#bearseungmin.fics

[bearseungmin]

TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

Confining an intense infatuation with rockstar Hyunjin and his vampire appearance, you land a job as his new assistant—and new pet.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 4.2k ] PAIRING — vampire! rockstar! hyunjin x human! gender-neutral! reader GENRES — vampire! au, rockstar! au, 1980s! au, light horror, supernatural, romance, smut WARNINGS — mature content, manipulation, intense situations, infatuation/obsession, blood/blood digestion, vampires, victimization, brink of death/death/reincarnation SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, teasing, "sir" kink, skinship, unprotected intercourse, love-making BASED OFF OF — queen of the damned (2002) RELEASED ON — SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2022

AUTHOR’S NOTE — this will be my final fic posted. originally this piece was part of an entire series, but things have gone sideways. i hope that at least posting this fic will suffice the entire vampire idea considering it’s the only one written lmao. reblogs and feedback are seriously appreciated, thank you <3

LAST | PRICE OF A BITE SERIES | TAGLIST | NEXT

one.

The first time your eyes had caught sight of Hyunjin, you were captivated.

His leather jeans hugging his hips, the mesh shirt covering only his chest enough to make your breathing rapid, all pulled together by the sight of his tight abs being trickled with the light drops of rain cascading down his form.

Fingers pressing through his damp hair every few minutes to pull the strands from his face—to help him keep eye contact with the crowd—his voice coaxed all the ears in the surrounding space.

The man was intoxicating. His voice like butter, the band playing behind him seeming to evaporate into the lights and only leave him on the stage. Vocal chords strong, singing above all else—even the loud rain—the high note exactly forty-five seconds before the song was to end was when he found you.

Your eyes locked in, seemed to shoot into one another like bullets—and he smirked.

Out of all odds you had fought your way to this place in time. You sent in enough letters to win the sweepstakes prize, a single ticket to a Hyunjin concert. And here you stood— rain beginning to pour harder, but not enough to stop the alluring man from doing what he does best.

What was left from your mind was the true nature of the concerts. Warm bodies flushed with heat no matter the cool temperature of the weather, clashing together in a synced motion to the beat of the music. It shook everyone's bones, boiled everyone's blood, and brought the night to life in the most humanoid way.

Had the catching of Hyunjin's eyesight been well known—you would have second-guessed your position. His eyes would scan the crowd each night, every town within every city, and capture a few that appealed to him.

It was every fan's dream—that lanyard with a backstage pass being handed over to them by security. But yours, the black and red design almost a direct indication of what was to come, it was impossible to not accept.

His black hair was smoothed down on his head, the gray strip a signature of the artist. Black eyes preying on the innocent—the blissful crowd moving upon his request—and only catching your frame walking towards the backstage path for a split second.

The man had you from the moment he saw you, and that's just the way you wanted it.

"What is this about?" But you still had to pretend to not know what was occuring, no matter how deep you got in.

"Hyunjin is finishing the show. Wait for him here."

The security guard seemed to slip away faster than his words did, leaving you behind in the dim purple lighted room enclosed within the backstage.

"Wait for him here."

It was easy to forget his position. A rockstar on tour, everyone wrapped around his finger, and you—barely beginning to hold on.

Even with the heat radiating off the stage lights, Hyunjin's form was dried by a single soft towel being pressed against his skin. The drops of rain didn't slip into his pours, didn't bring a single blemish on his skin—not even a red mark as he brushed the towel against his skin roughly.

"Where?" It was the first word he had said when he got back there, and yet everyone was already catering to his needs.

"Back left, sir."

And those black eyes, darker than the night sky when the clouds cover the moon—they found you again.

You were almost shivering from the rain still soaking your clothes, shaking as Hyunjin closed in on where you sat. A booth that moved deep into the corner, enclosed by black curtains for privacy. You didn't know what to expect from this situation, but you balanced the scenarios a thousand times prior.

"You—" His tone sent a shiver up your spine. "Why are you here?"

His question came across as more of a statement than a question out of concern.

"W-What?"

"Don't make me repeat myself."

"I-I—" Your flustered state seemed to irk him, a flash of second-guessing himself running across his face.

His long fingers seperated, perfectly manicured nails shining in the purple lighting as he pressed his hand flat against the table before you. His back hunched, face coming in closer, and soon enough you were breathing the same air.

Hyunjin—famous for his music, his appearance, his voice, his ego, and his mysterious life—was staring you down like a rabid dog finding the first deer in miles that it could sink its teeth into.

"What are you doing he—"

It was the first time anyone had ever cut him off. Even with the slip of your voice, not too loud but a high enough volume to make him visibly react—Hyunjin was intrigued by you.

"You need an assistant."

"Said who?" His tongue moved slowly, the top of the pink muscle faintly stained with a red color that appeared gray in the backstage lighting.

It was all on purpose.

For the first time in forever, someone was clearly trying him. Testing his patience, someone to push his buttons, and more importantly—someone who didn't seem to fear him when you were alone together.

"Me."

It started with the sudden flash of his eyes, like the light of a soul leaving a body if you could ever witness it. The rise of his cheekbones until the smirking smile on his lips showed teeth. The color of the lights changed from purple to red, almost to signify a deal with the devil. And the smallest, most prominent canine poking just below his plump lips—a fang coming into view next to it.

"Then—I guess, you're hired."

two.

Your words had availed, the rockstar you had been chasing after for years quickly becoming your boss. It only took a raise of his index finger for you to motion out of his way, to slip from the leather booth and find yourself standing in the presence of a soulless man.

"I don't get emotionally involved with my employees." His words were even colder than the rain that dripped from the ends of your hair and splashed small specks onto the cement flooring below.

You watched him barely lean down, falling into the booth until he sat all the way in the middle with both arms stretched out on either side. Drowning in the red lights, his dark eyes peering from your head to your shoes—the man seemed to be able to see right through you.

"And I don't have sex with them, either."

An array of other people began to fill in the backstage, a party soon filling what was once you and the mysterious man alone together.

It had become routine as you traveled along with the entourage. Flashing lights, drinks being clacked together with toasts, people soon falling too drunk to walk—and you, watching Hyunjin take hold of some poor person's neck.

You waited on the man hand and foot. He didn't even have to leave the skin of the person he latched on to in order to catch your attention, to keep the table's drinks coming.

The music blared just as loud as the concerts. And as time began to catch up with you, you soon found yourself clutching to the sink of the bathroom while staring into your eyes reflecting through the mirror.

Had you gone over your head? Had the fixation on the rockstar become obsession? Were you really meant to be here?

Then it was there. Faint for a moment, becoming louder by every letter—Hyunjin's voice. "Y/N!"

The tips of your shoes found his in the moment the bathroom door opened, halting you in place in an instant. You were almost swallowed by his gaze, his pale skin still just as vacant of any flaws just as before.

"Why are you hiding?" His voice was lower than the call of your name, making your response leery.

"I wasn't." Your eyes looked over his face, taking in every feature you could find. The man was almost like a doll, every piece of him complimenting the others. "H-How do you know my name?"

"You think I didn't?" The step he took forward was demanding, but there was nothing for you to answer to. The man was defined by his stance, Hyunjin clearly being the dominant one in every situation. "Don't underestimate me."

"Your table is waiting for your presence."

His eyes flickered once more, blinking as his brows knitted. You could see the way he was thinking of his next step, the slightest motion of his head tilting being what gave himself away.

This type of energy, brooding and challenging, left the man puzzled. His body swayed in the frame of the bathroom, a small click of his tongue as he got one more glance of you—that moment being the last sight of him you saw for the rest of the night.

But just as you could be read by him, his transparency began to be uncovered by your own interpretation. A man forever traced by authorities for suspicious behavior, linked to the occult and an egomaniacal demeanor—he was like an idol forever on the run from the demons that created him.

Little did they know, his demons were easy to see. All that your eyes had truly caught from the encounter was the two drops of blood staining into his skin through the mesh black top. The way the thinned out liquid from high alcohol levels had run down his chest until it faded into the lines of where his chest muscles matched.

That same tint on his tongue now darker, more noticeably red in the neutral toned lighting—and clearly the stain of swallowed blood.

Your treading body slowed as you paced down the hallway, eyes finding the most significant piece of the puzzle. His mouth had a reddish tint around it, mostly on his tongue, in every poster taped to the walls.

Those same images you had seen time and time again, and the more you sauntered down the hall you found more that peaked your memory.

"What do you see?" His voice, slowly you were becoming used to it being so close and real.

Frame long dried from the rain, he could still see the chills crawling across your skin each time he spoke directly to you.

Forever he had used the stains as a cloak, a fake character playing a fake role.

"I see blood." Just as he nodded, your answer being just what he wanted to hear, he took your wrist.

Living in the spotlight, everyone's eyes on Hyunjin at all times—the two of you seemed to melt into the party. The first time he had ever gone completely transparent.

"It is blood." One hard pull, and your chests were pressed together. Breathing the same air for the second time, his minty but metallic breath made you dizzy. "What are you going to do about it?"

His fingertips brushed your shoulder so lightly, index finger rushing to find the main artery of your neck to feel your heartbeat pulsating through it. Thump by thump, you could see his eyes returning to that soulless gleam they wore so well.

His touch was ice cold, enough to make your body physically react with more shivers. Each time he felt your heartbeat speed up, the man seemed to pant his tongue between his fangs.

Hyunjin had become a ghost for weeks as you traveled, evading with a dark stare each time he'd catch your eyesight. From the first night, the first encounter you had with him, you thought you knew what he was—maybe even had an idea of what he was capable of—but this was new territory.

"Keep you out of trouble like I always do."

"I mean right now." His tongue, the drops of blood of an innocent that coated the muscle now gone—and he wanted more.

"What happened to not getting an emotional attachment with me? Not having sex?"

Your words cut at him, his eyes squinting from bitterness. He backed away to catch your sight better, the annoyed appearance on his face making the corner of your mouth fight to lift in a smirk.

"I never said a physical attachment couldn't happen."

"That counts as sex."

"Who says I was in it for pleasure?"

The man seemed to have an answer to everything. But when you responded, told him down or made him have to think of what to say next—you could see it bothered him.

A rockstar becomes entitled, uses a script-like dialogue towards everyone he speaks to. And yet, with you—descant is the only form of communication he had.

When he begins to run out of words to say, that's when the fun begins.

"What would I get out of it?"

Hyunjin's eyes became softer, almost like his sharp teeth now noticeable weren't what was guiding his moves. Like his thirst became quenched at the idea in his mind—and you were his first muse in his long lifetime.

"Eternal life."

three.

The array of bodies that would be left to grow cold wherever Hyunjin discarded them—they were what caused you to think most.

Barely left with life, blood still trickling down their necks, and sprawled into a slumber from the blood loss. Some would wake, consider that they had drank too much that night and scatter off. But the others, the ones who didn't wake, they had to be removed by his closest staff and erased from the world before they were tracked to his concert.

For every mortal that was carried out from the tent, you lost a bit of mortality, yourself.

Everywhere he traveled, darkness and rain seemed to follow. His concerts would be blurred with music and the danger of being out in a storm.

It was his voice speaking to you just before he went out on stage that night that sent chills down your spine, but brought you to linger your eyes in his gaze for a moment longer.

"I love the electricity in the air like this." His breathing was as steady as always, perfectly spinning to find you staring at him. "The look of fear in some eyes. Excitement in others."

You wanted him to hold even a beat of concern for his fans, to take responsibility for what he does and what he is. "Makes things effortless."

Hyunjin was the only hazard. The predator that has a higher risk of taking the innocent more than the lightning of the storm every night he played a show like this.

Less than one million of a chance to be struck by an electrical bolt, and yet a zero percent chance of leaving with your soul still attached—unharmed—when your eyes meet Hyunjin's.

"I can feel it in the air." Soft, finding his ears just as his head when to turn.

The snapping of his head back in your direction, your sudden response was clearly new to him. With the way he spoke, you could see it on his face that he knew he was pressing buttons. Believed to have the advantage, to be scaring you to death from the inside—slowly becoming entranced by him enough to want to retrieve the bite and leave the fear behind.

For all he thought, he had you—and in turn, you had him.

The cost of saving others that night could cost you your life, and yet you spoke more. To keep him listening, to watch him move in closer.

He had two minutes before the stage would be his, for him to begin to find those he wanted to sink his teeth into and taste that night.

"Hyunjin." Again, the softness changed him. Distraction, he was wrapped around your finger with every syllable. "Shouldn't a night like this be better taken advantage of?"

His plump bottom lip slipped between his teeth. What would naturally become a reddened, blood-rushing color only kept its regular light glow. The way he was responding physically, you could see that flash in his eyes.

The voracious gaping of a hungry man wanting nothing more than to know what you taste like, in more ways than one. It made the electricity in the air seem like short sparks compared to the adrenaline pumping through your veins.

He could smell you from being so close, finally blinking to break his impending reality of having a show to put on.

His lip was no longer bitten, the top lip of his mouth twitching at the thought of you—and the smirk you had been waiting for grew larger.

Hyunjin almost looked too pleased with himself. "Wait for me in my dressing room."

Then, there was that word he had been waiting for. Begging for, shivering over the thought of it leaving your lips, and making him give you one last dark glance before moving towards the screams that claimed his attention.

"Yes, sir."

With every lift of the screams outside, you knew what he was doing. His eyes scanning the crowd, maybe his index finger pointing out one or two—except this time no one was to move in the end.

You could hear his squeaky boots on the concrete flooring of the backstage area. Could almost smell his heavy cologne moving in closer with each step. The chains around his neck, more at his belt, and some along his ripped jeans rattling against each other from the quick pace he moved.

You were on his mind the entire time, the pitch black backstage area completely empty for the first time ever.

Hyunjin walked to the beat of your heart—the sound growing more rapid in his ears, the same as yours. It wasn't until you heard the door click open—saw his long fingers press through the open frame just before his boot kicked the door roughly enough to have it leave a dent in the wall behind it, only for him to shut the door closed again—that the deed you set in place finally began.

"Why have you waited so long?" He almost growled, his hair drying quickly from the rain drops falling from the end of the strands at a fast rate.

Hyunjin's black eyes, cold and dead, held a gaze that was almost bewildering. Like every bit of hunger over the years, the kind unquenched, hit him all at once.

"You've been with me for months." It was him that had been going out of his mind in thought all this time, not you. "No one ever takes this long."

By now, he was speaking through his gritted teeth.

"You never asked properly."

His fingers clenched into a fist at your response, eyes flashing with anger. At the tilt of his head, you watched that boiling anger grow to a simmer just for a second. His eyes had caught the mirror, but not his own reflection. The expression he wore disappeared in an instant, his body turning to fully face the reflective glass.

All he could see was the room around him, and your frame staring at him from the side. "This was all a game."

"Have I beaten you yet?" You asked him lightly, treading on a new found reality of the man.

"I didn't want you to beat me." For once, his voice didn't raise with the anger in his eyes. "I wanted you to be with me."

His hands gripped at the edge of the counter lined before the mirror, finding himself staring hard into what would be his own reflection if he could ever see it again.

"For once—" Hyunjin's voice seemed to alter, the hunger in his eyes returning. "—I wanted to be seen as me. As what I have become."

"What have you become, exactly?"

"Is the need for blood a joke to you?" There was that true anger, his frame standing upward and almost rushing you. "Is that what this is about?"

You could see his teeth growing longer, his eyes being filtered with the same sight of nothing but a human before his sight and not you as yourself. Even with time moving along, you by his side no matter how many things he threw at you—you were still someone he could drain and forget about.

That fact, that you could still be another victim of his, had been lost during your omnipotent breakthrough of the vampire you believed to be getting to know more.

The way his hand clamped down on your shoulder, Hyunjin's eyes boring into your own, and his teeth broke through his lips—your decision was final, even if it was fatal.

You moved first, pressing your warm lips to his neck. With no teeth to bite him, the man seemed to jolt at the feeling. His body couldn't form a reaction to show what he was enduring, but his vocal chords could omit a sound that made you revel in it.

"F-Fuck—" It was the first time that an opposing person had placed their lips on the neck of his skin with no intention of turning him into something else.

There was one other craving deep down inside Hyunjin that had taken you a short time to notice. Each time he bit into someone: he felt their hands, their hissing lips, their skin as it changed temperature—all while begging to feel it all himself.

The one thing the vampire never imagined could be brought back to him was skinship, and the fact that it was you doing it made him appear euphoric.

His skin was freezing, barely changing temperature as you moved your motions up towards his face. Your fingers clamped at this thin shirt to hold him to you.

If he had a heartbeat, it would be racing by now.

Hyunjin's brows knitted together when your mouth found his face, the warmth of your body moving up him soon fading. You found yourself aligned with the man perfectly to give him a kiss, but the hesitation in your gut caused you to stand still.

"Hyunjin?"

"Hmm?" His left eye slowly peeled open to find you staring back at him, the man overwhelmed with peace and standing in your hold as if he were almost limp.

"When was the last time someone made love to you?"

You could see by the way his eyes opened faster that the question caught him off guard. Many nights of roaming what appeared as the man's castle in moving form, his private space being yours to linger in—the most notable piece was that you always found him lying in a king sized bed alone.

As if he had no one to share it with, even the mattress of the bed appeared unaltered like no one had even slept in it when he rose. It was the opposite of his lonesome coffin, equipped with satin and a fresh scent to it—you could make out the form of where he laid in it most easily.

His begging of wanting to be with you, it was more than just a bite.

Your hand that was placed at his waist as you kissed at his skin rose upwards along his form. Finding every divot, his collarbones making you suck in a breath, all until your hand met the other as you held him around the neck. Holding him so close was like a dream you had over and over, only it was now real.

"Would you believe me if I said I've never made love?" Just above a whisper, only for your ears to hear—the man's sharp fangs were held behind his lips just enough so he could kiss your own softly without breaking the skin.

It was his question that brought each article of clothing to fall. To help you see his teeth in full view each time his lips parted to suck in a deep breath. The taste of your skin on his tongue, lapping at the sweat that formed across your body—it was the high he had been looking for, the feeling of the heat radiating off your skin.

Your moans in his ear each time his hand would fall between your legs made the man physically shake. Hyunjin's body grew weaker at the feeling of you unraveling yourself for him. And by the time your body was ready to take his length, the man was writhing with pleasure at the feeling of your human body holding him close until release.

For once you were both on the same page. Hyunjin was in love with the way you felt—the sounds you made in response to his tongue or hands, and even more so to his deep thrusts. You were in love with his gentleness, the way he treated you like expensive glassware all while keeping your voice extending his own pleasurable sounds.

Hyunjin, engraved in a world that knew nothing of him and his kind although he stood above it, was finally being seen as he wished.

All while the skin on your neck, tender and flushed with gentle pink marks, had the skin suddenly breaking at his teeth.

"If this is the only form of heaven I can ever have on this Earth—" He spoke, deep voice gravely from the show and even longer night.

You knew what you had to do from the beginning. And what seemed like the end was only the beginning of your life with the determined immortal man that killed to live, even if your death was his last.

"Then I'm never letting you leave me."

TAGLIST — @sleepylixie​​ @dom--minnie​​ @aliceu​​ @lixesque​​ @jaerisdiction​​ @fairygirl18​​ @late-minhours​​ @onlycherryblossom​​ @white-compass​​ @whatudowhennooneseesyou​​ @19yearsmemories​​ @lachinitaaaaa​​ @marzipaanz​​ @abiaswreck​

© copyright bearseungmin 2022, all rights are reserved. do not modify, repost, or translate without my permission. please.

[bearseungmin]

digits.

Working for a sensual calling business isn’t as simple as it sounds. Creepy clients, odd conversations that were never stated you’d have to have in your job description, and a mental checklist of sounds you’d have to create to immerse the caller into the experience. You were forced to use an old landline to assure you couldn’t be traced, typing in the numbers each time. All the voices sounded the same, except one. An accidental dial with one wrong number, and the man on the other end didn’t expect you to be on the line. Jeongin had no idea what he was getting into when he redialed your number, then again: you didn’t really want him to hang up in the first place.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 6k ] PAIRING — club owner! jeongin x sex hotline caller! gender-neutral! reader GENRES — strangers to lovers! au, romance, smut WARNINGS — mature content, language, sexual situations and conversations, power exchange, alcohol consumption, sex work SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, phone sex, dirty talking, teasing, unprotected intercourse, mentions of marking, love-making STORY BASED OFF — “My P.S. Partner/Whatcha Wearin? (2012)”

one.

It took three rings for his voice to echo through the small speaker of the phone, the wire wrapped around your fingers as it coiled more and more making the time go by even slower. His voice was groggy, the middle of the night making the client sound surprised.

“If I told you I stayed home all day today, wearing the smallest bit of clothing imaginable, and only thought of what I’d let you do to me all day—what would you say?”

“Hello?” Sleepiness seemed to drag him, the inhale of his breath making it apparent that what you spoke of was enough to make him sit up from the comfortable sleeping position. “W-Who—”

“I did. It felt nice to lounge around all day, but it’s much easier to pass the time with someone on my mind.” Your voice was too cheery, but he seemed confused. “But still, being alone all day has made me so needy. I thought I would call you earlier, but I know you’re busy during most work hours.”

“I only got home just an hour ago.” Even without the man before you, you could see his eyes shift over to his digital clock on his nightstand. Pressing his fingers through his fluffy, rustled hair and stretching his back. It’s what he always does when you awaken him with a call.

“I guess I could have called sooner, then. Won’t you stay with me now, although you sound sleepy? I’ve been so restless all day, the ache between my legs only gets worse the more I think of you.”

A verbal cough was heard from the other line, a stuttered garble of words incoherent in your ear but only making you laugh. He was always shy, the client making a blush form at your cheeks when he sounded so flustered.

“You’re so good to me when it comes to letting me take things slow. So, what’s been on your mind lately?”

“I—Uhm, I guess work.”

“You work too hard. Your work hours tire me out, too. You hardly even get any sleep, how will you have time to play with me?”

“I can always make time for you.” His voice sounded suddenly deeper, the man that seemed as though he was confused and shaking on the other end getting a boost in his confidence at your words.

