watch Jaemin pace the entire floor, his fingers running frantically through his hair. 

“I don’t know. Everyone keeps talking to me and touching me and everything is so loud and my head hurts and it’s so hot I’m sweating and dizzy and freaking out-” He spoke all at once, and you knew the last thing he needed was to run out of breath while explaining. You jump to cut him off, still trying your best to make your voice as calming as possible for him.

“Hey…it’s gonna be okay. Can you sit down for me?” The second you said it, Jaemin was on the floor, his heavy breaths visibly not making it to his whole body. Your eyes soften some more as you look at him. It didn’t take a genius to tell you he’s never been in this situation before, and all he knew to do was trust you. You let out a soft sigh as you move closer to him. “I know you said you’re hot and sweaty and overwhelmed with touch, but is it okay if I hug you?”

“Please.” The word comes out weak, riddled with enough tears to make you break. You sit down behind him, placing your legs out along his own outstretched ones as you gently hug him from behind.  

“You can close your eyes, just focus on my voice. You’re gonna be okay,” you state with confidence, rubbing a thumb gently up and down his side. Jaemin is quick to refute, shaking his head with an intensity you wish he wouldn’t right now.

“No, y/n, it feels like I’m dying,” he says, fear covering every aspect of his voice. You let out a soft sigh.

“You’re not dying, you’re panicking.” This, too, he refuses to accept. His response comes out as firm as it could through tears.

“I don’t panic. I’m the cool guy. I’m not panicking, I’m dying.”

Despite yourself, a small laugh escapes you through an exhale, and you hug Jaemin to you extra tight. “Baby, no matter how cool you are, there’s not a person in the world completely immune to panic attacks.”

Jaemin stills for a moment, the sudden switch confusing you before he speaks and confuses you even more. “I thought you didn’t like that word,” he says, wiping his face of tears and then placing his hands on your own arms around his torso. 

You furrow your eyebrows, though with him in front of you, there was no point. “What word?” You ask. Surely he wasn’t talking about the word ‘panic attack’ but racking your brain, there was nothing else you said that wasn’t just a normal word.

“You don’t know you said it,” he says curiously, a small sniffle coming from his figure as he tries his own attempt at a light laugh. 

“What are you talking about, Jaem?” You question again. At this point, you were sure one of you was going crazy, and you really were banking on it not being you. Though, Jaemin just dismisses the subject, and with you sitting behind him, you missed the small smile that now covered his features.

“Nothing, please just continue holding me like this,” he begs softly, and you nod your head, squeezing him tighter for a second.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you reply seriously, and there you and Jaemin sat for at least another ten minutes; the only noise to break the silence was his occasional cries as he still tried to rid himself of tears and calm down completely. 

When you couldn’t remember his last sniffle, you start to rub your thumb up and down a portion of his waist, disrupting the physical stillness before you spoke and disrupted the silence.

“I wanna get you some water soon,” you say gently, but any attempt to move from your position was shot down as Jaemin quickly fumbled to grab your arms and press them firmly back down across his torso, his body beginning to shake again at the idea of you getting up.

“No! Don’t leave! Please,” he chokes out, and almost all of the progress you thought he made in the past few minutes was erased.

You sigh, and refusing to think about the fact that you were practically breaking your own rule, you lean forward to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m staying right next to you, Jaem,” you start, and you watch as he basically forces his breathing to get back to normal at your words…or at least tries to. “Do you want me to call Jeno and get him to bring up water for you, or do you want to follow me down to the kitchen, grab a water bottle, and leave?”  

Jaemin thinks for a moment before dropping his head in what you assume was shame, which was the last thing he needed to be feeling. “I- can we leave?”

You squeeze your arms around his body once more in acknowledgement. “Yeah, come on,” you reply, and the two of you slowly make your way off the floor and into a standing position. As you let go of his waist, you immediately grab his hand in yours, looking up at Jaemin for confirmation that this was what he wanted to do. He stared back down at you with a teary smile and nod, and with that, you led him out of the bedroom and back downstairs. 

Thankfully, Mark, Chenle, and Jisung were still in the kitchen, meaning you had to cover no extra ground to fill Mark in on your departure. 

“Hey, I’m gonna take Jaemin home,” you say, turning to face Mark after grabbing a water bottle from the fridge he was standing next to.

Mark furrows his brows. “Everything okay?” He asks, knowing Jaemin wasn’t one to leave parties early, nor was he one to have tear streaks painted across his face.

You try to smile but it comes out more as a grimace. “Yeah, he’s just a little overwhelmed today. Thank you for inviting us, though. It was a blast.” 

Mark nods his head in understanding. “Thanks for coming. Are you driving?”

“Yeah,” you reply, and Mark forces some sobriety back in his system.

“You haven’t had anything to drink, have you?” He asks in worry, and you let a grateful smile paint your face as you respond.

“No, I’m okay.”

Mark nods before taking another sip of his own drink. “Okay. Be safe. I’ll see you guys soon.” You reciprocate his nod in acknowledgement and then immediately lead Jaemin towards the front door and back to the car.

You make sure he’s all taken care of in the passenger seat before you start messing with the controls in the driver’s seat to move it to where you could actually drive. You make a mental note to apologize about changing the position of his seat and mirrors tomorrow after everything’s calmed down, but as you start driving, Jaemin is the one to beat you to an apology. 

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly, and you risk a quick glance over at him with furrowed brows.

“Huh, why?”

Jaemin fiddles with his fingers in his lap, unable to look anywhere else because of his embarrassment. “For making you leave the party. You were having fun,” he answers softly, and despite your best efforts, a small laugh escapes you.

“Jaem, I was having fun because all we did was hang around with our group of friends. I don’t care for parties in and of themselves, you know that. Truthfully, I’d rather just be with you right now,” you say, and as you pull up to a stop sign, you look back over at him again. Defeat riddled his features as he spits out a response.

“But I’m just crying.” He speaks those words as though he were mad at himself for it, and you don’t understand how your best friend came to believe that he always had to be some perfectly presented guy.

You let out a sigh before turning your attention back to the road. “It doesn’t change the fact that I like spending time with you. Besides, you’d be crazy to think I’d rather be anywhere else right now when you’ve got me so worried about you.” When the only response from Jaemin is another sob he tries to cover up, you frown. “I’m not mad at you for making us leave the party early, and I’m not mad at you for crying,” you add on, and Jaemin finally lifts his head to look over at you in his driver’s seat. He seems to scan your figure up and down, processing your words and the fact that you were actually taking care of him right now. He sniffles once more before abruptly turning his focus back to his lap, and the car ride is silent the rest of the way to his apartment. 

As soon as Jaemin gets into his own room, he already looks a thousand times better; the tension in his shoulders finally falls and his breathing gets more regular. You scavenge around his apartment for anything he may need during the night and next morning, because outside of his panic attack, he was still tipsy, too. 

With a fresh water bottle and ibuprofen set on his night stand, you bid Jaemin goodnight, running a hand gently through his hair as he laid down in bed. However, before you can fully turn around and leave, Jaemin catches the hand you just had in his hair. In shock, you whip back around, just to be met with wide pleading eyes.

“Please stay,” he says softly, and your breath hitches for a moment before you resume your cool, or at least try to.

“Jaemin-” You start, your tone already giving way to your refusal. Though, Jaemin cuts you off in an instant, his grip on you getting slightly tighter.

“You said you wouldn’t leave me,” he shoots back, and his voice is already shaky again from the sudden raise in volume of his claim.

You sigh, trying to slowly snake your hand out of his grip as you reply. “Yeah, but I was kind of meaning that for while we were still at the party, not…now, when you’re going to sleep.”

He refuses to let you out of his hold, and he pulls you even closer to the end of the bed. “What if Haechan comes back?” He starts, trying his best to talk normally. “He’d be really confused as to why you didn’t stay over after the night I had.”

Despite yourself, you let out a small laugh. “There’s no shot Haechan makes it back tonight or is sober enough to think about anything but getting in bed himself. You’re just saying that to try and convince me.”

He finally lets his grip on you drop as he lets out a heavy breath bordering on the dividing line between defeat and hope. “Is it working?” He asks, and though you were finally free from his grasp, able to just say a final goodnight and leave to head back to your place, you don’t. Instead, you drop your head, speaking so softly you’re not sure Jaemin would even be able to hear.

“I want the side next to the wall.” 

With your gaze facing the floor, you couldn’t see the sudden warm glow behind Jaemin’s eyes as he pulled back the comforter on that side and pulled his legs up so you could crawl over by the foot of the bed, neither of you saying another word as you do. 

Jaemin didn’t know why he was so captivated by watching you fall asleep in his bed. The two of you must’ve been at least a full foot away from each other, as you immediately made sure to press up against the wall and make yourself as small as you could. That was fine by Jaemin. He wasn’t asking for the two of you to cuddle in the first place - this was still a fake relationship after all, and he was very much aware of that. In fact, that truth was probably more plaguing than ever at the front of his mind. Now instead of a reminder that he had to pretend to date you, it was a reminder that this was ending in two months. Jaemin’s tipsy brain couldn’t put together what the sinking feeling in his chest meant at the realization of that. So, he pushed it away, and just looked over at you sleeping peacefully right up against the wall. He didn’t need to have his arms around you - knowing you were next to him was enough, and for the first time that night since the party started, he was completely at peace.

When you wake up and realize you were more comfortable than usual in your bed, you open your eyes and figure out that it’s because you’re not in your bed. In fact, you’re hardly resting against a bed at all. Instead, one of your arms is lazily thrown over your best friend’s waist as your head rested comfortably, incredibly too comfortably, on his chest. The discovery that your legs were some kind of interlaced didn’t make things any better, and the full realization that you were practically on top of Jaemin had you jolt. This, of course, didn’t do anything but wake him up. With your head now propped up on his chest, you watch as he slowly peeks open one of his eyes, exhaustion still written over all his features. However, the second his gaze lands on you, he shoots open both eyes. Embarrassment quickly floods your being as you address everything. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

You’re cut off with a light chuckle and softly spoken words from Jaemin. “You’re okay.” Regardless of his response, you can’t shake the embarrassment. Jaemin’s arms fall from around your body as you try to get up, and that’s when you realize both of his arms were wrapped around you in the first place. You push the thought to the back of your head, turning to get off of his bed completely. 

You’re stopped by his hand grabbing yours. You quickly turn your attention back to Jaemin, who still had yet to move any part of his body but his arms as he looks at you softly, pleading. “Can we go back to sleep?”

You swallow awkwardly, your throat now suddenly dry. You dart your eyes around his room before sighing and just landing your gaze back on him. “Um, do you still need me here for that?” You ask genuinely. Jaemin breaks eye contact this time, as he just looks down at your two hands still holding onto each other. He gives a slow nod of his head, humming a little. 

You bite your lip to stop a smile from coming onto your face. It wasn’t often that you got to see your best friend looking as gentle and small as he did now. Jaemin, with the larger than life personality just wanting to stay in bed with you, it was hard to say ‘no.’ So, you don’t. “Okay.” Though when you move to resume your position back by the wall, he chuckles a bit and uses your still interlocked hands to pull you back onto him. 

The next two days after you woke up on top of Jaemin (again) were filled with an awkward period of zero contact between the two of you. You couldn’t blame him for not responding to your text to hang out the day after. You were both really good at never crossing lines back in high school, but Halloween put a blur on every single one…and it didn’t help that he was tipsy that night, too. Outside of whatever rules in your contract were broken, you were sure Jaemin was also just embarrassed to no end. 

There was a lot of pressure on him to be this man with no emotions; his label as a fuckboy meant people typically started and stopped all their thoughts about him at the sexual level, and he did his best to live up to their many expectations in that department, neglecting all the other parts of his being that needed tending to. Vulnerability was not a Jaemin specialty, largely because it’s never what anyone was looking for from him; and anything that lessened his sex appeal, and thus meant he couldn’t make a call and immediately have any girl he wanted, was a possibility he sought to avoid. 

You didn’t necessarily mind the no-contact, though. Your heart was doing flips and spins in Jaemin’s presence on Halloween, and you had to give yourself a cool-down period before seeing him so that you could act normal around him again - whatever it was that ‘normal’ looked like when you were having to convince a group of friends that you liked your best friend while convincing your best friend you didn’t actually like him. 

Jaemin made up an excuse for your absence at Monday’s lunch, but on Tuesday he finally messaged you again and asked you out for ice cream, which you of course said ‘yes’ to. He meets you at the entrance to your dorm and smiles at you with something like a sigh of relief when you smile back at him; though, with his messy hair, thick-framed glasses, and a hoodie adorning his figure, it was hard to do anything but smile - he looked criminally boyfriend. 

“Hey, I’m- sorry…for it being weird these past few days,” he gets out somewhat awkwardly as you start on your walk towards the best ice cream parlor by campus. 

You shake your head with a small laugh. “It’s okay. You’ve been going through it recently,” you joke, and Jaemin licks his lips before bringing himself to laugh as well. 

“Thanks for uh- putting up with me on Halloween.” He speaks as though the words were bitter on his tongue. “I’m sorry about forcing you to spend the night.” 

You let out a sigh. You wanted to stop and force him to see the sincerity in your eyes as you told him that you weren’t ‘putting up with him,’ but you knew you needed to keep this moment more casual so he wouldn’t find these vulnerable bits overwhelming and consequently shut down. So instead, you just keep walking with a small shake of your head.

“You don’t have to apologize for that. You just had a panic attack - if I didn’t spend the night, I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. I would’ve stayed up all night worried about you. It was better that I was with you.” 

Jaemin lets something like a grimace cross his features as he responds with a wry laugh. “You care about me a lot,” he points out, making you look up at him by your side with raised brows.

“Of course I do. You’re my best friend,” you say seriously, and Jaemin looks down to meet your gaze, giving away the distant look in his eyes.

“Ha, fair,” he begins. “I care about you a lot, too.” As he continues, he drops his head to face his feet. “But I don’t think I’d know how to take care of you while you’re having a panic attack,” he admits regrettably, but all you can do is give a soft smile.

“I’m not expecting you to. All I ask is that you let me be there for you again if you have another one…and that you stop being so embarrassed about showing emotions,” you tack on, causing Jaemin to laugh a bit in defeat.

“Okay, angel, but only with you. I have a hot guy persona to keep up in the real world,” he says through a smile, but you shake your head.

“You’re hot, regardless,” you deadpan, and Jaemin’s face lights up as he nudges you in the side playfully.

“Well, look at that! You sweet talker. Maybe I’ll pay for your ice cream today,” he banters, and soon the two of you are in shared laughter as you elbow him back. 

“Whatever. I’m 80% sure you were gonna pay for my ice cream even before that.”

“80%?” He echos, bringing a hand up to his chest as though he’s been shot. “Such little faith,” he tuts, shaking his head and making you roll your eyes playfully.

“Am I supposed to have more faith in a fuckboy than that?” You tease, and Jaemin’s face falls into a mock seriousness, holding open the door to the ice cream parlor for you as he looks at your figure with raised eyebrows. 

“No, you’re supposed to have more faith in your best friend than that,” he says as you pass through the door, and you look back at him to share matching small smiles.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I have nothing but faith in you,” you reply as he, too, fully steps inside and lets the door swing closed behind him. The proximity has you looking almost directly up at him as he stares down at you in much the same manner; playful gleams in your eyes and fond smiles adorning your faces. At once, he nods his head towards the counter behind you.

“Go order, angel. It’s on me today.” 

You scrunch your face up at him with a big grin. “Thanks, handsome.” Then you promptly turn around and head towards where the cashier was waiting to take your order, not even taking one chance to look back and see how red Jaemin’s face had gotten in response. 

Jaemin knew it was coming, that was the funny thing. He just wasn’t expecting the disconnect between his head and his heart to be remedied all at once; but looking at you standing in line and pointing at what flavor you wanted, he had never wanted to do this with anyone else, but he really really wanted it with you, today and every day after that.

Sitting down and actually eating ice cream included the most normal of conversations between you and Jaemin. He wasn’t your best friend for nothing - the two of you could talk forever and never run out of things to say or comfort and joy to find in each other’s presence. As such, when you finished your ice cream cones and left the parlor, interaction flowed as it always had while he walked you back to your dorm…meaning the two of you looked like just best friends; close enough on the sidewalk to hear each other but far enough apart so that there was no possibility of accidentally grazing the back of each other’s hands or anything. You were hardly conscious of it, elated at the fact that you and Jaemin were so close and consistent again after the past few years, but Jaemin could practically only focus on the distance between the two of you.

You had basically just stepped foot back on actual campus when Jaemin abruptly stopped, grabbing your wrist and turning you towards him as he spoke in a rush.

“My friends are looking, kiss me,” he says in something close to a panic, and so you immediately oblige, pressing up on your tiptoes to kiss him firmly. You place your hands on his chest to steady yourself as you break away, catching your breath - something that Jaemin always seemed to make you lose - as you turn your head around to look at the surrounding area.

“Where are they?” You ask through a light pant, turning back to Jaemin once you checked and double checked but caught no sign of his friends. 

Jaemin licks his lips hesitantly, shaking his head. “They must have left already,” he says through an exhale, and you take a deep breath, finally allowing yourself to step away from Jaemin’s body as you face the ground, trying to regain your footing from the whiplash it felt you just went through. Jaemin lets out an awkward cough before speaking up again. “We should probably hold hands all the time when we’re in public, though. I’m pretty sure Chenle’s the only suspicious one still out of the friend group, but it’d throw anyone off if we’re dating and not holding hands. And if there’s one thing I learned from the Halloween party, it’s that people don’t know we’re dating, and that should probably change so it doesn’t just look like an act put on for the friend group…or Chenle’s never gonna believe it.” 

He wasn’t wrong, and you knew that - you knew that before all of this even started. Rule number three was that the act is immediately dropped in private, but that came with the other side of things being that you had to put on an act while in public, regardless of who was around to witness it. 

You nod your head slowly. “Yeah, okay,” you cede, and Jaemin’s hand immediately finds yours, the warmth from the contact making you realize how chilled your bones currently were. There was no more hiding it from girls in your classes now - you were Jaemin’s girlfriend to the general public, not just to his six best friends. You needed these next two months to pass by quickly, because with the promise of Jaemin’s hand being in yours more than ever, you were sure your chances of survival just decreased dramatically. 

That Friday, your date night was replaced with a night in at Jaemin’s apartment. As soon as he shot you a text saying he was home from class, you made your way over to his place. He opened the door with the bright smile he typically revealed just for you, stepping back to let you inside with a fond, “hey angel.” 

You step inside with a smile and small greeting in reply. “What do you wanna do today?” You ask, turning around to face him once you realize you were aimlessly crossing the span of his apartment for no reason. Already preparing for the question, Jaemin moves his hand from behind his back to reveal a thick blu-ray case in his grip.

