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highvern · 3 months ago

Text

Home for the Holidays

Pairing: Jung Wooyoung x fem!reader

Genre: mature, romance, smut, angst, exes to lovers, Christmas!AU, fake dating

Warnings: Drug use (weed), alcohol, mentions of aging family members, unhealthy family dynamics, mentions of illness (reader is a doctor), cursing, dry-humping/grinding, kissing, oral (f. receiving), masturbation, unprotected sex, angst, poor self-esteem/self-doubt, pining, some threats of bodily harm, mentions of pregnancy

Length: ~27k

Note: this is a rewrite of this fic i posted for christmas last year. switched some things, updated my writing style and added some scenes. thank u @haologram for suffering through beta reading this. dedicated to my dearest @miniseokminnies

Summary: Wooyoung broke up with you months ago. In his own shame and embarrassment, he's never told his family. Now they're expecting you for Christmas, just like they have for the past 8 years. So he does the only thing he can think of: beg you to pretend you're still dating.

m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

June

“So I have some news. I know it hasn’t been easy for us going back—”

“I think we should break up.”

“...and forth so much but—What?”

“I don’t think it's working out between us.”

Your mouth falls open, lips attempting to form words that don’t manage to make a sound. Eyes shifting around the room, the sheen of tears thickening as a few beads trail down your cheeks as you stand shakily; managing only a few steps away from the table before a choked sob wiggles free from an iron grip. People are staring as you nearly run out to the door. You don’t care. You’re already outside and turning the block, completely unaware that several whip around to look at the man left at the table.

Wooyoung doesn’t chase you down. Doesn’t call or text as you walk the twenty blocks to Lisa’s apartment in the thick humidity of the city night; snot and tears trailing down your face.

Wooyoung doesn’t say anything at all as eight years shatter to pieces in a matter of seconds.

December

…twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight.

Wooyoung staples the finished packets together, ears tickled by jazzy Christmas music leaking from his computer speakers in the corner of his L-shaped desk. Surrounded by colorful brick walls of a midtown elementary school isn’t where most people his age would find themselves on a Friday evening but where else would he go?

His roommates have their partners over, he’d rather avoid the frigid dampness of the park he usually smokes at, and Wooyoung isn’t interested in the crowds clogging anywhere else he’d think to visit. The usual comforting bustle of the city only serves to set him on edge, making him desperate for a true solitude he really craves. Getting ahead on his classroom prep for the remainder of the semester seemed like the perfect, albeit a depressing way, to spend the evening. The dulcet tones of Dean Martin are joined by an incoming call buzzing his phone across the wooden top of the desk. A familiar picture of his mom and him as a baby flashing across the screen before he answers.

“Hi sweetie,” his mom yells on the other line. Wooyoung can tell she’s driving home from work based on the poor audio quality.

“Hey mom,” he wedges the device between his shoulder and cheek, using his hands to continue organizing the worksheets for Monday, paper warm in his palms from the printer.

“I’m just calling to make sure you and Y/N are still coming for Christmas. I know the hospital is usually crazy this time of year, so I thought I’d double check.”

“Actually mom—”

“Bibi keeps talking about wanting everyone home for Christmas but if Y/N can’t make it she’ll understand. She’s always been her favorite,” she laughs.

Wooyoung’s grandmother is impolitely frank about her age and never hesitates to use it to her own advantage. How does he tell her that his girlfriend, who she liked more than her own grandsons some days, is no longer his girlfriend? And how he is the only one to be blamed for that. He might as well start digging his own grave.

“We’ll be there,” Wooyoung blabs before he can stop himself.

“Wonderful! I’m pulling into the driveway so I’ll talk to you later. Love you!”

“Love you too.”

Fortunately, on a cold winter night like tonight, the only other soul in the building is Mr. Rollins, a janitor with headphones permanently attached to his ears. The colorful combination of expletives pouring from Wooyoung’s mouth would make a sailor blush.

Typing in a familiar name to his message bar, Wooyoung realizes he hasn’t changed it in all this time; the string of emojis from the first night he got your number glaring back at him in mockery. A sting of bile blisters the back of Wooyoung’s throat as he steads himself for what he’s about to do. Who he is about to ask for the biggest mercy; one he didn’t deserve in the slightest.

Wooyoung: Can I call you?

Wooyoung inhales before hitting “send,” locking his phone and tossing it down like it’s possessed. Barely a full minute passes before it vibrates with your response.

Y/N🥰🍯💖: are you okay?

He can’t even type a reply before the buzz buzz buzz on an incoming call tickles against his palm.

Tapping into the false chipper personality he reserves for strangers and his class, Wooyoung answers with a simple. “Hey!”

“Hi,” you deadpan. “What do you want, Wooyoung?”

“How have you been?”

“I’m fine. But you aren’t calling to ask me that.”

Wooyoung wants to object but you’re right. “I’m not but I still care.”

“Sure.”

“Okay, so my mom called and asked if you were coming over for Christmas.”

“Why?” you drawl.

“Because I haven’t told them we broke up.”

A rush of clattering sounds from your end along with a few curse words sounding far away before you continue. “Are you fucking kidding me? It’s been six months!”

“I know! But I’ve been busy and there was never a good time and it’s just kinda snowballed.”

“Well, tell her now,” you insist.

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Bibi keeps talking about how she wants everyone how for one last Christmas and with Kyungmin going to colle—”

He can hear your eye roll. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you are.”

“You know I wouldn’t ask unless I was desperate.”

“I thought us breaking up meant I didn’t have to deal with your bullshit anymore.”

“I can tell them you’re busy and the hospital is keeping you or—”

“No.” Wooyoung can picture the hand scrubbing down your face, fingers massaging your temples the same way you always did when his shenanigans stirred up trouble. “I’ll do it.”

Now he’s the one to pause. “Really?”

“Yeah, it’d be nice to see them all one last time.”

He can’t believe you answered his call, let alone agreed to this stupid plan. But he completely can because now matter what happens, you’re a better person than he’ll ever deserve. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I actually need to get back to doing that so—”

“Yeah, I’ll, ugh, talk to you later. Bye.” Wooyoung bites his tongue to stop the habitual I love you from slipping in.

“Bye.”

As the line clicks and Wooyoung is left alone in his classroom, the space abruptly feels too big. With each minute ticking by, he convinces himself he hallucinated the entire exchange because there is no possible way his ex-girlfriend agreed to this ill-thought plan. Everything feels too normal for you to extend such undue kindness his way, especially after how he ruined their relationship in a moment of insecurity.

Wooyoung: My flight out is 12/21

Wooyoung: You don’t have to come that early

Y/N🥰🍯💖: im off starting the 19th

Wooyoung: I’ll pay for your flight

Y/N🥰🍯💖: great. ill venmo you

Wooyoung: Cool, send me the details

There’s a weight on Wooyoung’s tongue at the new dynamic settling between you. Eight years of dating but now you’re a stranger, the last text messages arranging for Lisa to pick up a box of your stuff from his apartment.

Six months and he didn’t know if you kept your hair the same way or what new book you were obsessing over in the sparse free time from the hospital; if your neighbor in Boston’s yappy geriatric dog finally kicked the bucket.

Lovers. Almost fiancées. And now strangers.

Wooyoung wakes up to the early morning bustle of the busy streets just outside his window. His phone clock reads thirty minutes past his normal alarm which means he’s late. And that means his boss is going to tear his ass a new one.

In a whirl, Wooyoung rushes to the bathroom. He wets his hands with the freezing tap water, patting his face and attempting to style his bed ridden hair. The door shifts to catch his foot as he exits, stubbing his toe and forcing him to hop down the hallway to his room. Wrinkled khakis and a sweater are all Wooyoung manages before he throws on his parka and is out the door. He sprints to the subway, just in time to see the doors closing on his train.

“Fuck me!”

“Too young for me buddy,” croaks the homeless man splayed on the bench in the middle of the platform.

Ignoring him, Wooyoug paces further down the station, anger filling him with restless energy. Glancing at his phone, he shoots an email to his principal that he’ll be late due to “train delays.” Thank god for the MTA being a regular piece of shit. Finally checking the stream of missed notifications during the night, he uses the lull to answer them.

Mom: Does y/n still like those chips we bought last time? I’m at the store getting a few things

Wooyoung: She said she’s happy with whatever you get!

Not a lie since you would be happy to have snacks of any kind.

SANNIE⛰️: YOU DIDN’T TELL YOUR PARENTS?

SANNIE⛰️: U R SO FUCKED

At least he can always count on San to state the obvious.

Y/N🥰🍯💖: here’s my ticket

Wooyoung does a double take when he sees you’re flying out of New York, not Boston. Why aren’t you flying out of Boston? There’s no way it’s cheaper than flying out of Boston and you wouldn’t go through the trouble of getting down here unless there was a good reason.

Wooyoung: Why are you flying out of LGA?

Y/N🥰🍯💖: Because I live here?

A lump of lead hardens in his stomach. You live here, in New York. You’d been in the city and he didn’t even notice. Questions race forward. How long? Where were you working? What neighborhood did you live in? Why didn’t he know you moved back?

The last question is more his own fault than he cares to admit.

Wooyoung: since when?

He doesn’t expect a response right away. It wasn’t the first time his messages went hours before being answered. You’re a doctor, and before that a med student, and before that pre-med when he met you at some dive bar and realized you shared a behavioral psych class. You always maintained a full schedule, only responding to the outside world when the night bled into the early hours of the day. Wooyoung would probably get an answer in the next few days but he needs to know right now.

Wooyoung: Did you know Y/N moved here?

Yeosang: Yes.

Well, fuck.

Wooyoung: You didn’t think to tell me?

Yeosang: You broke up.

Yeosang: ?

Even his roommate knew you moved back to the city.

Double fuck.

His train arrives without preamble, brakes screeching as it slows to a stop. Wooyoung crowds into the compartment, happy for it to be relatively empty. Finding a spot on the wall, he zones out of the chaos for the next twenty minutes. A group of highschoolers laugh obnoxiously in the corner, snatching one another’s phones as they share god knows what between them. A young mom tries to placate her crying baby, the older man next to her rolling his eyes as he devours his morning paper. When the doors open at his stop, Wooyoung pauses for a second as an elderly woman enters the train. Catching her eye, he offers her his seat; only standing when she’s close enough so no one else tries to take it from her.

Wooyoung slithers out of the closing doors and bolts out of the station as fast as he can.

Panting and sweating under his black parka, Wooyoung arrives outside the red doors of the elementary school he teaches at. Principal Martinez is tapping his foot at the top of the steps, arms crossed in front of his chest, scowl etched deep on his face. “This is the third time this month.”

“I know, I’m sorry! But the train got delayed with repairs or something and—”

“Save it. You have a class to get to.”

Breezing past, Wooyoung’s boots clack against the linoleum tile as he careens towards his classroom. The rowdy cacophony of third grade voices echo beyond the doorway, only increasing in volume as he peeks his head in.

A dozen shrill voices scream something along the lines of “Mr. Jung you’re late!”

“You’re all just early!” Wooyoung goads back, sending a thankful look at the teacher who stepped in to watch them until he arrived.

The room descends into giggles, students finding their places as he settles at his own desk.

“So today, we’re starting with circle time!”

“Let me get this straight: your ex asked you to pretend to be his girlfriend and now you’re spending Christmas with his family across the country?”

Sparing a glance from the manilla folder containing notes on your next patient, Hongjoong eyes you skeptically. The ridiculousness of the situation isn’t lost on you. You’d nearly convinced yourself the entire exchange Friday night was some cruel dream if not for the string of text messages proving it’d been real. Wooyoung’s first real attempt to speak with you post-breakup, and he asks you to pretend he didn’t break your heart six months ago.

“That’s about as straight as it gets.”

Hongjoong’s eyebrows furrow, “And you said yes, why?”

“Because…”

You missed him? Because you still loved him? Because when you saw his message you thought he was finally ready to admit it'd all been a mistake?

Because Wooyoung always convinced you to go along with whatever he asked.

“I really like his family.”

“Oh, sweet child,” he tsks, leafing through his own case file.

“Look, it’ll be nice to see them one last time and I’d rather spend the holidays with them than cramped in my apartment to avoid the tourists.”

“Are you sure that’s the only reason why?”

“Yep.”

“This can’t go wrong at all!”

“Shut up,” you say before dipping into the exam room, shifting your face into an enthusiastic smile. “How are we today, Mrs. Haspin?”

“We’re doing okay. Harper hasn’t been liking the new medicine you prescribed.”

“She hasn’t?” You gasp sarcastically, staring wide eyed at the tiny brunette with braided pigtails sitting on the exam room bed.

“They’re gross!” Harper cries with all the sincerity a four year old can muster, her tiny hands wrinkling the paper as she slaps the bed indignantly.

“Well that’s no good. I’ll make sure to check if they have other flavors.” You type a few notes in her electronic chart as you turn over your shoulder. “Mom, have you noticed a difference?”

“She’s not having as many coughing fits.”

“That is very good.” You curl your stethoscope in your palm, attempting to warm the cool metal. “Can I listen to your lungs, Harper?”

She shakes her head up and down vigorously, the pink and gold beads at the end of her pigtails clacking together.

“Alright, take a deep breath in.” The woosh of air entering her lungs fills the room. “And out. In. And out.”

You prompt her to continue several times, gliding the chest piece along various parts of her back as you listen intently. A few crackles pop in your ears, mucus coating her airways; only made worse by the dry winter of the city.

“Very good, Harper,” you praise before turning to her mom waiting anxiously in the corner. “With the winter make sure you’re using the humidifier as much as possible but her lungs sound better than last time so I’d like to stay on the meds.” You swivel back to your patient. “I’ll check with the pharmacy if they can do something about the flavor. Okay?”

Harper beams, glad to be heard. Her mother beams for an entirely different reason. Her daughter struggled with respiratory issues since she’d been born and as she aged they’d only gotten worse. Harper was the first patient you took when you started two months ago and in that time you’ve grown fond of her.

“All right, I’ll walk you all to the front. I think we can push out our next visit until six weeks since she’s been doing so well. If anything comes up, please don’t hesitate to call us.”

Handing them off to the receptionist to schedule their next appointment, you return to your office for a quick lunch.

Y/N: Because I live here

Youngie 🖤: since when?

How do you tell him that you’ve lived here since the day he broke up with you? How that night at dinner you were planning to surprise him by moving back to New York and removing the distance that plagued your relationship for three years?

The benefit of no longer being in a relationship means you don’t have to explain anything.

Locking your phone, you scarf down the squashed sandwich you brought from home before rushing to your next patient.

Another week passes before Wooyoung reaches out to you again. You’re set to leave in a few days but work requires all the energy you can manage thanks to a volatile respiratory season.

Youngie 🖤: Our flights are around the same time. Do you split a cab?

You spoke with Yeosang frequently enough (once in a blue moon) to know they still lived in the dingy old walk up they could hardly afford downtown. The high rise you rented further up Manhattan would be on his way to the airport but did you want to see Wooyoung sooner than needed?

Misery still festered in your veins since the break up. Eight years you’d dated; through senior year of undergrad, four years of medical school, and just shy of three years of residency. And the asshole couldn’t give you a single reason for your break up. No warning. No fighting. The same bouquet of delicate pink tulips waiting in hand for you as you arrived at the train station for your last visit to the city before relocating permanently. Yeosang texted you that very afternoon about his excitement to have you back as if nothing was wrong.

A beautiful afternoon holed up in his room for a late nap before dinner, apartment silent in the absence of his three roommates who’d usually greet you enthusiastically as you returned to the city for a visit. Wooyoung hadn’t acted any differently than the other times you visited, seemingly unaware of the surprise you planned to unveil at the fancy dinner he planned to congratulate you on finishing your long years of training.

But then he sat down and said the six words that replayed in your mind like a curse.

And that was the last time you heard his voice until Friday night; as if Wooyoung dove off the face of the earth. The only proof of living were the traces of him in his friends’ Instagram stories or faceless photos of him in their posts.

You were never one to post much on social media anyway but his shock at your move back to the city fanned a sick sense of satisfaction. As if to say “two can play at that game.” Wooyoung cut you out and you’d done the same. Keeping your move under lock and key despite sharing the same friend group.

Y/N: no thanks

You’re toeing the line of rudeness but what’s Wooyoung going to do? Break up with you again?

Terminal C of LaGuardia Airport four days before Christmas ranks among the top destinations no one in their right mind would want to be. Parents attempting to keep track of hyper children, businessmen scowling down their nose as they scream into their cellphones, adults slamming down overpriced drinks in preparation for the endless questions holidays bring.

“Bringing home anyone special?”

“When are you going to get married?”

“Grandchildren?”

The last is Wooyoung’s grandmother’s new favorite. Myungho faces the brunt of it; married three years and in no rush to add another mouth to feed just yet. Back in April, when you and Wooyoung visited for her birthday Bibi decided to skip asking when you two would tie the knot and go straight to procreation.

How fun it’ll be to answer those questions again with his temporarily not ex-girlfriend.

The line for security is long and laborious. One agent yells at him for keeping his shoes on, another rolls her eyes when he asks if his laptop needs to come out of his backpack. In front of him, a frail looking elderly woman struggles with placing the hard plastic bin on the rolling conveyor belt. Behind, grumbles of discontent regarding her holding up the line rise in volume as Wooyoung helps her with her things; sending a smile to her thank you.

And because no good deed goes unpunished, Wooyoung gets pulled for an extra search once he passes the large metal detector.

A burly pale skinned man with blue nitrile gloves sorts through his belongings with the gentleness of a bull in a china shop. Wooyoung’s wrecked and dusty backpack passes inspection easily enough but the contents of his carry-on end up spread across the shiny metal table for further examination under the sterile lights. Gifts for his family, some books he’s teaching next semester, and a navy velvet box he hasn’t left the city without in the past year.

That is apparently the source of interest for TSA as the man pops open the lid to scan the marquis cut diamond ring before putting it back in its place. “Congrats, man.”

Wooyoung gives a tight smile. “Thanks.”

Nodding his head to his colleague, the TSA agent steps away and allows Wooyoung to pack his bags.

He really needs a drink.

“I’m sorry ma’am, the flight is overbooked. But there is room on the next flight to Denver!”

“No charge?”

The flight attendant keeps her best customer service voice but something dies behind her eyes. “Not unless you would like to upgrade to business class.”

You have the money and Wooyoung paid for your seat so it’s technically cheaper than it’d usually be. However, you know Wooyoung would take it personally if he found out you sat in business when he paid for a last minute economy flight on a teacher's salary. In the end, a few hours of comfort aren’t worth adding to the awkwardness you’ll face over the next week.

“No, thank you. But if there’s an aisle seat available that’d be great.”

She taps on her keyboard with manicured nails for a moment, the light of the screen reflecting on her face. “Alright, your new flight number is AYX287 and you’ll be flying out of Gate 98.”

“Thank you,” you say, reviewing the boarding pass she printed. Your new gate is on the opposite side of the terminal but you have a little over an hour to make it there.

Rolling your silver carry-on next to you, you weave in and out of the other airport goers heading in the opposite directions. A curse of any crowded space, people forget to walk with a sense of purpose. You dodge a young couple, probably teenagers, standing in the middle of the walkway oblivious to anyone else; only to end up behind an gaggle of older women surrounded by a heavy cloud of perfume and cheap wine. One of their shirts reads “Happily Divorced!” in glittery cursive.

More nimble footwork and multiple sign checks later, you reach the correct wing of the terminal with forty five minutes to spare. Confirming that your gate does, in fact, exist, you turn back up the walkway to find a drink. Preferably several. The first time you see Wooyoung in months will require the strongest alcohol you can finally afford now that residency is over and you're making the hefty salary you’d been promised at the start of medical school.

A friendly faced woman, old enough to be your mother, greets you as you take a stool at her bar.

“Cranberry margarita.” You slide over your credit card. “And start a tab, please.”

The first overpriced drink goes down smoothly, a little sweet and perfectly tart; the second and third much the same. Pleasantly buzzed with fifteen minutes till boarding, you cash out and shuffle back to wait by the gate.

And in one of the cramped pleather seats of the waiting area, sits your ex-boyfriend.

Wooyoung is hallucinating. Two gin and gingers and a THC gummy churning in his stomach make the mirage in front of him look incredibly realistic but there is no way this is happening. The world isn’t that cruel.

Even if he deserves it.

You stand twenty feet away in the usual flight attire, every bit as beautiful as the last time he saw you. Loose gray sweats, the same old hunter green crew neck with the name of his hometown in frayed golden embroidery on the front, sherpa lined short ugg boots, and glasses perched on the end of your nose. The silver carry-on you bought in the airport during the last visit to his family at your side. And a sour look of absolute disgust twisting your lips when you catch him staring.

Better he sees you for the first time since the break up now instead of later in front of the audience of his nosy family. In the safety of anonymity, you can kill him multiple times over with looks alone, and Wooyoung can grovel and pander like he usually does.

Or Wooyoung would if you hadn’t taken a seat along the bay of windows at the opposite end of the alcove.

You actively avoid looking in his general direction for the next fifteen minutes. An impressive feat given he’s directly in front of the help desk and TV screen displaying updates for the flight. But you keep focus on your phone, tapping furiously to who Wooyoung assumes is Lisa. If he wakes up to the tiny blonde in his apartment one morning with a knife to his throat, there’ll at least be a paper trail of evidence.

The gate agent booms over the loudspeaker, announcing priority boarding and first class to come forward. Wooyoung’s bank account weeps at the idea of flying first class during Christmas. Who flies first class domestic? A true mystery for the ages.

The familiar head of hair, full of murderous thoughts aimed at him, boards with group three; flashing a polite smile to the gate agent as you strut down the hall without a glance back.

When Wooyoung is called with the last group, he’s first in line. The airport is a dog eat dog world and his good deeds end where the boarding line begins.

Nearly every seat is filled when he shuffles down the cramped aisle, full overhead bins already closed half way down the plane. He doesn’t find you amongst the faces of passengers preparing for the next five hours, some already knocked out with eye masks and neck pillows.

Seat 27A, a window seat Wooyoung paid an extra $37 for, sits next to a blissfully vacant middle seat. There’s also just enough room for his black suitcase to fit overhead, snug between a gray hard case, and a blue duffle.

The aisle seat in the row is occupied by a man who looks a little younger than Wooyoung's age, a college hoodie and baseball cap similar to his own. He rises, allowing Wooyoung to shuffle by and plop into his chair. Stuffing his backpack under the seat in front, Wooyoung shoots a few last minute texts. One to his family group chat, letting them know the flight is about to take off; resending the flight number for his dad to anxiously track. Another to his roommate group chat, reminding them to cover the drains before they leave town. And a final one to San, begging for thoughts and prayers.

