#choi zyeonjun x reader

[blossom-hwa]

omg hi i hope you’re doing well! could i please request a yeonjun + enemies to lovers drabble? i’m so excited to see everything you write this summer !

hi anon! thank you for this request, and I'm sorry it took so long to finish it! I had this idea but I kept not having the time and/or energy to write, but now that it's finally finished with a burst of inspiration I hope you enjoy reading it :)

note: it's not so obvious at the start, but yeonjun is persephone here! this is a bit of a loose interpretation of enemies to lovers, but I still hope you like it!

summertime drabble fest: send me an idol from the list (Stray Kids, Ateez, TXT, Seventeen) + a prompt (check out the post for ideas) and I’ll write a drabble for you!

REQUESTS OPEN!!

~

Title: As Bones With the Flesh

Pairing: Yeonjun x gender neutral!reader

Word count: 2.3k

Genre: angst, gods!au, hades/persephone!au

Warnings: cursing, mentions of bones/flesh (only in the context of death, nothing graphic)

~

Sitting on the prickly grass, you finally open your eyes to stare at the shimmering trees above. It's the first time you've allowed yourself to leave the safety of your quarters in days. Six, to be exact. 

The same number of days since you last spoke to Persephone. 

Speak is a relative word. You snort a little, tearing up a handful of unnatural grass made of the thinnest slivers of emerald. Rich green and pale yellow glow in your palm, reminding you of the wonder in his eyes when you first showed him what your powers could do—turn grass into gems, wither leaves with a touch. 

"They're dead, you know." You had said it quietly, directly. You're not sure why you said it—you were sure in your heart that your words would have caught Persephone in the chest, brought horror and revulsion to his face the same way your powers have always horrified everyone else—but you wanted him to be scared, in a way. Wanted confirmation that he would react like all others did. 

Because the alternative was unthinkable, and far more terrifying. 

But he hadn't been revolted. Hadn't jerked his hand away from the glowing green grass, from the brown leaves in your hand. His eyes were wide, sparkling with something terrifyingly beautiful, and even as you ducked your head and added "I killed them" to your previous statement, he didn't move away. Didn't even flinch. 

"Beautiful," he had said quietly, under his breath. 

To this day you still don't know what he meant. 

But it doesn't matter. You close your fingers in a fist, shattering glass-thin emeralds into your palm. It doesn't matter, because you're not going to speak to him again. Can't. Won't. Not after he showed up in your underground realm, not after he ate those pomegranate seeds even as you tried to stop him. 

Not after he threw away his own life for some wicked reason you don't understand. 

You open your fist, sprinkling sparks of green onto the rest of the prickly fake grass around you. Emerald still dusts your palm, though, and you brush it off absently as you finally stand. 

Only to see a shadow in the trees out of the corner of your eye. 

You turn away immediately. Shut your eyes. Your immortal heart thumps in your chest with the knowledge of who stands behind you, unfamiliar, unnatural heat racing through your cold veins and skin and you have every intention of running away no matter how unseemly it might be but then he says your name and the world starts to blur. 

"Y/N."

Your feet, rooted in place. Your eyes, forced open. Your hands have clenched into fists, a few tiny prickles of emerald glass embedding themselves in your palms, your heart hammering even as the breath leaves your lungs. 

"Y/N." His voice pleads, so much emotion echoing through the one word of your name, but you force yourself not to turn. 

Who could ever give up their existence on the surface for you? Give up the natural green of the grass, the earthly shades of the flowers, the breathtaking azure of the cloudless sky? Give up the life of the world, all those lovely greens and blues and pinks, for dead, metallic, iridescent approximations in the Underworld?

"Please."

Nothing Persephone has done has ever made sense, you think bitterly, fondly. But this, this exchange of life for death, color for darkness, is perhaps the most nonsensical thing he has ever attempted. 

You turn around slowly, robotically. Persephone's handsome face stares at you, so full of vivacity even surrounded by the gloom of your jeweled gardens. Against your will, your breath catches. 

This prison you once called your home somehow looks more beautiful in his presence. 

Swallowing hard, you set your shoulders and your jaw. Tense your arms at your sides, ignore the warmth of his being that has always taunted you, drawing you closer to him, a forbidden fruit. "I have nothing to say to you," you grit out slowly. "Persephone."

His expression collapses, pain filling his eyes as his shoulders slump. You draw your own face further into shadow. You're the one who hurt him, you tell yourself, just as you always will. There's no point in hoping for something that could never be. And what that something is, you will never admit to yourself. Because there's no point. 

It will never be. 

"Will you at least call me by my name?" He steps forward, lifting a hand as though to ask for yours. When you only look away again, though, he drops it, those lovely fingers falling sadly down by his side. "Y/N?"

"You're not supposed to be here," you force yourself to say, echoes of what you had shouted at him six days prior as you still refuse to look at him. "I don't understand what a mockery you intended to make of me when you ate those seeds, but—"

"It wasn't a mockery!" Persephone's voice carries through the bejeweled garden, swaying the emerald grass where it stands around his feet. "I have never made a mockery of you!"

"What?" You laugh, finally throwing off the shadow of a cloak you'd been wearing, taking a step forward to meet his. "You come here, with your flowers and your life, to my kingdom—my home, my prison of jewels and bones and the dead—you come here with your life and expect me to believe you would trade your bounty for my lot? Would eat the seeds and fruit of my own land for any other reason than a cheap trick against sovereign of the Underworld, ridiculed by every other deity on Olympus?"