“Harry Potter movie marathon?” He asks with a smirk.

You look back at him with raised eyebrows and a small grin of your own. “You know I can’t say ‘no’ to Harry Potter at any point in the Fall or Winter seasons,” you reply, and Jaemin’s eyes find a new glow behind them.

“That and Gilmore Girls; though I’m much more in the mood for Harry Potter because if we started rewatching Gilmore Girls now, we’d have to get through all those episodes with that floppy-haired jerk and really, Jess is so much better,” he adds on seriously, and all you can do is laugh. 

“Hey, Dean is at least better than Logan,” you respond, and Jaemin lets out an actual groan.

“Please don’t get me started on Logan…can we instead get started on Harry Potter?” He asks again, waving the disc case around invitingly and causing you to laugh some more as you walk towards the couch. 

“Just waiting on you,” you answer as you plop down on the couch, making Jaemin roll his eyes playfully before turning around to set everything up on the TV. As the familiar soundtrack fills the room, Jaemin places himself next to you like normal, handing you a blanket to make the cozy night-in complete. 

Two hours later, as Jaemin got up to switch out the discs from The Sorcerer’s Stone to The Chamber of Secrets, you got up for a bathroom break, and when the two of you sat back down, there was maybe an inch less space between you both than previously. Not much else changed. That is, until not even ten minutes into the second movie. You catch in your peripheral as Jaemin moves his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. You don’t think anything of it until that arm doesn’t come back down to his side, but instead wraps around the back of your shoulders.

“Is Haechan here?” You ask lightly, trying to talk over the sound of your breath hitching. Haechan’s room was closest to the bathroom, and you don’t remember any sign of life coming from nearby while you were in there, but nothing else explained this, because this was not normal between the two of you. 

“No,” Jaemin answers shortly, and all you can do is swallow hesitantly as you fight for words again.

“Then why is your arm around my shoulder?” You ask, trying to make it sound as though your words were a playful tease and not a desperate question. 

Jaemin looks over at you with raised eyebrows and a playful smirk. “Because what if he comes back?” He replies casually, and you try to roll your eyes in much the same manner, as though his arm around your shoulder wasn’t single-handedly making your heart rate spike. He was right, anyway - if Haechan came back, it would be weird for the two of you to be sitting any other way.

It was during Prisoner of Azkaban when Haechan inevitably walked into the apartment. Busy with locking the door behind him, he was caught off guard when locking eyes with the two of you as he turned back around. Though, all at once, his gaze softened as he looked between you, Jaemin, and the television. “Hey guys,” he says warmly, and you mentally high-five yourself not only for the fact that you and Jaemin seemed to have truly won Haechan over, but also that you had won Haechan over; the main reason this bet was even made was because Haechan couldn’t stand whatever girl it was that Jaemin had over, but here he was, excited to see you cuddled into Jaemin on the couch, and that win was not lost on you. 

“Hey,” Jaemin replied with a smile. “We’re watching Harry Potter if you want to join,” he continues, but Haechan shakes his head at the extended invite as he moves to grab something from the mess that was the kitchen counter.

“Tempting, but- I’m all good. I’m about to head back out, actually. Mark and I are gonna hit a few bars and try to unwind from this bullshit week,” he says with a weak laugh. You and Jaemin flash your eyebrows in acknowledgement. 

“Let me know if you need a ride back home. We’ll swing by to grab you and Mark, or- I will, at least, depending on what time it ends up being. Regardless, be safe. I enjoy having you as a roommate,” Jaemin says, his tone turning more playful with every word. 

Haechan rolls his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, yeah. I won’t drink and drive. We all know I’m smarter than that,” he says, but when he makes eye contact with you and Jaemin again, he meets your wide-eyed stares of doubt, causing him to shake his head with a more hearty laugh. “You guys suck,” he says with a smile. “I’ll keep you updated throughout the night. It was nice seeing you, y/n,” he continues seriously, beginning to fiddle with the front door lock on his exit.

“You, too,” you reply genuinely, and with one more nod and wave goodbye, he was out the door. It wasn’t even five seconds later when Jaemin’s arm detaches itself from your shoulder, instead finding comfort at his side again. He didn’t pay any mind to it, his attention pinned solely on the movie. You do your best to not show any physical reaction to the absence of his touch, especially when you were the one giving him a hard time for it in the first place. You’re almost shocked by how well Jaemin is able to turn it on and off, though you figure the real problem was how poorly you were able to do the same. Jaemin was just doing his part, exactly as he said he would. 

Your heart had to stop looking for hidden meaning to every touch, every “angel,” because he was your best friend and crush, but you were his best friend and fake-girlfriend. Unbeknownst to you, Jaemin ran through the same spiel in reverse inside his own head, figuring if he kept his arm around you now with the promise of Haechan being gone, you would surely catch onto the fact that he craved your touch more than typical of best friends - which was exactly what you both were going back to at the start of the new year.

It was the first Tuesday after you and Jaemin agreed to ramp up your public dating facade, and you were already the center of attention as you walked into class at 11:00. You tell yourself no one’s gaze locked onto you as you opened the door for class - that you were making it up; but at least some percent of that story was false, because as you sit in your chair and start pulling out your notebook for class, your name gets called from the seat diagonal to you. “Y/n, rumor has it that you and Jaemin are actually dating,” this girl, Hana, says. You knew she was looking for a response, so you don’t give her one, instead focusing on your pen mindlessly rolling between your fingers. 

“You? With a guy like him?” She continues, adding more bite and disbelief to each word. You keep your gaze focused in front of you, jaw tightening as you try to hide more robust reactions. That is, until she continues. “You can’t be that good in bed.” Your fist clenches as you whip your head towards her; furrowed, taunting eyebrows matching the fire in her eyes and the smirk on her lips, the rest of her friend group snickering behind her. You have the patience for none of it - you were not going to sit here and take this.

“Actually,” you begin, your kind tone dripping in sarcasm. “I know this is something you don’t have experience with, so bear with me, but Jaemin genuinely likes me as a person and so I didn’t have to win him over with just my skills in bed. Yeah! He actually wants to hold my hand and tell me pretty things and I’m just so sorry that he never had the desire to do any of that with the likes of you!” You give her one last look before shrugging a bit, even your fake smile completely ridden from your face. “Actually, I’m not sorry at all.”

Hana looks mortified, her friend group in the surrounding desks all watching the exchange now with wide eyes. You don’t even think any of them saw it coming when Hana got up from her seat and lunged towards you, swinging at your face. “You bitch!” She yells at you, her fist making contact with the area around your eye. You wince slightly but you refused to give her the satisfaction of a bigger reaction - you’d leave that for when you were alone. You move your hand up to touch the area, making sure none of her rings caught your skin and drew blood, but when your fingers came back clean, you just move your gaze back to her in disinterest.

“Are you done now?” You ask monotonously. You catch her fist clench again in your peripheral and prepare yourself for another hit because seemingly none of the other students were concerned with stopping the exchange. However, your professor finally walks in before Hana can even get another word out, and instead she’s told to take her seat as you swing back to face the front of the room in your own chair. The throbbing that half of your face was currently experiencing would have to wait an hour and twenty minutes to be addressed, you weren’t letting her win.

Thankfully, that was your last of two classes for the day, so you were able to head back to your dorm directly after. You throw your backpack down in the entryway and immediately head for your bathroom to assess the damages. “Fuck,” you whisper under your breath. The hour and a half was enough time for a proper bruise to start forming, and it wasn’t necessarily the prettiest of black eyes. You move a hand up to touch the area again, this time just the light pressure already putting you in horrid pain. With a defeated groan, you leave the bathroom and dig through your freezer for an ice pack to hold up to the area instead. 

Settling yourself down on the couch, you decide the last thing you need is for Jaemin to see you like this. With a sigh, you open your phone and pull up your texts with him. Hey, just a heads up, I don’t have a lot of time to hang this week or make it to friend group lunches.  

Jaemin’s reply is almost instantaneous. Is everything okay?

You frown at the message. You hated lying to your best friend, but explaining what was up would defeat the whole purpose of saying you couldn’t hang out anyways. Yep! You reply instead, thankful when Jaemin didn’t press any further. You’d give yourself a week to heal, and then you were sure makeup would be able to cover what little would be left of the bruising by then.

Those plans didn’t even last twenty-four hours. There was a knock on your door after classes on Wednesday and you figured it was your RA here to remind you not to leave your windows open while out at class with the chances of snow ever increasing. Though, when you lazily throw your door open, it’s your best friend on the other side. Your eyes go wide and you immediately move a hand up to cover the left half of your face where your black eye was still very much at its peak. “Jaemin, what are you doing here?!” You ask in a rush, but he doesn’t match your demeanor at all.

Instead, he shrugs, a light smile painting his lips. “I missed you, angel-” He answers as he brings a hand up to your wrist and gently guides your own hand down away from your face…and that’s when his energy completely flips, eyes going wide as he rushes to place a hand on your cheek and assess the damage himself. “Oh my god, what happened to you?!” He asks in a panic. You shake your head adamantly, trying to move his hand away from your face as you reply with a serious bite.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” you reply dismissively, and Jaemin’s eyebrows furrow as he scans your entire face.

“Is this why you said you couldn’t hang out?” He asks, almost mad if you had to put an emotion on it.

You shake your head, dropping your gaze to face the floor. “Jaem, don’t worry about it-” You start indifferently, but he cuts you off with enough emotion for the both of you. 

“What happened?” He questions again, this time his tone much firmer than any of his previous questions. His gaze bore into you, and you knew there wasn’t any getting out of this. You let out an annoyed sigh, shrugging like it was nothing as you go to reply.

“This girl in my class found out we were dating, and apparently that pissed her off because she didn’t think I deserved you or I was taking her spot and all that. And I snapped back so she punched me,” you finally answer, and Jaemin’s body language immediately softens as he looks over you once more with a frown and wide eyes.

“Y/n…” You don’t want to deal with his sorry tone. Instead, you move to meet his gaze again as you shake your head, the frustrated tears in your eyes rather revealing themself in your fractured tone.

“Please just sleep with her, Jaem. Tell her we broke up or something and then sleep with her. Or pretend you’re cheating on me with her…she’d love that, and no one would believe her if she said so, so we keep our cover,” you suggest in a rush, and Jaemin looks at you as though you just committed murder.

“No. Absolutely not,” he replies instantly.

“Jaem-” You start through a defeated exhale, but hearing you out was currently the last thing on Jaemin’s mind.

“I’m not fucking sleeping with someone who hurt you,” he states with force, and you don’t know why this is such a big deal to him, not when the solution was this simple.

“I would just rather have her satisfied and dealt with,” you respond hollowly, and Jaemin actually lets out a laugh.

“Oh, I’ll be sure to deal with her, don’t worry.” His angry promise makes you sigh, and all you can do is respond in defeat.

“Jaem-” You begin, and you’re not given any time to decide how you want to continue as he cuts you off. Passion still courses through Jaemin’s body as he shakes his head, taking a break from clenching his jaw to speak again.

“She should know better than to lay a hand on my girl,” he argues, and now you absolutely know you need to get him to calm down.

“I’m not really your girl,” you state plainly, and if you weren’t already feeling deflated, you sure did now as you admitted that. Jaemin seems to react to your statement in much the same way, his features softening for a moment as he looked at you again, bringing a hand up to run through his hair in frustration; though this time, the frustration was aimed towards himself. 

“I- I know. I’m sorry, I never should have asked you to do this for me. I was so selfish, goddammit,” he rambles under his breath absentmindedly as he begins to pace back and forth. You shake your head softly, reaching out to catch Jaemin’s wrist and force his movements to still.

“It’s fine, handsome,” you state firmly, and you watch as a million emotions run over Jaemin’s face, him just sucking on his bottom lip in hesitation. The hand that was previously caught in your grip comes up to cup your cheek again, his thumb lightly grazing your bruise as he studies you with a sad look on his face. 

“No, angel,” he begins with a sigh. “It’s really not.” 

You falter under his soft gaze and sure words, shaking your head as you fumble for words of your own. “It will be fine, then. Just let me lay low for a bit. I probably won’t be at lunch on Friday…I don’t necessarily need your friends seeing me beat up like this,” you try and laugh off.

Jaemin looks at you quizzically. “They wouldn’t-” He begins, but you cut him off with pleading eyes.

“Jaem, please,” you counter, and he just nods his head solemnly. 

“Okay.” He lets out a breath before darting his gaze around from you to the rest of the living area, locking eyes with your backpack and giving him a reason to stay in your presence for a bit longer. “Can we do homework together?” He asks, and you lightly sigh as you nod your head, guiding his hand down from your cheek so you could instead head towards the couch and set everything up on the coffee table for the two of you. 

Your main distraction from homework came in the form of whatever was on the television. Jaemin’s main distraction came in the form of you; he could hardly finish one part of an assignment without turning his head to look over at you, chewing on his bottom lip as he studied you softly, then whipping his gaze back to his laptop before you could ever feel his eyes on you. It was the least productive he's ever been.

Friday was the next time you saw Jaemin, when he came over as per usual for your ‘date nights.’ However, with you missing the friend group lunch for the second time this week, he immediately greeted you with a related request. “Hey, the guys miss you. They wanted to know if you were down for a movie night tomorrow,” he says casually as he closes the door behind him. 

You turn to face him with a straight face. “Jaem, my black eye isn’t going to be-” You watch as Jaemin rolls his lips inward and dodges your eye contact, and all you can do is let out a heavy sigh. “You told them, didn’t you?” You ask instead, and Jaemin’s hidden lips reappear to form a weak don’t-be-mad grin. That is, until he meets your eyes again and lets out his own sigh, shrugging his shoulders as he resets his facial expression to something more casual again.

“They wanted to know where you were,” he says in defense. You watch as the memory of lunch replays behind his eyes and he tilts his head slightly as he looks at you with an anticipatory cringe in how you were going to respond as he continues. “…and now they’re all pissed and want to be there to make you feel better, too,” he finishes with a dorky smile, as though his full set of teeth would fix everything. Unfortunately, he was right about that, and all you can manage is a huff of laughter as you shake your head. 

“Oh my. Sure, we can have a movie night,” you give in with a smile, and Jaemin lights up before pulling out his phone to text the group that the plans for tomorrow are a go. Then, your Friday night with Jaemin consisted of a large pizza, red wine, and board games. 

That Saturday night, Jaemin came to pick you up and take you back to his apartment where the movie night was being held, insisting that Haechan could hold down fort as he came to pick you up…and that no boyfriend would let his girlfriend drive herself over to his place when he had a perfectly good truck and an excuse to kiss you under the porch light before joining all the guys; you told him he was an idiot, but he met that with a kiss on your cheek, claiming that you were the idiot for not taking a free kiss under the porch light with the Na Jaemin…a low blow considering the reason behind your bruising eye. 

When you step inside his apartment, the rest of the guys silence mid-conversation, instead turning all of their attention to you. Their shoulders drop as your black eye comes into the light. Embarrassment flushes your cheeks as you turn into Jaemin’s chest, and he wraps his arms around you lightly with a warm laugh, kissing the top of your head before turning his attention to his friends. “I’m pretty sure you guys promised me you would be chill about this if she came over,” he states playfully, causing the rest of them to drop their heads with a small laugh of their own.

“Our fault for caring about her,” Jeno banters back, and all you can do is sigh and pull away from Jaemin’s chest, facing the rest of the group again. He was right, not about it being their fault, but for the fact that their frowns just meant they cared about you, and it wasn’t like you didn’t feel the same way towards them - you’d frown, too if one of them walked in battered and bruised. 

You roll your eyes playfully with a mellow shake of your head. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” you assure, turning your gaze to Jaemin before tossing your head side to side with a small smirk. “Besides, I’d say Jaem’s worth a punch or two.” The guys in front of you laugh but Jaemin furrows his brows.

“Or two?” He echoes worriedly, making you turn to him again with a soft, sure gaze. 

“One,” you promise him and watch as a bit of relief washes over his figure, nodding his head as he takes it in. 

“Um, you guys wanna watch Transformers?” Jisung speaks up awkwardly, shattering whatever tension you and Jaemin just created and instead making everyone chuckle. 

Mark whips his head over to Jisung. “I thought we were watching Spider-Man…?” He adds sulkily. Jisung’s jaw drops, because apparently he had been looking forward to a Transformers marathon nonstop since the plans were made; but Chenle cuts off any chance of a response from him, instead just shaking his head rapidly.

“It doesn’t matter. Just choose anything before they take the pause in activity to make out,” he says as though he were horrified by the possibility, and Renjun lets out a sure laugh as he places a hand on Chenle’s shoulder.

“Still traumatized by the pda you asked for at that first lunch?” He asks, and Chenle looks at him with wide eyes.

“Can you blame me? So, they’re in a relationship…that’s great. Slightly cringe, but whatever. You know what’s not cringe? Spider-Man.”

“The Transformers!” Jisung corrects adamantly, getting everyone to laugh again.

“Sure, the Transformers,” Chenle agrees automatically, and Haechan rolls his eyes with a soft smile as he moves to set up the TV. 

The eight of you got situated before another beat could pass. Mark on the recliner, Chenle and Jisung on the small couch, and then you, Jaemin, Jeno, Haechan, and Renjun taking up the big couch in the middle of the room. You cuddled easily into Jaemin as he threw an arm around your shoulder, his fingers lightly tracing patterns on the side of your arm. 

For the group of you typically being a mess of chaos when you were all together, the eight of you somehow all followed the same unspoken rules when it came to movie night. There was no talking and, surprisingly, no one distracted by their phone. However, the peace of the perfect movie night was broken maybe twenty minutes into the first movie, when a chill ran through your body and the resulting shiver didn’t go unnoticed. “Do you want a blanket, y/n?” Mark asks softly. All at once, the guys whipped their heads towards him, furrowed brows adding to their glares at his disruption. That is, until it registers for them what Mark just asked, and all their gazes soften as they draw their attention to you in wait for your answer, Haechan pausing the movie entirely. 

You let out a laugh under your breath, shaking your head at Mark with a grateful smile. “No, I’m okay,” you say quickly, trying to get everyone’s focus back on the movie because one shiver was not enough reason for concern. The guys all flash their eyebrows at your answer, immediately accepting it as they turn their attention back to the movie. 

It isn’t long though before you shiver again, and while your attempt to cover it up was stellar, it wasn’t enough to get past the man holding you in his arms. Jaemin leans down so his lips are by your ear. “Go put on one of my hoodies,” he whispers slowly.

You shake your head minimally in response, eyes still trained on the Transformers. “I’m okay-” Your whispered words are cut off when the movie pauses, and you whip your head over to face Jaemin now, remote in hand and raised brows as he stares back at you seriously. A chorus of complaints erupt from the rest of the guys but Jaemin is only focused on you, and you can’t do anything but let out a light sigh. “Are you sure?” You ask, and Jaemin’s brows go from raised to furrowed.

“Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. You’re my girlfriend. Please go dig through my closet and wear my clothes,” he replies firmly, nodding his head now in the direction of his bedroom. You dodge any further eye contact with him as you instead slip out of his arms and towards his room. You don’t spend too much time in there, more than aware that they were all still waiting on you before unpausing the movie. You throw on the first hoodie you see, trying to ignore how much it smelled like him - how comforting it was to be wrapped in that scent. 

You put on a straight face as you walk back out to the living room, though you begin to think it was unnecessary considering their reactions, or- Jaemin’s, at least. He immediately broke from the idle chatter he was having with Jeno as he instead locked his gaze on you, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. You fall shy under his gaze, looking around at the rest of the guys to see if you missed something before accepting the fact that it was just Jaemin who had the answers. “What?” You ask hesitantly, and it forces Jaemin to snap back to reality and collect himself.

He lets out something of a defeated laugh, shaking his head as he concludes his look up and down your body. “You should’ve been swimming in my hoodies for the past two months already,” he answers seriously, and suddenly your cheeks are on fire. You hide your face in your hands and the rest of the guys let fond grins paint their face at the interaction between the two of you. That was the first time it truly hit all of them that they were each about to lose $100 soon. Though it was hard for them to even be mad about it, because in everyone’s eyes but your own, Jaemin was whipped, and that was all they ever wanted for their best friend. 

The group got through three movies before everyone started fading, eyelids feeling heavier by the minute. Renjun was the one to turn the lamp on at the side table beside him, putting everyone on the same page as they all got up from their seats and started getting ready to leave. Chenle is the first to say his goodbyes and head for the door, but as he places his hand on the knob, he whips back around. “Oh, wait!” He starts, louder than any of you were prepared for as you stare back at him in question. He shakes his head, the volume of his voice apparently even getting to him, but then he looks back at you all seriously. “I’m having my big New Year’s Eve party again. You’re all invited, obviously. I don’t know anyone’s plans after finals week, so I figured I’d just tell you now before we’re all in different places - if you wind up back at NCIT by December 31st, I’d love to have you, and if you wind up back at NCIT even earlier than that, please please please please please-” 

“Chenle,” you all cut him off in unison, and he gives an awkward laugh.

“Please consider helping set up,” he says flusteredly. You all let out fond chuckles as you nod your head at the boy, and he lets a wide smile grace his features before finally opening the door and leaving with a soft ‘thank you.’ 

Dropping you off at your dorm, Jaemin fumbles for words before you can even open the door back to your place, and you turn around to pin all your attention on him instead as he speaks up awkwardly. “Uh- about Chenle’s party…”

“Yes, I’ll go. We said that would be our last day together so we might as well be…together,” you say, and Jaemin nods his head slowly. 

“Okay; and for next weekend…?” He leaves the question at that and that’s when you realize you truly hadn’t given him much to plan with yet. You shake your head with a small laugh. 

“We’ll leave Saturday morning for my parents’ house. I have finals up until Friday anyways. The big dinner you have to be there for is Saturday night, so you can do whatever you would like with your break after that.” 

Jaemin processes the information with a distant expression before pulling it into a smile. “Alright, angel. Good luck with finals next week. I’ll be ready to go Saturday morning,” he says happily, and all you can do is match his smile.

“Good luck on your finals, too-” You start, but as you move to wrap him in one last hug, you catch sight of the hoodie covering your arms and jump back. “Oh! I’m still wearing your hoodie. Sorry-” You speak in a rush as you work to try and slip out of it, but Jaemin shakes his head.

“Don’t worry. Keep it,” he responds seriously, making you whip your head up at him and causing him to laugh. “It would be really suspicious if I came back home with the hoodie that I just said you looked cute in, and I’m not taking any chances with us so close to the three month mark now. Just don’t lose it…it’s my favorite hoodie.” 

You let out a flustered laugh. “Well, are you sure you don’t want it back, then? Haechan is probably asleep already-” You reason as you start pulling one arm out of the hoodie again. 

“Just keep it,” he cuts you off with a warm chuckle before continuing more somberly. “Our three months are almost up. I’ll get it back in no time.” If the words were bitter on his tongue, you didn’t notice. You were too preoccupied trying to neutralize your own emotions at the notion of this all ending soon. 

You’re scared your voice would betray you if you opened your mouth again to speak, so instead you just nod your head, finally wrapping him in that goodbye hug and then turning to let yourself into your dorm. 

Finals week somehow went by in a flash, and you’re scared to add up how many hours of it you spent in Jaemin’s hoodie. Though, the atypical schedule meant that you didn’t really have to worry about that - you only ever ran into Jaemin on campus for friend group lunches, and those were canceled this week since half of you would be in the middle of finals during the usual span of time; so, Jaemin never had to find out that you were practically living in the very same hoodie you had tried so hard to give back originally. 

Come Saturday morning, that hoodie was packed with all of your other clothes in your suitcase, currently in the trunk of your car as you drive over to pick Jaemin up before heading to your house. He places his luggage next to yours before opening the passenger door and sliding in. “Hey, angel! Ready to pull all this off for your parents, too?” He asks with a devious smirk. You roll your eyes, trying to buy into the playfulness to forget about the dread filling your system at the idea of heading back home right now.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Thank you again for agreeing to this,” you say seriously, and Jaemin looks at you as though you were crazy.

“Of course I’d agree to do this. Do you realize how much you’re doing for me?” He banters back, effectively getting you to laugh a bit as the tension in your shoulders drops. “Besides,” he continues more thoughtfully. “It’ll be nice to see our hometown again.” His words are much more mellow this time, and you look over at him with a sad grimace before shifting into drive and actually getting out on the road. 

As soon as Jaemin went to college, his family moved to Jeju Island, and for as often as the two of you talked about traveling there one day, it was much less exciting of an idea when it was already Jaemin’s home base and it’d just be you traveling to visit him. Even outside of that, you knew he missed the city - moving away from everything you know is only nice if it’s your choice, and moving to Jeju was definitely not his choice. 

It’s not like his relationship with his parents was impacted, though. He understood, and was very appreciative of the fact that they held out on the move until he graduated high school. Truly, if they were wanting to move, this was the time to do it. He’d graduate college and get his own place wherever he wanted; it’s just that now his place to go back to was Jeju rather than Seoul.

On the other hand, your family stayed put in the same house from childhood, but your relationship had gone through rough waters since you started college; something not even Jaemin knew, and now you were wondering how oblivious you could keep him of your current home-situation.

The verdict was ‘not very long.’ As soon as the two of you walked in your front door, your parents seemed shocked to be laying eyes on Jaemin with you. You push past them and towards your bedroom to put your stuff down, sending just a meek ‘hi’ their way. Jaemin watched you disappear with ample confusion, but his face quickly straightened up into a smile as he greeted your parents with hugs and gratitude for having him over. 

Your mom pulls back from the hug with a look of disbelief, shaking her head solemnly. “Jaemin, it’s wonderful to see you. I apologize for not having a space set up for you to stay. To be honest, when y/n said she was bringing a guest home, the last thing we were expecting was for it to be a guy,” she laughs off, and Jaemin’s eyebrows immediately furrow. Your own muscles tighten as you move to close your bedroom door, deciding that was already enough for you to hear. 

“Why?” Jaemin asks in return, trying to match the laugh from your mom, though his was half-hearted at best. 

Your mom shrugs it off like it’s nothing new. “Well, you know our y/n…doesn't exactly have a lot going for her-” 

“Y/n’s gorgeous, actually,” Jaemin cuts off with force, now taking a full step back from your mom and causing her hand to drop from where it was still at his forearm. “And sure, she has her guard up most of the time but that doesn’t change the fact that once she’s comfortable enough to be herself, she’s incredibly easy to love,” he continues, brows furrowed as he makes sure to get his point across. 

Your mom passes her gaze from Jaemin to her husband, taking a moment to exchange strange smiles with him before turning back to Jaemin. “Sorry, I seem to have offended you. I didn’t know you cared about my daughter that much.” She speaks every word as though she’s only half serious, and all it does is frustrate Jaemin even more. 

“Of course I care about her but that’s not even the point. You shouldn’t be saying that about your child and you used to know that, cause you never said anything like that when we were growing up. So, I don’t know what changed but I can tell you it wasn’t the worth of your daughter.” Setting all your stuff down, you open your bedroom door enough to catch his last sentence and immediately let out a heavy sigh, knowing you had to go out there and do something.

“Jaem?” You start, walking back out from the hallway. His face instantly changes from disgust to warmth as he snaps his head in your direction.

“Yeah, angel?” 

You nod your head back towards where you just came from. “My room is still the same one it’s always been. Since we’re apparently bunking together, if you want to go put your stuff in there so you’re not carrying it around throughout the house, you know where to go,” you say casually, trying to make it seem as though the sleeping arrangements were all you caught of his conversation with your mom.

Jaemin nods with a tight smile. “Alright, I’ll be back in a second,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head as he passes you in his walk to your room and you take his place with your parents in the living room. You and your mom both watch as your dad looks between the two of you before immediately leaving to go outside, shaking his head as he does so and leaving just you, your mom, and the suffocating tension in the room.

You drop your head to face the floor and your mom is the first one to speak. “I didn’t know he liked you,” she says plainly, eyes darting towards the room Jaemin was currently in before landing on you again, your head now whipped up to face her with raised brows.

“Didn’t know he liked me or didn’t think I was capable of having him like me?” You ask in return, and your mom falters for a moment.

“Y/n…” She starts, but you shake your head.

“Am I good enough now? Is this enough for you? That I brought an attractive guy home who cares about me? Are you even the tiniest bit proud of me now?” The fire in your eyes soon matches that of your mother’s, her disproving gaze that you knew so well baring into you.

“Y/n, that’s not fair and you know that,” she counters, her voice raising with every word.

Your jaw drops as you look at her in disbelief. “What’s not fair is you judging me by the man I do or do not have to hold my hand at any given time.” You’re thankful when the words come out firm; you’ve never stood up to her like this, and when your mom studies you with intensity, it’s as though she doesn’t know the woman in front of her this time. 

“Well,” she breathes out, bringing her gaze back to your own. “Being with him has apparently given you some confidence…or a voice, at least.” Her tone borders between indifference and slight disgust, and all you can do is shake your head, unsure of how your relationship with your mom ever turned into this.

“I refuse to believe that you find an issue in the fact that he makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world,” you say in almost a plea for her to tell you it’s not true, but she never does; instead, it’s just Jaemin’s breath hitching in the hallway that he tries to cover up so you wouldn’t know he was listening. When neither you nor your mom turn your heads towards him, he realizes he was still under the radar. So, he prepares himself to walk back into the living room as though he just got done putting everything away in yours.

When he gets back by your side, he lightly kisses your temple, turning to face your mom as he sneaks a hand to rest on the small of your back; your mom stares at the physical contact and you think her eye actually twitches. Jaemin opens his mouth to start casual conversation back up but your mom cuts him off before he can even begin. “Your father and I are going out for the day. We will be back to cook dinner,” she states, and your eyebrows furrow immediately.

“You haven’t seen Jaemin in years and you’re just gonna leave right when he gets here?” You ask in shock, and your mom glares back at you.

“Dinner,” she replies sharply, and then she’s out the door. 

Jaemin’s hand on your back begins to rub lightly up and down, and as you turn to bury your face in his chest, he wraps you in a full hug. “I’m sorry,” you mumble out, and Jaemin shakes his head. With one hand, he lightly guides your chin up so that you make eye contact with him, a soft smile on his face as he looks down at you. 

“Nothing to be sorry for, angel. It’s all okay. How about we just watch TV or something, go outside maybe…what’s gonna destress you?” He asks, his hand that was underneath your chin maneuvering to instead caress your cheek. 

You shrug, doing your best to dodge eye contact as you reply. “Anything in your presence,” you say seriously, missing the way warmth just reached every corner of Jaemin’s being at your words. 

“Okay,” he responds surely, and that’s how you found yourself walking the streets of your hometown, hand-in-hand with Na Jaemin. You visited his old house, the old playground, anywhere you could before the cold air finally caught up to you and you had to retreat back inside for some hot chocolate and more Harry Potter from your last unfinished rewatch session. 

Jaemin never brought up the obvious tension between you and your mom, something you were thankful for, but it also left you feeling guilty because you knew it was on his mind - the equation of where things went wrong between you and your mom after he left Seoul was continuously being worked out behind his eyes. When you explained this part of the fake-dating contract, he wasn’t expecting for your parents to actually be on your ass about not dating anyone, but stepping into this house was like a minefield, and any conversation around the topic turned into an explosion.

He wasn’t gonna make you talk about it though, you obviously weren’t ready to. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around you as best he could, making sure you and your cocoa were always kept warm throughout the duration of your latest movie marathon. 

Surprising you, when it was finally dinnertime, the atmosphere was lighter by the tiniest bit. Your parents were engaging with Jaemin, at least, and the presence of other long-time family friends put you at ease, too, because you knew a big fiasco is the last thing your parents would allow to happen in front of others. 

“Are you staying with us all of break?” Your mom asks as she puts her fork down and places all of her attention on Jaemin. He gives a sorry grin in return as he shakes his head.

“No,” he begins, and your face immediately drops, forcing you to take another bite so it’s less noticeable. “I was thinking I would surprise my parents. I haven’t seen them since the summer, and I figure that means it’s time to fly out and see them again,” he continues with a light laugh. “Though, when y/n asked me to come back with her for this dinner, I- well,” he drags off, taking a moment to turn and face you at his side, a fond smirk on his lips before he turns his head back to face his lap before you can notice. “I realize I’ve gotten incredibly bad at saying ‘no’ to her,” he finishes, his own light chuckle following his words.

Gazes soften all around the table as they listen to Jaemin, but you can’t bring your head up to look at him, sure the look in your eyes would give away how desperately you were wishing for those words to be real.

Your dad is the one to pick up the conversation again. “Well, we’ll be sad to see you go so soon, but it’s sure been a pleasure having you fill our house again,” he says with a tight nod that Jaemin reflects back to him, slightly softer in his perfect Jaemin way. 

That night, you and Jaemin went to bed before the rest of the adults did, but they had the advantage of alcohol to keep them occupied, and while that option was technically open to you and Jaemin, you both decided it would probably be best to stay under the label of ‘innocent youth’ with your parents and family friends.

You walk back into your bedroom after washing your face and putting on pajamas to see Jaemin already laying down. You trace his outline underneath the covers and sigh when you realize how little room was left in your full size bed. You slip under the covers and begin to turn on your side so you could take up the smallest space possible, but Jaemin evidently has other plans as he reaches over and pulls you so that you’re laying against his chest. “What are you doing?” You ask, propping your head up on his chest as you stare at him in confusion. 

He looks back at you as though there were no need for the question, his smirk playing lazily against his lips. “If you’re going to end up on top of me anyways, I’d rather just hold you there,” he replies, and all at once you’re vividly reminded of Halloween night. You don’t argue back, instead just rolling your eyes and resting your head back against his chest as you try to hide most of the blush on your cheeks. 

Jaemin idly draws shapes on your back as he watches you fall asleep on him. He swallows awkwardly, remembering what your mother said about you…what you said to your mother, and a kind of frustration fills his chest. He listens for any signal that you were still awake, and when he finds none, he presses the lightest kiss to the top of your head. “You’re so beautiful, y/n,” he whispers. His mortification comes when he feels you tense under his hold.

“You don’t have to pretend when it’s just us, you know,” you whisper back, and his heart breaks in his chest. His tone is firm as he replies, because if you were going to be awake to hear him say that, he might as well get his point across. 

“Some stuff I never had to pretend for. Some stuff is just a fact.”

You let out a heavy sigh, flipping which way your head was facing on his chest before speaking softly. “Go to bed, Jaemin,” you say, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with the feeling of defeat that arose knowing you don’t believe him. He thinks about saying more but he figures now is not the time for it…that in your friendship, it may not ever be the time for it. So, he lets out his own light sigh, his grip around you going slightly tighter as he gets to work on actually falling asleep. 

The next day, all you really had time for was breakfast before you had to drive Jaemin to the airport. As you pull up to the curb for departures, Jaemin doesn’t even think twice before leaning over the center console to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “Thank you for dropping me off,” he says sincerely amidst the rustling of him gathering his bags from various spaces of your car. You laugh as you open your own door, sliding around to the back of your car to pop the trunk and grab his suitcase.

“I’m coming inside with you, you know?” You tease lightly, missing the way Jaemin’s eyes soften at the care before he quickly vetoes your carrying of his luggage and rips his suitcase from your grip, causing you to laugh some more as you turn to face him now at your side. “But, of course, it was no problem,” you say genuinely, stepping inside the airport with him and too quickly facing the security checkpoint where you’d finally have to split. “Have a safe flight,” you continue, and with each word he’s now taking a step further than you dare to. “Tell your family I said ‘hi.’” 

Jaemin looks over his shoulder to smile back at you. “I will,” he promises firmly with a matching nod, and you throw a grin and final wave his way as he turns back to actually face where he was walking towards the entrance for security. As soon as you’re out of his line of sight, you allow your face to drop slightly alongside your gaze, letting out a light sigh at the feeling of him walking away from you. However, your attention is caught by the increasingly loud sound of heavy footsteps. You shift your gaze back in front of you to see Jaemin had changed his path and was instead heading straight for you again. 

“Jaemin-?” You question, but you’re cut off the second he gets close to you because he wastes no time in dropping his bags, cupping your cheek with his hand, and pressing a sure kiss to your lips. You melted right into it, something you would have to kick yourself for later, but at the present moment, all you could think about was his soft lips still lingering against yours.

“I’ll see you in a week, okay?” He says in a near-whisper. His words weren’t so much a statement as they were a reassurance, like he needed you to know that all you had to bear without him was a single week, like he intended to never leave you again once he came back. All you can do is swallow awkwardly, nodding as you look up at him through your lashes. 

“Yeah.” 

Jaemin’s gaze roamed over your entire figure as best it could with the two of you still in close proximity. You wanted to press up on your tiptoes and kiss him again for the hell of it, or maybe for the comfort of it, but Jaemin is the one to take action first, simply running his thumb gently across your cheek with a small smile before immediately turning to grab his bags and actually make his way through the security checkpoint. All you can do is stand and watch helplessly as he walks away from you. You’d see him in a week, sure, but then it’d be New Years before you knew it and all of this would slip right out of your hands…it practically already had. 

You were back at NCIT before Christmas, trading in family-time for time with Chenle, who was the only other one of your friends on campus for most of that duration. He tried to pretend that he needed to meet up with you to talk about plans for his New Year’s Eve party, but most of it was just excuses to hang out when he got lonely. One by one, the guys all made their way back to NCIT, Jaemin being the last to do so, coming in on the evening flight December 26th. 

