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trustmypoison · 2 months ago

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Orbit - Act One

Y/N has a little problem and it’s that she’s literally never alone. She hasn’t known what a little peace and quiet is for nearly a decade. When her therapist suggests a wellness retreat, she expects to be bored to death and just maybe learn to like meditation a little bit. She does not expect to meet someone that she has an insane connection with. Too bad it might be too good to be true.

You can find the masterlist here.

Genre: medium au, a hint of soulmate au, heavy on the angst

Pairing: Minghao x reader (featuring therapist!Jeonghan, best friend!Junhui, and ghost!Vernon, with a tiny bit of coworker!Seungkwan)

TW/CW: *deep breath* a lot of discussion of death and moving on (or not) afterwards, grief, trauma (specifically regarding a car accident), therapy, meditation, hypnosis, sleep disturbances, psychic abilities, discussion of mental illness and treatments, and explicit smut. MDNI.

There are some difficult topics in this story and they are handled as delicately as possible, but proceed with caution if anything here might be upsetting.

Word count: 13k

The headphones aren’t working today.

They’re charged. You made sure of it before you left your apartment today. They’re also connected. You can hear the music just fine. However, you can hear everything else. So much for noise canceling, you think, huffing as you crank the volume.

The subway is busy this morning. It was your mistake, really. You usually catch the earlier pickup on this line, but you’re running late and so is everyone else it seems. Some passengers sleepily doze off. The man across from you has his face hiding behind a newspaper but you can tell his head keeps dipping and then sharply snapping back up.

Next to you, there’s a chatty group of teenagers, seemingly on the way to school from the looks of their uniforms. You’re only in your late 20s, but you can’t fathom having the energy they have at 7:30 in the morning without a single drop of caffeine. They chat animatedly. One slides a skateboard back and forth under his feet while he’s seated, and it bumps into your boot on occasion, not that he notices. The one standing to face them is probably only doing that because he’s gesticulating wildly as he tells a story. The punchline must be good because it brings the others to riotous laughter that earns glares from sleepy passengers, including the old guy eyeing them disapprovingly over his newspaper. You aren’t even annoyed by them, honestly.

It’s actually the Joseon era soldier next to you that’s annoying you. You swallow another sigh when he pokes you for the dozenth time since sitting down. Noise cancelling headphones can’t do much about a ghost trying to speak directly into your mind. Apple, Bose, Sony, Raycon, Beats, as well as a ton of lesser known brands - not a single one of them could truly help you with that and you’d tried them all.

You do your best to not show any reaction to the next jab of his boney finger in your arm. You’ve found it’s better this way. Most of them eventually go away. If you give any indication that you can hear or see them, they may never leave. That’s how you’ve acquired a few stragglers over the years.

This guy is persistent, though. Some of them have a good sense that you can see them, no matter how good your poker face is. “I know you can hear me,” he prods again. You don’t so much as blink, years of practice having prepared you for this painfully long ride to work.

Blessedly, the tin can you’re zooming in squeaks to a stop and you’re the first one to stand and get to the door. You don’t know if the soldier follows you, and you don’t look back lest you give away that you could see him. Life is much easier when you don’t give such a secret away.

The walk to your office building is short, only a few blocks and you make it just in time. Seungkwan raises an eyebrow from his desk. “You were almost late,” he says, like you don’t know. You have a love-hate relationship with him. He’s been your teammate for years now and neither of you sugar coat your conversations anymore.

“Almost. Cut me some slack,” you huff, tossing off your coat and grabbing your laptop from your bag. Seungkwan stands to meet you, since you both are starting the day with a meeting.

“I don’t cut anyone slack,” Seungkwan snorts. Though you can tell he’s just giving you a hard time, you give a look that must be a little sobering. “Rough morning?” He asks with a tiny bit of sympathy.

“Something like that,” you mumble, stepping into the elevator. “Let’s get this over with so I can have some coffee.”

You weren’t always like this. Until the age of 19, you were perfectly normal. You weren’t super outgoing, but you had a number of friends despite your spells of shyness. You had hobbies and played sports and were a good student. ‘Well adjusted’, is what your therapist called it when you had described all of this.

Then, there was the accident. You can’t think about it much. When you told your therapist, Jeonghan, that, he had just raised an eyebrow. “Because it’s hard to think about?”

His question wasn’t unkind, but you’d not grown used to his somewhat blunt technique in therapy yet, so it made you feel defensive. “No, because I literally don’t remember it. There’s a blank space of time from when I was driving and everything was fine to when I woke up in the hospital. Everything was normal, and then suddenly it wasn’t.”

Jeonghan had pursed his lips thoughtfully, drumming his pen on his notebook every now and then. “Do you lose spaces of time like that often?”

You’d sucked in a breath, trying to stifle the panic crawling up your throat. You didn’t want to be here anyway, didn’t truly believe in the power of therapy at the time and felt like this was a waste of time and money. You didn’t want him to scribble down a bunch of notes like a death sentence, or tell you you’re crazy and prescribe mind-numbing medication for you, or, if you were really honest about the things you had been experiencing, send you to a psych ward for an involuntary hold. You know you’d sound crazy and you didn’t know how quickly and severely Jeonghan would react to it. He was relatively new to practicing as a therapist at the time, but he was sharp.

So you’d shrugged, swallowing the panic and said, “Occasionally, but nothing like the accident.”

Jeonghan had, thankfully, just nodded and not clicked his pen to write anything. He changed the subject and you’d been thankful to hang onto your secret for a while longer.

The accident itself was straightforward, though you can’t remember it. At least, that’s what everyone told you. Your parents, the police, the nurses and doctors. All of them said it was just a tragic accident. You were driving home from college for winter break, your sedan packed to the brim with luggage for the month you’d be home, as well as presents, already wrapped with bows neatly tied around them. It was late at night and the road was coated in a full sheet of snow and maybe even a little bit of ice. Ultimately, it was the other car that slid first, according to police, but it doesn’t matter because it could have just as easily been you. Both cars ended up in a ditch and there were injuries on both sides. You heard there was also a death associated with the accident, but no information was ever released about the specifics.

But, devastating as all of that was, it was really the least of your worries. One minute you were driving with music blasting and another minute you were waking up, blinking up at the speckled tile ceiling of your hospital room. Your parents were frantic, asking you how you felt and what you needed. You remember feeling dazed as you try to make your eyes focus because nothing makes sense. Not the light because it was dark the last time you remember, not your parents’ panicked eyes, not the multiple IVs in your arm and the ache in your body, and not the old woman in a hospital gown standing just inside your open door.

You remember she looked sad, which is perhaps not an unusual thing for a hospital, but you remember tilting your sore head while you looked at her, ignoring the prodding and soothing that your parents were doing. She wasn’t asking for help. She didn’t look lost, exactly. Your eyes widen when a nurse walks in and totally ignores her, even though it seemed to you that she practically bumped into her as she breezed in. The nurse approaches you with a sweet smile, asking you how you are.

You remember narrowing your eyes at the nurse, anger simmering because the woman obviously needed something and it was rude to ignore her. “You should help her first,” you say, pointing to the old woman. The old woman shakes her head at you, and you start to understand why when your parents and the nurse turn and glance around the room, before looking back at you, confused.

“Who, sweetie?” Your father asks gently.

“The woman, right there,” you say, pointing to the figure.

