#ft. the world's longest phone ring

[hemlock-dreams]

Do we know yet how Wade finds out Peter and Spidey are the same person?

A comic for the single most asked question in my inbox. (I hope everyone who asked this doesn't mind if I just lump the sentiment under one answer).

I don't have the leadup totally figured out, but the reveal....doesn't go great. Shocker, but Deadpool doesn't like being tricked, especially by the rare few he's opened up to. These two friendships were some of the only instances Wade didn't feel out of control. And for all his faults, Wade's never lied- not to Peter and not to Spider-Man.

Call him Boo-Boo the fool for thinking the sentiment went both ways.

All those small moments of doubt, little things that didn't add up- the gaslighting, the second-guessing, the crumbs from both sides of the mask, the sex and violence... yeah...Wade's not having a good time.

And Peter? Peter's determined to take responsibility and be in control of how he reveals himself for once. But is it too little too late?

(Asks are open again!)

[itacats]

Butcher Shop Connection

FT: Simon x gn!reader

Warnings: DV, abuse, please let me know if anything else should be here!🙏

SUM: When your terrified voice reaches Simon in the dead of night, it shatters the fragile calm he’s barely been holding onto. The chilling sounds of Tom’s violence echo through the phone before the line goes dead, plunging Simon into a storm of panic and rage.

At the hospital, the sight of your battered body tests the limits of Simon’s resolve. Wracked with guilt and helplessness, he sits vigil by your side, promising to be your anchor through the long journey ahead. With every breath you take, Simon clings to hope, vowing that no shadow, no monster, will ever dim your light again.

A/N: Here's your daily does of emotional whirlwind —writing Simon’s frantic desperation was both exhilarating and painful. The tension, urgency, and heartbreak culminate in the ICU, where hope begins to bloom amid the wreckage. Simon’s love and determination shine as a reminder that even in the darkest of nights, there’s always a glimmer of light. 🌌💔

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 9 Part 10

Part 8 - The Longest Night

A few more days bleed into restless nights, the heavy silence of the Manchester sky pressing down on Simon like a weight he couldn’t shake. Time moves like molasses, each second dragging him deeper into the dread of not knowing how you were, or if you were even still safe. But that night, everything changes in an instant. His troubled sleep is torn apart by the shrill ring of the phone, cutting through the air like a blade. His eyes snap open, and before he can even comprehend the sound, his hand is already reaching for the receiver. 

The voice on the other end, fragile and trembling with fear, nearly paralyzes him. "Simon?" 

It's you. And in that one word, in the sheer terror that laces it, Simon’s world tilts, and all the anger and hurt he’s kept buried for so long rises to the surface, hot and violent. 

"What's wrong, love?" His voice is rough, half-awake, but the panic is unmistakable. He struggles to ground himself, to make sense of what he’s hearing. "What happened? What did he do?"

Your voice breaks as you speak, barely above a whisper, but it’s enough to rattle him to his core. "He’s going to kill me this time, I know it."

Simon’s blood runs cold. Every nerve in his body goes taut, and his heart pounds in his chest as the words hang in the air between you both. The rawness of your fear is something he’s never encountered before, and it pierces through him like a dagger. He can hear the crashing of objects in the background, the sounds of a struggle. Then, Tom’s voice—mocking, casual, as if your life is some game to him. 

“Sorry, but they’re a little busy at the moment,” Tom sneers, his words dripping with malice. 

Then, the line goes dead.

The silence that follows is deafening, a hollow emptiness that fills Simon’s chest with a freezing panic. His throat tightens, his stomach churns. In that moment, it’s as if time itself stands still, and Simon’s worst fear becomes a brutal reality. You’re in the hands of a monster. His mind races, each thought sharp, desperate, as the fear of losing you claws its way through him.

His fingers tremble as they dial the police, his voice a mixture of urgency and barely-contained rage as he relays the details. He pleads with them to hurry, to get to your house—now. But the suffocating weight of the night drags everything down, the darkness amplifying the terror of the unknown. There’s nothing he can do until they arrive, but he can’t sit idle. Not when your life is on the line. Not when every instinct in his body screams that he needs to act.

Without hesitation, he slams the phone down and rushes toward the truck. The engine roars to life beneath him, the sound a furious symphony against the quiet of the night. He slams his foot down on the pedal, sending the truck screeching forward. His hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white, but he doesn’t feel the pain. All he can think of is getting to you, getting to you now.