He barely hits send when the seat next to him jostles with the weight of a body. Turning, Wooyoung spots the man in the aisle seat a few inches from himself. On the other side, his ex-girlfriend.

Great.

Wooyoung’s familiar mop of dark hair remains unseen through each new rush of passengers, the plane slowly filling up more and more. You dread to think he got stuck the same way you did hours ago, forced on a later flight than intended. If that was the case, would you be stuck at the airport waiting for him? Given his parents had to drive two hours to pick you both up, the answer is probably yes.

Two hours unsupervised with Wooyoung’s mom would ruin the entire plan. You can’t lie to her. It’s one thing for Wooyoung to play this entire charade in her face and you to go along. It’s another to ask you to look her in the eye and pretend you hadn’t spent the last six months pretending her son didn’t exist.

Nature calls you to the cramped bathroom at the back of the aircraft as passengers at the front continue trickling in. Hopefully Wooyoung is sitting far away from you when you return to your seat.

Stupid motherfucker. You think, rattling the jammed door of the airplane stall in an attempt to force it open. Just as you're about to kick the door down, a flight attendant shoves it aside, flashing a tight smile of displeasure.

Shuffling up back to your seat, you awkwardly wait behind struggling passengers putting away their belongings in the sparse overhead space. Thank the powers that be, your new ticket came with better boarding.

Finally catching up to the familiar faces of the rows around your seat, you turn to find two men in your row. One in your seat, and the other your ex boyfriend.

You stop dead in your tracks. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Sorry!” the man who is not your ex-boyfriend apologizes.

“No! Not you.”

Wooyoung stares blankly, glazed eyes bugging out his skull like he can’t believe the irony either. If habit and history were to repeat itself, he carefully timed an edible before stepping through security. Given his propensity for being obnoxiously early to the airport, he should be high as a kite.

And now you’re stuck next to him drunk as a skunk.

Great.

Taking the now vacant aisle seat, you attempt to ignore Wooyoung once again; plugging in your headphones and pulling out a book you’ve been trying to get through for months. Lisa’s recommendation of smutty fantasy romance with hot immortal faeries. You didn’t see the appeal but at her insistence, you gave it a chance.

“Hey,” calls a voice to your left.

Nope, not doing this. You think, forcing yourself to read the opening paragraph again but registering none of the words. It might as well be ancient hieroglyphics.

“Y/N,” he tries again. In your periphery, Wooyoung folds over at the waist to look around the man sandwiched between you.

“What?” you snap, ripping out your headphones.

“How’ve you been?”

Rolling your eyes with a groan, you sink back into your chair, headphones replaced and book in the pocket in front of you. It’s going to be a long flight.

Murphy’s law states that anything that can go wrong will and your flight is no exception. The packed jet is stuck taxing for almost an hour, courtesy of the trademark fog and rain of New York in the winter. You can feel the heat of Wooyoung’s gaze burn the side of your face, cheeks heating under his scrutiny. But the full scale meltdown threatening to unleash if you entertain him has no place in the sanctity of a last minute holiday flight of people just trying to make it to their next destination.

He doesn’t stop when the plane finally lurches forward, witnessing you brace for the worst part of flying; take off.

The loud rattles and pitch of jet engines skyrocket your blood pressure, flooding your mouth with saliva as a threat of vomiting everywhere; a sickening cold sweat pooling at your back. All you can do is close your eyes, and take deep calming breaths your guided meditation apps recommend. Running through the facts keeps you from descending into full panic. Airplanes are notoriously safe. The odds of dying in a plane crash are one in eleven million. You’re more likely to die in a car crash or from something one of your patients brings into the hospital.

But the brief suspension in time and space as you rise through the atmosphere unsettles you to your core.

The panic steeping into your veins is temporary, eager to vanish the second you reach cruising altitude. It disappears like a late winter snow under early spring sunlight, leaving only trace evidence it ever existed in the first place. But it’ll be back with a vengeance under the screaming brakes and the sounds of wheels hitting pavement as you land. The seatbelt sign chimes off and the breath you’d failed to release follows the fading light that illuminated it.

Wooyoung tries to talk to you another two times before giving up. The final instance is a plea for the bathroom, which you graciously grant; thrilling in the relief you feel at his absence.

The poor guy between you two looks worse for wear. Once Wooyoung is out of earshot, you apologize, excusing the strange behavior with a white lie that he's just a friend from college you didn’t get along with and hadn’t seen in a while after he offers to trade seats. You refuse. If you sat next to Wooyoung they’d need more than a few people to pull your hands from his neck.

The stranger, Jay, laughs. “That’s crazy that you two ended up on the same flight. Are you from Denver?”

“Oh, no. Just visiting some family in Lavensville. What about you?”

“No way! My mom is from Lanesville.”

“Small world,” you laugh. “So what took you to the city?”

“I’m in grad school at Columbia. Getting my MBA.”

Wooyoung arrives over your shoulder. “Excuse me.”

When you rise, you notice his face is tense as he passes to return to his seat. He pretends to sleep the rest of the flight as you chat with the man next to you.

Six laborious hours pass before you land in Denver. Exiting the plane, you leave Wooyoung behind in favor of waiting by the restrooms on the way to arrivals. You tap your foot impatiently as he stumbles over, clearly exhausted by the late arrival of your flight and the idea of another two hours in his mom’s cramped sedan.

Shuffling next to one another in somber silence, you wait for Wooyoung to speak first. He dragged you into this, and it’s his job to make it work. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine.” You stare straight ahead. His hand brushes yours by accident and you make more space between you so it doesn’t happen again.

“How’s work?” Wooyoung asks.

“Fine.”

“Okay, look.” He turns, stepping directly into your path and nearly toppling over when you bounce off his chest. “I’m sorry for all of this but you agreed to come so can we please at least pretend to act like we like each other?”

Unfortunately, Wooyoung is right. He might have put his foot in his mouth, but you didn’t take the chance to bail. He’s only fractionally more guilty than you are for this charade.

“Fine,” you sigh.

He pins you with a look, eyebrows arched as if asking “are you sure?”

Shuffling around him, you begin your journey to baggage claim once again, Wooyoung hot on your heels.

“I’m working at a hospital uptown, I live in Yorkville, and I still prefer the bus to the train.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Wooyoung nods. “I’m at the same school, in the same apartment, and still living with San and Yeosang. But Mingi moved to Williamsburg with his girlfriend.”

You try to smother the snarkiness of your voice but a sarcastic “I know” slips free.

Even if you weren’t as close with the boys due to the break up, they’d been your friends as much as his; especially Mingi’s girlfriend, who’d you introduced him to. Lia invited you to their housewarming party when they finally settled in but you missed it due to work. A small blessing to avoid running into Wooyoung so soon after the break up.

The conveyor belt of remaining unclaimed luggage spins like the saddest merry-go-round in existence. Wooyoung jumps forward to snatch your suitcase before you can react, rolling it your direction before diving back in for his own. Once out of the way, he calls his mom to confirm she’s pulling around to pick you two up.

The silver sedan whips to the curve, Wooyoung’s mom beaming from the driver’s seat.

“My babies!” she cries through the rolled down window.

Mrs. Jung always gave you the enthusiasm your own mother couldn’t feign. Waving at her before circling the trunk where Wooyoung packs away your bags, you snatch his hand before he can circle back to the passenger door.

“Should we tell them I still live in Boston?”

As if you’ve just spoken another language, Wooyoung simply blinks at you.

“How are we gonna explain separate apartments? It makes no sense.”

“Oh,” he gasps, as if the thought didn’t occur to him. “Ugh, yeah. Good idea.”

The security guard monitoring the pick up area begins striding towards the car, inhaling to yell a warning. Throwing your remaining luggage inside the trunk roughly, you both sprint to enter the vehicle. Wooyoung plants himself in the passenger seat, squeezing his mom in a tight hug as you buckle in the middle seat. Untangling from her needy son, Mrs. Jung peels out and joins the line of cars attempting to merge on the interstate.

Reclining the seat back, Wooyoung knocks out immediately, leaving you to fend for yourself.

“How’s Boston, dear?” She chimes, voice light and bouncy despite the late hour.

You provide your stock answer for everytime someone asks over the past three years.

“Cold, wet. Lots of sick babies.”

“At least they’re consistent!”

You try to swallow the instinct to comb through Wooyoung’s hair as he naps. The first thing you learned about him in the early phase of your relationship was that Wooyoung needed some kind of physical contact at all times or he’d die. At least, he thought so. It’d been annoying at first; the constant hand holding, suffocating hugs that left your arms useless as you tried to study, the overabundance of cartoonish kisses anywhere his lips could reach at the moment. But over eight years, you grew to appreciate his special way of showing affection. When words failed the man who always had something to say, he relied on touch to convey the things he couldn’t verbalize.

Even if you say all the right things and act like nothing's wrong, anyone who has ever been associated with Wooyoung will know something is up if he isn’t hanging off you like a koala. If you’re going to pretend the last six months hadn’t happened, then you have no reason not to treat him the way you always had.

Your nails snag on a few invisible tangles in his shaggy hair that spills across the cloth seat. It’s longer than when you last saw him in the summer, top half pulled back in an elastic. Continuing to provide updates, you gently brush the bangs hanging in his face. Wooyoung whines sleepily when you pause, causing his mom to laugh.

“Nice to know the city hasn’t changed him.”

Quick to appease, you start again before responding. “Eh, I don’t know about that. Have you seen some of his shoes?”

“Still?” she gasps.

“Unfortunately, I think it’s terminal.”

Mrs. Jung’s cackly laugh is a perfect doppelganger of her son’s. Shrill and mischievous, compelling you to laugh along in pure glee even if you don’t find shared humor; bewitched by the pure joy.

Once the initial rush of reunion wanes, she insists you catch some sleep in the backseat during the long drive. The gentle caress of warm air from the vents, paired with the smooth carols from the radio, lulls you down into a shallow rest.

As his mom rolls to a stop in their driveway, the gentle glow of the car's cabin lights draw Wooyoung awake. Eyes only a quarter open, he stretches in the reclined seat with an obnoxious yawn, hands brushing your stomach. You shrug his hand off your thigh, burrowing back down into the collar of your sweater

His mom opens the driver's door, inviting in the chilly air from outside. “Come on, sleepy heads. We’re home.”

Home for Wooyoung is a cream two story Williamsburg Revival style home with royal blue shutters. His dad added the two car garage himself, meticulously matching the exterior to the existing home, blending old and new seamlessly under the watchful eye of his mom. The now gray and dead garden that usually bloomed wildly below the first floor windows was his grandmother’s contribution when she moved in before Wooyoung started highschool.

When his parents were both students at the obscure liberal arts college Lavensville was built around, his mom had been obsessed with the very house Wooyoung grew up in. According to his dad, Wooyoung’s mom talked more about the house than anything else; a true historic preservationist to her core.

It was an odd way to ask someone to marry you, but his dad always said “Some women wanted a ring. Your mom wanted this house.”

His dad surprised her with the ring after she stopped crying about the house.

Golden string lights drip from the corners of the roof, casting the exterior in a buttery soft haze. Each window sporting a wreath with a thick red velvet ribbon. A heavy layer of snow coating the ground like powdered sugar makes the entire scene like something out of a snow globe.

Another yawn before braving the outside, Wooyoung spots you in the rearview mirror; features curled in a sleepy scowl, eyes squinted against the sudden light.

He wants to pull you into his arms and kiss you back to sleep. Follow the slope of your nose and bow of your lips with his fingertips until you swat him away and hide in the warmth of his neck. Six months ago he could have. Now, he has to brave the cold himself.

Wooyoung joins his mom at the back of the car, shouldering her away from the trunk as she insists on helping carry everything inside. She manages to snag his backpack and your carryon before he can shoo her towards the path to the front door where his dad is jamming on an old pair of sneakers to come help.

“We got it!” You call across the icy lawn, bidding the older man to stay inside as you struggle with the luggage.

“I can see that,” his dad laughs, jogging down the salted sidewalk curving along the front of the house.

His dad lifts your larger suitcase out of the truck with ease, leaving Wooyoung to roll his own inside while you balance your tote bag and his carryon. Wooyoung manages to snag the canvas bag off your elbow as he walks past. The wheels grate against the uneven brick sidewalk as everyone rushes to return to the heated interior of the house.

It’s well past midnight, the faint glow of Christmas lights illuminating the climb to the second floor. Wooyoung’s room is just as he left it the last time he visited in the spring. The headboard of the tiny twin bed resting against the wall just under the window looking out to the front yard, posters from his childhood still tacked up crookedly.

Wooyoung tries very hard not to think about the last time he shared the quilt covered bed. How the last trip here had been the last night you slept in his arms; the last time he laid you bare beneath him, giggled against your lips as you both tried and failed to stay silent; the last time he fell asleep tangled in you, with the blue velvet box he brought everywhere hidden in his suitcase only feet away, ready to ask you at the drop of a hat.

Six months and the memories felt as real as they had when it first happened.

The same blue velvet box with the same ring sits in his suitcase but he can’t think about it because if he does he’ll beg you to come back to him. You lay curled under the quilt like before except this time Wooyoung can’t glue himself to your back and trace shapes on your stomach for you to guess. He can’t kiss you good night and tell you he loves you even though he still does; he probably always will. He can’t do it.

Because you deserve better.

A better life, a better man. One who doesn’t rope you into this level of insanity instead of asking for a second chance and explaining why he ruined the best thing in his life.

But Wooyoung is a coward.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he offers, unzipping his suitcase for clean clothes to sleep in.

Digging in your own suitcase, you scoff at the idea. “Don’t be stupid, what if Bibi comes in?”

A tiny speck of hope you might want to share the bed for other reasons melts into nothing. Of course, you wouldn’t want him anywhere near you. The moment in the car when he was feigning slip just to feel the gentle scratch of your nails through his hair meant nothing. “She’s gotten better about knocking!”

“Yeah, after she saw us having sex!”

Not like that’s going to happen again.

“We can share the bed, it’s too cold up here to sleep on the floor.” You grab your toiletry bag and shuffle to his door. “You’re a diva when you don’t get good sleep.”

“I’m not a diva,” Wooyoung whines. But his rebuttal bounces off the piece of wood locking him alone in his room.

When you return from the bathroom, Wooyoung takes his turn to brush his teeth and wash his face. It’s just for a few days, he reminds himself. You leave first thing in the morning the day after Christmas and after he gets back to the city he can tell his family the truth. Or an altered version of events where Wooyoung hasn’t lied to all of them.

Until then, Wooyoung gathers all the patience he typically reserves for the army of eight year olds he deals with every day in an effort to not descend into insanity.

This was his idea. He can do this. He can pretend everything is fine. He can share a bed with you and be totally normal; unlike every other time you fell asleep in his bed since the beginning of your now finished relationship.

He finds you balancing on the edge of the narrow mattress, a sliver of space open for him to sink into. His chest squeezes but he stays silent as the minutes tick by. He knows you’re awake. Your leg twitches and brushes back against his before you jerk away like his skin burns.

Wooyoung wants to roll over and trace the dip between your shoulders like he used to when neither of you could fall asleep. It’d work in no time, he knows it. But he settles for counting backwards until his thoughts drift off.

You fall asleep somewhere around the second time he reaches the forties. When Wooyoung reaches zero again, he starts over.

Shuffling into the cold kitchen, you barely crack your eyes open as you beeline for the coffee pot resting on the counter. Wooyoung’s mom greets you from the dining table, eyes scanning her newspaper as you reply with a mumble “morning.”

One would think years of twenty-four hour shifts and early mornings would make waking up easier but you’d sleep all day if given the chance; however, Wooyoung suffocating you like an octopus forced you from the heated sanctuary under the covers and downstairs. Already it was too easy to pretend you were still together. Waking up tangled in him, his face squashed against your sweater clad chest as he snored, blissfully unaware of the budding panic attack you’d calmed with a freezing shower full of choked tears.

Planting your rear in a dark oak dining chair around the table, the jolt of caffeine and sugar lulls your senses awake as you scroll your phone.

You send a text to your little brother, confirming your parents had made it to their cruise safely while your flight crossed the country. Two weeks in the Caribbean, all expenses paid, sounded a lot better than a week in rural Colorado with your ex-boyfriend. Thankfully, there’s no cell service in the middle of the ocean; so you don’t need to explain to your mother why you were spending Christmas with Wooyoung, who she truly was never fond of to begin with.

Sometime after bed, Lisa sent a string of vaguely threatening emojis and a picture of her yorkie with the Christmas sweater you bought as an early gift. Assuring her Wooyoung had been on his best behavior so far, you switched over to skim your clogged work email.

“Do you want some breakfast, sweetie?”

You tilt your mug towards her. “This is fine.”

“How can you be a doctor and try to tell me coffee is a healthy breakfast?”

“I have horrible news if you think doctors have time to do any of the things we tell people they should.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re here then because you have plenty of time now.”

Wooyoung hates waking up alone. It feels inexplicably wrong. Especially after sharing an apartment those four years you attended medical school. There’d been plenty of road bumps but spending every night curled up under the comforter with the woman he loved made it all fade to black. He never slept as good as those years.

Except this morning, he wakes up to your fingers brushing his hair like always, and for a second Wooyoung thinks the entire breakup must’ve been a horrible dream. Wooyoung hadn’t moved a muscle lest the passes of your short nails sending goosebumps down his spine stopped. Eventually, the lazy drags lulled him back into the land of sleep as your heart sang his favorite lullaby.

The second time Wooyoung woke up, you’d been long gone and he felt the familiar emptiness he thought he’d forgotten after all those months apart.

Trudging down the stairs with loud footsteps, Wooyoung spots his mom in the kitchen, mouth spread wide over laughter as you sit at the counter, cradling a steaming mug. If Wooyoung had to bet, it probably contained more sugar and milk than coffee.

“Morning,” he grumbles, forehead resting against the cool marble of the island as he continues to doze in front of the audience.

His mom pats his back as she passes to reach the fridge, “Go sit down, Woo. You're in my way!”

“Everyone is so mean to me,” he pouts, but rounds the counter to sit next to you nonetheless, resting his cheek on your shoulder, feeling you startle at the contact. Wooyoung hides a satisfied smirk in your sweater when a hand starts scratching his back under his hoodie. He can almost forget you're lying to everyone in the gentle passes of your cold fingers chilling against his hot skin.

His mom works to heat the pan on the stove. “Your brother is getting in this afternoon so we thought of letting everyone relax until this evening and then having a game night.”

“Where’s Kyungmin?”

“He went with Bibi to volunteer at the church this morning.”

“Sucker,” you mumble for Wooyoung’s ears only, sending him into giggles.

Wooyoung’s grandmother has a particular way of guilting everyone in his family to do exactly what she wants. It’s why he’s sharing his childhood bed with his ex-girlfriend, why his dad keeps the house unbearably warm all year round, and why his little brother is no doubt undergoing military grade interrogation first thing in the morning at the hands of nosey grandmothers.

Going to church with Bibi was less about being closer to God and more about being paraded in front of her old lady friends with single granddaughters. Wooyoung had been a victim until he met you, each summer at home more exhausting than the last with not so subtle reminders Ms. So-and-so's granddaughter was very pretty and very available, and Oh she also wants to be a teacher! Isn’t that cute? But the second Wooyoung sent a picture to his mom of you and him at the park, cheeks smashed together, announcing he was not so casually dating you, his grandmother ceased all effort to set him up. And after she met you at graduation, Wooyoung beamed with the knowledge his entire family not only approved but liked his girlfriend.

Leaving poor Kyungmin to bare the brunt of Bibi’s well-meaning torture almost made Wooyoung feel guilty. Operative word being almost. Because Wooyoung survived it, their older brother survived it, and now it was Kyungmin’s turn to endure the special brand of Jung family meddling. It was good for him.

The second his family finds out he's technically single, Wooyoung knows it’s only a matter of time before Bibi smothers him in his sleep for breaking up with the girl she considers family. And after, when she resurrects him from the dead, Wooyoung will be thrown to Bibi’s friends like a sacrificial lamb to starving wolves.

Stealing a sip of your overly sweet coffee can’t clear his mouth of the sour taste of dating again.

“Wooyoung, you need to make up the guest bed for your brother,” his mom says, dropping a plate of eggs and toast on the counter for him and Y/N to share.

“What about her?” Wooyoung asks, lips stretching as he stuffs his face.

“She’s a guest!”

Washing down a harsh swallow with another sip of coffee, Wooyoung mutters a “hardly,” under his breath.

“Get your own!” you snap, shoving the mug out of his reach.

Wooyoung responds with a high pitched whine, huffing similar to a toddler rather than a man who's almost thirty. “Why are you both being so mean to me? I haven’t even done anything yet.”

Rising to pour his own mug of caffeinated gold, his mom quickly claims the empty chair before she bats Wooyoung away. Claiming something about “girl time” as an excuse to get him out of the kitchen before he can truly annoy them to his fullest potential.

When the afternoon rolls around, Bibi greets you with a fierce hug and a grandmotherly pinch to your cheek, smiling up at you as she asks for any and every update since she last saw you in April for her birthday.

Luckily, Kyungmin unconsciously rescues you as he enters the house, boxes piled high in his arms of goodies from the other ladies at church trying to court him on their granddaughter’s behalf. Rushing to his aid, you give him a gentle side hug as you walk with him to the kitchen.

“So…” you start, eyeing the stacks of cookies crowding the counter. “How was church?”

A pained groan answers you, Kyungmin dropping his head to the marble counter with a thud. You can’t contain your snicker, snagging one of the deformed gingerbread men to dunk in your fresh cup of coffee.

“Only a few more months,” Kyungmin mutters under his breath, the reprieve of college clearly tethering him to sanity.

Wooyoung told you all about Bibi’s ways when you started dating, thankful to no longer entertain doting mothers and grandmothers interested in him only because he was single and knew basic manners unlike many of the men lurking around Lavensville. Poor Kyungmin didn’t stand a chance if Wooyoung hadn’t managed to charm his way out until he got a girlfriend Bibi approved of.

“At least we get snacks out of it!” You clap, continuing to sort his haul as Kyungmin hides in his arms.

A tan hand sneaks over your shoulder to steal the decapitated cookie still in your grip, turning to see Wooyoung nibbling on one as he observes the collection of cookies, fruit, and other treats.

“Come on!” You stomp your foot like a toddler.

“Tastes better when it’s stolen.” Wooyoung winks, forcing you and his brother to dry heave in unison. Your reaction isn't genuine, only an effort to hide the squeeze in your chest at how easily he can fall back into old habits after months of radio silence.

