#SKZ song fic

[astraystayyh]

Myth

Bang Chan x reader. highly recommend listening to Myth by Beach House while reading! <3

Skimming across the edge of being friends and something more with Chan is a dangerous game. Even more so when you're both sharing the same bed.

(@inniejeonginnie cameo because she's innie's gf!)

skz song series masterlist

"The heater won't work," Seungmin announces to the group, and you all stare at each other blankly.

This was Seungmin's family cabinet. It was a tradition for you all to go there on your winter break- Seungmin, Jeongin and their partners, and then you and Chan. There were only three bedrooms along with the living room- that's where Chan was supposed to sleep. But the heater isn't working. He'll surely freeze in there all by himself.

"He can stay in my room, it's okay," you smile slightly, turning around to gauge Chan's reaction. He smiles back, but his hand is curled into a tight fist. He unclenches it once he spots you staring.

"Then that's settled! See you tomorrow!" Jeongin rapidly exclaims, happy at the prospect of not having to sleep next to Chan. He pulls his girlfriend Anya by the hand, biding you all goodnight.

One by one they all go upstairs, until it's only you and Chan left in there. Suddenly, the oxygen is sucked out of the room; and you feel as if you're standing in a field doused with gasoline, where a single flame teeters on the edge of igniting- threatening to set you both aflame.

"You coming?" you ask and he nods wordlessly. You walk ahead first, and Chan places his hand on your lower back. He drops it once you reach the top of the stairs, but the ghost of his touch lingers in there, his fingertips now seared into your spine.

The light is warm in your room, curtsey of the chandelier hanging from the wall. Its yellow glow reflects on Chan's honeyed skin, and you can't seem to take your eyes off of him as he settles on the edge of your bed.

"I'll go change and then you can go to the bathroom too," you say quietly, and he simply nods. He hasn't spoken once since you invited him in. It's driving you insane. Did he not want this? Were you reading all the signs wrong?

You come out of the bathroom; your hair put away in a braid to keep it out of your face. You can feel Chan’s burning gaze on the curve of your exposed neck, before he goes in after you without a word.

You climb into the bed, your back flush against the headboard. You watch silently as Chan comes out his turn. He's wearing a simple black t-shirt and loose shorts. Suddenly, you are hit by the domesticity of it all. You and Chan in your pajamas, sharing the same bed. Is this how it would be if you started dating? Waiting for him to get changed, to come onto the bed with you? Maybe you'd brush your teeth together, maybe he'd be the one braiding your hair.

"Good night," he whispers, his voice hoarse as he turns the light off.

"Good night," you say just as quietly, palpable tension oozing from the both of you.

You both lay down, heads facing the ceiling. The bed is big, big enough for you both to never touch each other throughout the night. And yet, you can feel the warmth radiating from his body, reaching your own in waves. He's so close and yet he feels so far away.

You can't sleep, you know you won't. Not when all you are thinking about is the man next to you. You don't know what changed; if you were in this bed one year ago, you'd both be cracking jokes. There would be no tense silence surrounding you, threatening to suffocate you under its weight.

But that would be a year ago. Things are different now between the two of you. You can't pinpoint when exactly, but suddenly, Chan's eyes on you were scorching, setting your body ablaze. Suddenly, each time your hand brushed against his, you felt butterflies roaming through your stomach, violently as if fighting for a way to come out and meet the man who's making you feel this way.

If you built yourself a myth, you'd know just what to give

Chan was abruptly everywhere. He was there, opening doors for you, and he was there wiping your tears away. He was there kissing your forehead gently and smiling so wildly at your unfunny jokes. Your eyes searched for his in every room, and you always found him looking back, always.

And he was there, when you were both tipsy over some cheap wine, giggling in the middle of an empty playground at midnight. He was there, caressing your cheeks and painting them pink, as if his fingers were paintbrushes and your face a canvas. And he was there, leaning forward and brushing his lips against yours, before moving them away.

What comes after this momentary bliss?

You've never spoken about that day, and here you are now, lying on the same bed, burning up.

"Are you asleep?" he asks after a while, turning around to look at you.

"No," you reply, shifting in your place to face him as well. "Are you cold?" you ask quietly.

"No. Never around you," he confesses breathlessly, making your heart skip a beat.

The consequence of what you do to me

He leans closer to you, his hand shaking as it raises up to rest on top of your cheek. You exhale a rugged breath, heart beating wildly in your chest.

"What are you doing?" you ask, and he shushes you slightly, his thumb trailing across your lower lip in an agonizing manner.

"Tell me this is real, that you feel it too," he pleads, eyes begging looking into yours. He leans even closer to you, until your noses brush against one another.

"Tell me I'm not imagining it, whatever this is. Help me to name it," he says as he places your hand on top of his heart. It's hammering in there too.

Help me to name it

You tentatively raise your free hand, tracing over his pretty features, and he closes his eyes, exhaling softly at your touch.  

"You drive me insane Chan," you whisper, "Why didn't you kiss me that night?"

"I thought you didn't want me to."

You shake your head, "I wanted you to."

Help me to name it

"Really?" he smiles tentatively, and you nod, "Really."

He's cautious as his hand slides down the back of your neck, pulling you closer. Your hand finds his hair, playing with its soft brown locks.

Help me to name it

"You want me?"

"I want you."

"What are we?" he asks, as his lips brush against yours once again.

"We can name it tomorrow."

[mingirn]

heavenly

lee minho x reader

genres: smut, some fluff

warnings: smut, grinding, dry humping, some dirty talk, getting off on the way someone smells, gender neutral reader

notes: titled after the song heavenly by cigarettes after sex

word count: 1,7k

”You smell good,” you say quietly, nose squished against his neck and lips brushing over the collar of his t-shirt as you speak.

”I smell good?” he asks, and you hum. ”Like my perfume? Or just the fact that this shirt is fresh from the wash?”

Minhos voice is humorous, underneath the softness of it he’s poking fun at you.

”Yeah, but also just- you. Your skin, your breath, your hair, your sweat, everything.”

Your hand is under his shirt, resting on his side. His naked skin is so smooth and warm, and with your eyes closed you can recall exactly what it’d feel like to kiss the skin thats underneath your hand. You know exactly what he feels like, every inch of him, you know every little spot on his body from the countless times you’ve kissed all over him. You know what he smells like too, whether he’s just gotten out of the shower and his skin smells like the bodywash he uses, or if he’s just woken up and he smells of sleep. You even love the way he smells when he comes to see you right after practice, when he hasn’t yet washed up and he just smells like himself.

”You’re crazy,” he laughs softly above you, while his fingers stroke over your hair. His voice reverberates through his chest and sounds a little lower when you lay on his chest like this. Everything about this, about him, feels like so much right now. His smell in your nose, his body in your hands, his touch on you, his leg between yours, the very warmth of him so close.

You scoot a little further up, aligning your chest with his so you can burrow into his neck, the tip of your nose brushing against his ear. You give him a quick kiss there, just where his ear meets his jaw and neck, and he shivers from the sudden contact in a place you know he’s sensitive.

Minho must be able to tell that your breath has gotten a little heavier, but he’s kind enough to say nothing of it. You bury your face in his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin. He smells best here, somehow stronger than any other place on his body, here it’s just so richly Minho. Without even thinking you hitch your hand higher, moving from his side up to his chest, letting his shirt bunch around your arm and reveal the skin of his stomach. He smells so good it’s almost makes you dizzy, having all your senses be so full of just him.

”Do you like this?” he asks suddenly. He has dropped the tone he had earlier, no longer teasing you but sounding genuinely curious, or just entirely oblivious. It’s not the first time you’ve commented on his smell, nor the second or the third, and Minho should be more than aware of his effect on you at this point. The fact that he somehow doesn’t know, or perhaps didn’t really realize the depth of it until now has you whining silently into his neck.

”Yeah, I thought you knew,” you mumble sheepishly, pushing closer to Minho as if you’d somehow be able to sink into him to avoid the embarrassment.

”I knew you liked the way I smell. Fuck, I love the way you smell too. I just.. didn’t know you liked it this much,” Minho says.

”Mm, what?”

”This much,” he states, grabbing onto your hips. ”You’re grinding against me.”

Minho is right, but until now you hadn’t noticed the unconscious pull of your hips against his thigh. Suddenly, you become aware of your own body, before you’d been preoccupied taking Minho in, feeling him underneath you and trying to drink in as much of him as you can. Now, you feel pleasant warmth spread through your body, pooling together between your legs where you’re far too effected by all this and somehow you still can’t make yourself stop, even though your boyfriend has drawn attention to it.

”Oh my god,” you whine in embarrassment. Your hips stutter as you try to will yourself to stop, but it just won’t happen, your lips are brushing against the skin of Minhos neck every time you take a breath and he still smells so fucking good, you just can’t bring yourself to stop. Then, you feel his hands wrap around your hips further, fingers digging into the side of your ass, and you realize he’s helping you guide your hips.

”That’s it, there you go,” he says softly. His voice is right by your ear, so close it sends shivers down your spine. ”You should have told me you like it this much.”

”What?” you manage to spit out, trying desperately to stay focused in the moment.

This is something Minho likes to do. He talks to you, asks you questions and makes little statements he fully expects you to answer. He words them like he’s not helping you grind yourself into his thigh, and he’ll do the same when he’s fucking you, not relenting until he’s gotten the reply he wants. It makes you just a little dizzy, how he stays so composed when he’s got you falling apart in his arms and your head always feels so light when you think about how much control he has, not just over you but of himself too.

”If I had known you liked my smell this much I think we could have had some more fun with it,” he says, and you can hear it on his voice that he’s smirking.

”Fuck,” you breathe out. ”What- what fun?”

”Something like this. Or maybe I’d skip showering at the studio, if I knew I’d come home and get you to be like this for me.”

Minho lifts his leg a little, pushing his thigh further between your legs so you have no choice but to ride it. The new angle makes your breath hitch, it feels even better like this and Minho is still controlling your hips, making you yearn for a lot more than just his thigh.

”Really turns me on to know how you get for me, you know that right?” he says. You can tell that he’s hard against the side of your leg, but Minho still grabs your hand and places it over his shorts to make sure you can feel how hard he is. He speaks again, ”Fuck, it makes me so hard, can you feel that? Just for you.”

”Minho, please, please-” you choke out, mouth against his neck. He understands you somehow, reads your mind in that stupid Minho way, and weaves his fingers into the hair at the back of your neck so he can pull you up and then he kisses you.

It’s messy and desperate, even Minho is starting to lose himself and he kisses you as if he’s never kissed before. He’s all tongue and teeth, tasting you and moaning into your mouth when your tongue meets his. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but the hurried kisses make your head feel like it’s spinning and all that’s repeating inside of it is Minho saying just for you, just for you, just for you.

It hasn’t been long, you know that, but you’re already starting to get close. Even though your underwear and his shorts are seperating you from feeling him, there’s something so intense about this and about Minho that it hardly matters, and you know it won’t be long until he’s got you making a mess in your underwear. It has your hips faltering a little, unable to keep up with how good it feels. Luckily Minho still has a hold on you, and when he notices that it’s getting harder for you to keep composed he lets go of your head to keep both hands on your hips.

”Don’t stop,” he murmurs into the kiss. You moan into his mouth, a lot too loud and a lot too desperate. ”Want you to be good and cum for me like this, okay? Can you do that?”

You nod fervently, stuttering out something between a ’yes’ and a sob, and he rewards you with a kiss. You lean your forehead against his, eyes shut tight and hands fumbling to get a hold of anything to get your bearings. You want him as close as possibly and somehow this, his mouth mere millimeters from yours, swallowing your breath, isn’t enough.

”Minho, Minho, please. Please, I’m so close-”

”Baby, you can cum whenever you want. Come on, sweetheart, want you to cum for me,” he speaks softly, his own breath erratic from being so worked up.

He starts thrusting up, meeting your hips so you don’t have to do any work, Minho does it all for you when he can tell you’re about to cum. It’s this that finally does it for you, his hands holding you and his hips meeting yours just like he does when he fucks you like this.

Your breath catches in your throat, too overwhelmed and sensitive and still cumming, and Minho doesn’t stop for a second, just talking you through it with mumbles of ”I’ve got you, you’re so good, there you go, angel”.

Your legs are shaking when you finally come down, vision unblurring and lungs catching air again. Minho is rocking his hips ever so slightly to help you ride it out, and when you return to your senses you can feel the cum that’s soaked through your underwear and probably now stains his shorts.

”Oh my god,” you breathe out, slumping down on him. He laughs quietly, stroking your hair and craning his head to kiss your forehead softly. You continue, ”Thank you, Minho, what the fuck.”

”Thank you,” he says. ”I think I’m gonna have a lot of fun with this.”

”Oh, shut up!” You squeeze his arm a little, a pathetic attempt at being intimidating, but your fingers feel fuzzy and you’re still regaining your strength.

”It’s just because I love you so much, you know,” you say. He hums lowly at this, and yet again you know he’s smiling without having to look at him.

”I love you too,” he says. ”Always.”

[luvknow]

after her | yang jeongin

summary: a lonely yang jeongin, fresh from a break-up, finds what it means to be happy again while living with his best friend in the big city. you fall victim to his signs of affections, struggling to define if he’s emptying what’s leftover from his relationship or if they’re truly meant for you. you’d live through the endless heartache if it meant he would smile again. characters: female reader x yang jeongin & stray kids ensemble. genre: romance, friends-to-lovers, hurt with comfort, happy ending. additional warnings: alcohol consumption, university party, some mature dialogue and situations, song lyrics. wc: 11.2k

Jeongin placed the last of his boxes in the living room of his new place you two shared. While you were away at work, he employed an off-duty Minho and Jisung with promises of pizza and beer as payment.

A low whistle escaped Jisung’s lips as his eyes scanned the condo. “Pretty decent for the price in the middle of the city.”

Jeongin wiped the sweat off his brows. “It helps that _____ is a functioning adult.”

“You’ll get there in a couple of months,” Minho patted his head. “Relax while you can before your job starts. The adult world is not kind.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Jisung shrugged. “Find a hobby. Adopt a pet. Read a book. Don’t worry about anything! What more can a bachelor want?”

“Go to the club, hop on a dating app,” Minho suggested before Jisung hit him.

The first box Jeongin opened was one he wasn’t supposed to. On top, it wasn’t labeled, but on the side in big bold letters was, ‘TRASH. BURN. DONATE. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT OPEN!!!!!’ On the top layer of stuff was a framed picture of him and his ex-girlfriend under the cherry blossom trees, her eyes curled like sparkling moon crescents and him looking at her like she was his whole world. Beneath were various memorabilia from blind box trinkets to old sweaters of his that still smelled like her perfume. As his heart cracked a bit more, he flopped on the couch face-first, groaning muffled by your decorative pillows.

Minho hit Jisung back. “I told you not to bring that one in!”

“He took it from me before I knew what box it was!”