Your client, shy and hardworking each and every day, was most certainly still drunk from after work. With alcohol in his veins, he didn’t seem to be speaking the same. But even with the strange, new cadence of his responses—you still shivered in excitement.

“What are you wearing?” It was the first time that you asked him that question.

“Nothing but my boxers. You woke me up, remember?”

“You’ve been eating randomly due to work, but I bet you’re still tight-fitted.”

“My abs don’t disappear until around the holidays.”

“Do you still like the idea of me wearing hardly anything?” Your voice was soft, the heavy sound of his breath making it obvious that his hand was beginning to venture somewhere low.

“What do you have on?”

“Just my underwear.”

“So we’re the same. It would be quite easy to do something like this, wouldn’t it?”

The client hadn’t taken the chance to speak for himself like this before, your leering interest making your legs part and body shiver more at the sudden control he had over you.

“It definitely would be.”

“When can I meet you?”

“You know that’s not possible.” It was a rule against your work, meeting clients outside of the calls. Even facetime was off limits, anonymity the main factor in why you trusted such a profession.

“Why not? Being just a voice isn’t as fun as feeling you up close.” His voice was exceptionally different, the way he talks and the forms he uses. It riled you up in a delicious way, your client finally breaking his shyness and letting you in.

“There’s only so much I can do like this. But I can still make you cum from the sound of my voice, can’t I? Moan into your ear—”

It was clear his fist had wrapped around himself long ago, the dirtiness of this act not bombarding any sense of reality from how gentle your voice sounded to him.

“—Allow you to hear how wet you’ve made me.” The squelches of your own arousal at your fingers separated with a string, the sound of the liquid just loud enough to be heard by him.

His moan was low, the sound of something against a pillow allowing you to know just where he was at. Sunk down into the middle of his mattress, his palm spread with lube being what he imagined your tight body felt like around him. The sounds of a man losing himself to a stranger over the phone, they couldn't be exchanged.

“Please—” He partially whimpered at the end of his sentence, a deep huff allowing you to know that he was close.

“Cum for me.” Your voice was stern, soon hollowed by the sounds of your own moans as you pretended to play with yourself on the other end of the line.

His voice broke, an array of curses like “fuck” and “shit” spilling from him. From the sounds of it, a pool of his cum had stained his sheets. Heavy pants on his end, your laugh was soft.

“How did I do?”

He could hardly form the words, his voice cracking from tiredness. “That was amazing!”

“Sir, please remember to tip me on the app when you get the chance. And your membership fee is closing in. When the new year starts, you’ll need to reregister.

“W-What? Membership fee? Tips?”

“Yes, sir.” Above all, the change in the client should have been the first red flag.

“This is—This is a hotline? Not someone I know?”

“This is a hotline, sir. Have you forgotten?”

“You really don’t know me? Yang Jeongin, the owner of the Icebreakers Club?”

His name—something that is never given to a caller. It’s for their own protection, most clients being big names. But hearing his own, the dashing man who you’ve personally seen on multiple occasions flashing smiles and unbuttoning his shirt until you could make out his entire chest—this had quickly become a grave mistake.

“Mr. Yang?”

“Do I know you?”

Did you know him? The long nights of sitting at the bar wallowing away within the drinks to forget the work you do to pay rent. His genuine glances and paid extra drinks made you invested in just what kind of man he is. And most of all, the early mornings you went stumbling out only to see him sitting alone at a large table, drinking by himself like he had no one around him to love or care for him.

“‘Hello?”

“I apologize for this inconvenience, sir. I should have known you weren’t my client.”

“I would have hung up if I became uncomfortable.” His voice was familiar now, the strange man you had seen night after night now becoming a clear image in your mind.

You had made him cum just from the sound of your voice, a teetering boost of confidence wearing down to his confused state on the other end of the line. No matter what was at stake, you job and your apartment—you had to admit, this was the most fun you had in a long while.

“Mr. Yang, I do know you.” You spoke slowly. “I’m a customer at your club every so often.”

“So this voice isn’t new to me. I thought I had heard it once before.”

“I really am sorry about all of this, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me that.”

“It’s company policy, I’m sorry.”

“And stop apologizing.”

His voice was just as strong as you remember. Un-avoiding the current situation at hand, he was clearly wrapped up in the world you accidentally created. Yang Jeongin, millionaire from the show-stopping club he runs— Icebreaker, the life of the night—has become equally as invested in you now.

“This is all a lot to take in.” You were overwhelmed, the man acting like this is a simple moment in his time. Even with the amount of words on your tongue, you were at a loss for what to say.

“Since you won’t ask, I will. Where do we go from here?”

The question had lingered for too long. You were in too deep now. And the only reasonable way you knew how to handle the situation was at play. Your fingers lowered towards the large box, rubber numbers in even rows. The same pattern you had typed in shown on the small screen. One number off from your client—such an easy mistake to make. One that opened the doorway to a new relationship you never imagined could take place, with a man you once believed to be a mystery. And yet, the click of the phone down against the receiver immediately put an end to it all.

two.

Your fingertip ran over the redial button hundreds of times the following night, every fiber of your being begging for the adrenaline rush you gained from Jeongin's accidental call.

The way he sounded—confused, in control, losing himself, and then perplexed. You were anonymous to him, adventuring into a role so dangerous that your mouth watered just at the thought of who he believed you could be.

All the times you witnessed him in his element: unbuttoned shirt rolled up at his elbows, hair lightly dampened from the sweat forming on his skin in the midst of the crowd, and his charming appearance igniting a joy and craving from others around him.

He was candy to your sweet tooth—every rushing memory of finding yourself staring a little too long at the man resurfacing.

Extraordinary, how someone could have a job that surrounds them in society, peaks them in socialism, and makes themselves an essential to humanity—yet could be so alone.

His dyed hair was most noticeable when you found him sitting alone, finger barely having to curve to instruct the bartender to make him another drink. Reminiscing on that morning by itself made your heart thump twice as fast.

On one occasion you were the only two left in the club. Sitting opposite each other, watching the bartender clean up just as the deep blue dawn glared through the high windows. Neither of you had to say anything to one another. You only exchanged preferred drinks, lingering stares, the softest chuckle from him, the paying of the tabs, and a separation.

How all of that led up to you calling his number on accident, helping him reach a sweet and obviously needed release—you could never understand.

The most vivid memory of the early morning encounter was his eyes, bloodshot and tired but never leaving your figure.

Every time you closed your eyes you could picture his features more and more. The way his hair was almost always tucked back from his fingers dragging through the locks. His glistening skin only shining more with every neon lights hitting him. His tight chest muscles in the deep opening of his shirt. How his pants were always a little short, stopping above his ankles. His over-worn converse despite being a millionaire who runs a business.

You never took his age into account, how his youth still seeped from every pore. His jitteriness during the call made you think even deeper, like it was his first time having phone sex.

Jeongin began to cloud your mind more and more every day. He was the voice your imagination reenacted to help you get yourself off, the way he panted and groaned.

All the voices you heard during work, and all you wished was for them to be his. To make time pass faster, you even pretended it was him. Ignoring that it was someone else, taking what you were saying you would do to them and imagine doing it to Jeongin.

Until his name slipped from your mouth by accident, an impulsive response to the growing heat of your loins from your mind racing off into what could be. Rightfully, you lost a client that time.

He was everywhere in your mind for a week. Your hands broke your will to keep from calling him again, finding the folded notepad page next to the phone. It was just a few numbers, not even titled with his name—but it was everything to you in that moment.

Fingertips tapping at the number keys in the pattern of the phone number, but not pressing down hard enough to dial. It was torture—having the power in your hold but not having the strength to initiate it.

Your memory of reality had been so tainted at the thought of the man, from the use of an outdated way of communication—and all of your wishes were being answered as the ring of the phone called out through the room.

"You do know I've had your number this entire time, right?" This was his opening line, not even a hello.

"I-I call clients from a landline."

"I know. I spoke to your company after our conversation."

The moisture in your mouth depleted, the dryness of your tongue making it hard to swallow.

"What? I never disclosed my company name."

It was a game of cat and mouse. You should have remembered what era of life you were living in, how easy it is for someone like Jeongin to get answers.

"There are only so many local sex hotline companies in our area. All I had to do was call off your phone number to get an answer."

Your silence was bothersome, his sigh so loud into your ear that the phone's speaker fizzled from the sudden audio through the line.

"I didn't ask for your name."

"Why not?" Your voice sounded small, curious, but different.

If curiosity kills the cat, what's left for the mouse to fear?

"You had all the answers right at your fingertips."

"Is it wrong for me to respect your privacy?"

The question lingered in your mind for a moment, a beat of time passing before you could respond.

"Thank you. I could have been in a lot of trouble from this incident."

His chuckle, the one so familiar to you. You had played it over and over in your head, remembering the sound of the vibration in his chest faintly making its way over to you as he sat across from you at the bar that morning. "Incident."

"What do you call this?"

"Fate working its magic, baby."

"You're overly confident in this."

"I like the chase." He breathed, a break in his voice from the smile growing on his lips making you shiver. "And anyways—you started this."

"I'm afraid I can't get out of it now."

"Not happening."

"Seeing things through…"

It was his sudden silence that threw you off, hesitation in his voice as he spoke.

"What if—I'm not what you're expecting?"

It's natural to put up a defense wall, to filter yourself around someone new until you were sure they liked who you were before them. Only then could you use small chances to show yourself until you were unapologetically you.

"Relationships are difficult." His breath stuttered at the word relationships as if it was a new territory for him. "I'm not expecting you to be perfect."

"You said you know me." Jeongin's voice returned to him, the need to dig continuing. "You know my name. Where I work."

"You disclosed that information, Jeongin."

His name rolling off your tongue, between the lips he couldn't physically see—you could hear the spine-chilled shiver in his voice.

"R-Right. You've seen me." He had forgotten his own words from minutes before.

"On more than one occasion."

"How did I seem?"

How do you explain to someone that they appear as two different people? Electric around others, in the groove and unbothered. But when alone, empty and sad—the look of lonesomeness written on his face as he sipped at the quarter-filled drinks.

"You were different."

"I hear that every fucking night." His sigh of annoyance into the phone, into your ear—your choice of words were wrong. "Jeongin the club owner. Jeongin has money. He must have everything he wants and more."

"Empty." Your voice startled him silent, the biting of his tongue working in your favor. "Sad."

Now wasn't the time to skip the hard introduction into something that could be an aid to a wounded man's heart. Jeongin clearly had battles, issues, and problems—but you were the last person that wanted to be an addition to that list, and that's what made you so special.

"When the club is full, you're at peace for a moment in time. The way you dance to the music, dip into the shadows to watch everyone enjoy what you've created—it's just a facade."

"And you claim to have only seen me, not to have spoken to me—but here you are reading me so clearly."

"What is it about the club emptying out that makes your face fill with so much dread?" You could hear his end of the line crackle, his shuffling and deep breath helping you understand that you were getting through to him.

"At the end of the day when the music stops and the lights start going out, I'm left standing alone. Sometimes I sleep in the room upstairs just so I don't have to go home to an empty bed."

"Haven't you dated? Even one-night-stands?"

"Have either of those ever fulfilled your heart's desire to be loved for longer than someone's passion could last?" He made a point. In his own world, clearly he just wanted something more. "Quick fucks are just muscle relaxers. The people that float around me are leeches. All anyone knows of me is that I can give them anything they want. No one ever has the audacity to ask what I want."

"So, what do you want?"

"It's complicated." That word, it summarized the current situation so well.

"How complicated?"

"For the first time in my life, I feel like something is happening in my favor." He let the words out with a laugh in the end, almost as if he was astonished, himself. " And I'm falling in love with a voice through a phone, complicated."

You spoke before your mind caught up, but you couldn't find it in yourself to regret the words spilling from your lips. "What if I told you we could meet?"

"I thought you said that meeting wouldn't be possible?"

"For a client, no it isn't."

His braying call of "Ohhh—" caused you to stifle a laugh in order to finish speaking.

"But technically you aren't a client, are you?"

"I'm afraid not." He chimed, air catching the microphone of his device as he moved his head side to side. "It's a shame really, I'd be such a good client to have."

"I'll take that into consideration if I ever need a promotion."

"Always after my wealth…" He joked, voice shallowing from the laughter coming from the pit of his stomach.

"How do we make this work, Jeongin?" Your question was legitimate, a wondering pitch to the words.

"Where do you sit when you come to my club?" He had the upper hand.

"Do you want to meet there?"

"You just come tomorrow night around nine."

"How will you know it's me?" You laughed.

"Trust me, baby. I'll find you this time."

three.

The music was pumping just as hard as your heartbeat in your ears, the floor vibrating with every step. Lights bright, your pupils growing larger with every shadow and smaller with every flash.

"What if I told you we could meet?" Those words alone were enough to make you shiver. Being inside his club, walking the same space he does seven nights a week. You were so close.

Taking a seat at the bar, in the same seat you always sat at—you could already see him. Drink in hand, maneuvering through the crowds, his dyed white hair already a matted texture.

He had started early, just to be sure.

It didn't take anything for people to notice him, to place their hand on his shoulder to catch his attention—to distract him.

Jeongin was in the moment, his cheeks turning pink from the alcohol in his system. Even with your eyes boring into his skull at such a long but short distance, he stayed glued into the conversation.

A small smile on his lips as he nodded along, pretending to care. All while his eyes surfed every face around his peripheral, a spark igniting in your stomach. He was looking for you.

One hour turned into two. Two into three. And by the second to last hour falling upon the night—you took notice of a distraught Jeongin falling into the seat in the direct line of yours.

The nightlife was beginning to mellow down—a sip of his final drink guiding his eyes right to yours. The way his eyes blinked, head tilted so cutely, and his hand shook as he lowered his drink back down.

"You were right there all along." You saw him speak to himself, the words muted but his mouth moving with fervor. "Right in front of me."

"I found you first, Jeongin." Your eyebrow lifted with your words, a smirk growing on his lips in response.

His nod was in agreement, long fingers cradling his short glass to toast to you through the air. "So you have, baby."

His words rekindled in your mind—the question of what if he's not what you're expecting. You had thought about it all night and day, the visual of the man before you being the official realization of just what was in store.

But he didn't move, sitting against the back of the high stool with his arms crossed and the rolls of his sleeves tightening around the muscles in his arms. He had you right where he wanted you—the blue sky reappearing through the tall windows of the club. Just as before, you found yourselves having a redo of that first morning you spent together in silence.

Your fingers tapped at the screen of your phone in tandem with Jeongin feeling the buzz of his own in his jean's pocket. His ear to the phone, the sweet honey sound of his voice—you were melting.

"And may I ask who this could be?"

"Someone who also has a smartphone in the twenty-first century." You laughed. "And a contacts list."

"Going against your occupational ways. Be careful—you can be traced easier now than just star sixty-nine-ing your way out of this."

"No need for anonymity anymore."

"So tell me your name."

The two of you sitting at either end of the bar, drinking the exact same drinks as before, no longer drowning in the silence that is the infatuation of a stranger. A wall was breaking down in Jeongin—the man's gummy smile as he held the phone to his ear and leaned his elbow against the bar. 

"That's too easy. Ask me something deeper."

"Okay, answer something for me first."

"Shoot."

"How many times have you done this?" His eyes wandered with the question, eyes meeting the large digital clock at the top of the bar's shelves for reassurance that he was in reality. "Seen me here?"

"I recounted five times."

"But we've never spoken."

"Sometimes words aren't enough."

"All the chances we had."

"Would have been wrong."

"Wrong?" He grinned at your response. "You put me in a very vulnerable position, baby. Do you consider that a golden moment?"

By now he was leaning over the bar with his hand flat down, a cheeky smile on his face, and his eyes piercing into you.

"I think I've managed to find your weak spot before anyone else."

"You may be the only one ever." He chuckled. "Weak spot—" He repeated.

"Lust is blind, naturally. I just had an advantage."

"Taking advantage—" He reworded. "It makes me wonder just what kind of client you were meant to be calling."

"I'm not allowed to disclose that."

"He must be freakier than me." For the first time of the night, you could hear the want drip through his words.

"That could change."

"Do you want it to?"

His hair was messy, the long hours of running his fingers through it out of frustration. Watching him had been exhilarating, the way he was so riled up. Not once had he strayed from his mission, only catering to those around him to look inconspicuous. He was all for you, focused.

"I think we have a lot to look forward to, Jeongin." By accident, you had found yourself speaking in the sensual voice you use for work. The hours of perfecting the cadence it takes to make someone spiral, want more, beg for it. "My name is Y/N."

His frame was lanky, muscles tight as he closed in on your sitting frame. He kept his distance, the phone still to his ear and eyes staring straight ahead. His glass sat empty in his previous seat, the two of you watching the space like a movie as you spoke side by side.

The coldness of his hand brushing against yours, your head turning to find him already staring back at you. The way his finger tips caressed the back of your hand made the skin tingle with a sensation you had never felt before.

Your fingers entangling, his voice turning raspy has the night ended and early morning finally showed in his body. "Why don't we go for a walk?"

Time had stopped, the dawn that usually increases the morning's depth halting all together. Jeongin's hand only turned warmer with yours holding it, the sensation of his fast paced heartbeat easily felt in the lines of his hand.

"It's your eyes. The way they look at me—" The two of you had walked around for an hour, fallen to rest on a park bench and await the sun's full rays. "—like you're really looking at me."

"Don't others look at you?" You questioned, shaking his hand to make him laugh.

"Not like you. I feel so seen. It's different."

"What about me?"

"What do you feel when I look at you?" His bottom lip turned darker with the shortly applied pressure of his top teeth running along the thin skin.

"Like the longer I stare at you, the longer the world will allow me to enjoy this moment."

His laugh was loud, the empty space of just you and him sitting together making the scene almost surreal. Yang Jeongin all to yourself—and with you in the moment. Not many could ever say that sentence.

"I've gotten so in tune with my job giving me short pulses of life. Of craziness, getting sucked into someone's mind to cater to their needs and wants."

Jeongin's hiss, he knew the situation all too well. "No one thinks that I could be tired of everything. That maybe I want something from my occupation that's more than just fake smiles and drinks."

"I want more to get off to than someone through a phone finding me more attractive than I find them."

Your sentence took him off guard, a twinkle in his eyes and the knuckles of his hand holding his head up in curiosity. "What does get you off?"

"That's a question, isn't it?" It wasn't awkward. You almost would have responded in full detail if people didn't begin to make their morning commutes around the two of you. "I guess our time of privacy is lessening. The world decides to hit the play button again."

The way he leaned closer, his lips nearing your own. His hot breath on your face, the scent of alcohol and mint in the short puff of air—it made you dizzy. He had such an innocent but determined look on his face, features contorted with infatuation of how you'll answer his next question.

"Come back to my place, then?"

four.

Your mouths had attached in the elevator on the way up to his penthouse, the enclosed space being too tempting and the remaining alcohol in your systems making you feel jittery already. His warm skin turning hot as it pressed against yours, the relentlessness of his chest rising with every deep breath each time you seperated, the deliberate groan he released at the beep of the elevator opening.

He tasted the same as you imagined—fresh and addicting. He smelled of fancy cologne most common stores don't have in stock. And most effectively, his apartment was just the same as he appeared.

Everything branded with some expensive logo, art on the wall done by elite and youthful artists that were one of a kind, large spaces in between furniture making the place appear fuller while still being emptier than you figured.

It was just like him. And as he said, the space inside the home was so large it was overwhelming had you experienced it alone.

His hand matched the small of your back, smiling as he guided you deeper into the home until you found yourself sitting on the sofa.

"Where were we?"

"The conversation or the kiss?" You teetered between the idea of telling him just what you liked—no filter just as things had been all night. But the glisten in his eyes, the reddened apple of his cheeks,and his failed attempt to shift his lower half away from you to calm his reaction to the bite at your bottom lip—you understood words weren't the only play here.

"The kiss…"

Your hand placed at his chest, the skin between the opened fabric becoming affected by your touch with the lift of chill bumps textured your experience. You watched Jeongin swallow a moan, saw his eyes squint at the feeling of you touching him.

"—it was nice."

"But?"

"Is it wrong for me to want more from you?" Finally, the question had been asked.

"Considering what?" The huff within his breath, like he was losing oxygen the higher your hand went until you could feel his rapid pulse at his main artery.

"How we met was so strange." Your voice was just above a whisper, close to his ear and only for him to hear. "I've never experienced anything like this."

"I've never experienced anyone like you." Once more, Jeongin shut you up with a single sentence. "The way you're so in tune with me. I don't have to speak to create comfort, to break a silence most would consider awkward."

The smile on his face, you wanted it to stay there forever.

"I feel safe with you." Safe. "And I've never had the security before. I've always had to worry about what someone wanted from me. If I was fulfilling their desires. If I would even be enough."

"You're more."

You can never put love into words. Fear, commitment, trust, devotion, consideration, and just being with someone that makes your life a little better each day.

"There's so much more to you than you'll ever understand, Jeongin. Every little piece of you, I want to get to know."

Love, there's one contributing factor that means nothing, can give you everything you want to know, and can be a waste all at once.

"But that takes time."

You felt the weight of his body shift on the cushions, his form closing in on yours. With the hold of his neck, it was his pull that reconnected the kiss you wanted to last in the elevator. The motions of his mouth, the pace that matched yours, and the dizziness you felt from the butterflies in your stomach.

The dim lights of the apartment fading out entirely from the oncoming daylight created an ambiance as you found yourself being pressed against him, your flattened body now feeling the weight of his own. With Jeongin on top, you could feel himself growing harder in his jeans.

A week long fiasco of questioning if someone like Yang Jeongin—although you met under a strange circumstance—would ever be someone you could see yourself having a sexual relationship with, quickly turned into a romantic one.

Every vein in his body was pumping blood harder, sweat forming on his browline as your hand pressed at his throbbing cock through his pants. His moan, it vibrated into your mouth and only made you want to feel it again.

"Ahh—" His voice was so soft, knees stabbing in between the cushions of the couch to not apply too much pressure to himself—to let you make that decision for him.

