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sowoozoo-7 · 2 years ago

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Love, Lust & Litigation | Ch 1

Pairing: Jungkook x Fem Reader x Namjoon

Genre: lawyer!AU, coworkers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut

Rating: M (18+) whole fic, this chapter PG-13 (for language lol)

Warnings: some swearing in this chapter, nothing explicit

Word Count: 4k

Summary: Unfortunately, you have developed a massive crush on your new boss. Even more unfortunately, your equally attractive coworker is also harboring massive crush on your boss. AKA Jungkook and reader both pine for big, sexy brain Namjoon.

A/N: Phew! Here she is! The first chapter of my first fic. This has been slowly chewing away at my brain for the last few months, and I finally decided to say fuck it and write it. I don't know anything about law or lawyers other than what I've seen from movies and read in books so I'm sure I've gotten something wrong, but whatever, it's my own alternate made up universe.

Anyway, I’m new to all this — longtime reader, first-time poster — so I’d love feedback if you have any! Hope you like it ~

mlist | ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5 | interlude | ch 6 | ch 7 | epilogue

Two hours into your new job at Bang and Associates, and you’ve already made a fool of yourself.

The first couple of hours went smoothly. Check-in with HR was all standard forms, waivers, and NDAs, and the view from your new office is killer.

Though your new boss and the other associate on the litigation team are at court for the morning, you get to meet two of the paralegals on your team, Jimin Park and Hoseok Jung. They look like they just stepped out of a menswear ad, in their fitted suits and slicked back hair. You'd normally be wary of office workers who look a little too put together, but you get the sense that they’re going to be good coworkers from the few minutes you spend talking to them, both good-natured and quick to share a laugh.

It’s when they’re giving you a tour of the office that your heel slips on a set of marble stairs and you find yourself briefly experiencing flight. You decide flying is overrated when you land on your ass and bounce down several steps. One of your shoes takes its own trip and lands a few yards away. You sit on the steps, frozen for a minute, with your bare foot just out there for the world to see.

“Oh my god,” says Hoseok as he rushes down to the step where you landed. “Are you alright?”

You’re quiet for a moment while you deliberate whether or not you’re going to cry. It’s inevitable that you’ll cry in front of your coworkers one day, but looking around, you see everyone else in the atrium glancing over at the absolute idiot who fell down the stairs on her first day.

Not the day to cry, you decide. First impressions and all that. At least you wore a pantsuit today and not a dress.

“I think I’m okay,” you say with a rueful smile. “Just a bruised ego.”

Jimin retrieves your shoe and hands it to you with a sparkle of laughter in his eyes. “Another one bites the dust." It’s not malicious, you don’t think.

“He means that you’re not the first to slip down the stairs,” says Hoseok. “We think the janitors are polishing them extra to get back at all the asshole lawyers.”

You limp for the rest of the office tour.

***

You get sent to the courthouse after finishing the brief admin in the office to shadow your new boss, the firm’s superstar.

Namjoon Kim is mesmerizing.

You have heard of his reputation — how could you not? Top of his class with a winning streak unmatched in the industry — but you have yet to see him in action.

He lives up to his reputation.

You sit at the back of the courtroom, trying not to put too much weight on your bruised ass, watching as he delivers his closing statement.

His voice is deep and measured, drawing everyone to the edge of their seat to hear every twist to the argument he’s crafting. You pity the opposition. They went first with their closing statement and now they’re squirming in their seats as Namjoon takes down every argument, point by point. The jury hangs on to his every world.

Maybe it’s the way he carries himself, with a quiet confidence and authority, maybe it’s that he’s built like a tree and looks like a dream in his pinstripe suit. Whatever it is, you get the feeling that working under a beautiful genius is going to be some kind of Dantean torture.

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

You blink, realizing it’s over, and you watch as he goes to sit. Silence hangs in the court room in the brief second it takes the courtroom to snap out of their Namjoon-induced daze. The room shuffles as everyone shifts back in their seats. The closing formalities continue, with the judge sending the jury to deliberations.

“Court is adjourned.”

The room rumbles with a flurry of activity as everyone goes to exit. You hurry to catch Namjoon — you want to introduce yourself to your new boss as soon as possible — but you get lost in the shuffle of people filing out. By the time you catch up to him outside, he’s giving a press interview on the steps of the courthouse.

You wait on the outskirts of the small crowd that’s gathered. Deja-vu hits as you watch the reporters lean in to hang on to his every word. He takes the questions with grace, and even a little humor, and smiles at a joke one of the reporters makes.

Dear lord. He has dimples.

“Spectacular, isn’t he?”

A young man stands next to you, smirking as if he knows how much you’re fangirling over your new boss. You recognize him as the second attorney at the defendant’s counsel table. The remaining member of the litigation team.

If you weren’t so preoccupied with Namjoon, you’d be mooning over this man instead. His just-messy-enough-to-show-he-doesn’t-care hair frames his face in waves. An eyebrow piercing and a lip piercing glint in the late morning sun. Tattoos decorate the back of one of his hands. He would look like a punk kid up to no good, but you can the tell the suit he’s wearing costs more than your monthly rent. Jesus. Is everyone in the office just a walking GQ campaign?

“Excuse me?”

“Namjoon,” he says with a smile that changes his expression entirely, from a little rakish to boyish in its delight. “I call it the Namjoon Effect. No one’s immune. I think it’s the dimples.” He puts out his hand to shake yours. “Jungkook Jeon. I’m th—“

“The other associate on the litigation team. I know.” You shake his hand and introduce yourself. “Looking forward to working with you.”

“Ah, I thought it was you. Jimin texted me to look out for you today.”

The impromptu press conference breaks up and Namjoon ushers his client down the stairs.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” says Jungkook, flying down the steps. You follow at a slower pace, the twinge in your hip reminding you of your fall earlier that day. Still, you try to strike a confident stride in your heels. First impressions and all.

Namjoon pats the roof of the private car he has bundled his client into and straightens as Jungkook claps him on the shoulder.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about any type of evidence to the press.”

Namjoon raises an eyebrow. “The PR team said that. I didn’t agree to anything. Besides, it’s the same evidence we presented at the trial, just in a different light. Even if we have a less-than-favorable verdict, we’ll still have the public on our side.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. “Why do you even bring me with you?” He sees you and gestures you over. “Namjoon, may I present your latest lackey.”

“I resent that,” you say, mock-frowning and pointing a finger at Jungkook. “But you’re not wrong.”

You introduce yourself to Namjoon and shake his hand. It’s warm and firm. You hope yours isn’t cold and clammy. “Pleasure to be working with you.”

“Pleasure’s all mine. I’ve heard great things from your former boss,” he says with a smile. There go the dimples again. He glances at his watch. “Shall we discuss our caseload over lunch?”

You feel a little thrill at being included in the “our.” Bang and Associates have a reputation for working on some of the most high-profile cases in the city and you’re ready to dig your greedy little fingers into the cases.

“Cat’s Pajamas?” asks Jungkook. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll drive.”

Namjoon sighs as Jungkook turns to walk towards the garage. “He always weasels his way into lunches. I swear he’s a never-ending pit,” he says with a note of fondness for the younger man.

Cat’s Pajamas is an airy bistro just a few blocks away from the offices. There’s a sizable lunchtime crowd, filled with self-important business people taking their clients out to lunch. Jimin and Hoseok meet your group at the restaurant.

You wince at you sit down, rubbing at the side of your hip. The bruise you expected from the fall is developing faster than you thought.

“Are you okay?” Namjoon asks.

He and Jungkook look at you with concern.

You wave them off. “Just a bruise.”

Jimin shakes his head. “The marble stairs have claimed their newest victim.”

“Ah,” says Jungkook with a knowing nod. “I almost broke my wrist when I fell down those stairs a couple months ago. It’s practically a rite of passage at Bang and Associates at this point.”

“Looks like you’re already part of the team,” says Namjoon, lifting his water glass in a toast.

***

The rest of the day passes quickly.

You return to your office to find a stack of documents already on your desk, with a sticky note from Hoseok on top. Welcome to the team!!!! it says, with a big looping smiley face next to it.

You slip out of your heels and bring your legs up under you as you settle into your desk, a routine study position that has followed you from college through to your professional life. There’s nothing you like more than finding your way in the maze of paperwork and laying out your trail in court. You lose yourself in the legalese, getting familiar with an ongoing case that Namjoon mentioned over lunch.

Jungkook pulls you into his office when you’re returning from the bathroom to strategize about the case. His office is exactly the same as yours, with enough space for two guest chairs, a large desk and a set of bookshelves crammed with leather-bound law books. And, your inner petty competitor is pleased to see, the view is also almost exactly the same. Of course, he has a slight advantage because he’s worked here longer, but you have the same job title, the same office. You’re almost on even footing. You’ve noticed a competitive streak in him, and you’re excited to play against it. It’s only going to make you a better lawyer.

The “quick chat” turns into an hour-long discussion and you decide by the time you leave his office that you’ll head home at normal close of business hours. You’ll be staying late anyway as your caseload grows.

You’re surprised to find a brown paper bag on your desk, one of the simple gift bags you can find at the drug store. Inside, you find a get well soon card with a cartoon of a man on a hospital bed in a full-body cast with a thermometer coming out of his mouth and an ice pack on his head. Inside, it reads:

Even though your welcome to Bang and Associates was a painful one, I’m very happy to have you on the team and I look forward to working with you. Now you know to avoid the stairs :)

-Namjoon

Inside the bag you find a bruise balm and a travel size pack of ibuprofen. Warmth spreads through you, pleased at the gift. There’s another layer to that warmth, a feeling that you don’t want to examine too closely, because he’s your boss, and you suspect (no, you know) it's inappropriate to feel that towards your boss.

Later that night, though, as you’re applying the balm to the colorful bruise on your hip, you can’t help but think of his dimpled smile.

***

“You’re babying me.”

You’ve won your first case for Bang and Associates. Your client, a rich young widow who married an older man for love, was the sole inheritor to his massive fortune. His children, some older than the widow, were upset that they got nothing in the will. As you worked with the client, you got the sense that she was genuinely sad about her late husband’s passing. Not that it made any difference. She was a paying client, and you had to represent her regardless, but it made rooting for her easier.

“I thought it was for sure a trick case and that there would be something to trip me up in the prenup, but it was so straightforward.” You’re in the elevator with Namjoon heading up to the office. He was present at the trial, to keep an eye on you to make sure you lived up to the promise of your initial interview.

He shrugs. “It’s nice to start off with a win. You’d be surprised with how many people don’t prepare or get wrapped up in how things should be and completely flounder.” He pats your shoulder as the elevator dings open. “You did good today. Good prep, good execution.”

He nods a goodbye and heads to his office without looking back. You head to yours at a slower clip, your shoulder burning where he touched you. You feel warm overall anyway, knowing you did a good job, but the praise still feels good. A little too good, maybe.

Over the next month, the cases get harder and harder, and you have to pull out the most obscure references from your time in law school. You start spending more and more time at the office, racking up insane amounts of billable hours. You have a permanent cup of coffee at your desk and you change into your fuzzy slippers you brought from home to give your feet a break from heels whenever a new case file lands on your desk for review.

At least you’re not the only one pulling crazy hours. The rest of the litigation team often stays late. You fall in quickly with the guys, cracking jokes over the Nespresso machine you all hover around. They were wary of you at first, an unknown entity coming into the equation, but you proved worth after the second night you stayed late and cracked the key piece of a case buried in ancient tax laws. They treated you to drinks at the local watering hole afterward. The biggest reward though, was getting a small dimpled smile and a thumbs up from Namjoon before he called it a night.

It helps that your boss stays late with the rest of the team. Every time you come to him with a tricky case, without fail, he gives brilliant insight or a nudge in the right direction, giving you advice on where to look for the answer. And when he goes to his fancy client dinners, he’ll always bring something back to the office when he inevitably stops by the office on his way home. You can’t say no to a good takeaway creme brûlée.

One Friday afternoon, Namjoon pulls everyone into a meeting a half hour before close of business. “It’s been a tough few weeks. You’re all going home at five today.” He holds up a hand when the team starts to protest. “I’m going to be at Silver Spoon for happy hour. Drinks are on me. You don’t have to come, but you can’t stay here.”

“I have too much work to do,” Jimin says with a pout.

“I’m firing you if you don’t leave at five on the dot.” The good-natured threat falls easily from Namjoon’s lips. “That goes for all of you. Wrap up what you need to.”

You spend the rest of the time cataloguing what you need to finish Monday morning. Usually you’d work Saturdays too, but with the promise of an early weekend, you decide everything can wait until open of business Monday. Well. Maybe you’ll work on that memo from home over the weekend, but everything else on your to-do list can wait.

You join Jungkook and Hoseok at the elevator bank three minutes before the hour.

“Think he’s gonna make it?” asks Hoseok with a laugh.

You check your watch. “Two minutes left. He’ll make it right at five.”

“He’ll be two minutes over,” says Jungkook.

“I think five over,” says Hoseok.

“Loser buys the nachos,” you say. They both shake on it.

Jimin runs into the elevator bank just as the clock ticks over to five. You pump your fist in victory while the other two groan.

Jimin leans over to catch his breath. “I thought I wasn’t going to make it.”

He straightens just as Namjoon rounds the corner from his office.

“Glad I’m not losing any of the team today.”

“And I get two sets of nachos,” you say, getting into the elevator behind the rest and pressing the button for the ground floor.

“Hobi gets the nachos. I’ll get the wings,” says Jungkook.

Jimin looks back and forth between you two, a confused pout on his face. “What did I miss?”

***

Silver Spoon is all leather and dark wood. Namjoon leads the way to a large booth in the back, waving to the bartender behind the gleaming wooden bar.

“You know everyone,” comments Jungkook as you all pile into the booth. It ends up with Namjoon in the middle, you and Jungkook flanking him, Hoseok next to you, and Jimin next to Jungkook.

“I’ve been working in this area a long time. It pays to get to know the people working at your favorite haunts.”

Namjoon drinks whiskey, neat. Junkook orders a pint of the house craft beer. Hoseok has a glass of red wine, and Jimin has a double straight vodka. You get an elderflower spritz, light and refreshing in the unusually hot fall afternoon.

The conversation deteriorates to work talk, as it usually does among coworkers. The nachos and wings follow the drinks, and everyone digs in. They’re good, just the right amount of elevated to make the price worth it, but not so fancy that the bar food is unrecognizable.

Silver Spoon fills up as the finance bros and hedge fund managers who work in the area trickle in. You recognize a few former coworkers, and you raise your glass to them in a toast when they wave hello, but you don’t attempt to engage further. You don’t care to reconnect with them. The cutthroat, backstabbing environment at your last firm is what made you leave in the first place. Bang and Associates hires ambitious lawyers, but fosters a workplace that manages to keep the ones that are ambitions without the cattiness, encouraging a collaborative work environment over individual hotshot lawyers. You're settling into your new workplace just fine, thank you.

Namjoon gets a call shortly after the third round of drinks, and Jungkook and Jimin shimmy out of the booth to let him out so he can take the call in private.

Hoseok picks up where the conversation left off, brainstorming where to start to research a tricky case. Jimin interrupts him before he can get a full sentence out.

“Uuuugh,” he says, dragging his hands down his cheeks. “Can we talk about anything but work?”

“Please,” you say.

Jimin looks at you with a mischievous grin and pops his chin onto his hand. He calls your name in a singsongy voice. “Are you seeing anyone?”

You snort into your drink. “Do I look like I have time for a relationship?”

“It’s amazing what you can get up to in our limited free time if you have some determination,” mutters Hoseok with a sidelong glance at Jimin.

“Jimin is slowly working his way through the office,” explains Jungkook.

Jimin crosses his heart with his finger and holds a hand up. “All above-board with HR, of course.”

“Doesn’t mean you haven’t left behind a trail of broken hearts,” says Hoseok.

“They all knew what they were getting into when they consented to the relationship.”

“Or lack thereof,” says Jungkook with a snort.

Jimin turns to look at him, eyebrow raised. “Speaking of lack of relationships, still hung up on Namjoon?”

Jungkook turns an impressive shade of red. “Stop, I’m not—“

“Ever since he broke up with his ex-girlfriend, he’s had this massive crush on Namjoon,” Jimin tells you.

“Shut up!”

“We all see how you look at him,” says Hoseok, not unkindly. “Stars in your eyes when you think he’s not looking.”

So you hadn’t been imagining that.

Jungkook’s only response is to chug the rest of his pint.

“I don’t blame you,” you say, then freeze as three heads whip around to look at you. “What?” you ask, voice squeaky.

“Not you too,” groans Jimin.

“What?” You hope the heat creeping up your face isn’t noticeable in the low bar lighting. “I have eyes. He’s attractive. You can’t deny that.”

“And smart,” says Jungkook morosely.

“And kind and he’s a good leader. I’m surprised you guys aren’t also harboring secret crushes,” you say, as if they’re the idiots for not having a massive crush on their boss. In reality, it’s terrifying to say these things out loud, everything you’ve been thinking over the past month you’ve been working at Bang and Associates.

“Unfortunately, I’m straight,” says Hoseok.

“And disgustingly in love with his fiancée,” sneers Jimin. “It’s actually sickening to see them together. She’s super pretty and an amazing dancer — you’ll see at the holiday party— and you really want to hate her but she’s also really nice on top of all that.” He takes the rest of his drink in one shot without a wince. You’d think he was sober if you hadn’t seen him down his vodka doubles like they were water. “And I’m not straight, but I know a lost cause when I see one. Namjoon’s practically married to his work. There are other men and women still waiting to be added to my bedpost.” He waggles his eyebrows in an exaggerated imitation of a leery cartoon character.

“You’re disgusting, you know that?”

“Thought I don’t know about Namjoon.” Jimin continues like he didn’t hear Jungkook’s comment. “I don’t think he’s married, because I’ve never seen a ring, and I’ve never seen him flirting or taking anyone home after drinks. No dates to company parties.”

“Maybe he’s asexual,” says Hoseok.

“That would be a shame because I bet he’s got a big d—“

Jungkook interrupts Jimin with an elbow to his side. He sits up straight, and you follow his line of sight to see Namjoon coming back to the table. They move out of the booth to give him his spot back in the middle.

“Sorry about that. What are we talking about?” asks Namjoon as he settles in, just an inch closer than he had been sitting before. The intoxicating spicy smell of sandalwood that you’ve come to associate with Namjoon fills your nose and you suppress the urge to take a deep breath.

You and Jungkook exchange guilty glances over the table. Jimin heaves a dramatic sigh, thankfully drawing Namjoon’s attention away from you two.

“We were just bemoaning our single status. Not Hoseok, of course.”

“I’d be surprised if you all have time to date, what with the hours we’ve been pulling.”

“How do you balance it all? Work, a social life, dating?” The question falls from your lips and you wish you could shove it back in your mouth. Jungkook kicks you from the other side of the table, and Jimin looks impressed that you actually asked the question.

Namjoon lets out a hollow laugh. “I’m the wrong person to ask.”

You exchange glances with Jungkook again. Does this mean he’s single?

Before anyone can ask a follow-up question, a group of lawyers from the (mostly) friendly competition approach the table to make small talk. You want to shoo them away like pigeons so you can continue the conversation, but you busy yourself with your drink instead.

Your coworkers disperse soon after, with Hoseok slipping away to go home first, red-faced and quiet. Namjoon talks to a group of his law school classmates by the bar.

As the evening progresses, it’s painfully obvious to you now that Jungkook is mooning over Namjoon. You’d had your suspicions before, but after the conversation from earlier, the not-so-subtle glances make you cringe a little. You hope you’re not that obvious too.

Not that Namjoon’s presence stops him from chatting up sone of the women who join your table. They work in the advertising firm a few floors below you, and you’ve gotten friendly with them over the past few weeks. The petite woman with the swishy blonde hair touches him a little more than necessary.

You and Jimin exchange looks when you both clock her hand on Jungkook’s bicep for the third time in as many minutes.

Jungkook and the blonde head out together not too long after. Good for him, you think, not getting so hung up on Nmajoon that he can’t focus on a different pretty face for the night.

When it’s just you and Jimin left at the booth, he leans in a little close. “What do you say you and me head out?”

You laugh in his face. “I’m not going to sleep with you, Jimin.”

He takes it in stride, and stands with a wink. “If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

He blows you a kiss before zeroing in on one of the finance bros who’s been looking over at your table for the past hour. He won’t know what hit him once Jimin is done with him.

You don’t bother trying to pull someone at the bar, choosing instead to slip away without any fanfare. Though you’re no stranger to one-night stands, you’re looking forward to sleeping in and you can’t be bothered with the logistics of a hookup. Tonight, you have a date with your bed, and your bed only.

The air has a bite to it as you step out of the bar, and you pull your coat around you as you hurry to the curb to your Uber. You settle into the back of the car as the driver pulls out into traffic.

You can’t help but feel kinship with Jungkook, what with both of you lusting after the same ill-advised man. The city lights blur by and you let your eyes unfocus.

You wonder what would happen if you were the last three people left in the world. Would he go for you or Jungkook? In your buzzed state of mind, you think you really wouldn't mind sharing.

©sowoozoo-7 2023

Please do not copy or repost. I do not crosspost anywhere else.

#jungkook x you #namjoon x you #jungkook x reader #namjoon x reader #bts fic #bts smut #junkook fanfic #namjoon fanfic #jeon junkook smut #kim namjoon smut #fic: love lust & litigation

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abbatoirablaze · 7 months ago

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Behind Closed Doors, Chapter 7

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: cursing, slight angst, angry Chris Evans.

“Fuck!”

“Hey...what’s wrong?”

You turned; eyes wide as you looked at your boyfriend. He glanced over your shoulder and saw a picture of him pushing the covered stroller with you on TMZ.

“Is that...”

“Yeah...”

“How did they-”

“I don’t know!” you proclaimed, cutting him off, “Sebastian...what are we going to do?”

He sat down beside you on the couch and looked at the laptop. You had come across the article by chance.

‘Mystery woman with Gossip Girl star, Sebastian Stan’ the title read. The caption below it said ‘Actor Sebastian Stan ferrying mystery woman and a set of children around set of Kings. Secret love children?’

“Shit...baby. I didn’t know that anyone was around. You know how I feel about paparazzi.” he frowned, “and you know that I wouldn’t have brought the kids on set if I knew something was going on. We’re careful about it on Gossip Girl…I-I thought that Kings would be the same way.”

“I got a pretty angry voicemail from Chris about it already,” you admitted, biting your lip, “he doesn’t want the kids to be photographed. And if I’m being honest, I’m pretty nervous about it too…what if people really start asking questions?”

“I know,” he replied, “which was a reason why we originally opted for the covered stroller. So, the twins wouldn’t be seen.”

“I tried to tell him that in a text, but he didn’t want to hear it. Apparently just seeing the stroller was enough for him to call,” you frowned, “he’s blowing up my phone…and I really don’t want to deal with that call back to him today…”

“He’s just trying to push your buttons (Y/N).”

“Well, it’s working,” you sighed, “I feel like the only time he reaches out is to bitch at me about how I’m raising the twins. I mean, he never asks how they’re doing. He missed their birthday party when they turned one because he was busy filming somewhere…I mean, Scott and his sisters always check in…and his mom messages me saying that she misses the babies. But both of his parents were here for their birthday party…he’s the only one not invested in them unless he’s complaining.”

“I can call him if you want!”