The two were left unloading the Rent-a-Truck alone as their youngest friend tried to not let too many tears ruin the fabric of the couch. They’d give him a pass this time, but the next warranted multiple rounds of drinks. Jeongin’s energy bled from his body and was absorbed into the cushions, gluing his cheek down until a permanent imprint of the weaved fabric formed on his skin. His eyes stared blankly at the door after his personal mover-bros left and until you walked in, home from a long day of work. A total of six hours where he didn’t move, barely breathing, hoping evolution would kick in and he’d be able to live his life photosynthesizing.

You smiled sympathetically at the damage before you; a pile of boxes, untouched take-out, and an unmoving boy with redness around his eyes that stared off into nothingness.

“Hey, bud,” you began awkwardly. “How’re ya doin’?”

You received a lazy groan in response. He turned over to face the back of the couch, unwilling to elaborate further.

Jeongin called you last Sunday at 2:13 AM. Your first feeling was irritated, as he had better be in some deep shit to be waking you up at this hour on a work night. What you got was worse. Way worse. In a fit of tired, breathless, chest-squeezing sobs and snot-filled sniffles, Jeongin confessed that his girlfriend of just over a year had broken up with him. It was a shitty time to do so, as he was in the middle of signing for a lease after she begged him to move to the city to be closer to her. Luckily, the leasing agency was sympathetic and he went forward with canceling the signing.

The conversation that led him here in your home occurred after he was able to breathe through his tears, wondering what he was supposed to do with his new job contract, and it went like this:

“You’re already mentally prepared to move to the city. Why not do it anyway?”

“What’s the point?” he had asked with a voice so tired of crying. “There’s no reason for me to be there anymore.”

“I’m here,” you replied, offended. “You get to hang out with the most important person in your entire life -”

“By default.”

“I’m going to give you a pass on that because you’re hurting, but you called me, remember?” you had scoffed. “The city will be good for you. Better food, better drinks, things to do, people to meet. Things to distract you, y’know?”

“I can’t do this alone.” There was a long pause before the sniffling and sobs filled the silence on the other end. “If I live alone, I might never leave my apartment.”

Without hesitation, you had said, “Come live with me.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Come live here with me! We’ll turn my office into your bedroom, and voila; casa de _____ and Jeongin.”

“I can’t do that to you. You worked so hard for that place to be your haven.”

“You are my haven,” you had emphasized. “Let me be yours, too.”

A short chuckle on his end. “Cornball.”

Progress was far from linear and the hardest point was ascending from zero. Jeongin was in the negatives. Probably because he had opened a box full of outdated signs of love he and Sieun had given each other the past year and two months. Your face wrinkled in disgust at the sight of her glowing face in a heart-shaped frame. And Jeongin had called you the cornball… Maybe you were a certified hater, but you had to get rid of this box of trash now.

When you bent to pick it up, he gripped your wrist and stopped you.

“Don’t,” he muffled into the pillows.

“Keeping this isn’t good for you.”

“Neither will throwing it away.”

“How about we compromise,” you sighed. “Let’s store it in my closet until you’re ready to toss it. Out of sight, out of mind.”

His answer was letting go of you and allowing you to touch the most tender parts of his heart to store away in your dark, cold, lifeless but stylish closet for it to wither away. You didn’t want any parts of her near your room at all, but you kept muttering, ‘This is for Jeongin. This is for him because you love him, for some reason,’ as a reminder.

You’d repeat that reminder maybe ten times a day for the past week for stupid shit like him not washing his dishes, not putting the toilet seat down, drinking all your specialty alcoholic beverages you liked to save for after-work woes, but what pushed you over the edge was the empty stash of your favorite snack.

“Ok, I’m done!” you yelled. After a long day of Teams meetings and smiling at sleazy men twice your age, all you wanted was a little treat! A little snack! But when you opened your pantry, you were left with an empty box. He couldn’t even throw the damn box away!

You opened the door to his room where he sat in his gaming chair, yelling at his bros on Discord. He paid no mind to the noise, since his gaudy headphones blocked everything and likely bruised his eardrums. So when he couldn’t hear you calling his name, you went up to the microphone.

“Sorry, boys, Jeongin has some chores to do!” You heard a muffle of ‘boos’ from Chan and Felix on the other end before unplugging his set-up.

“What the hell, _____! That was a ranked game!” he whined.

“You!” you seethed, grabbing the remnants of your snack bags before chucking the empty box at his face. “You gluttonous squirrel-faced stupid, stupid boy!”

“Ooh, yikes. I know that tone.”

“You couldn’t bother texting me that we were out?!”

“They’re just snacks, we can buy more.”

“We, who!? Who’s paying the mortgage here? Who’s the one with an actual job at the moment?!”

“I start next month, ok?! And you agreed to a prorated rent because of that!”

“Being jobless doesn’t give you the right to live in my home like a slob! There are responsibilities for adulthood! There are chores and rules for living under my roof!”

Jeongin had this stupid face he’d put on to get whatever he wanted. It worked with Sieun, and sadly worked for you, too. He wheeled himself over on his new four hundred dollar chair (“For ergonomics!” he had argued) and pulled you in between his legs. His arms wrapped around the back of your thighs and his chin rested on your stomach. The stupid, adorable, troublemaker face was up-turned brows, pouting lips, and eyes that twinkled from the lighting above.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “It just… feels nice to be taken care of right now.”

Ugh. Maybe you were being too harsh. A week’s worth of annoyance was nothing compared to a week’s worth of trying to glue back pieces of his heart together when they kept falling apart. Or maybe that was the spell he put you under with his dreamy eyes talking. You couldn’t think straight with your constricting office wear on.

You kissed your teeth. Your hand grabbed a chunk of his curly brown mop of hair and pushed him off of you. “You stink. Shower and get ready; you’re buying me new snacks at the grocery store.”

“But I don’t need to go grocery shopping.”

“You have one pack of instant ramen left; yes, you do.”

–

One of your first memories with Jeongin was the day before you both started secondary school. The last day of summer was spent under the stars on a trampoline in his backyard with empty cans of cola scattered out on the grass. Your heads touched while bodies were oriented in the opposite direction, semi-Spiderman style.

You were the first to voice what you feared most. “Do you think things are going to change?”

He shook his head adamantly. “Never.”

“Nothing is ever non-zero.”

“Must you nerdify everything?”

“It’s not on purpose. I can’t help it.”

“Except you could.” Jeongin sighed, whether out of disappointment or enjoying the feeling of the cool night air, you had long forgotten. His black, too-short-for-a-bowl-cut pin-straight hair poked your ears whenever he turned and knocked his head against yours.

“Ow,” you whined. “What?”

He pointed to the sky. “See that?”

“Stars.”

“Do you recognize the constellation, smartass?” Astronomy wasn’t your strong suit. “Scorpio and Lupus.”

You shrugged. “Who do you think would win in a fight: ten scorpions or one wolf?”

“That’s not the point of my question,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But the correct answer is ten scorpions.”

“What’s the point, then? Of anything, really?”

He pointed to the sky again. “Things will change only when the stars do.”

“Apocalypse-style?”

“Exactly. When they do, it’ll be the end of the world.”

You giggled, tilting your head closer to his. “Cornball.”

“What is a cornball, anyways? Like, a chicken nugget made of corn?”

“Genetically-modified corn in the shape of a ball.”

At thirteen, you both thought these conversations made you comedic, thought-provoking geniuses. They were typical teenage nonsensical word-smithing that’d later evolve into witty adult assholery, but they were ones you’d cherish ‘til the end of time.

“Never change, _____ _____.”

“You, too, Yang Jeongin.”

Tonight, the night sky was as clear as the night before secondary school. It’s been a couple of weeks since Jeongin moved in and progress was there, but it was slow. Some days, he’d spend all day in bed under the covers and you’d have to force-feed him sustenance and flip him over to prevent bed sores. Some days he spent the entire day deep cleaning the tile grout with a toothbrush until his knees were purple. The worst nights were like tonight, where you’d come home to an empty bottle of some mystery brown liquor you didn’t remember purchasing and him passed out on the couch.

It was exhausting for this short amount of time. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and outbursts and constantly having to take his phone away from doing something stupid like calling or texting her. This wasn’t the Jeongin you were used to; you wanted the one who sang tunes and trot jingles, the one who burned mac ‘n cheese on accident, the one who’d wave to little kids when you were out together. The unmoving body was just a shell of him, and just as he struggled putting the pieces of himself back together, you struggled holding the ones he was able to find in place.

You lifted his head by his curls and plopped it back on your lap after taking a seat.

“Careful,” he groaned. “There’s precious real estate up here.”

You didn’t speak, distracting yourself by playing with his hair. His eyes were bloodshot and cheeks stained with drool and salty tears. Sniffles filled the silence.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, words a bit slurred. “I don’t like when you’re quiet.”

“Ask yourself that question,” you replied, mouth full of salt.

“You’re mad at me.”

“I care about you.”

“You’re mad because you care,” he nodded, understanding, or at least pretending to. “I care about you, too.”

Caring wasn’t enough. No amount of love and tenderness from you could replace the one Sieun gave him, and that was evident. How were you supposed to hold him together when she was his reason? You could only do so much, and your best was never enough.

He pointed to the ceiling. “Do you think Scorpio and Lupus are out tonight?”

“It’s cloudy.”

“Oh. Is it?” he sighed. “But they’re still there?”

“They’ll always be there.”

“Together?”

“Together. Forever, of course.”

“How do you know that?”

Was he asking with underlying intention or drunken oblivion? “I just do.”

Jeongin snorted. “Boooo.”

“Boo, you!”

“Ugh, stop moving!” His lips pursed as he rolled off of you. “Nope. I need to throw up.”

You followed him as he crawled into the bathroom, hunching over his toilet bowl. You held his hair back for a bit before realizing you could tie it back.

“It’s so long now,” you admired while tying back his front pieces.

“Sieun hated it,” the toilet echoed.

“I liked it. Very ‘bad boy’. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Yeah. She’s stupid, right?”

“So stupid.”

“Yeah! And so bossy!” He paused, gagging into the toilet. “Bossier than you! Can you believe that’s possible?!”

“I’m not bossy, I just know what I like when I like it and how I like it,” you patted his back a little too harshly this time, “nothing bossy about that.”

“And it’s a wonder why you’re single.”

A sharp pang pierced your chest. Your relationship status was a touchy subject. It’s not that you preferred to be single, but your job was mentally demanding and sometimes required long hours past sunset. It wouldn’t be fair to your partner when your life was devoted to your career and climbing the corporate ladder. Dates were few, and not too far in between, but none of the prospects were worth the trouble when half of them expected you to pay the whole bill when they found out your occupation.

You loved love. It was beautiful, it was kind, it meant always feeling whole. Of course you wanted to be in love. Of course you wanted to touch, to kiss, to always be intertwined with someone. Life was young, and there was time, but the shroud of loneliness grew longer and larger as the days passed. Suffice to say, your single status hit a nerve.

You patted his back hard enough for him to gag one last time. “Good luck not puking your guts out.”

“No, wait -” but you had already shut the door.

It was the kind of topic that elicited a long, hot, reflective shower until the water ran cold. Were you one of those working women who were doomed by capitalism to serve as a corporate slave until you could withdraw from your 401k at fifty nine and a half? To live a mediocre life and settle down with a five-rated coworker for the sake of reproduction and contributing to lowering the birthrate? To settle for the mundane and predictable? That wasn’t the _____ you knew. At the peak of your young life, when did owning your first place meant that it was the beginning of the end?

When you walked out of the steam cloud, Jeongin was buried beneath your duvet, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the tired, but still awake city. When he first moved in, he mentioned how jealous he was of your nice bedsheets, and you wondered, in that moment, how many times had he napped in your bed without you knowing. Annoyed, but willing, you crawled in behind him, too tired to argue.

He wiggled back, making sure your bodies touched, though he wanted to keep looking out. “Being single isn’t bad… right?”

Was it bad? No. “I like my alone time.”

“But isn’t it lonely?”

It’s never ending. “Only a little.”

“Even when I’m here?”

Especially now, more than ever. “Just a little.”

“What’s your metric of ‘little’?”

Astronomical. “Like a pinch of salt.”

His breathing slowed, body ready to shut down for the night and hopefully awaken before noon. He wrapped your arms around him, begging for a hug, a bit of human connection, something to satiate the pain of wanting to feel whole with someone again. When you gave in, he melted into your touch. This feeling was familiar, but it wasn’t the same. You would never be her.

Just when you thought he fell asleep, you felt his chest jitter, suppressing a mouthful of sobs.

“I hate this,” he said, voice cracking, hands gripping your blankets while you played the big spoon.

You could only nod into the crevice between his wingspan. “I know.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“Sometimes, there’s a reason; sometimes, there isn’t.”

“Then, what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing,” you confirmed and squeezed him tighter. “People fall out of love all the time.”

“Isn’t that fucking terrifying?” he sobbed. “One day, you’re flying, high on life with someone you thought could make forever feel like a day. Next, they tell you they don’t love you anymore.”

“Love is complicated.”

“But it isn’t! When you know, you know. It just isn’t as complicated as many people make it seem. So, what? She knew she didn’t love me anymore? That’s it?”

Complicated isn’t only when someone who once lit up your life now felt like their own fire within fizzled in the darkness. It wasn’t waking up one morning and deciding that they stopped loving you. Complexity was built with intention and time, overthinking and self-reflection. It’s as complicated as math; despite the many ways you could achieve an answer, there was only one answer. Sieun wasn’t a bad person; in fact, you liked her for the time they dated. You figured despite all her might and the many times she tried, she couldn’t force herself to love him anymore. It’s not like she woke up one morning and thought, ‘I don’t love him anymore.’ It’s never just, ‘that’s it,’ as Jeongin claimed its simplicity.

Complicated is spending every moment of free time with someone who knew the deepest parts of you without letting the romantic feelings slip through the cracks. It was intending to confess and ruin a decade’s worth of bonds, all for it to stay hidden with your many secrets when he admitted to finally asking out the cute girl he met through a mutual friend of Jisung. It was saying, ‘I love you,’ to end a phone call while suppressing the ache in your chest as he’d say it to someone else the same evening.

To Jeongin, it was just that. Love. How could one make it so difficult? But to you, there were layers, and someone had to peel them back before you revealed the true nature of your heart. Because after this, after Jeongin was healed and you were left with no one to hold you together the way you had for him, you’d have grown an infinite number of layers to protect yourself. Your future partner would have a lot of work to do.

“Love is an organism. Organisms are complex. It comes in different forms and has different functions. When I say, ‘I love you,’ you think I mean, ‘I care for you,’ right?”

Jeongin didn’t answer. Verbally, at least. His leveled breathing and rhythmic chest rises told you he was fast asleep in a drunken stupor while you had contemplated your answer.

“Yes,” you sighed, snuggling closer, “you do.”