Your parents look between each other, concerned, but the nurse shakes her head gently with a smile. “It’s probably the morphine. This happens all the time.” The nurse starts peppering you with questions. How do you feel? What hurts and how much does it hurt on a scale of one to ten? You answer all of these questions with a dry mouth because the old woman is still standing in the edge of the room, watching. She’s still there when the nurse gives you another dose of morphine and you eventually doze off again.

And it wasn’t just that one old woman. There were no less than ten mysterious visitors in just a few days in the hospital. You tried to talk to some of them, and some talked back, but most moved through the hospital aimlessly. You saw them in your room, much like the old woman. You saw them when you went for a walk around the floor. You saw them when you were wheeled down to the basement for an X-ray. You saw them on your way out to the car after you were discharged. Your parents would regularly ask you what you were looking at, like they didn’t see them too. And of course they didn’t. You just hadn’t come to terms with that so soon, head still cloudy from all of it.

After that, you were never really alone. Not really, anyway. Not even in your dreams could you be by yourself. You had to take a couple semesters off of school just to get a grasp on this new reality - to be able to sort out who was alive around you and what wasn’t. Or what emotions were yours and what wasn’t. Or what physical pain was yours and what wasn’t. There was often no rhyme or reason to it and you coped by yourself for the most part. You stopped mentioning things to your parents out of fear of worrying them, because you knew somewhere deep down in your soul that no doctor they took you to could really help. You kind of thought that not even a psych ward could save you. When you went back to school, you were antisocial, if only because you could never quite be sure that the person that was talking to you was alive.

That antisocial behavior carried into every other part of your life too, which is why, last year, your parents encouraged you to try therapy. They said it was okay to have a tight knit group of friends, but that a single friend wasn’t quite what they had in mind when they said that. Not that they didn’t love Junhui, but even they were aware that Junhui was only around still because he had the patience of a saint, despite your apparent 180 in personality. They thought you’d been flirting with depression or perhaps some other disorder that was causing this antisocial behavior.

You couldn’t tell them that you had a couple other friends too throughout the years, mostly because they were dead. So you took their suggestion and made an appointment, if only to be able to say you’d given it a shot.

You drag into Jeonghan’s office, plopping down on his couch, grabbing a pillow to hug to your body. He calls this your defensive position, and maybe it is, but you tell him that he should decorate his office so it doesn’t feel so cold. Then maybe you wouldn’t be so defensive.

Jeonghan gives you a wry smile over his computer monitor. “One minute,” he says. Jeonghan is not your typical therapist by a long shot, which is the only reason you still keep your weekly appointment. He doesn’t do the stuffy button down shirts, or the glasses he can peer over at you, or the ‘how does that make you feel’ bullshit. He wears jeans and a baggy t-shirt or hoodie every day, only wears glasses as a fashion statement, and just straight up tells you how he thinks you feel, encouraging you to correct him. You never thought you’d threaten to throw hands at a therapist, but you also never thought that a therapist would laugh when you said such a thing.

Jeonghan grabs his notebook and pen, plopping down into the couch opposite you. “So, how’s it going?” He says casually.

You shrug. “Okay, business as usual really.”

He nods but you can tell by the way his eyes sharpen that he doesn’t believe you and wants to be convinced. You see that look regularly from him. “Tell me about it. How was work? What’d you do this weekend? All that stuff.”

You sigh, because this is the part of therapy that you especially hate - the chit chat. “Fine. Just meetings and working on some projects. Nothing exciting. And this weekend, I ended up hanging out with Junhui.”

Jeonghan nods. “Good,” he says, mostly because he’s probably glad you didn’t self-isolate the moment you got off work on Friday. “What did you and Junhui do?”

“Just ordered dinner, watched some movies.”

Jeonghan rolled his eyes. “What happened to going out this weekend? I thought we agreed.”

You raise a hand in defense. “That was all Jun’s idea! Not mine!” You had agreed to make an attempt to go out somewhere this weekend, just to get out of the house. But Jun had just shown up and made himself comfortable on your couch, and the night seemed to be decided. Could you have mentioned that you should go out? Yes, and Jun would have done it in a heartbeat. But you didn’t because you just didn’t want to.

Jeonghan adopts a smirk. “You’re feisty today. Tell me why.” You groan because you hate when he says that, but he’s waving you off. “Have you been eating like normal?” You nod. “Have you had any stressors, more than normal?” You shake your head. “Have you been sleeping?” You stall out before you can think of a good lie and your silence is deafening. Jeonghan’s smirk deepens. “Gotcha!” His smirk clears though and he’s serious. “What’s been going on there?”

You shrug, defeated. “The usual? Can’t fall asleep, can’t stay asleep.”

“Thoughts are too loud,” he muses, because he’s heard the excuse before from you. “What were you toiling over?” You don’t know what to say, so you purse your lips, blinking at him. Jeonghan lets a few beats pass and then sighs, putting his pen down and looking at his watch. “This is an early shut down, even for you.” Jeonghan stares at you for a second and this might be the first time that you’ve ever seen him hesitate to say something. Finally he says, “You know, you get out of therapy what you put in. If you don’t give me anything to work with, I can’t help you untangle anything. So what makes you constantly bite your tongue here?”

You snort humorlessly, because you can’t help it really. “I don’t know. You calling me crazy. You giving me medication. You sending me to the psych ward.”

Jeonghan blinks a few times and then puts his notepad and pen aside - a sign that this part of the conversation is sort of ‘off the record’. “I would not call you crazy, ever. It’s an unprofessional term in my career path. I can’t prescribe medications since I’m not a psychiatrist, so all I can do is refer you. And the only thing that warrants a visit to the psych ward is if you might be a danger to yourself or others, in which case I’d encourage you to ask for help.”

You blink at him, looking for any signs of deception but there are none. He looks incredibly patient and serious. He doesn’t even have a snarky reminder that the clock (and your bill) is ticking.

You think about how your parents worry about you. How Jun tries to ease you into social situations every chance he gets. How you don’t spend as much time speaking to living people as you should because you’re too busy trying to ignore non-living people. How you can tell that you come off as rude all the time, and it stings when someone says something about it because you truly don’t know how else to be. You wet your lips even though it doesn’t really help because your mouth has gone dry. You want a fix and Jeonghan is offering to help.

You squeeze your eyes closed as your mouth moves before you really know what you’re going to say. “Not to quote a movie from the 90s, but I see dead people.”

There are a few long beats of silence. You open your eyes to see Jeonghan’s widen slightly as he nods. A slow smile comes across his face. “Now, that’s something I haven’t heard before here.”

You raise a finger at him, pointing angrily. “I swear to god, Yoon Jeonghan, if you have me committed, I’ll be so mad.”

He nods with a smile at your threat, settling deeper into his chair. “No need for any of that. I can’t ask for a seance in the psych ward.” You screech and pelt the pillow at him. He deflects it, letting it roll into the floor, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine, sorry! Start from the beginning.”

And you do, or you try to anyway. He lets the timer run over and cancels his next appointment, saying that a breakthrough like this is worth it.

You’ve barely been asleep for an hour and you hear a little ‘pssst’ in your ear. Your eyes squint tightly, willing yourself not to respond. A little poke on your shoulder accompanies the next ‘pssst’. You sigh and hear the person chuckle. “I know you’re awake.”

You roll so your face is buried into the pillow, grumbling. “You are the most annoying dead person I think I’ve ever met.”

“I prefer the term ‘lost soul’. ‘Dead person’ sounds so serious,” Vernon says, plopping down to lay across the foot of your bed.