Your eyes widened and you were quick to shut your laptop and push it to the side, “Sebastian, no. The last thing I need is for Chris to start freaking out because of how involved you are with the twins lives already. Remember last month when he called because his mom saw that the twins got a haircut?”

“In all fairness, I apologized for leaving my trimmer out...i didn’t think Johnny would get up there on the counter.”

“That boy is an escape artist I’m telling you!” you sighed, laughing at the memory, “he’s only one and he managed to somehow get past the baby gates.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS, (Y/N),” Chris growled across the video call, “my mom said that Johnny has a buzzcut. Why does a toddler have a buzzcut? Last time I’d gotten pictures from you his hair was over his ears.”

“You were telling me that I should take him to get a haircut anyways, Chris,” you tried, “I don’t understand why you’re so upset. You said that he was starting to look like more of a girl than Shayla was because of how long his hair is getting.”

“First off, because you didn’t consult me on it,” he growled, his frustration visible even over the internet call, “secondly, because it wasn’t planned. You had to take him to get a haircut after he got into Sebastian’s grooming supplies-”

“It was an accident, Chris.”

“He left his beard trimmer out,” he growled, “what if Johnny actually hurt himself, huh?”

“He left it in our master bathroom,” you reasoned, “Johnny crawled up the stairs and scaled the baby gate while I was giving Shayla a bath. And Sebastian was making dinner so-”

“He should have been keeping an eye on him. Or you should have. What if he fell down the stairs when he was trying to climb the baby gate?” Chris asked, “This could have been a serious injury, (Y/N)!”

“I know, Chris…but the twins don’t like sharing bath time anymore and Sebastian said tha-“

“Sebastian’s not their father, I AM!”

“THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULD ACT LIKE IT,” You yelled into your phone, “YOU NEVER SEE THEM. YOU NEVER CALL THEM. YOU MISSED THEIR BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR CH-“

“I WAS FILMING!” He screamed back. You felt a hand on your shoulder and you looked at your boyfriend. He sighed and gave you a knowing look.

“I-I don’t want to start another screaming match, Chris…” you sighed after another second, sniffling back your tears.

You could hear his heavy sigh on the other side of the line, “Me either…”

“I know I messed up, Chris…”

“The point is our son cut all his hair off because you and your boyfriend couldn’t keep an eye on him.” He reiterated, “and I wasn’t even told about it…my mom told me when she saw him at the party.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to fight.”

“Well I need you to be smart enough to acknowledge that you and your boy toy almost got my son hurt!”

“Fuck you, Chris!” you growled, hanging up on him. You watched as his name popped up on your phone once more, and you threw it away from yourself on the couch, not wanting to deal with him for the time being.

“You okay?”

You sighed in anger, not realizing that you had started to cry, you were surprised when Sebastian handed Johnny off to you and your baby boy started wiping the tears away.

“No cry...mama...no.”

“It’s okay, baby,” you sighed, grabbing his small, chubby hands, “it’s okay, baby. Mama is okay. She just-she just is a little sad.”

“Nooo!” he cooed, reaching out to you so that he could grab your face in his little hands, “no mama.”

“It’s okay, baby!”

“Well, he’s right,” your boyfriend said playfully as he sat down with a sleepy Shayla snuggling into him, “we don’t want you to be sad.”

You sighed again and leaned into his free side.

He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, and Johnny crawled between the two of you, snuggling up as well.

“You okay?” he asked after a few minutes.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sebastian...” you nodded, “you’ve done so much for us...”

“I’m just doing what any man should!” he said simply, pressing a sweet kiss to the top of your head, “don’t pay attention to what anyone says about how we’re raising the kids...you’re doing an amazing job, baby...”

“I needed to hear that!” you admitted, snuggling into his side, “thank you, Sebastian...for always being so caring and protecting...and loving.”

“I’ll always protect you, baby.”

“I did it!”

Your brow raised as you looked at him, “What did you do?”

He only smiled as he sat down his laptop in front of you. You could see a picture, and it looked like someone had superimposed the image so that there were two of him.

“What is this?” you asked curiously, “what did you do, Sebastian?”

But he only smiled, “the answer to all of our problems with the paparazzi.”

“What?”

“I talked to a few of the girls...and the pr team, and we came up with the most amazing plan,” he smiled, “we convinced the world that they didn’t see the person they thought they were seeing.”

“Huh?”

“I’m a twin!”

“Shut up, no you’re not!” you laughed.

He pushed the laptop closer to you, and you looked more intricately at the page.

‘Seeing Double: actor Sebastian Stan has a twin!’

“Read it!” he encouraged.

“Sebastian, this is obviously a fake picture,” you laughed, “no one is going to buy this.”

“Read it!” he repeated.

“Actor Sebastian Stan came clean last week when we posted a picture of what we thought was him with a mystery woman and a stroller, but as it turns out, Sebastian Stan is not Sebastian at all,” you began, reading the story in disbelief, “Sebastian...what did you-”

“Keep reading.”

You sighed, shaking your head as you looked at the next paragraph, “the Romanian born actor is actually a twin. And his name is not Sebastian Stan, either. Sebastian Stan is the combination of both of their names. Sebastian, is actually just Seb Stan, while Bastian is a happily taken man with two children, living a quiet life in upstate New York.”

You gasped.

He smiled, “Keep going, baby.”

“We got to meet Seb’s brother last week when he came up with the kids to visit his brother, and girlfriend, Seb’s personal assistant, commented co-star Blake Lively,” you read on, “we were surprised to find out about his brother, and didn’t really believe his personal assistant for a while, about Bastian or the twins, but it’s hard to ignore it when you have two people who look like your co-star in the same room, and two babies calling one of them da da.”

Your eyes went between him and the laptop, your mouth parting, but no words leaving your lips. You read the rest of the article and how it talked about how you and ‘Bastian,’ had met through mutual friends and you’d taken the job with Seb after he needed help maintaining his schedule. But then it also went on to say that ‘Bastian’ was deeply private, and preferred that he stay out of the media because of his finance career.

“I told you that I’d always protect you baby,” he offered, reaching out to stroke your hand, “And it took me a while, but I did come up with that...and people are buying it.”

“How did you get people to go along with it?”

“Well, Blake was an easy sell,” he smiled, “anyone that’s met you, really. Everyone loves you, baby...and they want to protect you and the kids as much as I do.”

You felt your stomach turning at the thought. Bile rose up in the back of your throat.

“Sebastian...th-there’s something that I should tell you...”

His brows furrowed, “what’s wrong, baby?”

“I-”

But you froze, your eyes going wide when your son toddled into the living room, babbling while holding onto a piece of plastic.

“Hey...whatcha got, buddy?” Sebastian asked, reaching out for the plastic that Johnny was holding onto.

“Oh no...”

“Baby, what’s this?” Sebastian asked slowly as he pulled the stick from his hands. He looked at it for a second, and then it was like everything clicked. He held it up, the little lines facing you, “i-is this a pregnancy test?”

You nodded slowly, biting your bottom lip as your boyfriend examined it.

“Ye-yeah...it is...”

“Baby...ar-are you pregnant?”

Chapter 8

#behind closed doors #gossip girl #chris evans #sebastian stan #sebastian stan c #sebastian stan characters

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vxnusstuff · 1 year ago

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Heaven knows I’ve tried.|| five Hargreeves x fem! reader

This was a request by anonymous!

warning!: Angst I’d you squint but ends with fluff swear words , alcohol

today was a big day, well at least for Lila.

It was her wedding! who knew she would get married to someone like Diego! Especially Diego. He was always either to super hero or super villain. Never know with that man

But besides that your happy for them , right now you were helping Lila with her dress and making sure everything was perfect. ‘__ what do you think about these shoes?’ Lila asked you

Knocking you out of your day dreaming state. ‘Oh . Uh yea sure that will Match.’ Saying quickly so she won’t yell your name out loud for the millionth time

‘Thinking of that shitty hargreeves?’ Lila said , you knew who she was talking about but you tried to act dumb so she didn’t carry this teasing on.

‘I don’t know who your talking about Lila, we have to get ready before we are late. You know what they will think ?- no what they will say about you if you are late to your own wedding?’

‘You know who I’m talking about __. Caring on your right I’ll hurry.” Lila then turned around and she try’s to put her shoes on.

While she was doing that you were thinking of the man she was talking about . Five Hargreeves , you have fallen head over heels for him ever sense you have met him.

you guys met at Lila’s birthday that took place 3 years ago. your her favorite cousin so why not invite you! You were at the bar and five sat right next to you. The more time that passed when you met him the more you fell for him. His hair his dimples his personality .

everything that five was or that he did just made you fall more for him. You guys gave each others numbers and talked over the phone . once a week turned to everyday that you guys talked .

you always loved loved his voice and the way he talks oh and don’t forget the humor. You lived him for who he was and you would never change him for a better man cause he is the better man.

‘__!’ Lila yelled at you you jumped at the sudden yelling but looked at her ‘what!’ ‘Instead of thinking of five how bout you zip up my dress so we can go! We are one minute late!’ You got up quickly and walked over to Lila

‘I was not think about him Lila I was think about….what I want to drink so I can forget about today’ you said while zipping up her dress ‘sure you were __ but anyways we have to go!’ then Lila rain out the door and down the stairs , damn who knew she can run in heels

‘Lila wait for me!’

Time skip to the wedding

you stood right next to Lila , yes you are the bridesmaid. you stood their watching Diego and Lila say their vowels. ‘and with that you may kiss the bride!’ The priest said. Everyone who was their cheered and you smiled but didn’t clap .

After Diego and Lila kissed they ran down the aisle to the dance floor and started to dance , everyone got up and started to walk around , after everyone was away you started to walk around the chairs and you ran into someone.

‘never knew they would get married especially in the weather’ the man behind you said , you turned around and saw it was five. You smiled in relief knowing it isn’t a random man.

‘I know right? Lila doesn’t seem to be the type that would marry a man . but you never know with Lila.’ you laughed at your own joke. ‘why don’t we go get a drink my lady?’ He said in a joking tone with his arm out ‘of course’ you said back matching his tone hooking your arm with fives as you both walk to the bar

You sat down next to five and you both just talked about anything you could as you both drank with each other, your not a big drinker so you make sure you don’t have to much , you were half way done with your first drink and then you heard the DJ say ‘we are now at the time taking karaoke for who ever wants to sing come up!’ you sigh after you heard that ‘are you gonna do it’ five ask ‘I don’t know , if I do I don’t know what song and I’m not all that good at singing.’

‘I bet your very good at singing __ you have a pretty voice . But im gonna go up their and sing , if you do end up singing I wish you the best of luck.’ after that he left. you smiled to yourself happy that he hoped that you did good.

you are now finished with your first drink and you started to hear a familiar voice start to sing. you can’t make out what song but you know who was singing. Five Hargreeves and a little bit of Diego every so often . as they were singing you hear someone sit next you .

‘Yknow you should sing .’ said the person you knew who it was , Lila . ‘Why should I Lila and what would I sing ?’ ‘You should! It’s my wedding and it can be a wedding present ’ you looked at her in disbelief

‘ugh okay if I were to sing what would I sing ?’ ‘What is that one song that you love listening to and that we listened to on the way here?’ oh no. no no no you were not about to sing THAT song in-front of all of these people that you only know there names. ‘Lila please I can’t do that song’ ‘why not !? it’s perfect for the night and it’s a beautiful song so why not?’

You sigh knowing lila wouldn’t stop until she gets her wants ‘fine lila I will do it.’ ‘YES finally .’ As she said that the boys finished their song now it was your turn , I guess lila signed you up even though you could have your self. you took her shot and drank it and got up then began to walk the the stage

‘Wow never knew you were a singer well go get ‘em tiger’ Diego said while giving you the mic and then you walked up and got ready for your song.

As the song started lila cheered saying ‘YOU CAN DO IT I BELIEVE IN YOU!!’ Your sigh then started to sing

feeling kinda sick tonight.

All I’ve had is coffee and left over pie

It’s no wonder why

You paused for a couple minutes and looked around , almost everyone you knew was watching you sing , you noticed that Lila was smiling like a maniac but you looked somewhere else you find five looking at you as you sing and Klaus talking to him ? you can’t make out what his saying but you couldn’t really care

ooh, still you take up all my mind

I don’t even think that you care like I do

I should stop

Heaven knows I’ve tried.

As you sang those words you started to really get into the song and you didn’t realize that you were staring at five while you sing the next part of your song.

One day I will stop falling in love with you

Someday someone will like me like I like you

Until then I’ll drink my coffee, eat my pie

Pretend that we are more than friends

Then of course I’ll let you break my heart again.

After that part you snapped out of your state, shaking your head then telling the DJ you aren’t gonna finish the song and sped walked off stage. You can’t believe you just sand a love song with looking at someone you are head over heels in love with

you walked to a near by lake and just stared at the late. You didn’t want to cry , no that was far from it. You wanted to just disappear until everyone forgot about what happened.

you where just sitting there watching the fish swim not wanting to go back and face the embarrassment and possible rejection. You laid back with your knees up looking at the orange pink-ish sky , as you were watching the sky you heard someone walking up behind you but you didn’t bother to look back and see who it was.

you felt someone lay right next to you and watch the sky with you to . After 30 seconds of Solent’s the anonymous person said ‘I told you that you would be good at singing’ you turned your head to see him . God five is even more hotter then when you last saw him

‘yeah thanks five.’ You said while sitting up , a little after he decided to sit up with you and say ‘Look __ I have a question. But you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.’ ‘Go ahead five’ knowing what he was gonna say next but waiting for him to ask so you can answer.

‘was that song about me?’ You knew it, you thought about not telling him but , how could you not ? I mean you might have a chance so why not shot? ‘Yes it was five.’ you said looking a bit down but not enough to to make your whole head face downwards

‘Look, Ive Never really been in a relationship well I mean the only “relationship” I’ve been in was a mannequin so I’m pretty shitty when it comes to love but You make me want to learn to love __ , you and only you.’ You were gonna say something but he had to say one more thing

‘__ id love to date you. Seriously, if you let me I will love you for as long as I can.’ He said while grabbing your hand and holding it. You took a minute to process but then you came up with your answer ‘five I’d love to teach you to love and I’d love to be with you forever five.’ You smile as you hold hims hand and stare at him lovingly while you said that. ‘Oh thank god I can not handle a rejection over a wedding.’ He said while cupping your cheek and leaning in.

after you realized you closed the gap and kissed him. After all those days months and years of knowing him you finally kissed the man you love. as you both pull away you hear a shuffle in the bushes . You turn around to look and you see someone in the bushes. you then got up and walk over there and move the bushes a part to see who it was . It was Klaus . ‘Klaus what are you doing here?!’ ‘Just making sure you did what I told you cinco!’ You turn you head to five ‘five what is he talking about?!’

‘Oh sweetheart he was talking about how much he was head over heals for you and talking all about you . So I told him to go and tell him all about his feelings for you and he actually told you!’ klaus said while getting up and dusting him self off

you kinda blushed and looked away from five and kinda started to space out while Klaus and five semi argued , you were flattered that he liked you the same maybe more. you then snap out of your trance when you feel your hand get grabbed and getting pulls to the parking lot that was right across the street . You can hear Klaus yelling but you can’t hear him.

‘Five where are we going??’ ‘I’m dropping you off home. Unless you wanna come home with me ?’ Five asked stopping at his car and turning around to look at me. ‘Oh sure! I don’t wanna waste your gas so I’ll just go with you.’ You said.

‘Great Hop in.’ as he said that he went around to the drivers side and you got in them shut the door. as he started the car he went to see if you were in all the way and pulled out then started to drive to his house.

You have been to his house hut never been inside . You only picked him up at his house never even step on his front porch so you were kinda excited. Especially to see his dog, Mr. Pennycrumb. You have seen pictures of him and only seen him once. You were at the park and ran into five while he was walking his dog . His dog loved you so your excited to see him again

after 10-20 minutes you felt the car come to a stop and realized that you have arrived . You were happy because you’re were ready to sleep. you got out and saw five was already at the door so you sped you to catch up to him. as he opened the door you saw Mr. Pennycrumb . He started to jump on you and be excited you picked him up and pet him while following five to the room

‘So do you like my home?’ ‘Looks like mine but more darker.’ you said while looking around then realized you have arrived to the room and god his room was so pretty, you put Mr. Pennycrumb down and sat down on the bed looking around then taking off your heels

‘hey you wanna get out that dress? I have extra comfortable clothes that you can where.’ ‘Oh sure do you mind if I change here? I’m to tired to go all the way to the bathroom.’ You said as he gave you the clothes he was talking about ‘oh sure , you need a hand with you dress?’ ‘ oh yeah! The zipper gets me so.’ You turn around and hold your hair and wait for him to unzip it but what you didn’t expect was his hands to be cold. There were so gentle and cold that you loved it.

after he was done he turned around and you changed . You payed down as he was changing , you Goulding see him from where you were. While you were waiting for five to be finished Mr. Pennycrumb jumped in the bed and cuddled with you. You smiled and started to praise him for just being him. you then felt five lay next you . Mr. Pennycrumb showed him attention and you started to lay closer to five but don’t want him to be uncomfortable. He then wrapped his arms around your waist and stuffed his face into your neck. You smiled and wrapped your arms around his torso and got a little closer.

‘Goodnight __ , have a good sleep’

‘Goodnight five , have sweet dreams

A/n - this took me 3 days 😭 ending was a little rushed but it’s okay I guess.

#five hargreaves x reader #five hargreeves x reader #five x you #the umbrella academy #fem reader

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janetbrown711 · 2 years ago

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Money, Money, Money (Must be Funny / In a Rich Man's World)

Pigsy takes MK and Mei out shopping after the previous day's chaos and sudden adoption.

AKA Pigsy realizes he doesn't know what he signed up for when adopting orphaned MK and Mei in a heartbeat, but learns to cope

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Ao3 Link

Work Text:

The cab ride home was short and quiet, as the hour was very late and the kids fell asleep all curled up on each other, which was kinda cute. When they arrived at Pigsy’s apartment, they unfortunately had to wake them up, made them climb a flight of stairs and then it was home sweet home where the kids then promptly passed out on the couch, and Pigsy made a mental note to buy sleeping bags or something because there was no way that was going to last.

“So… um… do you need anything else?” Tang asked, setting down the big case of important documents on Pigsy’s table.

“A bigger place to live, probably,” He half joked, looking around at the studio apartment that had to have a Murphy bed, it was so small.

“I’ve seen worse,” Tang said with a reassuring smile. “Besides, with some of the money that’s been set aside, I’m sure you’ll be able to afford a better place in no time.”

“If I have any left over after paying repairs on the restaurant– that thing crashed right through a wall and damaged my grill pretty bad,” Pigsy went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of his cheapest sake and immediately chugged it down.

“Woah there now– I don’t think ‘recently got bloodwork done’ and alcohol mix,” Tang carefully took the bottle from the counter and put it away.

“Bah,” Pigsy scoffed but didn’t go to get more.

“Well, I’ll help get your bed down, but after that, I guess I’m heading home,” His regular nodded to himself.

“Wait– hey now, you paid for the cab, looked over the documents, protected the kids– I think I can get my own bed down,” Pigsy refused the offer and went to put it down, only for Tang to follow and swipe his arm away.

“You are injured, and risked your life and livelihood for kids you barely knew in a heartbeat– not to mention you let me not pay for my food because classes are expensive– It’s really the least I can do,” He argued. Pigsy sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and stepping aside. Tang smiled like an adorable asshole and put down his bed.

“There. Isn’t that cozy now?” Tang adjusted the pillows for Pigsy as his face just got redder and redder with embarrassment.

“Right– well– uh–” Pigsy scratched the back of his neck to force himself to act calm and cool but it wasn’t working. He cleared his throat and forced himself to talk anyways.

“I just wanted to– uh– thank you… for everything. You didn’t have to do any of that today, and it was… nice,” He said, wanting to punch himself with every stutter.

“It’s no problem really, you’ve been so nice to me for like– nothing in return,” Tang looked away from the chef. “A-and remember, I can like, totally help you out with those documents tomorrow, if you’d like!”

“Y-yeah! I’d like that– I could even cook for you since the restaurant’ll be closed probably,” Pigsy offered, kicking at the ground while his face got hotter and hotter.

“O-oh! I’d– yeah-! I’d really, really like that,” Tang smiled.

“Y-yeah?” Pigsy blinked up at him.

“Y-yeah! I’d love to help you out– and free food without guilt? Sign me up,” The scholar joked, which succeeded in making Pigsy snort.

“Yeah, I’m… glad,” He smiled weakly.

The two men stared at each other for a moment, and Pigsy could hear his heart pounding in his ears over the sound of crickets in the twilight. That caused them to look at anything except each other, and it was quiet for a bit.

Tang eventually broke that semi-silence though, with a “Guess I’ll be going then-!”

“Y-yeah! I’ll see you tomorrow-?” Pigsy asked, following him to the door.

“Probably!” Tang laughed a little before remembering the kids were still on the couch asleep.

“Well then I’ll– see you tomorrow,” Pigsy opened the door for his regular.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Tang nodded with a smile before heading out, and Pigsy closed the door behind him.

Tang.

It suited him so well.

With a sigh, Pigsy turned away from the door and back at the kids snoozing away at the couch.

God, they were so young, especially for both of their parents to be gone.

And now Pigsy was responsible for them.

Shit– he was going to have to do some serious grocery shopping. He didn’t have any of the kid food except maybe cereal because all he ate was the food he made at the restaurant. He’d also have to get sleeping bags until he could move, and at the very least some blankets. Maybe some toys too– and crayons and– Jesus, kids were expensive.

With a grunt, Pigsy untucked and pulled out the top blanket from his bed and draped it over MK and Mei, content to know that was all he could do for now.

Somewhere in that pile of documents was how their whole schooling dealio was going to work, and when they were expected to go back, but Pigsy was not going to look over any of that right now, he was content to just think and hope it wasn’t tomorrow. If it was, he would demand they get it off anyways, today and the previous days events were too much for kids to handle anyways, mystical or not.

Jesus– was he going to have to drive these kids to school? Or walk them? He supposed the subways were a viable option– Where even was that hoity-toity academy? That information was probably in those documents– lord Pigsy had a lot of reading ahead of him (and then some if there weren’t any parenting books in there).

Pigsy needed to sleep because he was already getting a gigantic headache. He quickly tossed his chef's shirt in the trash, changed into pajamas, checked that the kids were fine, and then promptly passed out on his bed.

.o0o.

Pigsy hated the sound of his stupid ass alarm in the morning.

It was set to its default– he knew it shouldn’t– that it actively caused his brain to feel all glitchy and whatnot but he never actually remembered to change it and so all he did was swipe it away as per usual.

He then grumbled and buried his face into his hot, half deflated pillow for another solid minute before forcing himself to sit up, where he was then greeted by two kids– his kids now– peering at him over the couch, ducking down the moment he made eye contact. Pigsy snorted a little before pulling the thin blanket off of him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stretching– before being quickly reminded he had a bunch of stitches and bandages in his arm and he winced in pain.

“Morning you two,” He said as the pain mostly subsided.

“Mornin’ Mr. Piggy,” MK sat up and rested his arms on the sofa back, which Mei copied.

“It’s Pigsy, and no need for that ‘mister’ stuff, you make me sound like my father,” He joked to himself as he stood and wandered into the kitchen, where he started to make himself a cup of coffee.

“How long have you two been up?” He asked, rubbing his eyes as he poured hot water into the reservoir and he scooped coffee grounds.

“I dunno, since the sun?” MK looked out the one window, which had a pretty okay view all things considered.