Wooyoung’s mom breezes into the kitchen, unbothered by your bickering as she types out a text message. “Myungho and Mia land in an hour. Your dad is already on the way to pick them up.” She rattles off, more to herself than anyone else. “Kyungmin, you need to tidy all of this up. Wooyoung you already put clean sheets on the guest bed? Great. Y/N, dear, would you mind helping with dinner later?”

“Of course.”

Dinner consists of chili you didn’t assist with other than pulling out extra toppings from the fridge for, and everyone chattering around the table. Myungho is sharing some story about his and Mia’s neighbor who refused to close their blinds, everyone laughing at Mia’s grimace when she recalled the horrors of the “tighty-whities” incident. Each time you stay with the Jungs you're shocked how well they get along, everyone slotting together perfectly like some cheesy sitcom family.

It’s not that your family didn’t love each other, but there was little bonding you together other than shared blood and memories. Your mom clearly favored your brother while your dad tried to make up for the snub by prioritizing you. Growing up with the invisible competition left bitter resentment to this day. At least now, after years of therapy and freedom from the suffocating expectations of your childhood home, you and your brother shared a mutual understanding that it was your parents fault for the animosity between you. Nothing could reverse the damage already deeply ingrained, but you’d become a more united front during family affairs.

That’d been the first time you and Wooyoung fought in your tentative relationship. He hadn’t seemed to understand how you could talk about your brother with such vitrole, confused why you weren’t more excited to see him after living in the city permanently since sophomore year. Not that you’d explained your family dynamic prior to calling him in a full blown meltdown in Washington Square Park at midnight. But Wooyoung listened. And when you brought up how perfect his family seemed, he quickly corrected your assumption.

Wooyoung knew his parents loved him and his brothers equally. But they were helping him pay thousands of dollars in tuition out of state for him to be a teacher while his older brother made six figures fresh out of college as an engineer. Even if they were happy for him, Wooyoung struggled with the internal conflict of idolizing his brother and feeling like he’d never measure up.

It’d been the first time Wooyoung cried in front of you.

The tense conversation and awkward small talk of your childhood home didn’t seem to have space here at the Jungs, nothing but laughter and warmth filling each nook and cranny. Even the awkwardness of sitting next to your ex-boyfriend, pretending he was still your partner, seemed to be stifled with the company.

“So, Y/N, when are you planning to move back to New York? You finished residency, right?” Mia asks over her glass of wine, eyes bright.

“Ugh,” you stutter, unprepared for such directness.

“Or maybe you’re thinking of moving to Boston?” She eyes Wooyoung.

“We’re, uh,” Wooyoung pipes up, frantically looking at you.

“I’m looking at jobs in the city but nothing's come up yet.”

“That sucks,” Myungho chimes, working to help their father clear the table for games.

Rather than answering, you take a long draw of your drink before rising to hide in the bathroom.

In the silence of the small half bath under the stairs, you attempt to control your stuttering breath. A few splashes of cool water on your face help shock your system but it does nothing to stop the It’d taken years to perfect the stone-faced facade you presented to families when the outcome was less than favorable.

A light tap at the door startles you from the nosedive your conscious has taken.

“I’ll be out in a minute.” You call, scrubbing your hands in the sink.

“It’s me,” Wooyoung chirps on the other side of the wood.

Opening the door, Wooyoung leans his shoulder against the jamb, eying you warily. Pulling him into the cramped space, you press the door closed and lean against it. “I can’t do this, Woo. I can’t lie to them.”

“Don’t think of it as lying! Just pretend you're back in that drama class in college!”

“Oh, you mean the class I almost failed because I couldn’t act?” you whisper harshly.

“Just let me take the lead okay? All you have to do is be normal.”

Another knock on the door startles you both. When you got so close to Wooyoung, you have no idea, but there are only a scant few inches between you and you can smell the peppermint schnapps on his breath.

“Wooyoung, Y/N. Is everything okay?”

Twisting around your stiff body, Wooyoung nudges you out of the way as he twists the handle and pulls the door inward.

“Yeah,” Wooyoung answers, opening the door to a concerned Bibi. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

Bibi brushes past him, the cool back of her wrinkled hand pressing against your forehead. “Are you okay, dear?”

“I’m fine, just got a little light headed.”

One arm curls around yours, the other gently patting your back as Bibi guides you back towards the kitchen with Wooyoung trailing behind. “You know, when I was pregnant with Wooyoung’s father I got lightheaded all the time.”

Bibi’s implication isn’t lost on you, or Wooyoung for that matter when you hear him curse as he trips behind you.

“Oh?”

“Almost everyday I’d have to drink a gallon of ginger tea just to get out of bed.” She guides you into a seat before turning. “I’ll make you cup while the boys set everything up, okay?”

“That’s really not neccess—”

Bibi is already filling the kettle and rummaging in the cabinets for tea bags as if you didn’t speak at all. Wooyoung won’t look at you, not that you can look at him either.

Kids.

Just another thing on the long list of wants you wouldn’t be getting. For so long, children were this amorphous thing you wanted some day. That was until Wooyoung came along and slowly changed those vague thoughts into real hopes. They had been discussed to death over and over. Wooyoung wanted as many as possible before he started teaching, then eagerly explained that two kids were more than enough after his first day of school.

All those nights snuggled in bed talking about baby names, Wooyoung offering to stay at home if you wanted.

“I’ve always wanted to be a trophy husband,” he told you. He smothered his face in your neck, sealing the offer with a gentle kiss. “Could be a trophy dad too.”

“You’d give up teaching to raise my baby?” you asked.

“I’d give up everything if that's what you wanted.”

He would have.

Cursing his grandmother for making an already tense situation worse, Wooyoung shakes his head as she flutters around the kitchen. He should be relieved Bibi moved away from asking when they were getting married and fast forwarding straight to asking for grandchildren. At least Wooyoung hadn’t been as close to being the dad as he was as being a husband. Kids were hypothetical, no matter how often you two discussed them; but marriage was almost reality.

Kyungmin is already setting up the Scrabble board and dishing out letters. Eight people was far too many so like every year they divide into pairs. Mom and Dad, Myungho and Mia, Kyungmin and Bibi, finally you and him.

Wooyoung tries not to think about Bibi’s comments but the mug of tea sits steaming on the table and the images are just there. You pregnant; a nursery decorated in greens like the one you told him about; celebrating Christmas in the city, the snow covering everything and requiring the little tyke to be wrapped up until they resembled an overstuffed dumpling.

His mind wanders as the board crowds with letters. Bibi and Kyungmin struggle to play anything worth more than fifteen points while his parents brush off challenge after challenge as they fill the board with words like “Paczki” and “Rudistid.”

“Quad, baby! Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a Q?” Mia asks everyone, high fiving Myungho next to her.

Wooyoung exchanges a conspiratory smile with you before he ruins their celebration. “I know! And when you have a U and an A and every other letter I need for ACQUAINT on a triple word score. Plus bingo for all the tiles we don’t have…Boom one hundred and seven points.”

Arms thrown around each other's shoulders, he bounces up and down with you in victory; cheeks squished together, matching bright tipsy grins. Almost like everything is normal.

“No fair! You’re an English teacher!” Kyungmin protests, nostrils flared.

“Yeah to third graders, Minnie. You know just as many words as they do, I promise.”

You don’t move from his hold except to take another swig of the tea his grandmother made. Wooyoung tries not to think about what it means; having an arm curled around the back of your chair while you settle into the crook of his chest, watching his family over the top of your head, relaxing firm pressure of your body against his own. Taking the tentative peace for granted, Wooyoung greedily overindulges in the illusion of normalcy.

In the cool toned light of dawn, you wake in Wooyoung’s arms once again. This time you're both on your sides, Wooyoung pressed firmly behind you as he snores in your ear. A familiar lump pokes against your rear, scorching your skin through the layers of clothes that separate you.

Wiggling in his grip, you're ashamed of the quiet sound fleeing your lips as Wooyoung flexes his arms to hold you tighter, his hips rolling against you harshly to pin you to him.

Blame it on the months without feeling another person’s touch, or the liminal space that exists when the world is asleep and void of any real consequences, but a hollowness stings your core and dampens your underwear.

Years of dating meant years of exploring one another’s bodies, discovering every spot that drove the other mad and perfecting the balance of teasing and satisfaction. You still remember the first night in your shared apartment years ago; Wooyoung blindfolded and tied to the bed, putty under your fingers as you rode him until your eyes felt permanently crossed and your legs numb. And just when you thought the night was over, sated with his cum leaking onto the sheets, Wooyoung knotted the silk scarf around your own wrist and “cleaned up” the mess between your thighs until you actually blacked out.

The very memory has you arching backwards, clenching around nothing but disappointing emptiness.

It’s wrong – so so so wrong – to fantasize about your ex-boyfriend while he’s asleep next to you, none the wiser to your needs. But the way his hand on your stomach fists the fabric of your shirt, pulling you into him again, beckons you closer to the edge of temptation. Wooyoung told you to act natural. What’s more natural than enjoying some half asleep heavy petting? You’re already pretending to date him, why not reap some of the old benefits you’d missed in your time apart?

Just as you turn in Wooyoung’s arms, set on waking him with an offer even he can’t refuse, he yawns awake. Arms stretching high, he pushes you from the toasty covers and onto the floor with a bang!

“Jesus Christ!” you groan, jolting pain in your elbow shocking your system as it catches the edge of the bed frame.

Wooyoung’s head pops over the side of the mattress. “Why’re you down there?”

Scoffing, the back of your head thuds against the floor; eyes sinking shut as you fight the urge to murder him. Three more days and you’ll never have to deal with the ridiculousness that follows Wooyoung like a shadow. Three more days and you can go back to pretending he doesn’t exist.

You hear, rather than see, Wooyoung exit into the hallway. Stretching your lungs around another deep breath, you follow behind him. Passing the bathroom door as you pad down stairs, you're greeted with an empty kitchen. The stove clock reads just past nine so more bodies should trickle in soon. In the meantime, you turn on the coffee pot and wait as the kitchen fills with the comforting smell. Sending a silent prayer to the universe, you prepare for quality time with Mrs. Jung and Mia. Another day of lying to the people who treat you better than your own family.

Wonderful.

“Morning, sweetie.” Bibi bursts into the kitchen, a whirlwind of activity even at the early hour.

“Coffee?”

“That stuff's no good for you,” she chides, taking a spot at the dining table with her own cup. “Our appointments are in thirty minutes, better go get ready before the boys use all the hot water.”

Like a teenager with his first wet dream, Wooyoung hides in the sanctuary of the bathroom. Thankfully, his brothers aren’t prone to waking before noon and he stakes his claim by locking the door and entering the steam.

Maybe dry humping his ex-girlfriend while half asleep was a bad idea but Wooyoung knows you pushed back into him with a purpose. He’d heard that whimper, felt your legs squeeze together the way you always did when you needed his help. Wooyoung hadn’t meant to launch you to the floor but overdue break up sex with the rest of the house due to wake up any minute couldn’t be a good idea. And with three more days of this charade he needed less complications, not more. Sex felt like it would make things very, very complicated.

But the knowledge of how wrong he should feel doesn’t stop the memories of from placating his mind as he palms his aching cock. Months of abstinence fail to dissolve Wooyoung’s photorealistic memories of you in compromising positions; bent in half to take his cock, staring down your nose from on top of his lap. And his personal favorite, on your knees, eyes watering as your swollen lips stretch around his length, the flared head nudging the back of your throat.

The swiftnesses of his orgasm is a fatal blow against his fragile ego. Biting the meat of his fist, Wooyoung closes his eyes as the evidence swirls the drain. Unfortunately, the confusion pulsing through him doesn’t follow.

Out of the steam, he returns to his room, ready to throw on a pair of sweats and spend the day sleeping to avoid his feelings. Too busy thinking about you, Wooyoung isn’t paying attention when he opens the door and runs straight into you.

Also half naked.

“Oof!”

Wooyoung grunts with the impact from the floor. Arms caging your head, you stare up at him like you can’t believe he’s there. Bare chest on bare chest. His towel unties, leaving his right leg naked against yours, hips cradled against your own.

This is not happening.

“What the hell?”

“Why are you naked?” he stutters.

Very naked, and pressed against him intimately. The heat of your core is more than enticing. Even though he washed all the desire from this morning away, his body betrays him from years of habit. Maybe touching you wasn’t such a bad idea. What could it hurt?

“I thought I’d flash you,” you spit, eyes rolling. “I was changing.”

You’re still beneath him, squirming. Right against his dick. A pang of want rushes through him like a thousand volts, his nerves turning into individual live wires everywhere your skin meets his. The cold sneaking through the windows is all more evident by your pinched nipples pressing into his chest.

“I didn’t know you were in here,” he explains. Still, he doesn’t move. He couldn’t even if he tried.

“Cleary.”

You must realize he’s hard because you stop moving, staring wide eyed as his entire body lays heavy against yours. He should have let you talk him into whatever you wanted earlier, consequences be damned. Your gaze lingers on his mouth. He doesn’t want to make assumptions but your head tilts, breath fanning his chin. His own stutters, eyes flitting between your mouth and your eyes as he leans closer and—

“YN? Are you ready?” Mia calls from the door. “We don’t want to be late!”

“Just a minute!” you respond. “Get off.”

Wooyoung scrambles to his feet, towel back around his waist to hide what little of his dignity is left. Which is, somehow, far less than when he entered the shower minutes ago.

He tries not to look but you're standing there, breasts on display, and Wooyoung is only a man who was in love with you for years and still very much is no matter what lies he tells himself.

“Turn around, this isn’t a peep show.”

He does, but an argument fizzles at the tip of his tongue. He’s seen you naked enough to draw you from memory; the mole on your shoulder, the scar on your hip from when you learned to ride a bike and fell into a ditch, the knobs of your spine. Wooyoung knows all of them like the back of his hand. A couple months ago you would have goaded him into looking as much as he wanted, teased him and in the process riled yourself up until looking turned to touching.

You clearly don’t want that as you race to throw on whatever clothes are nearby and rush out the room.

Stupid.

He can’t believe he nearly kissed you. He actually can but what he can’t believe is you seemed to want it just as bad as he did. But it wouldn’t make anything better. This wasn’t a movie where he could kiss you and all the problems plaguing your relationship would disappear. You’d still hate him and he’d still be hopelessly in love with you.

After dressing and basking in humiliation, Wooyoung descends to the living room where his dad and brothers watch a documentary on the Discovery channel. Sinking into the worn leather of their ancient couch, he cracks open one of the books he brought from home. Brave New World wasn’t light reading, but he’d been meaning to give it a try since Yeosang recommended it to him and what better way to spend his free time?

Soon enough, his dad snores from his spot in the recliner, chin tipped back against the headrest. Kyungmin remains entranced by the colorful birds dancing across the screen while his other brother no doubt taps away at work emails cluttering his phone despite the holidays. It’s the kind of peace and content Wooyoung loved about his family. Co-existing without needing to interact, enjoying each other's presence while living their own lives.

The nail salon buzzes with conversation. The acrid sting of acetone and nail polish burn your nose under the harsh white lights, reminding you of the hospital. Mia is happily chattering away, blasting through any stilled pauses or awkward silences. Bibi and Mrs. Jung sit at the counter getting their nails painted by the attendants in calm silence.

You try not to kick the young woman scrub your foot as she brushes against your ticklish nerves, squirming in your seat as she gives a tight lipped smile at your discomfort. For a week off for Christmas you cashed in every favor, picked up every single on call asked of you, nearly breaking under the demand to stretch yourself so thin as the new doctor in your department. The horrific results of hours on your feet were being ground down and clipped before you.

Relaxing was… difficult for you. Or other peoples’ definition of relaxation was. To you, the perfect day off was running around town, hitting an early morning pilates class followed by an overpriced coffee and finding something to do in the city that offered everything. Sitting still was a necessary evil to get to and fro but it left you to stew with your thoughts you preferred to drown in an overwhelming weight of activity.

Wooyoung’s stunt this morning was perfect cannon fodder for your idle mind. It didn’t mean anything; biological reactions to seeing someone and feeling someone who knew your body intimately for years. Seeking closure in the most primitive way after months without any sort of gratification. It meant nothing.

“Y/N,” Mia calls, bringing you to turn and look at her.

Her usually glowing face is apprehensive, lip worried between her teeth and eyes downcast.

“Yeah?”

“You work with kids, right?”

“All day,” you laugh, trying to break the tension.

Mia hesitates, struggling to find the words she wants to say. “After all the stuff you’ve seen, do you still want them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you and Wooyoung think you’ll have kids someday?”

“I mean not anytime soon considering…” That we aren’t together, you finish in your mind.

But Mia assumes the unspoke truth is the fact you’re supposed to be living in Boston while Wooyoung is living in New York.

“I mean of course, but like you guys both work with kids and I feel like you know the worst that could happen! My friend Mina just had her baby and she says she can’t sleep. She just sits up all night watching him because she’s afraid somethings gonna happen.”

“Mia, are you and Myungho…”

“Not yet,” she smiles. “But we’ve been talking about it more and I know I want that with him but I’m just—”

“Scared?”

She nods sheepishly.

Hesitating as you weigh your next words carefully, you think about all the conversations you’ve had with worried parents. Most of the kids and parents you met were under less than positive circumstances. Babies with underdeveloped lungs, toddlers who couldn’t breath from just sitting up. You’d be lying if it didn’t make you question having your own. The powerlessness you felt when no matter how hard you worked to fix things only for it to be all for naught.

But all of the bad days don't outweigh the good ones. When NICU preemies got to leave the ward with their families for the first time. Having a child take their first full breath because their medication was finally starting to work. The plethora of thank you cards hanging on your fridge and displayed in your office from the families you’d helped.

And you remember all the stories Wooyoung told you about his classroom. Kids who could barely read falling in love with the books he gave to them, hounding him for more stories. When he made way with a problem child, watching them begin to excel under his gentle guidance. Giggling at Wooyoung hiding his tears at the end of year advancement ceremony when all his third graders became fourth graders every year, toothy smiles wide as they wave at him.

“I think being scared means you care. You can always call me if you’re worried, no matter what happens.”

“I’ll definitely take you up on that.” Mia laughs.

“You’re gonna be a great mom,” you whisper, squeezing her arm.

Mia squeezes your hand back. “I always wondered what it’d be like to have a sister.”

“Me too.”

You look away as Mia blinks, breathing away the wetness glossing your own eyes.

Upon returning home, you find all four men passed out in various positions in the living room. Mr. Jung in the recliner that predates your birth, mouth wide open and glasses crooked on his nose. Sprawled across the floor is Kyungmin, gangly teenage limbs starfished to the edges of the carpet. Wooyoung and Myungho share a blanket across their laps, both with their backs on opposite sides of the couch.

You four try to contain your laughter at the sight. If there was any doubt about who fathered the Jung boys, the shaggy black hair and symphony of identical snores would easily lay those rumors to rest.

Bibi shuffles down the hall to her room, claiming a nap to be a great idea after the pampering from the nail salon. Mia and Mrs. Jung head into the kitchen, each teetering with bulging bags of groceries for tonight's gingerbread competition.

But you can’t take your eyes off Wooyoung. The only time he ever looked so peaceful was when he was sleeping, face positively boyish and missing the stress induced wrinkles from managing a class of eight year olds. The urge to cross to him and kiss the freckle on his lower lip floods your brain, pull him upstairs to tangle your limbs between his and find sleep together. But you’re able to stuff it down when he whines in his sleep, twisting to re-adjust on the lumpy couch.

Following the shuffle of plastic bags echoing from the kitchen, you busy yourself with unpacking the boxes of pre-made gingerbread houses, candy, and tubes of icing. Neatly organizing the contents on the counter, Mrs. Jung pushes you and Mia upstairs as she starts to prepare dinner. The clock on the stove shows it’s closing in on three, giving you enough time to shower and have a nap of your own – alone – before the mayhem of the evening.

Cranking the faucet to the highest setting, you waste no time waiting for it to heat as you jump under the cold water. Wooyoung called you a psychopath the first time he witnessed your shower routine but you’d been busy applying for medical school, working in the student health center, and tutoring in the biology lab, all while maintaining a perfect GPA in the fall semester of your senior year; you didn’t have time for the simple pleasures of wasting precious minutes while your apartment’s old pipes struggled to carry hot water through the faucet. And as they say, old habits die hard.

The chill brings sharp clarity with it. It’d only been two days and you’d already fallen into the same bickering as before, been tempted to kiss him when no one was around to fool, and nearly propositioned him in his childhood bed. And again on the floor.

Three more days, you think.

Then you can leave this entire maddening ordeal behind you forever.

The squeeze of Wooyoung’s heart threatens to topple him to his knees at the sight of you curled up in his bed. His old college hoodie circles your face, lips pouted and eyebrows furrowed at whatever dream world keeps you occupied.

Wooyoung aches to scoop you against his chest and litter kisses all over your face, fingers ironing out the wrinkles creasing your forehead. To smile at your whines of protest of being interrupted from a rare opportunity to rest without worrying about work or some other responsibility.

But what Wooyoung wants, he doesn’t deserve. As bold and indulgent as he might be in front of the prying eyes of his family, he isn’t cruel. This morning was a mistake. Even thinking about you the way he has is a mistake.

Even if it kills him not to touch you like he used to be able to, Wooyoung won’t subject you to the torture of his feelings. It’s the least he can do for pulling you into this sham after ending their relationship without explanation.

“Y/N,” he whispers, fingers prodding your shoulder. “Gotta wake up.”

You respond with a throaty groan, pulling the edge of the blanket over your head to hide away.

“C’mon, it's almost time for dinner.”

“Youngie, it’s cold,” you protest as he tries to lift the covers.

Grinding his teeth against the nickname, Wooyoung continues to pry the quilt from your iron grip. “I can get Bibi up here.”

Flying into a seated position, you blink against the overhead light. “I’m up!”

“That’s what I thought.” Wooyoung smirks, crossing to the door. “Let’s go sunshine.”

You mutter empty threats the entire way to the kitchen, so close your cast in his shadow under the threat of Bibi’s wake up methods. Nothing like a woman pushing eighty banging pots over your head to get the blood pumping.

Everyone else already crowds the table, picking apart the trays of snacks as they organize their supplies kits.

Jung family tradition requires everyone, sans Bibi, to decorate their own house according to the year's theme. After an hour, she picks her favorite and the winner has the honor of opening the first present on Christmas morning. You demolished Myungho’s long standing winning streak the first year Wooyoung brought you home; Mia claiming victory in your absence the year after. Since then, Kyungmin reigned supreme despite his creation looking like a haunted house no matter what the theme was.