“I just got to sleep, you asshole,” you huff, curling up tighter into the blanket.

“You weren’t sleeping,” Vernon said simply. “You were working again.”

You sigh into your pillow. You’re working all the time, it seems.

You met Vernon in the hospital - surgery gone wrong, he said. But he got curious after he’d seen you getting wheeled out of the hospital to the car and tested it out himself. He found that he could leave the hospital, unlike a lot of other souls apparently, and didn’t like the term ‘dead’ very much if only because in a lot of ways, he’d kept on living life. He rode the subway often. He poked around in record shops. He liked to hang out in cafes if only to smell the coffee, though he couldn’t exactly consume it anymore.

Oh, and he’d followed you home to your parents’ house after you were discharged. You’d hobbled into your room late at night to find him lounging on your bed. He’d looked up at you from the book he’d claimed from your bookshelf and said, “nice room.” And when you’d moved into your own place, he’d let himself in there too.

He wasn’t there all the time, naturally, what with the wandering he liked to do. But he’d drop in with regularity. Sometimes Junhui would be over, none the wiser that Vernon was sitting in the arm chair in the corner watching TV with them. If anyone was going to hang out forever like this, Vernon was a good one to have because he didn’t make your life hard. He didn’t confuse you in social settings. He didn’t knock things over to alarm others around you. And he did give you privacy to be by yourself - or for you to try to be by yourself, anyway.

One night, a couple months after your accident, you’d woken up with a start in the middle of the night and Vernon was looking at you from your desk, concerned, Netflix still playing quietly in the background. “I think you were moving people on in your sleep,” he explains. He said he was in some sort of limbo and couldn’t see it exactly, but he could feel it. He said it was like a line out of the door when you dozed off, waiting to ask your open, relaxed mind for help. “You need to lock that down or they’ll bleed you dry.”

But you were helpless to do that when you were asleep, so Vernon had taken to calling it ‘working’. Over the years, he’d started to wake you up when he felt that others were taking too much from you. You weren’t getting valuable rest either way, but when you were awake you could protect yourself.

Still, you grumbled some more into the pillow. “My therapist told me to ignore you, you know?”

Vernon snorts. “You can ignore the others, but I’m special.” Vernon paused, quirking an eyebrow. “Since when did he know about your little gift?”

“Yesterday,” you sigh, rolling onto your back and propping up against the headboard. You’re resigned to not sleeping at this point, so you might as well look at Vernon while you talk.

“And he told you to ignore us?” Vernon asked curiously, looking at you from the foot of the bed.

You shrug. “For now. He’s going to do some research and see what techniques I can try. It’s not like I know anyone else that has this so-called gift that can give me advice. So, therapist it is.”

Vernon hums. “Gotta start somewhere, I guess. I’m glad you’re asking for help. I worry about you.”

You frown, because he’s said it before, and he’s not the only one. “I know. I just wish I could go back to what it was like before sometimes - when I was normal.”

Vernon seems to be thinking hard. “I don’t know. I’d like to think things happen for a reason.”

“But there’s no good reason.” Frustration bleeds into your words. “I got into an accident in the middle of a snow storm and now I’m some psychic freak that can’t determine what’s real and what’s not most of the time.”

Your foot gets tugged sharply. “Stop talking about yourself like that,” Vernon scolds. “Besides, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s not ‘real or not’. It’s ‘seen and unseen’. You just happen to see a lot more than the average person.”

Your eyes prick with tears and you throw the blanket over your head. Jeonghan calls you a professional bottler. You don’t like to react with emotion to much of anything because if you let something trickle out it will become a flood when the dam breaks. It feels like there would be no way to turn off the flow once you start to let it drip. Vernon has seen enough of your struggles so you don’t want to burden him with it tonight. Still, he pats your foot a few times in a ‘there, there’ motion, like he knows.

From underneath the blanket, you sniffle. “Are you sleeping down there tonight?”

Vernon takes the hint and you feel the bed dip next to you. He stays on his side like always, never encroaching on your space or making you uncomfortable. You wish you could be alone, but if you have to be with someone, Vernon is a good person to be with. He lets you doze off and only wakes you up one more time throughout the night when the line out of the door gets out of hand.

“This isn’t working,” you mumble sleepily.

“We’ve barely started,” Jeonghan says patiently from his chair. It’s been nearly two months since you’d finally told him your big secret, and he really had tried to hold up of his end of the bargain. He’d given you a laundry list of things to try, and urged to you to really put some effort in. His exact words for each instruction was, “Don’t half ass it, please.”

You have to admit, some of it you did half ass. The yoga and tai-chi bored you to death after only a couple sessions each. Jeonghan did refer you to a psychiatrist to discuss your sleep issues and this psychiatrist had provided some medication - which had been used a couple times and then stuffed into your medicine cabinet because you didn’t like how it made you feel. Journaling had been okay, at least in the beginning. You’d felt relieved to get the whole thing on the page at first, but the relief was short-lived and you hadn’t picked the notebook up in nearly a week.

Today’s experiment was meditation. Jeonghan had gone to a training for it and wanted to see if you’d respond at all to it. He turned the lights off, only a little sunshine peeking through the blinds, and had talked you into a ‘meditative state’. You’d snorted when he said that was the first step, but he pinned you with a look that said, ‘come on, work with me here’. So you’d laid down on the couch and closed your eyes, focusing on your breathing like he said. But, you were thinking that maybe you had only relaxed because it was dark and the couch was comfy and you were sleep deprived - aka nothing to do with his guided meditation.

“Tell me what you feel. Do a body scan.”

You feel your eyebrows pinch because his voice sounds soft and small and you don’t really know what he means by that. “What do you mean? Like physically, emotionally, mentally?”

“Any of it. What sticks out?” Jeonghan gently prompts.

You sigh. “I don’t know. It’s loud in here.” You’ve grown comfortable admitting things like that to Jeonghan because he’s really not treated you like you’re crazy a single time. When you make comments like that, he doesn’t look around or pause to see if he can hear it too.

“Sort through the noise, if you can. Get to you, not the others.” This frustrates you and you feel your body begin to tense up again. You haven’t been alone in your head since you were 19. You don’t know how to fucking sort through the noise. If you had, you would have already done it. “Y/N, breathe,” Jeonghan reminds. You follow the command, remembering that he’d asked you to trust the process. “Let’s focus on the physical for now. What do you feel? Pain, pressure, weakness, anything of the sort.”

Your eyebrows are pinched again because his voice is getting softer and you can’t figure out why. His office isn’t that big and you wonder why he’s whispering. Your mouth kind of moves before you realize it. “Neck hurts.”

“Is that you? Or is that someone else?” His voice is so quiet that you have to strain to hear it.

“Me, I think. It doesn’t feel like a… wound. Just an ache, like I slept on it wrong.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. “What about emotionally?”

“Confused,” you mumble. Jeonghan hums distantly, questioning your answer. “You sound really far away.”

There’s silence for a while and then finally, he says, “And mentally?”

Your breath catches, even in your relaxed state. It’s… quiet. Not silent because there’s still a low murmur, like there are people talking behind a closed door, but it’s so blissful that your eyes prick with tears behind your eyelids. Jeonghan calls your name again, asking for an answer. “Quiet.” You can hear your own voice for once and it sounds totally foreign to you. But you can hear it and it makes the tears pour.

You don’t realize that the light has clicked back on until Jeonghan shakes your shoulder lightly a few times. “Y/N, come back.”