“Eh, that’s not too bad,” Pigsy shrugged, adding the grounds to the filter. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good,” Mei shrugged and sat back down on the couch, staring blankly at his pathetic excuse of a TV, affectionately titled “the Dinosaur” for how old it was by his family.

“I don’t know if I have any kiddie stuff on there– I don’t have cable,” Pigsy apologized.

“S’okay,” The girl said with a little smile. “I’ve never seen a TV so thick and so small.”

“Yeah, it’s old school, but it does the trick when I need it,” Pigsy watched as the coffee brewed.

“So what’re we gonna do today, Mr. Piggy?” MK asked.

“Pigsy, and I don’t know– I need to check on damages downstairs and then make a list of what I can and can’t do, and then we need to go do some shopping– though I’ll need to read over some documents first and–” Pigsy sighed as the machine beeped. “It’s gonna be a long day.”

“All days are long for me,” MK said, sitting back down on the couch and tracing his finger along the threads of the sofa.

“Heard you there,” Pigsy snorted as he poured his coffee into his favorite mug that said “KISS MY BACON” in bold black letters.

“You kids want cereal or something?” Pigsy asked after things felt a bit too quiet.

“Cer…eal..?” Mei looked at him strangely.

MK rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you about cereal– it’s the circles in milk and stuff.”

“Oooh-! Right! Cereal!” Mei snapped her fingers, and Pigsy was reminded once again that she was technically a dragon princess that he adopted last night with no real understanding of what the heck that actually meant.

“Right– yeah– um–” Pigsy went and looked through his cabinets for cereal they’d like. Eventually he found a kind of stale, but still probably good box of “Wukong Os”.

“You kids like Wukong O’s?” He asked as he got it down, as well as two plastic bowls.

“Probably!” MK practically jumped off of the couch to the table.

Pigsy laughed and set down the bowls, then cereal, and then got out the milk before looking at Mei, who was still sitting on the couch.

“You feeling good, kiddo?” He asked.

The girl shrugged. “I dunno. I’m tired.”

“Yeah, yesterday was a lot– I also promise whatever sleeping bags we get will be a lot more comfortable than my couch, haha,” He scratched the back of his neck, before patting the chair next to MK, who was absolutely devouring his cereal. “Here, why don’t you have some cereal? It might make you feel better… or something.”

Mei got up without much expression or thought and so Pigsy went back to his coffee and glossed over that giant stack of papers, especially at that lawyer lady’s business card. If Tang wasn’t going to be available until later, then he’d definitely think about giving her a call to sort everything out more.

“It’s gonna be a long day” was probably the understatement of the century.

The kids eventually finished, and Pigsy told them to just throw their stuff in the sink. He announced he was going to go change in the bathroom, which was when he realized these kids didn’t even have any clothes on them– probably lost in that fire. He was going to have to make a shopping list soon that was going to be longer than the entirety of Journey to the West.

Pigsy quickly splashed some cold water on his face and tried to ignore how much of a zombie he looked before stepping out and grabbing his keys.

“Welp, let's get going,” He said, opening the door for Mei and MK.

The kids quickly left and waited for Pigsy as he locked the door and took them down the stairs to the restaurant. Pigsy first tried to unlock the back but remembered he put a padlock on it he totally forgot to take off in the chaos and so he led the kids around to the front, where he then unlocked that door to reveal…

Wait– nononono– this wasn’t right…

He expected a mess– shattered glass, dented stove, a wall with a big ass hole in it from the tiger demon literally breaking through it. Instead it was– perfect.

No– it was better than perfect, there were genuine improvements– it was cleaner than he had ever seen it be ever. Even the kids were confused as they stepped behind the bar and saw everything so neat and organized and not at all the stick floored place they hid the previous night.

“H-how..? Who..? Why???” Pigsy was too flabbergasted to finish his sentence and had to take a seat at the bar to stop his head from reeling.

“Freaky,” Mei said, looking at her wavy reflection in the grill.

“Ah– don’t mess with that,” Pigsy said, and she instantly took a step back. “I just… I’m not crazy right? You two know this place was a mess, right?”

MK nodded. “It smells different too– like lotuses.”

Pigsy ran his fingers across his bald head as he tried to think of any logical explanation for this but just came up blank again and again.

What happened last night had to have been true– he had the stitches and kids to prove it But the damages-?

Bah, maybe it was just some freaky demon thing he didn't know. Now why a demon would fix up his restaurant, he sure didn't know, but whatever.

"So… does this mean you'll let people in today?" MK asked, flicking a rista of red chili peppers. Pigsy had to think about that.

He certainly could– everything seemed to be in more than just tip-top shape, but at the same time he didn't have a plan for what he expected MK and Mei to do while he worked yet, as he instead planned on thoroughly procrastinating it. Plus, he knew all that shopping was going to take a very, very long time, so it was probably for the best that he didn't.

"No, no, we can head to the shops a little earlier than expected," He decided.

"Sweet!" Mei grinned, "I haven't shopped in forever– usually just the nannies or butlers do it for me. I wanna look at the toys myself!" She said, proudly pointing at herself with her thumb.

"Man, I could use one of those," Pigsy chuckled and opened the door for the kids, who quickly left the kitchen and headed out. Pigsy then locked the door and they made their way to the bus stop, where they sat on the bench

Well– Pigsy and MK sat at the bench, Mei just kind of stood next to her friend awkwardly.

"Kid, what's the matter?" Pigsy asked, eyeing her up and down.

Mei glanced at the bench and took a step back. "It looks… dirty."

Pigsy laughed at that, which he could tell was the last thing Mei expected, so he quickly tried to kill it.

"You know, my folks always said bacteria was good for you– helps build your immune system or somethin."

"Ooh," Mei said, looking at the bench once more.

It really wasn't anything all that bad looking– there weren't even any spider webs or visible gum wads And so after a moment of great hesitation, Mei closed her eyes and sat right next to MK who giggled and hugged her.

"It's so cold," she giggled too.

"Yep! Welcome to bus rider life," MK grinned.

"Ah, so you've ridden before?" Pigsy asked MK. The boy nodded.

"All the time! I'm a master of the bus," He dusted off his shoulders smugly.

"Wait– have you ridden alone?" Pigsy asked.

MK nodded again. "A ton! Ever since I started school."

The chef paused. "When… you were five?"

"Four actually! But I didn't look it," MK was still smiling and Pigsy just looked across the street to hide his horrified feeling.

Thankfully the bus arrived shortly thereafter so Pigsy didn't have to think about that mess for much longer as he ushered the kids on and paid their fare.

MK and Mei instantly made a mad dash for the back of the bus, as Pigsy half expected, and they both crowded by the edge seat to look out the window while Pigsy took a more middle seat.

They both ‘ooh’-ed and ‘ahh’-ed at each construction site or cluster of pigeons they passed (though Pigsy had a feeling MK was really just going along with Mei since he had to be more familiar with all this than she was). The ride wasn't too long, and the kids complained when Pigsy pulled the line and they had to get off.

When they remembered they were there for shopping they became a lot more agreeable as they ran into the thrift store right by the bus stop, both ogling the color coded racks.

"Alright pick out five shirts and pants you like, we'll get some better stuff when I get the money all ironed out," Pigsy said and the kids looked at each other with slight confusion.

“What? I know you’ve never shopped before,” Pigsy gestured to Mei, “But I know you have. What’s the matter?”

“Oh I don’t get clothes that often,” MK shrugged.

“And people always choose clothes for me,” Mei copied his motion.

Ah.

“Well, let’s see here…” Pigsy stroked his chin and wandered over to the kids section and started flipping through boys clothes. It took him exactly two seconds before he found a small boy’s shirt with art from Monkey King the Animated Series and he showed it to MK.

“OMG– that’s so cool!” MK beamed and Pigsy chuckled as he handed it to him. He repeated this process four more times, before handing MK a more simple shirt, saying it was good to diversify a little, and then selecting some shorts he thought might fit.

“Wow– I’ve never had someone buy me this much stuff before. Usually it’s all ‘we just bought you clothes’ and ‘make them fit’ and also ‘quit your whining or else I’ll buy a belt to beat you with instead’,” MK said, shifting his arms under the weight of the shirts. He said it with a laugh too, which was a pattern Pigsy was starting to notice.

“Well, you uh– don’t have to think about that anymore now, okay? I wouldn’t ever say those things,” Pigsy didn’t know whether or not to put a hand on MK’s shoulder. The boy just kind of nodded, still laughing a little, before his face fell slightly.

“Right,” He said, shifting the clothes in his arms, kicking the floor a little bit.

“Look– I– I can carry those for you, kid,” Pigsy offered and MK handed them over. The kid wasn’t being dramatic about the shuffling, it really was a lot, so Pigsy scanned the area until he found a basket and put the clothes in.

“Much better,” He said like he was proud of himself. MK nodded, before glancing away and then even quicker tugging on Mei’s sleeve and pointing to the toy section just a few rows over.

“Ooo– Mr. Piggy, can we look at toys please,” Mei begged. Pigsy gave them a very confused thumbs up and the kids ran off to go look at them.

Man, kids were weird– one second, it's gripping with abuse and finality, then it's running off to go search for those biona-whateverthefucktheywerecalled. Pigsy just hoped that was normal– though it wasn’t like they weren’t gonna need some kind of therapy because of that fire and you know… being orphans…

Pigsy decided to let the two of them mess around in the toy section for a bit while he fingered through clothes he thought Mei might like, though he really couldn’t be certain of anything. Most of the stuff was pink and had hearts or dolphins or boy bands all over them, and he wasn’t sure if she was the type to be interested in that kind of stuff. He tried looking in the green section, which had a bunch of environmental messages also bedazzled with pink hearts and Pigsy started realizing how pathetic this was. He picked out one with green/silver flip over sequins in the shape of a flower and another with green polka dots before going back to the boys section and selecting a few she thought she’d like more– ones with dragons and knights and stuff, and also a bad pun about math. He was unsure with each selection, which was another nagging reminder he was in way over his head about this, but Pigsy just shrugged that off and went back to MK and Mei.

When he returned, MK was out giving some kind of evil villain speech, and Mei was nowhere to be found for a bit– until he heard fits of giggles behind a rack of clothing and he realized she was in hiding. Pigsy observed for a moment, as MK began searching for him with his monkey guy and wondered if he was deaf the closer he got to Mei and the more she laughed. Suddenly, she leaped out and practically tackled MK, sending some clothes flying off the racks and a few dirty looks from other customers Pigsy just rolled his eyes at.

“You foul thing! I’ll destroy your whole kingdom!” MK spat as he got away from Mei and stood up once more.

“You are no match for me and my Ultimate Super Hot Flaming Fire of Death! Muahahahaha!” Mei laughed maniacally as she “shot fire” at Mk’s guy, who raised his arms.

“I surrender– your spicy toss was too spicy for me,” he made his guy fold over into a bow. “You can have my kingdom– everything-! Just spare me-!”

“Die!” Mei cackled and chopped the guys head off with her guys hand.

“Wow– pretty intense game you two had going there,” Pigsy chuckled a little as he picked up some of the fallen items.

Mei shrugged with a giggle. “Could’ve been worse. Could’ve sent him to the council,” she shared a knowing look with MK before they burst into more laughter.

Man, kids are so weird.

“Oh– Mei, tell me what you think of the stuff I picked out,” Pigsy said, picking up the shirts from the basket and handing them to her. Upon seeing the “boys” shirts, she was confused.

“I’m not allowed to wear shirts with pictures,” She said with a slight frown. “They don’t look nice.”

“Kid, you don’t need to ‘look nice’ all the time– I mean– it’s okay if you don’t like em and all, but–” The chef looked away, embarrassed.

“No-! They’re super cool! I-i’m just not allowed to– Mama and Baba say–” She stopped herself.

Pigsy looked at her.

Mei quietly stared down at the clothes for a minute, before handing back the “boys” ones to Pigsy. “I’ll stick with the girly clothes for now.”

“Anything you want, kiddo,” Pigsy said softly as he accepted them. He gestured for the kids to follow him as he put the shirts back and then waited in line to make their purchase, where Pigsy also threw in two bags of off-brand gummy bears in attempts to cheer the two up, which kind of worked.

Pigsy was nervous the entire time they were in line that his credit card would be declined or that if he used his debit card, these purchases would be marked off as suspicious, but strangely enough it all went without a hitch and soon they were walking out of there with four bags full of clothes.

They still had to stop at the nearby shopping center for tents, and the kids just trailed behind Pigsy and swapping gummy bears for the specific colors they liked while the pig chef wandered up and down aisles for camping stuff. Didn’t take too long thankfully, and so two more bags of sleeping bags were added to the group, and in a blink the group were on the bus back home.

.o0o.

The ride back was a lot quieter than the previous ride had been, though MK and Mei still talked a little, with the former trying to cheer up the latter with little games. It eventually worked, and Mei was laughing again, which meant Pigsy could relax and stress out about other things.

It didn’t take long for his mind to choose, as when he glanced tiredly out the window, there was a sparkling ad on a billboard for Megapolis City Academy, which he recalled being their school. He was going to have to get uniforms, and books, and whatever fancy people shit he needed to make sure no one else knew they were being raised now by some fat pig fraud… while also somehow dropping them off in all that high society and in front of those pompous assholes and then it’d be high school all over again. Great.

He wasn’t heartless. He was going to do this for them.

Every time he reminded himself he could practically hear his father talking about how crazy he is.

Well… proves him right, he figured.

Pigsy sighed and rubbed his face, before realizing the bus was nearing their stop and he pulled the string. Thankfully it was just in the nick of time and they were able to get off and walk back to the shop and apartment without a hitch.

Pigsy fumbled the door open and the kids immediately set the stuff down on the counters and flopped onto the couch tiredly, which didn’t surprise him at all.

“You can turn on some tv if you’d like– I’m sure there’s cable-free kid programming somewhere,” Pigsy said, gesturing to the remote on the armrest nearest MK. The boy nodded, turning it on and began flipping through channel after channel as Pigsy set all of his stuff down and mentally prepared himself for looking over all those lawyer documents again.

The chef dug through a drawer for a pen and pad before sitting at his table and pulling the massive pile of documents towards him just as he heard the familiar blare of the home shopping network.

“Mr. Piggy, do you have a snuggie?” MK asked, tilting his head at the screen.

Pigsy snorted. “Just wear a sweater backwards, kid.”

“Huh,” was all the boy replied with and Pigsy started looking into the stacks and folders.

First one he saw was labeled “Banking” and had “Contact Gatita” written on a big sticky note when he opened it, which filled him with relief as he pushed it to the side.

“Ooo– Can we get a Heat Surge?” Mei asked.

“We don’t need that kind of junk– besides, there’s no room for one,” Pigsy rolled his eyes, moving onto the next folder labeled ‘Allergens + Medical Records’. Pigsy scribbled a bit to make sure his pen worked before starting to take notes.

“Is that The Monkey King?!” MK suddenly jumped up from the couch and got an inch away from the tv before it shocked him with static electricity.

“Mr. Piggy-! Mr. Piggy-!” MK leapt from the couch and to the chef. “Can I get a– a–” He looked back over his shoulder. “A fushigi?”

Pigsy glanced at the TV, seeing a man in a poorly made Sun Wukong costume dancing around some glass ball surrounded by ‘fascinated’ onlookers and a guy who was way too passionate for what appeared to literally just be a glass ball.

“It’s Pigsy, and no– it looks dangerous,” Pigsy shook his head and got back to his work.

“Aw man– now i’ll never be as cool as Monkey King,” The boy sighed dramatically before taking a seat next to his best friend.

“Get used to it kid, you’ll be better off without all those expectations,” Pigsy joked a little as he jotted down vaccination dates.

There was a bit of peace (except for the commercials that literally never ended) and Pigsy was able to jot down all he felt he needed to before setting it aside and moving onto the next folder.

“Woah-! That cupcake is ginormous!” Mei gasped and pointed at the screen.

“That’s like the size of my head!” MK laughed and agreed.

“Mr. Piggy–”

“No we are not buying some tin to make a big cupcake– if we really needed to, we could manage with what we have,” Pigsy stopped the thought right there and the kids huffed and flopped dramatically back on the couch. For a second, Pigsy worried he was sounding too much like a stickler, but he kept on working.

“Booooo, medicine is boring,” MK blew a raspberry at the tv.

“Finally, some real calm,” He thought, jotting down a few more things. And the kids were indeed calm for a second, before MK asked–

“Mr. Piggy? What’s er–erectile dysfunct–”

“--Okaywellthat’senoughofthatfornowdon’tyouthink–” Pigsy shot up from his chair, taking the remote and immediately changing the channels.

“Aw man, I wanted to see if they’d mention if me or a loved one got mesothemeliomia,” MK sighed.

“Tough luck, you’re gonna watch this public broadcast for children,” Pigsy said, stopping at the channel with a weird green boy and girl and hitting select and going back to work.

Thankfully that worked to distract them for a long, long time, despite the content clearly being a bit young for them. There was a show about some dog that talked, whatever a “zoboomafoo” was, and a math computer smarty pants show– whatever, it wasn’t like Pigsy was paying all that much attention. He was now almost through the entire stack, with only one folder remaining.

Unfortunately, it was the biggest and it was all the information about their schooling.

Yay…

Pigsy was greeted with an eyeful of rich people propaganda that actually made him want to gag for a moment. If it weren’t dead people’s last wishes for their daughter, he would completely disregard this whole academy junk and place them into a public school. If they really wanted her to be ‘normal’ like they claimed, then that would be the best way to do it.

But Pigsy wasn’t a parent, so he had no idea the kinds of real thought and care that goes into these kinds of things, and so dived in anyways.

Uniforms, ¥1716.90 for four sets (jesus fucking christ); Books, at the school (thank god); shoes, had to be black and shiny, roughly ¥233.50 a piece; school supplies varied a lot, especially since there weren’t ‘back-to-school’ specials right now (which was just fun); and then admission in general cost about… holy fucking shit– that was the cost of this building at least three times over-!

Pigsy glanced at that banking stack and knew he’d have to call Gatita soon.

Pigsy rigorously took notes and tried working out budgets to see what he could get done before and after calling, and then tried to figure when he should do the next doctors appointments and needless to say Pigsy was starting to see numbers and yuan signs when he closed his eyes.

Deciding that was probably enough for one day, he rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes, and forced them shut tighter when the previously mentioned numbers started flashing behind his eyelids.

After a while there was a tap on his shoulder though. Pigsy sighed to himself and forced him to lift his head, surprised to find Mei standing there and looking at the ground. “Mr. Pigsy, is there a…” She glanced around the area, gripping her jacket tightly.

“You okay, kid?” Pigsy sat up.

“Oh– yes-! I just wanted to know if there’s a– a bathroom, yes,” Mei nodded to herself.

Pigsy eyed her before pointing. “Just right over there– and make sure the lock really clicks, it’s half broken and god knows my landlord ain’t fixin it.”

“Thank you,” She bowed a little and walked off, leaving Pigsy to rest his head again.

Though he had a bad feeling in his gut he just couldn’t ignore.

With a grumble, he pulled himself up and looked towards the tv, satisfied to see MK satisfied. There was some kind of cartoon about dragons on right now, and it looked fun enough– MK was even humming along to one of the songs.

Maybe it was nothing– it wasn’t like the show was even talking about death and stuff. Right now it seemed to be about learning hopscotch or something– Pigsy was just a worry wart.

…Right?

Pigsy decided his instincts might have a point and so went over to his bathroom and knocked on the door. “You doin’ okay in there?”

A gasp– shuffling noises that made him grip the handle before–

“Y-yes, Mr. Pigsy, I-I’m alright,” Mei’s voice replied.

“You sound hurt– you okay?” Pigsy asked, his grip on the knob softening only a little.

“I-i’m fine, thank you!”

“Kid–”

“I-i said I’m fine!” She shouted a little, which made him step back. If this were an adult, he’d probably yell at them and say something like “fine, see if I care!” but he was starting to realize that that probably wasn’t a healthy way to react to something, and also Mei was a child so he’d definitely have to think before he spoke.

“You know…” He sighed, leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door, “No one can help you feel any better if you lock yourself in that bathroom– and don’t say you don’t care about that because I care if you feel better so– I already got you there.”

Silence.

A sniffle.

The lock clicked, but she didn’t step outside, which the chef hesitantly took as a sign for him to go in instead, which he did.

The sight didn’t exactly surprise him– Mei was now sitting curled up in the bathtub, hot tears streaming down her face and–

And her eyes were glowing again.

“Are you hurt?” Pigsy asked, kneeling on the ground next to the tub.

She shook her head and hugged her knees tighter.

“Well that’s a little bit good, eh?” He tried joking, but it didn’t work. “What’s the matter then?”

“I-i… I miss them. I miss them a lot– I-i don’t wanna stay here, I wanna go home, with Mama a-and Baba, a-and I want them to eat dinner with me, a-and I wanna tease one of my nannies after school again, a-and I steal cookies with MK from right under Mama’s nose– a-and I don’t want to feel hurt anymore– and that stupid Dragon show just made me think of them a-and– a-and everything hurts just so much,” She spat out all at once before completely breaking into sobs.

“Oh kiddo…” Pigsy felt his heart break and he reached out a pathetic hand towards her, which neither knew what to do with.

“I-i miss them s-s-s-so much, Mr. Piggy– b-but they’re gone now a-and it’s all m-my-my fault,” She covered her face with her hands.

“What-?! No– that’s impossible, it couldn’t be your fault–”

“B-but it was! I-i told Baba I would c-clean the artifacts, a-and I thought I s-saw something, and bumped into the grass cutter sword fell a-and it fell a-and started burning a-and I just r-r-ran away-! A-and now Mama and Baba are dead a-and MK’s mama and baba too-! A-and it’s all my fault!!” She cried more, a gush of hot air shaking the room a bit as her dragon powers were fluctuating.

Shit– there was a folder on the dragon stuff, but that also had a Gatita sticky note so he put it off– now he really could use some of that advice.

“Kid, you’re not– it’s not–” Pigsy kept tripping over his tongue as he felt like such a stupid idiot moron.

Really living up to his family legacy.

Mei just kept crying and Pigsy just sat across the way in defeat.

She was just so young, so small… This guilt was too much for someone her size and age– it belonged to fat, useless pig men like him.

Eventually, he half got up and switched sides so he was closer to Mei, though not facing her. He placed an arm on the tub and tried to speak.

“Kid, I…” he opened his hand a little and examined it, looking at his hair and knuckles and all the little scars he accumulated over the years.

“...I know what it’s like to lose people you love,” He said, letting his hand relax again. “It… it tortures you, you know? All of those ‘what ifs’ and ‘i shoulda’ and ‘I coulda’s… it’s tempting to fall into that little spiral, but it ain’t exactly healthy,” Pigsy looked away, towards the towels, though he could feel Mei’s eyes starting to fall on him.

“My grandmother told me that, ‘bout two years back,” He took a shaky breath. “God, I miss her everyday– my best friend too, but he’s not dead he’s just…” Pigsy looked at the ground.

“What I’m tryin’ to get at here is… it’s not easy– and yeah, maybe there are things that could’ve been different, but wish and wish all you want, that isn’t gonna change anything. All it does is eat you up inside until you’re a husk that haunts your own life, you know?”

“And besides, accidents happen, and it’s a good thing you’re alive, Mei. You have a wonderful best friend who would be absolutely devastated if you tried to fight that mystical fire all by yourself, and he’s very happy you’re okay. You shouldn’t try to fix all the world's problems, and you also shouldn’t try to keep them all hidden and buried, you got that?”