The road ahead is a blur, the lights from streetlamps slicing through the night like stabs of light in a sea of dark. His mind races with memories of you—your laughter, the way your eyes lit up when you smiled, the warmth of your hand in his. Every moment he’s spent with you flashes before his eyes like a reel of precious memories, and for a split second, he lets that tiny flicker of hope ignite inside him. Maybe, just maybe, he can make it in time. 

But as the miles stretch on, that hope feels like it’s slipping through his fingers. The darkened streets pass in a haze, each second a heartbeat that echoes louder and louder in his ears. His foot presses harder on the gas pedal, his breath coming in shallow bursts. He’s already pushing the truck to its limits, but it doesn’t feel fast enough. There’s no time for caution now. Only the desperate need to reach you.

When Simon finally arrives at your house, the scene is chaotic. Police cars line the street, their flashing lights a disorienting mix of red and blue that slices through the night. Officers swarm around, their voices rising and falling in a cacophony of urgent conversations, punctuated by the crackling radio transmissions and the sharp clack of boots on asphalt. The air smells of tension and fear. Simon’s stomach twists, each step he takes toward the house heavier than the last, his body moving on autopilot as his mind tries to process what could have just happened. He pushes through the crowd of officers, each one a physical barrier, until a voice rises above the rest.

“With those injuries, it’s a miracle they still had any blood left in their body.”

Simon’s breath hitches in his throat. A cold, brutal wave of dread crashes over him, freezing him in place. The words echo in his mind, each one a jagged shard that digs deeper and deeper into his chest. He can’t think, can’t breathe—his body is moving on instinct now, his legs carrying him faster as he fights through the crowd, his pulse roaring in his ears.

“Where are they? What happened?” he demands, his voice hoarse and desperate, barely recognizing the rawness in it.

The officer he approaches looks at him, and for the first time, Simon sees the weight of the world in someone else's eyes. The fatigue is etched into the lines of the officer’s face—someone who’s seen too much, someone who’s witnessed the worst of what humanity can do. He opens his mouth to answer, but his words land with the kind of heaviness Simon wasn’t prepared for.

“Looks like it was a bad scene. The victim’s been taken to the local hospital. They’ll do everything they can.”

The officer’s words are a blur, but Simon barely hears them. His mind is already miles ahead, racing toward the one place where he might find you—the hospital. Without another word, Simon turns, his breath ragged, his heart beating in overdrive as he sprints back to his truck. Every muscle in his body is screaming at him to move faster, but the agonizing truth sits like a weight on his chest: he’s already too late to prevent whatever horrors have already been inflicted.

The engine of the truck roars to life beneath him, and Simon doesn’t hesitate, his foot pressing firmly against the gas pedal. The truck surges forward, the tires squealing against the pavement as he drives faster than he ever has, weaving through the streets with the sole thought of getting to you.

When he pulls up to the hospital, the sterile smell of antiseptic and bleach hits him like a slap. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, too bright, too harsh against the darkness of the night that still clings to him. His hands shake as he pushes the door open, the noise too loud, too intrusive. He feels disconnected from everything, as though he’s walking through a dream—a nightmare he can’t escape. He’s gripped by the overwhelming pull of anxiety, guilt, and helplessness, and his heart is a wild, uncontrollable drumbeat in his chest.

A nurse sees him and gestures for him to follow. Her professionalism is almost a cruel contrast to the mess of emotions churning inside him, but he clings to it, letting it guide him through the sterile corridors. She leads him to the ICU, where the air is thick with sorrow. And then, there you are.

You lie in the bed, a quiet warrior in a battlefield of bandages. Simon’s stomach twists violently, and for a moment, he can’t breathe. His knees feel weak as he steps closer, the sight of you a punch to the gut. Your skin is marred with bruises and cuts, black and blue hues staining you like a map of countless battles fought in silence. He sees the way your body is wrapped in white gauze, each bandage a whisper of the suffering you’ve endured, each stitch a testament to the hell you’ve lived through. The enormity of it presses down on him, each breath he takes a struggle as if the air itself has been robbed of its warmth.

"Will… will they be okay?" he finally manages, his voice barely a whisper, trembling with the raw emotion he’s been holding back.