–

Most psychologists would agree that the stages of grief had an order to them. Jeongin, PhD in grief, would say otherwise. In the span of a single day, he’d go between as many as three of the stages. Lately, it was a cocktail of denial, depression, and anger. Today, there was only anger. The drawers would be shut a little too loudly, he’d chew his food a little too aggressively, and his volume and colorful language on Discord closely resembled a sailor.

“Where’s the damn support?!” he screamed into the mic.

“You said you’d be in Zone A!” you heard Jisung yell through his headset.

Jeongin didn’t bother with a response and hung up the call. After whipping his headset on his bed with the strength of a baseball pitcher, he ran a hand through his tangled mop and swore under his breath.

You leaned on his door frame. “Trouble in paradise?”

“Shut up,” he whined.

“You know what would make you feel better?” You drew a rectangle with your pointer fingers, then wiggled the rest in a wave of flames. Then, boom! Big boom!

“No.”

“Jeongin -”

“You said I could wait until I was ready.”

“I think you need to be ready now.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore about that stupid box in your stupid closet with all the stupid fucking shit in it!”

If there was one act you wouldn’t tolerate from anyone, even with a bond thicker than blood, it was raising their voice. You had barely lifted your hand to point an accusing finger at him the same way his mom would, when he shut his eyes and realized his grave mistake. He knew he fucked up when your eyebrows were raised in that, ‘what did you just say to me?’ manner. He was also regretting how much time you spent with his mom.

“... Maybe we should take the box out,” he muttered.

“Yeah, no shit. Grab the hammers.”

Two adult-sized adult-aged children in hoodies carrying a mysteriously heavy box and a couple of hammers at a public park past sunset was not one would describe as inconspicuous. Jeongin was far from ready to address the box, you realized, when you were forced to carry it all the way and he refused to look at it. Even when you prepared the garbage bag and shuffled through the contents, he avoided any sight of strawberry blond hair and scents of neroli and jasmine. Semi-slicked with sweat, you took the box to the top of the jungle gym and dragged the big baby up to meet it.

“You left the trash bag down there,” he noted.

You nodded. “Grab that picture frame.” The first one was the red one shaped like a heart. You tilted your chin overboard. “Slam it.”

“Like, on the ground?”

“Yup.”

“That’s not very nice... Why can’t we just throw it?”

“Because I can’t be sure you won’t dig through the dumpster and drag filth across my floors.”

“Who do you think I am?!”

“Break it with all your might!”  you demanded, pretending to be angry and Hulk-smashing on the stable platform. “Rah! Into the trash bag, though, please.”

“She gave this to me on our two-month-iversary. She said it was a symbol of her heart,” he reflected, gentle fingers wiping the dust that collected.

“And what did she do to yours?”

“Break it.”

“She stomped on it.”

“Yeah…”

“Crushed it!”

“Yeah…!”

“Stabbed it with a blunt butter knife!”

“Yeah!”

“And did it hurt?!”

“Like a bitch!”

“Rue the day!!”

“Rue the roux!!”

Someone’s hungry. “Yeah, sure!”

With a guttural scream passionate enough to elicit goosebumps, Jeongin chucked the heart frame into the trash bag that splayed on the cement. The plexiglass shattered into big chunks and the frame split in two, shards of wood scattering about. It was a picturesque and artistic display of anger and heartbreak, but you’d never admit how you admired the symbolism to Jeongin’s face.

“That felt good,” he panted.

“Yeah? Do this one,” you said, handing him a mug.

“We painted mugs to give to each other at one of those stores in the mall. She said I didn’t have enough pink things in my life, so pink would be her color for me.”

“Fuck the color pink!”

“I mean, I still like the color -”

“Innie, I’m giving free therapy right now and I need you to work with me,” you hurried him alone by rolling your arms.

“Ok, ok! Jeez. But even you look good in pink -”

“Jeongin!”

“Pink sucks…!” he admitted hesitantly before chucking it into the pile. A satisfying shatter of ceramic echoed into the cloudless night.

“Ooh, heartbreak ASMR,” you sang.

Jeongin pulled a pink lop bunny Sonny Angel, those naked baby blind box toys that will put you in crushing debt one day, from the pile of infinite junk. He twirled it in his hands carelessly. “Don’t you like these, too?”

It was a rarer, sought-out-by-collectors type. You and many others had fingers twitching over the overpriced pay button on the resale apps everyday. “No…” your voice cracked.

“How am I supposed to break this?”

“Pop its head off.”

“What?”

You pointed shakily to its cute, pink ears as it smiled innocently. Your hands pretended to yank apart the head from its body. “Decapitate it.”

Jeongin jumped at the low-effort strength it took, which masked your pained groan. There goes a hundred dollars. Then, he plucked away its appendages. You couldn’t bear to look when he tossed the innocent body parts. May you wish no ill will on any collector to ever witness such a murder.

The rest of the box was junk to a stranger, treasure to Jeongin. Things like concert tickets, an empty wine bottle, dried flowers, cologne, sweaters, and jewelry joined the garbage. The last piece was the final boss; a shadow box summary of everything they’d done in the past year. A collection of restaurant receipts, themed matches, movie tickets, polaroid pictures, and loving post-it notes of cheesy poems and ‘I miss yous’ were stabbed into the felt and protected by a thick cover of glass.

“I can’t,” Jeongin sighed, sharp eyes scanning through the memories. He shook his head. “I just can’t.”

“You know the ‘break for emergencies only’ thingies for the fire extinguishers?” you asked and pointed to the pink box. “This is an emergency.”

“She put so much time into this. Almost everything we’ve ever done is preserved… Just for her to throw it all away two months later.”

When he offered this perspective, perhaps your speech on love not being complicated was more introspective than universally accepted. Two months to know you stopped loving someone was not a long enough time. It took much longer than that to no longer be on the same page, or in the same stage of life, or, for fuck’s sake, fall for an affair partner, right? No matter what the answer was, it made you upset.

You could only offer an affectionate rub on his arm. “Do you want to save this for next time?”

Jeongin took an eternity to answer, as if he read every line of every receipt and every ticket or memorized the way she dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s. Then, he pulled you to him in a side-hug.

“There won’t be a next time.”

The frame of the shadow box split by the seams and only cracked the glass. The felt board was kept intact, of course, save for a few loose polaroids. He wrapped his second arm around you in a full hug, resting his cheek atop your head as your bodies swayed with the wind, needing the comfort of his best friend to protect him in this very vulnerable moment.

“You ok?” you muffled into his chest. He smelled of vetiver.

“No,” he admitted confidently, “I hope I will be one day.”

“You will! You will.”

You two remained on the top of the jungle gym overlooking the twinkling skyline in each other’s arms. His fingers traced little shapes across your shoulder blades, some recognizable like stars and moons, others a choreography of squiggles. Your arms rested holding his lower back. In the quiet night, miraculously not in fear of being arrested, you could have fallen asleep right there.

Tonight, you witnessed no tears or any evidence of them. No pink cheeks, or stuffy nose, or bloodshot eyes. Progress was here for now, and though it was too early to celebrate, you’d both bask in the little victories.

“I’m so proud of you,” you encouraged.

“Really?” he hummed.

“Of course! Always.”

His throat bobbed, swallowing down emotions that threatened to escape. “It still hurts so much.”

“I know,” you agreed empathetically.

“But the destruction helped.”

“See?” you boasted. “Who’s always right?”

“_____’s always right,” he squeezed, “always right and always kind.”

“And always here for you.” No matter how painful it’d be.

The night ended with slow dancing under the stars. Hand-in-hand and the other his shoulder, you led the steps to the beat of his songs.

–

Jeongin found no comfort that was better than your bed. The second you left for work, just as the sun rose and tinted the condo in blood orange, he’d sneak in and crawl under your duvet. When the softness of linen and the weight of the feather down knocked him out hard and for the first time in a month, he was able to fall into a deep sleep and would make this his routine until work started. His body had never felt so refreshed, even before the break-up. It smelled like you; like cherries, cream, and tonka bean. A scent cocktail that was so warm and sexy it was like he was put under a spell.

When you were kids, your room wasn’t dirty, but it was cluttered after falling into the feminine urge to gather all things shiny and trinkety. Now, he noted, adulthood hadn’t knocked that part of your brain out while still developing your frontal lobe. You didn’t have as many rocks lying around anymore, but your decoration consisted of naked baby toys and other colorful vinyl blind boxes, music albums, movie posters, and pictures of your loved ones.

Jeongin had looked through every picture in your room about a thousand times already, but only had now noticed that he was in almost every single one. Some were just with you and your parents, but even many of those had him in it. He liked the ones in your younger years; going through the gross and oily phases of puberty, matching ice cream-stained camp t-shirts, teenage-year birthdays, and his favorite was the one from prom night. You wore the sparkliest, glitter-sheddinng, not-the-most-flattering silhouette of a gown that many other girls matched in different colors. But he was just as ridiculous; too small in his poorly-tailored suit, sleeves folded, loose matching tie, and a crooked boutonniere. You both refused to do the prom pose because, ew, touching. So, you dabbed instead. Double ick.

If there was a picture with Jisung, he was in it. Minho? With Jeongin. Your girlfriends? Jeongin photobombed it somehow. He may have ruined some of the compositions, but he was your Jeongin, how were you supposed to throw them away?

Jeongin’s parents once asked if he would consider marrying his best friend. Knowing them, they were serious. At the premature age of twenty, he had gagged at the idea of marriage. Not to you specifically, but tied down? Early into his prime years of bachelorhood? No, thanks.

Then, he met Sieun, and thought maybe marriage was meant for him after all. Forever with the one person you loved so dearly, what could be bad about that? But forever meant really forever, not just a few years, or a few decades, it meant ‘til death do you part and into the afterlife, if that was even real. Maybe that’s what scared her. The thought of Jeongin being her soulmate crushed her world; the thought of her not being his soulmate crushed his. So, now he was back to square one, and he’d rather rot in your bed than make any progress.

Snuggled deep in between your plushies and pillows, he held above him a picture of you on your birthday. You were sitting next to him in front of your cake and had buttercream smudged on your nose while he was bent backwards in an evil cackle. He replayed the memory in his mind. You weren’t mad, but you wanted revenge, and shortly after had also smeared some under his nose in a stylish mustache.

In bed, he couldn’t help but snicker. In between sessions of handheld video games, he’d shuffle through more pictures until time passed by too quickly and the day was spent.

“Jesus -” you gasped, clutching your chest as you entered your room. “Yeah, sure, come in.”

“Thanks,” he sang half-heartedly.

“Have you been doing this every day?” He responded by shrugging. “He’s in pain, he’s hurting, and you love him…”

“I don’t like this picture of me.” Jeongin held up a recent one at a dinner party Hyunjin hosted for his condo-warming. His face was unprepared for the picture and his eyes were closed and mouth open. “I’m not even looking at the camera.”

“Yeah, but I look good,” you boasted.

He tossed it to the side of the bed in a pile of likeness dubbed, ‘throw these ones away’. “I like this one in front of the art museum, though.”

“I do, too.”

You hopped next to him on top of the covers, shuffling through the different piles he made. It was clear which ones he liked, disliked, and didn’t care for. “You don’t like this picture of me and Changbin on our graduation day?”

“Am I in it?”

“No?”

“Then, no.”

“You like this one, though?”

It was a solo picture of you on the same day. He found it hidden in a box of other pictures that were either blurry or of you alone at special events or academic and career achievements. You wore your gown and held your cap that was decorated with plastic jewels that spelled, ‘So Done with this B.S.’, high above your head with the brightest smile on your face. Around your neck was a necklace that he got you for your graduation gift: a petite padlock on a simple chain from one of those boutique brands all the girls liked.

This was one of the most important days of your life. You were happy, sunny, and beautiful. Of course he liked this one.

“Meh,” he shrugged. “I guess you look all right in that one.”

You spent the night in bed recalling stories and social media posts of times past with oily take-out from the corner restaurant downstairs. The quiet weeknight was livened by your giggles and ugly snorts and Jeongin couldn’t remember the last time you two did something like this. It lasted until it was too late to care to kick him out of your bed and you both fell asleep covered in film and prints.

If forever meant forever with you, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

–

Clubbing was a past time that Jeongin probably shouldn’t partake in due to his borderline alcoholism, but when it was for Jisung and Felix’s wombo-combo birthday bash (their words, if you’d even call them such), no one was safe from the heavy pour of Hennessey or bottom-shelf tequila down one’s throat. The weather was still appropriately warm to show off skin, and both you and your roommate took advantage of that, claiming that it was still hot-girl summer and this would be the best time to show off how perfectly fine everything was.

Jeongin rested his chin on your bare shoulder as you stared into the mirror. He had shown his affection more in a physical form after the destruction of his romantic paraphernalia. You should probably set some boundaries… Next time, maybe.

“You might as well go topless,” he teased, poking at your skin-tight top.

His touch tickled and your body stupidly reacted to it more sensitively than any other man who once touched you. “I’m sure you’d like that.”

He neither confirmed nor denied, only nuzzled his curls deeper into the crook of your neck. He styled it in the half-ponytail way you both came to love and work all black, sparkles of silver and pearls adorning his neck. Just as you had barely-there clothing, as did him, exposing hard-earned results of his efforts in the gym. His daytime clothes of soft linens and cottons dyed in innocent shades of blues and oranges matched his aura more than this edgy alter-ego that came out in the presence of alcohol. Soft Jeongin would be in a deep sleep tonight.

“Pearls?” you scoffed. “You slut.”

“Too much?”

“No, but you’re certainly sending the, ‘I’m single and very much looking,’ signal.”

“Perfect!” he shrugged. “When was the last time you went to a pregame, anyways?”

“When did you turn twenty-one?”

“Ok, grandma.”

You threw your hands up in defense. “I’m sorry I am a working woman.”

Skin touched more skin when his arm hooked your neck and dragged you to the door. The closer the taxi approached the condo, Jeongin’s hands more frequently wiped on his pants.

“Do you think she’ll be there?” he asked, sensing your concern.

“I don’t know,” you lied.

A couple weekends before this, you had personally asked the two celebrants to not invite her to the pregame. If they felt so inclined to invite her to the club for the sake of keeping the peace, at least then Jeongin wouldn’t have to be in close proximity and you could drag him away. Jisung was the one who tried to protest, but after begging and bribing them five rounds of drinks on the night-of, he caved in, though claiming he was going to not invite her anyways. He just wanted to see how far you’d go for your ‘beloved “friend.”’

“I need a drink,” he groaned.

“Look at me.” When he wouldn’t, you had to force him by grabbing his bare shoulders. They were much bigger than you remembered. “Say it with me; I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine.”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine?”

“I need more gumption, babe. Give me some umph!”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine.”

“More!”

“I am smart, I am sexy, and I am fine!”

“Yeah!”

“Smart, sexy, fine!”

“Yeaaahh!”

“Let’s drink!”