You had brought Chenle with you to go pick him up, mainly because Chenle begged you to let him tag along. The two of you stood at the baggage claim for maybe fifteen minutes, Jaemin’s hoodie adorning your figure and providing you with comfort amidst Chenle’s constant nagging that you guys should have brought a sign saying that Jaemin was coming back from prison or something else more embarrassing. 

The baggage claim carousel had already begun spinning for Jaemin’s flight, and eventually even Chenle stops talking to instead join you in a frown as the two of you search for Jaemin. The verdict was that he must have just been the last person off the plane, because around five minutes later, you catch sight of his figure. “There he is- what’s he doing?” You ask confused as you look at Jaemin speed in your direction.

“Running towards you,” Chenle answers as if it were the most casual occurrence ever. He tosses his gaze over to you with raised eyebrows before continuing. “And I think you should probably start running towards him unless you’re prepared to catch his weight, cause I’m pretty sure he’s ready to jump on you.” 

Your eyes go wide at his words as you shake your head. “God, having a lunatic boyfriend is a lot of work,” you respond, feigning exhaustion. Chenle throws his arms up in defense.

“Hey, you chose him, not me,” he quips, making you smile before realizing you really had to start on your run towards him, because of all the things you were prepared for, catching Jaemin’s weight was not one of them.

You take off from where you and Chenle were standing, running up and meeting Jaemin somewhere in the middle as he lets go of his carry-on and puts his arms out for you. “Jaem!” You exclaim, jumping into his arms and wrapping around him like a koala.

“Angel!” He replies just as enthusiastically; hugging you tightly and spinning around once with the momentum.

“Chenle’s here so you have to kiss me,” you whisper in a rush, cupping his cheek with your hand as Jaemin steadies himself again.

He lets out a genuine laugh, catching your gaze with the brightest of smiles in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t gonna run all this way towards you for nothing,” he says surely. Then he presses his lips to yours, and the resulting warmth in your body should’ve made the snow outside impossible. 

Jaemin breaks away from you when he feels a tug on his shirt sleeve, and the two of you turn to make eye contact with Chenle. “You’re being cringe now, can you please take me home?” He asks plainly, making you and Jaemin laugh as he puts you down on the solid ground again, slipping his hand in yours as the next best option. Then, after making sure Jaemin had all of his things, the three of you were on the road back to NCIT.  

The next day, Jaemin and the guys went out for lunch, one you weren’t invited to because it was one you “couldn’t know about.” Sitting around the table in a perfect reflection of the start of the semester, the guys around Jaemin all wore a mixture of looks on their faces, ranging from impressed to sulky…though that last one was only Chenle, who despite having the most money in the group, hated giving it out. 

Mark is the one to finally address the reason they were all there. “Well, you did it. I’m sure we don’t need to be the ones to tell you that you’ve been dating y/n for three whole months now,” he says with a light laugh. Jaemin can’t bring himself to join in on the smiles and playfulness around the table.

“I can’t believe it’s been three months already,” he says hollowly, but both his tone and the distant look in his eyes go unnoticed by his friends, their tunnel vision on their childish bet covering over Jaemin’s anguish at winning. 

“Here’s your $600,” Haechan says after having collected everyone’s shares from around the table. “Can't wait to have a new PS5 in our apartment,” he quips, but Jaemin whips his head up at him, grabbing the $600 from his hands defensively. 

“I’m not spending it on a PS5…” He begins, dragging off as the fire dies from his tone and he returns to a contemplative state of being. “I’m gonna buy y/n something nice.”

Gasps are heard from quite literally everyone else at the table, all of them looking at Jaemin with wide eyes. “Really?” Jeno asks in disbelief, and Jaemin makes passing eye contact with all of his friends, giving them all odd looks for being so caught off guard.

“Yes, really. She’s the best thing to ever happen to me, and I don’t know how to give her the world, but I can at least get her the best that $600 will buy,” he explains surely, and the rest of the guys all exchange glances with each other before turning back to him, Renjun being the one to take a jab this time through a hesitant laugh.

“Are we still talking to Na Jaemin?” He asks, making the rest of the guys laugh as well. Jaemin just lets out a sigh, finally able to find a bit of humor as well as he shakes his head, tucking the money away and turning the afternoon into a regular lunch hang out. 

Two days later, you get a call from Jaemin sometime after dinner.

“Angel?” He says softly once you pick up, his tone making you smile on the other end.

“Yeah, handsome?” You respond warmly. 

“Wanna go on a drive?” Jaemin asks, giving away no hints as to his current state of emotions, and your eyebrows furrow as you pry more.

“No destination?” You ask, and Jaemin shakes his head, not that you were able to see it anyways. His response is sharp.

“No.”

“Everything okay?” You question, the warmth in your tone turning into concern.

“Yeah,” Jaemin responds immediately. You let a beat pass in silence and it’s enough for Jaemin to want to fill it again on his own. “Just want some more time with you,” he explains shyly, and you let out a small breath of laughter as you oblige. 

“Let me get my shoes on.”

“I’ll be there to pick you up in five,” he replies firmly before immediately hanging up. 

True to his word, it only took five minutes before you’re opening the door to Jaemin. “Hey,” he says as soon as you make eye contact, leaning down to press a quick kiss to your cheek.

“Hey,” you reply, your face hurting as you try not to smile too widely at his actions. Jaemin wouldn’t have noticed if you did, though, because he immediately turns to face the floor sheepishly. 

“Sorry if you were in the middle of something,” he finally says, making you furrow your brows at him - this wasn’t a Jaemin you were used to.

“Nothing that couldn’t wait,” you assure him before prying some more. “What’s up?”

Jaemin pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he shakes his head hesitantly. “Nothing. It’s just our last few days together. Figured we could hang out before you go off and get an actual boyfriend and I-” You watch as he fumbles for words, eventually giving up with a shrug as he finally makes eye contact with you again. “Go back to doing whatever it is I do.”

His answer doesn’t relieve you of any worry, and you move a hand up to cup his cheek as you tilt your head in study of him. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Jaemin nods his head slightly against your hand, a fond smile at your touch replacing the distant expression he previously held. “There’s just a lot on my mind. Nothing for you to worry about. Just wanted to hang out with you and kind of escape it all for a bit,” he explains casually, eventually bringing both hands up to guide your own back down from his face, idly playing with your fingers as he asks his next question. “Do you still like cloud watching?”

“You know I do,” you reply with a laugh, and Jaemin finally bares his teeth as he smiles back at you. He checks to make sure you actually did put your shoes on already before switching his grip so that he was just holding your hand as he walked the two of you to his truck.

You ended up at one of those nature parks, where the fields are preserved for fields-sake rather than playgrounds. The two of you got out and made your way around to the tailgate of his truck and you register that he already had blankets and pillows in the back, completely reminiscent of high school. 

You both sat in silence for a while, staring up at the sky and giving yourselves a chance to be at peace, at least somewhere away from the false sense of urgency that always seemed to be around. Eventually, you move your gaze from the clouds above to where your arms were wrapped around your knees, debating with yourself before finally breaking the silence.

“Jaem?” You call softly, and he turns all of his attention towards you.

“Yeah, angel?” He replies in much the same manner. You dart your tongue out to lick your lips, anything you could do to prolong your question - which you were currently thinking should’ve lost in your inner debate.

You finally let out a sigh, still focused in front of you as you talk. “You know you’re much more than the image you’ve picked up around campus, right?” 

Jaemin’s face immediately whips back to the front so there would be no chance of making eye contact with you. “Um…” He begins, but that was the only word he could come up with before forfeiting with an awkward swallow. You know that means it’s up to you to continue.

“I know that day I first met your friend group, you had to make up a ton of stuff on how we got together and everything, but I don’t know if you were necessarily lying when you were talking about how I deserve better than getting tied into your fuckboy image. I just- wanna make sure you know, in case that has ever been your thought process for anyone you’ve had a crush on, that there’s so many more sides to you than that. An image is an image, okay? Don’t let it get to you.” Your courage is built with every word and you finally turn to face Jaemin as you continue softly, surely. “They don’t know you like I do.”

Jaemin’s lips part with a heavy exhale before he rolls them inwards in hesitation. “Do you mean it?” He finally asks, and there’s just a trace of sadness riddling his voice.

“Of course I do,” you say firmly, and Jaemin takes in your answer with a slow nod.

“It’s been hard. I-” He grimaces before letting out an awkward laugh. “Oh, this is kind of weird to talk about with you,” he continues, making you laugh, too as the atmosphere lightens.

“Whatever,” you say, rolling your eyes playfully. “It’s me.”

Surprisingly, that seemed to do it, because the tension in Jaemin’s shoulders falls as he lets out a light sigh and finally finds his words for what seemed to be the first time that night. “I used to not care. If they wanted to label me as a fuckboy, that was fine. Truthfully, if I was getting my dick wet, I was good-” He cuts himself off at the sound of a slightly louder exhale than normal from you, and he whips his head your way with a pout. “Don’t laugh, I’m being vulnerable.”

You stare back at him with a fond smile on your face and raised brows. “I’m not laughing,” you assure, and Jaemin turns to face his knees again as he accepts your denial of the claim without a fight. Then he starts back up with his explanation, his tone heavy and contemplative.

“Lately though, I’ve just been thinking I want so much more out of life. But, I spent so long under the fuckboy label I didn’t know if I would ever be able to break free from it, if I could ever be more.”

Your gaze on him softens but your eyebrows furrow; there was something so weird about knowing he’s never viewed himself in the way you do. “Na Jaemin, you’ve always been more,” you respond firmly. The lightest of exhales escapes as laughter from Jaemin, and he lets a weak smile play at his lips before responding. 

“And you’ve always felt like home…” He says, matching your tone as he finally turns to look at you again. “That’s another thing I wasn’t lying about that day.” 

You immediately dodge eye contact, knowing it’d reveal to him in milliseconds your real emotions towards all of this…towards him. Probably against your better judgement as well, you lean into him at your side, resting your head against his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’ve had a nice three months with you,” you say, your own weak grin making an appearance.

“Yeah,” he agrees, wrapping his arm around you casually. “It hasn’t been too bad, has it?”

There it was, the reason you needed to snap out of it, because for Jaemin, it just wasn’t ‘too bad,’ and meanwhile you’ve been over the moon these past three months. You’d come to your senses eventually - remember that ‘breaking up’ was the plan all along, that the last thing Jaemin wanted was to be in an actual relationship, and that you were going to have to be as okay with that as ever. However, for now, you figured you’d just lean into him a bit more while you still can. 

The next day saw all eight of you at Chenle’s place, helping him decorate and prepare for the big party, and then it was New Year’s Eve. Only you and Jaemin knew that it was your last night together before the ‘break up;’ and neither of you knew that the other didn’t want it to ever end, meaning when you placed Jaemin’s hoodie in his backseat as a way to return it before the party, you didn’t know the idea of giving it back nauseated him possibly more than it did you. As such, the air was tense and awkward between the two of you, trying to keep hidden how devastated you knew you were going to be at the end of the night, and too dumb to realize the best thing you could do is talk about it. 

Hand-in-hand with Jaemin, the two of you join the rest of your friend group, already standing around in a circle somewhere on the outskirts of the set up dance floor. They greet the two of you with bright smiles, none of them plagued with the knowledge that their favorite relationship was ending tonight. However, with the eight of you chatting about anything imaginable, the night became incredibly casual, despite the overwhelming amount of people flooding in around you all.

Eventually, the group divides up, deciding a range of different activities sounded best for the time being. You ended up with Chenle and Jisung, the three of you indulging in the indoor s’mores kit that was set up. Jaemin never moved from where the big group of you originally were. Instead, he let the crowd all pass around him as he stayed focused on you, gaze aimed in your direction with a fond smile as he watched you interact with his friends.

The only thing to break him from his staring is when Mark taps him on the shoulder and hands him a cup of water. “Man, I hope you know you’ve turned into a completely different person,” he says as he does so, making Jaemin furrow his brows in question; though Mark shakes his head as though it were no big thing. “You got this glow about you that scares me, and the look in your eyes when you’re staring at her…I didn’t think I’d ever see that from you - you know, being so against relationships and everything,” he ends with a light laugh.

Jaemin drops his head, his own laugh escaping his lips. “It’s just what happens when you’ve found your person, I guess,” he replies seriously. “I mean, to me?” He begins, finally looking up at Mark in sincerity before throwing his gaze your way. “For her?” He shakes his head, his smile turning into a dumb grin on his face as he finally admits to what’s been on his mind for three months. “Everything’s worth it. All the risk, all the effort, I’d do anything for her.” He looks your way once more before his gaze turns distant and he lets a grimace slip across his features. “It just took being with her to make me realize…I want to believe in love,” he finally says, meeting Mark’s eyes once again. 

Mark’s smile was painted widely across his face, though he stared at his best friend in something like disbelief. “Want to believe it? Jaemin, you’re in it,” he says firmly, and Jaemin immediately lets his gaze fall to his feet as he lets out a heavy sigh.

“It’s less scary than I thought it’d be,” he finally says, and Mark’s smile turns fond as he gets a glimpse at how his best friend operates. He puts on his best voice of comfort as he replies.

“You said it yourself, it’s what happens when you’ve found your person. You should tell her,” he says, tossing his head in your direction casually, but Jaemin’s muscles tense up.

“No, I can’t,” he says in a rush, and Mark lets out a laugh.

“From the one who says he isn’t scared,” he teases, but Jaemin shakes his head - it wasn’t that.

“I- it’s a weird situation,” he says, letting out a huff with his bad explanation. “I can’t tell her. Not tonight, anyways…she won’t want to hear that from me,” he concludes, dragging off miserably. Mark’s face completely flips as he stares at Jaemin quizzically. 

“But- she looks at you the same way, you know?” He says surely, but Jaemin shakes his head again.

“No, that’s just how she looks at me. Even when we were in high school.” He takes a moment to pause, tongue darting out to wet his suddenly dry lips before continuing with conviction. “No, she doesn’t love me. Not like this,” he says, and then he’s walking away, leaving a very confused Mark standing there with parted lips.

“...I thought she’s liked you since high school,” he says under his breath now that he knew there was no way Jaemin would hear anyways. He looks between you and Jaemin before shaking his head - the last thing he needed on New Year’s Eve was to engage in overthinking.

You had just broken away from where you were talking with Chenle and Jisung to instead make your way over to the punch table. Grabbing yourself a glass, when arms wrap around you in a hug from behind, you know the only person it could be. “Hey, handsome,” you say with a smile, turning your head to the side to try and lay eyes on him.

“Hi, angel,” Jaemin replies, taking the opportunity to place a small kiss on your cheek before continuing. “Are we kissing at midnight or are we ending things before then? I’m not sure if you want to start the new year with me or not.” His tone borders on defeat, and you turn around in his arms to stare at him with raised eyebrows and a playful smirk.

“I’ll be your new year's kiss if you’ll be mine,” you reply, and Jaemin lets out a small chuckle. “Besides,” you continue more seriously. “Ending this doesn’t mean you aren’t still my best friend. You’ll be a part of my new year no matter what. We can kiss and just pretend that was our way to say ‘bye’ to dating, cause you know, I guess it will be.” For a moment that you always knew was coming, admitting its near occurrence now felt like you just had the wind knocked out of you. Jaemin just stares down at you with a wide grin, nodding his head along to your words in approval. 

“Alright best friend, then I’ll make sure to find you again before midnight,” he replies, the entire thing making you swallow awkwardly as you nod your head back at him slightly.

“Yeah…” You respond in something like a whisper, and with one light kiss on your forehead, Jaemin vanishes again into the crowd. 

The rest of the New Years party was a blast, no doubt, but the knowledge of what was coming, or more so ending, plagued your thoughts and eventually you just needed to slip away from the rest of the noise. You ended up on the balcony attached to some random bedroom, the cool air something of a relief for your current state.

The only pull back into reality was when the ever-present loudness turned into synchronized cheers, and you catch as the entire party starts counting down from fifteen seconds. You whip around to start on your rushed journey back inside, realizing you never told Jaemin where you would be; but as you turn, you make eye contact with him, just stepping onto the balcony himself, an easy smile crossing his features. “No need to rush. I told you I’d find you before midnight,” he says with a light laugh, and you drop your head with a small exhale as your own form of laughter. “Ready to say ‘bye’ to all this pretending?” He asks, stepping up to where he was directly in front of you.

No. “Yep,” you respond with the best fake smile you could. You already made it this far with no problems, you refused to let it slip that your heart was fully in this right when it was about to end. 

Jaemin matched your smile, and as the crowd’s counting reached the ‘3, 2, 1,’ his hand came up to find its favorite spot at your cheek again. Then he leaned in and kissed you right as the party erupted with cheers of ‘Happy New Year.’ 

Your hands gripped tightly at his shirt, keeping you steady and keeping him close to you; though he wasn’t necessarily going anywhere with one hand cupping your cheek and the other placed firmly on your waist. Unlike any of your other kisses, this one…lingered. The two of you kept steady pace with each other, you gently sucking on his bottom lip and figuring for as long as he’d let this go on, you would take it for all it was worth, trying to pretend you could ever kiss him enough for a lifetime. 

When you think he’s breaking away, you’re instead met with the feeling of his tongue running across your top lip, asking for permission - permission all too easily granted by you as you open your mouth to let him explore. Your New Year's kiss turned into a greedy make out session, which was probably the last thing you were expecting, but you couldn’t take the time to question it because you were too busy drowning in his taste. You loved the taste of Jaemin on your tongue, and his own soft moan - which he tried so desperately to cover up but that you still very much heard, let you know he was currently feeling the same way; and you’d mark that down as a tiny win in the midst of the huge loss you were about to incur. 

Against your better judgement, you finally break away when you truly couldn’t breathe anymore, and Jaemin rests his forehead against yours. The air was just filled with the sound of panting as the two of you tried to catch your breaths. You swallow awkwardly once you do, taking a small step back as you process what just happened, Jaemin’s hand running down your body until you were no longer in reach. “You’re awfully good at ‘goodbye,’” you say in between breaths.

Jaemin immediately dodges your gaze, facing somewhere off to the side as his adam's apple bobs up and down. “I’ve had a lot of practice,” he responds quietly, to the point where you were practically just reading his lips, and then he’s gone, leaving you alone on the balcony to deal with your flooding emotions on your own…not that you could do so in his presence anyways. 