“Alright.” Bibi stands once Wooyoung and Y/N have taken their seats at the end of the table. “This year's theme is movies. On your mark, get set. Go!”

A room full of adults, plus Kyungmin who's only a few months short, should act with a sense of decorum and dignity. A fair and clean competition in the name of holiday spirit, family, and comradery. But Jung house rules mean cheating is not only expected, it’s encouraged.

The table is warzone. Icing dripping off the sides and onto the tile floor. Candies trailing everywhere like shrapnel. Mia hides a piece of Myungho’s roof in her lap, and their mom steals the level their dad insists on using every year. Even Kyungmin slowly starts hoarding the bags of colorful royal frosting one by one in the pocket of his hoodie before anyone can notice.

Wooyoung catches you attempting to eat his bag of gumdrops in his periphery. They're half gone by the time he’s noticed but he simply laughs under his breath. What you don't know is that those are your gumdrops and his are stashed under the table.

The little sugar addict is nothing if not predictable.

Most of the houses are beginning to take shape, albeit much more loose definitions of whatever each person decided to do. Kyungmin’s house is poop green with a red roof, streaks of color patchy against the brown cookie sheets. His mom sticks with the traditional decorations instructed on the packaging, no doubt prepared to argue it somehow fits the theme despite being the same every year. Mia’s is laced garishly with pink and pastels, while Myungho crumbles pieces of his for whatever godforsaken reason.

Wooyoung focuses on decorating his tiny gingerbread man with black slashes and stripes.

“Time!” yells Bibi as she whacks the bottom of a pot with a wooden spoon, everyone drops their last piece of candy before hands fly up.

As always, his mom manages to be the only one to finish due to years of practice. Everyone else’s houses are… interesting, loose interpretations of houses.

“Mine’s the Grinch,” Kyungmin says.

“The Grinch?” you ask. The horrendous green and red abomination resembles nothing Wooyoung has ever seen before.

“See, you get it!”

Shaking your head, you point at the monstrosity sitting in front of you. “Okay, so the yellow skittles are the yellow brick road and the green on the house is meant to look like the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz.”

Perhaps… if the Emerald City burned to the ground and became ruins but everyone nods at the vision.

“Mine is supposed to be Barbie's Dream house.” says Mia, gesturing to the mound of pink frosting sliding from the roof.

Myungho slams a toy dinosaur from their childhood on top of his pile of cookie pieces before declaring, “Jurassic Park.”

“Home Alone,” his mom chimes. A chorus of groans around the table answer.

His dad’s is covered in chocolate bars and marshmallows. It looks decent but Wooyoung doesn’t get it until he tells them it’s Willy Wonka.

Nodding in appreciation, Wooyoung presents his. “Nightmare Before Christmas.”

The gray and black icing swirl to make a ugly blob, but Wooyoung will argue it’s exactly what he was going for. Especially with his miniscule Jack Skellington perched in the yard. Bibi circles the table, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at each entry. She shakes her head at Kyungmin, clearly disappointed in his failure this year. Doesn’t even pretend Wooyoung has a shot.

“Eunkyung wins!” She cheers, raising his mom’s hand like she won a boxing match. Claps and whoops fill the kitchen as she beams, proud to win a second time in the history of the competition dating back to his earliest memories.

“Wooyoung, put the winning house on the mantel please,” his dad asks, already moving towards the pantry for trash bags.

“Your majesty.” Wooyoung bows in front of his mom, laughing when she slaps his shoulder.

What he fails to realize is your leaving through the same door he is, and that a menacing sprig of green leaves sit just above in wait.

“Mistletoe!” his mom squeals.

“Huh?” you grunt.

Wooyoung looks up and spots the infuriating piece of decoration, another pair of eyes trailing after his own.

If you were still dating, Wooyoung would swoop you into his arms and make an entire production of giving you a short peck on the cheek – his parents were watching after all – while you laughed at his ridiculousness. But now he hesitates as he looks into your eyes, barely missing the nod as you leave a brief kiss on his lips before turning and leaving the room.

Even under the passing contact, Wooyoung’s lips feel like they’ve been zapped with lightning; his entire body on high alert. So lost in his own world, Wooyoung doesn’t realize you’ve walked away until you’re turning a corner and are out of sight.

Remembering the gingerbread house still in his hand, Wooyoung continues into the living room to place it front and center on the mantel like nothing happened.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! you think, watching yourself in the mirror as you brush your teeth.

One stupid, G-rated kiss and you act like a bumbling teenager. Wooyoung’s morning wood was pressed against you twelve hours ago and you can’t handle a peck.

What was wrong with you?

It was like the butterflies of the beginning of your relationship were waking from dormancy, demanding to let loose in your chest. All those tightly stashed feelings you swore would never have a home in your heart settling back in like they never left. Honestly, they hadn’t. Six months was nothing compared to eight years together.

But none of this is real. Wooyoung only reached out so Bibi wouldn’t be upset over a last-minute cancellation. He didn’t ask to explain why he ended your relationship so suddenly. Didn’t try to weasel his way back in and kiss everything better. He didn’t give any answers to the questions you were dying to ask. All the touching and joking you’d missed so much were nothing more than an elaborate plan for Wooyoung to not be seen as the bad guy by his family. His way of delaying the inevitable. And you’d fallen right into the mess subconsciously hoping it might have meant something more.

Toothpaste splashes against the porcelain sink as you finish washing up. Hiding in the bathroom can only buy you so much time before you have to face Wooyoung again, a new feast of tension waiting for you on a silver platter. He stayed quiet after the mistletoe. Not that you had much to say yourself.

When you return to his tiny room, it’s notably empty. Wooyoung nowhere to be seen as you burrow into the blankets alone. Hopefully, he stays away until you're fully unconscious and able to avoid the entire ordeal.

A draft of frigid air invading the warm haze under your mountain of quilts wakes you. Wooyoung shushes your indignant protest, pulling the top layers off. His weight doesn’t dip the bed behind you. Instead, you listen as he shuffles around, the dull thud of pillows and blankets hitting the floor. When he quiets, you turn to see him curled into a ball on a makeshift sleeping matt next to the bed.

The questions burn on the tip of your tongue. Why is he sleeping on the floor? Was he that upset about the kiss? Or was it this morning? But you don’t ask and Wooyoung doesn’t provide an answer.

Christmas Eve is Wooyoung’s favorite part of the holidays. Not even a poor night's sleep on the freezing, unforgiving floor can dull his excitement. He woke early, sneaky out of the room the second the sun peaked from the horizon and illuminated the space while you slept soundly.

Part of the reason he slept on the floor is the knowledge that if he woke up with you pressed against him again, he’d agree to whatever you wanted from him. He was too selfish to say no a second time.

A fresh powder of snow fell sometime in the night. So, with a hot cup of coffee and a need to get lost in something mindlessly physical, Wooyoung heads to the garage for a shovel to clear the sidewalk and driveway.

Wooyoung knows he should apologize. You’d basically avoided him after the mistletoe, scurrying upstairs the second it was polite to do so. Technically, you kissed him. But the entire situation wouldn’t exist if he didn’t put his foot in his mouth. Plus, the entire ordeal of yesterday morning couldn’t be ignored. And Wooyoung was ashamed he didn’t feel ashamed about it.

Mind numb in the cold monotony of moving slush from the concrete to the yard, muscles burning at the strain, Wooyoung loses track of time as the sun moves across the sky. His dad finds him shoveling the end of the driveway, pants soaked and breath heaving.

“You okay, kid?” the older man asks, sipping his thermos.

“Fine,” Wooyoung pants. “Why?”

“Because you’re out here.”

“Just helping out.”

“Wooyoung.” A sharp sternness to his tone as his dad’s gloved hands halt the shovel.

He hates that voice. Wooyoung’s dad was soft spoken and good natured, the quietest member of their boisterous family. Always gentle with three rowdy sons that constantly pushed the endless bounds of his patience. Wooyoung can count on one hand the times his dad used this voice on him. Apparently, now is one of those times.

Wooyoung looks his dad in the eye before lying to his face, “I’m fine. Really.”

Eying his son skeptically, Wooyoung’s dad clearly doesn’t believe him. “Alright,” he drawls. “But come inside, your mom made pancakes.”

“Come on Kyungmin, we don’t want to be late!” Bibi calls from the hallway.

In front of you, Kyungmin blanches; terrified of another day surrounded by prodding grandmothers. He pleads you for help, but you can only offer a sympathetic smile and a shrug of shoulders. If only he knew how much torture you were being subjected to in the name of keeping Bibi happy.

Wooyoung had been scarce since the early hours of the morning, slaving away at clearing the driveway alone. He made a brief appearance at breakfast and lunch but found any excuse to stay faraway from whatever room you planted yourself in.

Taking the hint, you set up camp in the kitchen. Laptop screen reflecting off your blue-light glasses as you skimmed another journal article about forced oscillation technique and impulse oscillometry. Fascinating as it was to you, it’s just boring enough to anyone else to keep them away; allowing you to waste away the entire afternoon in the most productive way possible.

The sun is already setting by the time others begin to trickle into the kitchen. Mia begins filling snack trays for the trademark movie night; half sweet, half savory. While Myungho sets to work on a batch of mulled cider they picked up at the market on the way home. The house is peaceful as everyone works in quiet content.

Until Kyungmin stomps into the kitchen with a fuming Bibi hot on his heels.

“They’re nice girls, Kyungmin. There was no need to be rude!”

Your wide eyes meet Mia's twin expressions of shock. Kyungmin was a sweet kid; he had an attitude sometimes, but he was a teenager. It’d be weird if he didn’t have one. But to hear he’s been out right rude, and in front of Bibi no less, comes as a surprise.

“You’re crazy!” Kyungmin yells, arms waving wildly before he flees to his room.

The sudden silence of the kitchen is rattling. No one moves or speaks as Bibi starts organizing random objects and mail on the counter, clearly uncomfortable with her grandson’s outburst.

Slipping from your chair, you turn to follow in the direction you know he’s bound for.

Winter in Colorado is brutal enough, but the wind slicing across your cheeks as you teeter out a tiny window onto the roof at the back of the house makes you regret wearing only a sweatshirt and matching sweatpants.

Kyungmin’s lone figure is illuminated in the silver moonlight. A telltale stench fills your nostrils despite the thick smoke evaporating in the wind the second it leaves his mouth. Waddling towards him on your butt, you stop next to him. He passes the glass bowl into your waiting hand without a peep.

You take a long hit before speaking, allowing the tingle of THC to flutter through your veins. It's been months since you let loose, too tired from the hospital. But in the quiet cold, the fuzziness bubbling in your veins is exactly what you need.

“Wanna talk about it?” You ask, cradling your knees to your chest in an effort to conserve warmth.

“No.”

“Okay.”

The thick woods fencing in the backyard bends in the wind. Pine trees shake the fronds like feathers, fluffing up as the wind flutters by. A lone swing, attached to a rickety playground set, swings back and forth. It’s beautiful and eerie. Only your breath and the occasional cough from Kyungmin disturbs the fragile place.

“I can’t wait to go to college,” Kyungmin mutters from under his hood.

“Have you heard from anywhere yet?”

He takes another hit, coughing twice before answering slowly. “No. But I don’t care where I go as long as I’m not here.”

“Was it that bad?”

“She’s crazy! All of them in that fucking church are insane!”

“Wooyoung told me the same thing,” you chuckle.

Wooyoung spent all his high school years and college breaks as Bibi’s helper; coincidentally meeting some long friend’s granddaughter each time. It all stopped when you came around.

Kyungmin goes to light the bowl again and you snatch it from his hands, some big sister instinct taking over. He lets you and flops back into the snow covered roof. “They just stare at me. It’s creepy.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty creepy.”

“And Andi just laughs whenever I try to tell her about it.”

“Who’s Andi?”

“A friend.” Kyungmin’s tense response tells you Andi isn’t just a friend at all. He staunchly ignores your raised brow.

“What's she like?”

“She’s nice. She’s in my history class at school,” he admits. “And she got a scholarship to play soccer in Georgia.”

“That’s cool,” you nod. “So you like her?”

Kyungmin flounders for a second, caught red handed. “I mean, of course I do. She’s my best friend.”

If your eyes rolled any harder, they’d pop out of your skull and launch off the roof. “Kyungmin…”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s so out of my league,” he sighs.

He sounds a lot like Wooyoung. Back when you first started dating and he learned you were applying for med school, there was an air of unworthiness that rolled off him. Wooyoung never explicitly told you he felt that way about himself but he didn’t need to.

“Why do you think that?”

“She’s smart, and she’s athletic, and she’s funny. She wouldn’t see me like that.”

“Okay.” You nod. “Well, when Bibi started pimping you out at church, what did Andi do?”

“She got really mad when I went on a date with one of them.”

“Oh, really?”

“She didn’t talk to me for like two weeks. I thought she was just, like, on her period or something.”

Shaking your head, you turn to face the ignorant boy. “Alright, first things first. Never, under any circumstances, assume a girl is mad at you because she’s on her period. Ask your brothers or your dad how that's worked out for them. Second, how would you feel if Andi went on a date with someone?”

Face twisting in disgust, Kyungmin grabs the piece again to take a hit. You let him this time.

“Exactly. Maybe you should ask her on a date.”

Kyungmin snorts at the idea, “Yeah, sure.”

“Party out here?” Myungho calls from the window.

Turning, you spot Wooyoung and Mia peaking around his broad shoulders. “Yeah, but it’s B.Y.O.W.”

“Perfect,” he responds, folding in half to climb out the window.

“Just think about what I said, okay?”

“Okay.” Kyungmin promises as he links his pinky with yours.

Mia and Myungho land on Kyungmin’s other side, a joint visible in Mia’s dainty fingers. Wooyoung plops down next to you, lifting the bowl from Kyungmin and dumping the ash on to the roof.

As he focuses on packing it, you get your first glimpse of him all day. The tip of his nose is red and he keeps sniffling, no doubt from the hours he spent outside or in the garage doing who knows what, hair a mess of tangles, sticking this way and that in the wind and you choke on the urge to straighten it for him. You’ve never been good at staying mad at him, even when he’s clearly in the wrong. And what’s worse is Wooyoung knows it.

Wisps of smoke pour from his nostrils before he passes you the bowl again. Shaking your head, Kyungmin plucks it from his brother’s fingers.

Wooyoung’s breath caresses the shell of your ear before he speaks. “What are you guys doing out here?”

You resist the urge to shiver for an entirely new reason.“Bibi.”

Wooyoung nods lazily, eyes glazed already. Landing on his back, he looks up to the sky.

The pale light sharpens his features. Strange how all three brothers looked so similar yet different. Kyungmin still had the round cheeks of adolescents, limbs gangly as he towers over his brothers at only seventeen. Myungho was broader than both but only a fraction taller than Wooyoung, square jaw and cropped hair. But Wooyoung was all angles and sharpness. Even from the first night he approached you in that dingy karaoke bar near campus, you knew he was handsome. But now he looks ethereal. Like some beautiful demon coming to take your soul and laugh all the while.

Eventually you all end up shoulder to shoulder, each lost and thought and staring at the lonely full moon above. Wooyoung’s hand brushes your own, sending throbbing jolts of electricity through your body. One of your fingers slips around his, hooking them together briefly. Wooyoung doesn’t squeeze back but he doesn’t move away either.

It somehow hurts worse than if he would have let go.

Exhaustion and pot nearly knock Wooyoung out as he passes his bedroom door. An early night, lost in the land of dreams where he doesn’t have to think about why he can’t look you in the eye; why he felt a punch in the gut when he spotted you on the roof with his little brother, taking care of him like Kyungmin was your own family; how he wanted to cry when your fingers circled his own.

Wooyoung’s attempt to uncomplicate his life only seemed to tighten the noose around his neck.

Jung family tradition dictates a Christmas movie with gross amounts of sugary snacks on Christmas Eve. The tradition started before Wooyoung could remember but it’d been his favorite all the same. What little kid didn’t cherish the opportunity to wake up to Santa dropping presents under the tree? Not that he or his brothers managed to stay awake more than half way through whatever movie his parents pulled from the dusty DVD collection on the bookshelf. But as he grew older, Wooyoung appreciated the uninterrupted time he was gifted to spend with his family, especially with each of them living in separate corners of the country.

The new set of matching pajamas every year were simply a bonus.

This year’s boast a deep green with a vintage Christmas light pattern. The inner flannel is positively delightful against Wooyoung’s freezing skin, lulling him into a light doze as leans against the couch between your spread legs.

Kyungmin sprawls in his usual place on the rug in front of the coffee table, glazed eyes glued to Will Ferell terrorizing New York City in yellow tights. Mia and Myungho are off on the other side of the couch, Bibi taking the middle seat. His parents are snug in his dad’s recliner, resembling two teenagers rather than the fifty year olds they really are. Adorably disgusting how in love they still are.

He doesn’t think twice about dropping a kiss against your knee until you stiffen. Idiot. Every time he swore he was going to be better, his body acted on autopilot. Falling into old habits and thoughts like they were second nature.

Resting his cheek against your thigh, Wooyoung twists his hands in his lap. He can’t touch you anymore. Not sober and absolutely not high out of his mind like he is at this very moment. Because if he starts, he’s too weak to stop himself.

Considering the way you keep staring at him every time you think he isn’t looking, Wooyoung doesn’t think you would want him to stop either.

Bedtime is the same awkward dance as before. His entire family pulls each other into tight hugs, mostly aided by the edibles Myungho slipped them before they all descended downstairs. Calls of “Love you,” and “see you in the morning,” land against his back as he trails behind you up the stairs. You both get ready in the dark, flashes of bare skin visible in the light trickling in from the cracked curtains covering the lonely window. Turning to face the wall, Wooyoung plugs in his phone while he listens for you to land on the mattress.

When the shuffling ceases, he finds you in a nest of pillows and blankets on the floor, back towards him.

“What are you doing?”

“You took the floor last night,” you explain.

“You don’t hav–”

“Just go to bed.”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor,” he huffs, temper rising as he crosses to the other side of the mattress.

“I’m fine.”

“Just take the bed.”

“No,” you protest.

“Why not?”

Sitting up, Wooyoung barely makes out your scowl. “Why do I need to explain everything to you?”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“I’m stubborn? Me?”

“Considering you’re the one on the floor while the bed is empty, yes, you’re the stubborn one.”

“Because I’m fine here!”

Wooyoung wades through the quicksand of his brain for a response. Upon finding none, he flops on the pile of blankets next to you.

“What are you doing?”

“Sleeping. Now, shut up.”

No more energy to fight, Wooyoung burrows deeper into the mound of quilts; set to sleep on the floor if you continue to refuse the bed. If he was a diva on poor sleep, you were a menace. You’d cave eventually when your hips ached from the painful stiffness of the unbending wood.

Except Wooyoung can’t sleep. All of his nerves are heightened next to you. His entire left side burns in your heat, acutely aware of every shift of weight or rustle of the blankets. Wooyoung’s lips still burn from the kiss. A childish brush against his mouth but he can’t stop replaying it in his mind over and over. And when he thinks about yesterday morning, when he dreamed about her and then woke up flushed against her, when he jacked off to old memories and then ending up tangled with you half naked on the same floor he now laid, it all makes his blood rush to his head and a weight settles on the back of his tongue.

It’s freezing. That’s the excuse he tells himself as to why you snuggle closer, leg splayed across his hip and face buried in his neck. It’s reflex, is what he tells himself when he presses his lips to your hairline and you grab a fistful of his shirt.

He doesn’t have an explanation when you slide over him, taking a seat in his lap. He doesn’t need an explanation either once you kiss him, closed mouth and gentle. Wooyoung quietly accepts every touch you bestow. Hands strictly at his sides, he refuses to initiate anything more. It’s all up to you. He wants to give you whatever you want without even considering himself.

His brain floods with a fuzzy feeling as your fingers itch up his chest. Under his shirt, you sluggishly trace the lines of his stomach. There is only one way this ends because he cannot let you touch him any more or he’ll ruin everything.

“Wooyoung?” you ask, nose to nose when he pulls your hands out of his clothing and holds them between your bodies.

Twisting until you lay side by side, Wooyoung lets himself be a little more selfish as he gently sucks your bottom lip between his own. He finds the strength to pull away when you deepen it. He won’t be selfish.

You both fall asleep with tangled limbs, Wooyoung’s nose buried in your hair and your lips against his neck.

Christmas morning brings Bibi through the upstairs hallway with a familiar wooden spoon and small tin pot. You hear the first crash slice through the door, an ice bath to your system.

You’re still curled tightly against Wooyoung’s chest.

On the floor.

“Get up,” Wooyoung shakes you, not wasting a second as he stands to dive into the still made bed.

You groan in the morning light, burrowing back down into the still warm pillow.

Another shrill beat sings through the hall, much closer to Wooyoung’s door than last time.

“Shit!”

You tackle him into the mattress, forehead to chin and an elbow in his stomach. Attempting to look natural as the door rebounds against the wall, a well rested Bibi stands in the doorway.

“RISE AND SHINE!” his grandmother wails, drumming a rhythmless beat and she turns to stalk towards Kyungmin’s room at the end of the hall.

Your position against his body, legs bent awkwardly, covers lopsided, only last as long as Bibi is there to witness. You stumble over the memories that remind you too much of the time she waltzed in two Christmases ago, you and Wooyoung scrambling to hide exactly what was happening beneath the sheets.

Now, the only thing you’re rushing to make it look like that was exactly what you were doing. The smallest trickle of relief slips in at the fact he brushed you off last night. The consequences of trying to hook up with your pretend boyfriend are clearer in the harsh daylight.

You rise and stalk to the bathroom without looking back, a handful of clothes in tow to avoid the same debacle as yesterday.

You feel a little pathetic settling for meaningless touches. All you want is to pretend a little harder, let your mind believe Wooyoung still loves you, still wants you. Not just to avoid awkwardness with his family but because he knew he made a mistake and just needed the courage to admit it.

That wasn’t going to happen. He was content with his choices, so you have to be too.

Wooyoung is already downstairs when you descend the stairs. There's a mug waiting for you on the coffee table, perfectly sweet and milky. It doesn’t mean anything.

Mrs. Jung’s victory grants her the privilege of opening the first present this morning. Everyone gathers around, matching states of messy hair and bed-wraggled pajamas, to shred shiny wrapping paper at ten in the morning.

Her first gift is the large rectangle box addressed from her sons, all of them failing to stifle their matching laughter as she slowly unwraps the picture frame. You and Mia had helped arrange the picture last time everyone was together for Bibi’s birthday, sneaking out of the house with the excuse of seeing a movie when you drove to the mall for an old school photoshoot at the department store.