It feels like you’re slamming back into your body and the rush of sound and sensation is overwhelming. You pop up and cover your ears with your hands. Jeonghan eases you to sit up, leaning your head between your knees. You’re a snotty, teary-eyed mess when you sit up. “What the fuck was that?” You don’t hear your own voice anymore, but you can tell it doesn’t come out right based on the scratch in your throat. Jeonghan silently hands you a wad of tissues from where he’s squatting next to you. “Jeonghan.” You press, wiping your nose.

Jeonghan looks pensive, maybe even a little bit anxious. It’s an unsettling sight to see on your therapist of all people. “This might be above my pay grade for now. But I have an idea and I need you to hear me out.”

You watch him stand, going to his desk and picking up a folded paper, handing it to you when he comes back. You sniffle, glancing up at him suspiciously when you take it. You open it and scoff, putting your head in your hand, crinkling the paper slightly in the other fist. “Why the fuck would I do that after what just happened?”

Jeonghan is sitting back down in his seat across from you, albeit on the edge of it, arms propped up on his knees. “I didn’t expect you to respond at all to meditation. A lot of people don’t, at least not the way you just did. If anything, most people get sleepy. But you… drifted.” He doesn’t seem to like that he doesn’t know how to describe it, like it doesn’t fit cleanly into any diagnostic criteria he’s familiar with. He nods to the paper. “Give it a shot. If you can’t get anything out of it, we go back to the drawing board.”

“Say you didn’t believe me until now,” you snap through the exhaustion, avoiding committing to the flyer in your hand.

“I didn’t. Not really, anyway,” he bites the inside of his cheek, shaking his head. He sighs like he’s hesitant to say anything more, but his exasperation is clear. “I was actually thinking about a schizophrenia diagnosis but wasn’t ready to mention it. You started presenting symptoms around the age that I’d expect - the voices, the visions, the breaks from time and reality. It was all checking out and I was starting to think the accident really didn’t have much to do with it. But that,” he points to where your head just was on the couch a few minutes ago, “was not schizophrenia. That was something they don’t teach in a psychology program. At least, not with any sort of seriousness. It’s all talk therapy for the most part.”

You hide your face in your hands - you did the moment he mentioned such a diagnosis. It’s not that you’d be ashamed per se because it would be nice to put a name to whatever this is, but you recognize the stigma around it if only because of how you responded to the suggestion. “I don’t want meds and I don’t want a psych ward,” you stress through gritted teeth. “And I’m not a danger to myself or others. But you probably think I’m crazy.”

“No, Y/N, I don’t think you’re crazy. You’re sound of mind in literally every other way,” Jeonghan insists sternly. “No meds if you don’t want them, and no psych ward unless something changes pretty dramatically. Just… humor me and let me research a few things while you’re gone, okay? I’m not giving up on you yet.”

You recognize that he’s teasing you, trying to get you to laugh, but you can’t find it in yourself to crack a smile when the timer goes off and you grab your things. “Don’t cancel on me,” he calls as you leave the office, but you think he might kind of mean it.

You land in Jeju at approximately 4pm a week and a half later. You can’t really believe you’ve agreed to do this, but the plane tickets had been purchased and the hotel had been booked, and you didn’t have a good reason not to hear Jeonghan out. You’d left his office a week and a half ago, totally shaken, tossing the wrinkled flyer onto the kitchen counter when you got home.

But Junhui had come over that night, somehow sensing that you might need some company when he called. He’d been throwing out the takeout boxes after dinner when he came across the flyer. “A wellness retreat?” He asked quizzically, peering out of the kitchen.

You’d grumbled from the couch. “Yeah, my therapist thinks I should give it a shot.”

Junhui had come back to the living room with the flyer, reading over it. Then he shrugged, tossing it onto your coffee table. “Maybe you should. Might end up being lame, but it’s worth a try, right?” You’d huffed when you talked to Vernon the next night and he’d said pretty much the same thing.

So, you’d taken off of work for the week, booked your travel and lodgings, and started packing. And you felt so stupid about it as you walked into the ocean side resort. You always felt like this kind of stuff was such woo-woo bullshit that you couldn’t take it seriously. But here you are, stuck here having paid for the retreat for the next week. It would cost an arm and a leg to change your flight back home if this turned out as badly as you thought it would. When you whined about this on the way to the airport, Jun had shrugged about that too, telling you to enjoy the beach while you were there then. It was a vacation either way.

So, you checked into your hotel and crashed for the night. There was great irony in the fact that such a spiritualist event would be hosted at a haunted hotel, because it certainly was that. You got very little sleep. Maybe it was because you were ‘working’, but Vernon wasn’t here to wake you up and tell you. He wasn’t sure how far he could ‘travel’ and you didn’t dare ask. He liked his daily habits too much anyway to follow you here.

Early the next morning, you drag out of bed, pulling on some comfortable clothes. The kickoff for this retreat was early, starting with a guided meditation on the beach at sunrise. You’d snorted at the thought back home, but the air was kind of nice when you stepped out on the beach in the dark. Others were already there, some congregating, while some claimed a spot for the meditation starting in a few minutes. You found space in the back, if only to ensure that you could sneak away if you felt like it.

The instructor was a frail woman, a total hippie with an airy, zen-like voice that made your eye twitch. She started the guided meditation with things like ‘settle in’ and ‘feel the waves wash over you’. You roll your eyes behind your eyelids, simply trying to sit still for the next twenty minutes. When the instructor releases everyone and tells them to take their time, you’re the first one up, brushing off the sand. You hear a soft laugh from beside you.

“Didn’t like this meditation?”

You blink. The man next to you is cast in low light since the sun has only started to rise and it’s entirely unfair how ethereal he looks when he smiles lightly up at you. You frown down at him where he’s still sitting. “Would it be offensive if I said no?”

He chuckles again, standing up. He’s taller than you now, and you crane your neck up rather than down to see him. He’s got a lean, muscular build, all angles that are crazy attractive. But the soft brown eyes are truly the killer. You want to laugh because how could you ever ‘clear your mind’ around a guy like this. Maybe that’s why the meditation didn’t work. “Maybe don’t say it in front of the instructor. She’s sort of an expert in the field. I’ve been to a few of her sessions before.”

“Oh,” you say lamely, glancing to the crowd that’s beginning to stand and congregate, hoping that no one overheard you.

He smiles warmly. “I’m Minghao.”

“Y/N. I take it you come to these often then?” It occurs to you how weird it is that you’re seeking out a conversation with this guy, because you haven’t done that in years. But he has this air about him that is sort of magnetic. You feel lame when that word crosses your mind, but you don’t have a better word for it and you’ll never utter any of that aloud anyway.

Minghao shrugs. “On occasion. Mostly, I practice by myself though.” He tilts his head when he gives you an amused look. “Am I wrong to guess you’re pretty new to this?”

You huffed out a laugh, crossing your arms. You aren’t sure if the defensive pose is because of how weird you feel about this conversation or that you’d left your sweater in your room. “What gave it away?”

“Well, you squirmed the whole time, and then jumped up as soon as she said she was done. It’s kind of a sign that it didn’t work for you.” The crowd is starting to move back to the hotel, and the sleepy vibe is gone, replaced by some excited chatter. You remember that very few people here are probably quite as skeptical as you are. Minghao watches you watch the crowd for a minute, before speaking up again. “Wanna have breakfast with me? It’s nice to have someone to chat with at these sort of things, since you spend so much time at things like this in your own head.”