You hated that it hurt this much - that a goodbye you knew was coming still seemed to blindside you. You had allowed your heart to indulge in his every romantic gesture, and while on the surface you knew they meant nothing, you held onto hope in some deep dark corner of your heart that maybe it wasn’t all just pretend; and yet here you were, grouped in with the vast category of girls he’s said ‘goodbye’ to in the way he knew all too well. You were his best friend but you were no one special, and you didn’t expect the resurgence of a fact that you already knew to affect you as much as it did - to make it feel as though you had been hollowed out, bones chilled from the empty space your soul used to occupy. 

You and Jaemin weren’t in contact the entire first day of the new year, though you couldn’t complain because talking to him right away was not something you figured your heart could handle. Instead, you went to work out at the gym and run errands and all those other things people do when they’re single and making a point to say they’re okay with that. To be fair, it kind of worked. Not that you were okay with whatever you and Jaemin had gotten yourselves into coming to an end, but that day of productivity and endorphin-inducing activity helped you ground yourself - these past three months were you helping out your best friend, that was all it was ever supposed to be. 

The next day was far less productive, but you were still functioning like normal. The only disruption from your typical daily routine came with a phone call from Haechan. As soon as you pick up, he starts speaking.

“Why did you go and break Jaemin’s heart all of the sudden?” He asks angrily.

You furrow your brows, though it wasn’t like he could see it anyways. “What do you mean? The breakup was mutual,” you counter in confusion, and Haechan lets out an actual ‘HA’ in disbelief before he replies with animosity.

“I need to know what the hell your definition of ‘mutual’ is because Jaemin hasn’t stopped crying for the past twenty-four hours.” 

You think he’s kidding, like this is one last stupid test of whether your relationship ever added up - but you shake the idea away, he already got the money, it was a week past three months, there wasn’t anything for you to mess up now, the story you’ve been telling would work as it always had. “Crying? What? We both agreed we worked better as friends,” you reply instantly, confusion adequately painting your voice. 

Haechan cannot believe his ears, and he makes sure to let you know so. For as much as you were confused, he didn’t understand why you were acting this way, ten fold. “No, I don’t believe you at all now. He wouldn’t agree on that. I don’t know how Jaemin talked to you, but he talked about you as though he’s never held anyone’s hand before until he held yours. Y/n, it was like you were the one to put every star in his night sky, I swear there’s no way this breakup was mutual.” Your whole world stops and you go speechless on the other end. Haechan was being dead serious, or else he wouldn’t be angry, he wouldn’t be pushing the subject. His words turn over and over again in your head. Jaemin talked about you, evidently when you weren’t around. You were fake-dating and yet Jaemin went out of his way to speak of you fondly to his friends. Jaemin, who never saw the point of getting romantically attached like that, doing more than what was needed in expressing his feelings about you. You push down the feeling of nausea and instead let out a deep sigh.

“I’ll be over in five minutes,” you say quietly, and then you hang up the phone before ever getting a reply from Haechan.

You race over to their apartment, and before you could even knock, Haechan is swinging the door open for you. The two of you make eye contact and about a million emotions pass between you, but it was easiest to pick up on the uncertainty. Haechan opens his mouth as if he’s about to bombard you with questions, or maybe yell at you again…you weren’t sure, but instead he just lets out a breath, nodding his head back in the direction of Jaemin’s room with a soft, “in there.” 

You throw a thankful smile his way, not that you were necessarily guessing at where Jaemin could be, but you were very grateful he was letting you off so easily. Even by looking at Haechan, you could tell Jaemin had truly been crying for the past twenty-four hours…Haechan looked exhausted. 

You lightly tap on the door of Jaemin’s room before entering, breath hitching as you lay eyes on his figure, curled up in a ball and clad in his favorite hoodie that you had given back - the hoodie he now knew you had lived in for the past few weeks because he already caught your own scent on it. Tears raced down his face, and he immediately turned away from you to hide them as he squeaked out choked words.

“Please go away,” he says, and reality hits you all at once. It wasn’t like you thought Haechan was lying, but now you truly had to face the fact that you were the cause of Jaemin’s tears; he wanted you to go away. 

“Jaemin, I’m not going anywhere,” you say softly, shaking your head to emphasize the point. Though, as you do so, your gaze catches onto a gift bag on his dresser, a label with your name written on it in his stupid perfect handwriting. 

You walk up to it, swallowing hesitantly as you turn your attention from the bag to Jaemin and back again. “What is this?” You finally ask. Jaemin shoots his gaze your way, not having previously realized what had caught your intrigue.

“Please don’t-” He rushes to say, but in the pause, you had already pulled out a diamond necklace, holding it gently between your shaking hands. You shake your head, eyes wide and jaw dropped as you’re unable to form a coherent thought. You turn back around to face him, your gaze darting every which way because you’re not sure you can confidently hold eye contact with him.

“Jaemin, what-? Why is this in a gift bag labeled for me-? When did you-?”

He cuts you off, visibly annoyed. “It’s what I used the bet money on. Now please go away,” he demands more firmly, but you wouldn’t be able to follow through on it even if you wanted to, because as you process his words, you lose the ability to move. 

“You spent the $600 on this?” You ask in disbelief, turning your attention fully towards him to try and find any cue that he was lying. “On me?” 

Jaemin turns his head to the side, and you watch as his adam’s apple bobs up and down with an awkward swallow. When he finally answers, his voice has lost its tension, his words instead coming out as though he were ashamed. “$700,” he corrects. “I didn’t want it to feel like I was just gifting you something from the guys.”

You think you’ve gone crazy, or maybe Jaemin has, but all you can do is stare at him in disbelief. “I-”

He quickly finds his fire again, apparently having had enough embarrassment for a lifetime in those few seconds. “Please leave,” he spits out. He dares look up to make eye contact with you before immediately regretting his decision and staring back down at his bed again, wiping more stray tears from his eyes as he fumbles out his next words. “You can take the necklace if you want but just- please leave.”

“Jaem-” You say softly before he can cut you off.

“What?!” He quips, though when he shoots his gaze back to you in irritation, he realizes you’re no longer standing at his dresser, but sitting at the edge of his bed with him. Your fingers barren of the necklace, you instead occupy one hand by placing it on top of his own.

“You could’ve told me you fell for me, too,” you say seriously, and Jaemin stops breathing for a moment as he looks up at you with wide teary eyes.

“Too?” He echoes weakly, and all you can do is give a tight smile, moving a hand up to wipe under his eyes as you try to hold back your own tears.

“I refuse to believe I played off my huge crush on you since high school that well.” You reply with a hoarse laugh.

Jaemin finally recovers his ability to breathe as he lets out a heavy exhale. “You like me?” He asks through tears, and you finally break, having to wipe your own stupid tears off your face before nodding at him with an embarrassed smile.

“I always have. Why do you think I made all those stupid rules to try and make sure we acted like a couple as little as possible?” A bittersweet laugh gets caught in your throat as you think back on it. “If I had to listen to you call me cute names all the time, I wouldn’t have survived knowing it was eventually going to end,” you continue seriously.

Jaemin’s finally able to let out a bashful smile and sorry laugh. “...I called you cute names all the time anyways.”

You nod your head with a fond smile. “I know.”

“I couldn’t help it,” he explains as more tears rush down his face, though this time, they’re at least sliding down next to an embarrassed grin. 

You look at him with playful raised eyebrows. “Just like how you couldn’t help it when you kissed me every time you saw me? Or looked over at me super fondly?”

Jaemin softens as his eyes trace over your figure, the distant look in his gaze letting you know his mind was rather preoccupied with reliving the past three months. “Exactly like that,” he says lowly, and you let out a breath, forcing your gaze away from Jaemin as you instead focus on the way your fingers were idly fidgeting with each other.

“God, Jaem. I’m sorry. I should’ve realized-” You speak apologetically but Jaemin cuts you off again.

“No, I should’ve communicated. Well…” He lets another soft laugh leave his system, the tears finally drying on his face as he works towards fully collecting himself. “I should’ve communicated when you knew I was serious.”

You smile at his words, shaking your head again as you relive every moment of the fake relationship. “I didn’t even know you had time to catch feelings for me,” you begin with something like wonder in your tone. “I mean- weren’t you still hooking up with-”

When Jaemin cuts you off this time, it’s with the most flustered of cheeks and the weakest of laughs. “Um, about that…the very first girl I hooked up with after we added that rule-” He shakes his head with a small smile as he corrects himself. “Well, I say that…she was also the last girl I hooked up with.” Your eyebrows furrow slightly as you process the information, but Jaemin doesn’t give you much time to do so before throwing in another wrench. “I uh- accidentally moaned your name.”

Your head whips in his direction, your wide eyes straining against your dropped jaw. “Jaemin! You did not!”

“Why would I make that up?!” He quips back with a hearty laugh. You move a hand over your gaping mouth, unsure at what exactly you were supposed to do with this news. You shake your head in disbelief.

“Oh my god, what did she do?” You ask, curiosity dripping from your voice. Jaemin bites on the inside of his cheek before giving in again with a light sigh.

“Well, we immediately stopped because we were both mortified, I think. She said something about how I obviously had to go figure some things out, to which I agreed, but for different reasons than she thought…” He drags off a bit but instead just shakes his head and goes in a different direction. “I practically begged her not to say anything about it, but she laughed and said I was crazy if I thought she was going to tell that story and humiliate herself,” he finishes with a small chuckle, and you just stare at him with no less shock than before.

“I can’t believe this,” you manage to get out playfully. 

Jaemin flashes his eyebrows in acknowledgement before his eyes light up and he rushes through more words. “Oh! The best part is, a week or so later, she saw us holding hands in public and texted me saying that she’s rooting for us,” he recalls with a shiteating grin. 

“Stop!” You get out, the idea of it damn near killing you. Though, before you can end up dying of laughter with Jaemin, another piece of information fits itself into the puzzle and you come back to your senses in seriousness.

“Wait wait wait,” you begin, focusing your gaze fully on Jaemin again. “So, you’ve been celibate for like…three months now?” You ask in shock. Jaemin isn’t even the tiniest bit regretful as he responds with a shrug, his sincere gaze meeting your own.

“I only wanted you. Wasn’t going to waste mine or anyone else’s time pretending any different.”

Your gaze softens immediately as a fond smile plays against your features. “Jaem…” You aren’t necessarily sure where you were going from there, but Jaemin picks it up anyways with a small shake of his head; his own weak smile making an appearance again as he recounts those first few moments.

“You kissed me that first day and I assumed I was fucked,” he explains casually. “Everything felt like it changed, and not because it was affection but because it was you.” His cheeks puff out again with a bigger grin as he continues. “Then I had that slip up and I knew I was fucked. Couldn’t get you out of my head for even a moment. It was starting to drive me crazy how much I wanted to make you happy.”

His eyes meet yours again as he finishes, and you search them for answers you knew you would have to ask for. “A good crazy?” You question hesitantly, but Jaemin is quick to shut down any worries.

“The best,” he assures, moving his hands so that he could interlace them with yours. He moves his gaze from your physical contact back up to your face before continuing seriously. “I love you, y/n.” 

You swallow hard, trying to not let any more tears run down your face, albeit happy tears weren’t so bad. You squeeze his hands in yours as you nod your head. “I love you, too.”

“Can we date for real?” He immediately asks, his wide pleading eyes making you chuckle.

“It’s been ‘for real’ for a while now,” you say warmly, but Jaemin shakes his head, not having it. 

“Yeah, but we’re currently broken up if you don’t remember. The entire reason you’re over here is because I couldn’t stop bawling my eyes out…which was the worst feeling in the world, by the way,” he banters back with a weak laugh. You let a grimace cross your face before pulling it into a fond smile. 

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll never break up with you again,” you assure him softly. Jaemin doesn’t hide his wide smile as he shifts himself so he can easily lean in and kiss you softly, resting his forehead against your own as he pulls back to smile against your lips.

“I’m holding you to it, angel.”

[luviestarz]

mark lee fic recs!

⪩⪨ Operation: First Kiss - @ncityrave (Mark turns to his friends for help to build up the courage for his relationship's first kiss.)

⪩⪨ Sunday Kind of Love : Frat Mark - @smileysuh (Mark is fine with having a crush on the girl in the library. He’s fine watching her from afar. And he’s fine with never speaking a word to the girl who he spends many nights chasing in his dreams. But fate, and a few nosey frat brothers, think Mark would be much better if he was forced to talk to the cute girl from the library that he can’t seem to get out of his head.)

⪩⪨ tis the damn season - mark smau - @najaemism (in which your ex-boyfriend comes back to your hometown—and he wants to talk to you.)

⪩⪨ Delphinium - @ncteez (It wasn’t intentional. You don’t even know why you cared that he didn’t believe in pre-marital sex, but it didn’t stop you from arguing with him about it. You didn’t intend to win the argument either. Then again, he kind of let you.)

⪩⪨ 9:10 PM - @neochan (possessive! mark)

⪩⪨ WITH YOU | MK.L - @sehunniepotwrites (There are many things Mark Lee wants to do with you. He wants to walk you home. He wants to dive into the deep blue sea with you. He wants to go on a drive with you at his side. But mostly, this crazy, head over heels in love boy just wants to make it with you.)

⪩⪨ spidey boy ; 이민형 - @martiniblues (mark has tried to hide his secret identity from you for as long as possible, to keep you safe, of course. little does he know that you’ve untangled his web of lies long ago and will do anything in your power to get him to admit it. just when you've had enough of him lying to you, he ends up getting caught in the act trying to save your life.)

⪩⪨ eyes on me. (m.l) - @mrkis (mark wants you to keep your eyes on him as he pleases you.)

⪩⪨ GOLDEN HOUR. | L.MK - @onyourhyuck (You’re a waiter and Mark Lee the local biker and infamous bad boy loves the eggs your diner makes, but now he wants a taste of you.)

⪩⪨ madly in love - mark lee - @p0ckykiss (mark had always been the hopeless romantic type)

⪩⪨ it’s too bad you’re married to me | m.l - @yojeongin (all mark ever does is use weaponized incompetence to get out of small tasks you ask of him. when he finally realizes you resort to his close friends to do what he can’t— nothing can prepare him for what’s in your pandora box; now karma is set in motion.)

⪩⪨ Pretty Boy. (m.l) - @ncteez (Mark’s favorite thing to do is sit alone at the library and enjoy the knowledge that his university offers. In contrast, your favorite thing to do is go to parties and enjoy as much chaos as possible. However, upon realizing your grades have dropped drastically due to this lifestyle, you have no choice but to approach Mark for help. or the one where your new favorite thing to do is seduce the most inexperienced man you’ve ever met and watch how desperate he gets for you.)

⪩⪨ gelato | lmk - @hazyhae (a high slip up cost you mark lee years ago, and you’ve spent years burying your memories of him ever since. the universe has other plans for you when your old friend starts a new career, smoking his way back into your life.)

⪩⪨ ꒰ 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ꒱ 이민형 - @loserlvrss (one thing about your boyfriend, mark, is that he would always take care of you — even if you were annoyingly drunk — and he was embarrassingly in love)

[gyeomsweetgyeom]

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Self-On Kode with Mark ⋆⭒˚.⋆

idol!Mark x f!idol!reader

summary: you and you boyfriend Mark are paired up for an interview, but do you even know you're texting each other? No.

(cw: f!reader, idol!reader)

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Mark got comfortable in the plush, pink chair of the Kode set with a shy smile, "Ah hello, I'm Mark from NCT." He pushes his earbuds into his ears and begins playing his music, "today I'll be known as Cheetah. Um, I couldn't really think of anything else and the fans already call me a cheetah so it was easy to think of."

On the opposite side of the wall, you settle into your own chair while smiling at the camera while introducing yourself, "I was so confused when I was asked to pick a wild cat as my screen name. It was such an oddly specific category, and even weirder when you told me cheetah was already taken. Anyway, I chose Tiger because they're the next prettiest."

Your music begins to play through your earbuds as your phone vibrates from the first message from your partner. "Yo?" you read in confusion, staring at your screen with pure confusion, "is that it? This is a man isn't it? Girls don't talk like this."

On the other side of the wall Mark laughs softly, covering his mouth as he reads the message. "This person is so happy. I've never seen anyone write hi with this many i's."

You and Mark text back and forth for a while, sharing your hobbies and sending memes back and forth until the both of your are giggling madly on your respective sides of the set. Of course, after nearly 2 years together you'd know how to make each other laugh, even without knowing you're texting each other. Your partner still doesn't give you any identifying traits or hints as to who they are. Well, besides clearly being a man based on how he texts.

Following the instruction of the staff, you send a screenshot of your home screen. You pout, feeling slightly bad for your partner. Just two days ago you'd gotten a new phone and hadn't yet had the time to make it yours. It was stuck with the boring default background and a handful of apps you considered to be essential. You explain as much with the text accompanying the screenshot.

And Mark's screenshot? Well, it might as well be just as boring as yours. He has the blur set on the photo so all you see is an indistinct mess of colors. Two distinct blobs which could be the shape of two people or two flowers or two guitars or two cats.

"Wow," you say as you typed out the word, "we are two very boring people. You really don't want me to know who you are."

Mark laughs out brightly while he reads your text, "me? You haven't even changed your own yet!"

"I told you I just got a new phone and haven't had time yet!" You laugh to yourself while typing out your message.

Your joking back and forth gets the two of you off track while you playfully poke fun at each other back and forth until the staff ask you both who you think you're texting. Mark looks at the camera while he tries to think, "I have no clue. It's a girl, surely but it could be anyone. Do you pick random people off the street to do these videos?"

On the other side of the wall, you blush softly, covering your face while your face cools down, "is it weird if I say it's my boyfriend? He just seems so much like Mark."

It's one of the few times you've ever referred to Mark as your boyfriend for any sort media. You and Mark had technically been a public couple for about a year now, since your respective companies had come out with their statements to reveal your relationship. How you'd been able to conceal a year of your relationship was beyond the both of you. Well, a lot of dark, oversized clothes and hats and masks to conceal your faces.

After the company statements, you and Mark seemed to be even better at hiding. You barely glanced at each other at award shows, and if you did, it was only friendly, nothing that could be interpreted as anything else. There were very few glimpses into your relationship beyond birthday and anniversary posts with obscured faces and sharing each other's most recent comebacks on your stories. Privacy was something you both valued and of course you were more than ok with doing any type of promotion with Mark, it just never worked out that way. Until now (not that you knew). Plus, it wasn't like this interview would give anyone any important details of your relationship anyway.

When the staff prompt you both to share a screenshot of your most recently listened to songs, you stare at your screen with a look of blank surprise, "this is just a mix of Drake and Justin Bieber. It's Mark, it has to be."

You zoom in on the picture, mumbling about how you see more music that is so distinctly Mark while on the other side Mark looks at the screenshot you send excitedly. "She's a fan! Of me! Wow, she's listened to Child and Golden Hour and 200! Ok, I have to chill out a bit," he tells himself even as he types out his message telling you that you have good music taste.