Wooyoung’s parents join in the giggling bouncing of the walls as they take in all three boys dressed head to toe in denim, arms wrapped around on another’s waists prom-date style as they stare dead faced at the camera. The cherry on top is their matching bowl cuts, making them resemble a nineties boy band. Another frame slips out of the paper, a similar photo of you and Mia except her chin rests on top of your head, eyes obscured by yellow tinted sunglasses.

“Oh my god,” Mrs. Jung guffaws. “You all are ridiculous.”

Passing the frames around the room, Mrs. Jung takes turns hugging her sons along with you and Mia.

“Oh, my girls. Thank you for putting up with them,” she whispers into your ears, Mia on her left and you on her right.

You refuse to think about how tomorrow you’ll leave their house for the last time as you squeeze her back tightly.

As the youngest, Kyungmin is charged with passing out rounds of presents while Mr. Jung collects the discarded ribbons and paper. Thankfully, bringing a gift for Wooyoung wasn’t an expectation. Why sacrifice sacred luggage space to exchange gifts with someone who lives in your backyard? Mia and Myungho never brought their gifts for one another, and you and Wooyoung followed suit.

But that didn’t stop you from braving the horrors of Midtown in an effort to last minute Christmas shopping before flying out. Bibi loves the fancy lotion you brought her, and Kyungmin is more than satisfied with the promise of whatever new video he can afford with a Playstation gift card. Wooyoung’s parents leaf through the books you bought in a last ditch effort to provide some sort of parting gift. Myungho screams as he unwraps the mug with “IBS: I be shitting” blasted across the front and Mia opens each tin of specialty tea for a whiff of the herbal scents.

Hours later, surrounded in the disarray of boxes and bows, Mrs. Jung announces it’s time for brunch. Everyone takes turns washing up or teetering upstairs to brush their teeth but she pulls you aside before you have a chance to follow.

“Y/N, we have one last gift for you,” she says, removing a small box from behind her back. “I didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone just in case but I want you to know how much we all love you.”

You pull out a cardboard box and a thick card.

“To my future Daughter in Law,

There isn’t a single day I don’t thank the stars for how lucky my son is to find someone as incredible as you. He’s a better person because of you and our family is so blessed to have you in it. I was lucky enough to be given three amazing sons but now I’m fortunate enough to have two daughters as well.

Love, Mrs. Jung”

Each word is a new punch to the gut, tears swelling in the corner of tight eyes. Focusing on opening the box in an effort not to break down in the hallway, you unveil a simple silver chain with a knotted pendant. The same you’ve seen Mia and Mrs. Jung wear on special occasions.

“I can’t—”

“Nope. I won’t hear a word of it! It’s family tradition. Bibi gave me mine, and now I get to give you yours.”

“No, I really—”

But Wooyoung’s mom is a force to be reckoned with. Removing the delicate piece of jewelry out of the box, she slips it around your neck and straightens it before you can stop her. When she’s happy, you fall into her arms in a fierce hug as you weep into her shoulder.

“Oh sweetie,” she coos, clearly thinking you're overcome with emotion at officially being a part of the family.

You don’t correct her. Why ruin such a heartfelt moment by shattering the illusion now that you're so close to the end? Instead, you take comfort in her embrace, willing the tears to stop with the same principle you use in the hospital: save the crying for the shower.

Stepping out of the hug, you allow her to wipe away the trails of tears staining your cheeks with gentle swipes of her thumbs, a soft smile at her tutting over you. Mrs. Jung pulls you into one last bear hug before pushing you upstairs to compose yourself. Wooyoung stares as you pass him on the stairs, evidently alarmed at the evidence of your crying. But you keep your eyes down as you trudge by.

Wooyoung can’t help but worry at what happened between presents and breakfast to make you so upset but his mom keeps squeezing your shoulder and Bibi just smiles knowingly in your direction. The new necklace circling your neck is familiar but Wooyoung can’t place why and he hasn’t had the opportunity to ask.

Maybe it had nothing to do with the necklace. Maybe it’s because you’re finally free of this entire ordeal tomorrow and never have to see him again.

Crowding into the living room as the sun sets, he doesn’t miss the way Mia intertwines you into a fierce squeeze, practically bouncing off the walls with giddiness. He doesn’t have time to ask what it’s about before another movie is starting on the TV to wind down for the evening.

He can feel the tension rolling off you in waves. Muscles locked and leg jittering the same way it did before taking your MCAT or opening exam results. When the screen fades to black, you bolt up the stairs and out of sit before he can blink.

Following, Wooyoung finds you perched on the edge of his bed, fingers stroking the pendant resting between your collarbones. Shut in the quiet of his room, Wooyoung asks the question that’s buzzed in his head all day.

“What’s the necklace about?”

“Your mom gave it to me.”

“I thought so.” He nods. “But why was everyone acting weird about it?”

Rather than answer, you hand him a note. Wooyoung recognizes the tight cursive of his mom’s handwriting. Regret trickles down his spine and bubbles over with each word. He’d never meant to be cruel when he asked you to come here but then again he didn’t think about how hard this must have been. To secretly say goodbye to his family and the relationship you had with each of them after already working through it on your own. He should have known you bottled it all up, the same way he was prone to.

“I didn’t realize she’d—”

“Why did you break up with me?” you ask, still staring at the floor.

Regret transforms into the shame that’s eaten him alive for months. Wooyoung’s mouth won’t form the truth for what he did so he lies.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit!” you bite, glazed eyes blazing as you rounds on him. “Eight years. We dated for eight years and you think you can tell me you don’t know why?”

“We dated for eight years and you didn’t even say anything when I did it! You just left.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! What was I supposed to do? Beg you to stay?”

“You just gave up.”

“No, you gave up!” your voice cracks, finger pointing accusingly. “I didn’t even know we were having problems.”

“Boston was always a problem!”

“Which I was already planning to fix.”

Wooyoung recoils from the invisible smack against his face. “What?”

“That night I was trying to tell you I got a job in the city. That I was moving back.”

“You’re joking.”

Shoulder sagging under the weight of the mess, you fall back onto the bed. “It was gonna be my last weekend trip down.”

Sniffles and desperate breaths fill the space. He can’t breathe. He can’t think.

“I was planning to propose.” He can see your head turn in his peripheral, but he’ll lose the gaul if he has to look you in the eyes and admit he’s a coward, so Wooyoung stares at the wall ahead. “I had the ring for a year. And I was gonna ask you but I…” he trails off.

“You what?”

It’s painful to swallow the knot of embarrassment in his throat but you deserve the truth. He owes you a lot more but all he can do is give you an explanation for why he blew up both your lives. “I got scared.”

“Of me?”

“Of everything,” he admits. The crushing weight resting on his shoulders lightens a little at the confession. It feels good. So he keeps talking. “I thought of how much we’d have to change, and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to give anything up to be with me.”

“Wooyoung, I never felt like that,” you objects, cupping his face and forcing him to look at you; at the tears he’s responsible for. “I hated Boston. Do you think I was moving back to the city for you?”

“Kind of, I—”

“I have my own life there. I lived there for seven years! I was always planning to move back,” you say quickly. “Why do you think you get to make decisions about my life like you know better than I do?”

Panic sets in. “Then why were you being so secretive about it?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. I knew you’d been stressed about something but you never wanted to talk about it so I didn’t want to add something else to your plate and… because I was worried if I brought it up too soon something would go wrong.”

An awkward silence unfurls, so thick he could choke on it.

“I still have it by the way,” he finally says.

Surprise flashes across your face as you stare at him. “Have what?”

“The ring.”

You blink through fresh tears and something in him breaks. Cracks into a thousand pieces he’s forced to hold together because this is all his fault. “Why?”

“I think…” Wooyoung sniffs back his own cries. “I think some part of me feels like if I let it go then it’s really over.”

“Are you trying to tell me you want to get back together?”

“I didn’t want to break up to begin with.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Because I’m not good enough for you! I’ve never been good enough and I know you say it's not true but it is. I’m a public school teacher with shit pay and an apartment I can barely afford. That’s all I can offer you and it isn’t close enough to what you deserve.”

“Do you think I’m that shallow?” You fume, clearly not understanding what Wooyoung meant. “Why do you think you get to decide what's good enough for me?”

“Because someone has too! One day you’re gonna wake up and realize you can have anyone you want.”

“Not anyone.”

The suffocating atmosphere of Wooyoung’s room pushes you into the chilly shower stall. In the steam and perfumed bubbles, you quietly let all the emotions of the day run wild; eyes puffy, face swollen, and snot dripping from your nose to be washed away by the boiling streams of water. You hide for as long as possible, shivering as the heated water runs out and frigid ropes blast your skin. Unable to endure anymore of the stinging icicles, you exit the stall red nosed and blue lipped.

Wooyoung sits on the edge of the bed with his back to the door. You watch his shoulder tense, rising closer to his ears as you pad closer to lay down.

You’re too tired to sleep on the floor, too exhausted to fight with him again. So you curl under the covers, body sliding back when Wooyoung joins you.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers, tracing his index finger along the knobs of your spine, attempting to comfort you the same way he always had.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

You both stay there in the silent darkness, their breaths and the hum of the heater keeping absolute stillness at bay. The tears you split in the shower followed you to the pillow, running down your cheeks as you try to keep the worst at bay. Wooyoung doesn’t stop tracing shapes between your shoulder blades, the worn cotton of your sleep shirt rubbing against your heated skin. How is the source of your distress the same as the source of your comfort?

Turning to face him, you realize how close he’s moved. Scant inches separate your chests, the heat of his legs licking your own bare ones under the blankets. You spot his own tears, eyes swollen and red, thick lashes clumped together as they fall.

If your love for Wooyoung was an ocean, you’d be lost at sea for years.

He watches you watch him, hands finding one anothers and tangling together. When Wooyoung opens his mouth, pausing as a sniffle breaks free, you surge up to connect your lips.

Startling for only a second, he eagerly kisses you back. Tears and spit gloss your lips as you dip your tongue into his mouth, licking against his teeth before retreating to bruise his lower lip with your own. Wooyoung manages to roll on top of you, pinning you to the mattress as if you plan to up and leave at any second. You respond by crushing your lips together a fraction harder, attempting to communicate the longing and hurt words can’t convey.

The hem of his shirt finds its way between your fingers, moving further up his stomach with each insistent tug. Wooyoung’s own hands busy themselves, one buried in the hairs at the base of your scalp, cradling your head to move you this way and that as he continues exploring your mouth. The other wrinkles the pillow case beside you, muscles rippling as he holds himself over you.

When you wiggle your hips, thighs spreading to cradle him between, he dives to your neck. Blood rushes to the surface as he nips and bruises the delicate skin below your jaw, scorching pants raising goosebumps in its wake. He shudders when your nails scratch down his abdomen, thumb dipping under the band of his pajama pants.

It's been nearly eight months without this. Two months before your breakup, in this very bed while the rest of the house was asleep as Wooyoung laughed into your neck while you drunkenly whined for him to touch you. As familiar as those memories are, this time is entirely new.

Wooyoung’s thumb, knowing and skilled, brushes across one of your nipples over your shirt, using the rough fabric to his advantage; stiffing it to a tight peak before allowing the weight to settle in his palm. Arching your back, you remove the piece of cloth separating you. Wooyoung barely allows you space to slough it over your head before he’s back on you, latching to the side of your neglected breast as he curls his hips into yours coursley. Your body reacts on nothing but instinct; back arching closer, thighs spreading wider as his knees carry him further down the mattress.

Reverent caresses of his hands lead him to the apex of your thighs, his breath fanning the damp patch of your shorts just before Wooyoung tucks his thumbs into the elastic to nudge them down, breathing deeply as he bares you for his eyes.

A tentative lick up length of your slit pulls a pathetic whimper from the back of your mouth. The flat of his tongue lave against your engorged clit, slow and torturous as Wooyoung indulges in your taste. Rough palms slide beneath the meat of your thighs, lifting your legs to rest on his shoulders. A harsh suck against the bundle of nerves locks your muscles tightly around Wooyoung’s head but he takes it in stride as he drops a hand to slip his fingers inside your clenching hole. Curling the pads of his digits upwards, you feel him in your throat as you bite back moans. Your fingers twist in Wooyoung’s inky hair at the delicious torture, hips rocking into his eager mouth as he pants against you; refusing to separate from your drenched center.

When his unoccupied hand slips into your own, a death grip on your entertwined fingers, you fall apart. Your chapped lips nearly bleed from effort to remain quiet, writhing in Wooyoung’s hold as he continues to lap up everything you offer him.

A final suck against your clit has you scrambling to pull his mouth to your own, tasting yourself on his soaked cheeks and tongue.

“Please,” you whisper into his mouth.

Wooyoung responds by kissing you gently, the passion curling your toes while he fists his length before allowing the flared head to nudge your entrance.

Finally presses forward, fitting inside you as he always has, another tear burns down to your face. It all comes rushing forward, never ending waves rolling over you after you’ve been knocked down into the surf. Memories, good and bad, race through you at a breakneck speed. The tingling elation of the night Wooyoung asked you to be his girlfriend, the nerves of when you asked him to move in together during medical school. Sadness when you moved away for residency with the promise to come back. The numbing despair you felt the night you thought would be a turning point in your lives. The straw that breaks the camel's back is Wooyoung's admission that you’re too good for him. Choking your own pain down, you try to hone in on a spot on the ceiling in an effort to stay grounded.

Several seconds pass before Wooyoung notices the fresh bout of sobs, mistaking choked whimpers as whines of pleasure after such a long time apart. His nose traces the tendon of your neck as he cants his hips slowly, one hand still tangled in yours, the other pressing your knee up and around his waist to stretch deeper. When the dig of your nails into his shoulder turns from a sting to a cut, he leans back and realizes his mistake.

Eyes find one another through the distorted haze your sorrows create, his rounded with concern still glazed with evidence of his own tears. Staring at one another in a silence broken by sniffling and staccato breaths, a second set of tears mix with your own as he rests his forehead against yours. Locking your arms around Wooyoung’s broad shoulders and hooking your knees around his back, you try to seal him into your skin.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers, voice broken and cracked. “I’m so sorry. I–” he hiccups. “I didn’t–”

What he’s apologizing for is a mystery. Forcing you into this charade? Telling you he was planning to propose? Breaking up with you in the first place?

Perhaps it's all those things. Maybe it's none of them. Maybe it’s for some other secret he’s convinced himself to hide from you because he isn’t good enough; because he doesn’t trust you enough.

“I love you.” He whimpers into your hair, lips branding the words into your skin. It’s not enough. But for tonight, you’ll let it be.

“I love you, too.” you whisper back, straining to brush the tip of your nose against his own.

Tomorrow, you’ll fly back to the city and hide in your apartment and pretend to be okay. Dive so far into your work that you forget the way Wooyoung has ripped the healing wound on your heart open again.

Tonight, you’ll pretend the missing piece has finally been found and can stay forever.

Tensing your thighs, your locked ankles nudge at the dip of his spine to remind Wooyoung he’s still inside you. He hesitates for a moment but your lips silence his objections, just as eager to indulge in the fantasy as you are.

The pace is bruising, stomachs firmly pressed together as he reaches for the top of the bed frame to provide more leverage. Wooyoung’s back ripples and flexes as he pounds into you, the vibration of his weak moans tickling the sensitive pads of your fingers as they etch down his ribs.

Consumed by an overwhelming need to touch him everywhere, you cradle his face between your palms. Wooyoung flashes his eyes open, as if startled you’re still there, before leaning into one of them. Thumb tracing his lips, he drops a searing kiss to the crease of your knuckle. The tenderness burns the remaining oxygen out of the room.

His next word is so quiet your ears fail to detect them over the gentle slap of your bodies connecting or the squeak of the old bed frame. But Wooyoung’s said them against your skin enough times over the years for you to know the feel of his mouth forming around the sound.

You come with a muted whimper. So worn from tears, pleasure fizzles in your veins like the gentle ripple of the wind across a lake. Wooyoung marvels and shakes above you, swiping at the dampness on your cheeks before kissing them away with a hitch in his breath. But he is truly done for when you lean up and whisper his words back into his ear.

Wooyoung wakes to an empty bed, cold sheets, and the pillowcase squishing his cheek already damp from the tears he shed while sleeping.

A tedious drive to the airport grants Wooyoung ample time to stew in discontent, replaying the events of the past week over and over in his head.

Was he insane to think you wanted him too? All the moments he nearly forgot you two were barely more than strangers after months of silence, how every part of him still fit together so perfectly with you. Wooyoung knew he’d been a mess after the break up but the past week made him realize how lost he felt without you. Like the ocean without the moon to guide the tide; like he was missing half his heart. How many times had he opened his messages to text you something mundane from his day, just to close them and realize he’d ruined the best thing in his life in a second of weakness? And now having you next to him again, knowing he can’t fix what he did?

His mom turns off the radio. “When were you planning to tell us you two broke up?”

“Huh?”

“Wooyoung,” she sighs. “I know.”

“How… she told you?”

“Poor thing was crying the entire way to the airport. I told her I wouldn’t let her fly by herself if she was that upset until she explained.”

“What’d she say?”

“That you two broke up a few months ago but you didn’t want to disappoint us.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“You know Y/N, always keeps her cards close to her chest.” His mom looks at him from the corner of her eye. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“I made a mistake.”

“If you two weren’t happy then it wasn’t a mistake. Sometimes two people don’t fit together and it isn’t because you don’t love them.”

“But we were happy! She’s the one and I messed it up because I’m not good enough for her.”

“Where is that coming from?”

“I know you and dad wanted me to be an engineer like Myungho, okay? Even Kyungmin wants to be a lawyer! I’m the family disappointment. It only makes sense I’d disappoint her eventually.”

Wooyoung’s mom is notorious for going under the speed limit, waiting to turn even if the oncoming car is five hundred feet away, using her blinker religiously. Which is why Wooyoung thinks she’s having a seizure when she veers off the road and onto the shoulder like an F1 driver.

Throwing the car in park she levels him with a look so stern he feels like he’s a kid getting scolded again. “You are not a disappointment! To me or your father or anyone. You are my son, and I have always been proud of that. I’ve seen you teaching, the way those kids look up to you. You’re doing exactly what you were meant to. And if my worrying has made you feel that way then I am so sorry. All we’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.”

Crossing his arms, Wooyoung flicks away the beads of moisture tracing down his chin. “You’re my mom, you have to say that.”

“I’m not Y/N’s mom but I talk about her the same way.” Another comparison where he doesn’t measure up no matter how you look at it.

“Yeah, well she’s a doctor, saving kids lives and all that.”

“You don’t think you do the same thing? Those kids come to school excited to learn because of you. Just because you’re not finding a cure for cancer doesn’t mean your job isn’t important. And Y/N isn’t disappointed with you either. She loves you, Wooyoung. Why don’t you let her decide what she wants?”

“Yeah, well I think it’s too late for that,” Wooyoung mumbles, eyes on the toes of his shoes.

“Maybe you should ask her if she thinks so.”

Rather than give into his impatience, Wooyoung stews on his mom’s advice. Each passing hour conveniences him more and more she’s wrong. Especially when San and Yeosang sit with him in their cramped living room, bottles of beer and empty takeout littering the coffee table.

“You’re pathetic,” Yeosang says.

“Fuck you,” Wooyoung responds. There’s no bite in it. He doesn’t disagree, he’s told himself the same thing over and over again.

San, red faced and tipsy, slaps the leather armrests of the chair before rising.“Fuck you! You broke up with her over nothing and instead of trying to get her back you have a fucking pity party? Grow a pair.”

“She doesn’t want me!”

“Did you ask her?”

“I don’t have to!”

“You’re an idiot,” Yeosang butts in.

Wooyoung knows his hesitation speaks for itself when Yoesang keeps talking.

“You can ask her to pretend you’re still dating but you can’t tell her you wanna get back together?”

“It’s not that easy!”

“Yes it is!” San argues. “You love her right? You care about her?” San doesn’t continue until Wooyoung nods. “Then she has a right to know.”

“What if she says no?”

“Then she says no. Cross that bridge when you get there. You’re already broken up, how much worse can it get?”

Surprisingly, Wooyoung agrees. He sits forward, looking at his roommates before asking. “So what do I do?”

When Wooyoung’s messages go unanswered and his calls fall into the abyss of your full voicemail box, pulls out Plan B. Unfortunately, Plan B has no moral or ethical oppositions to castrating him.

Lisa doesn’t even let him speak. “Go fuck yourself!”

“Lisa, please!” Wooyoung begs into the phone.

“No! Not once but twice I’ve had Y/N crying on my couch because of your dumbass. I’m not letting it happen again!”

“I need to talk to her. Please just help me!”

“What makes this time so different?”

“I—,” Wooyoung freezes. What does make this time different? Could he promise he’d never let whatever tiny trickle of self doubt plague his brain wouldn’t flare up again? No. He can’t.

He hears Lisa sigh on the other end of the phone, almost as if she’s disappointed. “Just leave her alone, Wooyoung.”

The line clicks dead.

Walking back into the kitchen from the worst call of his life, Wooyoung spots San’s downcast face while Yeosang watches him from the table; both clearly overhearing his exchange with your best friend. The vinyl tabletop shakes as Wooyoung drops his forehead down with a bang, groaning in frustration.

“She’s working at New York-Presbyterian.” Yeosang mentions, returning to munch on his bowl of cereal.

“What?”

Yeosang chews his next bite thoughtfully, like he isn’t sure he wants to share the information a second time. Wooyoung almost believes he hallucinated his friend speaking at all until Yeosang repeats himself.

“Y/N works at New York-Presbyterian.”

“How do you know that?”

Shrugging, Yeosang takes another bite and swallows before explaining. “She told me she got a job there when she was planning to move back.”

Wooyoung has Yeosang’s shirt in his hands in a flash, nose to nose with his lifelong friend. Never in his life has Wooyoung been so furious with the man before him. He wants to kick his ass.

“You knew this whole time?” He bites, his eyes so wide with anger the whites show.

San is at Wooyoung's back, winding his arms around his shoulders in an attempt to pull him off their other roommate.

“You knew all of this and you didn’t fucking tell me? You’re my friend!” Attempting to shake San off, Wooyoung keeps pressing forward.

Yeosang rises to his feet, hands wrapping around Wooyoung’s wrists and squeezing till the pain forces him to let go. “Yeah, and you’re acting like a real asshole right now!”

“Guys calm down!” San yells, managing to pull Wooyoung back now that he’s no longer attached to Yeosang’s shirt.

“Why didn't you say something?”

“You ended an eight-year relationship out of the blue, I wasn’t about to let you get back with her just because you decided being single wasn’t your thing anymore.”