After tipping the taxi for suffering through your pregame to the pregame, you and Jeongin did more breathing exercises outside their condo to the tune of the hip-hop music inside. All charged up, he opened the door and you stood in awe just how many friends two boys had post-university. The floors were already sticky with juice and liquor, and there was barely room to get to the crowd of people you actually knew. Luckily, Jeongin was tall, and he grabbed your hand to lead you in. This, for some reason, felt more intimate than slow dancing at the park, and that’s when you knew you were embarrassingly touch-starved.

Jisung squeezed himself in between and slung his arms across the shoulders of his close friends. “Long time no see, sugar mama!”

“Hello to you, too, mooch,” you smirked. “Happy birthday, I guess.”

He landed a big wet one on your cheek. “Thanks, babe!”

“Ugh, ew. Where’s the other child?”

“_____! Jeongie!” the deep voice of an Australian boy slurred. He handed you two plastic neon shot cups of brown liquid and no chaser. “Shot o’ Henny! House rules.”

“You disgusting, gross, icky boys…” you groaned.

“C’mere,” Jeongin urged. He twisted his arm around yours so they’d cross, causing your faces to inch closer. His dimples poked his cheeks. “Bottoms up!”

That was the motto of the pregame. One after the other after the other after losing games in humiliating succession made your vision double and made walking feel like you were on a ship. Chan had to catch you not once, but twice, from tripping or bumping into someone. It was as simple as one hand on your waist and pulling you into his chest, to which you so shamelessly placed your hand on when he hugged you close.

“We keep running into each other,” he grinned, biting his bottom lip.

“Must be fate,” you flirted back.

For the second time, Jeongin had to pry you away from the hottest man in the room. Annoyed, you followed anyway, because tonight you were supposed to distract your best friend from falling into a hole filled with existential crisis, not trying to sleep with someone he considered his brother. Still, you shot Chan a hand sign to your ear. ‘Call me!’ you pouted.

“Why would you cockblock me like that?” you whined.

Jeongin didn’t answer right away. He cleared his throat. “It’s time for the club, silly.”

You two shared a sedan with the birthday boys and Minho. One person above the normal limit, but the driver didn’t care and would rather hurry to do the drop-off.

Jisung patted his lap. “Got your seat, sugar mama.”

“No,” you and Jeongin said in simultaneous deadpan.

“Felix, move up,” Jeongin demanded. He man-spread as much as Jisung and Minho allowed, making a small seat in between his legs.

You’d be the first to admit that sometimes you and Jeongin were a little too close to be considered friends; even strangers had mistaken you for a couple once in a while. But you’ve never been close to him like this before. Your hesitation was long enough that Jisung had to yank you into the car. You did your very best to settle in, moving your ass as little as possible, struggling with how you could make this any less awkward and cover the least amount of surface area.

Jisung wrapped Jeongin’s arm tight around your waist and slapped his triceps. “All buckled in!”

As Jisung and Minho yapped each other’s ears off, you and Jeongin remained silent. If you turned to talk to him, your ass would graze his pants, and that was weird, right? Yeah, weird, and it seemed he had a similar thought. The exception was tapping his fingers on your waist to the beat of the radio. His breath tickled the skin on your neck, and your body betrayed you by heating up your face. Touch-starved was an understatement. No, horny was not the right answer; you’d refute it.

You couldn’t have crawled out of the sedan faster. The other boys rushed in to line up at the bar (“Don’t forget what you owe us!” Jisung whispered (yelled)). Behind you, Jeongin scanned the crowd. You followed suit and couldn’t find a beautiful short girl with strawberry blond hair. Ok, this was a good sign. Maybe she wouldn’t come! He let out a breath of relief; or was it disappointment? Regardless, he joined you on the dance floor and weaved between people, dancing against the oontz-oontz.

In this moment, while your veins were half-filled with alcohol and both of your closest friends closed in with over-filled cups, you watched Jeongin forget his woes and sing to the sad up-beat electronic music. A circle would open up in the middle at the peak of the song; Changbin would break dance; Minho and Jisung would body roll; Felix did the worm; and Jeongin would force you into a connected chain reaction of shoulder and arm waves. In these moments, he smiled. Grinned, even; dimples as deep as they could be and eyes twinkling under the neon lights from the DJ.

When the boys dispersed for another drink after a couple of hours of burning calories, you two were left alone again. In those hours, you couldn’t count how many times you made eye contact. After locking eyes again, feeling the highs of euphoria and the lows of heartbreak, he looked like he was going to say something. Then, he broke it, and his face dropped. You didn’t have to turn to see who it was, but like a moth to a flame, you were attracted to the pain.

She greeted Jisung and Felix at the bar on the opposite side of the club. It was too easy to spot her in the dark with her bright hair. She introduced the boys to someone next to her, touching his arm and leaning against him affectionately, making it as clear as the vodka shot in her hand that’s who she was with and he was hers.

How quickly the human heart beats for a lover, just for it to dance to the same rhythm for another.

Jeongin seemed apathetic. Not angry, not sad, and maybe unable to distinguish between if this was the ache of betrayal or the nostalgia of closing a chapter that begged to end.

Speaking of nostalgia, an old EDM song that premiered in your early years of middle school began, the familiar notes from a piano causing the whole club to scream.

You reached out to your soulmate. “You love this song.”

He smiled, eyes tired and filled with sadness, though without the reflection of a pool of stars. “I do love this song.”

You led him to the front where the DJ played Clarity. Lost in the crowd packed like sardines with strangers, you and Jeongin were free to sing out the shadows that slept in your hearts.

“Hot dive into frozen waves where the past comes back to life,” you sang at a horribly off-tune. “C’mon, I know you know it!”

“If I fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time,” he sang in perfect key.

“Louder! Hold still right before we crash ‘cause we both know how this ends!”

“A clock ticks ‘til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again.”

You forced your heart to sing its song and it retaliated in waves of tragedy. As your lips stretched to retain the smile, you screamed with the crowd, “‘Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need!”

And he joined in, matching your volume, matching your energy. “Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don’t know why!”

In unison, you threw your heads back, crying into the air at the peak of the song. Like shadows, the crowd mimicked each other with hands curled into fists and hearts raised to the sky. “If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy? If our love’s insanity, why are you my clarity?”

“Let’s go!” you cheered.

The beat picked up and the crowd jumped to the chorus. The bass of the song reached your heart and pumped blood through your veins, tired from fighting with rationality. You would take these short five minutes to let go, let your heart confess to the boy in front of you in the form of a 2013 poetic masterpiece. Despite the meaning, the beat was too sick and you couldn’t help but grin from the fun. Jeongin wasn’t one to hide emotions for the sake of saving face, but it was like he forgot why he was screaming as he headbanged his way through the wordless chorus. You both burst into a fit of giggles, blinded by the lasers that cut through the smoke machine.

As the song progressed, the more your bodies pressed together. Side by side, mixing sweat with sweat, you both screamed at the DJ the second verse and would turn to each other again for the iconic bridge. His dimples carved into his perfect skin and this would be a core memory you’d lock away forever despite the molotov cocktail of despair that ignited in your gut.

The line you screamed to your best friend was the one that branded itself into your whole being. It was the one line he refused to sing.

“You are the piece of me I wish I didn’t need!”

He didn’t continue the pattern of bouncing off lines from each other. He stopped jumping, brows furrowed in a way that concerned you more than it concerned him.

“What?” you paused.

Jeongin closed the gap between your bodies. Surrounded by violent waves of people, you blocked them out within the bubble, unable to hear the song anymore. His hands cupped your cheeks. Your mind registered a second too late that he was wiping something with his thumbs. It felt wet and warm, freshly flowing on your numb face.

His hands left your face and found your arms. You watched as he wrapped them around his neck and his dropped to your waist. The strength of his grip was desperate and longing, filling an emptiness that physically you could replace, but lovingly couldn’t replicate. You begged your body to step away, to run out and find Chan or anyone else; to go home even, but tonight your heart controlled your mind and overwrote the command. This was what you wanted, what you needed, what you dreamed of since secondary school. To be in the arms of the one you loved fulfilled the one level on the hierarchy of needs, but was a threat to the one below it. Your body was struggling to respond to its fight-or-flight, understanding that you had long crossed the thin line between friend and lover long ago with a size thirteen shoe, but it had betrayed you and glued your heels to the sticky dance floor.

Why was Clarity the longest fucking song in the world?

The smell of his pink peppercorn and cedar hit your senses and brought you back to life. You felt his forehead against yours, nose touching nose, his breath tickling your lips, and saw his eyes float between them and your now dry eyes.

“Why?” was all you could muster against his lips.

He answered by swallowing your words. You never understood the comparison of the softness of rose petals until you felt his. You kissed him shyly, waiting for him to pull away in a shocking realization of regret and prepared for the aftermath. But when you wouldn’t respond how he wanted, he pressed harder, moving his lips hungrily and mouth open and welcoming to receive. Your tongues danced and tasted the bitterness of tonight’s drinks, old lovers, and repressed confusion. But it felt good; so, so good. To be the one he wanted for once, whether it was real or for convenience, was an opportunity you pathetically couldn’t pass.

And your heart, how it soared! With wings made of wax, you were high above the clouds, tangling yourself with him and exchanging euphoric hums. But your dreams were sculpted by Daedalus and delusion was the sun, and though you wished to remain here forever, your wings began to melt and reality wouldn’t be kind enough to soften the fall.

When you broke for air in the middle of the next song, you felt pressure rise in your nose and eyes as a million tears collected. You knew this wasn’t what he wanted; or rather, you weren’t what he wanted. He wanted the same memory, the same cry of song, the same touch, the same kiss, the same taste of breath; just not yours. He wanted hers. You knew in the deepest corner of your heart that he imagined holding her instead and that her breath was the one he’d breath in. In the ideal scenario, you’d be out by the perimeter watching your best friend win back the woman of his dreams and he’d hold her so tightly, afraid that she would drown in the crowd. You were meant to be his biggest fan, not his greatest love.

“Why?” you cried again.

He shook his head. “I just thought -”

“This isn’t right.” But you wished it was.

Outside, the busy streets in the middle of the night were deafened by the bass and proximity to the DJ. It was a miracle you heard the honk of a nearby taxi that’d take you home.

No, you wouldn’t confess to your best friend in a club downtown. No, you wouldn’t confess any other time regardless of circumstance. This was a secret the recipient of an unrequited love was supposed to bury with them to their grave because it was the deepest sin committed between two best friends. As long as you didn’t confess, the bond wasn’t severed and the damage could be repaired. That’s how it was supposed to work, anyways.

For the night, you’d lock yourself in your room. You’d close off any and all avenues in order to protect and repair the critical condition of your heart. So much of it had been chipped away and given in pieces to fill the gaps that Jeongin was missing, but now he was confusing kindness for love and familiarity with feeling whole. How would you get back the pieces of yourself you so willingly gave up? Would your heart know to create those pieces into something new, or would it reject anything that came in its place that wasn’t from him?

You arrived home and washed away the sins until your skin burned from all the scrubbings. The sky was cloudy tonight as you looked outward into the lively streets of young adults who could party until the sun snuck above the horizon. The stars wouldn’t show themselves tonight.

Would Scorpio and Lupus be there tomorrow?

–

When your door handle wouldn’t give, Jeongin gave up and retreated to his room some time after 3:00 AM. He laid in bed and hated the feeling of his bed sheets. They weren’t as soft and they didn’t envelope him in a blanket of clouds as yours did. Though the ceiling color was the same as yours, in a sense, it still wasn’t the same, as he was in his own room and not where he belonged.

You had burned into his soul. The way your lips felt, the way your tongue swirled, the way your hands pulled him in, was the answer of how much you yearned for him. He was no stranger to signs of affection. No friend would do all of this with their heart in platonic mode. You didn’t look at him the way Felix or Chan or the others did. You, with your softened eyes and gentle touch, had him in your heart, for the Gods only know how long.

Jisung was the one to kick him out of the club and kick what little sense was left in him. “Go after her, you idiot!”

His lips were tingly. The feeling of your hands through his hair, fingers gentle and tracing the map to your heart, was carved into his scalp. His tongue swiped across his lips, lonely and aching to have another taste.

You infected him. You forced poison down his throat that made him unable to sleep, torturing him with a recording of your body pressed on his. He blamed you for how it planted itself and festered into something more salacious; a similar scenario, with tangled limbs and messy hair, but in the privacy of your bedroom and much less clothing.

In the days that followed, you pretended that night never happened, but something changed. Your responses were shorter, your cheeks were pinker, you couldn’t hold eye contact without faltering to his lips, you wore baggier clothes, and couldn’t even spend more than fifteen minutes in the same room without having to leave to ‘get water’ or ‘go to the bathroom’.

Why, for the love of all the Gods, hadn’t you confessed yet? Isn’t that the rational next step?

“Why would she?” Minho snorted while kicking his feet up on your coffee table. Jeongin would wipe that down later.

“Why wouldn’t she?” he repeated.

“You understand you live here, too, right?”

“So…”

“So… isn’t that weird? What are you going to say? ‘Cool, I’m still not over Sieun though, sowwy. Can I still live here, though’?”

“But I am!”

“Yeah, right.”

“I swear. Seeing her with that guy… sure, it sucked ass, but I don’t know. No one ever likes to see their ex with someone else.”

“No one likes taking care of someone they love who loves someone else, either.”

Jeongin pulled the string on his hoodie and hid inside. “I just feel like a confession would get rid of all this tension -”

“Sexual tension.”

“Regular tension.”

“And change the trajectory of your friendship and lives forever, so much so that the stars would misalign and chaos would ensue. Just as the prophecy foretold,” Minho rolled his eyes. “You know what, Jeongin, you’re right - _____ should confess her undying love to her best friend of over a decade who just broke up with the first love of his life after they made out on the dance floor to fucking Clarity, of all the damn EDM songs in the world, and then all would be normal, right? Nothing good has ever come out of tongue dueling to an EDM song.”

“I don’t need your sass…”

“Yes, you do, because you’re acting like an idiot. I don’t care what Jisung says, he’s too much of a loverboy. Think rationally, here; she’s not going to confess to someone who she knows doesn’t feel the same way. It’s that simple.”

Love was an infectious disease and Jeongin didn’t have the proper antibodies to defend himself against your poison. His heart, his mind, and his body were firing alert signals to each other whenever he saw you. His body would block them when you came home in your work-out clothes; his mind couldn’t focus whenever you spoke to him; and his heart wrenched when your smile didn’t match your eyes.

“Earth to Jeongin!” you snapped, waving in front of his face.

“Hm?” he asked, pretending your chest wasn’t in his face. His mind did a double-take when it registered your outfit.

“I said I’m going out for the night. So, you know, don’t light my home on fire.”

“Out where?”

Your back stiffened. “On a date.”

–

When Minho hit you up during your lunch break on a Friday afternoon, you were half expecting him to ask when the meeting was with the developers. The other half was not expecting a proposition.

“I don’t date co-workers,” you deadpanned.

“Not me, genius,” he scoffed. “A friend.”

“I’m not interested in Jisung.”