He heard the girl nod, but he still couldn’t really look at her, the idiot.

“ ‘Sides, wherever your folks are, I know they’re proud of you, and they certainly don’t blame you. I mean– they got a whole stack of papers I just sifted through all about how much your future matters to them, and so don’t believe for a second that a freak accident changes any of that, because that’s not how your parents seem to me,” He was starting to get a little choked up himself, and he heard Mei nod again.

“I-i-i just… I really miss ‘em… a-and if I could–”

“–But you can’t, kiddo… and I’m so, so sorry,” He closed his eyes.

The girl was silent, even managing to halt her sniffles. Pigsy was okay with this, listening to the low hum of the cheap light above when suddenly he jolted at something touching his hand– though he instantly relaxed when he realized it was just Mei, whom he looked at.

She was very, very tired looking. The emerald glow finally faded though, which revealed deeply sorrowful brown eyes which were all red and puffy too. He gave her hand a pathetic squeeze and she squeezed it right on back. It made him let out a little laugh, which made her laugh too.

Eventually, the girl managed to muster her strength to say, “You’re really nice, Mr. Piggy.”

Pigsy snorted, thinking back to how his instincts had wanted to yell at her, but he wouldn’t let her know that.

“Thanks, kiddo. You’re really nice too,” He squeezed her hand again. “Which is why I’m sure not a single person blames you for what happened.”

Mei sighed a little. “I-i know… I-i just– I can’t stop feeling like this, you know?” She looked him in the eyes.

“Yeah kid… I know…” He gave a pathetic smile.

“And– hey, it’s okay to feel this way, it’s a normal part of grief for all your emotions to get scrambled up, but just remember what I told you, okay? Accidents happen and you still have people who love and care about you,” He placed the hand on her shoulder and she rested her head on it a little.

“Yeah, I can get that,” She replied.

“I’m glad, kiddo,” Pigsy squeezed her shoulder with a smile.

They sat like that for another minute or so, before the dragon girl muttered, “I’m hungry,” and Pigsy sprang to life, helping her up and out of the bathtub and back into the apartment, where MK immediately hugged her and asked what took her so long. Pigsy chuckled and let them get to talking and playing while he made some chow mein the three of them could share.

It had been a long, long day, and Pigsy knew it was the first of many.

But Pigsy also knew they survived the day, and that was honestly more than he ever really expected, and so he felt kinda hopeful nonetheless.

By the time the chow mein was cooked, there was a knock at the door and Pigsy couldn’t believe he had forgotten his favorite customer had promised to stop by and so quickly scrambled to make him another plate and they all sat and ate together, and for a moment, everything was right with the world, and Pigsy didn’t have a doubt in his mind that everything would be okay for at least today.

And Pigsy was perfectly fine with that for today.

#lego monkie kid #lmk #dadsy #my fics #pigsy lmk #mk lmk #mei dragon #mei lmk #tang lmk #adoptive dadsy au #hurt/comfort #uhhhhhhhh #fuck I've gotten really bad at tagging these things #spoiler free #no season 4 spoilers #freenoodles #pigsy x tang

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tigirl-and-co · 2 years ago

Text

Hmm-hmm, little unedited snippet I banged out real fast! Sorry if the dialogue word choices sound off, my brain is full of fog and mist today so I’m having trouble remembering how everyone talks!