The words slap Wooyoung in the face. Even his own friends don’t trust him not to hurt you anymore. “I’m not— I wouldn’t…”

“Come on, Woo. All you could talk about was how excited you were to ask her to marry you and then you come home and tell us you broke up with her. She’s my friend too and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because you were desperate enough to call Lisa. If you fuck up again she’ll actually kill you.”

“And we’ll help,” San adds.

Wooyoung isn’t going to mess up again, not if he can help it. And if he does, he’ll walk straight into the river before anyone can force him. But for now, he focuses on getting you to listen to his apology.

Chief complaint: Father reports patient’s fever and cough have become more severe since previous visit. Reports child is refusing solids but drinking well and taking soft foods such as apple sauce. Sleeping okay.

One of the residents pops her head into your office, “Dr. Y/L/N you have a delivery at the reception desk.”

“Thank you!” you call, not missing a beat as you continue your notes.

Plan: Amoxicillin prescribed, five day follow up with p.r.n. at PCP.

Finishing your chart, you rise and head out towards the receptionist desk. A familiar bouquet of blush pink tulips greet you, a silk white ribbon knotted around the dip of the crystal vase. A small envelope is tucked into the spread, sending a terrified jolt through your system.

“I wish I had someone send me flowers as pretty as this!” Jessica sighs, eying the arrangement enviously.

“Yeah,” you laugh, unable to muster an ounce of false humor. You snatch the bouquet before turning back the direction you came.

Once back into the safety of your office, door shut and blinds drawn, you open the note.

If you don’t want to see me ever again, I’ll let you go. But I can't say enough how every time I ever put my arms around you I felt that I was home. I’ll be waiting at our spot on Saturday. As long as it takes. – W

You don’t realize you’re crying until the ink of the note begins to bleed.

Wooyoung is the first customer to enter the cozy coffee shop overlooking the southeast entrance of Tompkins Square Park at nine a.m., claiming the tiny wobbly table off in the corner that provides the perfect view of the door. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. It feels wrong to scroll through his phone as he waits so he snags one of the artsy newspapers sitting on the counter while the surly barista prepares his order.

After an hour, adrenalin maintains the pleasant buzz through Wooyoung’s system, fueled further by espresso on an empty stomach and jittering nerves. Each chime of the bell over the door results in awkward eye contact with a stranger that certainly isn’t his ex-girlfriend. Unless you shrunk, or grew two feet, or suddenly had a beard.

After three hours, his butt is numb and Wooyoung’s abandoned the newspaper he’s nearly memorized. The Times mini crossword archive isn’t as extensive as he thought.

After six hours, he’s had enough coffee to power a jet plane and his leg twitches aggressively beneath the table. He’s started people watching through the window, making up stories for passersby entering the park and crossing the street. Half his heart hopes they’re happier than he is, the other half hopes he’s not alone in his misery.

When he’s been at the shop for eleven and a half hours, burned through every source of distraction possible and can describe in vivid detail the features outside the glass wall that separate the inside of the cafe from the sidewalk, Wooyoung accepts that you aren’t coming.

He stays till close, every minute that ticks on a drop in the bucket of regret in his heart. The barista starts stacking chairs, passive aggressively swiping the frayed broom in a ring around his table, so Wooyoung does the sensible thing and waits outside.

The bitter wind wafting through the city finds home in his bones despite his thermals and padded parka. Wooyoung desperately clings to the last tiny drop of hope. Shaking from the chill and overindulgence in caffeine he watches as the clock hits nine.

You aren’t coming.

You don’t want him back.

And he has to accept that it’s his fault.

Wooyoung watches a couple laugh in each other's embrace across the street, clambering over one another in amused content. There was time that would have been you and him, high from the intoxicating joy of one another’s presence and the city lights in the winter. Fingers interlocked while trapezing through crowds, ignoring every other soul in favor of focusing on each other.

Eyes stinging, he turns to head for the train station but nearly shouts as spots the woman in question ten paces away.

Your hair is a mess, nose and cheeks blushing from the cold, breath obscuring your face as it fogs in the cool air. But you’re here, looking every bit unsure as he feels.

“Hi,” he says, dumbfounded.

“Hi.”

“You came.”

You nod. “I did.”

Wooyoung might faint. His heart is beating a mile a minute, breath shallow and labored. You’re here. You’re here and you’re looking at him like that. And the fear creeps into his pause.

“I’m sorry,” he warbles.

“I know.”

But you can’t so he says it again.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You keep saying that.”

Because he can’t think of anything else. Nine hours of going over the grand speech about how he missed you and how breaking up with you was the greatest regret of his life flies out the window now that you’re in front of him and willing to listen.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” you ask.

“No.”

“Then talk to me, Woo.”

The only thing you’ve ever asked him for is the truth. Wooyoung’s been so afraid that if he tells you how he truly feels, you’ll think less of him. That being so in love it terrifies you is disgusting, pathetic.

“I don’t know where to start,” he admits, staring at the icy sidewalk covered in slush.

“How long have you been here?”

“Since they opened.”

“Why?”

“Because if you came I didn’t want to miss you.”

“I almost didn’t.”

“Why did you?”

“Because—,” you pause, shaking your head. “I don’t know.”

“I had a whole speech prepared.”

You smile shyly. “Really?”

“Yeah, but now that you’re here I don’t remember any of it.”

“Then just tell me the truth, Woo.”

“I’m an idiot.”

Laughing at his outburst, you nod at him. “That’s a start.”

And the space between them grows a little warmer. Gives him the confidence he needs.

“That night at dinner, when I went to the bathroom, I got an email.” Wooyoung starts, stepping closer. “I’d applied for a grad school program and I thought I was gonna get in but … I didn’t. And I think that and the nerves from proposing just caught up to me. I thought you’d want to stay in Boston after all and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to move back here. And it snowballed and all those feelings of not being good enough came back and— When you didn’t say anything, didn’t ask why or try to argue with me I thought it meant it’s what you wanted too.”

Shame flushes through him, a tsunami of disgust for allowing himself to think so poorly of you. You never made him feel less than. The only person who thought he wasn’t good enough was himself and he let that destroy everything in a second of self doubt.

“I tried to convince myself I did you a favor. That you’d be better off without me and you’d meet someone better. Find someone good enough for you. But I was wrong. I am wrong. There hasn't been a single day since we met that I don’t think about you. Even when I try not to, you’re always in the back of my mind. And then I think about how selfish I am for wanting you back. But when it comes to you I’ve always been a little selfish because I love you. And—” he breaths for the first time. “And I don’t know how to be me without you.”

The humor is gone from your face. Beautiful eyes brim with tears, rimmed red not unlike his own; chin shaking. The wind is louder than ever now, cars wheel sloshing across the wet pavement crashing between them.

“Please say something.”

“How do I trust you again?” Your voice cracks, and it knocks the air from Wooyoung’s lungs.

“I don’t know.” Wooyoung looks at the ground, guilt-ridden.

Everything, all of the pain and heartbreak, was his fault. He dug you into this mess and now he doesn’t know how to get out.

Seeing Wooyoung, the man with an answer for everything, admit for once he doesn’t have an elaborate plan in motion to win you back is refreshing. You didn’t want Wooyoung who’d fix everything, Wooyoung who’d carry the burden of your relationship by himself even if it killed him. All you wanted was for him to tell you the truth.

And now that he has, you’re done being apart.

Nearly topping to the ground as you tackle Wooyoung in a fierce hug, you focus on inhaling his cologne and basking in the feel of his body pressed firmly against you. He barely manages to steady your combined weight, feet scrambling to regain his balance on the icy sidewalk.

“Don’t you ever do that shit to me again!” you yell, arms squeezing around his waist.

Wooyoung hesitates for a moment, clearly shocked at the turn of events. Rising out of his chest, you look at his gaping mouth and furrowed brows before his arms knot around your shoulders.

“I missed you,” you whisper into his lips.

“I love you,” Wooyoung responds, forehead resting against your own.

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

Central Park in May is a bustle of people enjoying warm days following months of slushy snow and gray skies. Shrill screams bounce off the trees, children dart across the walkways, giggling groups of friends crowd around blankets on the dead grass, and a menagerie of dogs zigzag around their owners in the fresh air.

Today is a rare day where you and Wooyoung both can spend interrupted hours lounging in one another’s presence, eager to make up for years of long distances and the months neither of you like to talk about. Wooyoung woke you with innumerable kisses across any sliver of skin his lips could find. No different than all the other mornings spent together since January.

You tried to take things slow, ease back into the comfort of the relationship. But it’s Wooyoung. There’s no half measures, only the full rush of feelings that never went away. A few awkward weeks of dancing around one another, unsure how to fit back in when there’s so much history, but the dam broke the first night Wooyoung stayed at your apartment and woke you up with bagels and coffee in bed.

He stayed over almost every night since.

Sprawled across an old throw blanket, skin warming in the afternoon sunshine, a thick book obscures his face from view as your head rests in his lap. Wooyoung’s been fidgety all morning. You chalk it up to the first nice day following a freezing, rainy winter. Too much energy and finally a suitable outlet that isn’t people watching from your living room window.

You look up at him, his face visible just above the edge of the book pages hiding your smile. He’s already looking at you.

Plucking the book from your grasp, he carefully marks the page before setting it down on the blanket. Wooyoung folds in half to silence your protesting “hey!” with a kiss, humming as you give in all too easily.

“I was reading that,” you mumble into his bottom lip. You tug his shirt, kiss him a little firmer before he leans back.

“Wow, you’d rather read some smutty book than kiss your real life boyfriend?”

Laughing, you press another peck to his mouth before answering, “Glad you understand.”

“What about your fiance?”

Your smile melts into shock, mouth gaping and staring at him like a deer in headlights.

Fiance.

His fiancee…

Wooyoung smoothly maneuvers you up and out of his lap, pulling the jewelry box from his pocket as he kneels on a lone knee.

“Y/N. You’re my favorite person in the world. The only person I can ever imagine spending the rest of my life with. I love when you sing in the shower, and how you put way too much sugar in your coffee. I love how smart you are, and how you’re nice to everyone even if they don’t deserve it, me included. And how everytime I look at you my palms get sweaty and that just thinking about you makes my day better. You are the love of my life. Will you marry me?”

Wooyoung is shaking so violently he fumbles the velvet box twice during his speech but you hardly notice, shaking so hard yourself. He drops it a third time when you tackle him in a fierce hug, tear filled laughter spilling from your lips and into the field where they lay.

“Yes!” you squeal into his neck, “Yes, I’d love to marry you.”

At dinner with all your friends, he holds your hand so the diamond glints at anyone looking. When Wooyoung walks you home, to the apartment that’s become his second home, giggly from champagne and love, he kisses your knuckles a ridiculous amount of times just to feel the cool band under his lips. Each time you chest squeezes like its the first. Once inside the doorway, Wooyoung crowds you against the door; his thumb focusing on the bevel of the diamond sitting on your ring finger as his other hand pushes the strap of the sundress off your shoulder so his tongue can etch your collarbone from dip of your throat where the locket he gave you for your first Christmas together rests to under your ear.

“So, future Mrs. Jung, now that we’re alone, how would you like to celebrate?” he asks, nipping against the sensitive skin until you sigh, chest arching into his own.

“What if I wanna keep my last name?”

“Is that what you’re focusing on right now?” Wooyoung asks, a strong thigh moving between your parted legs.

“Yeah, future Mr. Y/L/N. I don’t think there’s anything else to discuss right n—fuck, Woo.”

Wooyoun can’t help but giggle at your reaction, rocking again just to hear you moan his name once more.

“What were you saying?”

“Don’t,” you huff, whimpering at another torturous drag. Wooyoung can feel the heat of your cunt through your panties and his jeans. “Don’t be mean to your future wife.”

“Love when you talk dirty.” He bites against the strained muscle raising from the side of your neck.

“That turns you on? Calling me your wife?”

“Feel for yourself.”

You do feel it. Shifting in the tiny space he’s allotted, you feel him hot and hard against your stomach. You’re caught between wanting to savor every moment and ripping both your clothes off.

“And if I call you my husband?”

Wooyoung doesn’t dignify your question with an answer other than tugging you towards the bedroom to demonstrate just how much he likes the new name.

You don’t make it that far. Between pulling at his clothes and tripping over your own, the hall floor becomes the alternative; Wooyoung’s lap your new perch. His teeth close around your nipple, timid until he’s not.

He keeps you like that for a while. Squirming in his lap until you're not naked enough with your dress pooled around your waist and bunched up your thighs. You whine and he switches to your neglected breast, tongue flitting teasingly.

“Wooyoung,” you keen.

The bastard laughs but makes no move to give you more. You’re at his mercy. The way he touches you makes you blush, still new and exciting after years but he treats you like the most interesting thing in the world; remembers even the most insignificant details that have you sweating.

You try to pull him off your chest but he ignores the desperate pleas; eager licks so good your hips kick against his crotch for some kind of relief. Fingers pinch at the abandoned one, keeping your back bent in a painful arc.

He bites a little too hard, shoves a hand between your legs and touches with raw force. You can’t think about anything. Hopped up on champagne and engagement bliss, your body rolls hot and wet against his fingers until you come with wrecked sounds.

Sagging against him, Wooyoung slows, lets you take a few weak breaths while he noses against your collarbone. He kisses the hollow of your throat, a simple brush of his lips that lingers deep in your veins.

“I think that might be a new record,” he quips. The fingers buried beneath your underwear pop into his mouth before he reaches back down with softer strokes, teasing all those worn nerves back to attention. You don’t care about anything other than the way he touches with brutal reverence. Worshiping your body the way that sets your soul on fire.

His body gives under gentle caresses, fingers cataloguing everything in meticulous detail. His hair, his neck, shoulders. The plains of his chest. How his stomach dips beneath your nails. You rub his cock through his pants before impatience takes over and you both work to shove them down his thighs.

You rock down, pulling at those short hairs at the nape of his neck with just enough sting. Wooyoung loses himself in the feeling, mouthing your name across your sternum. “So fucking beautiful.”

Whatever response rests on your lips dies as he rolls you next to him on the floor. You leg over his hip, his cock between your walls with little resistance. The kind of intimacy that makes you bubble out your own skin.

The floor isn’t good for sex. Your hips ache. Sweaty limbs stick. Your fiancé has you bent like origami to fuck as far as his dick can reach. His eyes are locked on the way you fit together, but you want them on you. “Baby, l-look at me.”

He does; hooded eyes hazy. Something simmers hot in his gaze, something you can’t name but know well because you feel it. Wooyoung doesn’t look anywhere else but your face as he rolls again and again and again.

“Feels so good,” you pant.

Wooyoung hoists your leg up higher, pushing until your back flattens to the floor and he’s crowded over. You want him to fuck you hard, nasty. Something in between those romance movie references and the way he makes you feel like the only person in the world; perfectly made to take him.

He groans from the new angle. “I love you.”

The hand shoved between your legs is ripped away. The hand with the ring. The one Wooyoung kept by his side at all hours like an idiot. But you don’t care. Not as he pulls your fingers to he faces and kisses it like a promise, cups his hand around your own one his cheek. You shake. Thrash beneath as stars explode and everything melts into absolute nothing.

Wooyoung manages a few more thrusts before he loses it, pace uneven from champagne and giddy pleasure. The messy of his cum spills with each jilted thrust, trickling where your ass meets the floor.

Shuddering, Wooyoung collapses. “Jesus Christ.”

You grunt something like ‘I know,�� eyes wet, body vibrating with leftover dopamine. You’ve never had married sex, and any form of nuptials remains far off in the horizon for the time being. But tonight, he’s as good as the real thing. Maybe even better.

“I think I passed out for a second,” you whisper airily.

“Just some proactive marital bliss.”

He lays on the floor next to you, shoulder to shoulder, hands wound gently together. The pressure of his lips rains over your fingers. Again, and again like he still can’t believe this is real. You can’t remember ever being this happy.

Hooking a leg over his hip, you cuddle down into his chest. “Bibi is gonna see that ring next weekend and start asking for grandkids.”

“Well, it’s a good thing Myungho called me this morning.”

“Wait, really?”

“Surprised?”

“No,” you laugh. “Mia called me last week.”

Wooyoung presses his nose into your cheek with a whine. “How come you got to know before me?”

You're both still half clothed. Your dress ruined, his pants the same. Like the so many times you’ve had together where nothing can get in the way of the deep seeded need for one another. Almost poetic.

You kiss his cheek teasingly. “Because you can’t keep a secret to save your life, Mr. Jung.”

A displeased huff is all the warning you get before he’s back on top of you, fingers bent into your waist, your neck. All the worst tickle spots that have you screaming for mercy.

“You were surprised today, weren’t you?” He pulls you tighter, levels your gaze and whispers like it’s the best secret he’s ever been a part of. “Mrs. Jung?”

“Not one bit.”

#cromernet #kvanity #ateez #ateez smut #wooyoung #wooyoung smut #wooyoung x reader #jung wooyoung #ateez x reader #ateez fanfic #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung angst #ateez fluff #🫡 highvern

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bonbonly · 2 months ago

Text

𝐓𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: heavily inspired by hannibal - after hearing tons of praise in regards to psychiatrist!max verstappen, you decide to test your luck and see what his true colors are 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: this is a dark fic! you have been warned! do not read if you're not comfortable with dark fics or any of the following in this fic: dubcon, drugging/aphrodisiac, knife play, cunnilingus, p in v, character death, reader is not a good person, blood/gore, slapping 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5k 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: i want to give a special shoutout to @gokyrts because look at the abomination she's made me write, oh my god...

"mr. verstappen's skills knows no bounds, but the only ones being bound under his spell are the countless patients he must've paid to spread his work as if it were a gospel," you echoed the words that you wrote onto your laptop, the rough draft being filled with small notes on the side of the document to remind you of any criticism of the man that you might've missed the first time. your fingers drummed against the keys of your laptop, your brows furrowed as you tried to find another sentence to add. to spite him. to inform him that he had to be a greedy, money hungry hoax. your friends always told you that his appointments were so relaxing, they were very helpful but you saw through his lies. you knew that something had to be up. working as a forensic scientist for the BAU, and secretly organizing a crime blog under a pseudonym, you've racked up enough credentials to be under verstappen's radar. perhaps he was the only one that knew about the blog, and it irked you.

he mentioned once after you stopped by his office to request his presence in the lab. direct orders from your boss, you stated, making it very clear with your tone that you didn't ask for it. you'd rather die than have him near the corpse, stealing all the credit that should rightfully go to you. the depths you went to find the real perpetrator days later was overshadowed by the single fact that verstappen had walked in and saw a petal of a rose just underneath the right calf of the corpse. a careless mistake, he told your boss, but one that could be easily tweaked if you had just scheduled an appointment with him so he could discuss parts of your childhood that you locked away, buried underneath your heels so that every time you stomped around, you imagined it to be the throat of your parents. you were told to accompany the psychiatrist back to his office, and when you dropped him off he merely smiled at you, his dutch accent infiltrating your ears, "you always miss the details, which is surprising because you never seem to do it under your blog, caroli- i mean, ms. (l/n)."

your blood ran cold at his words, and you stumbled out of his office with a hardened glare. he was reading your blog, and had somehow directed it to you. how did he know? there was no possible way for him to know. you worked for the fbi, for peter's sake, you knew how to tidy up evidence, to be careful when lurking through unclear waters. how did the bastard know about this? so, when you typed up the new article criticizing his work and suggesting that he might be behind the disappearance of a few colleagues of yours, you knew he would read it. with full confidence, you wanted him to read it and storm into your office ready to snap your neck.

but he never did. in fact, he never even looked at you at all the next day. or the day after. or the week after. he smiled at your associates, then locked himself in his room, welcoming in patients and booking appointments for the ones too timid to ask him for one. during a lunch break, you walked past his hallway and pressed your ear against his door to listen in to an appointment he had with your friend. the shattering of glass, a muffled scream, the sound of a bullet, metal cracking against her skull, any sound would do for you. you just needed one piece of evidence, but you received none. your friend walked out unscathed, a happy smile on her face as she greeted you back in the lab. your eyes cast down to your hands, a feeling of momentary guilt rising in your gut. you wanted to forge your hands into the fire for writing that article and painting him in a bad light; no favorable colors, no accurate brush strokes, a half-assed attempt where the paint bled through the canvas, seeping through the lines that you carefully concocted. it didn't make sense, you were so sure of it! all the victims -charles, lewis, carlos, daniel - your good friends who were missing had one thing in common: they had booked appointments with verstappen before their disappearance. they also were in contention to get a promotion, daniel had also been a psychiatrist, eagerly waiting for his new life to become the head of the department one day. it was a risky move, but you figured that if you pushed his buttons enough, he'd slip up. he'd expose himself, he'd make a mistake and then you'd have him trapped. the entire BAU would understand that they had a criminal right under their noses this entire time.

for this entire plan to succeed, you had to do a few things. your first plan was to write more articles on your secret blog. while the BAU was scratching their heads about how their confidential cases were being exposed so easily, you were dropping bombshell after bombshell on your blog, your finger always pointing to the psychiatrist that would now look at you across the room with a deadly glint in his eyes. his lips were always in a thin line, and occasionally you caught him smirking whenever you'd miss a detail during analysis. you were predictable to him, and you needed to find a way to defeat him at his own game. there was a reason as to why he hadn't exposed you yet, perhaps the lack of evidence but you realized that there was something about you that made him keep quiet. you had power over him, the thought of it made you giggle uncontrollably at your desk one day, spinning around your chair like a little school girl. the second plan was to use his own tricks against him, which meant finally noticing the smaller details, being smarter than the rest of the team and most importantly, being incredibly fast. whether it be responding to your boss, showing up to a meeting, scavenging a crime scene to find clues or evidence, you had to be first. this entire time the team thought of him as reliable because he was the first one present at all times. you had to change that, had to show the team that the tide was turning to your favor. you noticed the way he'd bite the inside of his cheek, the light illuminating from the side would highlight his cheekbones, the dent a shadow amongst the very little light on his face.

and then finally, the third part of your plan. book the appointment with him. this one hurt your ego the most, but in order to catch him you had to stoop down to his level. making him think that you were willing to open up to him should give him the opportunity to do the same with you, and once vulnerable you could easily coax the truth out of him. you sat across from him on a velvet chair, legs crossed as your eyes traveled around the room, memorizing the layout of his office and the objects that were on display.

"lots of cars i see here," you pointed towards one large model of an RB19 on his shelf. he buried his hands in his pockets, teetering on his toes as he let out a small chuckle,

"i like things that are fast. things that fly, speed through... run," the last word sent shivers down your spine, but you swallowed the bile that threatened to rise and forced a smile at him.