"I just—" You spoke between heavy pants, the taste of him making you feel like you were floating. "—want to be with you."

His hand raced against your frame, lifting fabric and pulling it away. The buttons on his shirt didn't stand a chance against the fervor in his soul—a strong feeling of wanting to feel close to you taking over him.

You could hear the small round buttons scatter across his hardwood flooring—feel the short thrust he allowed himself to have against your hand before pulling your touch away from him entirely.

It seemed impossible to rid, the ache for everything he could give you growing in the pit of your stomach.

Watching Jeongin pull the tight fabric of his jeans down, hiss at the feeling of his own palm brushing against his length, and noticing the bead of cum staining through his luxurious boxers—you wanted time to stand still again.

His sounds, whiny with a few groans from the pit of his own stomach tightening with every drop of precum you pulled from him through gaining arousal.

It was only until you were eye to eye that time did stop. His discarded boxers and your thrown underwear no longer stopping your bodies from enjoying the sensation of connection. It was what made every minute of you sitting at a distance from him—seeing him in his element running the club, replaying his voice and features in your head after the call that night, gave you the curiosity to meet him face to face, and what brought you to make the decision that you were ready to love him worth it.

The way he barely pushed into you, allowing all the juices he helped create and his own lube your walls until he could fill you entirely—it was pure bliss. Your mouth on his neck littering kisses, not biting at the skin to leave a mark.

How he whispered your name until you felt him shiver, a sign he was close. Your body clenching around him every time his entire cock was deep within you, it made you weak from the pleasure he gave you.

There was nothing more to imagine. Nothing left to worry about. Jeongin was right in front of you, just as high on love and sex as you were—a passionate love-making that brought you both to climax until all you could do was hold each other so close.

"I—" It had officially begun—a memory of love you would hold on to for an eternity. "—I love you."

Your laughter to his ears after such a statement, it made him turn cherry red.

He was there. A person, not just the man you had seen in different phases while wandering his own club or staring you down from across the bar only to leave you wondering just who he is. Jeongin was here before you, just as himself.

You had made a mistake that would cost you a lifetime, all from the final digit of a phone number being wrong. If Jeongin hadn't been the one to pick up the phone that night, if fate had made him sleep through the ring of the call or told him they’ll leave a message if it’s important—your world would be entirely different forever. It was hard to admit that you didn’t have a crush on him before, and that these timeline of events made your heart feel fuller.

And most importantly, as time had come to pass and give you the opportunity of beginning to know the real man named Yang Jeongin—you were truly falling in love with him, too.

"Let's take this one call at a time."

TAGLIST — @sleepylixie​ @dom--minnie​ @aliceu​ @lixesque​ @jaerisdiction​ @fairygirl18​ @late-minhours​ @onlycherryblossom​ @whatudowhennooneseesyou​ @19yearsmemories​ @sorikkung​ @lachinitaaaaa​​

COULDN’T TAG — @doie-sun @notsoleeknow

© 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗺𝗶𝗻 2022. do not modify, repost, or translate in any way. please.

[bearseungmin]

cadaver.

Taken too soon, your past lover is gifted a twisted revival. Minho, now instilled with a sudden agenda, plans to take down those who killed him and bring a safe Halloween back to the town, but he needs your assistance to do it.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 8.7k ] PAIRING — vengeance spirit! minho x gender-neutral! reader GENRES — the crow! au, angst, supernatural, romance, crime WARNINGS — mature content, heavy talks of death, reincarnation & afterlife, death by fire, arson, birds (crows), blood & injuries, corrupt authorities, alcohol consumption, homicide/murder SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, protected intercourse, love making, pet names (doll) A/N — it has supposedly become a tradition for me to write a halloween fic based around one of my favorite films, so here is this years instillation! this movie is very near to my heart, as it is for many others, so i hope i did it justice! enjoy <3 this fic is based off the film ‘The Crow’ (1994)!

taglist: @sleepylixie @dom--minnie @aliceu @lixesque @jaerisdiction @fairygirl18​ @doie-sun 

listen while you read; cadaver playlist . the crow soundtrack

prologue.

A legend reads that souls can be carried and returned by crows. Beady eyes keeping the energy safe and sound, small body able to flee from any sense of danger. Their wings glide through the wind and their feet perch on the headstone of the deceased until they rise from the ground. That was the story told time and time again to the kids who needed comfort and wanted a small piece of horror with their bedtime story.

Things were almost normal in the sleepy town. It wasn't uncommon for those who normally caused trouble to bring more chaos to the table, but one night seemed to set them all ablaze at the same time.

Halloween, the night the dead are said to walk beside the living. From birth until death was life, death and beyond were made out to be nothing but rest.

It was never so simple. Fires would erupt all through the place you called home, and all you could do was hope you weren't the next target.

Clinging to him that night—merely hours before, that was the worst of it. It was almost evanescent in the way he cradled you right back against him; pretending fate wasn't on its way. Like animalistic instincts sensing danger from miles away and handling whatever was before them until it was time to make a move or accept their fate.

He was ravaged, stolen and dismantled. Minho never hurt a fly, the man only wanted to make music and love to you, and yet he was the one who lost his life.

Fate: the funny word now has a numb feeling on your tongue. It wasn't the firemen putting out your once shared apartment, not the police questioning you as you rushed alongside the cart carrying his body, and most definitely not the paramedics working to resuscitate him.

It was the crow sitting upon a chain-linked fence a few feet away staring him down with its black eyes and shivering feathers that caught your attention. The way its head tilted, it looked upon you, listened to the sound of the heartbeat monitor’s never-ending flatlining, gave Minho another glance, and then followed right behind the ambulance as it rushed him down the road.

That very moment in time brought a rush to your head and a harder thump to your heart. Your body was constricting and releasing all at once. All from a bird taking the soul of the man you love.

one.

Wheels turning into the parking spaces of the diner never seemed to stop, your shift running smoother than usual for such a specific night. Three nights before Halloween, the point in time where people in your town replace the batteries in the smoke detectors and draw up an escape route. All in case they became like the man who went with the flames almost a year before.

Minho was one of few to die within the pranks. The assailants knew of the apartment building, knew which room they were beneath by a few floors, and yet they still poured their leftover liquor and lit the match.

Almost a vivid daydream of the night would replay, but each time his face got less and less visible. Heart too pained to see him, mind trying to block his existence to protect the longing feelings of needing him; you stopped questioning why he was fading many months ago. He had left himself before they even removed him from the building, the last you saw was his corpse.

But that night—he had been so quiet, allowing you to sleep as he strummed his guitar gently. The scuffling below went unheard by the loud drops of rain against the windowsill, night air flowing into the room ever so slowly. Oxygen, it only made the flames burn higher.

Clicks and tacks, laughter and screams, heat rising faster than he could wake you, and the scorching feeling of fire brushing your limbs as he pressed you out the door. He went back for the cat. The damn cat.

But that was Minho, thinking of others before himself. It didn't matter that so many bad things were happening around him so quickly. Even you knew what was playing on repeat in his head.

"Just get downstairs! Don't come back up for me, just go down." It was his voice calling over the smoke, eyes peering around the room for the fluffy cat that hid every time it rained or stormed. His charming voice so rampant through the halls, the same words replayed in your head even now like a record with a scratch on it.

When you hear the last words of someone you love, it is bone chilling. But watching their eyes go still and their soul leave their body. It's gratifyingly traumatic in every way possible. You regretted being so attentive.

The long counter filled with a new customer every few minutes; their voices were so loud. So much noise in such a small space, it was the rushing sound of another set of wheels pulling to a stop that halted all conversation.

"I know, bad cop." The lead detective of Minho's case always had a craving for a burger at this time of night, but you always passed him over a salad. "The days close in by every hour. I can't imagine you're very thrilled for what's to come."

His tone always came across as harsh, but the man truly meant well with what he asked. He had witnessed it all that night from the time you got down the last flight of steps and crashed into his arms from smoke insolation.

"There hasn't been a peaceful Halloween since I came to this town. Starting to think I'm the bad luck charm, here." You passed him the bowl and wrapped silverware, ignoring his upward glance of annoyance from the salad sat before him.

"Bad luck was here long before you were born. If anything, you helped livin’ up the place. Minho, too."

His name was enough to make everyone turn their heads. So cherished in such a mundane place to be, he had everyone's hearts from the beginning to the end. His music would shake the floors of where he performed, and his voice could calm anyone within a close enough radius to hear the song. He was loved.

"Yeah." You laughed gently with a smile, eyes staring at the marble countertop. "The year went by so fast."

"You know, he's still with us." A woman at a far booth claimed, everyone nodding. "His album plays at the bar every night. Pictures are posted along the walls in memory. This entire town is a living tribute to that man, darling. Don't you forget it."

You grew to find yourself lucky. Despite those so evil within the cracks of the town, everyone else's hospitality hugged you until you were back on your feet again. A warm blanket on a cold night, a place to stay, a hot meal; no one let you suffer alone. All because they were suffering right there with you.

"If these damn hooligans didn't go apeshit every year, maybe we'd have that peaceful holiday we all need this time. It's cold and raining every day like the world doesn't want them around, but they still get away with it." The detective was always hitting the nail on the head. Someone not afraid to mention when shit hit the fan, you assumed it was because he lived with this every day.

And cold rain—it was, the night peeling into the sleeves of your coat and chilling you to your core. No one dared to bother you any more, the walk home seemed more lonesome than living in an apartment by yourself. Long, cement paths carved with dents and chiseled with cracks guiding you home.

Moon almost full over your head, the distracting caw of the bird caused you to stop in place. Not once since the year before had you seen or even heard the sound of a crow. But one stood before you, hopping small jumps as to get your attention by clinging its feet to a metal fence.

The cemetery, all too dark and creepy to go into alone. Beak long and eyes big, the bird didn't seem to want you to keep moving in the direction you were headed as you took a step forward and it landed just before you. Head tilted, eyes watching, feathers twitching; you knew.

"You seem to be more mysterious than the beyond." You admitted to the creature, its head turning in tandem with your question like it was contemplating its response.

A single flip of its beak to point into the direction of the cemetery had every hair on your body standing and chills to pair with them. Shivering, shaking, but letting the bird lead; it lifted and went gliding its way towards a familiar path of the heavy space. Plate after plate, corner after corner, you finally found just what it wanted you to see. His name carved precisely, headstone in better shape than most, and the slight shift of the dirt making the scenery that much more creepy.

It rose, mud from the rain turning into dry dirt until an index finger poked out from beneath, soon turning into a full hand. The crow called a dark song, watched as the soul was replenished to him, and swayed side to side witnessing him crawl from the grave back into the world again.

Minho, in the flesh, lifted himself from the ground and stood not even two feet from you. Hair longer, circles beneath his eyes darker, limbs lankier, and chest heaving to catch his breath; he didn't even give you so much as a glance before he spoke.

"Mind giving me a hand, doll?"

two.

The force of the scene before you was enough to have your knees buckling. Dirt smeared onto his skin and stained into his clothes, your eyes blinked rapidly before they shut. “Just a dream. Just a dream.” You claimed, feet dragging you backwards onto the pavement. Heels spinning and nearly slipping from the rain coursing across the cement path, you made a rush back for the metal gate you entered before you knew the future.

The bird’s squawking call behind you made you leap through the gateway, make a dash for your apartment, and book it straight home. Invincibility, you knew Minho was more special than most; but never like this. He had an alluring appeal, a smile that could light up a room, and a heart of gold. But the man was never suspicious of being ethereal, capable of rising from the dead. How was that possible?

A brain is a powerful weapon, the organ so convincing that you nearly forgot you had seen him return. When you finally slipped into your apartment and peeled away the wet, dirty clothes things became clearer. The image of his detailed hand pressing through the dirt of the cemetery plot, his soft scented cologne hitting your nostrils, and his deep voice like silk to your ears. “Doll”, it was so clear. A nickname he referred to only you as, the word alone brought tears to brim your ducts.

He had claimed the nickname for you on the same night you met, his soft lips whispering it into your ear only to watch the bumps rise on your skin and throat sip down the alcohol of the drink he bought for you after his show. Minho was never one to flirt so carelessly, your “admirable aura” bringing him to ask if he could get to know you. So easy going, the man with deep eyes and a warm smile.

A hot shower and the soft, cold sheets pulling across your form was enough to break you. The many nights spent alone wondering if he was out there came in like a tidal wave. The wonders of if he was watching over you, waiting for you, still admiring you from afar. Where had he gone? Why was he gone? And if you would actually get to see him again some day. Your heart was with him, and his blemished return made you shake in fear.

A croak of a bird startled you upwards, the very same crow resting on the beam across the studio apartment. Condescending, like a hallucination, your knees pressed into the mattress as you sat up and stared up at the fowl.

“You’re a symbol of death in most beliefs. Transformation and change in others.” Your eyes blinked ever so slowly, tears dripping down your cheeks. “There’s only one of you. Is this my bad omen?”

“Does that mean if there are two, it is a good omen?” His voice was like honey, your eyes shifting from the bird to the man perched in the open windowsill with that same, cheeky smile on his face.

“You should know, you told me that.” Your smile was so faint. Only for a split second, but he saw it. “Why are you here?” Voice just above a whisper, you saw the flash in his eyes of his own tears fading away with quick blinks.

“Do I need a reason to come see you?”

“How many times have you seen me since you died?” The question had lingered in your mind for too long, his soft laugh breaking the quietness of the room.

A subtle sound came from the bird, its wings flapping up and down until it lifted from the beam and made its way towards Minho. “This is my first full vision, but I've heard your voice many times now.”

“Where did you even go?”

“I don’t quite know, either.” He admitted, eyes dropping to the floor as the small patter of the remaining raindrops slipped off his leather coat onto the hardwood flooring. “All I know is—”

You knew that look in his eyes. Agonizing, like you were the first light of the sun after years of clouds. “I’ve missed you.”

“This is too much.” Your form lifting from the bed so sporadically made him finally spin on the soles of his feet and allow himself to sit on the windowsill instead of crouch on it. His muscular legs showed even through his tight, ripped skinny jeans, stretching until he maneuvered away from the window all together and stood at the foot of your bed. “T-Too much.”

Anyone would go insane from this. In fact, most do. But to have a lover come crawling back from the dead just to get to you; it was, in fact, getting to you.

Pupils dilated, fingers running through your hair as you gripped at your own skull—you even pressed your back into the wall just to give distance between you and the man.

“What are you?” Your words were gritted through your teeth.

He was your center of all peace. Minho had arranged your life like a bouquet of flowers, giving you only your favorites and leaving out the rest. No matter what comes towards both of you, big or small, good or bad, you always manage to work things out equally. But here and now, he was something incomprehensible.

“I am here for a reason.”

“I asked who, not why.”

Temper small but words large, he only sighed. “Doll, I need to give you something.”

Hearing the name come from his mouth, one not imaged by your pitying brain, it was a trigger. Your voice was coated with coughs and hiccups, body folding into itself as your knees hit the hard floor. It was a matter of time before you understood he was truly back, but the feeling of his cold hand pressing into the back of your neck made your body rush with adrenaline.

His fingers toyed with the hair at the nape of your neck just as he always did. It was a relaxing habit he gained, an easy way to help you become at ease. But this time it was all but reposing.

The small object fell from his opposite hand, the fingertips releasing it on purpose. It fell just beside your folded leg, in just enough of your sight to be noticed yet ignored. Your hand reached for him involuntarily, like the pugnacity boiling in your veins was only a repressed emotion and not what you were feeling. He was there, someone you could really reach for this time.

But as your palm fell against the middle of his chest, realization hit you from the hollowness. No beating heart you loved to press your ear against him to hear, nothing entirely. Your eyes rose to meet his, the calm darkness in his irises subsiding into something much stranger. Sparkles of the living peering through the dead's eyes, he was there and not all in the same.

“I’ll see you again.”

A blink was all it took for the frame of the man you loved, lost, and had returned to you to vanish again. He wasn’t just a mirage or a memory, he was something far greater than anything imagined. Minho, the one you knew would change the world, was single handedly corrupting your own.

“I need to give you something.” His lips had parted like butter to spill the first drop of his natural healing magic to your sickened mind. The short memory of the object falling beside you returned, your eyes finding it before your hand. Your entire limb retracted, a hearty breath leaving your lungs from shock.

Something you never thought to see again, the black guitar pick he always kept in his pocket to use to play when he could or was asked to. No matter how often he lost it, it always found its way back to him. The small pattern on the plectrum, printed white to be seen, made your heart leap into your throat. Even when you couldn’t see fate, it had a funny way of foreshadowing what it holds.

“A crow.” You claimed, the man sitting across from the booth of the same diner you left just hours prior lifting his eyebrow. “He’s real!”

“Let me get this straight.” The detective always had to retrace his steps, even if it meant repeating what someone said. “A crow led you to Minho’s grave. Then he was resurrected from his grave. You ran home. Him and the crow showed up there. And he left you something?”

“Exactly.” The tears were still freshly stained on your face. From the other customers in the diner’s perspective, you were still the grieving partner of a lost but loved one. “He’s back.”

The man put his index and thumb on his temple faster than you had ever seen, applying pressure slowly to release the tension as a harder sigh left him. He had heard all the stories before, once he even recalled them all to you. But this one was ‘outlandish’, as he shortly claimed.

“Where has he even been if he rose from the ground?”

“He said he didn’t know when I asked. Just that he missed me.”

“Sounds like Minho.” His voice still sounded unconvinced.

“I have proof.” Your statement was brave, eyes blinking away the tears threatening to fall when the mental image of the item came back into view.

The icon on the small pick had faded from years and years of use, always pressed between Minho’s fingertips as he strummed away at any guitar handed to him. It was the true amulet that represented him, so much so that it had been placed into his pocket that very night of the fire for safe keeping.

So much so. “How did you get that?”

The detective’s eyes lit up like a lantern in the sky, cheeks reddening on his face as the number of his blood pressure spiked. Of all the things left behind, it was never one of them.

“He left it for me last night.”

“H-How?” The man was breathless. “It was buried with him. I watched it be placed in his right pocket by the coroner hours before he was laid to rest.”

“I told you, he’s back.”

It was a light at the end of a dark tunnel, but even the road below has bumps.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation.” His voice only got darker and deeper, the mind of a detective piecing together all of the clues much faster than you could. “Minho isn’t back just to return.”

“I know. He mentioned he’s back for a reason.”

“Sweetheart—” The man’s eyes were sympathetic, worried about what his next words would truly do to you. But before he could get them out, even let them sink into his own mind, his eyes diverged to the small tv over your head.

“He’s back for vengeance.”

“Breaking: Homicide committed, man found dead. With a link to last year's arson cases, could this be the karma the city has been praying for? Or is someone out for revenge?”

three.

The name of the man made your skin crawl, his death justifiable but still within the creep factor the world seemed to be building higher at this time of year. Like karma giving a greenlight while laughing, Minho’s name was displayed on the same news channel. He was forever linked to the fire and his gruesome death just as much as the men who set it.

Your head had swiveled around too soon, the detective’s face in your peripheral suddenly distressed. If Minho’s name wasn’t hard enough to see plastered on the screen, being played by every local news channel in the city—witnessing the crime scene photos taken of the arsonist's death was worse. Blurred images showed that he had been murdered in an alleyway, stabbed and butchered by his own knives. Karma was definitely laughing at the madness, but your gut knew the true matter at hand.

It had already begun.

“Minho.” His name was so deep under your breath that it came out as a gasp, an easy to see expression on your face distracting enough to make anyone believe you were only shocked by the death itself. The one who did it, the man you love, was red-handed without so much as a pin on his name and location. He was dead to everyone, although he roamed once more.

“What do you know?” The detective sipped on his second cup of coffee of the morning, sitting back into the booth now appearing as calm as ever. “I guess fate came knocking.”

It was a leap in your gut, what he said was too specific. Came knocking, just as Minho did hours prior to the arsonist’s death. Even if you asked or tried to read him enough, there was no way he could have been in two places at once to give a signal of his resurrection.

“About time someone did something.”

“Bet it was a corrupt cop who did the deed.”

“Or better yet, someone in line with their head on straight.”

The customer's words made your ears ring. It was true, the man had caused so much pain to the city. But a death like that was too horrid to be ignored. Minho knew what he was doing, setting a silent blaze that only attacked the attacker. Where does he lie within all this?

“I don’t like this.” Your words were still quiet, but enough to make the entire diner grow harsh. The looks of others made you want to race outside, their expressions questioning why you were so doubtful of the amendment being made. You were truly in the middle of this now, but no one had a clue. “When has death ever solved anything?”

“It's out of our hands.” The coffee in the mug had grown cold, but still sat between his large palms. “The news just read that they didn’t apprehend a suspect.”

“Which means another one of the men could die tonight.”

“So be it.”

Corruption began with those who ran rampant in the streets setting fires meant to only startle others. When they lead to deaths, corruption was what became of the police who wrote the scenes off as “kids being kids”. Those same police were the ones who allowed the trafficking of drugs, started fights, and single-handedly brought the whole city down with them. It started from the bottom and rose so fast to the top that authority was no longer the answer to the question of “what do we do?” anymore. The city rang with bells asking for procedural justice, and only one man answered.

“Whoever the killer is, I hope they know how many lives they’re saving.”

Eye for an eye. If only they remembered it was Minho who was taken, too.

Your hands shook too much during the shift to manage anything, everyone convinced the new death had you spooked. Eyes diverted, coughs covered your name, hands pointed in your direction; it didn’t end until the card was clicked and you were off the clock.

It’s imaginable that those getting served their own karma would make the air more breathable around you, but the darkness of the night only crept towards your senses like an awaited jump scare. The sidewalk wasn’t as welcoming. People lining the streets, they were already becoming less afraid to walk the night-life again. You were still an outcast in an attempt to not rebreak your heart, sight set on the ground until a small patch of sodding came into view.

Fake grass laid upon the ground to cover what was beneath, you found yourself outside the gate of the same cemetery you avoided at all costs. Every bit of your being wanted to pretend he was still inside, that Minho was at rest. But the caw of the familiar crow breaking through the harsh winds redacted all the less-worrisome thoughts filling your mind for comfort.