“How we got promoted at the same time is beyond me. I have other friends!”

“Do they look like Chan?”

“Sadly, no. They don’t look like Jeongin, either.”

Since the clubbing-turned-friendship-destroying wombo-combo, Minho made it his mission to terrorize you about it every working hour, either in person or over Teams with kissing, tongues, and eggplant emojis. Each time, you couldn’t suppress the burning on your face and in your chest. Your showers had to be ice cold for you to not remember how his hands gripped your waist and to forget how warm his tongue was around yours. At work, you often found yourself dazed, looking out at young couples that passed the streets below, daydreaming about kissing Jeongin again every time a couple would kiss at the stop light before crossing the road, or kiss each other goodbye, or just because.

You were sick with the lovebug and there was no remedy available. What made Minho think a date would work?

“No,” you said.

“Come on, _____! Live a little!”

“No!”

“So you’re saving yourself for a man who only kissed you because he felt sorry for you.”

If anyone was going to tell you the hard truth, it would be him. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “You think I can’t get over him.”

“I know you can’t.”

“That’s not fair. I didn’t ask for this.”

“You wanted it.”

“Of course I did, so what?!”

“You need to either move on and forget it happened, or fuck each other and see where it takes you. Which would you rather tell Jeongin?”

Minho was brash, but he was right, in a sense. If you couldn’t feel comfortable in your own home, you’d be drained of all life and cease to exist, living as a hollow body that went to work and came home to sleep. But was moving on or sleeping with your best friend truly the only two options?

Maybe you were an idiot. “Not a date. A drink.”

“Same thing. I’ll set it up tonight.”

“Tonight?!”

“Take it or leave it.”

There was some satisfaction in the way Jeongin’s face twisted when you admitted to a date. Yes, you put on your tightest clothes; yes, you put on your favorite perfume; and yes, you weren’t wearing a bra. All of which Jeongin realized, based on the path his eyes traveled.

“A date,” he muttered. “With whom?”

“I don’t know. Minho set it up for me.”

“Minho?” he sneered, then shook his head. “And you’re going?”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. “Yes.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t go.”

“Jeongin -”

He stood from his seat on the couch. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I can’t -” you stuttered, unable to form the words you wanted to say in order. “I’m going.”

He blocked your path to the door. “I think we should talk.”

“About what?”

“About that night.”

“Now?” you scoffed. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

“This is something I want to do. Please,” you begged, “let me go.”

“I think you don’t want to go.”

“You don’t know what I think.”

“I think I do.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” The familiar sting on your nose returned. “You don’t know anything.”

“I think -” he paused, voice caught in his throat. “I know what I felt from you that night.”

“You know,” you chuckled bitterly. “You know what, exactly?”

“I felt you. I felt ten years of frustration, of anger, of-of desire, of everything that is both good and bad -”

“Jeongin -”

“How can you say that I didn’t feel how your heart beat against mine, how your lips pressed deeper -”

“Stop -”

“No!” he cried out. “I won’t stop! I can't! I-I need to know.”

“Are you asking for something? Are you looking for an answer that you already know?”

“Yes!”

“Why?!”

“Theories can be proven wrong.”

“But why does it matter?”

His voice cracked and he couldn’t manage to look you in your glossy eyes. “We need to lay everything on the table for this to work.”

“What’s not broken doesn’t need to be fixed.”

“But it is broken! Everything’s broken! It’s all a shattered mess of pieces that don’t fit together and we need to repair what’s broken when it’s all laid out in front of us.”

“Why?” you stuttered. “Why tonight? Tonight, of all nights, when I have something that’ll make me forget about that night for just a couple of hours?”

Jeongin couldn’t answer. It could have happened any night. But the game of life threw in a time-sensitive prompt that changed the whole plot. The fact that you wanted to forget, but couldn’t, might be the only confession he’d get.

“I can’t keep revolving my life around you,” you whispered. “I can’t keep loving you the way I do and maintain the friendship you need from me.”

There it was, the confession he was looking for, but not in the way he expected you to admit. He thought you’d do so while looking at the ground, hiding your smile the way you would act shyly, and maybe it’d be a little embarrassing. But as you stood before him, you were standing strong, refusing to break eye contact, with tears streaming down and dripping from your chin. It was in a way that begged for him to see you for how you really felt; like he was ripping your heart from your chest with his bare hands.

Your hands curl into fists in an effort to stop the tears. “If I lay the pieces of my heart on the table, I can’t take them back.”

He stepped closer. “Why not?”

You stepped back. “Because I won’t be able to put myself back together.”

“I’m here. I was made for you; to help keep you together.”

“Not in the way I want. In the way I need.”

“Yes, yes to both!” Jeongin grabbed tissues to dab the tears from your precious face, as if your skin was coated in porcelain. “I want to make this work.”

“This friendship.”

“No.”

“I am not her!” your voice cracked. “I am not her and I can’t fill in for the gap she left behind.”

“I don’t want her. I want you.”

You still couldn’t accept it. It just didn’t make sense. You were made to care for him from afar, not stand by his side. “You don’t mean that. You had ten years. Ten years! It only changed because, what, you're desperate for touch and you're going after the easiest catch? It's pathetic. You're pathetic!”

Your sharp tongue was your greatest weapon, but Jeongin was left unscathed. You were hurting and had a decade's worth of hardened shells that were crumbling in front of him. Yes, this was all too sudden, and it didn't make sense, but he was losing you and he'd rather break you down into a million pieces and deal with the puzzle later if it meant you'd stay.

“_____,” he whispered. He pressed his forehead against yours as if the closeness would allow you to read his mind and hear his heart scream. “I can't stop thinking about you.”

You sucked in a breath. Those words felt like a spell that lit your body in flames. Your mind said to run, but your body and heart had overruled. You tilted your head and your noses touched. “What if this doesn’t work?”

“Theories were tested repeatedly to be deemed true.”

“Tested a lot of times.”

“A billion times.”

“That takes a very long time.”

“I’ll take forever with you,” he breathed on your lips. “If you’ll have me.”

Your iron grip on his sweater would surely leave a mark later, but you were too afraid to let go, too afraid that this moment was a dream and he’d disappear if you faltered. “I was yours for ten years. I’ve been waiting to have you.”

One soft kiss. “I took too long.”

Another, more needy, kiss. “You can make it up to me later.”

And another, one that mimicked the hunger from that night. “Now.”

“Hm, I don’t know… I have a date, remember?”

“Yeah, with me in your bed.”

Your giggles echoed throughout the condo when Jeongin threw you over his shoulder and ran to your room.

And so your heart soared again. Above the ether was the unknown, in the mythical heavens and forbidden territory. But you'd get there together, while your arms tangled with his and noses rubbing affectionately as your breaths combined in between long and slow kisses under your (and his) blankets.

The fine line you once refused to cross bent and folded with your bodies.

–

EPILOGUE

“Yo,” Minho greeted the phone.

“Hey, I don’t think I can make it tonight -”

“She’s sick!” Jeongin interrupted.

“Oh, shit, I forgot about that. Well, thank God!” Minho sighed.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, that was a lie.”

“What the hell/What the actual hell is wrong with you?” you and Jeongin yelled in disbelief.

“Because Jeongin is a possessive simpleton and _____ is a cheap date. Did my master plan work, or not?”

“Well, yes, but -”

“My work here is done, bye!” Minho hung up.

[elllisaaa]

eli's 1k event masterlist

-> my event to thank you for all your support <3

-> fill in this to be added to the taglist of the event !

enjoy !

STRAY KIDS...

❃ as love songs

❃ as olivia rodrigo songs

hyung line | maknae line

❃ as the weeknd songs

ATEEZ...

❃ as love songs

❃ as lana del rey songs

hyung line | maknae line

❃ as chase atlantic songs

ENHYPEN...

❃ as love songs [tbd]

❃ as the neighbourhood songs [tbd]

❃ as isabel la rosa songs [tbd]

SEVENTEEN...

❃ as love songs [tbd]

❃ as billie eilish songs [tbd]

❃ as two feet songs [tbd]

TXT...

❃ as love songs [tbd]

❃ as arctic monkeys songs [tbd]

❃ as i.m - overdrive songs [tbd]

XDINARY HEROES...

❃ as love songs [tbd]

❃ as melanie martinez songs [tbd]

❃ as ariana grande songs [tbd]

-> i don't allow any copies, reposts or translations of my work.

[paixarina]

CASE 143

✧. ┊BAE x GN!Reader

✧. ┊SUMMARY: When BAE falls in love with you.

✧. ┊CONTENT: Fluff.

“Why do I keep getting attracted, I'm drawn to you like a magnet.”

≡;- ꒰ ALLEN SUGASANO ꒱

✦.* — When Allen falls in love, he would feel awkward about it. He himself is already a socially awkward person in the first place and his love are mostly dedicated to hip-hop only. So, when he feels attracted to you, he would unable to speak to show his feeling. He would also feel love-struck too, overwhelmed by his own feeling.

✦.* — Therefore, Allen decided to write an entire letter full of his feeling about how much he loves you, except he worded it with lots of exclamations and some typos that you cannot comprehend it, much of your second hand embarrassment.

✦.* — You decide to meet him face-to-face in the hip-hop record store, the place where Allen usually hangs around there with Kanata. But this time, Allen was alone there, not because Kanata didn't want to go with him, but because Allen purposely went earlier to there, so he can confess to you to become his soulmate. When he tried to confess you, he would do it awkwardly with a blush on his face, much of your confusion.

✦.* — Even his confession is hilariously embarrassing, just like his own letter that he wrote and sent to you, you still accept him wholeheartedly and believe that he could be a great boyfriend to you who will shower you with love and affection.

“You're my one and only hip-hop soulmate of my life. I hope we can talk more about hip-hop. Would you like it?”

≡;- ꒰ YEON HAJUN ꒱

✦.* — It's quite hard to tell how Hajun looks like when he's in love. However, a little blush on his face could tell that he has a feeling to you. Still, he feels indifferent to his feeling since he likes to hide under his mysterious persona, which makes you curious to know about him.

✦.* — When you stare at him, he will stare at you back and smiles at you gently. Still, you're not sure if the smile on his face is a gentle smile or it's just to mask his own feeling. “Hajun, it's fine if you want to talk to me, feel free to talk with me. I would listen to what do you want to say.” Unfortunately, he completely ignores your suggestion as you said that, much of your frustration. You sighed in disappointment and assume that he doesn't like being open to his own feeling to you that much and feared that he actually didn't love you back.

✦.* — Turns out, Hajun tend to suppress his feeling, hence why he doesn't want to make it obvious that he's in love with you. When you asked him hesitantly about his feeling and thought that he wouldn't love you because he keeps ignoring you, he just chuckled. “No, I actually fall in love with you, but I feel indifferent to it, since I didn't receive one from when I was a little.” You feel relieved after hearing that and asked him. “So, you probably just can not express your emotion openly?” He nodded slowly.

✦.* — “That doesn't mean you didn't love me right?” You asked him again nervously. He chuckled, “Of course not, why would I do that to you?” He said that as he slowly approaches you and holds your chin gently while rubbing your lips softly with a smile on his face. Then, he stares at you and slightly goes to whispers to your ears, confessing his feeling, which make your heart can't stop beating nervously. After he did that, you nodded nervously while he shows his signature smile as usual. You feel stunned and unable to speak one word but instead, thinks about what he confess to your ears.

“I know you're just an ordinary person, but you seem special to me and my heart. So, would you like to receive my feeling, love?”

≡;- ꒰ ANNE FAULKNER ꒱

✦.* — Anne will be honest with their feelings when they feel drawn to someone like you. However, they choose to keep their feeling in their heart because they feel not ready to express it. Anne thinks love takes time to receive it and they cannot reveal it way too soon. They want to reveal their feelings if they have a right time to do it.

✦.* — Anne would try to know you more first, such like talking, sharing stuffs, doing something together like shopping while trying to flirt with you a little bit. They will also try bonding with you together, such like doing mix and match clothing and understanding each other's interests.

✦.* — As time passed by, Anne finally tried to confesses you. When they approached you, they will placed their palm against the wall while staring at you dearly. Basically, Anne would give you a kabedon but in a gentle way. “I have something to confess to you.” They asked. You feel stunned, wondering what would Anne want to said to you. You nervously gulped, as they keep staring at you for a long time.

✦.* — “Would you be my love~?” You feel intrigued, while Anne looks at you with a warm smile. You nodded slowly, as they gently grabbed your shoulders and softly kissed you on your cheeks. After that, you caressed one of your own cheeks, with their own lipstick mark on it. You gazed at Anne, who smiled at you and gently wipes away the lipstick mark with their thumb. Then, Anne whispers another question to you.

“So, are we officially become a couple now, sweetheart~?”

[dangerouslyclose]

Kiss Me- I.N

Pairing: I.N x fem!reader

Genre: Song Fic, Fluff

TW: None (let me know if there is something I missed)

Word Count: 1k

Song: Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran

“Do you remember when we first met?” Innie asked while pulling you closer under the covers. The movie playing in the background for your weekly movie night, long forgotten. You hummed in response, Innie pulling you from the edge of sleep. “I was so in awe when I first saw you I thought I was going to pass out. Chan hyung had to hold me up.” 

You giggled, “no way is that true.” 

“I swear!” Innie said, pulling back so he could look down into your eyes. There was a burning sincerity in them. “I saw you from across the room and my jaw literally dropped. I had never seen anyone so stunning in my life!”

“You’ve never looked in a mirror then,” you laughed out. 

Jeongin let out a loud laugh, “okay, that was good. But seriously, I was enchanted the moment I saw you. I knew that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t go over and talk to you. Then I finally looked at who you were with.”

You cringed at the memory, “That was literally the worst date I had ever been on. My friend had set me up on a blind date and I honestly don’t know where she found that creep.”

“I kept looking over at you throughout dinner and even though I had never met you before I watched you progressively get more and more uncomfortable. It was like I had known you my whole life and knew all of your small tells. I could tell by the way you kept twisting the ring on your finger that you were anxious.” Jeongin twisted the ring on your finger. “I could tell by the way you kept tucking the hair behind your ear that you were uncomfortable.” He tucked a stray hair behind your ear. “I could tell by the way you kept awkwardly laughing and then biting your lip that you were uneasy.” He leaned down and placed a quick kiss on your lips. “But when I saw the way your eyes kept shifting to the exit, I knew I had to do something.” He sighed and brought you closer, placing your head onto his chest.

You relaxed into his chest and listened to his steady heartbeat. You smiled, “I was so thankful you came over. I honestly was about to fake a heart attack or something.”

 “Man, I would have loved to see that,” Innie chuckled, causing your head to bounce with his chest. You lightly smacked his chest, causing him to laugh more. “I don’t know where the courage came from. I am usually shy and quiet, but in that moment my body acted before I knew what I was doing.”

You lifted your head to look into his eyes with a grin, doing your best Innie impression, “come with me if you want to live.” Reaching your hand out to him like he did almost six months ago. You both burst out laughing. 