You want to laugh, because you are never alone and could only dream of what that feels like now, but between that stupid magnetism that he has and the fact that it would be rude to turn his offer down, you nod. “Sure.” He gestures in an ‘after you’ sort of motion and you both trail behind the crowd into the hotel.

You both find a seat in the corner of the hotel restaurant and order. He doesn’t bat an eye when you don’t order the traditionally healthy stuff at a wellness retreat of all places. You’re even a little relieved when he simply asks for the same, ignoring the judging look from the fitness guru of a woman sitting at the table next to you two.

Once you both have some coffee in front of you, he gives you an entertained look. “So, can I ask why you came to a retreat like this if you don’t buy into any of it?”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Who said I don’t believe in it?” He gives you a dry look that makes you scoff, even though you aren’t all that annoyed. “You’re right, I’m new to it. I’m just seeing if it’s something that will actually work for me.”

He hums, nodding between sips of coffee. “Any luck yet? Outside of this retreat, I mean.”

You resist squirming in your seat, thinking about Jeonghan’s little experiment last week. “Yes and no?”

Minghao nods, his smile turning wry. “You don’t like the small talk, huh?”

This makes you snort out a laugh, earning another glare from the woman at the table next to you both that you ignore. “No, I’m not great at it.”

“I can work with that,” he says simply. Behind him something catches your eye. A man trudges in, totally soaked. Your first thought is a mishap too close to the shore, because he’s dripping small puddles throughout the restaurant hall as he shuffles. But you quickly realize what you’re seeing and that no one else is seeing it. A waiter breezes right past the man and doesn’t so much as slip in the puddles he’s creating. You don’t feel anything from this guy exactly, but it’s not hard to figure it out. He’s dead, probably a drowning victim.

A hand waves in front of you and you snap to attention. Minghao’s face is some sort of mixture of confused and concerned. “Are you okay? What is it?”

You blink at him, trying to focus on him, rather than the man that’s still trudging through the hall and into the kitchen behind Minghao, leaving a trail of water behind him. “Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”

Minghao just looks at you curiously and the look is only broken when the waitress brings your food and offers more coffee.

Minghao becomes your guide for the day. Workshops start at 9am and when a staff member for the retreat hands out a flyer for today’s options at breakfast, you’re kind of surprised when Minghao asks what you want to do for the day. You must have looked confused because he just gives you a little entertained look and says, “unless you want to go on your own.” You didn’t. So you let him talk you through some of the options. Admittedly, you aren’t too impressed by the sound of any of them, but he correctly assumes you’re a beginner and picks some that he thinks will work for you.

9am is a lecture called ‘Getting out of your own way’. It’s another super zen instructor and you cross your arms and lean back in your seat when he starts. But by the end of it, you’re squirming because this feels like some kind of therapy shit that hits too close to home. You even feel a slice of anger sometimes because it’s not you that’s in your way - it’s everyone else, namely the dead. You can’t imagine how Jeonghan or anyone here would love to dissect such a blame-shifting, defensive response, so you bite your tongue until it bleeds. You regret coming by the time the session ends at 10:30.

The 11:15 session is called ‘Trust your intuition’. There’s a short lecture, but then there’s an experiment to do with the partner next to you at each table. Each pair is handed a deck of cards. Minghao shuffles them well and then slides the top card to you, face down. The rule is that you can’t peek, but you can touch the top of the card if you’d like. When Minghao slides the first one to you, you look at him incredulously and say “I’m not a mind reader.” You recognize that that’s not quite the truth, but you have no clue which card is sitting in front of you.

Minghao wears a sort of secretive smile, looking highly entertained. “It’s not meant to be a quiz to stress about. Just try it. Close your eyes and touch the top of the card.” When you don’t move, he nods again. “Humor me, Y/N. You don’t have to be good at it, just try it.”

You’d scoffed, closing your eyes and placing your finger tips on the card. Nothing comes to you so you sigh, throwing your other hand up in exasperation. “Jack of diamonds,” falls out of your mouth as a guess.

“Okay, turn it over,” Minghao says encouragingly. You expect to have picked quite literally any of the 51 other cards, but when you flip it over, a jack of diamonds greets you. You freeze, face pinched in confusion, because how in the fuck did you do that? Mingaho raises an eyebrow, a flash of excitement on his face. “How about another one?” Ten cards and ten correct guess later, you feel your eyes water from something akin to shock. Minghao must notice that you need a break and he slides you the deck. “My turn.”

After lunch, the 2pm session is ‘Facing your fears’. The hotel has allowed the retreat to take over the courtyard, setting up ropes and a climbing wall. You’d never been particularly afraid of heights and you’d once been quite athletic, so you breeze through this. So does Minghao, though you aren’t surprised based on his physique. You do your best not to focus on his arms or the way his shirtless back flexes when it’s his turn to climb. You aren’t one to be enamored by someone’s appearance like this often, so you squash the thought. He’s been nice, and patient more than most people ever try to be with you, but he does not need to know that you think anymore than that. You’ve known him for a whopping eight hours.

At 3:30, the session is actually a fair that has been set up in one of the event halls at the hotel. There are tons of booths for all kinds of metaphysical stuff. Crystals of all kinds, body products meant to relax and rejuvenate, incense, teas, tinctures, and ritual items. Minghao spends a long time looking at the teas, purchasing a number of them. You bite back the smile at how kid-like he is about it, eyes full of excitement when he has you smell one and tells you about it. You tease that he might as well be selling the tea himself.

You linger on a few items, all of which are labeled with the word ‘protection’. First, it was a set of crystals that are supposedly meant to clear negative energy. Then it was a box of incense labeled ‘spiritual protection’. Then there was an anointing oil labeled for protection magic.

Minghao watches you pick up each of these items, before putting them back and turn like you’re ready to go. You are ready to go because you’re truly so far out of your depth with any of this. You feel like you’re playing with fire, risking any of these things making your problems worse. On the third time, he doesn’t budge when you’re ready to leave the booth. There’s something in his expression that you can’t quite decipher. Maybe it’s because you don’t really know him that well, but you wonder if you could ever read a look like that because it’s so layered. “If you’re interested in protection, you should try out those things. At worst, they don’t do anything for you.”

The woman that runs this booth clears her throat behind him, like she’s offended at the implication that her wares don’t work. But Minghao still doesn’t budge and you look back down at the little bottle of anointing oil, picking it up and rolling it in your hand. This feels like another ‘trust the process’ moment and you can afford it, so after a few beats you decide to buy it. Minghao guides you back to the booths that had the crystal set and the incense so you can purchase those as well. You’re kind of relieved that he doesn’t ask why you’re interested in this sort of thing, though you wonder if that question might come before the retreat is over.

Dinner comes and goes, and then later that night, there is a campfire on the beach. You admittedly aren’t into the drumming circle that comes first, but you are very into the marshmallows that are handed out to make s’mores. You and Minghao make half a dozen together, one of you holding the graham crackers and chocolate and the other roasting the marshmallow. This earns a few more glares from some of the more hardcore attendees who sneer when the bag of marshmallows comes around to them. You’re discovering that Minghao isn’t fazed by much, and it’s an attitude that you can appreciate. You wish you could be like that.

You crawl into bed a little after 11pm and drift off.

Just after 2am, you slide open the door to your balcony. The view in front of you is dark, but you can hear and smell the waves, and the breeze is cool. You’ll need the sweater you brought out with you in a bit, but not right now while you’re dripping sweat.