It had to be known that he was watching, the hair on your body never laid back down from the night before when his eyes caught full sight of you for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

“I should really put a cat collar on you. One with a little bell so I can hear you coming.”

“Wouldn’t that ruin the surprise?”

He stood tall, the exact same clothing he had been buried in—the same outfit he always wore on a really good night—tight on his frame. Minho pushed off from the leaning position on the gate from within the cemetery, long legs carrying him until he was a few feet in front of you. The subjective place was becoming more or less unnerved by his emergence, but as it stood around him, it appeared restless.

“Did you find it by your leg?” A flash of the night before made your breathing hitch, sight of the black pick with a symbol printed on it regaining your focus. He only blinked at you, awaiting your answer.

“Why did you leave it to me?”

“He wouldn’t have believed me any other way.”

The detective was headstrong, only accepting factual evidence. Your second-handed appeal seemed to shake him only for a moment, but you distinctively remembered his slip up of a sentence. Fate came knocking, it had a double meaning now.

“You did go and see him.” Your eyes were shocked, but your voice was allayed.

“For a brief moment.”

“Minho, this is too risky.” Riddled with a smirk on his lips, he peered past you from the use of the word risk. He seemed clean before you, empty handed—but part of you could still see the faint stains of blood in the lines of his hands if you stare long enough.

“Risk is what we need.” His words were tainted, yet you could still see the Minho you knew staring back at you. “Doll, if I had taken a risk before, I’d still be by your side.”

“But you are at my side. Now.”

“Not forever like I was meant to be.”

The pain in your chest was more agonizing than the frown growing on his face. It took so much for the man to lose his smile, and you hated seeing it fall more than anything else in the world.

“I can’t do anything you ask me to. I’ve already lost so much.” You were breaking, voice echoing in your own head much louder than it was coming from your mouth. “I already lost you once. Don’t make me lose you again.”

“That was what I was afraid of.” His shoulders grew wider as his head fell, eyes on the squared path beneath his heavy boots. “I guess—” He halted like he hated saying what was next, but to him—there was only one solution to the entire situation. “—you’ll just have to come with me the next time I go.”

four.

Blurred vision brought the grotesque scene of Minho placing his fist through a wooden door, bloodied hand twisting the doorknob and allowing him inside the small motel room over the local bar. The man in the corner shook with every fiber of his being, the nail gun in his hand appearing as a decent weapon.

Only until the nails shot from the gun into the skull and chest of Minho did your oxygen leave you, the blood rushing from the injuries enough to have your sleeping form hyperventilating. But Minho didn’t falter, moving in on the second arsonist without so much as a wince.

The dream was so realistic, Minho’s lengthy hair falling down from the sweated-out gel until it swung before his eyes. Animalistic, pupil’s dilated and irises darker than the sky around a dying star—you never wished to see this. Red blood poured down his face as he leaned in closer, face to face with the arsonist—but you were looking through his eyes. In the place of the man nearing his rightful death, Minho almost hypnotically removed the gun from his hand. It was aimed in direct proportion to the space between his, your, eyes until the forceful but imaginary pain rushed you from the pillow and mattress below.

Your breathing stuttered, hands feeling at your face to find no marks or blood spilling like it would have had it actually been you. White cat at your feet, it sensed your discomfort and fizzled its fluffy hair before curling back up into its sleep. Your gentle words towards it as an apology only made it let out a breath, the same leaving you at the sight of your own bedroom.

The dream was too real, too detailed, and awfully astute to have just been a dream.

It was the front page of the paper, displayed all over the city as you made your way to open the diner. Death by nail gun, the homicidal killer had struck again. As it had been up until now, everyone's perception was twisted and convinced it was all karma. Killed by his own nail gun, above the same bar he tortured, within the same room he lived in, and right beside the bed he slept in every other night. Like a perplexing poem, the town was enjoying every second of justice.

Then night came back. The screen had been pulled long ago, the open section of the diner now closed as the last hour of your shift came around. One in the morning was the calmest time in the city, all things scary or bad busy and the soft and good sound asleep in their homes. There were usually only one or two customers, the building quiet except for the faint sound of the juke-box playing along the far wall.

The book in your hands flashed, vision impaired from the brightest light above going in and out in blips. Your sight rose from the words on the page, but instead of looking directly up—you found the derelict man vertically right before your face. Legs bent and tight around the swinging lamp above, Minho swayed back and forth as his body hung opposite of you from the ceiling.

“Paying attention?” He asked, a handsome grin on his face with blindingly white teeth shining through his lips.

“I am now.”

An obvious patch of hair was missing from his thick mane, a small section only large enough to directly correspond to the mark of a nail. Your eyes followed it as his strong arms lifted him back up to the lamp, legs pulling from the metal and hanging as he continued to dangle himself from the light fixture that threatened to break from the wires any second.

“Good.” He smiled a smirk, swinging hard and dropping his feet to the floor on the other side of the counter, body falling into the same seat he always sat in.

It welcomed him more than anything else had yet. The chair still swiveled each time he moved, his feet upon the metal bar on the lower part of the counter’s wall barely cradling his long legs. Smile wide, eyes bright, Minho looked like himself for just a moment. Like he had never left.

“Lift up your shirt.” You couldn’t hide the curiosity in your voice, the man’s smirk only returning in a sensual way.

“Isn’t it against work rules to flirt with a customer, doll?”

“I need to check for something.” The words were demandive, Minho’s head shaking as he lifted the thin fabric of his black tank-top beneath his leather jacket.

“Need to see the nail mark to believe it?”

“What?” Your eyes shot from his skin to his eyes, the bright irises making you shiver.

He knew. He knew it all from the beginning.

“You saw what happened in your dream. When I got back home, you were shaking in your sleep like you were having a nightmare.” It was a matter of hours before you could fall back asleep, a hard struggle to even close your eyes again after the dream you had. It wasn’t a dream, but an insight to reality taking place a few blocks away.

He always called wherever you were home.

Just likie his skull where the nail had obviously penetrated deep enough to leave a mark and release blood, you had seen the second nail press into his skin in real time. Yet right before you, the man holding his top up to his chin to let you see the smooth skin of his tight chest, there was nothing there. No scars, marks, or blood—he was completely devoid of any remaining marks from the altercations at all.

It was a dream, then it wasn’t. The possibility of the universe was broadening in your mind, Minho’s soft voice calling you back to the world before you.

“I need you to do something for me now.”

His voice brought you back to that night before, his soft-spoken words telling you the only solution he had come up with that solves every issue and whatever follows accordingly. To leave with him, die with him once his vengeance is over. What are you meant to say to that?

“What is it?” You wanted to take back your words, all of them one by one. The regret of working within his ploy to get revenge made you feel sick, but Minho always had a way of reading you.

“It’s not that, baby.” He shined, even in the white light of the vacated diner. “Meet me tonight at our old apartment.”

Your gut twisted and turned at the idea of the place where all your belongings and the man you loved were forced to leave you. It had to be filled with “do not enter” signs and yellow tape marking the sections most dangerous. What was there to return to?

The dark rain washed over the city just as it did every night until Halloween. Nightly air sucking into your nostrils and filling your lungs, your senses flourished as your sight found the moving shadow above where you walked. Minho’s rushing form moved smoothly through the rain, not a slip or jolt. His arms swayed him back and forth on the satellite pole as it swung him across to another building, feet landing perfectly on the small ledge before he rushed across the brick roof towards the next. Leaping across chambers of story-long falls without so much as a heavy breath, the crow flew through the rain just as fluently above him. It was the sight of something uncanny, unhuman—and the more you seemed to see him, the less he looked like the man you knew.

five.

The golden ring on your left hand’s finger the next morning did everything but startle you. It was a simple habit of yours to come home from work early in the morning and take it off for a shower, and too easy to forget to put it back on before dozing off to sleep. But on a night just like that, you awoke with it on your finger—in the exact place Minho put it.

A promise ring with so many memories vibrating inside the reflective gold that your finger ran numb when you were reminded of them. It was a gift from the man who gave you his heart the first week you had known him, and a promise made to never leave your side.

A promise broken and reprised, a tale too painful to bear.

Hesitation brought you to turn on the TV, but you already knew what was to come. Another new story covering another homicide done by your dead lover, the case had everyone’s eyes on the screen every time a name read across in large letters.

The third arsonist was found dead, removed from his totaled car that had rushed into the river not too far off the direction Minho had been headed in that night. Shrieking arounds of breaks and the horn sounded in your ears like a memory you were reliving, your palms covering your ears not enough to null the noise. Another dream you had, but thankfully forgotten by that morning. A memory that wouldn’t part from you until death.

It hadn’t gotten too far into you, but it was reaching the limit. Death, reincarnation, murder, and visualizing images and sounds to go along with the trio-ed story. Minho was part of you, he had been since that first night he sat down beside you at the bar; but you becoming part of him was the dilemma. Everything he felt, you felt. What he heard, you heard. More now before you could realize, all this blood was on your hands, too.

Devil’s night. A night of chaos and blemishes that mark every town and heart in its path. Three of the men who had caused so much pain and misery to the city were now being buried six feet below it, and you could see it in everyone you passed as night fell again.

Excited, peaceful, and exhilarant. Children ran around in their costumes, adults already had bags of candy on their shoulders from early trick or treating. Most importantly, for once in the last ten years of the cities’ history, no fires had been lit and no irreplaceable lives had been taken.

It stood still no matter how lively the town was running. Burnt to a crisp and hardly structured, the apartment building that sweltered with heat greeted you. The double front doors squealed as you stepped inside, the cases of stairs creaked under your feet as you rose floor by floor, and the familiar sight of the slightly open door with candle-light peeking from inside made you weak at the knees.

Minho sat with his wrist bent over the edge of the vanity, the visual of your frame slowly pulling the door open and stepping inside a sight worth him seeing as a grin rose from his blank face. Happiness in his eyes as your face reflected back at you the more he moved in on you, the huge changes to your life seemed to simplify back to the past as his arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you into him.

“I can’t make it the exact same, but I put the candles where you liked them as best I could.”

“It looks wonderful.” You exclaimed, eyes peering around the room for long enough to see the thickly-laid pallet on the floor with only two large candles illuminating the space.

With so much going on around you, it was a facile moment to live. Minho’s arm draped heavily across your shoulder as the other held you against him, his eyes falling on the lips he hadn’t kissed in over a year. It was a slow-motion film scene witnessing him suck in his breath and lean down to push his lips into yours, and it was most refreshing to taste him on your tongue. His wet muscle lapped at your mouth before the arm at your waist squeezed the last of your breath from you, a break in the kiss making you remember how much you missed this even more.

Heated kisses before were lavishing, but the ones now were like medication you couldn’t live without. The parting of a year ago was so abrupt, the loss and loneliness giving you no room left in your heart to let anyone in. Minho had always catered to every wish you could have made, and gave you no expectations from how well matched you felt alongside him. But having him back in your hold with his throat releasing a moan as your fingers threaded through the long brown locks of his hair, it was home once more.

It was gratifying to have the man you loved in your arms. Colder than before but warming up with each piece of clothing lost until he cradled your naked form above the soft blankets of the pallet on the floor, Minho’s skin heated yours just as it always did when you made love.

His mouth could only leave yours for minutes at a time, small bites and sucks engraving your skin to burn and welp for the rest of the night. The passion and fire never left him, his legs holding yours apart to run his bare hands up and down your body. Tongue pressing hard licks to your most sensitive spaces, pants and moans releasing from you before the first release of the night would turn into many, and the man had you in his favorite position.

“How is it—” His breath was hot against the shell of your ear, words dripping thicker than your juices on his fingers. “—that you still manage to make me feel calm and jittery at the same moment in time?”

“I don’t know.” Your tongue was always tied when he asked you questions like this, but he knew how to receive an answer much greater than sentences could form.

“I’ll help you remember.” He grinned, face falling down deeper and deeper until your body swelled and released once more.

“And again.” The grin was a smirk when his hand was trailing across his own stomach and feeling at his cock, rubbing it slowly before pressing it into your lubricated walls. He had little control of himself, always, at this point, yet you felt him hold his breath and carry on with all his might. Thrusting, pulling himself out just to ram himself back in, his fingerprints left in your skin from where he had to hold onto you to keep himself sane. Minho knew just what to do every chance he had you, and he never disappointed.

With a kiss on your swollen lips and a broken sentence of his tired voice, your smile back at him verbally made his heart skip a beat in your ears before sleep took over. “And always.”

The pull of the blankets woke you from the light slumber, Minho’s form lifting from the bed with nothing but his boxers on. Lightly sweated skin glowing in the faint moonlight of the now clear sky, you watched his lanky limbs fall as he sat down at the vanity.

Candlelight making it difficult to see, the sleepiness of your eyes bringing more struggle, you still saw the foundation lift into his palm. Brush running through the makeup, he pressed it against his face until each pore was painted white. Line-less, he sighed before pulling at the plastic lid over the tip of the black pencil eyeliner, drawing along the white paint to create a hollowed black smile. Eyeliner around his eyes, the black strokes reshaping his facial structure completely being paired with the white paint across his skin completely reformed him.

Minho’s smile seemed more wicked than his eyes shining in the reflection of the mirror with an eerie glow to them. Bizarre, his index fingers pulling at the corners of his mouth to lift his lips into a smile and then a frown. From the looks of it, he didn’t appear to know himself in the mirror.

“Just a little longer.” He sighed once more, this time speaking under his breath. “One more, then peace again.”

“Together?” Your voice was louder than his, enough to get his attention. His palm cupped at the drying paint, removing it from the skin of his face to his hand in an instant. A loving look overlapping the strange glisten in his eyes, the moment he saw you he seemed to change back.

“Together, of course.”

six.

Dawn rose until lines of blue and purple meshed in the sky, your shoes scuffing the pavement as you stepped out onto the sidewalk of the city. Just as easily as you parted from Minho did you find the day moving faster, a bright sun evaporating all the rain until the sky began to turn dark again.

Sunset, the pink and red lights made the cemetery look more amicable than it had the last few days. The rails shined, rusted corners and sharp points of paint against your skin as you pressed inside the calm place. Directly in the middle of the city, it was the beacon of all things that came along and passed in their own time.

And just as it had been when you rushed away, the plot of dirt where Minho once laid still sat open. A hole big enough for the man to rise out vertically, the space was now tacked with a yellow flag. Under investigation, the curious city wasn’t new to grave robberies.

But him—the detective, authorities, news, and city-living community knew the story of the crow when they saw it.

When two souls are forced to part, in life or death, they are always brought back together. Righteousness only exists in truth, the lore of the crow standing equitable. In some pieces of the legend, the crow returns the soul to make things right. This case was accurate, Minho had returned not only for vengeance and peace, but to retrieve the love he lost, too.

The rose’s black petals you placed down seemed to welt at the touch of the mud alone, withering into a deep brown color and falling down into the hole in place of the body. Like the universe knew what it was missing, and wouldn’t take anything in its place. Your mind ran rampant with what was to come, the sudden scuffling sound within the cement walls of the deteriorating church too loud to let you think.

Staircase creating a soft echo as you made it up the tall inclination, the altercation only seemed to worsen. Punches thrown, blood spilled, and you only made it inside in time to find just who was head to head.

The final arsonist alive to see the last of his days was held tightly in a choke-hold, Minho’s strong arms not giving in to release him any time soon. No matter how much about Minho you knew, how much you loved him, or how much he loved you: the look in his eyes was created by pure horror and strife.

“Minho—” He had seen you the second you stepped into the church, walls lined with red and purple colors from the stained glass being illuminated by the sun setting outside. Even with his name on your tongue, the man didn’t stutter.

“This is right. Isn’t it?” Morally corrupt, physically here but mentally elsewhere—you could see it, he just wanted an escape. “H-How do we know he gets what he deserves past death?”

“You came back, didn’t you?”

“He could, too.”

“To help what? He has nothing to prove.” The arsonist's eyes were dark with purple marks and black lines, days of hiding from the world when his name and Minho’s were put back in the news getting to him. If the worst of the worst could fear death, Minho embracing it and doing good meant he was much more of a better soul than most others could be. “You left me, and the entire world, with a gaping hole. It was like the one helping you pass on knew it wasn’t right to let you go like that.” The crow perched on the wooden, decayed benches of the church hardly hopped or squawked in response, only twisting its head between you and Minho.

“But where does he go?” Your lover still couldn’t truly remember where he had gone. “H-Hell. I hope.” Eyes wild, body sweating, Minho was on his last limb and already pulling the gun from the middle of his back. The ring of the bullet sounded for miles, going clean through the arsonist’s skull.

Your body couldn’t react fast enough, the gurgling of the man falling to the floor as the life left his eyes bringing you to vibrate and lose your balance. Silence filled into the church, Minho’s heavy pants the only distinctive noise you could make out in the space.

No rain, no fires, people way off in the distance enjoying the holiday for the first time in years, and you—trying to race to catch Minho’s falling figure. The bullet had taken two lives instead of one, the crow that gifted your lover a second chance creating a babbling call and falling onto the soft velvet cushion of the seat. In a matter of seconds it was dead along with the arsonist. Each and every one of Minho’s injuries returned to his body in the order that he received them. Marks, slices from knives, nail holes from the gun, and glass fragments left from the accident of the car: they were only killing him faster.

So much pain, loss, and desensitization only meant one answer—peace. The air was breathable, the moon shined brighter outside the open doors, and Minho’s soft hiccups of air against you brought you to realize the trail of fate was in your linings.

Things were no longer dark, now healing and regrowing. The only thing left to leave was Minho.

The hefty breaths of the detective pulled your sight from your lover’s eyes, watching the man’s gun held tight in his hold lower and fall to the ground out of shock. Tall, broad, and never casually caught off guard—his reaction gave recognition to how bad this looked.

He was heavy in your arms, torso falling lightly onto the concrete as the rest followed. His eyes could only watch the stained glass in the walls, lids falling heavy as he neared death a second time.

His calmness exhibited his plan all along to you visually, the sob hidden by your quivering lips as you raised the gas canister and began to pour it over you and Minho.

“Does it really have to be like this?” Questioned the detective, but your motions were too sure to be denied.

“I want it.” You cried, hot tears pouring down your face as the sight of the church around you blurred. “I want to go with him.”

The remaining strength in Minho was enough for him to lift his arm and take your hand, the lit match in your hold shaking with your breath.

“Then don’t do this alone.” The second match was lit by the detective, his hand shaking less and less as his arm extended out enough to toss it safely in a moment's time. “I can handle forensics. You get to where you’re going.”

The match in your hand with a burning flame, and the guitar pick in Minho’s with the crow printed on it. Nothing could have settled the much-needed serenity more than the last purposely-lit fire getting set in the city.

“I think it’s time to let fate for us end.” Minho winced, smiling an idiotic smile at the idea that he’ll have you with him forever.

The matches fell, the place burned, and even the crow on the guitar pick went along with it.

© copyright bearseungmin 2021, all rights are reserved. do not modify, repost, or translate without my permission. please.

[bearseungmin]

always ask, never wish.

You had noticed it: the change in energy, his lingering eyes, sharp tongue and deep voice. Felix, your happy-go-lucky college roommate who never failed to shine a smile at anyone, was never like that before. The summer had changed him, Felix was no longer with you. And now you have to survive an entire semester with whatever he has become.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 5k ] PAIRING — void! felix x gender-neutral! reader GENRES — nogitsune! au, college! au, psychological thriller, romance, supernatural, horror, angst, smut, slight slow burn WARNINGS — mature content & suggestive content, possession, nightmares, mentions of insomnia, insects (fireflies), physical altercations, blood + injuries, drowning, virginity loss, & dimension shifting do not interact with this if under 18. this fic is based off the tv series ‘Teen Wolf’ (season 3)!!! part of my strange devotion halloween skz collab!!!

[taglist]: @sleepylixie @dom--minnie @aliceu @lixesque @jaerisdiction @fairygirl18​ @doie-sun

prologue.

It was trial and tribulation. Shadows held the scariest things: beings, creatures, whatever considered most frightening. The temptation of the darkness had surpassed him so many times.

But it was the blood-curdling voice echoing from those very shadows, the name whispered that had him halting in place, and the deal to be dealt that led him to decide his own fate.

The summer had swallowed him, melting heat bringing sweat to his skin. Hair matted down to his scalp, eyes shifting along the patterns made by the moonlight above, he had no moves to play here.

"What do I have to do?" The question didn't bring chills to his quickly cooling skin, but the answer did.

"Lend me a hand." Claiming voice, chattering teeth, and a now stone cold room to accommodate the situation. "Lend me a limb. Lend me your brain."

His breath caught in his throat, a sorrowed look in his eyes.

"Lend me your shadow."

one.

The familiar sound of door hinges squeaking brought your eyes to clench shut. "Glad some things didn't change." Your whispered voice laughed, eyes engulfing the comfortingly small kitchen as you entered into the dorm.

Nearly four months of freedom diminished, the school year lapped back into your daily schedule. Studying for exams was horrid, and the college curriculum was overbearing. Majors and minors caging you inside to learn everything you can only to forget it all the moment the test was at your fingers. Late nights reading through outdated books, taking notes with ink pens that either ran out or bled across the page every other time you wrote with them, snacking on foods and humming to the tune of the faint music playing from your small speaker until a gentle laugh pulled your attention away from it all. Oh, did you miss Felix's laugh.

Your roommate had easily turned into the best part of your college years. Felix, the guy with a big, dumb, and stupidly large smile on his face over any little thing, had been by your side for three years now. With the final year before you, you had only one, true hope. Never to lose someone like him.

But the comfort of the shared dorm eased away with each step. Single bag over your shoulder, the important part of your entrance was missing from the living room. Even the dent left from where he always sat on the sofa was cold, your hand leaving the fabric as you walked by it.

You wanted to shake it off, pretend the air wasn't thick. The blank walls freshly repainted made the dorm feel smaller as you walked down the hallway, closing in on you so tight that the sight of his back facing you was startling.