After the laughter died down Jeongin smiled, “I didn’t know what to say. It worked though didn’t it?”

“I think at that moment you could have said anything and I would have gone with you,” you chuckled. “You could have just grabbed my arm and pulled me out of there and I would still have thanked you. Then we went and got ice cream and I was even more thankful for your comfort.”

“Chan hyung was so mad I left without a word. Then I didn’t go back until later and got scolded. But man, it was worth it.” Jeongin smiled down at you.

You laid your head back down onto his chest. “I hated that date, but I am so glad I went. It was fate that you were at the same restaurant that day. Actually I have a confession to make,” you say and bury your face farther into his chest, feeling your ears heat up. “I actually think of that night as our first date.” 

Jeongin brought your face from his chest and up to his lips. He ghosted his lips over yours, “Baby, I do too.” He finally kissed your lips, flipping so you were under him and he hovered over you. He gently bit at your bottom lip, his way of asking to deepen the kiss. You opened your mouth allowing his tongue to slip in. Your tongues and lips moving in sync like they were made to do this. Once the need for air became too much he pulled back and put his forehead on yours. “I love you, Y/N.” Your eyes gently opened to see him already staring into yours. It was the first time either of you had said the L word. Your eyes started to water and Jeongin began to panic, he sat up and brought you along with him. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to say it back. I just want to let you know how I feel. I’m sorry. Is it too soon? It’s too soon. I fucked everything up didn’t I?”

You threw yourself on top of him, pushing you both back down onto the bed, with him under you now straddling his waist. You attacked his face with kisses, “I love you too, Innie.” You said each word between kisses. “I am crying because I am overwhelmed with how much love I have for you. I have never felt this way before and didn’t know how to express it, but now I do,” you smiled.  

His eyes started to water too, “God, I love you so much.” He brought your lips back to his for another soft, sweet kiss. “I loved you from the moment I saw you in that restaurant.”

“I loved you from the moment you came over and took my hand,” you smiled down at him. You saw nothing but love in his eyes and you hoped that yours were expressing all the emotions you wanted. “Never let go of my hand, Innie. Promise?”

He brought your hand up to his lips, kissing your palm “I promise.” 

[stayteezdreams]

ice.cream

Hyunjin struggles with his feelings for you. Is it all in his head? Or are you really only soft when it comes to him?

Pairing: Hwang Hyunjin x Gn!Reader

Requested By: @thunderous-wolf

A/n: This is the first 'song fic' I've done with kpop, and the first one in general in a long time, I'm not very good at them, so apologies if this is trash lol.*I know there are a few interpretations of this song, this is based off of my personal interpretation of the song. And I kind of just wrote what came to me.

Warnings: No real plot, just Hyunjins pov thoughts.

Words: 659; it's so short I know, sorry!

He didn't understand it. He should hate you, he should think you were annoying, cruel, mean, unapproachable. But he always found himself gravitating towards you.

You were cold and distant, but he had a desire to know more. He had a desire to melt though the ice surrounding your heart to see what was really inside.

Because he knew there was more. He knew that behind the harsh words and anger in your eyes, there was something else.

You could be blunt and come off as unkind, but the second he challenged you, the second he met you with the same demeanor, the same glare, you cracked. He would tease and pull, and ignore your cold words, until your warmth shined through.

The facade would fall, and he would fall even further into you.

I think I know you but I don't, you have a sweet aftertaste Harsh words mean nothing to me With a few childish words, your expression as cold as ice disappears And you become soft and pure

But what did it mean? When the ice in your veins melted away and you smiled just for him.

Did you have the same feelings creeping up on you that haunted his mind? Did you think of him as often as he thought of you?

When you told others to leave you alone and walk away if they don't, but you stay even if Hyunjin refused to leave. Was it a test? To see if he could handle the cold, to see if he was willing to stay and fight his way to the real you?

I'm already wrong There's a set answer An objective reply to a subjective question

Others words echoed in his mind.

You don't like anyone, you can't love. He is nothing to you. He was imagining things.

Was this true? Was he deluding himself? Was he only hurting himself when trying to convince you to open up to him?

Or was he so entranced, so desperate, that he mistook your anger and cruelty for kindness when your words were a little bit softer.

That the smile you wore for him was truly fake, a mask so he would stay. Did he force himself to see things that's weren't really there?

It's a bit hard to explain while being blinded by love I delude myself into thinking that Someone who's cold to everyone is only warm to me

Some days it didn't matter. Some days even the scowl on your face made his heart beat a bit faster.

How could someone so cold make him feel so warm?

Even if it was all in his head, even if you felt nothing for him, he would stay he woudl keep coming back, he knew he would.

He was addicted to you in a way he couldn't understand. He hated it, and he loved it.

He hated you and he loved you.

Lopsided affection So familiar that there's no need to even review it I'll just watch, I'll like you just a little bit If a little doesn't work, I'll do it without letting you know

It didn't matter how long it would take. He would wait and see. He needed to know how you were. Who you really were.

Could you ever open up to him? Truly.

Could the ice you've surrounded yourself with ever melt away entirely? Or would it always stay, only melting just enough for Hyunjin to get to you.

Even if that was the case, he would stay. Even if you only needed someone who could handle you, even if you could never love him. He would stay. Because he didn't want you to be alone and he didn't want to be without you.

So he would wait and see. He would melt the ice away and love you without trying, even if you never noticed. He would do it in silence, do it without you noticing if he had too.

xx End xx

I just kind of wrote what came to me, so idk if this is good or bad lol.

General Taglist: @otsilliak

Stray Kids Taglist: @laylasbunbunny, @skz1-4-3

[httpseungmxn]

Youthful Changes pt. 3

Song Mingi x Reader(afab) 

Authors Notes ; the third, and final part is here! I know I made you guys wait quite a while for this but I can assure you all its worth it! There will be no smut in this chapter, since most of it is them talking about the past year and their future

Warnings; None as far as I know

Triggers; Brief mentions of Mingi being su*cidal but nothing happens!

If the long drive to a local cafe was awkward, you worried how the much needed talk would be.

You wondered if he would even want to talk, or if he had some bullshit excuse that took him five minutes to come up with. That was something you worried about at that moment.

You were so into your thoughts that you didn't hear his calm, beautiful voice calling out your name to tell you that you were here. Eyes boring into his admiringly. He truly was so beautiful, and you were captivated by him.

Following him quietly into the busy little cafe and sitting at a booth near the corner. A smile came to your lips as you realized this was the same booth you always sat with him and san at when you were much younger, as well as your friend harmonia. 

Harmonia had graduated last year and was whisked away to Los Angeles with her douchebag of a boyfriend. The last you had heard from her, she was engaged and living in a shitty little apartment. 

San was really the only one who stuck around, seeing as Mingi moved years ago now. You enjoyed san's company. He always knew how to bring a smile to your lips. However, being just you and him felt so lonely sometimes. You missed your little group.

Part of you hoped that things would be okay between you and mingi because you wanted the group to get back together again. But this wasn't high school anymore and you weren't young and naive.

You needed a proper explanation from the man you had fallen for. If he failed to give a reasonable one, you would have to do the hard thing and let him go. 

Looking to him once more when he brought over your drinks. Giving him a kind smile when you realized it was your favorite drink. How did he remember?

Eyes on your drink now, you could feel him watching you. He was probably wondering who would start this conversation. So you took matters into your own hands.

“where were you.”, you spoke softly, almost scared of asking because you didn't know what his answer would be. “ I want you to know that I will know if you're lying, so please just give me the true reason. ”

You could almost hear him gulp, probably from nerves. Maybe it was something bad that had happened to him. Or maybe he had done something bad to someone. What if he had become a dangerous criminal without even meaning to? Was he going to hurt you too if you found out? You were too young to die! 

Oh god, oh god, oh god-

“ my mother died. ”

Oh god.

Looking up to him with wide eyes, feeling already guilty for the tone you had taken with him, and how angry you had been with him over the year.

“ our family invited yours over last year so she could see you all one last time. She had stage three brain cancer. Six years now. She wanted to make amends with everyone before she died. I wanted to call you. I wanted to text. But I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed. My dad had to drag me to the restroom, drag me to the kitchen. ”

Now it was your turn to gulp, “ Mingi, I'm so sorry- ”

“ Don't. Don't apologize. I should've reached out. I should've come to you sooner, because truth is…i needed you. Thinking about you, thinking about being around you, that was the only thing that kept me from killing myself. Thinking about getting to see your beautiful smile, pushed me out of bed. And I'm sorry that it took me a whole year to get here, I truly am. I hope you can understand that I care for you, and I wouldn't just abandon you like that. ”, cheeks turning red when his eyes met yours.

His voice sounded so sincere, and you could see the tears at the brims of his eyelids. This poor boy had been through so much, and you spent the whole year practically hating him.

Reaching across the table to gently wipe away the tears and press a chaste kiss to his lips. Not wanting to put on too much of a show for the other customers in the cafe, you sat bad in your seat and reassuringly took his hand.

“ I doubt you'll accept me so easily, but I like you, and I can tell you like me too. I'd like to be your boyfriend, if you'll let me. ”

This mingi was so much more different from the mingi you usually see. This Mingi is sweet and quiet, and…blushing like a teenage boy who just got his first kiss. That pulled a sweet giggle from your lips. Smiling at him brightly and nodding as you accepted his words.

“ I would like that very much. ”

And there it was. That million dollar smile that won your heart the first time. Staring back at you with what could only be described as true love. Something you were lucky to be able to see and feel.

Leaning forward to press another loving kiss to his lips. Song Mingi was flawed. Song Mingi was cheesy. Song Mingi was a brute. But Song Mingi was yours. And you would never change that. 

————————7 years————————

Staring at the beautiful diamond ring adorning your left finger. You found yourself doing this often. Just thinking about how lucky you are to have found the perfect man. To have the perfect little life you had asked for.

Things with Mingi had started off so strange and shaky, but he had proved himself worthy of your love time and time again.

Song Mingi was your soul mate, and y-

“ mommy! ”

Smiling happily at the sweet little face and lifting him up into your arms. “ Hi my love ”

Minho stared up at you happily while holding up a messy handpicked bouquet from the garden, “ I brought you flowers ! ”

Gasping and staring in awe, “ Thank you my little prince, they're beautiful ”, pressing kisses all over his sweet little face. “ where's daddy? ”

“ Right here. ”, looking up to your beautiful husband and just staring at him lovingly for a moment. You were so lucky to have him as yours. And he was thinking the exact same thing about you.

Song Mingi was yours. And you were his.

Nothing would, or could, change that.

Authors ending notes; and with that, youthful changes comes to an end! What did you guys think? I think I did pretty well for an ending, considering I'm not usually very good at ending 😅

It was a lot of fun writing this series for you guys though, and I can't wait to make more in the future! Thank you for all the support, my loves 🫶

[dazed--xx]

🥀Heartbreak Playlist 🥀

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: Now suddenly you're asking for it back Could you tell me, where'd you get the nerve? Yeah, you could say you miss all that we had. But I don't really care how bad it hurts…..When you broke me first

Post Date: 01/17/2024

T/W: Mentions of Cheating, Break Ups, arguments, drinking, manipulation, crying, heartbreak, ANGST…, swearing, mentions of being drunk, yelling, sad ending

Word Count: 2.7K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: Little do you know, How I'm breakin' while you fall asleep. Little do you know, I'm still haunted by the memories. Little do you know, I'm tryin' to pick myself up piece by piece. Little do you know ……I need a little more time

Post Date: 01/20/2024

T/W: ANGST..,crumbling marriage, mentions of divorce. Mentions of anxiety, mentions of panic attacks. Mentions of neglect in a marriage, crying, begging etc

Word Count: 2.7K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: I tell myself you don't mean a thing. And what we got, got no hold on me; But when you're not there, I just crumble. I tell myself I don't care that much; But I feel like I die 'til I feel your touch Only love……Only love can hurt like this

Post Date: 01/28/2024

T/W:1930s Era, ANGST, historical inaccuracies, Prohibition, cursing, mafia, talks of murder, mentions of guns, Molotov cocktail, gun violence, harassment, neglect in a relationship I guess, mentions of illegal activity, life threatening injuries, mentions mafia war. Mentions of Bootlegging, mentions of Shylocking. Sad ending

Word Count: 5.1K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: I'm sorry, don't leave me, I want you here with me. I know that your love is gone. I can't breathe, I'm so weak, I know this isn't easy. Don't tell me that your love is gone…..That your love is gone

Post Date: 01/28/2024

PLEASE READ AUTHOR’S NOTE!!

T/W: ANGST!!!!!!!!!!!!, hate comments, distant partner, mentions of depression, mentions of anxiety, assault like legit assault, recording of an assault, hate speech. Cursing, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS, Crying, Feeling alone, ambiguous ending, etc

Word count: 2.5k

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: Pictures I'm living through for now, Trying to remember all the good times. Our life was cutting through so loud; Memories are playing in my dull mind. I hate this part, paper hearts And I'll hold a piece of yours; Don't think I would just forget about it……Hoping that you won't forget about it

Post Date: 03/18/2024

Member: Seungmin x Reader

T/W: Break Ups, arguments crying, heartbreak, ANGST…, swearing, yelling, sad ending, slight shoving nothing too crazy, some emotional manipulation, problem avoidance, denial, (subtle mention to woojin via blacked out photo he existed people he was in the group once), mentions of Minhos elimination in Finding Stray kids

Word Count: 2.3K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: Now the day bleeds, Into nightfall; And you're not here, To get me through it all. I let my guard down; And then you pulled the rug…..I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Post Date: 03/18/2024

Member: Changbin x Reader

T/W: Friend Break Up(cause romantic break ups ain't the only type that is heartbreaking), arguments, crying, heartbreak, ANGST…, swearing, yelling, sad ending, ghosting, problem avoidance, flirty behavior, mentions of one night stand, mentions of friend with benefits relationships, innuendos, brutal honesty

Word Count: 3.2K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: Torn in two, And I know I shouldn't tell you. But I just can't stop thinking of you, Wherever you are. You. Wherever you are; Every night I almost call you. Just to say it always will be you…Wherever you are

Post Date: 03/19/2024

Member: Jeongin x Reader

T/W: Break Up, arguments, crying, heartbreak, ANGST…, swearing, yelling, sad ending, ghosting, Long distance relationship, neglect, ambiguous aged female (17-22), emotional manipulation.

Word Count: 3.2K

⏪⏯️⏩

Summary: I've spent all of the love I saved. We were always a losing game, Small town Girl(boy) in a big arcade, I got addicted to a losing game. Oh,Oh.All I know, all I know……Loving you is a losing game

Post Date: 03/19/2024

Member: Felix x Reader

T/W: Break Ups, arguments crying, heartbreak, ANGST…, swearing, yelling, sad ending, Bet Au!, depressing thoughts, lack of communication, childish behavior, Avoiding S/O, mentions of sex, bullying, denial

Word Count: 2.1K

[astraystayyh]

Backburner

Han x reader. Han is a toxic ex who won't let you move on. Angst.