Sometimes, when you’re ‘working’ in your sleep, you meet someone demanding. Most of the time, you don’t even remember or realize what you’re doing. There are no flashes of the supposed line out of the door to assist in moving on. No unfamiliar faces that you remember when you wake up.

But on occasion, someone is desperate to move on and you assume that their urgency wakes you up. Jeonghan says the clinical term is sleep paralysis. The mind wakes up before the body is released from its frozen state. Your eyes are open and you’re aware of what you’re seeing, but you can’t do anything about it. A lot of people experience it, apparently, but Jeonghan says that most of these things are hallucinations - a demon or an old hag hovering over you. Even Jeonghan admits now that your situation is a little different, because yours might not quite be a traditional hallucination. He was hesitant to call it something real, but doesn’t utter what you expect, which is the accusatory phrase, ‘you think it’s real’.

So naturally, seeing the drowned guy from earlier, hovering over you with panicked eyes made your heart beat out of your chest. You have no clue how long it really was, but it seemed like an eternity that you were frozen, watching him gasp for air and try to beg for help. But as it happens sometimes, the moment you’re released from your frozen state, the man is gone in a blink of an eye. You have no idea if you moved him on, or if he’s still lingering, desperate for help. These are the worst nights, and you know you won’t be going back to sleep anytime soon. In fact, you can’t stay in bed for a second longer, least of all in the dark. Your first step after getting out of bed is to turn on all of the lights.

You settle in the wicker chair on the balcony, propping your feet up on the ottoman in front of you, breathing deeply. You’re frustrated. You’d hoped you’d show up to something like this and find all the answers to your questions. Maybe it was a high expectation, but a place like this should have had all of the solutions to your problems - after all, they’re the spiritual experts. You feel the frustrated tears flow, but you don’t bother wiping them away, just leaning your head back. Your eyes drift closed, though you aren’t the least bit tired right now, too wired from what happened a few minutes ago.

With your eyes closed, you miss the light in the neighboring room flicking on, but your head does snap up when a sliding door opens nearby. Footsteps echo on the balcony next to you and you rush to wipe your face. You’re not in the mood for conversation, least of all any questions, and you’re hoping that your neighbor just wants some peace and quiet like you.

“Y/N?”

Your head snaps again, this time to look to the neighboring balcony. Minghao is peering around, looking a little concerned. You didn’t know that he was your neighbor. He’d stayed back to talk to someone at the campfire hours ago, so you’d walked up to your room alone.

“Are you okay?” He asks, pulling your attention back.

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

Minghao stares at you for a few beats, like he’s trying to read your mind, before he finally says, “No, you didn’t. I was up reading.” He leans on the railing, looking you over. From this position, his arms have you sweating again and you feel stupid for it. You’ve never reacted to a man like this. “Penny for your thoughts?”

You laugh, and you wish it held even a little bit of humor. “No, it’s not very ‘wellness retreat’ of me to share what I’m thinking. It would most definitely kill the vibes. Don’t worry about it.”

Minghao shrugs, that flash of humor that he’d had all day on his face again. “I’d say a wellness retreat is kind of the perfect place for that. You know, healing and relaxation, all that jazz.” Still, he falls silent, sitting in his own wicker chair only six feet from you, separated by the railing of your balconies.

You have no idea how much time passes when you finally speak up. “How are you so good at all of this?”

You see him look at you through the railing. It’s a look that’s open and says a lot, but the problem is that you can’t really decipher any of it. “I’m not good at it,” he finally says. “I’m just open to it.” You look away from him, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “Please don’t take offense to this, but it seems like maybe you’re not open to it. You seem to resist a lot of it.”

“I have a lot of practice with that,” you muse, but your expression feels a little off when you look at him again. Like you don’t know how to just slap on a smile and let it go.

He nods understandingly. “It’s easy to deny. It’s much harder to just let it be. Painful, even.” He hesitates for a second then finally says, “what are you trying to ‘let it be’?”

You give him a rueful smile through the railing. “That’s a pretty soul-baring question.” He shrugs good-naturedly, looking at the dark view in front of you both, seemingly not expecting an answer. You follow his gaze. “It would make me sound crazy.”

“Try me.”

There’s something so painfully genuine and secure about his tone. When you look back at him through the railing, he’s already looking at you and his expression matches his tone. You feel ridiculous and maybe even a little naive when your eyes water because you can’t remember someone ever looking at you like that. You don’t let a lot of people in, especially total strangers. But there’s something about him that makes you want to start peeling back the layers that you hide behind. You may never see him again after this retreat, and that might be okay because being soul-baring is scary.

You start with the first layer, even though it’s a big one. “I see ghosts.”

The next morning starts at 7am. The recommended solo activity for this morning is reflection and journaling. You debate on skipping it because you’re running on just a few hours of sleep, but Minghao knocks on your door at 6:45am, urging you to get dressed and join him.

After you spilled your secret last night, Minghao had just nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world. You’d blanched at his lack of reaction. “Why are being so casual about this?” You’d asked, anger flooding your voice.

But his easy tone had squashed any anger. “I kind of suspected something. There have been quite a few signs today.”

At around 4am, he’d sent you to bed to get a few hours of sleep, resolving that he’d help you get the most out of the rest of the retreat if you’d let him. You guess this was step one of letting him.

After a shower, Minghao lets you into his hotel room. He also appears to be freshly showered and you brush off any thoughts of how good he smells when you walk past him in the doorway. He gestures to the little table by the sliding glass door for you to have a seat. You do, watching him come back with mugs of hot water and tea bags. You recognize the smell when he hands it to you. It’s one of the kinds that he bought yesterday.

The rest of the hour passes in relative silence. You’ve filled pages by then, and when you come up for air you realize that your tea is cold and Minghao’s page is nearly blank, save for a couple things. “Not into journaling?”

He shrugged, smiling at you. “I do it every day. Some days there just isn’t much to write.” You finish the tea as not to waste it and go with him to breakfast.

Minghao doesn’t tell you what he has on tap for you today, simply telling you to trust him as he leads you out to the beach. You suppress a groan, following him to a couple mats that are placed in the back. He gives you an amused smile, like he knows you aren’t into this. He turns to you on his mat, and you begrudgingly do the same.

“You’re going to hear the typical ‘clear your mind’ mantras. Don’t bother.” You raise an eyebrow at him to continue. “You’re beyond being able to just clear your mind. Do the movements, sure. But focus on the breathing and finding your own voice. Learn to filter the noise. Once you can filter, you can try to tune them out.”

You’re frustrated by how simple he makes it sound and he must be able to tell. “Don’t try to be a perfectionist here. Just use the time to be by yourself.”

You feel the frustration fade, replaced by an emotion that you can’t quite pinpoint, but it has stupid tears pricking your eyes because not even Jeonghan or Vernon has matched this sort of understanding. If Minghao notices the emotion, he doesn’t say anything about it. When the yoga instructor shows up, you mindlessly follow along with what she says, more focused on trying to do what Minghao said. The filtering is… hard. You aren’t even sure what your voice sounds like.

You’re so focused on the task, that you must miss the end of the session. You’re in a child pose when you feel a hand on your shoulder. You snap up and the hand squeezes, curving around your shoulder maybe attempting to comfort you. Most of the crowd has dissipated, only a few people still lingering with the instructor. It’s not the time loss or the way that you’d ‘drifted’ as Jeonghan had described it that bothers you.