"Felix!" He stood still, back hunched over one of your tall cardboard boxes brought up by staff earlier that morning. He didn't falter at your voice. He didn't even turn around.

"I was wondering when you'd come in. I thought we agreed to return by this morning so we could order lunch and eat while we unpack?"

His eyes met your form in the mirror of your vanity, the simple piece of furniture giving him full sight of where you stood in the doorway. To you, you stared at him. But to him, he seemed to only stare at his reflection.

The corner of his mouth twinged at your silence, his index and middle fingers holding a single polaroid picture between them. "Freshman year at the fair. I remember this." He smiled with his words, eyes growing soft at the younger version of you. "You were so cold that night so I gave you my jacket. And you never gave it back."

His eyes only shifted back to the mirror for a second, your awkwardly standing body moving in on him at a slow pace. Laughter bubbled in your chest the moment you looked at the picture close up. The air around your best friend was almost as chilly now as it was that night.

"I wanted a relic for that night. It was one of those moments where you realize-- in time, you won't get to live through something like that again."

"So, you resorted to stealing." The grin on his face was as wholesome as it was stirring, the rapid beat of your heart heard easily in your ears. "Hmph—"

"My excuse is solid." You chuckled.

Back falling down flat onto your unmade bed, the mattress was just as soft as you remembered. Felix's irises were softer as they floated over you, blinking slowly. Now tilted over your form, the man wore a glistening shine on his face similar to when you're sick and attempting to break a fever.

You had seen the look before. The never-ending puppy eyes he gave you on the daily, only they grew colder the longer he stared at you. Almost uncomfortable at the stern glare, your body twisted and sight fell down to his clavicle.

"Did you get hurt?"

Even he had ignored the strange purple and red marks flaring beneath his skin until now. Felix's fingers rose to the blemish, the vein-shaped lines making his eyes blink to a close.

"Ahh, this." He mumbled, sighing. "I think I got a rash or something from walking through the woods back home. Some old friends and I caught up and went searching for our hangout. All we found was wooden planks and darkness hidden in the moonlight."

"Sounds like the outdoors nearly a decade later." You shook your head, memories of your own childhood floating back but dismissing at Felix's silence. His stare was almost overbearing, eyelids appearing heavy with dark circles surrounding the bottom of them. He looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep.

"Still getting nightmares?"

You knew him as well as anyone could over the duration of three years, but the long nights of comforting him only rolled back into your mind now. The beady sweat gliding down his skin, his fingers prying at his covers as he screamed out disoriented claims. Waking him from the absent sleep was the hard part, but watching him become conscious from within the terror of what he saw was somehow worse.

"They weren't as bad when you slept beside me." Head hanging, your fingers ran through his soft, blonde hair. The affection was normally enough to make him shiver, yet he only sat still.

"I'm right here again, Felix. You have me for an entire semester, and then wherever the world takes us when we graduate. I'm not going anywhere."

"What if aliens reigned down upon us and tried to only take you from our Earth?" This was the Felix you knew; the one who made strange jokes that hit your funny bone harder than anyone else could.

"They'd have to pry you from my cold, dead hands." You laughed.

His laughter was deep, eyes darkening as his head sunk back down and lips went flat. "That could be arranged."

It was impossible to pretend that Felix wasn't different.

two.

His body thrashed within the nightmare, limbs moving in different directions as if he could stop the impact, keep away from  whatever was trying to get to him. Cries and whimpers fell from his mouth, Felix fighting his own mind like he never had control of it in the first place. The shortest breaths surrounded his shallow words, a faint whisper moving through the air. “Please, make it stop. I wish that it would just stop.”

It had gone on for months, your reassuring voice always pulling him from the depths of his nightmares right at the time you pulled him into your arms. Routine, more like it.

He consumed your every thought and worry. Watching purple shadows form under his eyes took something from you, but witnessing him losing himself destroyed you both.

You never complained, but you feared for him. Each night you'd lose him to sleep, feel his skin run hotter than the sun until he broke with a sweat, feel his limbs hit against you as he fought nothing in reality: all for as long as it took the sky to turn black to purple, then blue.

There was even a time where his nightmares abated his grip on reality. Such as with severe insomnia, the two meshed. His nightmares were twisted tales of daily life according to what he would recall when he woke and tried to remember. Sometimes he'd have to ask if he was awake—if you could see him—multiple times before he would leave the bed.

Insanity, a lesser-known term for the situation. He had long hit a bend in his normality, turning himself on and off. He couldn't fall asleep, and he couldn't stay asleep. When he did the nightmares flooded in continuously until he was awake again. It was like an inception.

But that night, the one filled with too many soft touches, gentle kisses, deep groans and hallowed moans only to end in a sweet, double release, it lifted it from him. The nightmares vanished, he slept soundly, and you stayed too close.

"What's on your mind?" The honking traffic out on the road was nothing like his voice that could slice through any thought in your brain keeping you from him. He knew you too well to ignore when you zoned out. But as your eyes matched his face, the smile he always wore was merely faded all the way away.

"Thinking of old times and wishes." You smiled, the warm drink in your hands keeping you from shivering all over again as your eyes met. Still Felix, he just seemed distant.

"They aren't true." He asked, a painted smile reforming on his mouth. "It's easier these days to act it out in reality than to wish and hope. Less time consuming."

Laziness, he stayed glued to an easier way until truly challenged.

The dim walk back to the dorm was just as it had always been in September. Cloudy sky, bright moon, chilly air, warm drink, and Felix at your side. He usually tripped over his own shoe laces, regretting not re-tying them before leaving the campus' coffee shop. Right under the same lamp, like clockwork. No matter when, how often, or how scarce. But he didn't trip; in fact, his laces were tied and tucked into the lip of his shoes.

"If you keep looking down—" Hoarse and crooked, his voice breaking while catching you staring at the apparel below. "—you'll trip."

"Right." He is here, but not himself. How can one person change so much over the summer?

But the one charming piece that never changed in yearly-life was the last of the fireflies still around in the night air. Hovering around trees or in bushes, only slightly swaying towards those who walked by them or attempted to catch them. Their lights were so bright, yellow-green glowing like headlights as they gathered closer and closer.

"That's odd." Your whisper went unheard, the insects flying around Felix as if he were a beacon.

It was only in their light that you took in your best friend for what he was. An opposing expression as he glanced around, finding each and every one in a confused way. They glistened enough to show you the growing darkness in his veins, how his arteries seemed to thump with his heart beat, the whites of his eyes being paired with a white filter over his pupils, and the creepy smirk growing on his lips.

"See something?" His voice was so innocent. Like running your hands through flower petals, Felix's cherishable voice sounded normal for a split second. "Because you're looking real hard." But there it was again, the grained chord in his voice that wasn't there before.

The whites of his eyes were yellowed, a theme of sickness clearly wreaking havoc on his form. His skin still held the paleness of a fever, warm to the couch but dichotomized with many bumps from visual chills. Felix only got sick once a year from allergies, this appearance made no sense before the well-lit bugs illuminated him.

Tender flesh and body tainted with something more sinister than the naked eye could see. The fireflies only showed you what your gut already knew.

"I'm looking for you."

"Well." His teeth didn't chatter with the wind, but his eyes grew larger. "Here I am."

three.

It was the bear trap around your ankle that caught his breath. Cold air seeped in through the small building, wooden planks fallen and decayed from the elapsed time causing anything to make its way in.

But Felix stood disoriented, just as he always did in his dreams. "They're only forms of my imagination." He'd speak to calm himself, but sometimes his breathing would only speed up to that of a panic attack.

Everything in its place, the blood seeping from your skin as if reality was right before him. The scent of metal in the air from your blood-loss, the short whimpers from between your lips, and your eyes falling on his stone-cold form.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The question in his direction daunted him. Never once, not even for a moment during the three years, had any of his nightmares starred you. Dark tales and twists, things seen and heard that would give anyone the heebie jeebies. Even his imagination knew to keep you from such danger.

Yet, here you are—in the flesh.

So much had been removed from his mind by it, including the promise you made to visit him at his hometown that first summer during your yearly travels. It had his tongue, let it lap the words, and pulled you right into him. But why did it wait?

"Let go." A command came from Felix, the one thought to be in control. His limbs only ran cold at the laughing hum in his ears. "Let. Go."

"At what price?" The voice was sinister, one you'd hear as a voice-over in a horror movie. Aura dark in the looming place, the sound was the creepiest of all. "You only see what you want to see."

"Why would I wish to see this?" Felix asked in a stern voice, but the faded marks around your form only made him grow hush.

"Your mind is sick, Felix. Tainted and twisted, all on your own." Its cackle was like a gunshot, Felix's frame held still on a chair not far from the figure itself. Old, face concealed by gauze that had long been stained by time. Even its walk was other-worldly, a wobble from side to side as if it was injured. "You must let it be released, or it will eat you alive."

"Everything you're saying is a lie."

"Oh, but I don't bargain such tactics freely. Those that walk amongst you have seen you change. And they're worried—worried about you, Felix."

His hands tried to swing upwards to his head, cover his ears with his palms and keep the rogue creature from his senses. But his wrists were bound down to the leather seat, the chair becoming a cage. He had only been seeing what it wanted him to see.

"Why are you doing this?" He growled, teeth clamped like a rabid dog at the sight of you wounded and in need of help.

"Always ask, never wish." The creature hummed like a metaphor only it understood.

Felix's limbs jolted, the steel binds now unlocked from the seat. He felt his limbs bring him to stand, but felt the thump of his heart warning him of what was to come.

"There are so few things that require companionship. But you humans are the exact example of weakness." It lifted foot from foot, waltzing slowly towards Felix. "Lovers, friends, family: you'd die without them. Those you care most about—the one you see now—what could you do without the existence of someone so important?"

"You can't do any real harm." Almost on impact, your cry met the sound of his ears. Top teeth sinking into his bottom lip to keep him from screaming at the sight alone, Felix's weak legs shook until his form hit the uneven flooring.

"Stop! Why!—" His cries were most painful, but the pain had yet to begin. "—Why are you doing this?"

"Same question, different context. If you have to ask, your gut already knows the answer. Why don't you try—" If it had any real teeth to show, Felix would see its wicked smile. "—saving a life?"

"What do you want from me?!"

The ceramic bath only came into frame for him now, his peripheral hiding such a standoffish piece in the heavy room. Water flooded in, ice topping it off, and it was now cold to the touch.

"If you get in, allow your body to fall into a silent slumber—you can wish to find the one you love in time before death comes knocking."

Felix shivered at the sight of the bath. Tears brimmed his eyes as his flat hand sunk in for an idea of what he'd feel as he got all the way in, but the pleading sound of your cries were too much to bear. Wherever you were, wherever it put you—he had to find you.

His body sank in slowly, every limb running numb from the paralyzing temperature. He wanted to scream, but his body could make no sound. Each nerve in his warm body ran still, the blood in his veins moving at the slowest pace possible to preserve his life. Like he was contributing himself to science, becoming a test subject—the life drained from him until little remained.

Pale form floating in the bathtub in the middle of the place he once considered happy, where he shared kind times with acquaintances, where he wanted to share time with you—he only laid still.

"Always ask." It repeated in his ears only. Black filled his veins, laughter filled his mind. He let it in to save you, but you were never really there. "Never wish."

four.

It all made sense. His weird, continuous vibe of being himself and not at the same time. Felix was too bright to be so dim like this, how did you not notice right off the bat?

Weeks were passing like days, the leaves of fall changing from bright colors to the browns of deadened plants. The grass had withered into itself more and more every time you stepped out of the dorm, a tactic to keep a distance from Felix.

In normality, the man would have found his way around your odd tangent. He wouldn't keep his eyes locked in on you as you walked past him, he'd chase you down and wrap you in a hug while asking about your day. He wouldn't bring home dinner for one, but two. And he most certainly wouldn't be sleeping so peacefully.

Back straight on his mattress as you peered into his room, he looked like a corpse lying within a coffin. His skin was a milky-white, thin enough that you could see the dark veins controlling him. His eye lids were shut, relaxed and not the tightness of Felix fighting himself to rest as usual.

"I've been wondering when you'd check up on me." His groggy voice was even deeper than the bass-y tone it normally was. A single eyelid rose, his black iris found you where you stood, and a shiver went directly down your spine.

"I-I thought you were sleeping." You choked out the words like you had something caught in your throat, fingers latching around the edge of the door-frame for your own comfort.

"How could I sleep on a night like this?"

His question daunted you, face attempting to conceal what he meant but ultimately shining an unhinged smirk in the process.

A pitch black November night, the sky filled with nimbus clouds that threatened snow at any second. Peering out his window from where you stood, it was too easy to recognize the almost identical scene.

"You know what I mean?" His sentence ended in a high-pitched tone, your face distorted with the memory you had completely pushed out due to Felix's current state. "It's not every night that two virgins lose themselves to one another."

It was taken from a love novel, the laced fingers while your hands held tightly together and your bodies rocked against one another in unison. You had known Felix was special, a ‘first real love’ situation. But that night solidified something far greater than you imagined it could.

"Y-You remember."

"Of course."

It was the first memory he spoke of off the top of his head, not from the sight of evidence such as the polaroid picture of the day at the fair.

You wanted the uneven breathing of his heavy panting in your ears to be forever recorded in your brain. The way he shivered each time your fingertips ran across his skin or your hand clamped on his shoulder for support as you both rushed to your own climax. Too easy, the sweet release of those in love without stating it.

"You gave yourself to me." Felix claimed sitting up from his lying position.

Palms digging into the mattress as his arms propped him up, it was the obvious gleam in his eye. The way his tongue swirled through his plump lips before rushing over the dryness of them, leering you to finally make a decision.

"I gave myself to Felix."

He only scoffed, head turning to the side to stare at the blank wall parallel to his skinny bed.

You knew, he knew, it knew.

"Who was running from me." His eyes only turned colder, the figure showing itself within your best friend like a distorted reflection in the mirror.

Felix's dyed blonde roots had become overgrown, now exchanged for his natural black hair. Small patches of the yellow color still dried and brittle at the middle of the length, it was a direct visual to how whatever was inside of him was taking over.

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?" His soft-toned voice like Felix's was so condescending that your fingers curled into your palm and created fists at your sides.

"Why Felix?"

"Pure then tainted. He was a lost cause the second your lips landed on his."

In every horror story, the virgins losing themselves is what gets them killed. It was figurative until it was reality.

"You gave yourself to him, me." It smiled outside of him, but you could still see Felix's eyes watering with tears from within. "So easily."

"Why are you doing this?"

"You took his place once. Would you do it again?"

"What do you mean?"

For a split second, everything had changed. Felix had a door opened by you that night, one that allowed in any and all that needed a place to stay. You gave yourself to him, but he gave himself to the world. And that caused someone to come knocking.

His nightmares only stopped after that. Originally haunting and tolling every second of each day, it was really you who had corrupted him until he was lost.

The pain of seeing him go through that, and now living inside of it. It was so much to bear.

"Is there anything I can do?" Your chest swelled from the words spilling past your lips. No matter how much you loved Felix, you feared this creature’s power much more.

"What is the cost of a loved-one?" It asked, voice narrowed and eyes on your form like it could see right through you. "Love is an abstract way of coping with your human life. It leads you down many paths, brings you to meet many different kinds of people. But where does it end?"

"Sorry?"

"How often do you forget things?"

"More often than I believe I do."

"So, how easy would it be for Felix to forget you?"

The question had never come up. Not for the three long years you had been his roommate, not for the two unveiling years you realized you were falling in love with him, and definitely not now when he was no longer before you.

The answer was easier than it should be.

"He won't."

"Would you wish to save him, even if you had to take his place?"

"Of course."

The two words were so simply executed, like a reflex. Felix had become someone you couldn't be without, but this torture—this never-ending torture—was far higher on the priority scale.

"He's my soulmate." You admitted, watching the creature twist and turn with little comfort. Almost appalled by your response. "What do I have to do?"

"Let me in."

In all things evil and tainted, you were upon one of the worst. It didn't take a bright mind to see the trickster and its ways. But it did to see the true exchange being made, and you were blind-sided.

"You already are."

epilogue.

All things are trivial. If human-like senses are the extent of survival, then when do other things become involved such as pain, heartbreak, emotions, starvation, and the gut feeling where your stomach twists?

The pain set in, your world shifting in an instant. Light sounds of a post rainstorm patting against the wooden planks through the open ceiling. Bright, blue moon right above to light your surroundings. And the clamped bear trap on your ankle.

A screech never subsides or explains just how terrible the pain is. Tears breaking from your eyes, mouth agape from the shreeks you released, and the demented creature's final stage running steady.

The metal was sharper than anything possible as your fingers tugged at the clamped trap. Squeals of its hinges, but no movement. A chain mounted to the ground brought a lack of motions you could make to reach for anything to help break yourself loose.

Replacement, it had brought you to where it all began.

This was the first summer shared with Felix outside of school, his hometown welcoming. The large tree in the middle of the same forest had thousands of fireflies to light up the sky as you walked hand-in-hand towards the run-down building he used to spend time in as a kid. Everything was meant to be, fated and scheduled.

Your hands clasped around your bleeding ankle, the skin broken and releasing blood faster than you could reach for the bottom. A thin tray beneath the clamp, the trap had to have a latch to release it. Your fingers fiddled, hope still on your mind, and found the small release. Weight lifted off, body stumbling to stand, your eyes locked on something you felt you hadn't seen in a lifetime.

Porcelain bath broken and leaking the ice water from a small crack, Felix's body floated with a state of rest you had never seen on the man.

No black veins, no black roots, and no wicked smile. You had found him as he was before, your body limping to the bath and pulling him above the water.

You hissed at the cold temperature of the bath water, using all the strength you had left to tug him over the side and down onto the deadened grass beneath the old, wooden floorboards of what once was a run-down cabin.

Thumb and index finger pinching his nose, deep breaths into his mouth filling his lungs, and pressure applied to his chest to restart his same heart that fought so diligently to survive and be with you again.

"F-Felix!" The warmest feeling wasn't finding him, it was the hot tears streaming down his cheeks onto your hand as he awoke from his never-ending sleep. "Felix." A relieved sigh broke from your chest and through your nose.

His words were shaken, mumbled and quick. But they were his, for once they were his. "I f-found you."

You were never far from Felix. And he was never far from you.

"You're okay—" First a whisper, then a reassuring statement. "You're okay."

Felix's long, blonde hair dripped the remaining cold water onto the skin of your shoulder, summer air floating into the open space like a deep breath. His eyes found yours, bright and alive like always.

"All I did—" Hefty breaths between syllables, no physical affection or words could comfort him from what he had been through. "—was wish for it all to stop. That was all. How did this happen?"

"It was in your shadow for a long time, Felix." Crying together with him was more relieving than all the time spent at his side. "It had you longer than I even knew it did. I won't let it come back."

Your voice rang in his ears, eyes blinking for only a moment. In a world less tangible, less understood, the crossing paths of what's alive and what's taken was fading.

The coldness crept up your back like a cold hand, an itch-you-can't-scratch feeling filling your veins. It was waiting for you.

"Do me a favor?"

Replacement. In your world, you were inside that deteriorated cabin holding up Felix with the last of your strength while staring into his eyes.

In his, he was only sitting in his pitch black room. Alone, the memory of you fading until even your voice was unknown to him.

"What's that?"

The fresh feeling of meeting him that first day, someone who stands out in a crowd and shines on his own. He was a beacon before you even knew they existed. With all evil removed from him, he was just your best friend again. The same friend who took you to the fair. The first man you ever made love to. The first person you claimed fate brought you to. Felix was himself again, but he'd never remember you existed.

The voice leaving your vocal chords was now darker—it was no longer yours. Felix's eyes opened from the deep tone alone, the last flash of your face in his memory leaving him.

"Never make another wish."

© copyright bearseungmin 2021, all rights are reserved. do not modify, repost, or translate without my permission. please.

[bearseungmin]

exploiting.

In a lifestyle where everyone works for a fancy car, big penthouse, and enough employees around you to keep you taken care of, you're stuck in the latter. Deep within working as one of the largest corporation owner's secretary and his part-time proxy, Minho is less chat and more 'get-it-done'. But when his lesser known objective becomes your new-found power due to your second job requiring you to balance the lone wolf of the industry, Seungmin - also known as Minho's original business partner - as another boss, things grow heated. Two faceless men claiming you as their gem, work from nine to five becomes your own, personal inferno.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 9.7k ] PAIRING — boss! minho x proxy! secretary! gender-neutral! reader x boss! seungmin GENRES — love-triangle! au, romance, angst, smut WARNINGS — mature content, mutual pining, controlling tendencies, manipulation, affairs, references to a shot (medical), retaliation SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, power exchange, dom/sub tones, exhibitionism, biting/marking/hickies, heated make outs, voyeurism, unprotected intercourse, threesome, doggy-style, creampie, early orgasms, boss! kink A/N — this entire fic is a mess. it has so many time-skips, foreshadowing, and all that jazz in it that it wouldn’t surprise me if you have to read it multiple times to catch everything. it’s also roughly edited. either way, i hope you enjoy it! threesome smut scene is in the epilogue! do not interact with this if under 18.

taglist: @jaerisdiction @linours @qtieskz​

prologue.

Hair neatly placed, silk tie done perfectly, hands clasped at his waist as the sole of his shoe swayed him back and forth in the office chair behind the obnoxiously large desk, Lee Minho has a scheme in his mind. Locked away, so far in that you could see the glistening sparkle in his eyes but not see the telling sign he usually gave away on his face when he was up to something; you wanted him to speak more than you wanted him to tell.

“You know I never ask for anything from you that’s more than I know you can handle.” Voice deep like an echo in a dark cave, Minho’s smooth lips moved with his words. “But this task is a little more-” Stopping to pause, his eyes shifted left—an indication that whatever was about to leave his mouth is far more barring than what you had anticipated. Considering his casual talk just this morning, all of this seemed to be a normal meeting. “-unravelling to me. It’s essentially a risk, something that may or may not tie loose ends for me and my life.”