You snort at his message just as the staff laugh at the exchange at the same time. The head producer instructs you both to find your baby pictures to send to the other.

You look up from your phone, looking at the camera and the staff, "surely, you'd think a couple who have been together for this long have seen pictures of each other when they were kids, right?" The staff nods in response before you speak again, "well, we haven't! I've only seen what has been posted online. Same for him!"

Mark sends you a picture of him as a baby where he's a few months old and you coo immediately. You zoom in as close as you can drawing your phone closer to you face as you star adoringly at the baby on your screen. "He's the cutest little thing I've ever seen! I've never seen a cuter baby in my life! Oh, I just want to squeeze his cheeks and cuddle him," you gush over the adorable picture of the chubby baby boy with an adoring look on your face.

Mark looks at his phone, the camera, the staff, his phone again, the camera again with a look of pure and utter confusion as he looks at what he can only assume is a child covered in frosting. "You can barely tell this is a human, how is this supposed to help me figure out who I've been texting?" Mark asks, zooming in on the picture while the staff bursts out in laughter. When he finds out who he's talking to...

So when he staff ask for a final guess as to who you've been texting you say Mark's name confidently while Mark ultimately utters out, "Maybe someone from a girl group... maybe it's Yeri."

When the staff ask you both to stand and get ready to face each other to reveal yourselves. Instead of walking toward Mark, you find yourself behind the set so you're behind Mark.

Mark walks forward slowly, waiting to see when he'll spot his interview partner, but when he sees an empty spot, he faces the camera and the staff with a quizzical smile, "was I talking to a ghost?"

They laugh softly and murmur amongst themselves while you finally reach forward and tap his shoulder softly. Mark jumps, completely scared by the touch. He turns to you with his eyes wide with surprise, "you?!"

"Yes, me!"

After you're both seated at the high top table and calmed down from the surprise meeting with on another, you're both ready to talk to each other in front of the camera once again. You smile softly at your boyfriend, "I knew it was you."

Mark scoffs, "how?"

"Yo," you repeat the word from his first message with a poor imitation of his voice, "all the Drake, all the Bieber-- oh my gosh, Mark! Your baby picture!"

Mark laughs, taking your hand in his out of view of the camera, "speaking of baby pictures, what did you send me?"

Your brows furrow softly at his question, "I sent you a picture of me as a baby."

"There's no way that was you. You look like a little cake monster."

"It was from my first birthday..." you pout at Mark.

"Don't get pouty with me, you were completely covered, how could I have known? I can pout too! My face used to be your homescreen and now it's the plain default screen," Mark tells you with a playful pointed look.

"Mark," you deadpan, "you were with me when I got my new phone."

"Oh yeah..." Mark blushes with embarrassment.

"Anyway, who did you think I was?"

Mark squeezes your hand nervously beneath the table, his thumb rubbing at your knuckles a little anxiously, "I had no clue, to be honest. I knew you were a girl but I didn't know it was you."

When the staff ask Mark how he didn't know but you did, all he can do is blush and laugh out a nervous response. You turn to him with a playful accusatory look of your own, "yeah, how come you didn't know?"

"I don't really pay attention to how you text, just what we text about..."

You and the staff coo as you pinch his cheeks and cup his face lovingly, "you're so cute, but you were cuter as a baby."

"My mom says the same thing," Mark rolls his eyes.

Your conversation winds down and you both pose for the selfie at the end. You both pull silly faces, cheeks pressed together and eyes scrunched shut with your tongues sticking out.

Despite the stupid picture you both took, the screen fades to black with a completely different picture of you and Mark laughing while looking at each other with hearts in your eyes and bright smiles on your faces.

[ihatefrvits]

practice makes perfect

bestfriend jisung x reader

genre: smut 18+, fluff (if you squint)

wc: 6.05k

synopsis: you have a crush on jaehyun whos a year above you in college, but you’re so inexperienced it makes you think that he will never look at you. so who will help you if not your best friend?

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

you didn’t want to ask jisung for help. in fact, you were avoiding it, trying to find other ways, because it was insane and he was your best friend since childhood.

and asking your best friend to help you learn how to kiss so you didn’t screw it up with your silly little crush? yeah, that was the craziest thing you ever were about to do.

“hey, sung,” you start, trying to sound casual but failing as your voice cracks mid sentence.

jisung glances up briefly, raising an eyebrow. “what’s up?”

you hesitate, chewing on your hoodie string as your palms grow sweaty. why is this so hard? you can’t even ask him a simple question?

“uh, so…” you trail off, your voice dropping as you struggle to get the words out. “hypothetically speaking… if someone wanted to, like… learn how to do something… how would they, uh, go about it?”

jisung stares at you for a moment, blinking in confusion. “you gotta narrow that down for me, y/n. what are we talking about? gaming? cooking? math?”

“oh my god, no,” you groan, burying your face in your hands. this was already so much worse than you imagined.

“relax, relax,” he says, setting his phone down, which made you peek at him through your fingers. “what’s going on?”

you take a deep breath, you kept reminding yourself, if you didn’t just say it, you would never going to get through this.

“i… kind of have a crush on jaehyun.” you admit quickly, the words tumbling out as if you were rushing.

jisungs brows shoot up, and for a split second, something unreadable flickers across his face before his expression turns into something neutral. “uh, okay. and?”

“and… i want him to notice me,” you continue, heat rising to your face. “but i don’t know what i’m doing. i mean, he’s cool, and experienced, and i’m just…” you trail off, gesturing vaguely at yourself.

jisung tilts his head, his lips pressing into a slight frown. “you’re just what?”

“a loser, jisung,” you groan, slumping forward dramatically. “i’ve never even kissed anyone, and what if he finds out and thinks i’m, like, a lost cause?”

jisung opens his mouth, probably to argue against the whole “loser” thing, but you cut him off, too embarrassed.

“so, i was thinking…” you pause, glancing at him nervously. “maybe you could, um, help me.”

“help you?” he repeats, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“yeah. like, practice?” you wave your hands vaguely, trying to look like you haven’t been agonizing over this for days. “y’know… kissing.”

jisung stares at you like you’ve just sprouted a second head.

you don't think you ever were this embarrassed before. you had always hung out in your best friends room, but the reason behind this visit had made you want the ground to swallow you whole.

your voice felt shaky as it cut through the silence of jisungs bedroom. "i just think it'd be better if i... y'know... knew what i was doing. i can't ask jaehyun to... y'know, like—" you swallowed as you tried to not repeat the words again. your face heated up at the thought of finishing the sentence, "to teach me how to kiss if we ever do it."

jisung, sitting on his gaming chair, nervously fiddled with his hoodie string. he moved his head in a way that made his messy black hair flop into his eyes to avoid looking directly at you. "are you, like, actually being serious right now?"

"very serious." you said with a poor attempt of trying to sound confident, but the way your voice was wobbly instantly gave you away, which only made him blink in irritation. "i-i mean, i can't... i don't want to fuck up if he–"

you closed your mouth, hesitating as you clutched one of his pillows tighter to your chest, sitting on the edge of his bed. talking to him was always easy for you, since he understood you in ways no one else could. but sometimes his ability to read you made things worse, as he was making you aware of how much of a loser you actually were.

after he sensed that you weren't completing your sentence, he tilted his head and exhaled hard. "so, if i understand correctly," he rested his chin on the back of his hand. “you want me to help you practice… for some guy? jeong jaehyun specifically?”

you squirmed. his delivery made it sound as stupid as it was. in fact, this made no sense. who asks their best friend for— gosh.

you were already too deep in to start laughing and tell him it was a joke and he was silly for falling for it, and his slightly wide eyes made it seem like he wasn’t totally opposed to this idea (which mattered way more than it should’ve).

“um… yeah,” you croaked. jisung ran a hand through his hair like he was suddenly going to come up with an excuse, but something in his eyes, the awkward confidence, tipped you off. he never really refused your offer.

“i know you never make good decisions, but this is seriously the worst idea you have ever had in your life,” he muttered, though you could tell the amusement in his tone. before you processed his reaction, he leaned forward, clasped his hands, and finished his sentence, “but okay.”

your heart skipped a beat, “okay?” you almost stuttered, “like… okay okay?”

“yeah, okay okay.” he huffed and scratched the back of his neck as though he couldn’t believe what he was saying, “i’ll help, but just practice,” his tone was serious, “if it gets weird, we stop. alright?”

you nodded quickly, “alright.”

“and don’t tell anyone about this.” he said, holding up a finger like you were a toddler.

“obviously,” you answered, which only earned you a smirk from him. a smirk that made your stomach flip. why is he suddenly smirking at you?

there is a beat of silence before jisung slides off his chair, kneeling awkwardly in front of you, where you’re perched on his bed. his height still towers over you a bit, but the soft flush creeping up his neck made you realise you weren’t the only one that was nervous.

“um… you want to start now?” he asked quietly, as if he was shy. you nodded again, your mouth running faster than your brain, “unless you’re scared of me or something.”

“y/n,” he groaned like he wanted to pull his hair out, “why are you making things harder than they should be?”

despite his words, his laugh was gentle, and maybe even fond. you bite your lip as he carefully shifts closer until your knees bump against him.

“you’re sure about this, right?” he whispers, and when you nod, he leans forward slowly, like he’s scared to startle you.

his plump lips brush yours gently at first, as if he’s giving you time to back out. his hand awkwardly lingers in the air near your shoulder, before settling there. you can barely think straight, you would’ve never thought that jisung, nerdy and awkward, would’ve been this careful and soft. you clutch onto him and his breath hitches which only makes your face burn ever more.

“just practice,” he whispers as his lips meet yours in hesitation. as you deepen the kiss, it doesn’t really feel like practicing.

he pulls back and rests his forehead on yours. you could feel his warm breath against your lips. he quickly opens his eyes, nervously trying to read you, as if he was trying to figure out if you regret it, or if he should stop.

you don’t say a word, you’re too shocked from the fact that you’re enjoying this, considering that heat was pooling in your lower stomach.

“y/n,” he whispers so quietly that it almost got swallowed by the tense air in the room. it took all your courage to swallow and look back up at him, “was that okay?” you whisper, and you feel your cheeks get red because of how nervous you sounded.

his lips twitched, which you realised was an effort to give you a reassuring smile, “yeah” he says, then he lets out a small laugh, glancing to the side to avoid eye contact, “it was more than okay.”

you blink in surprise, and then open your mouth to say something, but you can’t form words, “really?” you finally blurt something out.

you noticed his ears turn red as he retreated. “i mean, not that i do this often, i just— um… you’re—“ his voice disappears into thin air as he slides his hand up to scratch his head in embarrassment.

you would’ve chuckled and called him cute if it didn’t plant a fucked up idea in your head, the type of idea that you’re half shy to say out loud.

but once again, your mouth works faster than your brain, “should we keep going?” you blurt it out, and before you process what you said, jisung freezes.

his mouth opens and closes, but there’s no words coming out of him. “it’s not fair if i practice once,” your voice is trembling, “i mean, i have to— i should get used to, like, more….i need— i’m gonna mess up with jaehyun if i—“

“okay, stop.” jisung cuts you off suddenly, his hands coming up as he was surrendering, “i get it.”

your stomach drops at the look on his face until he settles back on his knees, leaning forward again. “we will go slow, and if you feel too overwhelmed,” his voice is so low and serious that it makes your throat tighten. “we will stop immediately, no questions.”

you nod nervously. his thumb brushes across your jaw, leaning in closer until his lips meet yours again. his lips part slightly, guiding yours open, which sends a shiver down your spine. you gasp quietly, and the sound might have gotten a reaction out of him, because he slides his hand up your hoodie, not that you don’t enjoy it.

jisungs tongue flickers against your lip in such hesitant and sweet manner that it made you instinctively arch closer and let your knees drift apart slightly. you didn’t think that this tiny shift would change anything.

the hand bracing your cheek falters and before you know it, both of you sink onto his bed, almost deliberately. as the soft mattress hugs your back, he positions himself above you, his eyes darkened.

his lips hover over yours again, “still okay?” he asks, his voice painted in roughness.

“y-yeah,” you whisper, your heart racing so loud that you’re pretty sure he hears it too.

when he kisses you again for the third time, it must be something about the pressure, the position you two are in, or the way he worries so much about you, that unlocks something in you that you never knew existed.

you feel his hand slide down, his fingers trembling as they graze the hem of your hoodie. his hesitation makes your brain almost shut down, and maybe that’s why you let your hand find his wrist and grab it, guiding him beneath the fabric of your clothes.

“y/n,” he groans softly against your lips, his voice being desperate, a sound that you had never expected to hear from… him.

his breath grows unsteady as his fingers slide higher, slightly trembling as they run over the bare skin beneath your hoodie. as this is unfamiliar to you, you wonder if you should say something, maybe a joke to ease the tension, but the moment feels so.. raw. you never felt this close w him before. so you don’t.

instead, you shift your hips slightly, just enough to send a signal to him. the movement makes jisungs face scrunch, as if he was struggling to keep himself together. his forehead dips against your shoulder as his breath brushes ovee your collarbone.

“y/n…” he says in a tone that sends a shiver down your spine. your hand searches for his wrist again, and when you find him, you guide it lower, past your waistband. you feel him freeze, his fingers stiffen up against the elastic, which makes you think that he’s going to pull away.

the bubble of disappointment forming in your mind was popped when you felt him exhale. his touch inches lower, “i don’t…” his voice is barely audible, “i don’t want to mess this up.” you look away, hiding your face from him, “you won’t. just… please?”

that must be enough for him because his fingers immediately slip beneath your underwear, sliding hesitantly across the slick and sensitive skin. the first touch makes you gasp, clutching his hoodie.

“is this okay?” he asks as his fingers explore you in slow and cautious movements.

“yeah,” you answer, your hips slightly jerking at the sensation, “jisung, it’s— yeah.”

his lips graze the side of your neck as his hand continues. his thumb circles around your most sensitive spot, which draws a soft whimper from you. for a second, you feel him freeze, as if he’s stunned by the sound, but he quickly gets back to doing what he was doing.

he shifts slightly, his free hand bracing beside your head as he adjusts his weight. you notice that he somehow got more confident, as his fingers gets braver, now slipping inside you carefully. the stretch is new to you, but it’s comfortable, and it makes your breath hitch.

jisung immediately slows, “is it too much?” he asks, his voice low, but you can feel his hand twitch where it rests against your waist.

you shake your head, pulling him close by the collar of his hoodie. “no, it’s… it feels—“ your words dissolve into a moan as his fingers curl into you, brushing against a spot that makes your whole body tense.

“oh,” jisung breathes, his movements pausing for a second before he adjusts his angle, pressing into that spot again with tentative strokes. “is that— does that feel good?”

“yeah,” you gasp, nodding helplessly. you’re clinging to him as you feel your mind turn foggy, not being able to form a thought, the only thing you can process is the way his fingers feel inside of you.

now that he figured out what you like, his lips brush against yours slowly again as his fingers pick up a rhythm. your legs tremble as the pressure builds. you don’t even notice the desperate noises spilling from your lips until jisung mutters, “baby, you’re so—“

he’s not able to finish his sentence, because your hips arched against his hand instead, he swallows the rest of the sentence in a kiss.

his fingers press deeper, curling just right, and it makes you overwhelmed by the pleasure. the way his face is so close to you, his lips brushing yours, giving you small kisses, it’s almost too romantic.

though, you can tell he’s still hesitating, but the heat pooling low in your stomach makes you want to beg for more. each movement makes you tremble beneath him, clutching on his hoodie like it helps you regain composure, but it still felt like everything else was blurring.

“tell me if i’m… if it’s too much,” he says, his voice soft. his free hand shifts to your waist, his thumb brushing against your cold skin.

“it’s not,” you manage to answer, your mind still foggy. you watch as his brows furrow and his lips part, unsure of what he said.

he shifts his angle slightly, trying something new again, and it feels so good that you bite your lip to stifle a whimper (unsuccessfully). it’s almost like he’s surprised at the way you react, but it doesn’t make him stop. he picks up a faster pace, which draws sounds that you never knew you were capable of making. you can barely think, or even form any thoughts. all you know is how jisung feels, how patient, careful, and focused he is.

he’s watching you attentively, like your every reaction is fascinating, like he wants to memorise what makes you squirm and shake beneath him. “does this feel good?” he stammered.

you nod desperately, gripping his clothes tighter, your body curling as that tight and burning pressure inside you slowly starts building up. “it does,” you gasp, unable to stop the way your hips shift, almost matching his rhythm. “jisung, it— i—“ your eyes roll back in pleasure as you moan his name out.

you don’t realise how close you are until you feel the heat overtaking you completely, the sharp pull in your stomach snapping. you tremble under him, the rush of release washing over you in waves. the way you cry out makes jisung freeze before he slows down, guiding you through it, he somehow knows exactly what to do.

when you finally come down, he stops, and he pulls back just enough to look at you, his face is flushed, his pupils blown wide, but there’s something behind his expression, it’s so soft that it makes your chest ache. you don’t even want to imagine how you look like right now.

you blink up at him, still catching your breath, somehow still managing to smile. “that…” your words trail off, and your face burns hotter than before.

jisung looks down at you his fingers still lightly resting against your skin, “did i do okay?” he asks timidly, as though he’s genuinely unsure, despite the way your body feels like it’s still floating.

you let out a small laugh, nodding as you reach up to cup his cheek. your voice is quieter than you expect when you reply, "yeah, jisung. you did... really okay."

the blush that overtakes his face is so red that it makes you laugh again. he collapses onto the bed next to you with a groan, flopping onto his back. his arm is draped lightly over your stomach, like he can’t quite bring himself to let go completely.

for a minute, neither of you says anything, the only sound in the room being your breathing and the faint hum of the air conditioner. your cheeks still feel hot, no, your entire body feels hot, but you can’t stop the small, breathless laugh that bubbles out of you. jisung turns his head, “what’s so funny?”

you glance at him, catching the faint pink on his ears and the way his messy hair sticks up at odd angles. he looks so much like his usual dorky self that you almost forget what just happened. almost.

“i just…” you trail off, biting your lip to hide another laugh before finally giving in. “i can’t believe you used to help me with building sandcastles, but this is what we’re doing now.”

jisung stares at you for a beat, his lips twitching like he’s trying not to laugh too, but then he snorts loudly, the sound bursting out of him before he can stop it.

“oh my god, y/n.” he covers his face with one hand, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “why would you say that?”

“because it’s true!” you answer, grinning now, the tension in your chest unraveling as the laughter overtakes you both. “like… think about it. you used to help me build those stupid towers with the little flags, and now you’ve got your fingers, like—”

“stop, stop, stop,” his voice cracks as he rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. “don’t finish that sentence.”

you’re both laughing so hard now that tears prick at the corners of your eyes, and you don’t even care how ridiculous you sound. it’s stupid and awkward and so perfectly the two of you.

jisung finally lifts his head, still grinning like an idiot, and nudges you lightly with his elbow. “okay, but really, sandcastles were way easier. i didn’t have to worry about… ruining anything.” his voice dips at the end, quieter, and you blink at the sudden shift, your laughter fading just a bit.