You look up at Minghao, totally aware at how vulnerable you probably look. It’s because everything is quiet. Not even a murmur, like there had been when you tried Jeonghan’s little experiment last week. It’s silent and it had only started when Minghao touched your shoulder. It’s like he pressed the mute button.

“Are you okay? Too much?” He asks, looking genuinely concerned.

“What?” You ask, feeling a little numb with shock.

Minghao reaches out to wipe your face, gentle fingers grazing your cheeks. You hadn’t realized you’d been crying. “Too much, got it.” He stands up, hands leaving you. The noise rushes back and you fold into yourself, forehead hitting the mat again. “Y/N?” His hand lands on your back and the mute button is hit again. It makes your breath catch. He’s rubbing your back lightly, crouched next to you when you come up again. You’re more prepared when his hand leaves you again and the rush of noise comes back. He stands, holding his hand out to help you up. He doesn’t drop it when you’re standing next to him. “Come on. We have a break until 11:15 and I think you need it.”

You needed more than the 45 minute break between sessions. He must sense that you need some privacy to deal with things so he guides you back up to his hotel room where he gives you cups of tea, one after another. He asks questions but they aren’t pressing. You’re relieved by that because you don’t know what to tell him. You just say something happened, but you aren’t sure what. With you being new to all this, it must be an acceptable answer.

You both skip the next session and take a long lunch, showing up for the 2pm session. This one is ‘Developing your own spiritual practices’. You look at the little flyer that the instructor hands out when you guys take a seat in the back row and then look up at Minghao helplessly, still feeling pretty raw from earlier. “I don’t think any of this will help me.”

“That’s fine,” he simply, voice like honey to you. “This is just to get some ideas. A lot of this is trial and error for everyone, not just you.”

You listen to this instructor with bated breath because you need solutions fast. The silence earlier was blissful in a way that makes you want to weep if you think about it for too long. You need to be able to shut it off like that anytime. Whatever Minghao has to do with it is a mystery, but he won’t be around forever - only for a few more days. You aren’t sure what to do with any of what the instructor says, but you make notes on the back of the flyer and pocket them for later to research.

The 4pm session is ‘emotional clearing’. You feel overwhelmed by the concept and it must show because Minghao places his hand on top of yours in your lap once you both are seated. The hush falls over your mind again. “Remember what I said. Just get some ideas.” You feel like you need this session more than anything else you’ve experienced at this retreat so far and you’re desperate to focus, so you impulsively grip Minghao’s hand when he starts to slip away into his own space again. He lets you, keeping his hand locked with yours for the whole session.

There’s a similar pattern to the next couple of days. He has you try swimming, which you aren’t a huge fan of and don’t find particularly relaxing, but he sticks with you. Reiki interests you more than you’d expect and you think about searching it out later when you’re back home. On the last full day of the retreat, you give Minghao an amused look when he walks you to a session for ‘Messages from above’. He just gives you an amused look back.

“Hear me out. I know yours aren’t exactly from above, but maybe you can get something out of this.”

And he’s right, you do get something out of it. Perhaps they aren’t tools to help you, but you do feel a little less crazy when you hear how many people in the room believe in their own abilities, and even appear confident in them. You come away not wanting to totally get rid of this little gift of yours, but maybe to one day control it.

After dinner, you both go on a walk along the beach. It’s borderline romantic in a way that makes you feel silly. Your nineteen year old self would have loved something like this. But the thing about Minghao is that he doesn’t let you feel silly for long. He’s just so… safe. You don’t feel like a freak with him. You feel human. You feel okay, even when he’s not touching you, which you’ve avoided for the most part since that morning yoga session and holding his hand during one of the lectures.

A lot of your time together passes in comfortable silence. You find that so few words are really necessary to understand each other. You’ve walked from one pier to the other now and are on your way back when you stop in your tracks. Minghao stops with you, looking in the direction that you are.

“What do you see?” Minghao asks. Your bottom lip trembles because he didn’t ask ‘what are you looking at’. The distinction is something that you can’t spend a lot of time on because what you’re seeing is… bad. It’s the man that you saw on your first morning here in the hotel restaurant. The same one that woke you up the other night. You must not have moved him on successfully because he’s there, struggling in the waves. He washes up and he’s still. You exhale hard at the sight. It’s not the first time you’ve seen a replay of death, but it makes your gut twist every time.

Minghao’s hand lands on your back and you can’t even blink when the man on the shore disappears like he might as well have gone up in a cloud of smoke. Your jaw drops a bit because that’s new. Usually, these horrible visions linger. “Y/N,” he says gently. You glance up to him, feeling a little devastated in a way that only this little ‘gift’ can do. The look he’s giving you is crushing in its own way too. It’s one full of sympathy without an ounce of patronization. He’s quiet for a long time. “Why don’t we go up for the night and settle in?”

You let him guide you by the hand up to your hotel room, where he lets you go in alone.

You’re up again, sitting out on the balcony at a little after 1am. Your bags are mostly packed to leave tomorrow - or today, rather. You aren’t totally surprised when the neighboring sliding door opens and Minghao steps out. He leans on the railing next to you, peering over. “I saw the light click on a while ago. Penny for your thoughts?”

“Do you ever sleep?” You tease, looking up at him.

He raises an eyebrow. “I think I could ask you the same thing.” In the dim lighting, your mouth waters a bit looking at him. Given the location and weather, he’s abandoned a shirt a lot of the time, just like now. A pair of sweatpants hang low on his hips. You’re getting the full picture of the toned arms and chest, the abs and the tapered waist. It’s totally unfair because if he’s aware of how just looking at him drives you a little crazy, he doesn’t let on. His smile is fairly innocent. “Could I interest you in a cup of tea?”

Your time with someone like him is limited, what with a plane departure looming tomorrow afternoon. So you smile, standing up. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

He lets you in, telling you to make yourself comfortable. But this time, he gestures to the bed instead of the table. The covers are rumpled like he’d attempted to sleep tonight. He makes the tea, handing you a mug and sitting on the other side of the bed. The TV is on some kind of late night cartoon that you watch blindly. The silence stretches but it’s not uncomfortable.

It’s almost 1:45 when you set the empty mug on the bedside table and curl your legs into your chest. “Y/N?” You look over and Minghao’s giving you that exposed look that you can’t decipher again. He takes a breath that is perhaps deeper than normal, like he’s steeling himself. “The other day, at the yoga session, what happened?”

You purse your lips, scanning his face. He’s so handsome, and has shown you more understanding than anyone else you’ve ever met, and… he’s really a total stranger. You just met him four days ago. This connection is scary, if only because it will be gone tomorrow afternoon. You lean your head back against the headboard and he tracks the movement carefully. No wonder he doesn’t really miss anything. “It’s hard to explain,” you find yourself whispering.

“Try me.”

You can’t tell him about the power he seems to have over you. You can’t depend on him. But you decide that you can tell him the rest. You bite your lip and see how his gaze dips down for a split second. It sends a little shock for your system to even consider that this attraction might be mutual. You realize he’s looking at your eyes again, waiting for an answer.

“It did something. It was hard and frustrating to start filtering. But… I think it started to work.”

He doesn’t respond right away but he doesn’t look surprised. He sort of looks like he’s battling with something. Finally, he must come to a decision. “That’s not quite what I meant, Y/N. I meant your reaction when I touched you.” You try to squash your reaction now, but his eyes drill into you and you’re sure he noticed how your eyes widened for a second. “I’m just… concerned that I did something wrong. The look on your face is something I’ll never forget, and I’m not sure if it was even a good or a bad thing. It’s been eating at me for days.”