The nurse’s face softens, but her answer is cautious, laced with the knowledge of what recovery truly means. "They’re stable for now, but it’s going to be a long road. It’s going to take time."

Simon nods, his heart cracking a little more, the weight of her words settling deep inside him. Time. He wants to scream, to demand that it hurry, but he doesn’t. He just watches, helpless, as you lie there—your life hanging in the balance, the toll of your suffering written across your face.

He pulls a chair up to your bedside, his hands trembling as he reaches out to grasp yours. His fingers wrap around yours gently, but it feels like you’re a thousand miles away. Your hand is cold, too cold, lifeless in his. His throat tightens as tears threaten to spill, but he holds them back. He promised you he would protect you, and here he is—unable to protect you from the man who’s broken you.

“Stay with me, love,” Simon murmurs, his voice cracking with emotion, a raw promise slipping from his lips. “I promise I’ll take care of you. Every day after this, every moment.”

He watches the faint rise and fall of your chest, the steady rhythm of your breathing a bittersweet comfort. The night drifts on, time stretching endlessly as he sits by your side, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts—thoughts of you, thoughts of Tom, thoughts of the life you should have had. He remembers the cruelty he faced at the hands of his own father, how those scars shaped him into the man he is today—a protector. And now, watching you fight for your life, he realizes that he is fighting, too. Fighting for you in every way he can.

He thinks of his mother, who used to say, when the nights turned cold and the shadows loomed too large, "Love’s light will always pierce the darkest nights."

And Simon clings to that light. He knows it’s what will guide him through the darkest moments ahead, and it starts right here—staying, waiting, and hoping.

Until the moment you wake, he’ll be here. Fighting for you, for your healing, for the chance to give you everything you deserve.

Tag List:

@jessicab1991

@hotaruteba

@daydreamerwoah

@angelic-thingys

@alessias-art

@lilynotdilly

Here's the current post schedule with some upcoming stories to look forward to!

[jakesimfromstatefarm]

notoriously yours | jay park

✰ summary: jay park is a rich kid. it’s safe to say he has everything every broke college student on his campus could dream of and more. but the one thing he doesn’t have, which money definitely can’t buy, is a girlfriend. and his friends won’t see of it. literally.

so what happens when his friends bet him to date someone for more than three months? what happens when jay decides that fake-dating someone would be easier than actual dating (because god forbid Jay–the campus’ notoriously known fuckboy–decides to commit to something once in his life)?

and what happens when that someone is you, his childhood best friend he hasn’t spoken to in years..who has absolutely no interest in being in his life anymore?

✰ pairing: jay park x y/n [ft. members of enha]

✰ genre: fluff, comedy, angst | fakedating!au, college!au, childhoodbestfriends!au, (kinda) e2l!au

✰ warnings: cursing, nothing suggestive but jay's a fuckboy so slightly suggestive themes, mentions of parental neglect/leaving, it's hella long (and i thought my last fic was long)

✰ wc: 14.7k (how did i get it this long oh lord)

✰ author's note: picture creds go to original owners/editors! peep that edit of jay that lowkey inspired this entire fic 👀also this took me so, so long bc i lost motivation half way thru and bc college is a thing,,,so i honestly don't know how to feel abt it so pls bare with me :')))) ALSO the dividers are weird bc idk how to add more than 10 pics for the dividers so pls excuse those ٩(× ×)۶i hope u guys enjoy!! <333

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Jay Park is a rich kid.

Jay Park has enough to buy every textbook he needs for his courses without having to look up the free versions online. Jay Park has enough to bribe his professors to let him pass every class with a perfect 4.0 GPA (but because the boy has morals, he doesn't). Jay Park has enough to afford a car to drive to his furthest class from his dorm building instead of walk or bike like every other college student, meaning he also has enough to afford a parking spot on campus (those things aren't cheap!).

Jay Park walks around your school's campus like he owns the place (and considering the amount of money his family has donated to the school, he practically does), looking like he just walked out of your local coffee shop's newest fashion magazine. His blonde hair is never seen untouched, his attire usually consisting of an undoubtedly high-end all-black fit, accessorized with multiple earrings and rings that probably cost more than all the overpriced textbooks you had to rent out this semester. It's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park.

Bottom line is, Jay Park has everything.