Anyway, here’s a short scene for Donna in the TARDIS with 12 and Bill! I just love the idea of all of them together, and finally got inspiration! I’m imagining this taking place after an adventure where Bill and Donna meet for the first time, and something happens to get Bill down.

~~~

Donna looked right into the eyes of the young adult who had taken a seat on the console room stairs and gave her the most no-nonsense, completely self-assured expression she could muster up. "Oh, don't you worry, we'll get you a man. Hell, we'll get you one before I get one, if we can."

Bill winced instinctively. "Actually, I'm... not particularly interested in men." She wanted to avert her gaze, but this was her Doctor's TARDIS, and she wouldn't cow, even for one of his old friends. She didn't see the Doctor rolling his eyes.

"Oh thank God, most of them are shite."

Bill couldn't help it- she broke out into a surprised grin. This was the best-case scenario, the one she had been hoping for.

But Donna wasn't finished. "So, girls, then? Or aliens? Kids are into aliens these days, right? Or both! Alien women, like in Star Trek!"

The Doctor was staring very intently at a screen on the main console. He wished he had his sunglasses.

"Oi! Spaceman!" Donna whipped around to face him, and he straightened up and tried to look professional. Bill, who was experiencing whiplash, managed to note he was struggling to contain both amusement and a little bit of fear. Too deep in shock to say anything, Bill instead briefly wondered just how powerful Donna was to inspire that sort of reaction.

"Yes, Donna?" he asked, quirking an infamous eyebrow despite knowing exactly what she was going to ask.

"What planets are out there with people on them that work with humans, romantically?" Donna paused for a moment, looking back over her shoulder at Bill. "Do you want them to work in all the other ways, too...? Yeaaaah, of course you do. You're young and you need fun." She turned back to scrutinize the stone-faced space Scotsman. "Well?"

He took his chance to egg on his old companion. "Donna, why exactly do you think I know anything about romance? You remember how the last bout ended, don't you? Well, I mean now you remember, of course you had forgotten be-" he cut himself off when he took notice of the glower, made more threatening by the low lights of the console room. "Sorry."

She didn't lighten up. "Yes, I do remember that a clone of yourself went off to live a long and happy life with Rose."

The Doctor frowned. "Well-"

"I wasn't finished. You also told me that River -- remember her? -- you said that she turned out to be your wife so obviously you aren't as clueless as you always say you are." She snorted, and Bill found herself wishing she had popcorn. Or chips.

"Donna-"

"And you told me you had kids back on Gallifrey, and your granddaughter fell in love with a human!" Bill almost choked on air at that.

I wonder if his granddaughter's cute...

Donna was winding down. "So don't you tell me that you don't know anything about romance, mister! Even if you were unbelievably ungraceful after kidnapping me from my wedding." She smiled in confident triumph.

Suddenly, a laugh rang out from behind Donna. Bill had finally caught on to what was happening.

"You two are hilarious!" she choked out. "Donna, thanks but no thanks- I'll find a woman on my own." She paused. "I hadn't considered an alien girlfriend before, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to be open-minded." Bill turned to look at the Doctor, who was grinning cheekily. "And you're going to tell me about... whatever she was talking about. I can't believe you ever found the time for romance!"

The Doctor frowned. "Now what makes everybody think-"

Donna seemed to be enjoying cutting him off today. "You're welcome- I'm sure a cute and clever woman like you won't have trouble finding somebody once you're ready to start looking." She walked over to Bill's side and slung her arm over the younger woman's shoulder. "And between you and me, you've got plenty of time."

Two pairs of eyes rolled this time, although only the Scottish pair had something to say. "So, Bill, I take it you don't want to go to the planet of incredibly attractive humanoid aliens, of which all are female?" He smirked. "That's good. I'm an honorary member of the species, but it can still be a bit awkward."

Bill paused, and she could feel Donna's smile, because it was infectious. She grinned even wider. "Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to check out!"

"Oh, that's good to hear, because it looks like they're being invaded and need some help!"

Both girls' grins vanished.

"Wait-"

@cloudbustingss

LMAO TWO YEARS LATE BUT I FINALLY MANAGED TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR THEM

sorry it’s not the greatest, had an idea but brain didn’t want to cooperate

#my writing #fanfiction #doctor who #whoniverse #the doctor #donna noble #bill potts #12 #twelve #twelfth doctor #this one's not good enough to go on ao3 i don't think #sometimes you just gotta crank something out

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hyuckmov · 1 year ago

Note

HIII JING DROPPING BY HERE TO SAY HI MY GOD THERE WAS SO MANY THINGS THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK ><

I attended tds2 in my country in my gosh post concert depression is really hitting me hard rn 😭 BUT OVERALL IT WAS QUITE FUN I SAW MARK AND HAECHAN LIKE TWICE NOW THE FIRST ONE ONE BEING IN 127 THE LINK FKEKNDBDHDKDKDK

i keep laughing at my fancams tho because of my ridiculous screams that sound like i'm fighting someone or generally barking HAHHHAHAHAHA

I AM HAECHAN BIASED BUT OH MY GOD JAEMIN IS JUST SO GORGEOUS AND REALLY KNOWS HOW TO INTERACT WITH THE CROWD >< (tied very much still to haechan tho no one can escape him)

ANYWAY HOW ARE YOUUUU MY FAVE FIC WRITER?? 🥺 tell me how your week went!

i see that u went out drinking AND I HOPE U HAD FUN!! ALSO OH MY GOSH UR WORKING ON TWO (?) NEW STORIES AND I CAN'T HELP BUT GET EXCITED EVER SINCE HIMBO HAECHAN WAS RELEASED 😩😩

I HOPE U ARE WELL AND PLEASE TAKE CARE OF URSELF OKAAYYYY TAKE UR TIME WITH UR WIPS I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ANYTHING FROM YOU!! 💕

- 💛

HIII SLAYYY to ur eventful week!!! omg pcd is the worst. i had a photo of jaehyun from the 127 concert that i used as my wallpaper and i would literally just stare at it and my friends would be like... ENOUGH. but also you are so luckyyy to have this experience like MAHAE TWICE??? IM SO HAPPY FOR YOUUU i hope it was the best best time evevrrr and you got to make a lot of memories :)

im so stressed whenever i take videos for concerts bc i'm scared my voice will be picked up. when i went for the dpr live concert, it picked up the voice of this girl next to me and GIRL. i was so upset... bc it was so distracting. i'm literally trying to go for a concert twice so i can scream in one of them and just record videos in the other one 😭😭😭 but also im considering selling that ticket and buying one for another artist hehe

JAEMINNNN (growling rn) my feelings for him have been out of control recently. i know idols are just curated images, but damn...his is curated so fucking well... ,istening to ariana grande and niki in his room...grocery shopping in LA... his smile and hsi ARMS and his arms and his arms......wna fall into his chest i am so insane he is sooo it's all so intentional. THE WAY him and hyuck look at each other sometime during concerts???? if i were haech i would be backstage asking him WHAT ARE WE!!!!!

HOW MY WEEK WENTTT i finished up my internship!!! it actually went pretty well bc i rounded it up with a presentation on a research project i did and i tried really hard w it and i was validated w my efforts!!! i got to see my friends a little and irrelevant and tmi but i think im so lonely im going insane bc im kind of having feelings for my best friend but it might be because i dont see him a lot so i'm. trying to quit bc its so embarrassing... next week i have a bunch of interviews so WISH ME LUCKKK 😭😭😭😭

also this is so lame of me but when i drink im mostly NOT drinking outside im drinking... at home? or at a friend's place? LET ME EXPLAIN see it's because 1-2 drink jing is DIZZY. that's my first reaction to being drunk and it's so LAME and terrible in public spaces because i do the ditzy stumbling around and typing terribly on my phone (fun fact i got drunk at a school function once bc soju looks like water and we smuggled it in) and i literally almsot FELL down the stairs in front of my teachers it was. not good. anyway yeah thats why i dont really drink in clubs and bars (ALSO because it's so expensive there 😭) 😞😞😞😞😞 but i'm having a lot of fun i usually have plain soju but today i had whiskey!!!

i AM working hard on my stories and im exicted to share them with you when i'm done!! thank you for always being supportive of me and my efforts <3 i appreciate and luv u so os sososo much

#asks #💛 anon #AYYAYAYYYYY

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iguessweallcrazyithinktho · 3 years ago

Note

Would you mind writing a story where Andrew!Peter once again sees his girlfriend (the only and one after Gwen) falling? But like, he catches her this time (he catches his MJ), because I'm not about to put this boy through more trauma.

𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐉.

Im going to make up an unknown villain

See if my peter Parker request are open here

Peter swore he'll never let another one of his girlfriends take part in his crime stopping, but sadly his own promise was broken. You, you were stubborn like Gwen was, always wanting to help him fight battles you shouldn't. It scared him to death, but every time you tried to tell him it was ok and you would be fine, he fell for it.

Today peter was enjoying his time with you. It had been a while since you both went on a date and he really wanted to take you on one.

As you both sat in the diner booth, Peter looked at you with a smile on his face, his hands holding yours. Your face heated up at his staring.

"what?" You asked him. He laughed. "Nothing, I just love you so much."

"well I-"

As you were about to say something Peter stood up. You knew why. He was getting his spidey tingle. You watched as he walked out the door of the diner and into the street. You followed him as People were running everywhere, away from something you couldn't see.

You ran up to Peter, He looked at you with the 'sorry' face. You knew he was about to go fight crime as spiderman.

"I gotta go, I'm sorry."

Peter leaned in and kissed you. He was about to run away, but you stopped him. "Peter, let me go with you."

Peter turned to you shaking his head, "no, y/n, we can't keep doing this. You know I don't like you going with me."

"Peter come on. You know I like to help.. it's our date anyways, just let me come, I'll stay out of the way." Peter squeeze his eyes shut shaking his head, he was thinking long and hard if he wanted to do this. It was dangerous, he didn't want what happened with Gwen to happen with you. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if something bad Had happened to you. Peter looked at you fully ready to say no, but as he looked into your eyes he knew he couldn't. You had so much power over him, it was insane.

"ok, fine. But stay out of the way."

Peter grabbed you, swinging through the streets, growing closer to the thing behind all the chaos. Once you reached it peter let you down. You were in the entrance of what looked like a museum.

"stay here. I'm going to go find this guy." Peter placed another kiss on your lips before he ran away leaving you there.

As much as you wanted to obey Peter's rules, you couldn't. You could hear the commotion in the inside of the building and you hated it. You tried and tried to stay back and not go look but you couldn't, you needed to see.

You walked into the museum. There was stuff every where, it looked nothing like it was supposed to.

You made your way to the emergency stairs and began climbing the flight. There were endless amount of body's of security on the stairs. The must have been killed through the rage.

You reached the top of the stairs and looked out the door. It was a rooftop. You could see peter fighting a creature in black and green. He was getting pretty beat up which made you angry.

You slowly Opened the door and slipped out. You quietly snuck out and crouched behind a plant out there. Your unknown presence didn't last long, the villain saw you out the corner of his eyes.

In seconds you were swooped up I held in strong grip. You looked down at Peter to see the terror in his eyes.

"look what we have here. Looks like she's important to you spiderman." The croaky dead voice said. You tried to squirm from his grip, but it was useless.

"put her down please." Peter pleaded. A croaky laugh filled your ear. The villain turned his head looking at you. You shut your eyes whining, you didn't want to look at it.

"well... Go fetch."

In a matter of seconds you were tossed off the building. Peter could feel his heart stop. Instantly he dove in. Because of his fear, he didn't even try his web. He reached out his hand trying to catch you, but despite his effort, you still managed to make contact with the ground before he caught you.

You laid there unconscious in Peter's arms. Fear took over Peter as he held your limp body in his arms.

"y/n, baby, wake up. Come on sweetheart."

Tears filled Peter's vision as he looked down at you. His worst fear was coming True again. His heart couldn't take this damage anymore. He let another one of his girlfriends get hurt in his battles.

Peter shook you hoping it would wake you up magically.

Peter was about to do it again when you woke up with a groan. Relief filled Peter as he watched your eyes open. You looked up at Peter seeing the tears in the corner of his eyes. You brought your hand up to his face wiping them away.

"Peter, don't cry. I'm ok."

Peter pulled you close to him, hugging you as if he didn't he would have lose you.

Peter instantly brought you back to his apartment. He let Aunt May check you out, making up an excuse that you were both skateboarding and you fell pretty hard. When may said you were fine Peter brought you up to his room.

You watched as Peter paced back and forth in the room. He was clearly upset and you didn't blame him.

"Peter, please can we talk?"

"NO! NO WE CAN'T. I TOLD YOU TO STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU WERE BUT YOU DIDN'T LISTEN! YOU DIDN'T FUCKING LISTEN! YOU ALMOST GOT KILLED OUT THERE." Peter's voice cracked as he looked at you. Tears filled the brim of his eyes as he continued. "I can't lose you ok. I can't. I already lost someone, I can't lose you, I love you too fucking much and I can't live without you."

You stood up and hugged Peter. He cried on your shoulder. Your heart ached as you heard his cries. You felt like a fucking idiot. I mean you were.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you upset or scare you. I should've listened. I'm suck an idiot."

Peter pulled away with red eyes. He shook his head. "You're not an idiot, just listen to me please."

You nodded, "ok... I won't even ask to come with you anymore, I'll just let you do your thing."

Peter sniffed as he smiled at you softly. "Thank you." He leaned in and kissed your lips before he pulled you into a hug. "I love you so much, don't ever do that to me again."

You squeezed your eyes shut and nodded. "I promise."

_-_-_

I wrote that fast. Anyways hope you enjoyed

#peter parker x reader #tasm peter parker #andrew!peter parker #andrew!peter x reader #andrew garfield #the amazing Spider-Man #spiderman

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libraryofloveletters · 4 years ago

Note

Prompt: Buck and Reader are dating (maybe even engaged) before buck joins 118. Buck doesn't tell about reader at anyone in the station. Eddie could already be part of 118. And then buck gets hurt or something and they meet reader. Athena loves her and then can we have a scene of buck&reader with the fire kids.

Emergency Contact

Evan Buckley x Reader

Warnings: fem!reader, mentions of hospitals and injuries, a mention of pregnancy

Category: Angst and fluff

Word Count: 3.3k

Author’s Note: Italics is a flashback :)

----

A house fire, a normal occurrence for the 118. They arrive, Buck and Eddie make their way through the house whilst Hen and Chim tend to the others. The family that lived there, the Smiths, couldn't find their daughter outside and figured she was still inside so they had gone in to find her.

Buck and Eddie had spilt up when they got inside, Buck going left and Eddie going right. Eddie had found the little girl and managed to get her out of the house, her parents were grateful that he brought her back to them.

“Where’s Buck ?” Bobby turns to Eddie.

Eddie glances around, unsure as to where his friend was. “I thought he was right behind me, I swear I saw him on the stairs”

Bobby radioed, “Buckley, come in”

Before they could get an answer, there was a loud crash from inside the house. Eddie and Bobby run back in to see Buck on the floor of the kitchen, the ceiling had a massive hole in it and he was covered in dust. Buck tries to sit up a little too fast but falls onto his back. It seems like the floor had given out under him and he had fallen through.

“Buck?” Eddie calls to him, checking his pupils. “Yeah, definite concussion,” he tugs on Buck’s coat, feeling his abdomen area. “At least 2 broken ribs, if not more.” Eddie looks up at their captain, his hand still gently feeling Buck’s abdomen.

Bobby comes over, grabbing Buck’s feet as Eddie sits Buck up carefully and loops his arms under his. The two men carry him out, Chimney rolling a stretcher over to them. From that point, Hen and Chim took over, checking his vitals and if they had missed any other fractions or broken bones. The ambulance pulled off first, Chimney in the driver’s seat and Hen in the back with Buck. The firetruck followed, both vehicles headed to the hospital.

---

“Did anyone call Maddie ?” Hen breaks the silence filled waiting room. Bobby looks up at her, Hen speaks again, “she is his emergency contact, isn't she?”

Something about that didn’t sound right to Bobby. He hadn’t been there when Buck started as a probie but he had gone over everyones forms when he became captain. He can’t remember who Buck’s emergency contact was but he didn’t think it was Maddie.

“Does anyone have her number ?” Bobby asks, no one answers. “I’m gonna head back to the station, I'll give her a call and come back. If anything changes, let me know?” Eddie answers with a yeah and Bobby heads out.

Once he arrived back at the station, he searched through the drawers of files - which truthfully, should be organized better, but that was a problem for another time. Once finding the file, his finger runs down the page. Maddie’s name was on the form but as a secondary contact. y/n l/n was the name listed as primary contact so he called this mystery woman. She answers after the first 2 rings.

“Hi, is this y/n?”

“It is, who’s this?”

“I’m captain Bobby Nash with the 118.”

“What can I do for you, captain ?”

“You’re listed as Evan’s primary emergency contact.” there was a pause in the conversation, the line had gone silent.

“Yeah, is he alright ?” the woman’s voice returns.

“He fell through the floor during a call today. He has a concussion and a few broken ribs- one of the ribs seems to have punctured a lung and he’s in surgery now. I was calling to notify you, we’re at the hospital if you’d like to join us”

“Thank you for calling, I'll be there soon” and with that, she hung up. Bobby still had no idea who this woman was or how she knew Buck. The lack of emotion in the call didn’t help him gauge who it might be. He pushed the thought from his mind and called Maddie - surely whoever this y/n woman was, was obviously important to Buck if she was listed before Maddie but Maddie was his sister and she deserved to know so he called her anyways.

When Bobby returned back, Buck was still in surgery. He sat down just as Athena arrived. A box of donuts in one hand and one of those huge containers of coffee in the other, Bobby got up and helped her, not before pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“You didn’t have to come by,” he tells her as he sets the thing of coffee on the table in the middle of the room, she gives him a small smile. “Buck might be trouble but he’s still one of ours. I’d show up for any of them, you know that” she nudges him with her shoulder softly, he smiles at her once more. Everyone gets up, helping themselves to the coffee and donuts that Athena brought- they all thanked her as they all know the horrors of hospital food.

A woman walks in, she’s at the nurses desk which is across from where the team sat. She’s asking for Evan Buckley and the nurse points her in the direction of the team in the waiting room. She approaches, her hands shoved in her sweater pocket- rather Buck’s sweater pocket. Bobby had seen him show up to work in that very sweater a few days before.

“You must be y/n” Bobby stands, his hand stretched out to her.

“I am, you’re Bobby, right ?” your hand comes out to reach his, shaking it. It didn’t take long for Bobby to notice the large diamond on your ring finger. Your hand lets go of his, returning to its spot in your pocket. Bobby gives you a small smile which you mirror.

“Everyone, this is y/n. Buck’s- sorry, I didn’t ask. How do you know Buck?” Bobby asks you, you glance around the room. Everyone's eyes were on you.

“I’m Buck’s-”

“Y/n!” a woman calls for you. Turning around, you see Maddie approaching you. “Mads!” your arms open as she gets closer. She embraces you in a hug, your hand rubbing up and back her back.

“Did you hear anything yet ?” she asks you, letting you go. Shaking your head, “I just got here”

“You know her too ?” Chimney pipes up from his chair, Maddie looks over at him. “Yeah, obviously. She’s Buck’s fiancee” she tells him, the entire room goes silent.

You look over at your sister in law, “they didn’t know that yet Mads” chuckling, you pat her back before taking a seat across from a woman in a police uniform. Maddie’s eyes went wide, her mouth slightly opened in shock. “Sorry! I thought you told them” she says, sitting beside Chimney. “I was about too but you called for me”

Everyone’s attention is on you, the woman sitting across from you speaks up. “Well, it’s nice to meet you” she says, “I’m Athena, Bobby’s wife” she introduces herself.

“Ah, so the whole family’s in law enforcement huh ?” you smile, Athena chuckles. “Seems like it. What do you do ?”

“I’m a nurse over at General”

“I thought I had seen you somewhere before” Athena smiles.

The room goes back to quiet, the team talking amongst themselves. Maddie sat beside you and on her other side was Chimney, you had seen him for the pictures Maddie showed you when she started seeing him. Beside him was a woman, she wore glasses and had a friendly smile- Hen. Buck had told you about her and her wife, they seemed like nice people. Sitting beside Hen was a man, cute with somewhat of a resting bitch face- that was Eddie, Buck’s best friend. Buck practically lived at his house when you worked night shifts and you had also seen a million and one photos of his son, Christoper, who was the sweetest little boy on the planet from what you had heard.

Your hand rested on your lap, your thumb pushing and pulling the engagement ring on your finger back and forth.

“He must really love you because that’s one hell of a rock” Athena was pacing the room and was now beside you, her hand reaching for yours to take a closer look at the ring. You laugh, “it is, isn't it?”

“I have to ask, how long have you two been engaged ? Because he’s never mentioned you.”

“Oh I know,” you hum, “we like to keep things low key but um, it’s been 2 years since we got engaged. We aren't really in a rush to get married.” you tell her.

“2 years? That’s a long time to keep a secret like that”

“Yeah, it’s been a challenge- but it’s not like he didn’t want to tell you guys. He just didn’t know how. Oh you know how he is- actions over words.”

You and Athena talk a bit more, she tells you how Bobby proposed to her on Christmas Eve. She showed you a picture from when they got married- her own massive ring adorning her finger. You told her about how Buck proposed to you.

“Babe! The pancakes are going to get cold!” you shouted for your boyfriend from the kitchen of your apartment.

“I’m coming woman! Calm down” he shouts back, his footsteps coming closer with each step.

Buck had the weekend off and so did you- a rare occurrence for the two of you. You decided that instead of going out to get breakfast like you normally would, that you would cook instead. Hence why you were up at 10:15 on a Saturday morning and why your boyfriend’s shirt that you were wearing, was covered in flour and eggs.

Buck’s arms wrapped around your waist, your attention on the stove. His hands coming ups under your shirt to feel your bare skin, he was busy peppering kisses down your neck. You nudge him with your shoulder, “go sit down, I'll bring the pancakes over in a minute” you tell him and he hums. Pressing one more kiss to your neck, he untangles himself from you and goes to the table.

The layout of your apartment was a bit strange, the kitchen was by the front door but the kitchen didn’t have much space so your table was closer to your living room than the kitchen and there was a wall blocking you when you were in the kitchen so you weren’t able to see the table.

Now heading to the table with a plate in each hand, you were focused on not dropping the plates. That went out the window when you entered the room to see your boyfriend down on one knee with a velvet box in his hand.

“Buck” you breath

“Y/n, you are so amazing, you just- god, this is so cheesy but you really do take my breath away. Last night, I was laying beside you and I had this perfectly rehearsed speech that I was going to give you but it just doesn't make sense now. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. You stood by my side and didn't complain when I worked long hours or didn't have time because I joined the fire department. You are the woman of my dreams and I would do anything for you. So I hope you would do me the honour of being my wife ?”

“Yes, oh my god yes” you lean down to kiss him. Buck smiles, “baby?”

“Hm?”

“You gotta put the plates down” he chuckles, you hadn't realized you were still holding the plates. Setting them down, Buck gets up. The ring that was in the box was now in his hand, he slid the ring on your finger. Holding your hand up, you admired the ring.

“I think this deserves a proper breakfast”

“I don’t think there’s anything better than this” he pulls you in for a hug.

Athena laughs when you tell her, “he ambushed you when you were making him breakfast ? This kid has no sense of the right time” you chuckles at her comment. “It was perfect. I don’t think I would have it any other way, you know?”

The doctor comes in, he asks for Buckley and all 7 of you stand. “Wow big group. Okay- we were able to patch the hole. He’ll need to be off work for the next 3-4 weeks before he can even consider going back but he should make a full recovery.” a few breaths of relief were let out around the room. “He’s in recovery now, I can take you in one at a time. Who would like to go first ?”

Everyone's looking at you and you glance over your shoulder. “Do any of you want to go ?” you ask, no one answers you.

“Maddie ?”

“I’m gonna get some air and some coffee and then I'll be there. Give him a hug for me” she gives your hand a squeeze, you smile at her. Following the doctor down the hallway, you pass multiple rooms all with different families and people with different injuries. That’s one of the things you enjoyed about the hospital- if you looked past all the sadness, there were so many success stories, so many happy families.

Room 276 at the end of the hall was his. Buck was asleep, a few wires and such were hooked to him. Pulling a chair up to his bedside, your hand reached for him, holding it gently as your thumb rubbed the top of it. Your eyes drift to his monitor by his bedside, steady heartbeat and blood pressure. There was nothing to be concerned about yet you couldn't look away.

“y/n,” a faint whisper left his lips, you glanced down at your fiancee, his eyes barely opened.

“Buck,” you smiled, your hand coming up to touch his face. He nuzzled closer to your hand, turning his head ever so slightly to press a kiss to the palm of your hand.

“Can I- water?” you let go of him to get the glass from the counter. Pouring some water in it, you stick the straw in the cup before holding the straw to his lips. He sighed and looked at you as you set the cup down. “I guess the secret’s out ?” he smiles, you nod.

“Maddie let it slip, but I was about to tell them so it’s fine” you kiss his forehead.

“Is everyone here?”

“Yeah, in the waiting room. They all thought you’d look horrendous so I came in to check, lucky me right ?” you joke, Buck lets out a weak laugh before his hand comes up to his chest.

“Ow, don’t make me laugh” he pouts, you smile at him. Sitting at the edge of the chair, your hand finds his hair, brushing it back softly.

“Surgery isn't a good look on you”

“Hey, I always look good” he pouts once more.

---

The few weeks go by a lot quicker than expected and Buck is set to return to the 118 on Monday. Athena had helped you plan a little surprise get together for Buck but you had just told him that you were headed over to Bobby and Athena’s for the day because you were going shopping with Athena. You left home around noon and helped them set up all day and you called Buck around 6.

“Hey babe, how’s shopping going ?”

“It’s alright, we’re back at the house now. Bobby was saying that you should swing by, we could all have dinner together”

“Hm yeah, that sounds good. I’ll be there soon”

Now you wait. The entire team was already there, everyone scattered amongst the living room, waiting for him to arrive. He knocked on the door, Athena shouted for him to come in. He walked in, everyone waited for him to round the corner, the surprise evident on his face.

“What’s all this?” he smiles, he makes his way down the stairs.

“Welcome back” Bobby goes over to give him a hug. Buck makes his way around the room, saying hello to everyone. Eventually, he finds you in the kitchen with Karen who says hello to him and then leaves the two of you in the kitchen.

“So did you really go shopping ?” he asks, his arm over your shoulder and your arm wraps around his waist.

“Yeah but for party supplies” you smile at him, he leans down and kisses your head. Chris, Denny and Harry all come into the kitchen on the hunt for sweets that you previously heard Eddie, Athena and Hen all telling them that they weren't allowed to have. Of course they assumed that if they sweet-talk Buck that he would give them, and he did, he never said no to those boys.

All three of them made themselves comfortable on the couch as Buck returned with a plate of cupcakes for them. Buck sat beside them, pulling you onto his lap.

“Do you have any scars from the surgery ?” Denny asks him, looking over at Buck. “Yeah, do you wanna see ?” Buck asks, the 3 boys nod eagerly. You smile at them, Buck unbuttons the top of his shirt, pulling it to the side to show the boys the scar from the surgery. It was fairly tiny but still noticeable.

“Woah that’s cool!” “Can I poke it?” “That’s weird looking”

You and Buck laugh at the responses- boys will be boys. The 3 boys ask a few more questions and Buck shows them a couple other scars that he had gotten over the year, eventually they get bored of Buck and his stories and go off to find someone else. You leave Buck in the living room as he was talking to Maddie and Chimney.

Now in the backyard, you and Athena were talking about when you'd actually go shopping when someone bumped into your leg. Looking down, you see Nia beside you, you pick her up and hold her, Nia sitting comfortably on your hip now. The two of you go along with your conversation and Nia cuddles into your side, you glance down at the little girl who was smiling at you, you give her a smile too.

Buck’s arm wraps around your shoulder, he presses a kiss to your temple. “Hey,” he smiles before leaning forward to take a peak at Nia, “Hey kiddo” he reaches out to hold her hand, she smiles at him.

“You 3 look comfortable together” Hen says as she makes her way over with Karen. Buck laughs.

“If you’re open to babysitting, feel free to take the kids anytime” Karen jokes, you smile. “I might take you up on that. It’d be like to have an actual kid around rather than just Buck” you laugh, Buck pouts. “Hey! I’m not that bad” the 3 women all give him looks. Athena pats his shoulder, “that’s what you think Buckaroo”

“Having the kids around would be good practice” Your fiancee thinks out loud.

“Practice for what, darling?”

“You know, one day maybe we’d have kids”

“Oh not now? Not a fan of the whole pregnancy glow thing ?”

“Oh I am, I do it right-” “don’t finish that sentence” you laugh, leaning up to give him a kiss. You had a feeling that your fiancé’s family was about to become yours too.

---

taglist: @ssa-volturi @advicefromnixxxx @dralexreid @keenmarvellover @beth-winchester21 @fernandaweasley2 @yikesyikesyikes95 @hotchsdarling @venusrosepetal @luke-alvez @caitsymichelle13 @averyhotchner

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nsheetee · 4 years ago

Text

109 Steps To You

this is a part of the “almost” collaboration hosted by @hyucksie

Pairing: Haechan x Reader Genre: romance, fluff, angst, mature content, soulmate!AU, college!AU Length: 19k Summary: Everyone is born with two marks on their body: one that is identical to your soulmate’s, and one that is identical to the person who will cause you immense pain. No one knows which mark means what until they live out their life and meet the people destined to bring them love and hurt. However, you were only born with one mark. Out of all the places you thought you would meet the person with the mark identical to yours, you never thought it would be on your first day of college. Warnings/Details: female reader, mentions of other nct members (and yuqi from g-idle), explicit sex (unprotected + the consequences that come with it), mentions of a dysfunctional family, swearing