"It has never been a trick!" Persephone shouts. His eyes blaze with fire, so much living fire that you almost wish it would continue that you could live with this memory of true, blazing warmth for the rest of your life. "It was never a trick. You are just so disillusioned, so blinded by your own miseries and depressions—you think everyone is going to hurt you and you simply refuse to believe otherwise—"

"Tell me, Persephone, when the entire world reviles your immortal existence how exactly do you think one is supposed to believe—"

"Listen to me!" He's right in front of you now, screaming into your face, and despite everything you have tried to keep yourself from thinking about this man of springtime and life you can't help but marvel at his beauty even in this twisted ire. "Listen to me, Hades, Y/N, you stupid, annoying, incorrigible god! It was never a trick! I am here of my own free damn will—I came here because I wanted to. Because I wanted to see you." Yeonjun—Persephone—his breath is ragged, his eyes teary, and you want so much to believe him. "Please, Y/N. Believe me. What have I done to make you think otherwise?"

Truthfully, nothing. But the logical part of your mind is shaky under the looming influence of the fear in your heart. And so you look away. 

Persephone—Yeonjun—fuck—he sighs short, sharp, harsh. "Fine," he snarls, and you can hear the sneer in his voice, practically see it in his face even with your averted gaze. "Fine. If you won't listen—"

Fingers so warm against the chill of your face, so delicate against the skin of your cheeks. A hand so steady on your waist as the other turns your chin gently, gently, gently. Brown eyes sparkling with every color of the rainbow, lovely as flower petals and iridescent as the ruby fruit hanging from your trees, and then—

Pink lips so soft on your own as he brings you into a kiss. 

Gods don't need air. Not technically. They don't need to breathe. But when Yeonjun finally pulls away after a million dizzying seconds or minutes or days, you find yourself gasping for breath. Grasping for your thoughts, your mind—for some sort of confirmation that this past moment was truly real. 

Slowly, slowly, you look up at Yeonjun. His eyes shine so bright as he runs a hand through his tangled hair, so bright you wonder if he's about to cry.

"Damn it, Y/N." He lets out a breath that sounds more like a sob. "Damn it, I—is it just so hard to believe that I love you?"

And that's when you crack. 

"No." It comes out of your throat choked, barely loud enough to count as a word. "Yes. And no. Yes. I—Yeonjun—" It's your turn to sob out a breath, to force the tears not to fall as Yeonjun looks at you like you're the only person in the world. "I—everyone has hurt me. In some way or another, purposely or unwittingly, but no one—no one has ever loved me."

A single sparkling tear makes its way down Yeonjun's cheek. 

"And—I—it couldn't have been you." You swallow hard, fists still clenched at your sides. "It couldn't have been you who would finally love me, not you with all your life and beauty on the surface. Not you who brings the spring and summer and gives hope to every being in the world, be it deity or mortal or animal. Not you. Not ever."

"Y/N—"

"And I was—so sure—" Your voice is undependable now, but you forge your way through Yeonjun's interruption. "So sure that you would just be like the others in the end, that this was all a horrible trick, that someday you would drop the farce and I couldn't even blame you because you are every hope the world has." You draw in a long, shaky breath as the first tears begin coursing paths out of your eyes. "So sure."

For a long moment, you and Yeonjun only stand in silence. You, your voice and eyes trembling. Him, his throat and chest heaving. 

"I wouldn't hurt you." He breaks the silence first, his voice cracking on the last word as the sound splinters to pieces on the ground and he looks at you with those eyes that sparkle with the light of the moon and the sun. "You...you do know that, right?"

Instinct urges you to draw away, to pull your shadows tighter around your shoulders and melt into the cloak of darkness as you always have before. But Yeonjun's eyes burn with courage, so much bravery pooling in those lovely eyes, bravery that led him to the Underworld, bravery that led him to your garden, bravery that let him eat the fruit on your table with every knowledge of its consequences but not a single care—

You owe him the truth, at least. 

"Yes." The word comes out choked and heavy, shrouded in all the bitter lies you've wrapped around you as a semblance of a shield from the feelings you have for the god standing in front of you. But you force yourself to look up. Not to draw away. To shed the last of the grey shadows that had become a weak excuse for protection against the light of Yeonjun's eyes. "I do." 

And there's that unnatural warmth again, flowing through your heart and your veins and your skin as Yeonjun begins to smile, eyes sparkling still with tears but also something else. Something much better. 

"I do know. That you have never tried or wanted to hurt me. That you never will." You take a deep breath, shuddering it out with the trembling of your heart. "It will take time to believe it. I—I'm sorry." More tears slip from your eyes and you look away. "But—I do know. And I will try—I will try to believe it. If you will let me."

Slowly, slowly, Yeonjun raises his arm. Outstretches his hand to cup the side of your face, his thumb brushing away your tears one by one. "Of course I will let you," he says quietly, ever soft, ever gentle. "I will be with you, hand in hand, as life is with death. As jewels with the earth. As bones with the flesh." He takes a deep breath. "As the warmth of spring and summer, with the chill of fall and winter."

He steps forward then, closing the distance between you two, bringing his forehead to yours. Warmth seems to radiate from the spot where your skin touches, giving you a taste of the fire that always seems to burn in his veins. "I love you," he says quietly. "I love you not in spite of who you are, but because of it. Because you complete me. You are part of me. And I will never, ever let you go."

There's still fear, cold and dark and slimy in your gut. You feel it there and you do not know if it will ever disappear. But as Yeonjun's lips press against your forehead, you force yourself to ignore it. Because for all you fear this lovely god, for all you fear that he will turn on you just like everyone else in your life, for all you fear how much you love him, you fear something so much more. 

You fear what will happen if you never see him again. 

Pulling away just slightly, you take in Yeonjun's face from this distance, the soft slope of his nose, the sharp wings of his eyes, the hint of the sun in his skin framed by the dark hair falling sweetly into your vision. He's so beautiful, so lovely it almost hurts to gaze upon him, but for him, you will try. To see. To know. 

To believe that he loves you as much as you love him.