Your mind stopped his words in place as if time halted all together. Sitting before the man, who usually subjected you to being below him - a boss's control and normal habits despite his gentleman ways - he finally hinted something personal. Words from his lips were always only casual instructions, common office talk, and sometimes genuine concern for the dark circles forming under your eyes from lack of sleep. But never something that could give him away.

The thing about this world—a career, a boss, a coworker, a home, a lifestyle: they’re all just evanescent. Fleeting glimpses that can be taken from you by a single printed and signed page stating you’re being let go. Minho declared you his secretary for two reasons: you’re reliable and sturdy, and you keep your mouth shut no matter what is heard or seen. But here you sat dumbfounded that he was pulling you into a situation considered personal.

One note about Minho, he hardly talks about himself.

“Sir, you know I trust that you wouldn’t overwhelm me.” Voice smooth and calm, he knew you had to fight your teeth from chattering and hands from shaking due to the nervousness in your body. You were always the same around him, collected but on edge as if he’d fire you on the spot for having a brief moment of human nature.

“Hey.” His dark eyes were like pools of honey from the sunset gleaming into the open windows of the office building, floors up from life and inside his lonely office away from all other staff and coworkers. “Be frank with me here. If this is already getting to you.” “I can handle it.” Sturdy, the reliable attitude you held since day one broke past your shaking lips. “Think I can’t?”

His left brow rose in tandem with his arched form floating back into his chair, continuing the spin on the sole of his shoe as he stared you down like a mosaic painting. Minho, a charismatic man with enough going on in his head to make anyone lose their marbles, smirked like he had strings connected to his fingers that he could use to lift and move your limbs for you. A puppet master, he had long had you connected to him.

“I must request that you go meet someone for me. You won’t meet him officially, but the business will still be dealt through them to him.” He sat forward again, angling and sliding a single manilla folder across his wooden desk before you. “The contents are confidential as always, so don’t go snooping.”

As if you would, he knew the words leaving his mouth were just a broken record to you by now.

“A proxy.” You stated, his smirk only growing into a grin.

“Clever as always.” Whispered, this side of Minho was more telling than any other. He whispered words to you instead of keeping them in his head, only doing this when it is you and he alone in a sealed room. He showed emotions, pretended his status doesn’t inflate his ego as much as it does, and even showed you gratitude.

“You know I trust you with my life.”

“As I do mine with you, Sir.” The sound of the last word sent a visible shutter up and down his body, all seen by your eyes as his freshly dry-cleaned, white shirt crinkled with his sudden movements.

“Then it’s official. You’re on my side for this.” He nodded, reclasping his hands together as his palms clapped a single mantra. “And I expect you to do the same as always.”

Not the first time around, nor the second: you had been between Minho and other companies for the duration of the service you held with the man. Position meant to be singular upon your application stating the job description, you had wriggled your way into a higher placement so simply. Higher than his own coworkers, he held more respect for you than almost everyone else. And even more: you as a person.

“You’ll keep yourself out of danger. Remember what I’ve always told you, and get out of there and come back to me if anything seems off.”

“Keep myself level-headed, I remember.”

Minho told you it all before he sent you out to the wolves. Those he sends you to as a proxy could steal you from him with a single glimpse, rudely or casually maneuver you into working for them. Trick you into giving him up, take you for their own, or use you to get to him. A continuous circle of danger, all for the man to give you the power to hold your head up high and know they can truly do no damage. Minho wouldn’t allow it.

“I take it, this is going to be messy no matter how we handle it?” Your voice caught his ears as he nodded, blinking slowly before keeping his eyes gazing into your own.

“Either way, darling.” He was the only man you ever let call you pet names. “You’ll learn to trust him as much as I did.”

one.

The bell of the elevator startled you, a sound so fancy that your shoes hardly kept their seal around your feet as you nearly tripped stepping inside. Such a small, confined space made to lift people and objects up and down, you wanted to take the stairs if it wouldn’t bring a subtle drip of sweat across your brow.

The underground parking lot for the building ran busy, chauffeurs dashing in all directions and twisting cars back and forth into skinny parking spots. You watched them all scramble to get the vehicles of the important workers pulled out and around to the front of the building, tired eyes and shaky voices enough to tell you that this company is a rush, tolling. A life of the spoon feeding the rich isn’t pretty, but it makes ends meet.

Eyes shifting down to pull at your shirt, unwrinkle the marks left from that morning—all in the heat of the moment, your peripheral caught sight of a long hand pressing between the closing doors. The figure peered in, stepping twice to claim the opposite corner of the elevator, and halted in silence. Light music playing over the speakers, they took one glance at the floor number previously tapped by your finger.

“Seven. That’s a lucky number.” Head turning, pupils dilating, throat clearing—you smiled at the bright looking man at your side.

“It is.”

Small talk—the most despised bit of interaction with other human beings, while also being the only way of casual conversation to begin between two or more people.

Two levels climbed, and his perfume met your nose. Something light, pleasing to your senses, and mind-bogglingly attractive for a stranger. He kept his distance, just as most do in a confined space, and yet he seemed so close. Familiarity, your brain linked him to someone you know, someone that imbricates your mind so often. But the floors only passed faster as your mind chased the mundane energy until the final bell dinged and the doors reopened to the floor you were meant to get off on.

You blinked, smiling at the floor to give the man a respectful goodbye, but he had already vanished. As if he wasn’t even standing there in the first place, only a cloud of the perfume you enjoyed was left behind. So stumped, confused on how he moved like a ghost - another familiar feature to you - you nearly missed getting off the elevator before the doors shut again and took you back down.

Reliable, you peered over at the clock on the wall that read nine in the morning on the dot. The sticky note in your hand led you up the elevator and onto the floor, but it departed any further directions. Most importantly, none of the information given to you from the folder held in your bag told you who, exactly, you were meant to be meeting with on such a gleaming morning in the first place.

Usually locked in deep within hundreds of files at an early time like this, the abrupt pull of a glass door beside your figure caused you to leap into the air. His perfume caught your nose first, his subtle voice second, and his delightful features third.

Short, the breeze from the door brought the scent of his perfume back to you. “Well, aren’t you coming in?” His laughter was that of a young man, warm and uplifting like the world wasn’t as harsh around him as it is to you. His brown eyes pulled at your heart instantly, face smooth and welcoming as his long hand ushered you into the main office of the floor.

And without hesitation, you followed him inside. Like the cheshire cat guiding Alice through Wonderland in no particular direction, you had no clue what exactly—who exactly you were following, and if you were even in the right place.

The buoyant man hopped behind the desk right as your calves met the front of the soft, felt chairs seated in front of the large oak table. Morning sun beaming in through the windows, his eyes pooled like honey, motions simplified and included into the never-ending eye contact. The familiarity set in before he could even explain.

“My name is Kim Seungmin, and I’ve heard many good things about you. Graduated at the highest in all of your classes when you were in school, night owl turned into a morning worm, shaking hands such as they are right now.” The man knew you down to the bone without so much as a call of your name or an application in his hand to read off of. It was too much, he knew too much, and you knew how he knew.

“You’re him.” Bold statement before anything else, his wide smile and nod made your head run faint. “B-But I’m not meant to be meeting you.” Your hands shook as you rose the sticky note up and aligned it with his eyes staring at you, his sight hardly glancing at the instructions Minho gave you just that morning.

Messy. Entirely messy.

Confusion riddled across your face, the man’s smile only grew. “You do understand how these things work, right?” Head tilted like a tease, the fluffy hair on his head leered with his motions unlike Minho’s clayed-down hair always pressed perfectly no matter how he moved.

The familiarity was there before you knew who he was, the CEO of a brother company and the man meant to be behind his own proxy. Seungmin had already overstepped his boundary, making himself out to be just like Minho. The connection was uncanny, too revealing of why this was considered so personal.

“I-I’m sorry, this is-”

“Too much?” He sighed so swiftly, fingers shaking out his hair instead of pushing it back neatly. “Ah, I was afraid of this. In all honesty, I warned him about overwhelming you.”

“I am not.” The change in your tone made him stiffen, eyes becoming watered like he’d cry if you moved to stand and rush out. “I am just confused as to why I am meeting you and not someone else in place of you.”

“I don’t do proxies, honey.”

Your teeth clenched down so hard your jawline could be seen tensing by his eyes. Every nerve in your body lit up like lights on a Christmas tree, limbs halting their shake and eyes squinting towards the man like he would vanish in plain sight a second time. The amount of training you’ve had for this without even meaning for it to be that, focusing on multiple tasks at once, dealing with people yelling at you over the phone like you weren’t a human with feelings, those above you acting like you were dirt under their shoes. This moment wasn’t a time to sit with your mouth shut and play good.

“I want an explanation.”

“And I want you.”

Seungmin, personality upfront and just as blunt as the man you work under, was doing everything Minho had warned you about. And yet, something in your gut made you sit and listen.

“I don’t like swindling.” He admitted to his swinish plan, you knew the guy was a puzzle. “But I quite like you. Always on time, never bickering about your schedule or the workload put onto your shoulders, and I even hear you’re a kind person. Giving coworkers flowers and cards, offering to pay for meals despite being in the process of working off your school debt, apparently you even live in an apartment eight blocks from the building you work at just so you can afford the rent.”

You wanted to stop him, he was checking off too many boxes about you like he had been keeping a list in the first place. Borderline creepy, his voice finally grew faint as he stood from behind the desk and walked forward.

“I’ve also been made aware that others do this to you all the time.” Bingo. “They bring you in, consider you the perfect little worker or make you bait, and try to get to you.” The top row of his teeth shined through his closing lips. “But you never crack, do you?”

“Not once, as you can see.”

“Loyal to your boss.” His knees bent as he lifted himself off the quick sitting position against his desk, a gloating pace of a walk around your chair frightful to most. Your back straight, chin high, eyes forward, he had nothing on you.

“But I know something that every other CEO that’s tried appointing you doesn’t.”

“What’s that, Mister Kim Seungmin?”

“You crave authority.”

two.

He was standing so close, closer than ever before, and you didn’t want him to move away. Minho had caught your wrist the second you stepped off the elevator, your body fresh from a shower minutes before you left work with your hair still damp and lotion still soaking in. He seemed to be smothering you to any wondering eyes, but he wasn’t, and there was no one else on his floor to watch.

Sticky note in his hand, he plastered it to your palm like a nurse putting a cotton ball and paper tape over a wound from a shot. As if it would protect you, just like him being at your side the entire time, he pressed the note down against your palm with his thumb.

“You’re in for it.” He chuckled, watching your face running a sickening glow and eyes beam up at him in curiosity. Even he knew he doesn’t act like this. “And I am sorry.”

You closed in the gap, wagering your job and title by a single step forward between the man’s arms, and did something so far from allowed in your profession. “You don’t scare me, so what makes you think he will?”

Minho never came into work before ten, never got so close to you that you could smell the mint toothpaste on his breath—and Minho surely never held you so close just before pressing his lips to yours. The smoothness of his recently-put-on chapstick making the kiss glide, you could hear the breath hitch in his throat.

There is something about having little to no power at all and suddenly holding it in your hands all at once. Not your own, you truly believed the world works on a spectrum of who should have it and who shouldn’t—that’s what makes life entertaining, but that it’s never meant to be stolen. Minho only pressed the kiss in deeper as your fingers met the hair at the nape of his neck, only fell into you harder until your back pressed against the wall and your tongues swirled, and only pulled away when he heard the chime of the elevator making him aware that it was rising and about to land on his floor.

One thing was for sure, you don’t want to possess the power he holds, nor do you want things to run awry from this kiss. But the budding passion you’ve felt for the man raced into his own form through your locked lips up until he pulled away and stared at your face like he couldn’t believe himself. Eyes wide, shoulders lifting and descending with every breath, his hand caught your wrist again to tap the sticky note still stuck to your palm, this time with his index finger.

Time, authority, acquaintances, companions, relationships, animals, items—they accompany humans in the same way they can easily shift them. Your relationship had always been strictly professional. Minho is the man with the plaque on his desk reading off his rightfully given authorization after years of schooling and worming his way up the ladder until a company reigned below him, literally. You were a secretary that always worked more hours than what is labeled on your timesheet, overtime getting the best of you but the extra pay never going ungiven, writing schedules until a callus was created on your finger and your eyes had tunnel vision from forgetting to turn on the desk’s lamp when the sun began to set.

Different mindsets, different positions, different lives—all in one clashing world.

“Come back to me.”

Your eyes opened, elevator walls surrounding you but not the one in Minho’s building. The same music you ascended to played gently, previously pushed out by your memory as you recalled the kiss you shared with Minho moments before you left for your task, the very same one you were leaving now. Two men in the same position beckoning for you to work alongside them, you were mind-boggled at the conditions.

Seungmin’s voice sounded in your ears only, retelling you of what he offered as you pressed out the door of his office. “Go to dinner with me if it will make you feel less associated with me as a businessman and more as a friend. Minho’s nose is always so high, sometimes he forgets that he can actually act human around a few people. So allow me to show you how a boss is meant to treat someone so important to him.”

His comment had you boiling the entire way down, through the elevator, on the ride back to Minho’s office, and up to your desk awaiting your sitting. Seungmin had everything so simplified, statistical reaches bringing you to your knees and making you feel bigger than Minho makes you out to be. Standing in front of Seungmin, you felt seen. All while standing before Minho made you feel smaller with each glance, and scared with every word.

Minho never means to be the way he is, it’s an expression of his self-worth. The man knew he held everyone’s lives at stake in his grasp, that he could ruin or make someone’s world better, and that he can overlap anything set before him with a single snap. It is what he had grown to learn through school, eager and greedy bosses over his own head, and the same gold plaque he watched be created right before his eyes. Unlike Seungmin, he may hold so much weight on his shoulders, but he doesn’t pretend it isn’t there in the first place.

But Seungmin’s charm, beady eyes, and welcoming smile were all too familiar yet new at once. Seungmin is like Minho’s cold shoulder mixed with a warm, reassuring hug. You admitted defeat to yourself that Seungmin now has you on his hook - the first to ever manage to get you invested - the moment you stepped off the sidewalk of your apartment building and into the car picking you up for the date.

The silent drive with the chauffeur just as quiet, you were only accompanied by the bright stars in the cloudless night sky above. Passing lights shined into your eyes almost blindingly, your sight set on watching Minho’s building pass by as you moved past blocks of city-life to make it to the restaurant.

Minho, he had no idea.

Your eyes blinked, more lights coming into view until you were suddenly under a long tent and in motion towards the front door. Seungmin’s gentle smile brought warmth to your skin, his arm extending for you to hold it on the small walk inside to a table.

“I was afraid you would stand me up. You left so heated.” He stared down at you as you both moved in tandem, unafraid of bumping into someone or something on the way. “Please, never leave me like that again. I could see how bothered you were.”

Taking a seat at the table, you already wanted the dinner to be over, but it was only getting started. Waiters passed every few minutes, Seungmin only stared at you from across the table and hardly said anything, and drinks and food were pushed around by your hands and others until nothing sat before you.

“Minho, he’s a difficult man to work with.” A break, a stop to your racing mind, and an easy trigger like no other. Minho was your weakness, and Seungmin was highly aware of it.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Please don’t take that the wrong way, the man is a complete companion most days. But sometimes he thinks with his head, not his heart.” Another metaphor that perfectly sums up the difference between both men. Minho’s thought process has always been noticeably cranium-related, while Seungmin appears to use the thumping organ in his chest to make rash decisions. “There is so much about him that I can tell has been lost from the anxiety-riddled position of a CEO.”

“Such as?” The glass on your lips allowed in a single sip of the drink that had been stuck by your side all evening, Seungmin’s eyes bright with gold sparkles from the chandelier above.

“Curiosity kills the cat. Shouldn’t you know things like this from working with the legend himself?” His brow arched, teeth shining between his lips as more words formed. “Puppet Master, Lee Minho.”

The drink in your mouth nearly fell from between your lips, a quick gulp sending it down your throat. He had taken the analogy right from your mind.

“Minho has had everyone in the palm of his hand since we were in college. I worked by reading actual texts from books, he had people reading it aloud for him. I worked by speaking to professors about questions and concerns, he had the professors coming to him about things. I stayed in our dorm all night long, he was nowhere to be seen.”

“This sounds more like a testosterone, jealousy scheme of you only using me to level him out, now.” You cut him off without raising so much as a hand, engulfed by what he was saying and trying to hide the fact that you were hanging off every word about your mysterious boss's past.

“Oh, but that’s what makes you the star of the show, baby.” Your nose scrunched in disbelief at the pet name, but you allowed him to continue. “See, everything was peaches and cream. Two recently graduated partners taking on the world through the same company—all while a thick, stapled application was found sitting on Minho’s desk one late night.”

If you had half your wits, weren’t so selfishly hoping to make Minho see you properly, you would have left long before this.

“A secretary’s application. Class A worker—someone who shines brighter than stars. Someone he wanted all to himself.” The red wine beside his hand was lifted to his mouth so slowly that you wanted to peel his fingers from the glass and set it back down just to make him continue. “That very same application was on my desk, too. It was a battle, and seemed like sudden death at the time. For both our friendship, and our business. We would call them at odd times, listen to how they took the call and how much patience they held, even studied the tones in their voice.”

The assortment of calls from different numbers never spiked your nerves. You had been applying all around the city, gotten offers from every big name in the game, but only a few truly caught your interest. But, not once, had you put two and two together.

“Watching his face fall that night, three shots in and his back arched over the bar in our shared office. He wanted them so badly, and didn’t believe he could go on without anyone else in their position. Even before he knew them or worked with them, the man was whipped for their credentials.” Seungmin spoke with such a tone that sounded like he had been wavering on these memories all night and day until you finally sat before him. Now you were both in a place where he could spill out everything with no turning back for either of you.

“And then—suddenly, he wanted nothing to do with them.”

Your brows furrowed, sweat on your temple from the fervorous room making you wipe the beads of sweat away with the man still sitting so patiently.

“He knew that I had called them, offered them something they couldn’t refuse, and that they were already on their way.”

His tone, the familiarity. It hadn’t entirely come from Minho, but the other end of the line so many years ago. Stuck in disbelief, you didn’t want to speak the words already leaving your mouth. But your heart has a way of surpassing your consciousness.

“You got me the job as Minho’s secretary.”

“Minho had the power he needed to ignite himself back, and it once overlapped mine. He took his branch of the company and made a run for it, and got both his work and you far from me.” Seungmin’s eyes almost looked dead, as if he never wanted to admit it actually happened. “We went our separate ways, and yet you stumbled into my company with my old partner’s handwriting scribbled down on that sticky note like the ghost of Christmas’s past coming back to haunt me.”

He had handled the situation so well, it was hard to believe he had any harsh intentions towards you at this point. He could have turned you down, given you the wrong impression until you fled back to Minho, but he accepted you in with open arms despite what had gone down.

“So, what are you saying?”

“You showed up at my office for a reason, one you didn’t know was even occurring.”

The lump in your throat returned.

“Minho is giving you to me.”

three.

Far past the tenacity you’ve held for Minho, you sat beside Seungmin in the back of the chauffeur-driven car with a look on your face that only read one emotion: defeat. The ploy had finally been written out to you by the opposing man, not even your boss himself. Seungmin had not only struck a nerve, but pushed you so far over the edge that you were now incapable of gathering your thoughts unless a space of rest was given.

But, now struck with the enmity that the one you trusted most is just giving you away like a puppy no longer aiming to be cared for, your mind was left careless. Seungmin rocked side to side, back and forth, and could hardly even look in your direction from the serious tension held within the vehicle.

“If I work for you now, then when do I come in?”

His tongue twisted, eyes verged straight to your face, but Seungmin didn’t have an answer for that question at the ready. The man looked just as lost as you, pale face cascaded with worry and riddled by the sudden affair.

Minho had always held up a mask, never allowed anyone to see his weaknesses—unless it was you. So many late nights of his knees pressed into the floor of his office as he lapped at you like an animal drinking water, pulled at your clothes while offering to replace them with new ones, and dragged the deepest kisses against your lips. Vulnerability was his major frailty, Minho hiding himself from the world with tears held in his ducts and awaiting any passing time that he can be truly alone as himself. Something you’ve never fully seen, and were afraid was becoming the single-most invading position now.

But Seungmin, the lanky man sat in a thrifted suit with his legs spread open wide and his big eyes watching you like a sex scene in a mature film—he knew how to show himself. Your face finally tilted towards him, his brown eyes engulfing your gaze until he closed the space between you. Only the sounds of a gentle kiss and the tinted window between the driver and the backseats could be heard before you realized where you lie on their spectrum.

Far, far too close to Seungmin’s side.

Your teeth clenched into the kiss, the mental image of a rout Minho leaving his phone on the hook while gulping down shots instead of calling you that one last time completely painful.

Your tongue broke through your lips to press against Seungmin’s, a moan recoiling from the back of his throat and vibrating your entire body right to the space between your legs. The soft man’s hand guided your own to his shoulder, the texture of his suit nothing like you were used to being worn by such a high-class man, but you only tugged at the joustle.

The morning where the car showed up at the front of your apartment building with the chauffeur holding a sign reading your name before driving you to Minho’s office. The first time you saw Minho, he had his back turned towards you while on a call with an anonymous voice on the other line—and already you were invisible unless he needed you.

Seungmin’s hand cupped your cheek, the kiss falling deeper until you could taste the wine from his glass on your own tongue when he moved to pull away. Eyes shut, awaiting your move to continue for consent that this is what you want, your mouth found his neck.

You gave momentum to Minho. Seungmin said it himself, your credentials made him want you before he even knew what you looked like. The man threaded on a golden path, pulling you along on a leash just as the handful of others he took advantage of to reach the peak. A position like this—being the outskirts creating a big man into a bigger man by default, now tossed to his enemy like you mean nothing; a better, painless way would have just been turning you down in the first place, or just down-right firing you in person.

Seungmin’s hand rose to the tinted window, two knocks giving the driver a notice that you would both be stopping at your apartment, not just you alone. Light sucks pulled at the man’s neck until a single, purple mark is left. An abrupt stop, a clinging hold to your entire form, and you were lifted from inside the vehicle in a daunting way.