— read epilogue here

a/n: if you’re a minor: beware! there is explicit and mature content in this fic.

“I want to thank you guys, again, for helping me out today.” You shyly announce to the table, swirling your spoon through your froyo and glancing back and forth between the other people sitting before you.

“Oh, it’s no problem, we weren’t doing anything today anyway.” Xiaojun softly knocks his elbow into yours, sending a reassuring smile your way. If it wasn’t for Xiaojun, an old childhood friend, you weren’t sure how moving into your dorm room and getting settled into campus would’ve gone; you would probably still be a mess right now.

“He’s right. Plus, I really wanted to meet the girl Jun kept raving about, he wouldn’t stop talking about how much we would like you-” Mark’s comment is quickly cut off, a thud under the table and a pained look on Mark’s face giving away that Xiaojun just kicked him.

“I just hope I lived up to the hype.” You laugh at their antics.

“Oh, definitely,” Yuqi quickly buts in before Mark can retaliate back at Xiaojun, “And I live a few floors below you, so just let me know if you need anything at all.” She adds on, her warm deposition and all around friendliness from today making you let out a small sigh of relief, some stress falling off your shoulders when you realize just how many people around you are here to help you out.

“I appreciate it so much, really.” You lean away from Xiaojun and Mark, closer to Yuqi and Lucas who are sitting on the other side of the table, “By the way, I love your guys’ marks. They look so good on both of you.”

At your comment, Lucas puts down his phone and gently grabs Yuqi’s hand, their matching chamomile flower marks touching as their fingers intertwine. You almost didn’t notice their matching marks earlier today when they were helping you set up your dorm room, but when you did, you couldn’t help but stop what you were doing and stare at their hands. Such a simple mark has never looked so pretty to you, maybe it’s because Lucas and Yuqi made such a good pair that their fated marks looked so right for them.

“I still wish I got a cool dragon mark down my back, but I’ll let Jun be the one to deal with that in this life.” Lucas smirks at Xiaojun, who just rolls his eyes at Lucas’ fake jealousy. “Yours looks good, too.” He finishes and glances down at your left hand. There, a dragonfly mark stains your skin, the long tail trailing over your thumb and the wings spreading out over the back of your hand and your wrist.

“Thank you.” Your reply is genuine, however you can’t help but remember the solemn fact that surrounds your mark, your voice inadvertently dipping down as your eyes trace over the wings of your dragonfly.

“So, what kind of classes are you taking this semester?” Xiaojun changes the subject, no doubt hearing the lament in your voice.

“Oh, just some required classes. Nothing for my major, really, except Intro to Ethics for my humanities credit.” You reply as casually as you can to bring the mood at the table back up, but your comment makes Yuqi gasp and all four pairs of eyes at the table turn to you. You slouch in your seat at their sudden attention on you.

“Why would you do that to yourself?”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Do you know your advisor's email? Let’s send them a message right now to get you out-”

“Stop.” You shake your head, laughing a bit at the overreaction from your new friends, “What’s wrong with Ethics?”

“It’s in the Hauss building.” Xiaojun says as if you should already know what that means. You roll your lips in and shake your head; you do not know what that means at all.

“It’s the building all the way on top of the big hill on the west side of campus, by the auditorium.” Xiaojun explains more.

“They only teach three classes over there: Ethics and Music Theory 3 and 4.” Mark sets down his melted froyo, not realizing he has some sticking to his upper lip.

“I’m failing to see what’s so horrible about that?”

“When Xiaojun says it’s a big hill, he means it’s a really big hill-”

“Didn’t someone count the steps once and it came out to be, like, close to 100?” Lucas asks, one hand still tangled with Yuqi’s and the other now rapidly slurping his triple chocolate froyo.

“That was me, and it’s 109 steps.” Mark shutters, “I took Music Theory 3 last year and I ended up skipping half of the time because I couldn’t find the energy to climb up and down those steps three times a week.”

“Why 109? Aren’t groups of steps usually in even numbers? That’s not very architecturally smart.” Yuqi purses her lips and her eyebrows screw together.

“Screw architecture. Are you telling me I’ll have to climb up and down 109 stairs three times a week just to go to Ethics?” You can already feel a headache growing at the back of your head when you think about the complications of dealing with this big staircase. You needed that class for your major, and you thought it was going to be a class that you could pass with flying colors, but it seems like it might just be a nuisance to you more than an easy A.

“Talk to your advisor. Try to drop out and take a different class. Trust me, 109 steps don’t seem like much until you actually have to climb them.” Mark gives you his piece of advice, sticking his spoon filled with froyo into his mouth and then immediately scrunching his eyes and mumbling about brain freeze.

You’ll have to send an e-mail to your advisor real quick, but for your first day of classes tomorrow, you’ll just have to deal with those 109 steps.

The walk to your ethics class the next morning is very calming, the university’s nice landscaping and the warm weather calming your nerves down for your first day of classes. When you round the corner of the stonewall you had been following, you’re met with the infamous set of steps.

You have to crane your neck to look up at the top of the staircase, your jaw slightly dropping at how steep of a hill the stairs were built on. There are other students around you walking up and down the staircase, their headphones shoved in their ears and their heads down as they make the climb to and from class.

The stonewall you had been following all the way here continues up the staircase on your right and on the left is a thick wall of trees, their branches hanging over the stairs and giving protection from the sunlight to the students below. You begin to count every step on your way up; four regular steps, the fifth one a bit longer than the rest, and then repeat. It’s not that you don’t trust Mark’s words when he said there’s 109 steps, you just want to count for yourself.

You hear some rowdy boys coming down the stairs, but the noise is not enough to pull your head up from the ground or to stop you from counting, until you’re forcefully pushed into the stone wall on your right. Breathing in through your teeth sharply, your left hand clutches your collarbones where the pain is the worst.

“Oh, my god. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to push you.” The guy laughs through his words, a high-pitched and almost squeaky laugh, making him sound not as sincere as he probably meant to be. When you turn to face him, the first thing you notice are his eyes. Chocolate colored and almond shaped, some laugh lines showing from the remnants of his shenanigans with his friends.

Looking back, you realize you fell in love with his eyes first. How they don’t hold back from showing any emotion, and the mischievousness they hold no matter what.

Even when his smile falls, his face looks pretty; long hair hanging down over his forehead and ears, and plump lips spreading into an ‘o’ shape as he looks at your dragonfly. Every line and detail is just the same as his own, as if fate spent a little more time with you two to make sure you know you’re each other’s soulmate the moment you meet.

“Your mark…” The man points at your hand, and that’s when you realize who you’ve just met. His brilliant eyes fill with excitement and he starts to breath harder, taking a step back from sheer surprise that you’re here. His soulmate. His one and only for the rest of this life.

However it all fades away the moment you drop your hand from your collarbones, stepping past him to continue up the staircase.

“Next time, watch where you’re going.” The first words you ever say to him are filled with so much indifference that Haechan can only follow your back with his eyes, his jaw slack and his hand still reaching out for you.

“Hey, wait-” Haechan is about to run after you, but he’s held back by Renjun, his best friend and the one who pushed Haechan into you in the first place.

“Was that-” Renjun begins, holding onto his friend’s elbow as he also watches you walk up the rest of the 109 steps.

“Yeah… Why did she ignore me like that? She saw that I have the same mark. We’re soulmates!” Haechan almost cries out in confusion, his heart and mind in a mess. Can you blame him? He’s been waiting to meet his soulmate since he knew what the dragonfly on his hand meant. Haechan has never been a patient person, and even waiting several years for you to come to him was testing him. Now that you’re here, he isn’t going to let you go easily.

As Haechan begins to walk back up the staircase to follow you, not caring about his Literature class in 15 minutes, Renjun’s grip on him tightens and pulls him back.

“You can’t just go harass her about this.”

“I’m not going to harass her. I just want to talk.” Haechan tries to pull out of Renjun’s grip again, but the little man has the sturdiness of a boulder and pulls his friend back.

“Maybe she doesn’t want a soulmate?” Renjun and Haechan stop their tug of war at Jaemin’s words. He had been leaning against the handrail by the trees the whole time while watching the scene unfold in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and his baseball cap covering his eyes. “It’s not that uncommon these days.”

Haechan and Renjun let go of each other at their friend’s words. Jaemin sends them a bitter smile and all three of them recall the incident that happened last year when Jaemin met his own soulmate:

A rejection.

Jaemin took it hard; if it hadn’t been for his best friends, he doesn’t know where he would be in life right now. Jaemin can’t help but let the memories surface as he continues to walk down the stairs, slower than before, his head bowed and his hands shoved into his pant pockets. Renjun sends Haechan a look that tells him to not push the situation further, following Jaemin down the stairs.

Haechan sends your retreating figure one last look, watching you reach the top of the staircase and walk into the Hauss building. He retreats and follows his friends dejectedly, the promise of you showing up on this staircase at the same time on Wednesday being the only thing that lets his legs follow his friends down the stairs.

“Hey, ___, come in.” Mark smiles brightly when he recognizes you at the door, stepping aside to let you into the dorm room. “Xiaojun is in the shower still… Will you be okay by yourself if I leave?” He looks unsure as you set your backpack down on Xiaojun’s desk chair.

“Oh, I’ll be fine. You do whatever you need to.” You state and then plop down onto your friend’s bed. You hear Mark laugh and say something about how all the first years look tired at the end of their first day and then leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. You lay sprawled out on the bed, the only sounds surrounding you is the water from the shower and the ticking of the analog clock on the wall.

Even though the whole ordeal happened several hours ago, you haven’t been able to get the moment you met your soulmate out of your mind. It was almost impossible for you to turn around and walk away. Even now, your feet still itch to go back to that staircase and find the sweet looking guy who you no doubt left confused.

However, you can’t do that— you won’t let yourself do that. And that’s partially why you’re in Xiaojun’s dorm room after your last class today: so that he can knock some sense into you.

The shower turns off and a few moments later, the bathroom door opens and Xiaojun steps out. He has a towel wrapped around his waist and a smaller one on his shoulders to catch the droplets from his hair; when he sees you laying on his bed, he jumps in fright.

“Good, God,” He sighs and clutches his bare chest with one hand, the other protectively going to the towel around his waist. “Can you say something the next time you come over? I almost had a heart attack because of you.” He walks over to his closet on the other side of the room, rummaging through some clothes as you sit up.

“Sorry, I thought you heard the door open…” You trail off, getting distracted by Xiaojun’s mark. The dragon on his back is huge, taking up most of the area and spreading to his shoulders and upper arms, too. However, that’s not the mark that caught your attention. Right on his ankle sits a three-leaf clover, so small and such a stark difference from the monster drawn on his back.

You’re pulled away from your thoughts when Xiaojun turns around and walks back into the bathroom, this time leaving the door open, “So, how was your first day?”

“Oh, well, it was okay…” You trail off, speaking a bit louder so that he could hear you from the other room. You stand up and start pacing in the space between Mark’s and Xiaojun’s beds, a nervous habit of yours.

“But? I know there’s a ‘but’ somewhere.” Xiaojun replies.

“Well, something happened…” You trail off, not sure how to make the words leave your mouth yet.

“What is it?” You swallow at the question, your throat dry and hands clammy. You must’ve been taking a long time to answer because Xiaojun walks out of the bathroom, now fully clothed, and stares at your pacing form. “What’s wrong, ___.”

“I met him.” You say simply, hoping Xiaojun gets what you mean, but he doesn’t. You sigh and sink down to the floor slowly, catching yourself on Xiaojun’s bed. The action makes his eyes widen in fear and he crosses the room in a few short strides, kneeling down next to you and searching your eyes for the answer.

“What? What is it?”

“The person with the same mark as me. I met him.”

“... Oh.”

Xiaojun slowly slides down onto his butt in front of you, folding his legs. He’s not sure what to say, or how to comfort you in anyway. He didn’t expect to be the only person around that you trust when something like this happens. He sees the lost look in your eyes and slides towards you to pull you into a hug.

Unlike Xiaojun, and most people in the world, you do not have two marks.

Xiaojun’s dragon and clover match with two different people in this world; one who will be his soulmate and the other who will bring him immense pain. Everyone has two marks— except you; it even states it on your birth certificate, your parents can testify that they’ve never seen a second mark on you, just the lonely dragonfly that spreads its wings over your left hand.

When you were younger, you were curious about what it meant to only have one mark. The people around you always had two marks, the people on the TV shows you liked to watch always had two marks, even anatomy books have depictions of humans with two marks. Why were you different? What did it mean?

After gathering up the guts to type the question into the Google search engine, you found your answers, and it changed your thoughts on your one and only mark forever. The people in the world who only had one mark testified to the same story online: the person who’s mark matched theirs were both their soulmate and the person who hurt them the most.

After learning about that, you promised yourself that if you ever met the person with the same mark as you, you would not meddle with them in any way if they were only destined to bring you pain in the end.

If you knew jumping off a bridge would definitely kill you, you wouldn’t jump, right?

Xiaojun is the only person, other than your parents, who knows about the situation. Which is why when he hugs you, you lean into him and accept his comfort.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about. You must have so many questions.” He mumbles into your hair.

“Not questions. I’m just curious about what I am to him.” You reply, whispering into Xiaojun’s shoulder.

“About what you are to him?”

“I know he’ll be the person I’m meant to love the most, and also the person who will hurt me the most. But am I the one that’s supposed to love him or the one that’s supposed to hurt him?”

“Lots of people say that they can feel it when they meet. Like Lucas, he said he instantly knew Yuqi was supposed to be his soulmate.” Xiaojun thinks back to all the people who have told him the exact same thing, even his parents.

“The guy… he kept calling me his soulmate. He sounded so sure about it, too.” You lean away from Xiaojun to look into his big and curious eyes.

“What about you? What did you feel?” He asks.

“It felt… like I left a part of myself with him.” Xiaojun’s eyes widened at that, “Is that crazy? I was only around him for a minute, maybe less, and I can’t stop thinking about how I never wanted to leave. It was so hard to walk away from him..” You trail off, feeling tears suddenly gather at the edges of your eyes.

“Xiaojun…” The edge in your voice makes him grab a hold on your hands, “I don’t want him to hurt me. I’m not ready for it.”

“Hey, hey…” Xiaojun squeezes your hands before gently guiding your face to his, meeting his eyes with your own, “He’ll hurt you eventually, yeah, but he’ll also be the person who is supposed to love you unconditionally. The person who is going to know you so well, better than yourself. Maybe you should see where he takes you in life? Destiny still wanted you to meet each other no matter what the end game is going to be… Are you really going to tell fate to fuck off?”

“Can’t I?” Your response makes Xiaojun laugh, which he apologises for laughing in a serious situation right after, but the mood is already broken and you laugh at yourself a bit as well.

“C’mon, let’s order something to eat and get your mind off of this, even if it’s just for a few hours.” Xiaojun pulls you off of the floor and reaches for his phone, trying to find the phone number to his favorite delivery place.

You sit on his bed once again, your hands limp in your lap and so much appreciation for Xiaojun in your chest. You probably would’ve gone insane if he wasn’t here for you. His suggestion on giving the guy you met today a chance plays like a record in your head, but the record scratches when you remember the promise you made to yourself a long time ago.

Don’t mess with him. He will only bring you pain in the end.

On Wednesday, Haechan is the first one out of his seat in his Music Theory 3 class, not even waiting for the slow Renjun and even slower Jaemin before sprinting out of the classroom and outside, waiting at the top of the staircase for your figure to appear at the bottom.

Students float up and down the stairs, but he doesn’t see you anywhere amongst them. Eventually, Renjun and Jaemin catch up to him, standing behind him and also staring down the long staircase.

“C’mon, Haechan, we need to go to our next class.” Renjun is the first one to step down, followed by Jaemin. Haechan takes a good look at everyone’s faces on his way down, getting some weird looks sent his way for staring, but he doesn’t care.

“Haechan.” Jaemin suddenly calls out, making his friend turn suddenly to look at him. Jaemin only nods his head to the bottom of the stairs where you just turned the corner. Despite his hurry from before, Haechan stops at the sight of you. His usual confidence is lost when he sees you climb the stairs. Now, he’s not sure if he should approach you.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Renjun nudges Haechan, but the younger only turns around to look at his friend.

“I don’t know what to say to her. What do I say to make her see I’m her soulmate?” Haechan asks, helplessness seeping into his words.

Renjun rolls his eyes; whenever his best friend needs to be the usual confident man he is, that’s when the confidence is most likely to drain out of him. Renjun shakes Haechan’s shoulders with a tight grip on his jacket, making some more people send the two of them some weird looks.

“She’s your soulmate, right? Fate already gave you everything you need to know about how to talk to her.” Renjun then pushes his friend towards your direction, “But for the love of god, don’t harass her.” Renjun ends with a pointed look and continues walking with Jaemin down the stairs.

Haechan slowly makes his way to you, crossing over to the middle of the staircase and stopping you in your tracks. You look up to inspect who it is that just stopped in front of you, and your surprise fades when you realize it’s the same guy from Monday.

“Hi.” He says simply. You only nod your head, lips pursed, and then move around him to continue walking to class.

“Wait…” Haechan calls after you, but you don’t stop this time. So Haechan keeps walking after you, only one step behind, “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you’re my soulmate. I’ve been waiting for you for so long—” You sharply turn to face him, making Haechan cut off and tilt his head up to look at you.

“How do you know I’m your soulmate? What if I’m not?” You ask. Haechan shakes his head softly at that, his golden hair moving over his sun-kissed skin as he does.

“That’s not possible.”

“How do you know?” You ask. Haechan loves how curiosity burns in your eyes. He takes longer than normal to speak only so that he can look over your features and memorize them to the best of his ability. Last night, he tried to recall your face but the image came out so blurry since he only saw you for a moment on Monday. He wants to clearly remember what you look like.

“How about I take you somewhere, and then I’ll tell you?” The proposition stuns you, and your burning curiosity makes you want to say yes. However, going anywhere with him would be breaking your promise to yourself, so you decide to forget it.

“Nevermind…” You mumble, turning around to walk up the stairs again.

“You seem like you really want to know how I’m sure we’re soulmates… Aren’t you curious?” Haechan asks, making you stop in your tracks again. This man has only known you for a day, only talked to you for a few moments, yet he already knows how to get you to do something. “I promise I won’t hurt you, and I’m not lying either.”

You take a moment to think about the proposition. You’re really curious about how he’s so sure that you’re soulmates. Sure, you know you’re soulmates, but why is he so sure you aren’t the person who’s supposed to hurt him? You consider taking up the offer, but can you stay strong to your own promise while being close to him?

Curiosity wins, and you turn back around to face him, nodding and making him smile widely. There’s that crinkle in his eyes again, that sparkle against the sun that makes saying yes to him so much more worth it.

“My friends call me Haechan, but you can call me Donghyuck. That’s my real name.” He sticks out his hand for you to shake. You once heard that physical touch brings soulmates together quicker; you’re not sure if that’s true, but you don’t want to test it.

“I’m ___.” You nod at him and grip onto your backpack straps instead of accepting his handshake.

“Haechan, hurry up or we’ll be late!” You both hear Renjun shout out from the bottom of the stairs, “And on our second day, too.” You hear him groan.

“Okay, ___, I’ll see you here at 7pm tomorrow night.” Haechan turns around to run back to his friends, sending you one last wave goodbye and almost tripping down the stairs as he does.

You take a deep breath and turn around to walk up the rest of the steps. You’re unsure if you did the right thing by agreeing to see him tomorrow night, but the deed is now done, and you can only wait for Donghyuck to quench your curiosity.

As promised, you meet Donghyuck at 7 o’clock sharp the next day. He’s already waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs.

“So, where are you taking me?” You ask after saying your hello’s.

“It’s a surprise.” He smiles and nods his head to make you follow him. He leads you through parts of campus you haven’t seen yet, the buildings looking older and older the further down the path you walk. Soon, Donghyuck takes a sharp turn into what looks like the middle of the forest but is really just a small, hidden extension of the trail.

Under a canopy of tall trees that wave with the wind to you and Donghyuck, there is a skinny trail that leads to glimmering water. It draws you in, your curiosity struck and your feet now moving on their own accord. Bushes tickle your ankles and the smell of some sort of flower you cannot identify floods your senses, but you can only keep walking towards the sparkling water.

The scene in front of you takes your breath away, a crisp gasp that you have no control over leaves your lips. The pond before you is big, stretching further than what you can see. The water is blue and the setting sun’s light reflects off of it to create rippling sparkles. There are some lily pads floating around, their flowers gone due to the temperature dropping recently.

You didn’t even notice that you stopped walking, your eyes wide as you take in the scenery before you. You almost forget who you’re with and why you came, but Donghyuck doesn’t let that happen. You snap out of it when he continues to walk along the trail that leads around the pond. You walk alongside Donghyuck, a few feet away with your hands awkwardly tucked into your pockets.

“C’mon, let’s sit.” He motions to a weeping willow tree. It’s tall and the branches sway pleasantly in the wind, completely unaware and indifferent to the years of history in the area. Underneath the tree is a sturdy bench, you sit on the left side while Donghyuck sits on the right side. Then, you both take a few moments to stare at the mesmerizing water that led you all the way to this seemingly magical place.

“Why did you bring me here?” You ask after a bit.

“Do you not like it?” Donghyuck asks back.

“No.” You quickly reply, looking over his side profile before turning back to the water, “I’m just curious.”

“Something in me knew you would like this place, that’s all.” Donghyuck replies while trying to hide his proud smile, looking down at the grass. “You’re curious about a lot of things, huh?”

“Yeah, I can’t help it. There’s just so much I want to know.” It’s easy to talk to him, a bit too easy. You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re supposed to have your guard up in front of him, but it’s proving harder than you thought it would be.

“Like how I’m sure that you’re my soulmate and not the person who is supposed to hurt me?” Donghyuck leans his weight away from you, his eyebrow cocked in a question. You nod your head lightly, playing with your hands on your lap.

“It’s because I’ve already met the person who’s supposed to bring me pain. I’ve already been hurt.” At his words, surprise fills you up and you turn your head to look him straight in the eye.

For some reason, you always thought that when people meet the person who brings them the largest amount of pain to their life, they couldn’t be the same ever again. How does one get hurt so badly, and still live on?

There are so many ways to hurt someone. Some people become bankrupt, some people lose all of their belongings, some people are even physically hurt by the person who has the same mark as them. How does a person go through any of that and still be themselves afterwards? More importantly, how did Donghyuck go through immense pain and still be able to smile at you like he is right here, right now?

“Here.” He begins to explain, pushing his pants around until you can see his second mark through one of the holes in his jeans, a sunflower on his knee, “My dad had the same mark as me.”

“Your…. Dad?” You ask, still confused.

“Mhmm,” He nods, now tracing the petals of the sunflower mark absentmindedly, “My parents immediately knew something was wrong when I was born. Why would a son and dad have the same mark? When I was growing up, he worked a lot, so I spent lots of time with my mom and grew closer to her. I don’t remember much from that time, but I do remember we were happy. We didn’t have a lot, but we had each other; that kind of feeling.” He looks over at you to see if you’re keeping up with the story. To Donghyuck’s surprise, you already have tears lining your eyes.

“Then one day, Dad comes home and tells us he lost his job. I remember my parents fought a lot the few weeks after that happened, mostly about how to raise me if they had no income. Dad would go out and look for work, but always came back with no luck. So eventually, my mom started working. For a while, the reason we could keep living was because of her.” Donghyuck swallows and pauses for a moment before continuing.

“And then one night, dad came home and told us he gambled. Everything, he gambled everything away. Even the little that we had, it wasn’t ours anymore. That night, my dad told me I was a mistake. My parents never meant to have me, and he said…” Donghyuck purses his lips for a moment. It had been a while since he thought about this. The scar on his heart still hurts when he picks at it. “... He said that he wished I had never been born. Then, we wouldn’t have been in that mess.”

“How old were you?” You speak up after a moment.

“Seven? Or eight.” He nods and sniffs his nose, looking down at his knee. The whole day, Donghyuck was preparing himself to tell you this story. He felt that the only way to get close to you was to open up like this first, to show you that he isn’t someone scary or bad. To Donghyuck’s surprise, telling this story hurts less now than it did earlier in this life. Maybe that means time is working, and his heart is being mended bit by bit.

Donghyuck leans his elbows against his knees, looking at the water once again while waiting for you to say anything. Are you still curious? What do you think of him now?

He was in no way prepared to feel your arms wrap around his waist in a hug, your head resting against his shoulder and your chest pressed against his side. He freezes for a moment, and then melts into your embrace completely. He’s overcome with lovesick softness for you, lightly griping the part of your arm that’s across his chest as his head turns to the side to press a kiss to the top of your head. It’s so quick that you don’t even have time to move away or to react. You just let it happen, as it’s supposed to be.

“You said that something in you knew I would like this place,” You mumble against him. He hears your voice straining with emotion, “Well, something in me knows that you need this right now.”

You and Donghyuck sit there until the sparkling water is no longer fueled by the sun’s light, but by the moon’s. It seems as though now you’ve touched Donghyuck, you never wanted to stop. You’re almost one hundred percent sure that it’s because of the soulmate bond, and a part of you nags at yourself for already chipping away at the promise you made to yourself when you were younger.

However, younger you never knew what it would be like to have a person sit in front of you and share a part of his past with you in an act of confidence and security. Your younger self never knew what it would be like to feel the same pain as someone else, and the pull you felt to touch him after sensing that physical affection would help ease that pain away.

Your younger self had no idea it was this easy to fall into a person, especially when you know they’ll catch you.

“God, I’m so sick and tired of Accounting. ___, I’m quitting school.” Xiaojun gravely tells you, his eyes not wavering from his computer screen.

“Shut up and do your homework, Jun.” You mumble, your eyes not leaving your own computer screen as you type up your Ethics essay. Three weeks into school and you’re already fully emerged in your classes. The newness of college has faded and now it’s time to start the next four years of studying endlessly for the future.

“Are you guys… okay? You haven’t moved over there in a few hours.” Mark asks from the other side of the room where he’s doing his own homework. He eyes you and your best friend from where you’re sitting on his bed, “Are you even comfortable?”

You and Xiaojun are sharing a blanket, he’s leaning against his headboard and you’re leaning against the wall. Your legs are thrown over his and several textbooks are scattered over the blanket. You’re not even sure which of these books are yours or his, or which papers laying in messy stacks belong to who.

“Yeah, I think we’re okay. We’ve been studying like this since high school.” Xiaojun answers, his fingers moving along his keyboard at the same time. You nod at Mark and he shakes his head, not understanding you two but accepting the answer.

You’re over at the guys’ dorm room enough that Mark is not surprised to see you here anymore, hanging out with Xiaojun or waiting for him to come back from class. It’s not that you don’t like your own dorm room, but it’s always so quiet in there since your roommate always studies at the library. You only hear her come into the room late at night when you’re on the verge of sleep, and when she leaves early in the morning before your alarm rings. Weekends are the same. You don’t really care, but you’ve started to hate the quiet, so you’re glad that Mark and Xiaojun don’t mind you chilling here.

“Argh,” Mark yawns and stretches after a few minutes, throwing his computer to the side and standing up, “I’m getting some snacks from the vending machine. You guys want anything?”

After you and Xiaojun answer with simultaneous shakes of your heads, which creeps Mark out, he leaves the room to get food. The room is silent for a few more moments until Xiaojun angles the lid of his laptop down to look at you.

“So… How’s the guy?”

“What guy?” You ask, still preoccupied with your essay.

“Your soulmate, ___, what other guy is there?” Xiaojun answers exasperatedly, “You never told me his name, so I don’t know what to call him. Actually, I haven’t heard you talk about him since the first day of classes. I was hoping you’d tell me what happened with him, but I guess I have to go digging up your dirt myself.” He rolls his eyes.

“His name is Haechan.” You answer, moving your computer to the side, “And I haven’t said anything to you about him because… I haven’t seen him in weeks.” You admit quietly.