Inspired by Backburner- Niki. skz song series masterlist

It's been seven weeks since you and Han broke up.

Not that you're keeping count, but it's easy to remember when he calls you every Saturday night. Without fault.

He's the one who broke up with you, flimsy excuses and teary eyes as he left your apartment. Talks about how he wasn't enough for you, how he couldn't be present for you, how he couldn't love you the way you needed to be loved.

But you wanted his love, not the one he suddenly deemed you worthy of.

Maybe that's why you still picked up, even though it's reeling you back to seven weeks ago when he had just left you. Han's no longer here and yet, he's not letting you move on. He's the perfume that lingers in the elevator long after the person is gone; he's the feeling of floating on the waves that sticks with you long after you come home from the beach.

He's an expert at kneading nostalgia into your soul, at holding you hostage by the ropes of your shared memories. You are a puppet in his hands, dangling over the edge of oblivion, only to be pulled back each time you attempt to forget.

And he's calling again, at 2 am, like he always does. You don't have to glance at your phone to know it's Han- you never changed the special ringtone you set for him. And you pick up, like you always do.

I can't lie it feels nice that you're calling

"Hey, were you sleeping?" he asks after a few silent beats.

"No, I wasn't."

He clears his throat, and you imagine him lying on his bed, fidgeting with the hem of his sweater. If you close your eyes long enough, you can still smell his cologne and the fabric softener he uses. Or maybe he changed it. You aren't around anymore to know.

"I miss you." His voice sounds broken, coming out in a strangled whisper. As horrible as it sounds, you enjoyed knowing that he felt as miserable as you- that his soul still ached for you as you ached for him.

You sound sad and alone, and you are stalling

He coughs again, trying to fill the silence from your end, but you don't budge. You never know what to expect from these calls. Sometimes he'd talk about his day, as if nothing happened, as if he was still your boyfriend and he was calling you on the way home.

Sometimes you'd both stay silent, your breaths the only thing echoing through the phone call. You'd put it on speaker and pretend he was there, lying next to you. That you'd wake up in the morning and find him smiling at your sleeping figure, his fingers gently brushing against your cheek.

And sometimes, he'd tell you how much he loves you. Those phone calls hurt the most, because if he loved you, he would have stayed, right?

I don't care about what you want, as long as you keep talking

"Yn, I... I really miss you."

"Han..." you trail out, as hot tears well in your eyes. It was hard not to crumble when he spoke this way, his words tugging harshly at your heartstrings. It brings you back to all the times he was away, bound by work obligations. How he always told you he missed you, and within it, a silent promise that he'd come back. That he'd unravel the need within you, filling every dent and crack in your heart since he left. Unlike now, gone for good.

"It's the truth, I wait all week for this one call. It's the only thing keeping me going."

Talking to Han makes you experience different emotions, all at once. Relief- when you hear his voice for the first time in a week, and you realize you still haven't forgotten how your name sounds rolling off his tongue. Sadness- when you remember that this is now the remains of your relationship. The pain wraps around you slowly- like vines intertwining themselves with old buildings, deserted just like your heart.

And then anger- when he says things like this; as if he isn't the instigator of this pain, as if some force greater than the two of you forced you apart. It maddens you, how he stabs you and then he weeps over your bloody body.

"Then why did you break up with me, Han? If it's hurting you this much then why are we even apart?" you ask, anger barely contained.

"I told you, I'm never here. You don't deserve a boyfriend like this," his tone is exasperated, as if this is a simple truth and you are supposed to swallow it down your throat, along with the rest of your feelings.

"Then stop fucking calling me Han. You aren't here but you won't let me move on!"

"Because I don't want you to move on!" he yells, and you startle at the raw pain laced in his voice. "I'm scared if I don't call you anymore, you'll forget me," his voice cracks. "And... And we'll meet ten years from now in the aisle of a random supermarket, and you'd be in love with someone else while I'm still buying the shampoo you recommended to me."

"I'm tired Han," you choke out, phone now shaking in your hand.

You'd think I'd be a fast learner, but guess I won't ever mind- crisping up on your backburner.

"Me too, baby."

"Don't call me that," you beg, "please, don't call me that."

It's pathetic but at least you are too

"I want to see you," he says, tone pleading. And you can envision him perfectly, wounded eyes looking into yours, his lower lip quivering at the thought of you saying no.

"It's not love when you treat someone this way," you tell him, wiping your tears away. "To put someone in the corner and only think of them when you are fucking lonely."

"I think of you all the time," he cuts you off, "you never leave my mind, even when I'm away. Especially when I'm away."

After everything you put me through, I somehow still believe in you

"This is wrong," you whisper, as your resolve weakens, as your longing for him threatens to consume you whole. You no longer care that his hands are choking you as long as he soothes down the burn after.

"I know it is, but I love you. Say it back, please. I need to hear it."

I'll always be in your corner

"Please," he repeats, and he sounds so vulnerable, in his way of begging you. As if your words are the oxygen with which he breathes.

"I love you."

Cause I don't feel alive until I'm burning on your backburner

You are already at the door when you hear someone knocking on it. You don't have to look through the peephole to see who it is.

You open the door, and Han's there, phone still brought up to his ear.

"Let me in?"

He doesn't need to ask, you always will.

[allthefoolishdreams]

sorry that every song is about you

fandom: skz

pairing: jilix

rating: t

wc: 11.4k (completed, oneshot)

summary:

It becomes evident that Jisung's admiration for Felix has turned into something more, and no matter how much he folds it up and shoves the thoughts away, it’s becoming too much. In the end he does what he does best: he spills his thoughts out into lyrics. Or: Felix asks Jisung for help with songwriting and it spirals from there.

read it on ao3!

[sunnibearr]

profiles: disney princesses

YN — she/they. she works full time at the café by campus, which has recently become the hottest spot to study at! they try to help minho raise the rest of the kids, however she is often involved when there's trouble. biology major.

YEJI — she/her. she's known yn since forever. literally. their parents were friends since before they were born and so, naturally, they also became friends! yn's mum and yeji's dad later on in their lives started dating, which technically makes them sisters! dance major.

MINGI — he/him. minho found him on campus on his first day looking extremely lost so he decided to help him, from that day on mingi has been following him around (not literally). he's a cursed man, he really, truly is. architecture major.

MINHO — he/they/she. he makes sure that the group don't end up dead or behind bars. minho tries hard to raise them well and gives into his motherly instincts. his boyfriend isn't allowed to help raise "their kids" because he's a menace. dance major.

prev — mlist — next

note — bernie is yn's plush shark, so she made him their private twitter because, we <3 bernie the emotional support sharkboy!

taglist (open): @amara-mars @septicrebel @bakugossanity @moon-320 @ameliesaysshoo @mynameisnotlaura

[stolenslumber]

devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes (preview)

Jay needs someone to pretend to be his girlfriend, and you're just the person for the job— seriously, you're almost a professional at this point, regularly charming the families of your idiot twin's friends who need your help getting their parents off their back. You have strict rules, though: (1) you'll only pretend to be someone's girlfriend on three occasions, maximum, (2) nobody is allowed to catch feelings, and (3) you get three favors in return. Too bad Jay is hellbent on breaking every last one of them.

PAIRING: park jongseong x female reader GENRE: fake dating, college au, vaguely greek life au, vaguely rich kid au, acquaintances to partners in crime to fake relationship to lovers i guess? lol, jake is your twin bc i thought it would be funny WARNINGS: swearing, (eventual) kissing and suggestive content WORD COUNT: ~2.3k (preview), final word count TBD but likely long knowing myself PUBLISH DATE: probably in the next two weeks!

“WHY DO YOU LOOK SO NICE?” 

“Why do you sound so surprised?” You scoff, tossing the apple you were just about to eat at Jake’s head. Annoyingly, he catches it in mid-air, then makes a show out of polishing it with his shirt and taking a big bite out of it. “Hey, I was going to eat that, asshole.”

“Shouldn’t have thrown it at me, then.”

You roll your eyes at your twin, then go to retrieve another apple from the fruit bowl. It’s surprisingly well-stocked, given that you’re in a frat’s kitchen. Honestly, it’s surprising that there even is a fruit bowl in a frat’s kitchen, but the president of this frat runs a tight ship.

Said president appears in the doorway just then, snatching the apple from your hands as well as the one from Jake’s hands. “Guys, seriously, you have to wash these before you eat them.”

You and Jake both whine simultaneously. “Chan!”

“I already took a bite out of that, bro,” Jake complains.

“I’m starving, please have mercy,” you beg.

Chan whips his head around from where he’d begun washing the apples in the sink to fuss at you. “What? Why haven’t you eaten yet? It’s almost 9pm!”

“Which reminds me— why do you look so nice?” Jake repeats.

“I had a thing with Mark,” you sigh.

“You can just say you were pretending to be his girlfriend; we all know what you mean,” Jake snorts.

“I had a thing with Mark,” you repeat, resisting the urge to throw another apple at Jake’s head. “It was at this ballroom downtown, and of course he had nothing to wear, so I had to take him shopping first, which made us late, and then his parents wouldn’t stop talking my ear off about how I need to convince him to give up the music major, so I couldn’t touch any of the food there. Not even the foie gras torchon,” you recall mournfully. “We just got back, like, five minutes ago.”

Chan hums sympathetically— he knows how much you love foie gras torchon. “You can probably ask for an endless supply in return for your appearance at today’s thing,” he suggests, only half-joking. It absolutely sounds like the kind of thing Mark Lee would agree to, what with his ridiculously large inheritance and hapless generosity (last month, Mark lost thousands of dollars in some animal shelter-related pyramid scheme, marketed to him by none other than Haechan Lee).

You wave a hand dismissively. “Nah, I’m keeping Mark’s favor for something else.”

Jake raises an eyebrow. “What else?”

“Whatever it turns out I need in the future, dumbass. What’s it to you, anyways?”

“Just wanna make sure the poor guy doesn’t end up trapped in your snares forever, little sis. Yo, can I have that apple back?” Jake turns to Chan with characteristic puppy eyes.

“You’re only older than me by eight minutes,” you grumble, the age-old retort slipping out of you before you can help it.

“No, Jaeyun, you cannot. And don’t talk to your sister like that— oh my god, why do I sound like Taeyong,” Chan mutters, thinking about his predecessor frat-president-slash-mother-hen.

“Jeez, government name and everything.” Jake holds his hands up, relinquishing his claim to the apple.

“In fact, your sister gets to have both of these apples, after I clean and cut them up, because she is a saint for continuing to save our asses from our parents like this,” Chan lectures, unceremoniously carving out the chunk of the apple with Jake’s bite marks and tossing it into the trash bin.

“Real ones get it!” You reach out and high-five Chan.

“That is so unfair, c’mon, man!” Jake splutters. “She gets just as much out of these fake relationships— seriously, didn’t you drive her around everywhere for, like, a month after she went to that wedding with you?”

Both you and Chan shudder at the memory. “Ugh, my worst cousin and the worst guy he was ever with. They’re still married, by the way.” Chan shakes his head. “God knows why.”

“Love conquers all…?” Jake offers.

“What the hell are you talking about love for,” a new voice grumbles. Jay strolls in through the doorway, hands full with plastic bags promising wonderful things based on how your stomach reacts to the smell.

“Oh, hell yeah, chicken!” Jake cheers. “Took you long enough, bro.”

“Traffic was hell, something about a ball downtown, and— oh. Hey.” Jay stops abruptly at the sight of you, now munching on the apple slices Chan hands you, one by one.

You wave vaguely in his direction, too busy eating to respond. Jay is one of your brother’s friends who you don’t know that well, since you’ve never pretended to be his girlfriend. It’s strange that you two don’t know each other better, actually— as the social chairs of your sorority and his fraternity, respectively, you would usually have a lot to work on together. But this year has been particularly busy for you, what with your senior thesis and your various things with Jake’s frat brothers, and you had delegated most of your social chair responsibilities to your co-chair, Yunjin, who was far better suited to the social part of the job, anyways. You suspected Jay had done the same thing, since the two of you only ever texted to confirm budgets for any joint events.

“You need to have more than one-and-three-quarters of an apple for dinner,” Chan scolds you, parental instincts back in full force.

You shrug, about to turn around and rifle through the cabinets to see if you can find some peanut butter to add to your apple slices when a takeout container appears in front of you. Tired and still starving, you react rather slowly, your eyes tracing up the hand on the container to the veins of an arm belonging to none other than Jay.

“You look hungry,” is all he says, before popping the container open for you and rearranging the rest of the plastic bags on the counter. “Jake, tell the others to come down for food.”

The others means that soon, there will be an influx of hungry frat brothers in the kitchen, and you have no desire to be anywhere near that, so you mumble a quick thank you to Jay, plop the rest of the apple slices into the takeout container (against Chan’s complaints about the contamination), and move to leave the kitchen, eager to be on your way to your sorority house.

The last thing you overhear before you leave is Jay asking, “Why did your sister look so nice?”, and Jake and Chan responding in unison, “She had a thing.”

A few days later, when they’re doing work in the library, Jay asks Jake, “So how long have Mark and your sister been seeing each other?”

Jake’s pencil jerks across his graph paper, a jagged line appearing on the page at the same time that he swears. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Dude, what the fuck,” Jay echoes flatly. “Didn’t you say she had a thing with Mark?”

Jake blinks. “Well, sure, in the same way that she’s had a thing with Chan, and Yeonjun, and Vernon, and all the others.”

Jay gapes at him. “Your sister dated all of them? And all the others?”

“What, no, she didn’t date them, she fake-dated them! Just a couple of times, mainly showing up to things with their families so their parents would leave them alone about finding a partner and all that. You know how the parents are.” Jake gestures vaguely, referring to the oddities of the world of wealth they were born into.

Jay nods slowly, understanding dawning upon him. Does he know how the parents are? Oh, does he ever. He has always had a good relationship with his own, but they had been more pushy on the whole love thing as of late, with the not-at-all subtle questions his mother asks about any special someones in his life and the unfunny jokes his dad cracks about how he’s still spry enough to help raise grandchildren. Especially unfunny, given the health scare his dad had given them all in the last year.

Jake’s voice brings him out of his veering-towards-morbid thoughts. “But seriously, bro, how is this news to you? My sister’s been doing this… Cinderella-genie thing for over two years now.”

Jay’s eyebrows furrow. “Cinderella-genie thing?”

“Yeah, I mean, she transforms our frat brothers into respectable young men with a respectable relationship, but only for three occasions, and she gets the same number of favors back.” Jake wrinkles his nose. “It sounds weird when I say it like that, and don’t get me wrong, I love to give her shit for it, but it’s all above-board stuff. Sunghoon bought her bubble tea for like, three months.”

“She fake-dated Sunghoon?”

At the mention of his name, Sunghoon pops one side of his headphones off. “What’s up?”