You saw his eyes first, realized it was your own grasp around your form that had gotten you out of the car, and only saw Seungmin’s face flush with embarrassment. You had left his grasp with horror in your eyes before you could even see your surroundings.

“This isn’t how this is meant to work.” Sight narrowed to tunnel-vision, the man rose from inside the car only to place his hand on your cheek with a kiss on the opposite. “Go get some rest before you turn blue,” he already knew you were bothered, and you said nothing about it. “-I’ll see you at eight.”

Another roll of defeat went through your body as you turned from your new boss, the elevator lifting you up to your floor without so much as a blink, and a lump in your throat formed as you pushed inside of your safe space. Finally, your mind settled into a blank state where you could take in the last few days. Tears falling down your face, the back of your hand wiping them away, and you fell to the soft rug on the floor to drown in your sorrows.

Moments in time move so fast, at some point you are bound to be left feeling like you are no longer within your body. As if everything explodes at once, your mind can no longer think, your heart can no longer beat, your limbs could no longer move, and your body can no longer feel emotions: you were truly descending into madness from the two men.

That final kiss this morning, Minho’s warm breath and smooth lips guiding your own—it was a goodbye. You didn’t notice, didn’t let the abrupt show of affection sink in to be just that. Part of you denied that you could be the imperative part he needed to actually function, but now it was claimed true. You uplifted that man, gave him opportunities, yourself, and everything else you could offer.

And he abandoned you at a time most crucial.

Your body stood up straight, head held high like he had commanded you to do no matter the day you were having, and followed your legs to wherever your thoughtless mind led you. A gravitational pull, the feeling of deja vu seeped into your nerves as two mild knocks sounded on your door just in time for you to pull it open.

“Is now a bad time to say sorry?”

four.

Minho’s hair was, for once, not clayed-back by some product. Bleak eyes covered by thick lashes as they batted in your direction, he awaited your voice.

“Because I really am, sorry.”

“What is this all about, Minho?” Your voice sounded larger than normal, but the man didn’t falter to reply.

“It’s hard to explain right now. You’re so upset, aren’t you?” His hands moved down into his pockets, head hung in shame as his right foot kicked at the small ledge of the doorway’s flooring. He seemed delayed, like he was waiting to tell you something but was too afraid of your reaction to actually speak of it.

The expression made your blood boil and eyes water, a scoffed sound leaving your lips. You watched his head lift in tandem with your hand enveloping his wrist as you tugged him inside, the front door of your small apartment shutting behind you.

“What is all of this meant for?” Your tongue dripped with venom, angered and so far past your breaking point that you could only see red. “The way you look at me disturbs me, Minho. How do you expect me to wait on you: beck and call, omitting important information from me—the only person who is at your side anytime you need me. This relationship, platonic, romantic, or just occupational—nothing about it is fair!”

His motion was slow, arms raising from his pockets, past his hips, and levitating at the sides of your arms without so much as a brushed touch. You blinked up at him, nose scrunched as you felt his fingertips gently press into your skin before he was face to face with you for the first time, as equals.

“You have every right to hate me right now, doll.” His words were broken, voice raspy in containment of his own emotions, an indication that he is just as torn as you right now. “Y-You even have the chance to leave peacefully. But I must ask that you don’t leave.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re the only one who puts up with my stubborn ass!” His hands left your arms to raise into the air, buttons on his shirt open far down his chest allowing his limbs to move freely. Minho was just as reluctant to his own plan, and seeing you struggle through it was clearly taking a toll on him, whether he told you the idea or not. “You’re the only one who makes my coffee just bitter enough that it wakes me up, the one who shoves a bunch of files into my arms and tells me to look them over before lunch because i’m already sitting their twiddling my thumbs, and the only person who has ever looked Seungmin in the eyes and defended my actions as if they were your own.”

His body enclosed on you, taking your arms back into his hold and aligning your sight again. The man was broken, hanging by a thread. The reality of his lifestyle was finally showing through, that he can no longer go on alone.

“Then why play with my heart so much?” You begged the question, but already knew that his lips puckering to place onto yours was the answer. Something Minho can never speak of, only show—affection was deemed his weakness, but you’re far closer to the definition than the noun could ever be.

Your hands found placement on his chest just as the warmth of his mouth encased yours, bodies pressing together in a fiery way. One thing most noticeable about Minho, the man has passion. Whether it’s passing along some stocks to a company nearly run down and going out of business, walking ahead of someone to pull the door open for them, or even succumbing to his feelings for his secretary: he was bound to show how human he is at some point, but he had actually been doing it all along.

You melted together, his legs walking you back to the retailed sofa fitted with more blankets than necessary, the mountain of covers falling off the sides to give you more room. He displayed you, eyes growing wide as he looked over your form, and watched as you pulled the shirt over your torso up and over your head.

“This is much more comforting than my office desk.” He spouted in excitement, referring to the couch as his lips became more invested in kissing and sucking at your neck then speaking.

His touch was always intense, the feeling of his lips trailing your skin all the way down your arm to place a single kiss onto your knuckles making your heart do jumping jacks. Minho never failed to win you over, even from the first day when he got exceptionally close in a stare-down as he considered his moves. He had lied awake day and night, hoping you would come into his office and agree to be his secretary. Now, with a few years past, he had you moaning beneath him in a passionate love-affair.

The hot breaths, the groans vibrating deep within his chest only to sound into your ears alone, and the wistful motions of you taking him so well with your fingers entwined. You never wanted it to end, Minho finally pulling the mask from his face and strings from his hands long enough for the two of you to just be people—in love and continuing with life like nothing could ever be a bother again.

But all things come to an end, your eyelids peeling open to the closed doors of the elevator just as they opened and Seungmin’s office was revealed to you. The breeze of the morning air brought you to pull the turtleneck upwards, the quantity of hickies left on your skin nearly embarrassing to have from a man with a plaque on his desk and perverted thoughts in his mind. Minho had taken you back, showed you that he would never abandon you, yet he still gave you instructions to come into work for Seungmin. Minho’s only words were “We’re not done yet.”

The second you stepped off the elevator, you felt a pair of eyes on you. Round ones, the same that had stared you down most of the night before, and the very ones that met your sight right as you stepped into the official office of the building’s CEO.

“You’re early!” He chimed, Seungmin making his way from his leather chair to the soft felt one in front of his desk. Placing himself down beside you, the immediate notice of how he acted like a coworker and not a boss made butterflies erupt in your stomach.

“I—Uh, shouldn’t-” Brown eyes narrowed into yours with furrowed brows, he finished your sentence for you.

“Minho acts more like a boss, I’m just here to make sure you know what you’re doing and not confused for the duration of the work day.” Seungmin’s smile was so warm and comforting, your nod made him sink down into the chair more.

Files past your way, instructions given, the bright windows turning dimmer from clouds taking over the sky until the sun was setting, and finally your card was clicked to release you from your shift. The day's work was the exact same as Minhos, only Seungmin asked how you felt and offered you coffee and snacks as you worked. It felt upside down, like you had never truly left Minho’s office and were just in a different branch.

And up until now, your belief of the exchange of you as both bosses’ secretary was considered off. Seungmin’s voice called out to you from his office. “I called a car! Take your time going down!” His voice rang in your ears like an alarm. “I’ll see you soon!”

From the beginning, your work was perfectly cut out for you. Fitting to your resume, piles of things to organize, men with ties too tight around their necks, coworkers who blabbed everything they could about their life until you knew them to the T for no particular reason. It was draining, but functional. All of Minho’s promises, ones proposed by Seungmin on the phone that night, you had made it this far from their benefits.

Floors down, the car’s door opened and shut, and a sigh of relief was easily distorted by the car driving off and pulling into a similar parking lot. The same faces you had seen for years were all around you, hands pointing you in the directions, elevators rising you up to the familiar space, and the one detail you missed entirely of the entire operation.

Seungmin stood beside Minho, glasses of wine in their hands and smiles on their faces. The past in the past, two men friends for life, and their beloved secretary wandering in before them once more.

“It won’t be official until midnight.” Minho smiled, pearled teeth making your cheeks rise from the scene alone.

“Enough time to get fully acquainted.” Seungmin’s voice was like a mantra, his eyes capturing you in his peripheral. “And to inform this one on just what we’ve been doing.”

“Finally letting me into the circle?” You joked, both men keeping still with the wicked smiles on their faces.

“Can someone please just throw in the towel and tell me what the hell kind of mess you two have spun me into?”

The purple marks were forgotten by you, but plainly in their sight from the neck of the sweater moving down your neck. You watched their eyes meet, shoulders slightly shrug, and sight capture similar marks on themselves before they turned back in your direction.

“Seems you know us too well to even need to question anything.” Minho grinned.

Seungmin’s voice followed, the man like a cartoon in the way he held the curve of his arm and pressed his fist into his cheek and awaited your response. “Tell us what you’ve already figured out?”

“I did well, whatever this is.” You praised yourself before them, head held high without their mandate. “The two of you—planned this together without me even noticing.”

“Go on…”

“Old reliable, you were better for us than we could ever imagine.”

Minho’s distance was a test. Seungmin’s sudden appearance was an obstacle. The two ran you around for each of them, and you played along. Seungmin had gotten you the job to pertain to his best friend’s ego, but Minho taught you how to handle the occupation and himself at the same time. Seungmin was the easiest to adjust to, there was no question there. But the two of them stood in the same office, their weird connection last night with the unannounced exchange that Minho needed to be by your side instead of Seungmin, it was becoming clearer and clearer.

They were never really enemies in the first place, only attempting to find an addition to their team. “How do you feel about our companies reemerging?”

epilogue.

You had learned the beauty of being between the two bosses. Fresh coffee made by Seungmin left on your desk when he heard the elevator rising and bringing you to the office floor, the cup steaming with a sticky note plastered to it reading a subtle love note. The original man of the hour, Minho, normally would arrive an hour or so later to place a kiss on your cheek and eye over the marks still healing on your skin before finding himself in his office with a smile on his face.

Their relationship had healed, a year passing in the blink of an eye. Work had gifted you a new apartment, one exceptionally closer to where the two men lived, and even adhered you to them more. Work would slip by, the sunset gleaming through the windows to make their matching eyes glow even brighter until they stood before you at your desk.

“What do you say we stay for a little over-time?” Minho’s commandative voice, which used to shake you to your core and make you worry about his next line, ran gently over your forehead as he bent down to your sitting level.

“Do I get paid?” You questioned, eyes still reading over the last of the report sent in on your computer. A pull at your chair from Seungmin, and the lanky man had you turned and facing him without a word.

His boxxed smile is one of the world’s most cherishable pieces, but only you and Minho get to see it. “If only love could cover rent, huh?”

“It could if you finally moved in with us.”

Minho’s words brought you to laugh. It had been the same record on repeat for months now, their lives swimming back together like a river meeting the ocean. Same workspace, same penthouse, same secretary. The two had become inseparable—but they still wanted you with them all hours of the day and night.

Seungmin’s fingers yanked at the trim of his pants to pull them upwards so he could bend his legs comfortable, now balanced with his weight on his feet and ankles while staring up at you with his hungry eyes. “Will we ever get a final answer to that?”

His head lifted upwards, capturing your lips as your palms pressed into your knees from the sudden kiss. Seungmin’s habit, sometimes even going great lengths to distract you, always paid off.

“Perhaps—” A soft chuckle left you. “If this is the last time we have to stay overtime here at the office just to take each other like it’s our last day on earth.”

“You don’t enjoy us playing boss even when you’re begging for more pleasure from us?” Minho’s tongue lapped over his bottom lip, long legs moving him around the desk to press his hand into the crown of Seungmin’s head and force the man to stand back up.

“Not when I have to come in extra early the next morning just to edit the security camera footage before we’re caught and put on the news.”

Both men laughed, eyes meeting like they had just heard the funniest joke in their entire lives and it just had to be shared with one another—just like everything else. They absolutely loved seeing you writhe beneath them, soaking up everything you can about them while allowing them to do as they please with you. The relationship bounced between work and romance, to sexual fantasies being ignited and accomplished. Like a mature drama being played right before your eyes, you were their center of attention and the star of the show.

“One thing though, doll.” Minho’s tongue grazed the lobe of your ear, speaking directly to you. “You’ve never disagreed that this is fun.”

“Maybe you need to learn how to use your words better.” Seungmin added, his large hand enclosing on your waist and tugging you forward. You were lifted from the chair by one arm, Minho’s hand at the curve of your lower back as Seungmin took hold of your torso.

“Aren’t I communicating my needs right now, boss?” The puppy eyes of the man bored into yours. Light a switch being flipped, you witness a dark splotch overtake his irises—his pupils growing dilated from the word alone.

Minho’s hand caught the back of your thigh, lifting it for Seungmin to be pressed firmly against you. With a breath so deep your lungs burned from the inhale, the two men smiled wickedly.

“Tell us what you want.”

“Right here.” You nodded, gazing between the two men in a dizzy pattern that you had to stop and peer up at the ceiling just to catch your breath. “Fuck me right here, then I’ll go home with you.”

One glance back down, and they were both moving into their positions. Seungmin at your front capturing your mouth once more and stealing every breath you could hold onto. Minho at your back, his hardening length in his slacks dragging against your ass like a dog in heat. You felt the heated motions of Seungmin’s tongue swirling around your own, but your mind was locked on the feeling of Minho ripping at your top until you stood bare between them.

"So stubborn." Minho mocked your actions, but he loved the chase.

Soft fabrics rubbing against you making your skin glow red from the friction, Minho was first to tear the buttons from his shirt—the sound of the fasteners scattering onto the hardwood flooring almost as startling as his words reclaiming your hearing. “Where do you want me?”

The question was a ruse, he knew the answer. But he still always asked, just in case you wanted to switch it up.

“Neck.” His favorite place to leave his mark, the man’s cock was so hard in his pants that it throbbed and leaked precum just from the taste of your skin on his tongue. The lightly whelped spots he had left before tasted like metal, his licks only drawing harder at the untouched skin around them. He hated leaving any space untouched, the purple and red marks considered his trophies to see on you later and make your thighs clench over when you felt them pulse as they healed.

"Mmf—" The pulsing of Seungmin's cock against your front pulled a noise from him; the vibration a sound of a man awaiting his chance to hear his name slip from the same mouth his own pranced along.

Seungmin’s lips tasted like a flavor of no other; his own taste nearly as intoxicating as alcohol. A drink you couldn’t get enough of, the man’s tongue poked yours before he removed him from your mouth altogether. His million-dollar smile plastered on his face, eyes glazed over with lust, and a saddened moan leaving you in response. The concept of him adoring you so much that he would step back and allow his partner a moment to himself—it was like you were floating in their sight and grasp.

Without so much of a breath, you felt the cooled touch of Minho’s hands slipping underneath the waistband of your pants. "Oh-h—yes." His licked fingertips always knew the direction to move in, his hold on you orgasmic the second he made contact with the wetness created from their intense motions. Fingers lingering in spots that made you see bright lights and feel every push of the air from the vent over your heads, the man toyed with you until you were shaking more than the breathy moans you released.

“Tell me when you’re ready.” Seungmin, the man always waiting for the words to slip through your lips like a round firing just before a sports event begins—you were too weak for them both to ever deny yourself of them entirely.

“Play with me then, boss.”

You felt the familiar fingers pull from your heated form long enough to press the pants at your waist down your tights, past your knees, off your calves and feet, and watched the attire fall to the floor. Raised up by a strong arm, Minho caught your thigh once more and lifted it in tandem with Seungmin’s pants falling to the ground beside your own. His ankles caught inside the bottom of the trousers as he fled in your direction caused him to stumble, your laugher muffled by the hiss as Seungmin’s even colder fingers matched with your heated body.

"Aah!—" Your hiss caught his ears like an alarm, but the smirk on his lips told you that he knew you'd react as you did.

He blinked at you as he held his hardened cock in his palm and pressed the tip into your entrance. Minho’s grasp only got tighter, your boss gliding his hand up your form to run the pad of his finger around your nipple.

A game of distraction, a game of gratification, and a never-ending amount of levels.

"Always so—" They both chanted with groans interrupting the words, one finishing there the other left off, as always. "—good for us."

Seungmin pushed into you swiftly, the wetness created Minho’s licked fingers and Seungmin’s precum enough lube to have his cock slinking back out of your walls before another abrupt push rocked him in so deep your eyes clenched shut.

"Seungmin!" His name shouted from your lungs, nails creating small crescents in the skin of his shoulders, and a long worked-up orgasm spilled from within you. A lap of Minho's tongue at the middle of your neck, and the name shifted into the another's. "M-Minho!"

Your lips turned into a smile, the duo's stimulation paying off, and your form turning even more relaxed as Seungmin continued to fuck up into you for his own, awaited orgasm.

Squelches of your wetness and his precum caused a deep breath to flow into Minho's lungs, the man clinging you to his front and using his own hips to press you into Seungmin at a rapid pace. You could feel his cock twitching against your ass, the pants in your ear growing rigid. Just as your hand rose up behind you to hold onto Minho's neck, the filling feeling of Seungmin's orgasm rushed up into your walls. Hot breaths, loud hisses, and Seungmin's cock was pulled from within you only to be replaced by one that had repeatedly coated your walls before the secondary lead even made his entrance in your world.

Minho's length was thicker than Seungmin's, his thighs quivering as he fucked up into you with one swift thrust. The man was feverish, mind melting from the tight clenches of your next orgasm moving through you until your head fell back onto his shoulder and his face hid itself in the crook of your neck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Right there!" The man's tone was shallow, his voice cracking from the pleasure overlapping his senses.

Seungmin's large hands caught your calves, pushing them backwards seconds before Minho's legs came out from under him, folding you both down. His approaching release made him relentless, straightening out your form until you laid naked on the cold flooring of the office as your ass slapped against his thighs repeatedly. "I'm—cum-cumming. Oh fuck, I'm so deep. Our cum is pooling out of you right now, doll. Look at the mess we've made, Seungmin."

But his partner's thoughts laid elsewhere than the gushing white cum leaking onto the floor beneath you. Seungmin's hand gathered your hair in between his fingers, the gentlest pull upwards helping you see his soft face and cheshire smile. "So, what'll it be, honey?" You took in the sensation of being filled by them both, their pants matching your own as the three of you finally settled down.

Minho's eyes locked into Seungmin's, the lanky man's eyes only boring into your own and ignoring his partners. Their minds worked on the same wavelength, held the same thoughts, and allowed them to work at the same pace with their conscience's in sync.

Minho's voice called over your tired form, the cool flooring no longer enough to keep you sane. "Need a place more comfortable where we can care for you like this any time we want?"

"H-How about this?" Your voice shook, but your words held their courage. "My loves, you two look over that thick application once more."

Their eyes matched together, lips pressed into thin lines quickly rising into deep smirks. "To see what, in particular, baby?" Seungmin's mantra was nulled out by your hard-thumping heartbeat in your ears.

"And see that our credentials are all the same." This cocked brows showed no real signs of new knowledge, your grin giving the entire ploy away.

"So, boys, how about a trio-run company?" Your face relaxed into a voided expression, no worries held in your vision any longer. "Or am I too much for you both to handle?"

Their responses were in unison. "Deal."

© 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗺𝗶𝗻 2021. do not modify, repost, or translate in any way. please.

[bearseungmin]

in virtue.

Given the task to deliver an expensive piece of jewelry across the city, you’re partnered with a half man/half cyborg named Han, who’s said to know every road, building, and danger around. With a time limit and the estranged partner at your side, a world of bright colors and high stakes bring you closer together than you imagined.

DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 5.5k ] PAIRING — cyborg! jisung x gender-neutral! reader GENRES — cyberpunk 2077! au, romance, crime, angst, suggestive WARNINGS — corrupt corporations and police, depictions of smoking, abduction, swearing, mentions of loss and loneliness, altercations/combat, near-death experiences, blood/cuts/bruises, smut mentioned but not in detail, love at its finest A/N — hi i have no self control and swapped a flopped main writing blog fic into a jisung fic. enjoy

prologue.

“In all do respect, sir-” Your voice was drowned out by the blasting bar down below, a shallow tone still reaching the large man’s high-tech hearing aids latched onto his ear. “I don’t think you should have come looking for me like this.”

“Got some more important plans tonight?”

The corporate ruler sat forward on the smooth leather, the furniture wearing down from his fancy tuxedo right on the spot. A massive barter, the kingpin had come across you stealing from him months ago. At your release, you made a deal to allow him to come to you for any task he didn’t feel the need to do himself. It was a mistake speaking to the yuppie at all.

“You know I have zero patience for any slow business. I can’t even stand watching you sit on your ass right now with me in the room.” The groggy voice was like nails on a chalkboard to you. He had wandered in, leaving out of his fancy limo that would be stolen had he not come with bodyguards. Men larger than you by three times your size, yet smaller than the kingpin himself.

“I am aware of that. But this—this task.” Your eyes darted anywhere but the man’s blank stare, his tolerance for your stalling making him huff smoke from the cigar on his lips. “Getting something so expensive across the city, and alone? I won’t last twelve hours out there.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His eyes squinted, teeth baring like a bear about to catch an innocent salmon swimming upstream. “I got someone that can give you protection, but he’s a hard man to convince.”

“You have to convince someone?” Talk of the man sounded dangerous himself. The kingpin was known for getting the hands of anyone he needed in the snap of two fingers or the nod of his head. If the unnamed, faceless man needed convincing, where the hell did you lie in the equation? Just as a piece of meat, bait for a man that will kill you halfway through and dump your body so that you’re never found? He already sounded like a handful as it is.

“Man’s known as a mad dog. Feral when he’s at work, but calm behind the eyes when he’s not. All I know is where he stays and what he’s named.” Plump lips separating to pull the large cigar from his mouth, the two fingers holding onto the drug placed it down into the large ashtray on the table beside him.

“Okay, where am I supposed to find this guy?”

“Mad dog, named Han, tends to stay around the fun parts. Unseen places, empty spaces, anywhere he can go undetected.”

“So where is he?”

“Try Clouds in JapanTown.”