Well, his friends beg to differ.

In their eyes, Jay Park has everything but a simple factor in the equation of love (or whatever love is to the minds of a couple of 19 year olds): commitment.

So yes, it's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park. Because everyone knows he's the campus' rich fuckboy. (What's a college fanfic campus without one anyways?)

Jay doesn't go unreminded of this by his friends, to the boy's annoyance.

Jay is aware of this on a Sunday afternoon, in his dorm building's first floor lounge, where he and his said friends are having a study session.

They're doing anything but studying.

In fact, no one has any books out or anything. Not a single laptop in site.

"You don't think it's the slightly bit concerning?" Jake's words are muffled as he continues munching on the fried chicken that he spent majority of this study session debating if he should have it delivered through UberEats or not.

"I really don't, no," Jay shrugs as he continues mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed. They're having the same argument conversation that they've revisited multiple times over the course of their friendship, one that Jay has been lectured on too many times for his own good. He thinks his friends could become his new parents if they really tried.

"Look at it this way, okay. You're about to graduate college in a couple of years, into the big world. Like the actual, adult world. And that means you'll have to settle down. Which you can't do when you. have. no. commitment!" Jake punctuates each word with a single clap of his hands, desperate to get his point across.

Jay simply rolls his eyes. He looks over to Sunghoon, who's minding his own business, not bothered by the same topic he's heard over and over again. His eyes tell Jay you're on your own, in response to his blonde-haired friend's look of despair.

Jay thinks that maybe he should get new friends. Yes, that's the only solution here.

"My love life," Jay reaches across the table for a drumstick from the greasy tub seated in Jake's lap until Jake swats his hand away, "is none of your business. Also, ouch."

"Uh, it kinda is. Because of you and your reputation around campus, it kinda affects us, your best friends. How do you think we look, hanging out with the guy who's known to ghost every girl in existence after one night with them? No offense to you," Jake deadpans to him. Jay mentally reconsiders the term best friends.

Tough love. Jay tells himself it's tough love.

"Yes, because every girl totally hates Jake Sim, the teacher assistant of a physics class who volunteers at the pet shelter every Sunday and brings their pet golden retriever to campus every two weeks," Jay rolls his eyes at his Australian friend.

Jake sighs. "Okay, then I'm coming from a place of worry for you."

Jay groans. "Again, none of your business!" This doesn't stop Jake. He comes from good intentions, really, but Jay wants nothing more than to stuff the kid's mouth with some of that chicken to shut him up.

"What are you gonna do if one day you meet someone you like, genuinely like, and you screw yourself over because you've never been in an actual relationship before? A real, committed one. Like one that lasts at least three months."

"You don't think I can last three months in a relationship?" Jay questions the boy currently taunting him.

"Honestly? No. What's the longest relationship you've been in?" Jake cocks an eyebrow at his friend across from him.

One month and two weeks. But Jay's smart enough to not say that out loud.

"I can so last over three months," Jay mutters more to himself than Jake.

Jake laughs at that, pausing to take another bite of the drumstick in his hand. "Jay, I am willing to actually bet you. Bet that you wouldn't be able to." He leans back on the couch, the ball now in Jay's court.

Jay freezes, looking up from his phone, narrowing his eyes at Jake.

"Forget it, Jake. He's not gonna agree even if you offered him money," Sunghoon finally perches from beside him. Well he's not wrong. It's not like Jay is exactly in need of more money, per say.

"What kind of bet are we talking here?"

Sunghoon's right. Jay doesn't need the money, but he does hate being wrong. Even if it's over something as stupid as this matter.

Caught off guard by the blonde's answer, Jake blinks blankly at him and takes a second to think.

"Hmm..what about...what about if you can date someone for at least three months, and I mean an actual, committed relationship, then I'll do all of your physics homework next semester."

Jay's eyes sparkle at that. If there's anything he despises more than commitment, it's physics.

"And if I win, you have to buy all of my textbooks," Jake sits back from the edge of his seat with a smirk lying on his face.

Jay pauses to think about it. I mean, what does he have to lose? A couple hundred dollars over college textbooks? No. Because he just simply won't lose.

And maybe he'll learn what it'll be like to actually be in a committed relationship for once. Maybe he'll finally learn what it's like to actually devote yourself to someone, open up to them. He shivers at the thought. Never mind. He'll warm up to it. Baby steps.