“You fake-dated Jake’s sister!?”

Sunghoon shushes him before responding. “Yeah, don’t you remember? It was a couple of months ago.”

Jay’s ears flush, both at how loud he had unconsciously gotten, and at the reminder that he really has been out of it for a while now. It’s not like he’s been living under a rock, but he has definitely been spending a lot more time with his parents and away from his friends ever since his dad’s health scare.

“She was great, though,” Sunghoon continues. “My mom still thinks I made the biggest mistake of my life ‘letting her go.’ But she’s also been leaving me alone about ‘finding love’ because she thinks I’m heartbroken, so yeah, Jake’s sister works wonders.”

Jake smirks. “Sim genes, man. Elite stuff.”

Sunghoon scoffs. “You wish. Didn’t I hear your mom yelling at you on the phone the other day for not having settled down yet?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Does she not realize what decade this is, I mean, we’re still in college—”

Jay interrupts what looks to be the beginning of a long rant from Jake, cutting him off with, “So where can I sign up?”

Jake stares blankly at him. “Sign up for what?”

“The Cinderella-genie thing.”

Sunghoon scrunches his face awkwardly. “Uh, she kind of has a waitlist, buddy.”

Jay waits for him to laugh and say he’s just kidding, but he doesn’t. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, she doesn’t do the fake-dating thing for multiple people at the same time, and she’s pretty busy with all her shit, so I’m not sure how long of a queue you have ahead of you…”

“Okay, but Jake could get me ahead, right? Cut the line, or something? C’mon dude, I’m your best friend.” Jay is suddenly desperate, remembering the conversation he’d had with his mom on the phone last night, where she had dreamily recalled meeting his dad in college and delicately reminded Jay that he could have a plus-one to the Parks’ upcoming 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

Jake eyes his friend warily. “I dunno, she really doesn’t like stuff like that. Unfair advantages, I mean.”

“My parents aren’t getting any younger, Jake, and you know, with my dad last year and everything…” Jay does his best approximation of batting his eyelashes at Jake.

“Are you guilt-tripping me?”

“A little?” Jay’s smile turns a little maniacal. “For real, my parents have their 50th wedding anniversary coming up, and it would be the perfect event to bring her to so I can reassure them that things are going well in my love life.”

“Are things going anywhere in your love life?” Sunghoon’s tone is skeptical, and reasonably so.

Jay has been distant lately because of his family, but even before that he had always been known as somewhat aloof and unattainable. Devastatingly handsome, yes, with killer grades and fierce ambition, and a business empire to inherit to boot, but he is also his parents’ one and only miracle child, born after years of trying and almost giving up. Jay’s parents are older than all of his friends’ parents, and their family business has always been that— a family business. Jay has two years after graduation to learn the ropes in the business, and then he’ll be due for an MBA, and then a return to helm the business, but this timeline has recently felt more urgent than ever with his parents’ flagging health. They would never say it, but he knows the only reason they haven’t retired yet is because they don’t want to hand over control of the business to anyone but him. Jay has worked his ass off in college, trying to get there as fast as he can, as well as he can. But his parents also want him to enjoy college and find true love, and while he’s been doing pretty well with the former, the latter has been on the backburner for, well, forever. Who has time for true love, in between classes, fraternity duties, the various shenanigans his friends get up to, internships, networking, TA-ing, volunteering, being on the executive board of two clubs, and eating, sleeping, dreaming, and thinking?

So. No. Things are not going anywhere in his love life, and he confirms just as much to Sunghoon with a grunt, to which Sunghoon wheezes out his amusement.

Jake eyes Jay with pity, now. “Alright, that guilt trip was successful, but more so because you just admitted to being bitchless for so long. I’ll put in a good word to my sister for you.”

Jay perks up instantly. There is light and beauty in this world after all! “Awesome, thank you bro, you won’t regret this, I promise!”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but those are famous last words, Park.” Jake raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure you can handle my sister?”

“Why not? She seems… nice.” Jay is slightly evasive in his answer, and truthfully, it’s because he isn’t really sure what you’re like. All your interactions to date have been cordial, almost business-like, and you and Jake are fraternal twins, so it’s not even like he’s really familiar with what you look like. He is, however, sure that you look beautiful in a ballgown, even if he only saw you in one in his frat’s kitchen.

Jake chortles outright. “No, my sister is not nice. Yeah, I’m definitely going to convince her to help you, just because I think it’ll be hysterical watching her turn you inside out. Good luck, my brother in Christ, because you’ll need it!”

[shutupheathersorryheatherr]

"I'm yours, you're mine. Like Paradise."

Summery: Han Jisung has a bad day and it ends up in you too dancing in the kitchen.... just lots of fluff. A slice of life if you will

Warnings/info: Physical touch (in a non-sexual way. just reader and han being all lovvy dovvy), mentions of reader and Han having sex a lot (safely & consentaully) , reader in gn!, Jisung had a bad day but it aint angsty, mentions of going to go take a shower...? Idk man im tryna include anything that might be triggering, jokes about getting premature arthritis (not spoken of in a way that talks down upon ppl with arthritis), mentions of food, kissing, swearing, lots of tooth rotting fluff, think that’s it pls let me know if I missed anything!

ps, highly recommend listening to the song while you read/ before or after you read :)

His arms curl around your waist. His pointer finger interlocking on the other side on the front of your belly. As his chin finds its way to nestle in the crook of your neck. He hums. To himself, to both of you, it really didn't matter. It was a beautiful sound either way. He hums something familiar to you, sounding like the same chorus repeated over and over again. A never ending sound of sweetness. But then he stops abruptly. At what would have been the mid chorus of the song. "Need any help?" He asks. You can practically hear the smile smeared on his face as he turns you around to face him.

His hair was damp and frizzy from running a town over his strands. It almost looked as if he had rubbed his hair on a balloon. That was when the surprise he was even there set in. Earlier, when he had gotten home, closing the door with a loud, and to any random person, dramatic sigh, you knew he was tired. Well, more tired than usual. He didn't even have to say it. Just by the look on his face you knew his joints and muscles were aching like he had run a marathon. Cause, he kinda did. He eased his feet out of his shoes and kicked them to the side without much care. With a promise to pick them up later, he dragged his feet to the kitchen table where you were siting. Scooted out a chair then plopped down next to you. He whipped a lazy and somehow strained looking hand over his face and chuckled.

Up until then neither of you had exchanged more than a few words when he came in. "It's official," He laughed, "I'm getting old. I wonder if I'm developing premature arthritis." His smiled peaked out from the bottom of his hand that was still resting over his eyes. "Same thing as yesterday?" You asked him. He nodded and shifted in his seat. "Same thing." For the past couple days, he and his members had been working on new choreo for a show coming up. And also for the past couple days, Jisung hadn't been able to get this one move right. If he wasn't forgetting it entirely, then he was stumbling over on it. And both times he'd requested to get dropped off at your place rather than the dorm. The night before he had come back more sulky than tonight. Tonight, was more him just being plain old exhausted. He had wanted to come over to see you. ("Facetime wouldn't have cut it tonight, darling. Not like it ever really does though." He said.)

Needless to say, it made you smile just as much on the inside as it showed on the outside how happy you were that seeing you and being around you made him happy. Even if it was just being in each other's presence but doing something completely separate, occasionally nodding your head other to ask a question or to see how each other's little thing or project was doing. To cheer him up, you both had joked about how he could just replace the move, coming up with more and more outlandish and crazy ideas of what that replacement move could be. Twerking or hitting the whip and nay nay of corse begin the top two options.

And this time again, he was at your apartment. Even more wiped out than before. Earlier, you got out of your seat and stood in front of him. Jisung buried his head into your stomach, your fingers finding their way through the maze of his hair, still a little oily and sweaty feeling from before. And you stood there, thinking wow, this feels so fine. So nice and relaxing. Like a deep breath of lavender scented air. You smiled down at the man who couldn't see it on your face. "Felix called in sick this morning. He was fine yesterday but..." He trailed off in defeat, " So that makes two people that can't make it." He mumbled into your stomach. God, you thought, if it was all discombobulated yesterday with Changbin being sick, it must've been even crazier today. "I know," He slurs, as if reading your mind, "It felt like we were preparing for an air raid in there. With everyone running around." "You sure you wanna go back tomorrow?" You asked.

He lifted his head from your belly at your words, his face looking just as disheveled as his hair now. He blinked slowly. "Yeah, yeah. We both know you have to." You said, looking towards the door to make sure he had locked it behind him. Suddenly, you were pulled in for a hug. His arms wrapped themselves tightly around your middle. It sure might've looked a little bit awkward to most people. You were standing up; he was all hunched over on the edge of his seat. "How about you go take a shower and I heat up some dinner?" You suggested. This, a similar form, was usually the time one of you'd would comment on how sweaty he was, then without fail he'd make some sort of joke about the ways you could make him even sweatier. Or he'd say something about showering together to "conserve the hot water." Which was an actual real problem in your building. So he wasn't terribly off base with that.

And half the time those comments and jokes about how it'd be better if you'd just take a shower together-- then, nine times out of ten ended in him reminding you how if you wanted, he could get you a penthouse with a view with a very much working hot water heater. (“Then you won't be able to ask if we can shower together. It'll never be necessary." You tease. To which he'd say, "I keep saying it, I'd wash the sand off the shore for you." "Ok, Poseidon. Go ahead and try.") Without fail every day, no matter how sweaty and gross he was. No matter how tired he seemed. When he came to your apartment, he greeted you with a kiss that felt like for a moment, you were only focusing on each other. Noting else. He usually couldn't even get to closing the front door before enveloping all your senses in him. In something that felt strangely like a peppy beat you could dance to. Like a song that you'd never get tired of.

The way he'd pull you in your waist so gently felt like he was conveying all his love for you in One. Single. Touch. It seemed like he showed up, no matter how tired he was for anything and everything. Not like you minded one bit though. ("Shit," you laughed one time as you opened the door for him one early morning. He had come over cause he wanted to have breakfast with you. "What am I, wind? Seems like I blow you right to my door.") But now, with no complaints from you, it was back to the present with you facing him in the kitchen. The shower had seemed to pep him up a bit. He was closer to his smiley self now. He nodded his head over to what you were heating up on the stovetop, food from last night.

You had two different pans going: one for the main dish and one for the side. Without thinking, Jisung moved from you to turn the burner down a little, seeing as one was heating up faster than the other and neither of you wanted just peas alone for dinner. "There's no music playing in here or anything?" He asked. He's right. You usually had something playing in the background. In fact, you too had collaborated and made a special cooking playlist for times like these. But you had been so lost in thought you forgot to put something on. You didn't answer him. "Thought you'd be asleep." You half asked him. "And yet you're still heating up food for more than just you." He smiled, going to the drawer behind you to retrieve silver wear and napkins.

"How dare you." You put a hand to your chest in mock anger, "Maybe I'm just that hungry." Jisung came back over to you, and you caught a glimpse of him from the side al smiley again, stirring the pot of peas so they wouldn't stick. Suddenly, lot he had gotten the best idea of his life, he dropped the spoon in the pot and rushed to your room. He came back with a Bluetooth speaker he had gifted you a few months back and wearing one of your oversized zip up hoddies. At this point neither of you even had to ask, you both just shared cloths with each other. He pressed a couple things on his phone and voila! The percussion of the song he was humming earlier was heard loud and clear. Starting off with three bass chords being played. You started swaying to the beat a second before he pulled you in and interlocked hands with yours putting one palm around your waist, when the first lines of the song were spoken.

As much as he had a hard time with dancing today, he sure didn't mind swaying with you and messily trying to avoid your toes as he held your hand to the side of you two like he was preparing for a very highly refined waltz. His chin found its way to the crook of you neck again, trying to listen to the sound of your reverberating heartbeat over the singer's voice. He pressed a gently tender kiss to the middle of your neck. Where his lips just happened to fall. "Feels like I'm yours. Feels right. So fine. I'm yours. You're mine. Like paradise." He sang along, feeling as if he had written the lyrics himself to you for you. It was quiet, but the sound of his voice could have been heard throughout your apartment. It tickled the skin of your ear. You breathed out heavily as he sings along to the next part. "Give you the world if it was mine." As you both swayed along to the music, he skootched up backward and reached behind you to both of the stove top knobs to turn them off.

Which, you knew was true as much as you knew the sky was blue. His offers of buying you a whole ass apartment (or house if you wanted) didn't go unnoticed as you thought before. You knew deep down it wasn't just a little joke or some sort of chess piece pawn to get you to shower with him. Just bubbling under the surface was that lingering idea that he actually meant it all.

"You're so fuckin cheesy, you--" You got cut off with him hugging you tighter as an attempt to shut you up. You thought he might start off with some joke about well, you were the one who turned me onto this song so that's your fault. But he pulled away and held you by your shoulders, his arms stiff. "But I would. I really would." He said, barely being able to maintain eye contact. A smiled danced it way across your lips. You breathed him in. You tasted the moment on your tongue to remember it forever. You could only hum in response, snapping yourself out of your thoughts as you felt his thumbs lift off like the liftoff of a plan into neverland. You felt coolness spread to the aera where his fingers were previously. Sensing you needed some other type of reassurance to back up his words, he said, "Cause you feel like paradise. This feels like paradise." He left you by the stove smiling as he tip toed over to the cabinet to get plats for the food. He handed one to you without another word. "And no, I'm not just quoting the song." He shook his head. "What you just did for me back there?" He nodded behind him to the kitchen table as your mind flashed back to earlier.

"That was nothing." You said as you removed the lid from one of the pots. "Well, it sure was something." He laughed. Hearing the smile in his voice you turned back to him. "I'd do something much bigger than that every day. Cause I'm yours. And you're mine." You say to the man with a permanent smile on his face and frizzy hair before you. A minute later he scoops the full plates from your hands and places them on the table swiftly. Then saunters back over to you to capture your waist again with one palm and your hand in the other. Just before the singer starts ending the song talking about how its 'what a life', and almost in a whisper, sings about how she wants to share her life with them. You rock softly with him to the ending, and as you two sit down to eat, he hits play again. Yes, it was really like paradise.

End~~~~

aaalllllrrriiiiggghhhhhttt! so that was my first fic i ever posted! hope everyone liked it! I've written fics for other fandoms and stuff but uh nope never posted em but I randomly remembered a song I hadn't listened to in a couple years, and I thought of my mans Han when I played it. Almost too quickly hmmm...

2021 copywrite shutupheathersorryheatherr

[shadowofahope]

Completed Requests

My asks are always open to new ideas or requests. As well as if you just need someone to talk to, I can always lend an ear. If a request becomes too long or I feel it needs a moment, it will become a regular fic under my main page. However, I will still have a shout out for the request on the fic itself!

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BTS:

Protective older brothers

Christmas Miracle

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SKZ:

Jealous over a guy flirting w their SO

Meeting your protective older brother

Jealous over a girl flirting w their SO

Forgetting your birthday

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