The largest diamonds you’d ever seen clasped into more gold than what was stocked in Watson. A tangible necklace amassing more Eddies than your family would receive for your own life insurance. All for the kingpin’s daughter as a gift for turning eighteen and getting married on the same day. If you left out of Watson with this, even held the case for a moment’s time inside of a crowded space, you’d be put six feet under. But the payment you’d get, the respect you’d receive for treating his family as important as your own, and the finishing of the deal you made years ago would take the bounty off your head. You could live again without struggling to keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach. And even more so, have the possibility of your name being paired with one of the most critical and important men in the business through chat and gossip.

“I’ll have him by my side before dawn tomorrow morning.”

one.

Your defamation: you’re solely human. A lifeform all around you with expensive technology and people with robotic limbs and partners, you managed to stay only flesh and blood. A defamation, many would call it, because you were considered absolutely weak. Soft and temperate, you were considered fine china lost in an old thrift store in a lifestyle like this.

Japantown in sight, the smells of grilling meats and flowers from the marketplace gave you a sense of calmness. The space commonly busy had rushing people in all directions, stifled laughter at the bike beneath your form almost daring you to stop and walk beside the transportation instead of riding it between others.

One of the hardest things to cope with in such a high-tech world, the way everything expanded to quickly. The old bike was from centuries ago, rusted on its hinges but still mobile. It wasn’t the first time you had been laughed at for using such an ill-made creation; it was all you had on you from Watson. Fortune wasn’t in your favor or future, only stability.

Which only makes being in a place so unfamiliar to you dangerous. Sliceable skin and a slow-paced ride compared to the bots and heavy-rated vehicles all around, you were out of your element taking an empty alleyway as a trail.

Your directions were to make it into Japantown like any casual person would, look as if you weren’t holding something that was worth more money than your life and your soon-to-be partner’s together. The cyborg pronounced himself stupid to be commonly in the area when he didn’t have a mission, lingering in the dark corners and out of sight but still managing to be caught by the kingpin’s bots to find his location. If anything, the man is a joke to you.

Dark cement under the bike’s tires, the sudden open road connected to the alleyway drew chills across your skin. It was normal to see an open road way out from bits of the city, spaces used for drops and swaps, but never a single road. Red lights too small to seen by your naked eyes, cameras placed in the top corners of buildings by corrupt cops tracking them to capture stranglers and take them in. They’d be prosecuted, snatched and tampered with until confessions of anything illegal or useful were given, then placed in jails and prisons to live out miserable lives. All so the cops can meet their quotas, the abhorrent bastards.

An engine roared behind you, the petals under your shoes’ soles not moving fast enough. The car was far faster, more equipped than you, and a cold hand reached for your collar before yanking you into the warm space. Ripped from the old bike only to hear it crunch and snap beneath the large tires of the vehicle, your whine was swallowed than the rumbling engine and his laughter mixed.

“You claimed me dumb, but you took the wrong street.” Big eyes, pushed back hair pressed down with gel, high cheekbones and a few wires sticking out of the same arm that rushed you into his car: you haven’t found Han, Han found you. “The netrunners are probably all over you right now. I bet they have evidence of something, anything to use against you. You must be insane thinking you can get around on that bike all alone.”

“Why? Because I’m human?”

“Because you’ve got the necklace and we have fourteen hours to get it to Konpeki Plaza without bullets in our skulls. But yes, that is something I could live through and you won’t.”

The man was already frank with you, living up to his nickname Mad Dog rightfully. The car’s tires sped up faster, quick turns left and right, all sending you back and forth in the front of the car from not being strapped in by the seat belt. One sharp turn right again, and you were sitting on top of the stranger’s lap like a lover.

“Well, hello.” His eyes squinted in focus, his left arm moving across your waist to hold you to him. In an effort to make it off of him before the next turn, his shallow voice caught your ears. “Don’t look now, but we’ve got fans.”

His arm only got tighter around you, holding you to his chest as his eyes caught sight of two bikes riding in closer and closer to the car. You felt Han’s right leg clench, his hold leaving you to wrap your arms around his neck securely to keep yourself from rushing through the front windshield as his hand took hold of the steering wheel. Sturdy hold on the gear, your mind devoid of the fact that he had joked about your transportation when his own was just as old—only remodeled. Stick shift cars had long gone out of style, Han’s fingers clenching around everything he held harder to work the car through skinny roads and off into a bigger set of streets: the highway.

With the hasty change of events, and your body still sat on your partner’s lap hugging him like the world was ending, things returned to still. Cars zoomed even faster, the bikes having turned off onto another street to avoid a chase in such a high-paced, seeable area. Able to release a breath, you took in the man’s heavy perfume before any oxygen with a cough.

“Wh-What happened to self-driving cars?” You asked him, voice shaking with the rumble of the engine as you moved off of him and into the passenger seat.

“What happened to stating your name before you get all up over me like a doll?” The rude comment passed over your head, sighing as you fell back into the comforting seat.

“You already know my name.” The smirk on his face evident, your palm met his shoulder in a light tap to quit his ego from overpowering his courtesy. “Knock it off. That was already a lot.”

“That was a lot?” His pupils dilated at your words, face meeting yours from an inch away. Torso hunched over towards your side of the car, the vehicle took over the directions. It was, in fact, a self-driving car, that much obvious with Han’s face aligned with yours and his plump lips still holding the ten-million dollar smirk. “Baby, we’re just getting started.”

two.

“The technology around us-” Twenty long minutes of silence beside the man, and you finally spoke again. “-it’s all so much all the time.” “Not used to our world, but living in it. You must have had it rough.” His fist clenched the steering wheel, knuckles turning white just before releasing to a natural color again. Han seemed like the type of person to always have a comment, and yet you could visually see him biting his tongue.

“Rough is an understatement.” The neon lights drawing the shapes of each building made your irises shine in the darkness, the city absorbing the vehicle with its many colors until it was well hidden. With such a busy space, so many people and things taking over the world, Night City itself nearly outperformed the moon’s glow.

“Considering you were on a bike older than both of us combined, I’ll take your word for it.” White teeth peeking from between his lips until you could see his gums, Han took hold of the gear and shifted it while maneuvering through traffic and into the fast lane.

“We’re headed back near Clouds. There’s a motel close by we can stay in for the night without risking our skulls.” The reflection of his face morbid in the driver’s side mirror, the passing lights turned the car into a rave as he only drove faster. “Had to drive around the long way just to get them off our trail.”

Not keeping you out of his plan, the guy seemed to be the first open-player you met when it came to speaking his mind. People in the city were so shut in, scared of telling others what they wanted or are going to do in chance of sabotage. Han was quite the opposite.

“What did you do to the Kingpin to piss him off so much that you got stuck with me, anyways?”

Thirteen hours left to be stuck by Han, he was truthful. No reason to keep quiet now, he may be the only one who knows of your past in the entire city by the time the mission is deemed over.

“How often do you lose people?” His eyes shot over to your form, your fingers laced together as you stared out the front dash like it was a movie. Even in your peripheral, you knew he held concern. “And I mean—back to back lose them.”

“Back to back?” Riddled with confusion, focused on driving, his mouth could only repeat the question.

“I’ve never been more desperate for money than I was then, and still am now. The expenses of losing one person can stifle any source of financial stability.” Looking down, you felt the tears threaten to fall. “I am just one person. And I had to pay for two funerals that only I attended. Even in a world so cold, you’d think people would come to you at your death to give their wishes and remember you. No one deserves to be that forgotten.”

“Ahh-” He sighed, reappearing in your peripheral like a mirage. Legs stretching, gas pedal reeling back and the car slowing, Han seemed to understand. “I don’t forget easily, you know. Really have to make an impression on people for them to show up to your funeral, but I’ve never been to one. Memory is in the brain, but meaning is in the heart.”

Your smile faint, you nodded without giving him a glance.

“I won’t be forgetting you.” Hazed eyes restless, he captured your chin in between his fingers to stare you straight on a second time. Like a weight lifting off your shoulders, the worry of being just as alone in the ground as the ones you buried, you had hope that one lengthy man would show. “So wipe those tears away, settle back, and let’s get your ass out of debt, shall we?”

“Going to cause me any problems?” His lips ran thin, pretending to be thinking as his brows rose and descended and eyes blinked.

“I’m not much of a problem as I am usually a solution.”

“Then I’ll take your word for it.”

Clouds, the busiest running doll ring in the area. Petite robots in all directions, greedy and greasy men running after them; the place is a circus at all hours of the day. Pornographic sounds from floors up, stains across every block of cement around the building, and the grossest smells you’ve ever known.

Thankfully, a lesser degree of the place was cloned directly next door. The motel rundown, hopped up by druggies and glorified Nomads that ran the place, you and Han got a room in the first ten minutes of walking through the doors. Two floors up, a long hallway, and a single bed in the room. Shifting eyes caught Han stretching his arms upwards into the air before sitting on the edge of the mattress and falling backwards, his greased back hair falling in all directions from the sweated-out product.

“A mattress—haven’t been on one of these in weeks.” A puff of his chest, and his eyes shut in relaxation. You shook your head, attempting to swallow the smile of seeing the man be so comfortable so fast, and lifted the case of the necklace from inside the bag to feel that it was still secure. “Keep it in.” Voice turned deep, the abrupt instruction made the case fall back down, your fingers losing their grip. “This may be a motel run by Nomads, but they’ll sell us out in a minute if it means making money to keep this roof over their heads.”

“I know how that is.” You signed, taking a seat beside his sprawled form to rest for a moment.

With such a unique item on your person, you knew danger lurked around every corner. The safety net of having the cyborg as your partner was just a bigger gamble. Han was just as compromising, well known for having bounties over his head and weapons to battle at the ready—but it didn’t make him immortal.

“Take it easy, shark bait.” His high-raised cheekbones expanded, blowing out a fit of oxygen he seemed to have been holding while watching you speak about him in your own mind.

“Shark bait?” The nickname was dire.

“You took something from a shark, kingpin, and he’s using you as bait to keep his own men safe and sound - probably for something bigger to come soon - which makes you shark bait.”

Shaking your head, he finally saw the smile on your face. Han appeared well rounded, but the leap in his back sitting him upright to watch you smile for a little longer was virulent to his nature.

“You should smile like that more often.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Han.” You laughed between speaking, his glistening eyes only opening further along with his gummy smile.

The most difficult thing to do in Night City is be on the same side as another. Most people were corrupt, fighting their own way up and not caring who was in front of them, nor their significance. A lover, a family member, a long time friend—all irreplaceable to the common person, but not one with a desire to be at the top of the food chain. Smiling at Han and having him smile back, it was like the world wasn’t so horrible around you for a split moment.

Until an abrupt knock startled you back into reality. Always on edge, your head swung towards the door first. With a finger over his lips when you looked back at the cyborg in silence, you witnessed him become what he rightfully is. A yearning solo stuck in the position of a rockerboy within the city, and only one real task at hand and in his head at all times. Kill and live.

Han rose silently, his arm clicking open to press a button and emerge a spectacle from the Bluetooth piece in his ear, one long hidden by his long hair until now. The small glass spun, enveloping in a red light. Although you are new to most gadgets—red is the universal color for danger under any circumstance. The detecting technology gave away that the person behind the door was absolutely not some fancy room service at a run down motel, but an enemy.

His arm caught you first, Han taking you by the waist and walking you backwards silently. Your original plan to rest in the bed beside the man was as far out the window as your bodies, hands pulling your bag with the necklace inside over your shoulders. The click of the window gave you away, Han’s glass notifying you that the person had stumbled into the room seconds before you both leapt for the ground and landed.

“My car, go!” A stranger’s head poked out from the window, a call of curses and threats just as quick as they were. Before you could blink, take in that the bounty was real and you and Han were now in full, combative danger, the stranger plowed Han’s head with a blunt object.

A thump sounded through the alleyway where you stood in worry, a buzzing following that couldn’t leave your ears. Arms moving, things clicking, and Han looked back at you once. “Get out of here!“

Your legs gave out from under you, knees scraping the concrete as you stood and raced from his side. Leaving him behind to fight, the sounds of the battle followed you all the way to his car. A loud beep, the passenger door opening, the engine starting, and even from nearly a block down—the cyborg had you under his palm of protection. His car smelled strongly of him, the scent engulfing you just as the doors shut and locked before the vehicle took off from its parking space. You reeled back in the passenger seat, the seatbelt in your hands instead of over your form from the state of panic you were in. No driver, the car raced down two streets before halting at the edge of another alleyway. The cyborg looked run down, Han’s hair a mess and blood splattered across his face.

“Han!?” The driver’s side door opened for him, his long legs bending to climb into the car and sit in silence. His eyes shut in pain, ringing in his ears noisy enough to reach your hearing from across the front of the car. The battle was half the problem, Han’s half-human side worn out and half-cyborg side about to circuit.

“Bio—ware.” His voice faint, weak body falling back into the seat. The car started off again, now in the direction of somewhere unknown to you.

“Bioware.” You spoke, repeating what he said as he nodded in agreement.

“Faulty at times.” He laughed, eyes opening to meet your concerned ones. Your hand reached out for him, his cheek falling into the palm of your hand for comfort. You could feel his skin running warm, the robotic arm traded in for his lost limb in the past now twice as hot as the fever surging through him. All from the interaction of a battle, the man looked lost in himself. “I’ve never been this weak before, you know?”

You shook your head. Without the comprehension of his life, more about his past and what he’s been through, the fact that he is what he is, part gadget, riddles you clueless. Helping him yourself wasn’t an option, the car finding place in a dark parking lot at the same time he sat up in his seat facing your direction.

“I’ve never had a partner, either. I guess this is a time for new things. I just didn’t want anyone to see me like this.” For once, the strengthened man was at his barrier, the catastrophe of what he had struggled with still a mystery, but slowly showing itself.

“You’ve been like this.” Your words were a statement, a soft nod as his response. “You’ve been like this-” you repeated. “-and you’ve done nothing about it.” Now you were just scolding him. “So many places to go and get fixed up, and you’re here with me.”

You released the belt from your hand, letting it sway back to the wall of the car as you moved in closer to him. Taking your hand across his arm, the metal alone ran too hot to touch. A hiss from you, and you did all that you knew to do.

“I’m going to unplug the connection from your body to your arm.” His eyes went wide, staring between your face and his arm like he was watching two people argue and didn’t know who to focus on.

“What?”

Your fingers pulled promptly, the USB-like plug removing from his arm as it fell limp in his lap. A soft groan came from him, a pout on his lips as he stared at the deadened piece. From three seconds of being unplugged, the additional limb was already returning to a natural temperature.

“It was overheating because of the pain from the cuts in your skin.” You saw his face run red in the alleyway, even took notice of how bloodied his skin had become when he sat down as the liquid soaked into his shirt. Finally taking a glance at anything other than you and the arm, Han noticed you were telling the truth.

“I am meant for more damage than this.” He sighed.

“Apparently not for a long while, Han.” You said in rebuttal. “Is this what you meant when you said you didn’t want anyone to see you like this?”

“I’ve been weak since my last mission. I went underwater in a river. Guess I’m not as water-proof as I thought I was.” His words forced laughter from his chest, resting back into his chair.

Taking out a cloth from your bag, you ran a bottle of water over it and began wiping away the blood from his cuts. As if he was inhuman, entirely, the cuts were visibly healing in time right before your eyes.

“You took Speedheal?” Almost astonished by the man’s quick wits, he could only shoot a smile your way. “Han, that’s what made you overheat. Sometimes the shot contradicts cyborg limbs because the medicine tries to rush through the wires.”

“Look at you, knowing more about me than you originally admitted.”

“I’m being serious. And the side effects, you’re weak because you’ve taken it too much.”

“You’re a way better partner than you intended to be right now, you know?” He laughed at himself. “I guess it takes a dumbass to know a dumbass. We have a bounty over our heads that we won’t lose for another-” His eyes shifted down to the digital clock in the dash, his mind counting the hours left quickly. “-eleven hours, and you’re more concerned about caring for me than checking your ankle currently throbbing right now from the fall.”

You hadn’t taken into account that the drop from the window down to the alley way was deeper than it looked, and how you hadn’t hesitated to follow Han’s lead out for a split second to remember you’re only human. You peered down at your purple ankle, the bone not broken but fractured enough to have the pain setting in as you took notice of it. “Ow.”

“Ow is probably right.” He chuckled, running his hand up and down your thigh before tapping your knee and taking control of the steering wheel. In a matter of time, the man was healing and becoming himself again, all while you were now the one injured. “At least we’re in this together.” It was like he read your mind, speaking the exact words you hoped to hear in this moment. “If we can’t rest, we can at least use a few hours to travel to the plaza. And we can take it slow this time, we’re ghosts now.”

Your sigh of turmoil didn’t go unnoticed, his big eyes capturing the side of your face before he croaked for you to speak up. “Question.”

“Shoot.”

“How are we supposed to sneak into one of the richest, most exclusive hotels undetected?”

“Oh-” He cackled, pressing at his messy hair with his fingers to put it back into place. “I’ve got that covered.”

three.

Clothes with more thread counts than you had ever seen in your life - much less wore - now layered your body. A matching set that can be worn separately, your arm slinked into Han’s form fitting one with fake smiles on your lips.

"Four hours left. We used all that time just finding something to wear. You said you knew a guy!” Your laughter between the words made him chuckle, a soft moment to be witnessed by those attending the before-party of the wedding.

The Kingpin’s daughter was somewhere in the room, between the waves of stragglers and an array of significant people, and the only way to get to her to give her the gift was by a simple strategy. A couple, you and Han linked with fake rings on your fingers, and the lie of being old friend’s of the bride on your tongues.

“Keep your calm, baby. I told you we had to find something last minute.” To anyone eavesdropping on the two of you, you sounded like a casual quarrel to blank ears.

But you meant what you said, the man stealing nearly eight hours of your time by messing around and pleasuring you in the dressing room of the old store. “Just for fun, to ease the day we’re about to have.” Han’s tongue was far more satisfying working at your body than it was at convincing you.

The entire façade made chills run up your spine in the way everyone looked over you like they could sense the lie all around. Like your pearled smile wasn’t convincing, Han’s kiss at your temple forced others to finally break eye contact.

“Easy. We’re here now. Let’s just make our readmitted acquaintance.” His hand caught the shoulder of a staff member, asking which direction the bride would be in—if they even knew.

Your bag new, fresh scented like it was straight out of a department store, and yet it felt to strange on your arm. Fingers laced with Han’s, the white path towards the bride’s side of the building caused your heart to leap into your throat.

And even worse when Han’s hand was being pulled form your own. The groom wore a large smile, his side pulling your partner in and swallowing him into the dressing room to get into a party game, one he didn’t request to join in the first place.

Han’s wide eyes caught your sight across the room just before you stepped into the bride’s side, the white color everywhere almost blinding to your pupils.

“Finally!” Her voice seemed more annoyed than grateful to see you. One of the bridesmaids ripped your bag from your shoulder, her long nails scraping at your skin in the process. “Thought I’d never see my gift.”

The necklace was pulled out like it meant nothing to her in comparison to you and Han, the piece clipped around her neck by a second bridesmaid in tandem with her huffs of approval.

“I didn’t think you’d even make it in.” She resorted to a pained look on her face, disgust riddled in her eyes as she looked you up and down. Her tone was meant to be harsh, and yet it only made you question what you’d really be receiving from the Kingpin at the brink of this. “And your husband, oh your poor husband.”

Sudden mention of Han made your attention rise back, her highlighted face just as bright as the rest of the room with a smirk on her mouth. “He really did fuck with the wrong people. Using you as bait was almost too simple. Daddy knew he would find you to be a catch, he seems to like anything with a heartbeat and mouth.”

Fists clenched, the temper you held back was visual in your eyes. Stomach-churning laughter filled your ears, the girls surrounding you like you were a film they could watch on repeat and never get bored of.

“Is that why he had interest in you?” You knew jealousy on the tip of someone’s tongue, only this wasn’t coming from yours. A straight slap to your cheek from the bride, cherry red skin, and you knew you hit a nerve.

“Han made a mistake leaving me! He’ll regret it for the rest of his life-” Her voice went from a high pitch to a low tone, slow and drowning. “-or at least, what’s left of it.”

The gasp couldn’t leave your mouth fast enough before your legs were running out the door, down the hall and over the walkway across the party below. The groom’s had long left, the door to the room now open with sizzling sounds emitting from inside the room.

You didn’t want to look—to find the man you’ve come to love having be your partner possibly broken down, or gone altogether. Nothing in life had prepared you for such an ephemeral relationship, Han’s body sprawled on the ground with wires sticking from his skin and his eyes softer than normal.

A thin laugh left his chest and puffed from between his lips, his mouth opening only enough to release it. “Found me?”

“Of course, you idiot.”

More bloody than after the escape from the motel beside Clouds, more beaten and bruised, and more worn down to his cyborg half than you’d hoped to ever see the man at. The position was detrimental, Han’s life at stake.

“Stop looking at me like that.” He hissed gently, palm stretching his fingers to catch your hand. Your crouched form next to him, tears rushing down your face and a look of grief that visually made the man feel weaker at the knees then any other time before. Han knew time was ending.

“I am-” he grinned despite the pain rushing through his limbs. “-so glad to have you here. By my side—a real partner you are, my baby.” His tips of fingers twisted the ring on your finger, playing with the object like he loved seeing it on you just as much as he admitted to loving your smile.

“Han—” You wanted to pull him from the glazed state, his body trying to convince him the pain isn’t all there, but you are.

“You know—come to think of it, I’ve never felt love like this for anyone in such a long time. I almost forgot what it feels like.”

Your lips caught his, blood seeping onto your tongue with a metallic taste that had you reeling back. Although it was cut short, the man still smiled.

“What does it feel like?” You asked, referring to the love he once felt.

“Like when I finally tap out, you’ll have a way to revive me and bring me back.”

“Hey, mad dog?”

“What is it, shark bait?” He grinned.

“I ever tell you I’m a Netrunner in training?”

“So start fixing me up then and let’s get the hell out of here, together.”