"care for a drink? i got some wine if you'd like?" he walked over to the stand of champagne bottles on display. the glass sparkled under the light, its contents swishing around with each step that he took closer. it reminded you of your guts wanting to spill out and as he grabbed the bottle's neck, you gulped and felt the ghost of his hands tightening around yours. with a cough, you shook your head but he rolled his shoulders in a way of disbelief and stalked over to you with a wine glass in his hand, "please, i think you need it. it's ok, it'll help you relax."

the liquid pooled down your throat, but you kept your eyes open in fear that he might take advantage of you like this. you couldn't let your guard down, not like this. you watched as he settles down on the couch directly across from you, his legs spread out giving you an ample view of what you assumed to be his cock fighting to be restrained in his pants but with a firm snap of his fingers, your eyes flicker up to his face and then you saw the smallest hint of a smile on his face. you hadn't seen one in weeks.

"so why exactly did you book this appointment?" he asked, tilting his head. his hands clasped together, the forefingers coming up to touch his lips. you shrugged in response, before quickly shaking your head. shit, you needed to follow along with the plan you made!

"just... just been having some bad nightmares about my past," you responded. the topic of your parents was sensitive, one that you kept hidden for many years after you graduated high school. their death was their own doing, but somehow you felt that you had a part in it. had the murderer been you, it would've made no difference because the guilt remained. the bystander was far worse than the actual criminal. your mother's head rolling down the hill as your father watched with a twisted back. you winced at the memories, the glass slipping from your hands, "fuck!"

max watched your reactions carefully. his eyes were drawn to the way your fingers hovered over the glass, almost afraid that it would grab you. you paid no mind to the wine stain, but the countless apologies that spilled from your lips was music to his ears. he wanted to hear you say them, but in a very different circumstance. he read every article you wrote, he noticed your shift in behavior around him. he was a psychiatrist; if you wanted to play mind games with him, he was already ten steps ahead. while guiding you to stand near the shelf of cars, he went over to his closet to grab the broom and dustpan. he took off his coat, rolling the sleeves of his shirt before crouching down to gently grab the large pieces of glass. he dragged his finger onto the pool of wine on the floor and licked a long stripe, "such a shame. i always hate seeing my appetite go to waste."

the appointment was cut short much to your chagrin. your carelessness, you thought to yourself, you just didn't understand why you kept making small mistakes like this. you had to train your mind to be better. you sighed and gave one last glance to the RB19 model when you noticed the initials D.R. in italics on the edge of the car. before you could step closer, you felt strong arms grab onto your shoulders, guiding you out the door, "ms. (l/n), i am so sorry about what happened here. i would love to hear more about your past, but perhaps in a setting that might not scare you too much. dinner at my house, maybe? would that be an offer you're willing to take up?"

you frowned at his words, wriggling away from his touch, "you invite all your patients to your house for dinner?"

"only the ones i believe i have a strong connection with," he responded, licking his lips as he leant against the doorframe. you tapped your heels a couple times, thinking the offer over. if you declined, you'd have to come back to his stupid office. but... but if you accepted, you'd be able to catch him in his environment - and while he had the advantage of home ground - he definitely had to be hiding things there.

"you mind if i bring a friend over?" you asked, and he smiled,

"the more the merrier, but i don't think we can talk about your history then."

"it's ok. we can talk about my life later."

"6:30 at my place, i'll send the address down to you shortly."

"oh, mr. verstappen, dinner is very lovely! did you make this all by yourself?" your friend asked while taking a bite of the lasagna. her words are tuned out as you shifted through your food with a fork. the darkness of the dining room did little to ease any of your fears. you had walked in feeling confident, ready to tackle the monster down with your bare hands, but his kindness. his professionalism. his unwavering stare. they all made you feel as if you were being suffocated. you didn't have much energy in you to continue with the fake conversations. excusing yourself to use the bathroom to then explore his mansion would be too cliche, he'd be waiting for you to do it anyway. being too predictable would bore him, which would mean the chances of you being killed would be higher.

"not liking the food, ms. (l/n)?" max asked, his eyes flickering down to the food he cooked being tossed around like a bird amongst hyenas.

"no, i'm just... not very hungry, unfortunately," you responded, grabbing the wine to drink.

"a bite wouldn't hurt. just one bite, i spent hours cooking for tonight," he chuckled, and your friend kicked your leg under the table, her eyes narrowing at you to take a bite. you could already hear what she was saying in her mind. the poor man went out of his way for dinner and here you are, being a rude guest! with a very reluctant sigh, you grab hold of the fork and let your teeth sink onto the lasagna, the flavor melting into your tastebuds as you let out a slow hum of approval. it tasted nice, very nice actually. so you took another bite, and then another. her appetite's back, your friend laughed and max nodded his head, smiling at you.

but when dessert rolled in, you felt uneasy. your insides felt empty, as if craving for something that you couldn't quite place. your thighs clenched together as your gripped onto the arms of the chair. you couldn't make out whatever max was saying. he was asking you if you were alright, but his eyes asked a different question. you hadn't noticed how big his eyes were before, or the fact that his pupils were so dilated. how did you miss that detail before? was he always like this? you quickly excused yourself, running to the bathroom but each brush of your thigh under the thigh made you choke on air, your mind hazy. upon locking yourself inside, you immediately collapsed onto the ground, your head in your hands. you felt strong pair of hands around your waist, groping at your tits that spilled out of your dress - or was it be ripped off of you? your pussy bare against the cold dampness of the room, your mouth propped open with fingers as the sweet taste of an apple made its way. your jaw was sore at how your teeth delved into the fruit and stood rooted there as your arms were bound above your head. was that the woody scent of a candle, or the fireplace that was underneath you? where was that burning sensation? under you... or inside you? your legs were being spread apart, the itchy rope curling around your limbs to make sure you wouldn't move. you opened your eyes lazily to see a figure with dirty blonde hair at the end of the table, his shiny teeth visible amongst the evil grin you saw.

"my favorite meal... all to myself." he whispered, letting his tongue rake over your glistening folds. your strangled moans are swallowed by the apple in your mouth, your body aching for more as his nose nudges your clit. his teeth nip at your labia, tongue invading your womanhood as you can't do anything but scream out loud, drooling from the corners of your mouth. his tongue rolls your clit around, lapping at any juice that seeps from your cunt. he wants to ensure your taste is on his tongue forever. the sweetest dessert that one would ask for. his fingers spread your mound to get a good look at his masterpiece and he lets his saliva stalk down to your pussy before harshly rubbing your clit. when you finally look past your tits to see who this figure was: your heart stopped at the sight of max staring down at you with a predatory look.

you screamed as you woke up in your bed, cold sweat dripping down your forehead. you glanced down to your hands, your feet, your clothes that covered your body. you looked around your room, unsure as to how you were back in your bedroom. it felt real... was it real? you couldn't tell. you pulled the waistband of your panties down, check to see if you were still a wet mess. nothing. laying back down on your bed, you placed a hand on your heaving chest and ran your free hand down your face. what just happened? what was going on? you had to find out, you had to get to the bottom of this.

which meant having to go back to his house. on guard, and once again with someone. you decided to bring a colleague that you despised, but it would be better to sacrifice her than your friend.

you sat across the dining table, and despite how predictable it was, you excused yourself to the bathroom, keeping note as to how his eyes focused on your ass. never miss the details, you thought to yourself. you headed to the bathroom, opening the door to turn the lights on before shutting the door. with a few fake thuds just outside the bathroom door, you took your heels off and carefully took them with you around the staircase. with the layout of the house, the dining room wouldn't give clear access to the left side of the kitchen. which meant that the pantry could be entered carefully without him noticing. your colleague was busy entertaining him about her vacation in milan, her loud voice thunderous enough to rattle the house... and enough to mask the creaking of the pantry door as you slipped inside. it was cold, almost like entering the arctic as you pulled out a tiny flashlight to guide you through the foreign place. the meat hung forlornly from the hooks, the torse of a pig on display. you frowned at the ink patterns on the meat, and you hesitantly turned it around. you'd seen these marks before somewhere. a vacation trip with your friends that you planned one evening. someone had dragged you into the pool as a prank and when you floated to the surface, spluttering out the chlorine water, your hands found the shoulders of a man inked with tattoos on his back. it was lewis. your flashlight slipped out of your hands and clattered onto the metal railings.

"fuck, fuck, fuck!" you hissed, scrambling to grab the small material. you were delighted that your suspicions were correct, that this entire time you were right about verstappen. but you needed to get out. you could see the shadow of footsteps underneath the pantry door. there was a back entrance to the pantry, and you stumbled towards it. from the corner of your eye you noticed a bottle of liquid and you uncapped it with your teeth, chugging the liquid down. you really needed some wine to calm your nerves down at the moment. letting the bottle roll back onto the metal table, you ran out the door into the open woods. you'd have to go around the path to get back to your car in the front of the house. the more minutes you stood to think about a plan, the more time was being wasted. from the distance, you could hear the back entrance of his house being opened and you whined out loud, pushing your feet to continue running. you didn't want to die, not like this... no, not now, not ever!

and yet with each step that you took, you felt a strong pain inside you. that pain you felt when you had dinner for the first time at his house. you were craving for something, you didn't know. was it his tongue again? no, what? why were you thinking about that awful nightmare? you remembered the outline of his cock during your first appointment, oh it looked delectable. you could've gotten on your knees then and sucked him as payment for the appointment! as your mind was reeling with uncontrolled desire, your knees buckled and your leg caught onto a root from a tree. crashing forward with a loud groan, you struggled to get back up on your feet when you felt the underside of a boot press gently against your neck, pushing your face onto the ground.

"i told you before i liked things that run. at this point, you're just teasing me," a familiar dutch voice rang from above you. the boot nudged you over onto your back, causing you to hold back a whimper at the sensation. you were sensitive to everything, your skin on fire as he trailed his foot down your body and right below your heat. right below where your desire was burning.

"y-you killed them. i was right, you killed them all," you weakly laughed, "i was right this entire fucking time."

"round of applause for you, ms. (l/n), oh wait..." he paused, looking around the empty woods before he glanced down to you, "no one's here." he rubbed the toe-box of his boot against your clothed cunt, enjoying the way your back arched, squealing at the way your clit was being dragged along your damp panties.

"tsk tsk tsk," he circled to stand right in front of you between your legs, "you always missed the details. you could've made it, you know? you could've gotten to your car and made it back to your house, schatje. but it's your carelessness... what did you drink before you came out here?"

"w-w-wine?" you responded, tilting your head. you let out another moan as the boot dug deeper onto your mound.

"wine mixed into the aphrodisiac. which would've been my last resort if you had properly rescheduled the appointment that we never finished. details, ms. (l/n), always look at the details," he knelt down, letting his hand replace his boot. the warmth of his fingers made you whine, begging him to end your suffering. your mind was purely empty - save the thought of having him satisfy your primal needs. he bunched up your panties, tugging them up to see your pussy coat the fabric with more of your juices, "fuck... you're so wet. it must hurt doesn't it? you wish you had someone to help you, schat?"

"yes, yes, yes please... please!" you cried, bucking your hips up. max laughed, seeing the way your pussy was grinding against your panties. he ripped them off of you, throwing them over his shoulder as he picked you up into his arms, carrying you as if you were his bride.

"i think a change of environment will put you in your place." he mumbled, and while you didn't catch onto it at first, when he tossed you onto the metal table in his pantry, you felt fear course through your body. "such a nice suit i had on today, and now you made me ruin it."

he slips off his coat and vest, rolling the sleeves of his shirt that hugged his biceps. he searched around the pantry for a while before grabbing an apron, tying it around his slim waist. he gazed up at you as his chin tucked into his neck and he let out a dry laugh, "you know... if you had just stuck to your job, this wouldn't have been a problem. always wanting to be the hero, when you're the villain yourself."

he grabbed the butcher knife, tossing it in the air a couple times, "i used to keep him with a bunch of other knives, all neatly organized just like i love. had to use him so often these days that he gets his own special spot. what do you think? he's beautiful isn't he?" he holds the knife up to your hooded eyes, and when you don't respond, he uses the butt of the utensil to slap your face, beckoning you to respond.

"i-it's nice," you mumbled, and he nods his appreciatively, letting the sharp edge of the object gently kiss your skin before he cut away at your dress and bra, exposing all of you to him. he saw the lump in your throat when you swallowed, and he brought the edge of the knife to your neck, watching you crane around to avoid the sharp edge. he tossed the knife in the air once again, which caused you to shriek out loud in fear that it'll slice you but he caught it and tapped the butt of the knife on your lips.

"suck," he commanded, and still clouded by the aphrodisiac, you do what he asked and twirled your tongue around the tip before opening your mouth wider and letting it fully devour your throat. you caught your reflection in the metal, and you can't even believe how blinded you must be. the details, the details, the details. the body of daniel hanging above you, staring at you with closed eyes and parted lips should have you screaming as you rolled your eyes back, but instead you're feeling yourself growing wetter, eager to please max. the weapon hits your teeth as max trailed your saliva down the valley of your tits, over your navel and to your cunt that's been so desperate this entire time. he pursed his lips as if he was deep in thought and then brought his free hand to spread your legs wider, shoving the butt of the knife into you. the feeling of being stretched out, of finally being filled - even if only a little - had your back escape the confines of the metal table, your tits out in the air as you're sobbing in joy. max saw the way you're mewling, body contorting in pleasure and he left your cunt empty once again before slamming the butcher knife right beside your head. your breath hitched in your throat, the fear once again settling but it made your heart race in excitement. there was a small thrill present, maybe he was right earlier. you were the villain all along. you were worse than him. he took off the apron, unbuckling his belt and he snickered,

"you could've grabbed the knife and stabbed me by now, but you didn't... too desperate to get fucked, isn't that right, liefje?"

he let his cock spring free from the confines that tormented him since the day he saw you at the BAU. head held high, a haughty gleam in your eyes. the arrogance as you talked down to him, acted as if you were superior. he was waiting all along for this moment. his cock slid against your folds and when he pushed in, the tears that flowed from your eyes combined with the guttural moan made him smile. something was missing though, something that could make this so much more better for him. and as he began to thrust, he glanced up to see another corpse from a previous victim hanging to the side. a cruel idea formed in his mind and he grinned down at you,

"schatje, i don't think i could bring myself to hurt you... not when you're being such a good slut for me," he cooed, "but... but a man can't help but imagine..."

he grabbed hold of the butcher knife, slicing the corpse and letting the blood splatter onto the top half of your body. it trickled onto the table beneath you, the tiled floor now the canvas of a new twisted desire. he laughed out loud at the sight of half of your face covered in blood, and he brought the coated knife to your neck, continuing to thrust his aching cock into you as you screamed out loud in a horrid mix of fear and desire. you could feel your cunt clamp onto his cock, so close to cumming as his thrusts became more erratic.

"i knew you'd like this... you came all this way here to see if you could understand me. schat, but do you even know who you are?" he questioned, letting the edge of the knife kiss your neck. and as you came undone with a scream, your vision blurring at the intensity, you realized he was right all along. the details, you missed all the details. your parents death wasn't because of some man that had swerved the car late at night. it was you. you swung the sledgehammer at the car while they were driving down the highway, drunk out of your mind out of anguish from all the abuse you faced as a child. the man stopped to see the commotion and you sent his body flying down the hill. you'd done it, you were a murderer. you were twisted, you were... you were as bad as him. you glanced up to see max still bullying your cunt, pushing you to another orgasm before you could process the toll your body was taking in the process.

"your scent always drove me wild," he whispered, leaning down to bite your nipple, "fuck, schatje... i'll give you a deal." he lifted his head slightly to meet your gaze, "we can work together, you know? with your skill and this cunt of yours, i could keep you around. no harm to you at all, unless of course you'd like it."

"t-the blog... no, no, i can't... i'm better than you. i'm not you, i'm not fucked up like - oh fuck, don't stop!" your argument melts away with each snap of his hips,

"you have no other choice here. there's two ways this can go. you keep coming to my office, be my personal slut, trained completely to take my cock and i'll let you live... with the added benefit of working and helping me. and if you don't," the butcher knife digs a bit deeper into your neck, "i think you understand what i mean, right schatje?"

you nod your head, throwing your head back as you let out another visceral scream as your second orgasm rips through your body. he captures your lips in a bruising kiss, murmuring praises at how perfect you'd be, how you were always destined for this, no matter how much your ego told you differently.

and yet as you laid beside him on his bed that night, well-cleaned and taken care of as his new trophy, you secretly uploaded the photos of his pantry to your blog and slipped out of his house, past your dead colleague in the living room. he'd come after you, that was for sure. but he liked to hunt, and you've learned to run.

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mingi-s-dimples · 1 month ago

Text

Dear Diary... - San

~"Hi love hope you’re doing well✨ Ive read your San kitten fic and I enjoyed it 😀tremendously 🔥. Now If it’s ok with you (I couldn’t find it in your blog that if you’re ok with this kink or nah) to write [cnc+ dirty talk and corruption kink]with San?? And if not cnc anything that comes from authority figures of him. Pls plssss ignore this if it’s makes you uncomfortable ❤️🍓" ~ queen I haven't written cnc corruption kink in my life. I hope I got the idea, even the slightest 😞.

pairing: san x fem!reader

genre: 18+

summary: san read your little journal.. and that ends with you screaming his name.

wc: 5.6k

warnings: dom!san, big dick!san, he eats her out, dirty talk, some cnc + corruption kink (he kinda softly makes her submit to it when he reads her diary + he doesn't care that she's a virgin and he actually encourages it even more so i guess it works? i'm so sorry i never wrote corruption kink before i promise i'll do better 😞💖), she's a virgin, neck holding and softly choking, marking all over, mamhandling, vaginal sex, he doesn't fuck he pounds, multiple orgasms, she screams out his name duh, some crumb of aftercare, cockwarming, unprotected (she's supposedly on bc but booo use protection!), unedited might edit later, for sure forgot something, completely consensual (after he makes her submit to him!)

Author's Note: woahhhh I haven't wrote in a while ngl. Felt good to be back.. sorry for not posting 😞. Life updates: Had 3 exams and I almost failed one but upsies it's maths 💀, had a bf for 3 days cause he acted weird and he said I'm his everything and that he loves me and that he can't be without me and I was like brotha ew we've been tgt for 3 days... and he got offended and unfollowed me everywhere 💀 boys these days... (i sound like a 70yo granma). Anyways I hope I'll post way more these days! There are only two exams to go, one this Friday and one this Saturday (for tutoring!) so I'll disappear again until Saturday night 🧍‍♀️ but I'll post on Sunday ! everyone cheer pls. Love youuuuuu allll

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and does not represent the reality of the member in any way.

The rich scent of steak still lingered in the air, mingling with the faint remnants of laughter and conversation from earlier in the evening. Your small apartment felt quieter now, with only the faint hum of the fridge and the occasional clink of San’s beer bottle against the counter breaking the silence.

The others had left hours ago, leaving just you and him—like it so often did. You couldn’t even remember how it had started, the unspoken rule that San always stuck around longer than anyone else, as if this place belonged to him as much as it did to you.

“You’re really not going to let those dishes wait until tomorrow, are you?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen counter with a smirk. The casual authority in his tone was infuriatingly familiar, yet somehow impossible to ignore.

You glanced at him over your shoulder, rolling your eyes as you stacked the last plate. “And let me guess—you’re going to stand there, drinking your beer, and not help.”

“Exactly.” His grin widened, infuriating and so utterly *him.* “I’ve got my role down. Yours is to overachieve and keep pretending you don’t have OCD about cleaning up after people.”

“I do not—” you started, only to cut yourself off with a sigh. There was no winning with San.

Instead, you gave him a look, grabbed the last of the plates, and disappeared down the hall toward the bathroom. “Try not to break anything while I’m gone,” you called back over your shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” he drawled. “I’ll keep myself entertained.”

San watched you go, waiting until the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut echoed faintly down the hallway. Then his attention drifted lazily around the room.

Your apartment was familiar in a way that made it feel like a second home—organized chaos, with books, mismatched blankets, and stray notebooks scattered across every available surface. It was the kind of place that felt lived-in, every corner a reflection of your mind: half-stressed, half-dreaming.

It was a notebook on the coffee table that caught his eye.

It wasn’t hidden, exactly. Half-tucked under a glossy magazine, its leather cover gleamed faintly in the low light. The word *Private* was written neatly across the front in a handwriting he’d recognize anywhere—yours.

A slow grin spread across his face. “Private, huh?” he murmured, setting his beer down and reaching for the notebook.

He flipped it open, expecting to find the usual: to-do lists, random doodles, or the same kind of perfectly planned schedules you’d been making since grade school. But instead, his eyes landed on something else.

*Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to lose control completely. To have someone take charge and make me do things I’d never admit I want. Things I’d never say out loud...*

San froze, his grin fading as his eyes skimmed over the words. The meaning hit him slowly, like a low-burning flame that spread heat through his chest and settled somewhere.. lower.

*...to be pinned down, held in place, unable to fight back but not really wanting to. To have someone whisper filthy things in my ear and tell me how much they love seeing me fall apart under their control...*

He swallowed hard, his grip on the notebook tightening as he kept reading. The words painted vivid pictures in his mind—images he’d never dared associate with you before, no matter how many times his teasing had drifted close to the edge.

But this was different. This wasn’t teasing. This was your handwriting, your fantasies laid bare on the pages in front of him.

And the worst—or maybe the best—part? He couldn’t stop reading.

The sound of the bathroom door opening snapped him out of it. He quickly snapped the notebook shut, placing it back on the coffee table just as you stepped into the room.

When your eyes landed on him, standing far too close to the coffee table, your expression immediately shifted. Suspicion flickered across your face, followed by alarm as you spotted the notebook.

“No,” you breathed, your voice almost a whisper. “San... Tell me you didn’t.”

He arched a brow, leaning casually against the arm of the couch as if nothing had happened. “Didn’t what?”

Your stomach twisted. “You didn’t read that, did you?”

He shrugged, the corner of his mouth curving into a smirk. “You left it out in plain sight, sweetheart. Hard not to be curious.”

“San!” Your voice rose in a mix of panic and mortification as you rushed over, snatching the notebook off the table. You clutched it to your chest, your cheeks burning so hot you could feel the heat spreading to your neck.

He watched you with infuriating calm, his dark eyes gleaming with something you couldn’t quite name. “Relax,” he said, his tone deceptively soothing. “It’s not like I read the whole thing.”

Your heart sank. “What... what did you read?”

San pushed off the couch and stepped closer, closing the space between you with deliberate ease. He stopped just inches away, towering over you in that way that always made you feel small—and not entirely in a bad way.