Minghao lets you stare at him for a while and it feels kind of like falling of a cliff to answer him. But you can’t let him think he did anything wrong. Not when he’s given you moments of blissful silence. Your voice doesn’t sound quite right, even through the din in your head. “It was good. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He looks a little relieved at your answer, shoulders relaxing a little bit. But then he’s battling with something again before speaking. “At the risk of sounding inappropriate, is it just that you liked when I touched you? Or was there something else?”

You feel your brows pinch together, frowning at him. “Does it matter?”

“I guess it does, so I know whether I should ask to kiss you.”

You feel your breath catch at his words. You scan him for any signs of bad intentions, but you find none. After all, you’ve already been in this room with him before. You’ve spent the last four days with him by your side from sun up to sun down, and a little bit after that too. And he’s asking for permission, giving you an opportunity to shut him down and go to your own room. You’ll both get on separate flights and go home and probably never see each other again.

“You can. Kiss me, I mean,” you blurt. A little smile creeps up on his face and he moves closer to you, hand meeting your cheek. Your eyes drift closed because of the silence his touch brings, and you feel his breath wash over your lips as he closes in.

“Pretty,” he mumbles, before his lips press to yours. They’re soft, light, lingering pecks at first, getting longer when you reach out to hold him close by his own cheek. A little swipe of his tongue at the seam of your lips makes you sigh, hand sliding into his hair. All of it is so soft that you barely feel it when he has you slide down to lay on your back in bed. You’re absolute putty in his hands as he hovers halfway over you, lips still advancing and retreating as his hand crawls up your shirt to lay flat against your stomach. Your hands are doing their own wandering over his bare chest and back, tight muscle underneath your finger tips.

He pulls away from your lips ever so slightly, hand tugging lightly on the hem of your shirt. “May I?” When you nod, he gently peels the fabric up over your head. You didn’t bother with a bra because you should have been sleeping, but you don’t have a split second to feel weird about that because his hand is grazing your breast lightly, then cupping it. You sigh at the feeling and it’s like you’re calling him back to you with the sound because his lips are back on yours again.

It feels like forever but also a blink of an eye when you’ve both lost all of your clothes and he’s gently spreading your legs to kneel between them. “Are you sure?” His tone is a sweet whisper and you think you can identify the look he’s been giving you all week. It’s soul-baring, like he has nothing to hide from you. So you nod, hoping your expression even comes close to his.

Minghao leans down, pressing soft kisses to your lips again as he runs the head of his cock into your folds. The feeling as you both hissing a bit. When he notches into your entrance and starts pushing in, you sigh, nails biting into his back. Once all the way in, he stays still, fully buried inside of you while he kisses you into oblivion. You kind of forget that the goal of this for most people would be sex because you think you’d let him stay like this forever. Between the warmth of his touch and the silence it brings, you feel like this rivals heaven.

When you both are breathless, he pulls back, propping up on his forearms over you. His hand grazes the top of your head softly. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” You don’t know why you both are still whispering, but it just adds to the intimate air that you both have, like this is just for the both of you. You feel silly when you think that, because of course it is, but you can’t think long about it, because he’s just feeding this little bubble you both are in with kisses to your cheek.

“Want me to move?” You nod, his lips dancing along your cheek still. “Okay, baobei.” He pulls away, enough to reach for your legs that are spread wide. His fingers gently grip your ankles, pulling them to wrap around his lower back. Then he’s back down, hovering closely to kiss you as he slides out and slides back in with a gentle rock of his hips. The feeling has you whimpering against his lips and it seems to feed something for him. It’s not like you’re incredibly experienced, but something about being with him is so… softly passionate that it’s overwhelming. He’s barely moved or touched you and you feel like you’re already falling apart.

He backs away from your lips to look down at you as he picks up the pace and your eyes drift closed. His hand grazes the side of your face, long fingers combing into your hairline. “Look at me.” The command is still oddly sweet and you follow instructions. The look he’s giving you has your heart jumping out of your chest. You reach to grip his wrist and he simply intertwines your fingers together and rests your linked hands on the bed above your head.

The strokes get deeper and you feel something building. Tears prick your eyes because he’s still looking down at you like you’re the center of the universe. Like he didn’t just meet you four days ago. His other hand intertwines with your other hand and then both of your arms are above your head. You kind of feel like your surrendering to him in a way and you can’t imagine why you would ever say no to something like this because you haven’t even came yet and you know this will change your life in a way that sex shouldn’t.

Minghao’s hips move with just a little more force, and he hits a spot that has you seeing stars, jaw dropping. He groans softly above you, pressing a kiss to your cheek again. “You are heaven,” he sighs against your skin. You wonder if he said it wrong, that he meant that you felt like heaven, but you think he might have meant it the way he said it and it turns you to mush. The heat is building to something that makes you feel like you’ll burst into flames and your voice is weak when you say his name. His head pops up to look down at you again. “You’re close,” he says. It’s not a question and the fact that he just knows makes you keen. Like he knows all of your tells already, knows the ins and outs of your body already. “Look at me, baobei.”

You do and it only takes a few long seconds before the heat explodes, becoming unbearable. You can’t keep your eyes open anymore, fingers gripping his tightly, legs spasming around his waist. You hear a groan in your ear that makes the orgasm linger because you think you could hear him make that sound forever. It doesn’t take long before he’s jumping up, pulling out of you, and releasing across your stomach. You’re dazed, watching the whole thing, particularly the expression on his face, and the only thing anchoring you right now is his hand gripping your hip. Otherwise, you think you’d float away because you haven’t felt this light in nearly a decade.

When he comes down, his hand leaves your hip, grazing your thigh gently. The other hand is cleaned on the bed sheets before it lands on your cheek softly. He kisses you long and soft without a single care for the mess he’s laying across when he presses his body against you. “Okay?” He asks eventually when he pulls away. You nod and he pecks your lips one more time. “How about a shower?”

You feel clingy in that shower in a way that you’ve never been with anyone before. Not even as a naive teenager that was half in love with the first boy that gave you the tiniest bit of attention. He lets you cling under the warm water, rubbing your back gently and pressing kisses to the top of your head. You feel stupid for so many reasons.

You don’t know him. Not really, anyway. You don’t know his last name. You don’t know where he’s from or where he lives. You don’t know what he does for a living. And you feel stupid for knowing that you know none of that but that it doesn’t really matter. You can’t imagine ever feeling like this again. This connection is unparalleled, something that you’d only read about or seen on TV before. You’d laughed about those things, making fun of them, but now you dread the morning. You dread getting on a plane to go home somewhere that he won’t be.

You dread finding out that he doesn’t feel the connection that you do.

When the water starts to get chilly, Minghao urges you under the stream, washing your hair for you. You both wrap up the shower, drying off and pulling on clothes. It’s just past 4am when Minghao guides you back into bed, pulling you close. You lay across his chest, listening to his heartbeat under your ear. You feel the tears pour because you can actually hear it, paired with the sound of both of you breathing. Nothing else. He must feel the tears on his bare chest because he rubs your back until you fall into a dreamless sleep. You’re out cold when he kisses the top of your head and mumbles, “it’s okay, we’ll find each other again.”

#minghao #xu minghao #the8 #minghao x reader #xu Minghao x reader #the8 x reader #seventeen #svt #seventeen x reader #svt x reader #smut

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