“Huh? Didn’t you say you were meeting up so he could tell you why he’s sure you’re his soulmate?” You nod your head at the question, “So, what happened after that?”

“Well… I kinda, maybe, sort of…. have been avoiding him.” You answer quietly, stealing a glance at your best friend to see him staring at you blankly. When he sighs and reaches for his pillow, your eyes widen and you hold up your hands in front of you, spewing pleas and ‘wait’s. Xiaojun doesn’t care, though, flinging his pillow from behind him and into your face.

“Ow?” You whine after the pillow makes contact with your head and forces you to turn to face the other way, “Was that necessary?” You rub your nose, the part of your face that hurts worse from his attack. You’re used to Xiaojun doing this to you whenever you did something that both of you know you shouldn’t have so that you can “get some sense knocked into you, hopefully.”

“You’re so dumb. So, so dumb. Why would you avoid him.” It’s not a question, more of a confused statement to the general air. “You realize people would kill to meet their soulmate, right? People would do anything to be in your position, but you just hide away?”

“People would do anything to meet their soulmate, but people would also do anything to stay away from the person who shares their other mark.” You retaliate, “You don’t understand. To me, Haechan is both of those people.”

“There you go again, worrying about the future when you’re not even sure about what is going to happen. When will you stop worrying about something you can’t control and start thinking about today?” Xiaojun sounds so tired talking about this topic, a conversation you’ve had many times in your friendship. You wonder if he’s so tired of it, why he keeps bringing it up himself.

Before you can answer, the door to the room opens and Mark walks in, several snacks in his arms, “Hey, everyone, I hope it’s okay I brought a friend. He’s in the same major as me, just a year younger—”

“___?” Mark stops talking when his friend speaks, surprised that he already knows one of the people in the room. Your eyes widen, jaw slackening as you’re unable to even let out a peep from your mouth.

“You know each other?” Mark asks, looking between his two friends.

“Yeah, you could say I know my soulmate.” Donghyuck replies, making both Xiaojun and Mark’s eyes widen. You suddenly realize the situation you’re in: under a blanket with Xiaojun, your pajamas on, and your soulmate in front of you after you ghosted him for weeks. For the first time in a while, your eyes meet.

Donghyuck is mad. You can tell by how his fists are clenched and his jaw is tightened. Slowly getting out of the bed, you try to form some words, but Donghyuck snaps and walks over to you quickly. Grabbing your hand, he pulls you out of the room and down the hallway until you get to the lounge area. When you reach the empty room, that’s when you come to your senses.

“Donghyuck,” You pull your arm out of his, making him turn to face you, “I’m not even wearing shoes.” You hiss, pointing down to your feet as if to prove some point.

“What was all that?” He disregards your comment and hisses back at you, stepping closer so that you’re barely a few inches apart. “You were under a blanket. With some guy. Don’t you feel wrong doing that?” He asks, his hands now on his hips. You feel slightly like you’re being lectured to.

“That guy is my best friend.” You spit out.

“So, do you go around and do that to all of your guy friends?” Donghyuck chuckles vehemently, you can tell he’s angry and jealous, and that those emotions are clouding his brain at the moment. That doesn’t mean his words don’t hurt, though.

“Xiaojun and I have been best friends since we were in diapers. I’ve known you for three weeks, barely. I’m more comfortable around him than I am with you. You think just because I’m your soulmate, I’ll automatically trust you and we’ll all of a sudden be a happy couple? It doesn’t work like that, Donghyuck. I don’t even know you.” You can tell you hurt him by your last words because he turns silent, his shoulders slouching and his anger subsiding.

You can tell you hurt him, hard, because you feel the hurt, too.

It makes you realize how scary the bond between soulmates is. Even though you and Donghyuck haven’t spent that much time together to strengthen your bond, it’s still strong enough to allow you to feel his emotions. It makes you wonder if Donghyuck will be able to feel your pain in the future when he hurts you, like he’s destined to.

“Have you even tried to get to know me? You’ve been avoiding me ever since I took you to the pond.” At his comment, you fold your arms over your chest and look away, not ready to answer that question.

“I’m… just scared, is all.” You manage to reply. Although not the complete truth, it’s not a total lie. Donghyuck completely softens at your words, his close proximity to you feels less threatening and turns into something more gentle. His hand softly slips into yours, but this time with a lighter touch than before.

“You don’t have to be scared, not around me. I’m new to this too, so I don’t know how it all works yet, but this is something we can figure out together. That’s what we were fated to do.” Donghyuck can feel his words pulling you closer to him, he can feel you on the edge and he’s ready to catch you with his arms wide open.

But in the last second, you take a step back and slip your hand out of his, making his drop limply to his sides. You send him a look, something he can’t read, and then turn around and walk back to the dorm he pulled you out of.

He almost had you, almost.

When midterms come around, you use your upcoming tests and projects as a way to dive deep into your work so that you don’t have to think about Donghyuck. It’s a good plan overall, however your friends quickly start worrying for you and your health. Staying up late several nights in a row and not even being able to remember when the last time you ate is where Xiaojun pulled the plug on your bad studying habits. He confiscated your backpack and dropped you off in front of your dorm building with the promise that you’ll have all of your things back tomorrow morning only if you rest for tonight.

On your way to the elevator, you run into Yuqi, both of your facial expressions brightening when you recognize each other.

“Oh, ___, Hi!” You stop in the middle of the hallway to greet her, a smile pulling at your lips due to her bright hello. “How are you?”

“Midterms are kicking my ass, but other than that I’m fine.” She laughs at your answer, throwing her head back and letting her new short hair ruffle her shoulders.

“I wish I could tell you it gets better, but that would be a lie.” You nod your head in solemn understanding, “Listen, I can’t talk for long since I have a night class, but promise to text me when things slow down, yeah?”

“Of course, I promise.” You nod, just the thought of spending some time with a good friend already pushes away your stress. You wave bye to Yuqi as she begins to turn around but after a loud “oh!” leaves her lips, she turns back to face you.

“Your roommate, her name is Mya, right?” At her random question, you tilt your head in confusion, “She has really long, black hair and big glasses, right? I think I saw her when I was helping you move in?”

“Yeah, that’s her.” You nod, “Why?”

“She found her soulmate today.” You would’ve been more interested in the news if you knew Mya beyond when she goes to class and when she gets back to the dorm, but you feign surprise and nod your head absentmindedly.

“Lucas managed to get a video. It was a whole performance in the quad today, you’d think someone was getting married. I’ll send it to you later.” And with that, she says her last goodbye and runs off. You slowly turn and continue walking in a slow pace up to your dorm room, taking the stairs just so you can have some time to think and be away from people you could potentially run into if you use the elevator.

You’re genuinely happy for Mya, even if you barely know a single thing about her. However, something about a person close to you finding their soulmate makes you sad, considering the situation with your own soulmate. You can’t help but feel a little jealous that there are people who can meet their soulmate and fall into each other’s lives easily.

In times like these, you crave for Donghyuck.

You crave his touch and his words, you crave that comfortable feeling of belonging somewhere you get when he’s around. It’s insane that you haven’t spent much time together, yet you can yearn for someone to the extent that it hurts. It’s been like this ever since Donghyuck pulled you out of Xiaojun’s dorm and you rejected him.

Turning away from him all those weeks ago still haunts you. When you’re struggling to fall asleep, your mind goes to that night. When you let your mind wander, it wanders to that night. You constantly think about stepping away from him, but you’re not sure if you keep remembering the moment out of guilt or shame. One of the questions you keep asking yourself is if you did the right thing. You still do not have an answer.

When you walk into your dorm room, you kick off your shoes and turn on your bedside lamp, falling onto your bed with a deep sigh. You close your eyes for a second, but the peace and quiet of your room is ruined when your phone dings with a notification.

Yuqi’s message pops up, and when you swipe your phone open you can see she sent a video. You click on it and turn the volume up. This was no doubt taken earlier today in the quad, the sun shining and lots of professors and students walking in the background. Under the huge clock tower stand two people, one of them holding a large bouquet of roses. When the clock strikes noon, the bells on top of the tower begin to ring a familiar melody that can be heard all over your big campus. You see the exchange of the bouquet and the two people hug, and then applause rises from the people walking by. You smile when you hear Lucas’ whooping and hollering from behind the phone.

You’ve heard about the tradition of soulmates meeting under the clock tower at your university. Yuqi told you about it when she was giving you a tour around campus at the beginning of the semester. You remember her telling you that it’s really romantic, probably due to the history of so many people getting together in the exact same spot.

Although the idea is rather plain, you do feel your heart strings tug at the beautiful display, glad you could see something like this through a video. Then, as the camera gets closer to the couple, your smile fades and you pause the video, zooming in to get a better view. Mya is no doubt the one who received the flowers, but you can’t help but furrow your eyebrows as you recognize her soulmate.

It’s one of Donghyuck’s friends.

Not the quiet one with black hair that hangs around on the outside of their group, but the shorter one who seemed to simultaneously love and hate Donghyuck, or at least that’s what you gathered from seeing him a few times.

After the realization, you drop your phone to the side and stare up at your ceiling in defeat. Is this fate? If you didn’t meet Donghyuck on those steps two months ago, would you eventually meet him through your roommate and her soulmate? Or is this all just one big coincidence?

In this world, coincidences are harder to find than the work of fate.

Your train of thought is quickly cut off by the opening on the door, you quickly sit up to watch a huge red bouquet of flowers enter the room, followed by your roommate. You’ve only seen her face a few times this semester, but never have her features looked so bright and happy. She also looks startled when she notices you’re in the room, but her happiness doesn’t fade.

“Oh? You’re here?” She asks.

“I could ask you the same thing.” You both chuckle awkwardly, “Congrats, by the way. For finding your soulmate.” You motion to the flowers in her hand.

“Thank you! To be honest, Renjun wasn’t at all what I expected in a soulmate, but I think I love him already.” The sweetness drips from her eyes and words, and you nod and smile, remembering that Donghyuck’s friend’s name is Renjun. Her phone begins to ring and she shuffles the flowers in her hand to look at the screen, “Oh, it’s him.”

She answers the call, speaking quietly as she walks over to her side of the room. You weigh out the options of sneaking out of your dorm and finding a place to chill until your roommate falls asleep. You're not sure if you can talk to her about soulmate stuff and keep up this happy look on your face.

However, all thoughts of those plans leave your mind when Mya turns to you and holds out the phone, “It’s for you?” She says it more like a question, but you’re sure you’re the one who’s more confused.

“Hello?” You ask into the phone, awkwardly looking around the room.

“___? Oh, thank god. It’s Renjun, Haechan’s friend. I need your help.” He talks quickly and shallowly, like he’s out of breath and currently moving somewhere.

“How did you know I’m Mya’s roommate?” You ask, disregarding his cry for help.

“It’s a long story, I promise I’ll explain later, but can you please come to the auditorium? The back entrance.” You hear more voices in the background of the call, but you can’t make out what they're saying. One of them is definitely Donghyuck.

“What’s going on?” At the sound of your soulmate’s unique tenor, you suddenly become more aware of what might be happening. Is Donghyuck safe? Did he get in trouble?

“Donghyuck drank too much and he won’t go home, he keeps asking for you.” At that, you hand the phone back to Mya, who takes it from you with an unsure look. By the time Mya says her worried goodbyes and hangs up, she turns back to an empty dorm room, your phone snatched from your bed and your scattered shoes gone.

You must’ve made it to the auditorium in record time, not even the climb up the 109 steps could slow you down. When you reach the auditorium, you can hear Donghyuck and his friends conversing loudly and you follow their voices, which eventually leads you to the dingy backside of the auditorium. Donghyuck is sitting on the ground with the hood of his coat pulled up and covering his eye sight, arms crossed over his chest and his lips in a pout. His two friends, Renjun and the black-haired kid, stand above him. The quiet one is shivering in his spot while Renjun practically yells at Donghyuck on the ground, who doesn’t seem to be moving any time soon.

“Hi, ___.” The quiet one notices you first and then all three guys turn to look at you.

“___…” Donghyuck whines out your name and tries to stand up but Renjun gently pushes him back down.

“What happened?” You ask, sniffing your nose when the harsh, cold air nips at it.

“He said he wanted to unwind before his midterms tomorrow but then he went out and had some drinks, a few too many as you can see.” Renjun explains, “We followed him here, he said he won’t go anywhere unless it’s with you.”

“It’s strange. Haechan is a good drinker, I didn’t think he would get drunk so quickly… Oh, I’m Jaemin, by the way.” He introduces himself with a bright smile, as if you weren’t just discussing the drunken state of his friend.

“I’m Renjun, I called you earlier. I promise I have a good explanation for how I know you’re Mya’s roommate, I just don’t think right now is the best time to talk about it.” Renjun explains, his hands pointing towards Donghyuck.

“Right, about him… I think you guys should leave.” Both sober men widen their eyes, looking at each other and then back at you.

“Are you sure you want to handle this yourself? He looks small, but Haechan is kind of heavy.” Jaemin warns.

“Hey!” Donghyuck speaks up, but even his verbalization sounds slurred. When he points an accusing finger at Jaemin, he sways and misses Jaemin’s figure by a whole foot, “Don’t say that kind of stuff to my girlfriend.”

At his use of the word, Jaemin and Renjun stand straight with awkwardness and you sigh, white puffs of air leaving your mouth, “Yeah, you guys should go.”

Renjun and Jaemin give you an unsure look, but turn around and leave the area anyway. Renjun sends one last look over his shoulder with a wave of his hand. You look at Donghyuck after they turn the corner, kicking his shoe gently.

“Hey, get up. How much did you drink?” You’re not actually curious about how much alcohol he consumed, you just want to know if he can even respond to simple questions.

“Babe!” He exclaims when he looks up, “Oh, not much. I could go for another round right now, actually.” His words slur together and he sways in his sitting position against the brick wall of the auditorium.

“You’re not going for another round, you’re going home. C’mon.” You grab onto the sleeve of his puffer jacket, pulling him up so that he’s standing. He immediately falls onto you, his arms around your waist and his legs spread wide so that his head is hidden in your neck.

“Hyuck, you have to walk. Get up.” You pull him up once again, putting one of his arms around your shoulders and giving him more support around his waist. Slowly, you begin to walk away from the auditorium with Donghyuck’s drunk mumbling filling the cool air. His legs barely work underneath him, and he turns his head and leans into your ear every once in a while to sing some random lyric that pops into his mind at that second, like a small concert that he allows only you to hear.

Once you reach the top of the staircase, you stop and take a long look down to the bottom, “Why did you have to come all the way up here? How are we getting down the stairs?” If you start to climb down, Donghyuck could fall and hurt himself. You’re not that strong to begin with and your shoulders are already feeling sore from carrying most of Donghyuck’s weight.

“We can ride this.” He giggles and breaks away from you, one of his legs swinging over the handrail so that he’s straddling it.

“No, no, no.” You pull him off, but his shoe gets caught against the rail and he comes falling down onto you, both of you landing on the top step of the staircase. You wince in pain at how your back hits the concrete, but you don’t think about it much as you push Donghyuck off of you and into the space next to you on the top stair.

“Oh, no. Are we stuck up here?” He asks as you brush your hands together to get rid of the little pieces of concrete in your skin.

“Yes, and it’s all your fault. What are you gonna do about it?” You reply, so sarcastically that even Donghyuck’s drunk brain registers the joke. Your heart almost leaps out of your throat when he grabs your hands and pulls you closer to him, gently picking out each little ball of cement in your palms.

“I’m sorry I keep hurting you.” He apologizes. This close, you can smell the alcohol in his breath, mixed with his shampoo and cologne. He smells warm in this cold weather, and you feel like falling into him and drinking up his scent, not even minding the alcohol stench.

“Keep hurting me?” You ask.

“Yeah, that must be why you don’t want to be with me. I have to be doing something wrong for you to hate me.” He sighs, sniffling and enclosing your hands in his, his glassy eyes looking up at you and his long hair hangs down over his forehead and tickles his eyelashes. “I’m a bad soulmate.”

The way he says it makes your heart break. It makes you feel regret 1000 times worse than what you’ve been feeling these past few weeks; as if all of the worry and sadness hit you all at once, you feel like crying.

Isn’t he supposed to be the one who hurts you? Why does it feel like you’re the only one doing the hurting?

“You’re not a bad soulmate,” It’s not Donghyuck’s fault that he got stuck with you, or that things will turn out the way that they’re destined to, “And I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” He looks up into the night sky and sways a bit as he thinks, “Then why won’t you be with me? Hm?” He tilts his head, his lips pouting as he thinks. You desperately want to find an answer that’ll soothe him, but nothing you can come up with will give you that result, the truth included.

“It’s complicated…” You trail off, and your answer makes Donghyuck snort.

“How? I’m your soulmate, you’re mine. What else matters?” He laughs incredulously.

“What if you’re not just my soulmate?” You ask him, surprising yourself with how easily you can ask the question, probably because the influence of alcohol over him has you more at ease, “What if something happens in the future? I’m just… looking out for me, and for you.” You explain, trying to sound as vague as possible.

When you glance at Donghyuck, he looks dead serious. You think that maybe he has suddenly sobered up with how deep and calculating his eyes look. One of his hands tighten around yours while the other slowly raises to your hair, pacing himself along the way, and pausing before he touches you. When you don’t stop him, he gently caresses your hair and moves it away from your face, his nimble fingers sliding to your jaw. He moves your face so that your eyes meet his.

“I know I’m drunk, but I can make this promise again when I’m sober. I’ll make this promise every single day for the rest of my life, only if it means you can be there with me to fulfill it.” The severeness in his tone is like a wake up call about how serious this is for him.

“What promise?” You whisper back.

“It’s not just a ‘you’ or just a ‘me’ now. It’s an ‘us.’ And I will do everything I can to not hurt us.”

He says it with so much conviction that you somehow believe him. You finally fall into him and rest your tired head on his shoulder as he welcomes you into his warm arms. Maybe it’s foolish of you to think you two can go against fate’s words, but with him by your side, you feel like you can conquer the whole universe.

“Stop smiling like that, you’re making it very obvious that you got laid for the first time.” Donghyuck peers over his laptop screen to Renjun, where he has had a permanent smile on his face ever since he, Donghyuck, and Jaemin met up today to study in the lounge center of their dorm building.

“You know, Haechan, I’m not even mad at that. It’s more than what I can say to you.” Renjun tries to hide his widening smile while looking down at his own laptop, but that paired with Jaemin’s quiet laughter leaves Donghyuck bitter. “Didn’t you and ___ make up?” Renjun asks.

“They were fighting? I thought they just weren’t talking to each other?” Jaemin asks.

“Isn’t that fighting?”

“Kids.” Haechan cuts them off, “Not that it’s any of your business, but we were not fighting and we did make up.”

“That makes no sense.” Jaemin mutters and squints his eyes at Donghyuck.

“I’m older than you.” Renjun retaliates, but Donghyuck pretends like he doesn’t hear.

“We’re just… taking it slow.” Donghyuck ends his explanation with a firm nod of his head, and Renjun shuts his laptop and turns to his friend.

“Can you take it slow during the Fair this weekend? I’m planning to go with Mya and accidentally bought two pairs of tickets. I’ll give you the other pair.” Renjun leans into his friend’s side and wiggles his eyebrows.

“At what cost?” Haechan leans in as well and raises an eyebrow.

“Help me with my English project.”

“No way,” Haechan leans back and focuses on his own laptop screen again, “I haven’t even started mine, I don’t have time to help you with yours.”

“Please,” Renjun draws out the word, grabbing Donghyuck’s sleeve and tugging at it so hard that he can’t properly type, “I suck at English, and unfortunately it’s the only thing that you’re better at than me.”

“The only thing?” Donghyuck glares at Renjun. “Now I’m definitely not helping you.” When Renjun whines at that Donghyuck gets a devilish idea, and it shows by the smirk on his face, “... Unless, you’d like to show us how you really need help.”

At Donghyuck’s proposition, he leans back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest while Jaemin mirrors his actions, his own goofy smile on his face as he waits for Renjun to either accept or deny the proposition, but he hopes he’ll accept it.

Renjun looks between his two friends and sighs, dropping his head down as he mentally prepares himself. When he lifts his head, he looks at Donghyuck with his lips pursed, his pointer finger over them and makes a “kyu” sound that is way higher than his original speaking voice. Jaemin and Haechan immediately burst into as quiet of laughter as they can, Jaemin reaching over the table to poke Renjun’s cheek at his cuteness.

“I never said to act cute, I just wanted you to say please again.” Donghyuck jokes through his snickering, and Renjun immediately stands up from his chair to take a fistful of Haechan’s jacket and pull back his other fist, all cuteness gone from his facial features in a split second.

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry.” Haechan tries to pull away, his voice rising as Renjun holds onto his jacket tighter and threateningly leans in.

“Hey, quiet down.” Someone whisper-shouts from a few tables away, and it makes Renjun let go of Donghyuck and slowly sit back down. “This isn’t even a library, why are they shushing me.” He grumbles.

“You guys have fun on your date,” Jaemin sighs as he begins to put away his things, satisfied with the study session and with his friends' mischief, “I would go too, but I don’t feel like being a fifth wheel.”

Once your classes end on the day of the Fair, you and your roommate meet up with Donghyuck and Renjun outside of the Fair grounds. You and Donghyuck walk side by side, a bit behind the other couple as they lead the way, practically in their own little bubble. Your hands are shoved in your pockets to keep them from turning numb from the cold and you try to shove your head as far into your jacket as you can to keep your face and neck protected from the wind. Other than the chilly weather, it’s a perfect day for a Fair.

You don’t seem to notice Donghyuck’s predicament right beside you; he’s trying to find a way to hold your hand, but you don’t move them out of your pockets. Actually, Donghyuck is sure you’re doing this on purpose, since he has been trying to touch you the moment you met up with him tonight.

“So, what do you wanna ride first?” He asks you. After looking around the area, your eyes land on a tea cup ride, where the large cups move in circles and also spin in their spots.

“That.” You point to it. Before you can move, Donghyuck latches into your hand that was pointing into the air and pulls you to the ride, a smug smile on his face at how he succeeded in finally sharing some skin to skin contact.

The ride was, to say the least, nauseating. Not that it was disgusting, but Donghyuck wouldn’t stop spinning your individual cup around in fast circles, and you were so sure that you would fling off any second due to the strong velocity those tiny cups have when they go at full speed. However, walking off of the ride with wobbly legs and not being able to see straight was funnier than you thought it would be.

Donghyuck was actually still pretty dizzy when he tried to win a stuffed octopus for you with a dart game. However, he ended up losing $15 while trying to win the game, and you’re sure he would’ve spent more if you didn’t pull him away. After eating some good food and refilling your energy, the sun begins to set on the horizon in a colorful display of red, orange and pink, and people start to make their way to the ferris wheel.

“C’mon,” You hear Mya say from behind you, “We need to get in line first or else we’ll be waiting for half of the night.” She pulls Renjun by his sleeve and passes you and Donghyuck, practically running to the end of the growing line for the Ferris Wheel. When you see where she’s running to, you stop in your tracks which in turn makes Donghyuck stop. Your intertwined fingers pull you back to each other as he looks at you with a puzzled look.

“I’m… not good with heights.” You confess and look towards the top of the ferris wheel, shivering just at the thought of going that far up into the sky in a metal contraption, “Or small spaces…” You add on.

“That’s okay,” Donghyuck gently reassures, smiling lightly at your sudden timidness about your fears. Honestly, he’s just happy you now trust him a bit more to even tell him what you’re afraid of. “We don’t have to go. We can do something else.”

“Like what?” You ask. Donghyuck purses his lips and looks around, until a set of stairs on the edge of the fairgrounds catches his eye.

“I know a place where we can still get a good view of the sunset without going too far up.” He replies and tugs you along with him towards the set of stairs. They lead down to the park that’s nestled in the middle of your University, which eventually leads to a pedestrian bridge that crosses over a river that runs through your town.

The river isn’t that big, nor is the bridge, but it’s big enough to have your head tilting up in wonder as you gaze at the lights adorning the sides of it, lighting up not only the bridge itself by the sky as well. You’ve seen this bridge from your dorm room, but you’ve never once stood on it, and it looks remarkable from this close up.

Donghyuck continues to lead you over the pedestrian bridge onto the other side, where an outdoor museum that was constructed by art students a few years ago holds several different abstract paintings. His hand in yours, which has been it’s resting place all night, keeps yours warm. You try not to think about how your hands fit into each other like the gears of a hand-crafted watch. The lines on your palms connect with the lines on his; it’s painfully obvious he was made for you and you were made for him.

When you reach the end of the outdoor museum, you turn west and face the sunset just as it’s setting over the skyline. Even though some tall buildings obstruct the view, the colors of the sky stretch overhead and make both you and Donghyuck stand still and appreciate the artwork in the sky.

“You like these kinds of things, huh? Sunsets, and ponds, and that kind of stuff?” He suddenly asks, not talking his eyes off of the sky. You, however, turn to look at him. He has his eyes screwed as he tries to look at the sunset, obviously not liking the bright sunlight.

“You don’t?” You ask back.

“I think... there are more enjoyable things.” Donghyuck takes a while to make up his mind about what he wants, obviously trying not to make the things you enjoy sound bad to him.

“Then we should go.” You turn around, but he pulls you back to your original spot.

“We walked all this way, we’re watching this sunset even if my feet freeze to the ground.” He tightens his grip on your hand and speaks through his teeth, making you sputter out a laugh and hit his shoulder with your own lightly.

“Sometimes, I wonder why fate put us together.” You ask, watching as the sun moves bit by bit, leaving behind trails of light and the beginnings of stars and the vast universe on the other side of the sky. “We’re different. I don’t know about you, but you are not who I imagined my soulmate would be.” You speak truthfully.

Even though there are some strings attached to Donghyuck’s relationship with you, it didn’t stop you from thinking about what kind of person he’d be— what kind of person fate would pick to be your perfect fit. Maybe they would have some sort of major flaw, like an anger problem or a lack of common sense. Maybe they would be an alcoholic or someone who commits crimes.

When it came to your soulmate, you always thought of something bad considering that they were also going to hurt you in some way. You never thought that your soulmate would be someone as unique and fun as Donghyuck. Fate made it way too easy to be with him, and you’re not sure whether to feel bitter or thankful.

“Well,” He blows some air through his nose, “You’re exactly what I thought my soulmate would be like” Your heart jumps into your throat and beats irregularly when Donghyuck says that, struck with the feeling of surprise once again.

“Mark tells me you’re smart and get good grades, and I know it was you who ordered that soup for me the morning after you took me home when I got drunk. Not to mention, you went out when it was dark to take me home in the first place.” Donghyuck explains, his hand that’s still interlocked with yours waving around as he does so, “You’re willing to help others, you have a good head on your shoulders, and not to mention you guard your heart to the very end.”

“Guarding my heart… That’s an admirable quality? If I remember correctly, it caused you some pain in the past few months.” By now, the last rays of the sun are disappearing over the horizon and night begins to blanket the sky. You turn to your soulmate when he takes more than a moment to answer, watching the way his face reacts to the thoughts turning in his head.

“Yeah, it is a great quality. I think if you completely trusted me the moment you saw me on those stairs, we wouldn’t end up here now. You wouldn’t be the perfect fit for me if you loved me so easily.” He turns to you, a teasing smile playing on his lips. Your interlocked fingers are basically frozen together at this point and maybe your feet really have stuck to the ground, but his words warm you up from the inside out.

“I think I would’ve fallen in love with you even if we weren’t destined to be together.”

Somehow, he manages to remind you of one very important fact that you’ve set aside since the moment you met him. You’ve always put the fact that he’s supposed to hurt you first, and the fact that he’s your soulmate second. However, he is a human and so are you, and you’re both given the opportunity to love one another wholly and truly. People die to have this type of moment. People live their whole lives without experiencing this type of emotion.

It’s time to remember that Donghyuck is your soulmate, first and foremost. He is deserving of love, and you’re now willing to give it to him.

When you pull Donghyuck into you, he feels like it may be a hallucination. Surely your lips can’t be that close to his own. But when he smells the cinnamon on your lips from that churro you had and your fingers sliding up his arm to grip his jacket, he becomes scared that this might actually be a hallucination.

You slowly lean in, almost painfully slow, but Donghyuck doesn’t dare rush you. When your lips do meet, both of you feel complete. The feeling of finishing a lifetime’s worth of work with one gentle kiss is the most delicious feeling ever, different from anything that either of you have ever experienced.