“Enough to know you’ve got some... interesting thoughts rattling around in that head of yours,” he said, his voice low and teasing. “Care to explain?”

You shook your head, mortified. “No. Absolutely not. You shouldn’t have—”

“Shouldn’t have what?” he interrupted, his tone sharpening just slightly. “Picked it up? Read it? Or are you just embarrassed that I know now?”

You glared at him, though your resolve was already wavering. “This isn’t funny, San.”

His smirk faded, replaced by something darker, more serious. “Who said I’m joking?”

He reached out, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “Maybe it’s time someone gave you what you’ve been asking for.”

The room felt too small, the air too thick. Your lips parted, but no sound came out. You couldn’t bring yourself to say the word, even though you knew you should.

San’s smirk returned, slow and deliberate.

“Mhm-” he murmured, his voice heavy with unspoken intent.

His gaze lingered on you, sharp and assessing, as if he could see through every feeble defense you were trying to put up. The notebook still clutched against your chest felt like a useless shield, doing nothing to block the heat of his presence or the weight of his words.

“Not going to tell me to stop?” he asked, the challenge clear in his tone. “Guess that means you don’t want me to.”

You swallowed hard, your heart hammering in your chest. “This is not funny, San,” you whispered, though even you could hear the lack of conviction in your voice.

“Funny? Not even a little.” He stepped closer, his eyes glinting with something darker. “But it is fascinating. You, scribbling all those dirty thoughts down like a good little secret-keeper, acting all innocent around me—who would’ve guessed?”

“Stop,” you said, the word trembling as it left your lips.

“Why?” His brow arched in amusement, though his voice remained low and intent. “Does it make you uncomfortable? Or is it hitting a little too close to home?”

Before you could answer—or even think of a response—he reached out, plucking the notebook from your hands with maddening ease.

“San!” you exclaimed, reaching for it, but he held it out of reach, his grin never faltering.

“Let’s see,” he said, flipping it open again as your heart dropped into your stomach. “Ah, here it is... *I want to be taken—rough, merciless, made to feel like I can’t get enough.*” He glanced at you, his smirk widening at the audible hitch in your breath. “Quite the vivid imagination you’ve got there, sweetheart.”

“Give it back!” you said, your voice cracking.

“Why?” He shifted the notebook to his other hand, holding it out of reach. “Are you scared because I know how badly you want this?”

Your knees felt weak as he stepped closer, invading your space with the kind of confidence that left you feeling unmoored.

“You’re such an ass,” you muttered, trying and failing to glare at him.

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, his grin sharpening. “But at least I’m honest. You? Not so much.”

San’s free hand brushed against your jaw, his touch light but firm, sending a shiver down your spine.

“You’re blushing,” he observed, his voice teasing but softer. “Is it embarrassment? Ouu, is it.. something else?”

“San,” you said, his name coming out more like a plea than a protest.

“What?” he asked, tilting his head as his thumb traced along your jawline. “Can’t take the heat?”

You shook your head, but you didn’t pull away. You couldn’t.

He chuckled, low and satisfied. “Thought so.”

Without warning, his hand slid to the back of your neck, his grip firm as he pulled you closer. His other hand dropped the notebook onto the couch, freeing him to let his fingers trail down your arm, light enough to make you shiver.

“You know what I think?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a husky murmur.

You shook your head, your breath uneven.

“I think you’ve been waiting for someone to see past all that sweet, good-girl bullshit,” he continued, his thumb brushing along the line of your jaw, “and call you what you really are.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs, the words lodging in your throat. “San...”

His grip on your neck tightened slightly, enough to make you gasp. “What’s wrong? Don’t like hearing it? Or do you like it too much?”

The way your thighs pressed together didn’t escape his notice, and his grin sharpened.

“You’re easy to read,” he said softly, his voice thick with satisfaction. “You’ve been wanting this for a while, haven’t you?”

Your lips parted, a faint whimper escaping before you could stop it.

“Good girl,” he murmured, his fingers slipping lower to trace the curve of your waist. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Your breath hitched as his lips hovered near yours, the air between you crackling with tension. He didn’t kiss you, but the sheer proximity left you trembling.

“You can tell me to stop,” he said again, his voice rough but steady. “One word, sweetheart, and I’ll walk away.”

You opened your mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

San’s grin returned, slower and more deliberate. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

His free hand skimmed the bare skin above your waistband, teasing and slow, and you felt your knees buckle slightly.

“You’ve been waiting for someone to push you,” he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, “to see how far you’ll let them go. Haven’t you?”

You couldn’t answer, your breath coming in shallow gasps.

San leaned back just enough to meet your gaze, his eyes searching yours. “Say the word,” he said quietly. “And I’ll stop.”

Your silence said everything, and his lips curved into a smirk.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, his voice low and full of promise.

His free hand skimmed the bare skin above your waistband, teasing and slow, and you felt your knees buckle slightly.

Before you could process his words, his hands were on you again—fast, firm, deliberate. His grip was steady as he lifted you effortlessly, as though you weighed nothing at all. A gasp escaped you, your hands instinctively clutching his shoulders, but the smirk never left his face.

“You wrote about this, didn’t you?” San teased, his voice dripping with amusement as he carried you across the room. “Right there in your little journal. I had no idea you had such... vivid thoughts.”

He dropped you on the bed. San stood at the edge of it, arms crossed, his dark eyes gleaming with a mix of amusement and control. You were there, sprawled across the mattress, your chest heaving from the tension that hung heavy between you. The heat of your earlier argument still simmered in the air, but now the power had shifted entirely into his hands—and you both knew it.

“You’ve been quiet ever since,” San murmured, his voice low and mocking as he stepped closer, each movement slow and deliberate. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Not so bold now that I know what’s been running through that pretty little head of yours?”

Your gaze darted away, heat creeping up your neck, but San wasn’t having it. He climbed onto the bed in one smooth motion, his weight sinking the mattress as he caged you beneath him. One hand pressed into the sheets beside your head, while the other traced the curve of your jaw, forcing you to look at him.

“Don’t even think about hiding from me now,” he said softly, the mockery in his tone laced with undeniable command. “Not after everything you wrote. Not after you left me to read between the lines of those fantasies you scribbled down so... shamelessly.”

Your breath hitched, and you pressed your thighs together instinctively, which only made his smirk widen.

“I have to admit,” he continued, leaning closer until his lips were brushing the shell of your ear, “I didn’t know you could be *this* filthy. Wanting to be manhandled? Thrown around? Tamed?” His breath was warm against your skin, his tone both teasing and heavy with promise. “Tell me, did you ever imagine I’d actually do it?”

“I-..” You shuddered beneath him, your fingers curling into the sheets as you struggled to form a response. But San was relentless, his hand trailing down to your throat, his grip firm but not restricting as he tilted your head up toward him.

“Don’t play dumb now,” he whispered, his gaze locking with yours. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you left that journal out. When you wrote about how badly you wanted someone to take control. To leave you breathless, shaking… *ruined.*”

You swallowed hard, the air between you thick with tension, and he chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through you.

“Admit it,” he murmured, his lips brushing your jawline, his hand still firm on your throat. “Admit that you’ve been waiting for me to push you like this. That you wanted me to see *every* word of it.”

“I—” your voice faltered, trembling under the weight of his intensity. “Mh..mhm” you were only able to mumble some word.

His fingers loosened just enough to stroke the column of your neck. “Good girl.”

He leaned back just slightly, enough to drink in the sight of you beneath him, flushed and trembling. His grin was wicked as he reached for your wrists, pinning them above your head with a grip that left no room for resistance.

“Now,” he murmured, lowering himself until his lips hovered mere inches from yours, “let’s see if you’re ready to live up to everything you wrote, sweetheart.”

Your head tilted back against the mattress, and the tension in the room thickened until it was nearly suffocating. The way San hovered above you, all sharp grins and teasing touches, had you trembling with anticipation. But as his words replayed in your mind, something inside you snapped.

“Fuck it,” you muttered, your voice shaky but certain. “You’ve already read it. You know exactly what I want.”

San’s brow arched, his smirk sharpening as he leaned in closer, his nose brushing yours. “Oh? And what’s that, sweetheart?”

You swallowed hard, your pulse hammering in your ears. “You. All of you. No teasing, no holding back.” Your voice softened, almost a whisper now. “Please.”

San let out a low chuckle, his dark gaze flickering with amusement and something darker—something primal. “You’re begging now?” he mused, his tone rich with satisfaction. “Didn’t think I’d get to hear that so soon.”

“I’m serious,” you said, your breath hitching as his thumb brushed your jawline. “No going back now. Just—just fuck me, San.”

His grin widened, and for a moment, he just stared at you, as though savoring the sight of you so vulnerable beneath him. Then, with deliberate ease, he sat back and tugged his shirt over his head in one swift motion, the fabric landing somewhere behind him.

You couldn’t help it; your eyes roamed over his toned chest, the sharp lines of muscle catching the dim light. Your breath caught, and he didn’t miss the way your eyes roamed.

“Like what you see?” he teased, his voice dripping with confidence as he reached for the hem of your shirt. He didn’t wait for an answer, peeling the fabric off your body just as effortlessly. His gaze swept over you, slow and deliberate, and you shivered under the intensity of it.

“Perfect,” he murmured, almost to himself, before his hands moved to your waistband. His fingers made quick work of the button and zipper, sliding your pants down your legs with maddening precision.

But then he stopped.

Stepping back, he straightened to his full height, his hands already moving to unbuckle his own belt. The metallic clink of it sent a shiver down your spine, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away as he worked.

He was slow—so agonizingly slow—pulling the leather free and tossing it aside before unbuttoning his pants. The sharp sound of his zipper being undone felt deafening in the charged silence, and the deliberate pace had your heart racing.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked, his voice smug as he slid the denim down his hips, revealing inch after inch of skin.

You didn’t answer, too captivated by the sight of him to form a coherent thought. Your gaze locked onto him, your chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, and you could feel the heat pooling low in your stomach as desire overtook every part of you.

“Thought so,” he murmured, stepping closer, his smirk never fading. “You just can’t get enough, can you?”

You shook your head, your lips parting slightly as you stared up at him with nothing but raw, unfiltered lust. “Not even close.”

His laugh was deep, rumbling, and utterly intoxicating. “Good,” he said simply, lowering himself back onto the bed, his body hovering over yours. “Because I’m just getting started.”

San crawled over you with the precision of a predator closing in on its prey, his movements slow and deliberate, his gaze locked onto yours. His weight pressed into the mattress, pinning you in place as he leaned in, his lips hovering over yours, teasing but not yet giving.

One of his hands wrapped firmly around your neck, the pressure just enough to remind you who was in control. The way his thumb brushed against the side of your throat made your breath hitch, a soft gasp escaping you as your body instinctively arched toward him.

“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice low and rough. “Already falling apart, and I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

His other hand was down around his cock, his movements slow, lazy, and unhurried as he stroked himself. The subtle motion made your mouth go dry, your gaze flickering downward for a split second before snapping back up to meet his. The heat in his eyes was unbearable, and yet you couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop the way your body responded to the tension crackling between you.

San smirked at your reaction, his thumb pressing slightly harder against your neck as he brought his lips closer, brushing them lightly against yours. It wasn’t a kiss—not really—but the sensation was enough to send a jolt of electricity straight through you.

Then, just as you started to lean up, desperate for more, the hand from his cock moved. Slowly, almost torturously, he trailed it from himself to your thigh. His fingers brushed against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine, before he hooked his hand under your leg and spread it out beneath him.

“Perfect,” he murmured, his voice a low rasp as his palm pressed against the inside of your knee, holding you open with deliberate ease. “Just like I imagined.”

You swallowed hard, your breath catching as he leaned in closer, his lips finally crashing against yours. The kiss was searing, hungry, and consuming, his hand still firm on your throat as he claimed you completely. Your mind was spinning, your body surrendering to the heat of him, to the way he dominated every inch of your senses.

His grip on your neck tightened slightly, grounding you as his thumb brushed along the curve of your jaw. The other hand remained on your leg, his thumb stroking lazy circles on your skin as he shifted his weight, pressing himself closer.

“You’re mine now,” he muttered against your lips, his voice rough and commanding. “No running, no hiding. I’m going to make sure you don’t forget it.”

Your only response was a soft whimper, your hands reaching for him, desperate to pull him closer. And San, ever the tease, chuckled low in his throat, his lips moving to your jaw as he whispered, “Good girl.”

As San’s lips devoured yours, leaving you breathless and pliant beneath him, a quiet confession slipped out before you could stop it.

“I’ve never done this before,” you whispered, your voice trembling and almost lost in the heat of the moment.

San stilled for just a second, his head tilting slightly as he looked down at you, processing your words. The smirk that crept onto his lips was slow and deliberate, a mix of surprise and amusement lighting up his dark eyes.

“You’re a virgin?” he asked, his tone low, curious, and laced with disbelief. “After everything you wrote in that journal?”

Your cheeks burned, and you couldn’t meet his gaze, but you nodded, swallowing hard. “I... I just—”

He didn’t let you finish. His grip on your neck remained firm as his free hand slid up your thigh again, spreading you out even further beneath him. “So what?” he murmured, leaning in close, his breath warm against your ear. “You think that changes anything?”

Your heart pounded as his lips brushed against the shell of your ear, his voice taking on a deeper, more commanding edge. “You want this, don’t you?”

You nodded quickly, unable to form words, and his smirk deepened.

“Good,” he said softly, almost mockingly. “Then I’ll make sure your first time is something you’ll *never* forget.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. His lips crashed against yours again, hungry and consuming, stealing the breath from your lungs. His kisses grew rougher, more possessive, as though he was claiming you in every sense of the word.

When he finally pulled away, your chest was heaving, your lips swollen, and he wasted no time. His mouth trailed down the curve of your jaw, leaving open-mouthed kisses that turned into light nips. His tongue soothed each bite, sending shivers down your spine as he moved lower, down the column of your throat.

“You’re mine now,” he murmured against your skin, his voice dark and dripping with authority. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” you whispered, your voice trembling with both nervousness and desire.

His kisses continued, his teeth grazing over the soft curve of your collarbone before he bit down gently, just enough to make you gasp. The sharpness of it sent a jolt through your body, and you arched into him, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

“Such a good girl,” he muttered, the praise making your stomach flip as he moved lower. His lips and teeth marked a path down your body, every kiss, every bite leaving a faint bloom of heat behind. He was methodical, deliberate, as though he wanted to cover every inch of your skin.

When he reached your hips, his hands gripped your thighs, spreading them further apart as he settled himself between them. His lips ghosted over the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, his breath warm and teasing.

“Right here,” he murmured, his voice dark with promise as his fingers gripped your leg firmly, keeping you pinned in place. “This is where you’re going to feel me the most. Where I’m going to leave my mark.”

You gasped softly, and before you could respond, his teeth sank into the tender skin of your inner thigh, hard enough to sting but not enough to hurt. The sensation was intoxicating, his tongue soothing the bite immediately after, and the combination left you trembling beneath him.

San pulled back slightly, his lips curving into a satisfied smirk as he looked up at you. “You’re already shaking,” he teased, his hands gripping your hips to hold you steady. “You’re going to fall apart for me, sweetheart. And you’re going to love every second of it.”

Your hands instinctively found their way to his hair, your fingers tangling in the soft strands as he hovered over your inner thighs, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin. The way he teased you—his lips brushing so close but never where you wanted them—had your body trembling with anticipation.

San chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against your skin as he tilted his head up to look at you. His smirk was infuriatingly smug, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement.

“Impatient, huh?” he drawled, his voice low and teasing as he gave your thigh a gentle squeeze. “Can’t wait to have me, can you?”

You whimpered softly, your grip on his hair tightening just enough to pull a satisfied laugh from him.

“Alright, sweetheart,” he murmured, his tone darkening as he settled himself between your legs. “I won’t make you wait any longer. Let’s see how loud I can make you.”

And with that, he dove in.

His lips pressed against your clit, hot and unrelenting, and a sharp gasp escaped your lips as your back arched off the mattress. The first touch of his tongue was slow and deliberate, a languid stroke that left you breathless.

San wasted no time after that, his mouth working against it with a precision that had your head spinning. His hands gripped your thighs, keeping you pinned in place as he devoured you, his tongue flicking and swirling in ways that sent shivers racing down your spine.

“You taste so good,” he murmured against you, his voice muffled but still thick with satisfaction. “Even better than I imagined.”

You couldn’t respond—not with the way he was overwhelming your senses, reducing you to gasps and whimpers as he found every sensitive spot. Your hands tightened in his hair, and he groaned at the pressure, the vibrations only adding to the fire building inside you.

San pulled back just enough to press a kiss against your inner thigh, his lips swollen and glistening. “Don’t hold back,” he murmured, his voice rough and commanding. “I want to hear everything. Every moan, every gasp—let me hear how much you need me.”

And then he was back, his mouth and tongue relentless as he brought you closer and closer to the edge, his grip on your thighs tightening as your body started to tremble beneath him. You couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but surrender completely to the way he consumed you, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.

Your body trembled beneath him, the overwhelming waves of pleasure crashing through you as you cried out his name, your hands still tangled in his hair. San didn’t stop until your body went slack against the mattress, leaving you breathless, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath.

But he wasn’t done—not even close.

“Look at you,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to survey the sight of you sprawled beneath him, still shaking from the aftermath. His voice was low, rough, and dripping with satisfaction. “So pretty when you fall apart for me.”

Before you could respond, San moved with the kind of precision that left no room for resistance. His hands gripped your hips firmly, flipping you over onto your stomach in one fluid motion. A startled gasp escaped you, but it was quickly muffled as he pressed your face into the mattress, one hand splayed across the back of your neck, holding you in place.

“Don’t think we’re done yet,” he growled, his voice dark and commanding as he leaned over you. The heat of his bare chest against your back sent shivers down your spine, and you felt him press his hips into you, letting you feel just how ready he was.

Your heart raced as his free hand slid down your side, gripping your waist possessively. He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispered, “I hope you’re ready, sweetheart, because I’m not holding back… at all.”

His teeth grazed your earlobe, and you whimpered softly, your body arching instinctively beneath him. His voice dropped lower, the words sending a thrill through you as he murmured, “You’re mine now. Every inch of you. And I’m going to make sure you *feel* it.”

The blunt heat of him pressed against your cunt, and before you could even brace yourself, he pushed into you in one smooth, unrelenting motion. The stretch burned, but the pleasure quickly overwhelmed it, and you cried out, muffled against the mattress as he filled you completely.

San groaned low in his throat, his fingers digging into your hips as he pulled back slightly, only to slam back in with a force that made your entire body jolt. “Perfect,” he muttered, his voice rough and thick with lust as he set a relentless pace. “You feel even better than I imagined.”

The sound of skin against skin filled the room, each thrust drawing gasps and moans from you that only seemed to spur him on. He leaned over you, pressing his chest to your back as he buried himself deeper, his lips brushing against your ear.

“Take it,” he growled, his voice dripping with authority. “Every. Fucking. Inch.”

Your head spun, your senses overwhelmed by the rough, unyielding way he moved against you. His hand slid from your hip to your throat, pulling you up slightly so he could press his lips to your shoulder, his teeth sinking into your skin to leave yet another mark.

“You’re mine,” he muttered again, his voice ragged as his thrusts grew even harder, each one sending shockwaves through your body. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“I-I'm yours..! ,” you gasped, your voice trembling as you clung to the sheets, completely lost in him.

“Good girl.. or should I say..” he murmured, his grip tightening as he drove you both closer and closer to the edge, his pace never faltering, never giving you a moment to catch your breath, “good slut?”.

His words made your cunt tighten around him, a grunt escaping his throat.

San’s pace didn’t let up for a moment, his grip firm on your waist as he powerfully ounded into you, every thrust driving you closer to another earth-shattering release. Your body trembled beneath him, overwhelmed by the intensity of it all, and he could feel the way you tightened around him, your breaths coming in ragged gasps.

“That’s it,” he growled against your ear, his voice rough and commanding as he reached one hand between your legs, his fingers finding the spot that made you jolt… your swollen clit. “Give me one more, sweetheart. Come for me again. Let me feel you.”

The combination of his relentless thrusts and the way his fingers worked you had you teetering on the edge in seconds. Your cries grew louder, the tension coiling in your stomach until it finally snapped, a powerful wave of pleasure crashing through you as you screamed his name.

“San!” you sobbed, your body shaking violently as your orgasm ripped through you, leaving you breathless and trembling beneath him.

He groaned low in his throat, his thrusts growing erratic as he chased his own. “That’s my girl,” he muttered, his grip tightening as he buried himself deep inside you, his hips stuttering as he reached his peak.

A guttural moan escaped his lips as he spilled into you, the warmth of his cum filling you completely. He didn’t pull out right away, instead leaning over you, his chest pressing against your back as he kissed your shoulder, his breath hot and uneven.

“You’re incredible,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your damp skin. “You took me so well, sweetheart. Screaming my name like that... you’re so fucking perfect.”

You whimpered softly, still trembling from the aftershocks, and he smirked, his voice dropping to a darker, dirtier tone. “Bet you loved having me ruin you like this. Didn’t you, baby? All that talk about wanting to be manhandled—looks like you got exactly what you wanted.”

Before you could respond, his hand slid to your neck, gripping you firmly as he pulled you upright, your back pressing against his chest. The move made you gasp, your head falling back against his shoulder as he tilted your chin up to meet his gaze, his cock still deep inside you.

“That’s what you get for leaving your little journal unattended,” he growled, his smirk sharp and satisfied as he stared into your eyes. “I bet you loved every fucking second of it. Didn’t you?”

Your lips trembled, but you managed a breathless, “Y-yes… y-es I did..”

San’s grin widened, and he leaned in to press a lingering kiss to your temple, his grip on your neck softening as his free hand wrapped around your waist, pulling you close. “Good girl,” he murmured, his voice softer now but still carrying that edge of dominance.

He held you there for a moment, his arms wrapped tightly around you, his breath warm against your ear. “You’re mine,” he whispered, his tone gentler now, though no less possessive. “Every inch of you.”

Your hands came up to rest over his, your body leaning into his embrace as you whispered, “Always yours.”

San let out a satisfied hum, holding you close as the heat of the moment began to fade, replaced by a warmth that felt just as overwhelming. “That’s my girl,” he said softly, his lips pressing against your hair as he held you, his arms never loosening.

NETWORKS:

@blossomnet

@illusionnet

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#ateez fanfic #blossomnet #illusionnet #mingi s dimples masterlist #ateez x reader #ateez fic #ateez x y/n #fanfic #ateez #smut fic #ateez smut #smut #san x y/n #san fic #san x reader #san smut #choi san

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