“you didn’t ruin anything,” you say softly, bumping your shoulder against his. “i mean… i think you were so amazing, actually.”

jisung’s ears turn red again, and he scrambles to sit up, looking everywhere but at you. “don’t say stuff like that,” he mutters, tugging on the strings of his hoodie like they might save him from combusting. “you’re gonna make this weird.”

“weirder than it already is?” you tease, tilting your head with a smirk.

he groans, hiding his face in his hands. “god, i hate you.”

but there’s no edge to his words, and when you sit up too, nudging your knee against his, he glances at you through his fingers with a shy smile.

“i’m serious,” you say quietly. “thank you. for, y’know… helping me.”

jisung drops his hands, his gaze softening. “yeah. of course.” then he grins, all nervous energy again. “but i am never going to be able to look at a sandcastle without losing it now.”

you shove him lightly, laughing again, and he catches your hand before you can pull away, holding onto it. he shifts closer on the bed, his hand still holding yours, his thumb brushing across your knuckles. “so…” his voice is low and nervous, “did the practice, like, actually help?”

you look at him, your cheeks flushing when you realised just how much ‘practice’ you had gone through. “um… yeah” you say nervously while intertwining your fingers with his, “it definitely helped me,”

he smiles a little at your response, but his gaze was flickering on your lips. the way he looks at you makes your heart flutter in ways it shouldn’t.

“…this isn’t practice anymore, is it?” he says quietly as his lips brush yours.

this isn’t about jaehyun anymore. actually, it hasn’t been for a while now. you were fully aware of that, and judging by his words, and actions, he knows it too. “no,” you whisper back, tilting your face up to him, “it’s not.”

the kiss that follows up is different. it’s not hesitant like before, but it perfectly conveys the desperation of you. jisungs hand cups your face as his lips move against yours and he pulls you closer to him. you softly sigh into the kiss and let your hands slide up and tangle in his hair.

his weight shifts, gently easing you down onto the mattress, “baby,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at you with his flushed face, “is this okay? like, are you sure about it?”

“yes,” you reply, though your voice was trembling a bit. “it’s okay.”

as you answer, his lips find yours again, his hands start smoothing over your sides and he settles between your thighs. you arch into him as he shifts his hips against yours, the pressure sending pleasure through your entire body.

jisung hesitates for a moment before reaching down to tug at the hem of his hoodie. his hands fumbled slightly as the fabric caught on his wrists, but you didn’t care. all you could do was watch as his pale skin was revealed inch by inch until he pulled the hoodie over his head and let it drop to the floor beside him.

you don’t realise you’re tugging at your own hoodie until his hands shift closer to you to help you with it. as the hoodie slips off your shoulders, he tosses it to the side. he glances at you like he’s about to say something but isn’t sure if he should.

“stop staring at me like that,” your face was burning, you couldn’t even look at him.

“sorry, it’s just…” he pauses, his hand brushing your waist as his hands were slightly trembling, “you’re so… pretty.”

the vulnerability in his voice makes your heartbeat faster than it already was. you’re not even sure how to respond, so instead you reach for him, sliding your hands over his skin.

you arch up slightly, your lips meeting his again in a kiss, and his hands rest on your waist. your hands slide down his chest before moving to the waistband of his sweatpants. you hesitate for a moment, biting your lips as you look up at him for permission. jisung swallows hard, his blush more prominent as he nods. “i mean, if you’re sure,” he says quickly, his voice almost cracking. “i’m sure,” you reassure him.

tugging down at the fabric of his sweatpants was so messy, both of you were fumbling with nervous hands, a quiet giggle breaking through the tension when the elastic got stuck on his knee. “this is nothing like it seems in movies,” jisung says with your laugh following up soon after.

“you’re fine,” you answered, pushing him onto his back so you could help slide the fabric off completely. his boxers remain, for now.

your clothes follow soon after, first your jeans, which jisung awkwardly helped you get out of, and then, with his encouragement, your panties.

there’s a moment of silence as you lay back beneath him. he hovers above you, his lips slightly parted as his eyes undress you once again.

“you’re so… beautiful, y/n,” he says while his gaze stays fixed on you.

“stop,” you mumble, looking away, you don’t want him to see how red your cheeks are.

“i mean it,” he insists, leaning down to press a gentle kiss on your collarbone. he hooks his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers, glancing down at you as if he’s making sure you’re ready.

when you nod, his hands move carefully as he slides the last barrier away. your heart skips a beat when you realise what is about to happen.

he hovers over you again, his hand slipping down to your waist as he shifts closer, positioning himself. “if i, um… if something feels wrong, just tell me,” he whispers, his face not leaving yours, “i don’t want to hurt you.”

you nod, your heart softening at his caring tone, “i will, ji, don’t worry.”

he smiles, leaning down to kiss you again, it’s so slow and sweet, there’s so much affection in it. after letting nervous giggles out, he finally presses in you. he pauses immediately, his face scanning yours as his brows furrow.

“does it hurt?” he asks, his voice containing worry.

it does, a little, but it’s not unbearable, you shake your head quickly, forcing a small smile, “it’s fine, just… go slow?”

he exhales, nodding as he leans in again to press a kiss to your temple, “yeah, slow, okay,” the way he’s so patient and gentle almost breaks you. his hands find yours and laces your fingers together as he moves slowly, giving you time to adjust. every time you tense, or your breath changes, he stops immediately, waiting for your breath to settle before continuing.

"you're doing so good," he whispers, his lips brushing against your ear. "just tell me what you need, okay?"

it's overwhelming in the best way. the soft way he speaks to you, the warmth of his hand squeezing yours when he feels you clench around him, the way his kisses linger against your neck like he's trying to reassure you without words.

"jisung," you say, your voice shaky yet enough to cut through his concentration.

he glances down at you quickly, "what? am i hurting you?”

"no," you say quickly, tightening your grip on his hand. “you’re just… so attractive.”

his face flushes immediately, and he lets out a soft, nervous laugh, his head dropping to rest against your shoulder. "oh my god, don't say that, i’ll mess it all up if you keep saying stuff like that."

"you're not gonna mess anything up," you reply, your free hand sliding into his hair. "you're perfect."

his movements falter for just a moment before he lifts his head, his eyes locking with yours. for a second, he just stares at you, his expression unknown. then, he leans down and kisses you again, but harder this time.

everything about the moment feels impossibly close, his warmth, his voice murmuring your name, the way he doesn't let go of your hand even for a second.

your bodies move together, you're still holding jisungs hand, your fingers gripping his. "you're doing so good," he murmurs again, his voice uneven as he dips his head, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth.

the sincerity in his tone makes your chest feel too tight, and you're sure he can feel the way your heartbeat thuds erratically under his touch.

"jisung," you breathe, his name slipping past your lips.

he looks at you, his eyes wide, "i'm here," he whispers, his free hand brushing softly against your waist. "i've got you."

every shift, every deepening stroke sends another wave of heat through you, drawing you closer and closer to a breaking point you didn't realise you were this close to.

his movements grow shakier, his breaths coming in sharp, unsteady bursts against your neck. you can tell he's right there too, holding on just as tightly as you are.

"i can't—“ your voice cuts off into a soft gasp as your body tenses beneath him, your grip on his hand tightening. “jisung, i—“

"it's okay," he says quickly, his words coming out quiet as his own body trembles. "i've got you. just... let go, baby. i'm right here."

his voice is all it takes for you to finish. your whole body tenses, the heat unfurling in an overwhelming wave that leaves you breathless, trembling beneath him. the sounds that escape your lips are ones you've never heard before, they’re so soft and broken.

jisungs movements become less controlled as the tension in his body builds. the little sounds he's making, soft gasps and quiet groans are etched into your memory already, the closeness of it all making your chest tighten.

his lips are on your neck, brushing against your skin in a way that feels comforting, as though he's using you to keep himself grounded. his free hand slides up to cradle the back of your head, his touch delicate.

"y/n," he whispers, his voice shaking as he presses deeper, his breath hot against your ear. "i’m— god, i can't— where—“

you understand immediately, the frantic edge in his voice mirroring the way your own body still feels like it's vibrating from release.

"it's okay," you whimper, your hands clutching at his shoulders, "you can—“ you pause, your words catching in your throat before you nod softly, pulling him even closer. "inside, jisung. it's okay."

his whole body shudders at your words, and he lets out a soft, broken moan as his rhythm stutters. his grip on your hip tightens slightly, his fingers trembling as his forehead drops to your shoulder.

"are you— are you sure?" he asks, his voice is tight, strained with the effort it's taking him to hold on just a moment longer.

"i'm sure," you whisper, your breath catching as his hips press flush against yours. "it's okay. i want you to."

it must be his breaking point. with one last deep thrust, jisung lets go completely, his body collapsing against yours as he spills inside you. the sounds he makes are low and muffled against your shoulder, his breathing uneven and shallow as his fingers curl into your waist like he's clinging to you for dear life.

you can feel the heat of him inside you, and the realization sends another wave of warmth through your body, leaving you breathless.

for a moment, neither of you move. he’s still holding you, still pressing kisses to your shoulder, and your hand reaches up to run your hand through his messy hair. jisung hasn’t moved much, still pressed close against you as both of you work to catch your breath. his hand rests gently on your waist, his thumb tracing slow circles against your skin.

“you good?” he asks softly, tilting his head to glance at you. his cheeks are still flushed, a faint pink lingering on the tips of his ears, and his hair is a mess, but his expression is serious.

“yeah,” you reply, your voice a little hoarse. you manage a small smile, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “are you good?”

he huffs out a laugh, his lips curling into a grin. “i mean… i think so? unless i, like, accidentally broke you or something.”

you snort, swatting his shoulder lightly. “you didn’t break me, dumbass.”

“just making sure,” he says, grinning a little wider now.

he sits up then, careful not to disturb you too much as he grabs a spare hoodie from his chair and offers it to you without a word. you tug it on, your cheeks heating at how impossibly jisung it smells. he pulls on his own clothes clumsily, his movements shaky, but he recovers quickly, turning back to you as he rubs a hand through his hair.

“do you, uh, need anything?” he asks, looking slightly nervous as his gaze flickers around the room, like he’s wondering if he’s supposed to have some plan.

“water might be nice?” you suggest, smiling faintly.

“got it,” he says quickly, almost tripping over his own feet as he heads to the kitchen. you bite your lip, fighting back a giggle at how adorably confused he still looks.

when he returns with a water bottle in hand, you sit up and take it from him, mumbling a quiet “thanks” as you sip. he flops down beside you again, a sigh leaving his lips as he rests his head against the headboard.

the silence is nice, comforting even, but it doesn’t last long before jisung shifts, glancing at you with a mischievous spark in his eyes.

“so,” he starts, drawing out the word in that dramatic way he always does when he’s trying to annoy you. “you think jaehyun could’ve done it better?”

you nearly choke on your water, whacking him in the chest as he laughs. “shut up!”

“i’m just saying!” he protests, holding up his hands in surrender. “if this was, like, a whole competition, i think i deserve at least a nine out of ten. maybe a ten, if you’re feeling generous.”

“oh my god.” you roll your eyes, but you’re laughing too now, clutching at your sides as his dramatic pout melts into his usual grin. “you’re so full of yourself.”

“i’m practical,” jisung corrects, poking your cheek lightly.

“and annoying,” you shoot back, though the love in your voice is impossible to hide.

you both get lost in giggles again, the ease of your friendship slipping back into place.

it isn’t until the laughter fades that the unspoken feelings creep back in, settling between you. jisung clears his throat softly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“so, uh… are we still…” he hesitates, his voice faltering slightly. “you know. best friends? after, uh… this?” your heart tightens at the vulnerability in his voice, and you reach over, squeezing his hand.

“yeah,” you say, smiling at him even as your cheeks heat up again. “we’re still best friends.”

jisung visibly relaxes at your words, his lips quirking into a relieved smile.

“okay,” he says softly, then after a second, “but, uh… does this mean we’re, like, best friends who, y’know…” he gestures vaguely, his ears turning bright red. “do this stuff now?”

you blink at him, then burst out laughing, the sound spilling out before you can stop it. jisung groans, hiding his face in the pillow again.

“stop laughing! i’m being serious!”

“you’re not real,” you manage between breaths, leaning over to press a light, teasing kiss to his temple. “but yeah… i think we’ll figure it out.”

jisung laughs again, the sound is so warm, so yours.

“i love you, y/n,” he says softly, his voice quiet.

your breath catches, and for a second, all you can do is stare at him, your heart feeling like it’s about to burst.

“i love you too, you’re everything to me.” you whisper back, pressing a kiss to his lips.

in this moment, nothing else matters but him, jisung, your best friend, or should i say your boyfriend, and how stupid you were for not realising how in love you were with him.

and the way he looks at you now? you know your feelings are reciprocated.

[taexoxosgf]

LEE JENO FIC REC LIST

s, smut | f, fluff | a, angst

everyone in heat after tds3. everyone is me. > lots are from my old recs so it’s extra long!

recommendation masterlist

rich purity [ virgin!jeno x fem!reader ] [ fwb, university au ] s,f,a

fight club [ fighter!jeno x fem!reader, strangers to lovers ] s,f

in your eyes, part two [ player!jeno x fem!reader, college au ] s,f,a

summer love [ brothers bestfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] [ 90's summer au ] f

the antics [ model!jeno x fem!reader ] s,f,a

pride & prejudice. [ pride and prejudice!jeno x afab!reader ] s,f,a

netflix and chill [ jeno x fem!reader ] [ college au, strangers to lovers ] s,f

two photos, two kisses [ one night stand to lovers au ] s,f,a

impaled [ boyfriend!jeno x fem!reader x roommate!haechan ] [frat/soccer au] s

reel [ friend group camping trip au ] s,f

i suddenly realize my archnemisis is hot (during a battle to the death). [ son of ares!jeno x daughter of nike!reader ] f,a

summer hair = forever young [ strangers to lovers, summer fling au ] s,f,a

my first and last [ campus heartbreaker!jeno x fem!reader, friends to lovers au ] s,f,a

premium boy-toy [ stripper!jeno x fem!reader ] s

the walls are thin [ roommate!jeno x fem!reader x roommate!jaemin } s

promiscuous [ established relationship, jeno x ex-stripper!reader ] s

hush, hush. [ jeno, haechaen, jaemin x fem!reader ] s

wicked games [ enemies to lovers au ] s,f,a

sugar daddy galore! [ sugardaddy jeno & jaemin x fem!reader ] s

wanna know what it's like [ alt!jeno x fem!reader ] [ fwb au ] s,f

someone with secrets [ jeno x fem!reader ] [ classroom au ] s

open the gates, let me in [ bestfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] ft. haechan and jaemin f

shameless [ step-son x step-mom reader ] s

step on a crack, dr. lee’s gonna break your back! [ chiropractor!jeno x fem!reader ] s

the perks of having a hot best friend [ bestfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] f,a

only for me [ bestfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] s,f,a

scream [ halloween party au, frat party au ] s

fuck around and find out [ bestfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] s

bet! [ bestfriends to lovers au, college au ] f,a

sizing it up [ boyfriend jeno x reader ] s

summer heat and summer swim [ established relationship, pool day au ] s,f

brother's bestfriend!lee jeno x reader [ brother's best friend!jeno ] s

the boy next door [ neighbor!jeno x fem!reader ] s,f,a

be careful what you wish for [ boyfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] s

get smart [ boyfriend!jeno x fem!reader ] s

take my breath [ alpha!jeno x fem omega!reader ] s

[viasdreams]

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

drunk texts from jeno !!

a/n: jeno, babe, i NEED you to take more photos…i rip my hair out every time i make a theme for you 😞

fake text m.list ☁︎⋅

[nerdlvr]

not so little is it?

(MDNI)

younger jaemin x older reader , small age gap , jaemin is brothers best friend , ur brother is mark lee , big dick jaem , jaem is bigger than reader , size kink if you squint , kinda public sex (ur both in the kitchen & living room and mark is in his room) , harsh blowjob , cowgirl yeehaw , couch missionary , jaemin is cocky and mean , pet names like a lot , light mocking , degradation kinda , jaemin refers to himself and y/n in third person sometimes idk , jaemin knows how to use his dick damn... , requested here !

it  had been the fifth time that night that you had called jaemin baby. and not baby in a i wanna fuck you type of way, baby in a little boy type of way. If only you could go into his brain and see all the things jaemin would do to shut you up. maybe he’d stuff your mouth with his big, hard-

“babyy, are you listening? The popcorns ready!”

jaemin felt his eye twitch, a small fake smile directed at your pretty face. he shook his head softly, turning his head back to focus on the movie.

“dude you need to stop calling him that, we’re not even that much younger than you.”

jaemin could not agree more with your brother.

he was never one to hold grudges, it was childish, unlike him. but for some reason you had been more annoying than usual tonight, the high pitched ‘baby’ and the sweet toned ‘minnie’ only itching him in all the wrong places.

he turned to the clock in mark’s room, 2:00 AM, well shit. had he really laid here for 3 hours straight thinking about your annoying mouth? his eyes drifted down to his now tented boxers, well double shit. maybe thinking about your mouth right next to your sleeping brother wasn’t the best idea. he needed a walk.

.

the cool air from the fridge numbed his senses, his nipples perking up at the soft breeze.

ice cream, butter, cheese, ew. did mark have anything without milk? wait isn’t mark lactose intoler- “his fridge looks like something out of a horror film right?”jaemin felt the hair on his body rise as he jumped, the fridge shutting loudly behind him, a hand coming up to his chest, “jesus you scared me.”

you giggled as you poked his bare chest, "sorry didn't mean to scare you baby. was just coming out for a snack."

baby, did you like to test his patience? he pushed your hand away as he let out a loud huff, "don't call me that."

your soft giggle continued to ring in his ears, your hands now moving to pinch the fabric of his boxers, "call you what, bunny boy?"

his eyes drifted down to his boxers, small bunnies adorning the fabric. he grabbed your wandering hand, smirking as you let out a pained whine. "does your mouth do anything good besides spout nonsense?"

you ripped your hand away from his tightening grasp, your free hand coming up to massage the sensitive skin,"what's your problem jaemin? i'm being nice to you and you're acting like a brat!"

your eyes widened slightlyy as a scoff left his mouth, lips quirking up into a smirk, "nice? you're treating me like a fucking child y/n. i stopped being little years ago. maybe you've been too busy bitching to even notice!"

your heads turned quickly as you heard shuffling from mark's room, his sleepy groans muffled by the thick walls.