It’s slow and careful, but passionate and full of true love. No matter what happens in the future, it will always be your memory to savor and remember for the rest of your lives.

“___!” You hear Mark’s voice from your right, turning your head quickly to see him stick his hand up in the air and begin to make his way through the throngs of people between you two. You move towards him, attempting to meet in the middle, but somehow he ends up behind you, and you laugh as you attempt to meet again.

“Hey, Mark,” You look over him, noting how well he manages to pull off the choir robe that everyone else seems to look like a sack of potatoes in, “I didn’t know your concerts could get this packed. You guys could start your own group and make it big.” You look around while adjusting the flowers in your hand so they don’t get squished against your chest.

“Nah, it’s mostly just families that come to these concerts. Since there are a lot of vocal majors, there are a lot of families that show up.” He explains.

“So, what does that make me?” You joke, but Mark doesn’t seem to get it and tilts his head to the side.

“You’re Donghyuck’s girlfriend. That makes you family, right?” At the mention of your relationship, you glance down at the flowers in your hand, the flowers that are meant for the aforementioned boy. You nod, mumbling something like a ‘I guess’ before Mark looks down at his watch and sucks a breath through his teeth.

“Okay, I have to go warm up. Make sure you get a seat in the middle, that’s where it sounds best.” He gives you a quick wave as he walks away, and you manage to send one back. Before you know it, the doors to the auditorium open and people flood in to grab the best seat they can.

You barely manage to snag a seat in the middle, an older lady to your right and a grandpa to your left who seem to be unrelated and didn’t mind you sitting between them. You shrug off your coat as you look around, feeling anxiety build up in your chest. You know you don’t have anything to be anxious for, so you deduct that it’s probably Donghyuck.

He invited you to the concert today. For him, it’s part of his final grade for his vocal class and for you, it’s a chance to see him sing on stage. Strangely, he has talked about how much he loves to perform but never wants to sing in front of you. When he told you he auditioned for a solo in one of the songs, and ended up getting the part, you knew you absolutely had to come today.

Pulling out your phone, you send Donghyuck a text saying that you’re seated and that you wish him to break a leg. You see the read receipt pop up next to your text, and although he doesn’t text anything back, the anxious feeling in your chest subsides and you smile to yourself.

“Those are pretty flowers.” Turning your head to the lady on your right, you glance down at the bouquet of black-eyed susans on your lap.

“Oh, thank you.” You put your phone on silent and slip it into your pocket.

“They’re my mom’s favorite.” Your attention turns to a kid who sits on the other side of the woman. He can’t be any older than ten, and his feet don’t touch the ground as he swings them back and forth and looks up at his mother.

“Oh?” You ask, turning back to the older woman, “Would you like some?”

The woman seems to be stunned by your question, obviously not expecting you to hand over flowers at such a comment from her son. She looks almost flustered as she shakes her head at you.

“No, it’s okay. I bet those are for someone special?” She asks while nodding towards the stage.

“They’re for my… boyfriend.” You mumble, still not used to the words leaving your tongue, even though it has been more than a few weeks now.

“Then you should save them for him.” She nods and you smile back.

“But I want one.” The woman’s son pouts, and the mother nudges her foot against his leg. You laugh a bit, using your right hand to hold down the bouquet and your left to pull out a flower. Carefully, you hand it over to the little boy and he grasps it, his pout turning into a smile while he sings a ‘thank you’ and counts the petals on the flower.

The woman gives you a nod, and you all turn to face forward where the students are beginning to walk onto the stage.

The concert went well; you weren’t familiar with any of the pieces of music the choir performed, and many of them were in different languages, but you still enjoyed the performance by the many music students from your university. You managed to catch sight of Donghyuck fairly quickly, and Mark was just a few rows behind him.

Donghyuck’s solo fit his voice perfectly. Maybe you’re biased, but you think no one would be able to match his tone and technique to fit the song as perfectly as he did. Since it was the first time you heard him sing, you were a bit taken back by how amazing his voice sounds and how much control he has of it. It didn’t look like he struggled to hit the notes, and he looked like he was in his element on stage.

After the concert, you wait on the staircase outside of the auditorium building where you agreed to meet up with Donghyuck. You roll on your feet, jumping up and down slightly to keep warm. You clutch the flowers to you, scared that the cold weather might cause them to bend and begin to wilt quicker.

“Oh, it’s the flower lady!” You hear a familiar voice call out, and you turn your head to see the little boy and his mom from earlier… walking with Donghyuck? He has his choir robe hanging from one arm and his other hand intertwined with the little kid.

“Do you guys know each other?” Donghyuck asks, looking between the three of you with confusion.

“We happened to sit next to each other during the concert.” The woman explains, a grin growing on her face as she looks between you two. “This is your soulmate.” She doesn’t say it like a question, she says it plainly and nods her head in content.

“I’m sorry, did you already know who I was when we met?” You ask her.

“No, until I saw the mark on your left hand. I would recognize my own son’s mark anywhere.” Son? This is Donghyuck’s mother?! Your eyebrows must be up to your hairline and you think your mouth might be open, but you can only focus on remembering every little thing you said to her before the concert started to recall if you said anything dumb.

“Let me introduce you properly. This is ___, my soulmate and my girlfriend. ___, this is my mom, Sara, and my half-brother, Hyunjin.” Donghyuck gently takes your elbow and pulls you closer to him.

“It’s nice to meet you.” You politely greet them as if it’s the first time ever.

“Well, I like her. She gave me a flower.” Hyunjin exclaims.

“Back off, she’s mine.” Donghyuck jokes with the kid. “Thank you guys for coming today, by the way.” He continues, “I appreciate my favorite people being here for my first college performance.”

Donghyuck goes to hug his mom as she sets a kiss to his cheek that makes him cringe away slightly. However, you’re still struck to your spot from being included into Donghyuck’s group of favorite people. There’s a warm feeling in your chest at being included into something so special so early on in your relationship. There’s also some anxiety that comes with it, since promises that are made too early hurt the most, but you push the feeling away and soak in Donghyuck’s unconditional love.

After you all bid farewell to each other, and Sara and Hyunjin leave, you turn to Donghyuck with a deadpan expression, “You didn’t tell me I’d be meeting your family today.”

“Would you believe me when I say that I forgot they were coming?” He asks and you roll your eyes, not believing his words at all.

“These are for you.” You push the flowers into his chest and dig your hands into your pockets so that they can finally get warm, “Your solo was… interesting to listen to.” You say with annoyance dripping from every word.

“Thank you,” He replies cutely, not affected by your irritation. You roll your eyes again, but a smile tugs at your lips as well. “What kind of flowers are these? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them?” He asks while digging his nose into the bouquet.

“Black-eyed susans.” You reply, and Donghyuck gives you a weird look.

“That’s such a random flower.”

“They attract dragonflies.” You explain, nudging his side with your elbow. When you glance over to him, he has a smile playing on his lips.

“Should I be giving these to you, then?” He hands them over, but you push them back at him.

“No way. I’m already attracted to you.” You state, turning around to walk back down the staircase. When you don’t hear any footsteps following you, you turn around to find Donghyuck kneeling over with the flowers clutched close to him.

“Are you okay?” Alarm rises in your chest, especially when he shakes his head at your question.

“No, you just made my heart beat really fast and I’m afraid I’m gonna have a heart attack.” You would roll your eyes again, but you’re afraid they might roll out of your head at this point. You climb back up the stairs and yank on his sleeve jacket to make him walk alongside you.

“___, feel my heart. I swear it’s going to beat out of my chest.”

“Shut up, Donghyuck.”

“No, seriously, I think we should go to the hospital.”

“Shut up.”

In the morning, Donghyuck loves to wake up next to you. He has always been a spread-out type of sleeper; arms to the side, legs open, laying diagonally across the bed. Once you two moved out of your dorms and moved into an apartment together during your second year of college, Donghyuck’s way of sleeping changed dramatically.

Now, he can’t help but snuggle in, wrap his arms around you, tangle his legs in with yours, and do everything he can to sleep as close as he can to you. Maybe that’s why he suddenly woke up. The absence of you next to him made him shuffle awake, missing the frame of your body next to his like how it usually fits.

He groggily opens his eyes and immediately shivers, catching the open windows in the bedroom letting in fresh, cool, morning air. Donghyuck shivers once again, blindly reaching for the blanket and wrapping it around his head and shoulders, then making his way out of the bedroom in search of you.

He checks the kitchen, but you’re not there. Then he goes to the living room, and he sees your figure outside on the balcony, the curtains that are supposed to be hanging up in your bedroom moving with the wind as they hang next to you. He tightens the blanket around him and opens the glass door. Even though you definitely heard him come outside, you don’t turn around. You have a cup of something warm next to you and you’re leaning against the balcony while staring out into the city skyline, watching the sun rise into the sky to welcome the new day.

“Good morning.” Donghyuck mumbles as softly as he can. When you mumble back a reply, he opens the front of the blanket so he can swallow you into his embrace. His chin rests on your shoulder and tries to guess exactly what you’re looking at, but when he lifts his head to look at your face, your eyes are closed.

“So, do you want to tell me why our curtains are out here and not on our windows like they should be?” He rests his head against yours, also closing his eyes.

“I woke up and suddenly felt the urge to clean them, I don’t know.” You laugh a bit, making both of you move with the movement of your chest. Donghyuck smiles at your reason; one of the things he learned about you when you moved in together is that your work ethic comes in random bursts of energy, rather than carefully planned out schedules to follow. You always have a small goal for every day, and sometimes you don’t even know what it is until it randomly pops into your head. Although he doesn’t really understand how you’re able to work like that, he loves this little quirk anyway.

“Did I wake you up?” You whisper and nudge your head into Donghyuck’s, nuzzling back into him when a particularly strong gust of wind blows over the balcony.

“Not technically, no. You not being next to me woke me up.” He replies.

“Well, I’m here now. How about we sleep some more?” You ask, leaning back against him and looking at his face.

“Best thing I’ve heard today.” He sighs. Without letting you out of his blanket trap, he walks you both back into the apartment and into your bedroom, both of you beginning to giggle at one point when you almost trip over the blanket and crash into the ground.

Thankfully, you both made it back safely to the bed, falling into the soft mattress. Immediately, Donghyuck gathers you in his arms and cuddles you to him, almost like he’s latching onto you. You wrap your arms around him slowly and lean into his shoulder, placing a kiss against his collarbone. You were going to stop there, but when he lets out a whimper at the small press of your lips to his skin, you continue moving up his neck.

When you reach the space underneath his ear, he twitches at how you suck on the sensitive skin, not expecting you to pay closer attention there. His hand slides over your back, between your shoulder blades, and back down, pressing you to him as he caresses you and silently hopes you don’t stop what you’ve started.

You don’t seem to have any intention to do that when you lean back, looking up at Donghyuck’s big, round eyes as they stare down hazily at you and quickly connecting your lips. He kisses back slowly, as if taking his sweet, sweet time in loving you.

“I thought we were supposed to sleep?” You ask between kisses.

“We can sleep later…” He trails off, grabbing your hand and pulling you on top of him so that you’re straddling his hips. “... If you’re really tired we don’t have to.” He suddenly pulls away, his hand comfortably resting over your waist.

“No way. It’s too late for that.” You answer, pulling your shirt over your head and tossing it to the other side of the bed. A chill runs through you at the cold temperature in the room, goosebumps forming over your arms and your nipples hardening. Donghyuck wraps his arms around your middle and presses a kiss in the valley of your chest, moving over until he reaches your left nipple and taking it into his mouth.

Biting your lip, your hands find his hair and tug on the long strands. Donghyuck’s hands squeeze your sides and his fingers draw random, little lines over your bare skin as he sucks and plays with your nipples, switching between each one.

“Hyuck…” You whine, giving a particularly sharp tug to his hair when he bites down onto your right nipple. “Please…” You trail off.

“Hmm? Please what? What do you want.” He leans back and looks up at you. You comb your fingers through his hair, pushing it back away from his face and behind his ears. His eyes are clouded and hooded over by the thoughts of you that are speeding through his mind.

“Please, make love to me.” You say it shyly, your eyes looking over his face but not meeting his own. He can’t help but smile at your timidness. You act like it’s the first time those words came out of your mouth. He can’t help but find it endearing how you ask him to make love to you every single time you find yourselves in this position.

“Of course, anything for you.” He connects your lips again, keeping the slow and steady pace from before. He shifts around as he moves his boxers away. Breaking the kiss, you move his hands away and pump his shaft, glancing up at him as he leans back with his weight on his hands and his head leaning back.

He lets out whines every time you twist your wrist, and you almost want to take a moment and stay this way, loving the sounds coming from Donghyuck’s mouth and how he looks as he pants beneath you. However, the tension growing between your legs makes you stop and sit up, pulling off your own pajama bottoms and underwear, throwing them somewhere along with your shirt.

Donghyuck grips your hips with one hand, the other pressing his middle finger to your slick folds, watching you squirm from above as he slides his finger through slowly.

“Just— Can you just do something already?” You almost whine out, grabbing onto his arm hard enough that you leave crescent moons in his skin.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure.” With your permission, Donghyuck positions himself at your entrance and slowly brings your hips down, watching your reaction throughout it all. The way your jaw slacks and drops open to the way you swallow when your hips meet with his, closing your eyes in pleasure at how he manages to fit inside you so perfectly. When everyone says your soulmate is made specifically for you, they really do mean in every way possible.

You sit like that for a moment, before opening your eyes and looking at your lover. He helps you move your hips up and back down, you let out a gsap at the sparks that fly up your spine. Your hips start to move in unison, yours grinding down and his moving up to meet yours in a steady rhythm, like a dance to music only you two can hear.

Your nails hurt when they move over his shoulders and chest, leaving temporary marks, but Donghyuck doesn’t mind. Actually, he loves it when you tug on his hair and scratch up his back, his whines turning into full out groans when you lean in and attach your lips to the side of his neck, pressing hot kisses down to his collarbone and biting down gently in the same place this whole situation started.

“H-Hyuck, I—” Before you know it, you’re so close to your orgasm, it’s basically right in front of you to reach out and accept.

“I know, baby, I know. You can come, I got you.” He answers back messily, using the last of his energy to keep your hips in place and drive himself into you. You let out a shriek at the sudden pleasure, only a few more deep thrusts into your hole and you’re falling over him as your orgasm spreads to every crevice of your body.

Donghyuck loves the way your muscles seize and flutter around him, making him pant and his thrusts become sloppy as he comes as well, his warm seed filling you up as he rides through his high. You both fall into the mattress below, you on top of Donghyuck, too tired to roll over and opting to just rest on his sweaty chest.

“I think that was way better than sleeping.” He says, his chest rumbling underneath you as he speaks.

“What a good way to tire ourselves out.” You yawn.

In the last few moments before your tired bodies fall asleep, you find Donghyuck’s hand and intertwine your fingers together, happily and contently falling asleep with the fresh air coming through the window and the sunlight now fully streaming into the room.

In the late summer before your and Donghyuck’s last year of university, you attend a wedding. Not just any wedding: Yuqi and Lucas’ wedding.

Although the ceremony is held outside, there’s a nice breeze that keeps the guests from getting too hot and sweaty in the summer sun. The whole wedding is held in a botanical garden and the place is decorated in white and purple, lilacs and daisies filling vases everywhere you go and freshening the air with their scent.

You and Donghyuck walk into the room inside the administrative building that’s designated for the bride. Yuqi is there, her face shining brightly with happiness and a glow that can’t be stolen from her today.

When you walk in, you let out a sound of delight at how pretty your college friend looks in her wedding dress, taking note of the chamomile flowers that adorn her hairpiece.

“Ah, I can’t believe you’re here.” She all but shrieks, embracing you tightly with her small bouquet still in her hands. After she gives Donghyuck a small, welcoming hug, she backs away to look at both of you.

“You look amazing today, I can’t believe you’re actually getting married. Congratulations.” You say sincerely.

“I can’t believe it either, actually. I feel like we’ve been planning this for forever, and now the day is finally here.” She recalls, a blissful look in her eyes even though you’re aware of how much stress she has had during the past few months over this one day.

“Are you nervous?” Donghyuck asks and you nudge his side and send him a look for asking a question like that.

“No, I’m not,” Yuqi laughs, “I feel one hundred percent happy. Like I’m starting the next part of my life with the one I love.”

“I’m glad you can spend the rest of your life with your soulmate, you’re definitely luckier than most.” You muse, and she suddenly softens her expression and takes your hand in hers, gently holding onto you.

“I’m not marrying my soulmate. I’m marrying the one I love. It just happens to be the same person.”

After bidding your farewells and good lucks, you and Donghyuck walk out of the room and head to where the ceremony will be held. He pulls out of sunglasses, propping them on the edge of his nose, and then grabbing your hand and strolling through the exhibits on the way to the ceremony grounds.

Yuqi’s words ring in your head throughout the peaceful walk, specifically how happy she looked to be marrying the one she loves. Somehow, you never thought about separating soulmate from lover; those two people have always been one in your head. You always thought that there can’t be a soulmate without a lover, and there can’t be a lover without a soulmate.

But the moment with Yuqi reminded you of the first time Donghyuck properly confessed to you, the words you can still hear floating through your head whenever your mind wanders off and thinks about him.

“I think I would’ve fallen in love with you even if we weren’t destined to be together.”

Maybe Donghyuck has been wiser than you this whole time. Not that you’d ever admit that to his face, unless you’d like to hear about it at least three times a week for the rest of your life.

Every memory— every year that has passed by with Donghyuck has only grown the idea of soulmate and lover further apart in your mind, and it took the matrimony of your close friends to realize it. You don’t think it’s a bad thing; in fact, you’re lucky that you can call your lover and your soulmate the same person.

You feel something tugging at your hand, and when you look over at your lover, he looks at you expectedly.

“Huh?” You say, dumbfounded since you’ve been in your own little world for who knows how long. Donghyuck laughs, bending over a bit at the funny, bewildered look on your face before straightening up and looking over to you again.

“I said, what colors should we do for our wedding? I personally think I look good in red, but I’m sure we can figure out something less contrasting.” He explains nonchalantly, you realize he’s kicking a random pebble around as you walk. Looking around, confused out of your mind, you turn back to him.

“Are we getting married?”

“Well, yeah,” He does something between a laugh and a scoff before leaning next to you, a serious look that permeates through the shade of his sunglasses, “You do want to marry me, right?”

Your brain is in a complete fritz. If you had a whole day to think about this you could maybe make up a sentence that resembles a sophisticated answer, but you can only shrug.

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?” Donghyuck stops walking, “I just asked you if you want to get married, and you reply with ‘uh, yeah, I guess.’” He mocks your tone and it makes you roll your eyes at him.

“This is the first time we’ve ever talked about this and I got nervous.” You explain, making him relax and stand in front of you with his hands leisurely resting in his pockets. “Of course, someday I would like to marry you. I guess you’re… tolerable.” Donghyuck pushes you away from him and quickly walks down the path, twice as fast as he was walking before. You laugh and follow him, running slightly to catch up.

“Excuse me, Miss, would you like to leave a wish for the happy couple?” A sudden voice stops you, making you turn back around. A man stands with a camera, looking at you expectedly.

“Uh, how?” You look from the camera and back up to him.

“I’ll take your picture. You can write a wish on it and hang it up over there.” He points to the dozens of polaroids already hung up a few feet away, random people posing in the photographs with different color writing on every picture.

“Let’s do it.” Donghyuck comes up behind you, no doubt catching the last part of what the photographer said and pushing you lightly over to where there’s better lighting while taking off his sunglasses and tucking them into his shirt. The photographer asks you to pose, and you and Donghyuck smile for the camera, your eyes slightly shut due to the sun beating down on top of you.

“Great, how about one more for yourselves?” The photographer asks as he waits for the photograph to develop and you agree. This time, Donghyuck wraps an arm around you and pulls you closer so that your back is against his chest. You feel him rest his cheek on your head and drape his other arm around your front. You grab onto his forearm, not knowing what to do with your hands, and then suddenly the picture is taken and the photographer hands over both of the developed photos.

You take the second picture out of Donghyuck’s hands, not being able to look away. The sun seems to hit both of you just right, and the slight candidness of the photo adds another layer of reality to the picture. Donghyuck has a small smile while his cheek is slightly squished against your head, but he still looks as handsome as ever.

“What wish should we leave them?” He asks, picking up a golden sharpie from the table nearby, somehow already having his sunglasses back on.

“Maybe just… Congratulations on getting married?” You suggest.

“And a million other people will have the same thing. We need to be memorable.” He stresses and taps the end of the sharpie against his head. “What do you wish for Lucas and Yuqi?”

“I wish…” You think about it for a moment, “For them to have a lifetime of memories that they can share until the very end.” You nod.

“Oh?” Donghyuck looks at you, “When did you become a poet?” He asks as he writes that down at the bottom of the first picture.

“I’ve always been like this. I’m glad you just now figured it out.” You reply sarcastically, to which Donghyuck replies back with his own sarcastic laugh. He hangs up your picture close to where Mark and Xiaojun hung up their’s, and then turns back around.

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” He pushes up his sunglasses with his ring finger and thumb, walking with swagger towards the ceremony and grabbing your hand while he’s passing by.

“If you’re going to be like this at our wedding, maybe I’ll have to change my mind…”

For one today being one of the most awaited days of your life, it started out pretty regularly.

You wake up from the ringing of your alarm, get ready, and go to your classes for the day. You had breakfast before you left, and lunch right before your last class of the day. Even work was boring as usual, but nothing beat going to the store afterwards.

When you got to the aisle filled with shoes, you were first puzzled by how many options there are. So many colors and styles, you didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed and accidentally spent almost an hour just looking at every individual pair. This had to be perfect. This was going to be a memory that you thought about for the rest of your life.

You call Donghyuck when you approach your front door, he answers almost immediately.

“Hey, love, what’s up?” He yawns through the words, and you can’t help but smile as you look down at the bag in your hands.

“Oh, I was just wondering when you’ll be home.” You open the front door and shut it behind you, taking off your shoes.

“I’m right outside of our building. Did you just get home?” He asks, no doubt hearing the front door from your side of the line.

“I’ll talk to you when you get up here then, see you.” You send a kiss through the phone and abruptly end the call. If Donghyuck is right outside of the building he’ll be up to your apartment in just a few minutes.

You drop the rest of your things down at the front door and hurry into the kitchen, setting down the small white bag with a lace bow on top in the middle of the kitchen table, clearing the table of anything else. You slide into a seat at the table, fixing your clothes nervously as you hear the front door open. Not even a few seconds later, Donghyuck walks into the kitchen, his eyes moving from you to the white bag and back to you.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, dead serious. Your nerves and anxiety, and maybe even some fear, must be strong enough for him to feel. You shake your head and pat the chair next to you. Donghyuck takes a seat, he came through the door so quickly that he didn’t even take his shoes or his jacket off yet.

“Open the bag.” You can’t help the excited smile and small clap of your hands as he reaches out and holds the bag. He gives you a quizzical look, but you only nod to encourage him.

Donghyuck unties the lace ribbon, looking down into the bag for a few moments. You can’t read his face and you can’t feel any emotions from him, and your anxiety grows tenfold. He reaches in and pulls out the little shoes, a light blue color with white stitching. They’re so small, they can sit in Donghuck’s hand perfectly.

“What are these?” He asks, still looking at the shoes in his hand.

“Well, they’re shoes�� For babies. For our baby.”

At your reply, he does nothing. He doesn’t react at all, which only worsens your nerves and makes your leg twitch up and down as you wait for him to say something. He swallows and sets the shoes on the table, still looking at then with a blank expression.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yeah…” You reply, reaching out to put a hand over Donghyuck’s, “Say something.”

“I’m not sure what to say, this is very… sudden.” He tilts his head. Your stomach drops at the lack of emotion in his voice. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but it was not this stoic expression in his face. Whatever traces of a smile that you had on your lips vanishes and you grip his hand tighter.

“I know this is not what we had planned. I know this is kind of… not good timing, since we’re still in school and not married, yet. But this is what fate had planned for us, I guess?” You’re not sure if you’re trying to console him or convince him, but the icky feeling in your stomach tells you Donghyuck’s reaction to the situation is not good.

“Yeah, fate did us real good.” Donghyuck replies sarcastically and you drop your hands from his, resting them in your lap. You can see the tears forming in his eyes even when he tries to look away from you, and you can feel the fear that’s boiling and overflowing inside him.

“I know you’re scared, I’m scared too. But we can get through this to—” You’re suddenly cut off by Donghyuck standing up abruptly.

“I’m not scared. I’m worried.” He rubs his face with his hands. “I’m worried that I won’t be able to support this kid. I’m worried I won’t be able to be here for you through it all. I’m so worried I’m going to end up like my father that I feel like it’s going to eat me alive.” He runs his hands through his hair, pulling his head back as he looks at the ceiling and paces around the kitchen.

“I never knew your father, but from what you told me, you’re nothing like him.” You stand up too, your legs feeling like jello.

“No, you don’t understand. What if I say something wrong and ruin this kid’s life like my father did to me? What if I can’t find a job after we graduate? Are you going to support all three of us? I can’t let you live like my mom did, it was too hard to watch back then and it’ll be even harder to watch now.” He suddenly stops, not giving you a chance to speak as he looks from you, to the little shoes, and back to you. “I can’t.”

“You… can’t what?” There’s panic rising in your voice as he shakes his head and backs away.

“I can’t be here, not around you or this baby. I won’t be a good father.” He turns and walks out of the kitchen, leaving you standing dumbfounded with tears brimming in your eyes. You move to the front door, watching at Donghyuck’s shaking hands pick up his keys and wallet.

“Are you leaving me? Right now?” He doesn’t look at you and he doesn’t answer, opening the door, “Wait!” You cry out. He stops, his shoulders tense and his hand clenching the doorknob.

“What about that promise you made me? Huh? You said that it’s not just a ‘you’ or a ‘me’ now. It’s an ‘us.’ You said you’ll do everything you can to not hurt us.” You ask, recalling the promise Donghyuck made back when you two were young college students, and a promise he has repeated and vowed to you over and over again every time your relationship got into a rough patch.

“I think… that what I’m doing is what’s best for us. It’ll be better if I wasn’t here. ___...” He looks back at your teary eyed figure with one last look of regret, “I love you. I’m so sorry.” And with that, he closes the door, leaving you all alone in your cold and dark apartment.

You jumped off of the bridge. You jumped off a while ago, actually, but the fall took longer than you expected. You thought Donghyuck would be there to catch you at the bottom, but he’s nowhere to be seen now. The fall was peaceful and enjoyable, a soft limbo between making the hardest decision in your life and the ultimate consequence of that decision. The fall was long and made you feel faux comfort, so when you reached the very end, it ended up hurting a lot worse. You knew jumping off of a bridge would kill you, so why did you jump?

You’re not sure how long you stand by the front door, but it’s long enough that the sun sets outside and the room turns dark. You stare at the door, waiting for Donghyuck to come back. You wait for the door to open and for him to run through, hugging you and whispering that he’ll be here for you. You can only walk up to the door and slide down onto your knees, your forehead pressed against the cool wood as you wait.

Tears run down your cheeks silently, your eyes red and your head hurts. You keep your forehead pressed against the door for the whole night, waiting for him to come back. You wait, and wait, and wait. Donghyuck never comes back.

Your heart rips open from pain, it feels like it’s bleeding onto the floor in front of you. Your mind is numb from any other emotion, your body is cold from sitting on the floor, but you can’t get yourself to stand up. That’s when you realize, this is it. This is how Donghyuck hurts you.

What a sick and twisted way for fate to finally serve up her plan. You almost forgot who Donghyuck is supposed to be; the one who loves you, and the one who hurts you the most.

— read epilogue here

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