"whatever tough guy, i'm leaving, your attitude ruined my appetite."

his arms were quick to stop you, trapping you against the kitchen counter, "where do you think you're going? where's my apology?"

it was your turn to scoff, eyes rolling at his questions. "apology? grow up na jaemin, you're not getting an apology if i did nothing wrong." you pushed at his chest, muscles firm against your hands. when did he get so strong? you mumbled out a low move embarrassed by your lack of strength against him.

he chuckled, breath fanning against your face, "give it one more go baby, maybe this time you might get it."

you bit your lip, head turning to look anywhere besides his bare chest, "this isn't funny, move or i'll-"

"you'll do what y/n?" he licked his lips, smirking down at you.

damn you na jaemin, damn you and those strong muscles, damn you and those plump lips, damn you and this new attitude that is so so hot. you gulped loudly, looking away as you tried to sneakily squeeze your thighs together, heat building between you legs.

"something wrong?"he leaned in closer to you, lips just one breath away. you turned your head further away from him, edge of the counter pressing deep into your back.

"you think being immature is cute jaemin? get off of me!"

he pressed his forehead against the side of your head, breath fanning against your ear. "no-"

he lifted his leg slightly, using his his knee to gently press against your core. you bit your lip to stifle a moan, head lowering just enough to watch his knuckles turn white against the counter. "but you clearly do. been squeezing these pretty thighs together since i started raising my voice at you."

you kept quiet, eyes squeezing shut as his knee pressed further against your heat, "who's the baby now hm?" you ignored him, brain zoning into to light pressure being applied to your clit, only a light hum being your response.

"answer me when i'm talking to you." your eyes fluttered open as he gripped your chin, moving your face so you'd look at him, "m-me jaem."

he tilted his head, smirk growing wider, "what was that?"

you swallowed your pride. there's no way you're gonna miss this opportunity. "i-i'm the baby jaem." he could help but chuckle, leaning in to plant a wet kiss on your cheek, "good girl, you learn quick. now lets put that bratty little mouth to good use."

you sunk onto your knees like your body was possessed, hands coming up to tug at his boxers. his cock sprung free, slapping his toned stomach. he was big, tip flushed and leaking.

his hand was quicker than yours, grabbing onto the base of his length to slap it against your cheek."not so little huh? call me baby again little brat."

"b-bab-" he chuckled as your words came out gargled, his cock being shoved into your mouth to silence you, "you look better with your mouth full." your eyes squeezed shut as you focused on your breathing, jaw relaxing slightly.

he was heavy on your tongue, smooth skin rubbing against the sides of your mouth. you hollowed your cheeks, sucking him in further. "shit angel, mouth so good, keep doing that."

you bobbed your head against him, spit threatening to spill past your lips. the sight above you was heavenly, pink hair held up with his hands as his mouth hung open. he let out soft pants as he tried his best not to thrust into your mouth. "let me- fuck- let me do it."

his hands moved into your hair to hold your head steady, hips starting to pick up a rhythm. you batted your lashes up at him, soft moans spilling from your mouth as he pressed deeper into your mouth, "look so pretty like this- just wanna-"

you gagged loudly as he pushed the rest of his length into your mouth, tip hitting the back of your throat. he held you there, your nose pressed against his pubic hair as you swallowed around him.

his groans went straight to your core, thighs squeezing impossibly tighter. he pulled you off in one swift motion, laughing as you gasped for air, eyes watery and lips swollen.

"look at you-" he slapped your face lightly, "acting so grown and can't even take my cock- get up and turn around."

but you remained on your knees, whimpering as you wiped at your mouth. you hadn't noticed you were crying until jaemin leaned down, warms hands rubbing your cheeks, "awe you crybaby, minnie's cock got you all worked up hm?"

you pushed his hands away struggling to get up, legs sore from the kitchen tiles. his arms wrapped around your waist pulling you against his chest, "still so stubborn, baby just needs some good dick fucked into her so she'll learn hm?"

he laughed at your weak yelp, his arms lifting you up as he walked towards to living room, "now you're gonna show me how much you need this dick."

he sat on the couch, placing you right on his lap, face to face with you. "go on put it in." your cute pouts did nothing to him as he moved his arms to rest them on the back of the couch, head nodding to urge you to continue.

you whined softly as you hovered your hips over him, hand coming down to push your panties and sleep shorts aside. your cheeks burned as you both looked towards your heat, wetness dripping onto his length. he threw his head back as he let out a soft groan, "fuck baby, what would mark think about me having his big sis dripping all over me hm? like the idea of getting fucked by me that much?"

you nodded quickly shame evaporating from your body as you began to rub his tip along your soaking cunt. he hissed under you, his hands gripping the couch cushions, "don't tease baby, wanna feel you."

you sunk down slightly, hollowly fucking yourself on his tip. your bottom lip was trapped between you teeth, body leaned back as you gripped onto jaemin's thighs. he couldn't help but groan at the sight of you, body covered up by your pjs but your pussy on full display.

he moved his hand to your tummy, fingers slipping under your shirt to pull the fabric over your tits, "fuck, you little minx, look at you dripping on my cock- shit, keep going."

you whined loudly, soft pants leaving your desperate lips as you sunk down on him, the stretch hot against your walls."c-can't jaem, too-"

his hand gripped you breast, rolling your sensitive nipples against his fingers. he pouted up at you, a slight tilt to his head, "can't what baby, hm? minnie's dick to big for my little princess?"

you huffed in embarrassment, cheeks burning red as you threw your head back to hide.

"that's okay angel-" his hands traveled down to your hips, a light chuckle leaving his lips as he lifted his hips to meet yours. the loud slap of your hips vibrated against the living room walls, a soft cry leaving your lips as you leaned forward, stuffing your face into jaemin's neck.

"it's okay-" his hips began to move, your slick making it easy for him to slide against your walls, "you can take it baby see? you're so good for me- fuck"

you whined against his neck, walls tightening around his length as he slapped his hips up. "jaem, jaem, please, oh my- feels so good baby, so deep."

he laughed at your small squeak as he suddenly picked you up, placing you in the corner of the couch, your back pressed against the soft cushion,

"i'm gonna need you to be quiet now okay princess? don't want mark to know how good i'm fucking his big sis hm?"

you nodded quickly, mouth hanging open as he slid back into you without warning, a small moan leaving his lips. "fuck jaem i can't- just please, want it so bad jaem, plea-" your hand flew to your mouth to muffle your loud moans, his hips moving to repeatedly slam into you, his length angled in just the right position.

"fuckkk yes bunny, look at you. pretty pussy sucking me in so good." his pace was relentless, one of your hands having to muffle your moans and the other gripping his arm for stability. you sunk into the couch, cushions bouncing under you from each thrust.

he leaned down close to you, body radiating heat against your chest, "want you to cum baby, i'm so close, so clo- fuck yeah baby just like that, so fucking tight shit."

you squeezed around him your stomach tightening as his words filled your ears. all you could think about was jaemin. his strong arms surrounding you, his warm body enveloping you, his soft moans urging you to cream on him and- oh. he hand flew down to your core, finger pressing gently on your clit, "come on angel, cum for me, wanna feel it, need it baby, please."

you squeezed your eyes shut, teeth clamping around your hand as you arched your hips up. the tight feeling in your stomach radiating throughout you, body shaking as you let go.

he stilled inside you, head pressed into your neck to muffle his own moans as he came inside you, whimpers of your name leaving his lips as he panted against you, "fuck, fuck, fuck, so good, so good for me bunny, you did so good."

he kissed around your neck, lips trailing up onto your lips. the kiss was sweet, soft touch of his lips making your body tingle. his grip was warm against you as he held your trembling body.

"shhh, it's okay, you're okay-" he kissed your cheeks, hands rubbing your sides, "minnie's here baby, i got you, everythings-"

you sunk deeper into the couch as you heard the fridge door slam shut, watching as jaemin's eyes landed on the kitchen entrance, "jaem?" mark's sleepy voice broke the silence, "what are you doing out here?"

jaemin stuttered slightly, pink cheeks still evident against the dim lighting,"i- i was just-" you heard mark take a loud sip of something, clearing his throat after, "if this is about my sister- she's, she's just annoying, all that baby stuff is just her being annoying. you know- sometimes i even kinda feel like she might like you or something."

jaemin bit his lip, only a loud mhm being his response as his now soft length slid out of you, "yeah so, don't let it get to you jaem, get to bed alright?"

jaemin nodded, saying a quick goodnight as mark left his sight. he looked down towards you, a scared look on your face, "so you're into younger guys, huh bunny?"

your giggles filled the small space as you rolled your eyes, hand gently slapping his chest. he leaned down to plant a soft kiss on your lips, a wide grin on his face, "don't worry, i like bratty older women too."

[lqfiles]

PAY THE PRICE — smau

after getting evicted out of your old place, you're left with no other choice but to look for a cheaper alternative. which is how you end up becoming neighbours with lee haechan, who has a passion for music and disturbing whatever peace and quiet there is.

or in which you found yourself a very nice apartment, the only issue? your neighbour is your friend's somewhat ex-situationship who won't stop playing his guitar at 2 am in the night.

neighbour!haechan x fem!reader

genre ; enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, probably slow burn, humour, neighbours au.

extras ; haechan is kinda an asshole | boy next door + likes everyone but you trope-ish | profanity and death jokes because they’re silly! | probably romantic tension | some mark x reader here and there | renjun and jaemin having their own e2bffs moment | probably inaccurate depiction of how someone would get evicted pls don’t shoot me 😅

notes ; i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan <333 idk i got nothing better to do now so i’ll just start this because i know i won’t be posting any of the other long fic wips any time soon 😭

PLAYLIST ; She , Tyler The Creator — For The Night , Chloe Bailey — IDK WHAT TO TELL YOU , Bktherula — Surprise , Chloe Bailey — I Wanna Be down , Brandy — Suite Life , FLO — Is It A Crime? , No Guidnce — Round&Round , NCT U .

STATUS ; completed! (18.02.25)

profiles (1) profiles (2)

intro

1 ) jaehyun’s trophy wife

2 ) free cookies (not really)

3 ) midnight disturbance

4 ) attempted murder?

5 ) THIS IS FAMILY

6 ) haechan’s second identity

7 ) kiss buddies and useless complaints

8 ) critically acclaimed idgaf veteran

9 ) founders keepers..?

10 ) yangyang’s new interest (y/n)

11 ) a late welcome party

12 ) invest in a cage jaemin

13 ) cat fight (REAL)

14 ) the cure to a lack of sleep = cup pong

15 ) who said quiet guys can’t be freaky?

16 ) you got a girlfriend?

17 ) i DO have a girlfriend

18 ) this is life, i love life..

19 ) nah. they fucking.

20 ) let’s play apex?

21 ) whole house mad

22 ) drunken regrets

23 ) he’s got to be fucking with me..

24 ) a sincere apology letter (kinda)

25 ) are we cool or not?

26 ) we’re good (for real)

27 ) a personal guitar lesson

28 ) LIVE TWEETING YNHAE MOMENTS

29 ) a moment of vulnerability

30 ) friendly q&a between friends

31 ) that’s strange.. that’s weird..

32 ) solution to job loss = family guy (???)

33 ) what has jaehyun done for society?

34 ) ynhae bonding activity hours

35 ) an unwanted double date with yangyang

36 ) an overwhelming realisation

37 ) the universe can kill itself

38 ) a “what are we” conversation

39 ) i got that hair too, kinda

40 ) reviewing haechan’s tweet and new issues

41 ) diagnosed with the crush disease

42 ) putting your satisfaction first

43 ) some girl talk with mark.. this diva..

44 ) girls day gone WRONG

45 ) homies before hoemies

46 ) #BringBackGenderNorms2024

47 ) no one but us

48 ) the words of the DEVIL

49 ) remove the fake from life

50 ) y/n and jaemin would’ve loved this

51 ) you’re a queen and he’s just.. there

52 ) we are sooooo fixing this

53 ) spiritual connection attempts

54 ) satanic mind manipulation

55 ) cucklord

56 ) when you kinda gaf

57 ) when you been thuggin it out for so long

58 ) a second try

59 ) be careful who you call OOMF

60 ) the paid price

BONUS:

TBA . . .

TAGLIST is closed

[catboyieejeno]

NEED MORE BF MARKKK

bf! mark would be so, so easy to love effortlessly.

Just imagine the way he’d show up on your first date—a little nervous but doing his best to hide it with that signature easygoing smile. He’d bring a hoodie or jacket for you “just in case it gets cold,” with that mix of boyish charm and thoughtfulness that makes your heart race. Might overdo it with the cologne ngl... but it's unbelievably endearing.

"Jeno. Smell this."

Jeno snorts, pushing it back. “Dude, I’m not smelling your sweatshirt.”

“Come on, man. Just smell it.” Mark insists, wiggling the fabric at him.

With a sigh, Jeno brings it to his nose and takes a cautious sniff—then immediately recoils, gagging and waving his hand in front of his face.

“Bro, did you dunk this in cologne?” He gasps, holding it at arm’s length. “She’s gonna need a gas mask just to survive.”

Mark frowns, glancing at the sweatshirt. “I thought it needed a couple sprays…”

As things get more serious, he’d make a habit of sending you little surprises that show he’s thinking of you. You’d find a random playlist from him waiting in your messages one day, labeled “For you” with the one giggling emoji, filled with tracks he thinks you’d love. He’d stay up late making it, mulling over how you’ll react to each song.

He’d invite you to hang out with his friends one weekend, blending you seamlessly into his life. When you’re there, you’d see his quiet, protective side come out—he’d stay close to you, keeping an arm around the back of your chair or brushing a hand over your shoulder to make sure you’re comfortable. He might not even realize he’s doing it, but everyone would notice the way he softens around you, the way he’s always got a careful eye on you, ensuring you're having a good time. If you so much as shiver, he’d immediately offer his jacket with a shy, “Here, just take it, okay?”

And if he sees that you’re having a rough day, he wouldn’t ask too many questions or push you to talk; he’d just show up with your favorite drink or snack, a hoodie, and some silly videos he’s saved just to see you laugh. When you’re ready to open up, he’d listen so intently, holding your hand, never interrupting.

When he’d kiss you, it would start out gentle, with him leaning in a little slowly, his eyes flicking to yours to make sure to watch how dazed you become when he gets so close. His lips would be soft, barely brushing against yours at first, before he’d press in a little deeper, savoring the feeling. He’d hold your face in his hands or let his thumb trace along your jaw, taking his time. He might laugh softly into the kiss, his hands slipping to your waist to pull you closer or just hold your hips, rubbing slow circles on your skin or squeezing if you make any kind of sound. God, hearing you hum or moan during a kiss would absolutely drive him insane.

"Just like that," he'd mumble, "I love the pretty sounds you make for me."

"You like it when I kiss you there?" and if you didn't answer, he'd let his hips hover, not giving you what you want.

"How about this?" A kiss on your shoulder, "Hmm?" another on your chest, "Is this okay?"

"Shit, baby, c'mere." if you've been kissing anywhere but his lips for too long, he always finds himself craving them.

His lips would be anywhere, on the corner of your lips, on your cheek, your jaw, your neck... fingers trailing on your waist and squeezing your flesh. I feel like he's on the shyer side when the two of you are doing mindless tasks or around friends, but for some reason, when he's so wrapped up in you in these private moments, he'd groan and whimper without restraint. There's a sliver of shyness left, a tell being his flushed skin and the way he'd bite his lips, but otherwise, he's giving you his all.

[jirsungs]

NO IDEA ☆ l.dh

pairing: loser!donghyuck x fem!reader

no idea synopsis: a story where both you and lee donghyuck seem to get what you want. he's the perfect pawn in making your ex-boyfriend jealous and the smarty pants tutor helping you pass your math class. donghyuck has it easy too, he's finally able to seek out and experience the world of dating through you, his long-devoted crush and surprisingly enthusiastic tutoring student. but then again, when meaningless tutoring sessions soon evolve into reciprocated feelings, is it really that easy?

genre: college au, nonidol au, fake dating au, social media au (includes written chapters), classmates to friends to lovers, he's a nerd & she's a popular cheerleader (you see where this is going), he fell first but she fell harder trope, kinda based off to all the boys i've loved before, fluff, crack/humor, angst, one-sided pining that turns into mutual pining

warnings: explicit language, unrealistic college partying, talks about family issues (this does NOT reflect any of the idol's families!), yuqi has an ex gf, some alcohol consumption, kys and sexual humor, bullying, hyuck and his buds are mistreated ☹️, hyunjin is a bad bf!!!, cheesy af, unrequited love, bad insults that sound like they're from the 2000s, HELLA miscommunication

no idea playlist: btr's no idea, taylor swift's you belong with me, the vamps + demi lovato's somebody to you, james arthur's can i be him, ariana grande's daydreamin, fitz & the tantrums' out of my league, shawn mendes' treat you better, bruno mars' just the way you are, lonely god's marlboro nights, the 1975's i'm in love with you, sam smith's like i can, arctic monkeys' wanna be yours

author's note: FIRST HYUCK SMAUU! how we feeling 😏 i needed to get this idea out of my system! plus, i love this type of trope, and haechan just fits the nerdy role 😭 I HAD TO! but happy reading :D <3

comment if you wish to be tagged for the story's updates!

profiles: "ncu freaks" + jeno 🤔 | gal pals & two men

intro. #manifestationiskey 🩷

ep 1. but a FAILING?

ep 2. i guess i'm her tutor

ep 3. WHY IS HE ATTRACTIVE

ep 4. COUGH y/n bag him COUGH

ep 5. i know i can treat youuu bettterr

ep 6. YNHYUCK PLOT IS FINALLY SAILING!

ep 7. bro texts with his 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 𝓪𝓵𝓹𝓱𝓪 mode on 🐺👅

ep 8. bro fumbled HARD 🤦‍♂️

ep 9. LET THE BOY LIVE!! HES IN LOVE!!

ep 10. THE HARD LAUNCH GOES CRAZY

ep 11. lemme guess, fake boyfriend responsibilities? (written)

ep 12. jeno got me up... plotting

ep 13. AMAZING fake boyfriend

ep 14. meeting the ncu freaks? (written)

ep 15.

ep 16.

ep 17.

ep 18.

more to come. . .!

started: 09/06/24 finished:

© JIRSUNGS. ANY TRANSLATIONS/REPOSTS/PUBLISHES OF MY WORKS ON ANY PLATFORM ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED! ALL COMMENTS, REBLOGS, LIKES, & FEEDBACK ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED! THANK YOU SO MUCH! I LOVE YOU, MWA! <3

[handlemehyuck]

boyfriend texts: protective dreamies ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

・❥・ thank you for requesting, anon! gratitude to my pals for helping me assign these 🫶