Nonetheless, what could go wrong? Even if he does lose, at least his money would be going somewhere productive––towards his friend's education. Jay was probably gonna use that money on something useless like a blanket that resembles a tortilla (a burrito blanket, he calls it)––something he doesn't necessarily need, but must have, he would argue.

"Fine. Whatever, okay. Deal," he grabs Jake's extended hand in front of him and shakes on it.

Jake's impressively smiling at the boy as Sunghoon lets out a sigh, in disbelief with the two guys he calls his best friends.

Jay concludes that this will be easier than his Introduction to Photography 101 course he took his freshman year. How hard is it to find someone to date the Jay Park? Surely, everyone will be lining up once Jay switches his FaceBook relationship status from "it's complicated" to "single".

Turns out, it's not as easy as his class where all Jay had to do was take pictures of a pretty sunset, slap a VSCO filter on, and call it a day.

He comes to this realization on a Wednesday evening, as he's seated at one of the many study tables lined in the middle of the campus' library, staring down at his phone's dry iMessage app, with his laptop and blank sheets of scratch paper scrambled across the entire table, as an attempt to look half as studious as the other students studying in the facility.

Turns out, being known as the campus' fuckboy who ghosts every girl on campus isn't a good thing when it comes to wanting to find a real relationship.

He comes to this realization after failing to receive a single text back to the many ones he sent out throughout the first half of his day. The ghoster gets ghosted. Oh how the turn tables.

Jay groans dramatically as he tosses his phone on the hard surface of the table, earning himself a harsh shush from the librarian filing books in the aisle beside him.

He sheepishly smiles back as an apology, directing his attention back to his open laptop screen, where his untouched calculus homework stares back at him––his mind preoccupied with the looming threat of Jake's bet. Not that it was threatening in any way, per say, but Jay just hates losing. And from the looks of things, it's safe to say that Jay won't be celebrating any victories anytime soon.

Jay thinks he should just change his identity and just transfer to some boarding school in Switzerland. Yes, that's a much better solution than admitting defeat to Jake.

Jay sighs as he lies his head on the table, figuring he might as well just write the check for Jake's textbooks now. He wonders how he got here in the first place. Not how he got into the bet, and definitely not how he's sitting in the middle of the library, having yet to start his calculus homework due at 11:59PM tonight (he should really start that).

But no, he wonders how he gained the reputation as the campus' playboy. To be fair, his friends (mainly Jake), are constantly reminding him of his notorious habits. But how did they come a habit in the first place?

The idea of being in a relationship is nice, sure, but the commitment that comes with it? The idea of being dependent on someone? It's scary, vulnerable, and one that Jay can't picture for himself.

Maybe some people just aren't meant to be paired. Maybe some people, like Jay, like being independent and are meant to stay that way.

But Jay also likes affection. He likes the fleeting, warm feeling he gets every time he finds himself under someone's sheets. He likes the short-lived comfort he receives from someone else's touch, even though he knows it's going to cease to exist the second he steps out of those bedroom's doors. He just likes affection, simple as that.

That and he's a 19 year old teenage boy with needs, what did you expect?

And so what if he likes the idea of affection minus commitment? Is that so bad? Apparently it is, to people like his friends and the entirety of his school's campus, at least.

At this rate, he might as well pay someone to date him.

Wait. Jay lifts his head off the table's surface in realization.

He might as well pay someone to date him.

There's no harm in that, is there?

He wouldn't have to endure through an endless amount of dates to find someone he clicks with, then continue going on dates with said clicked person, all while trying to develop an actual, serious relationship.

He'll win the bet, get his physics homework done for an entire semester, and some lucky girl out there will be making profit for the small price of hanging out with Jay Park for three months.

And lucky for him, Jay knows the perfect candidate for this scheme.

Simple as that.

Just as long as said perfect candidate says yes.

And as long as Jake and Sunghoon don't find out. Or else Jay might really have to move to Switzerland after all.

You love your friends, you do.

Hana and Heeseung have been there for you when others haven't––they were by your side when you knew no one entering high school, and they were still by your side when you were all graduating said high school. Needless to say, you're eternally grateful for friends like them.

But right now, in this moment––with you seated in the middle of the campus' library, trying to write your essay, as your two friends blabber on and on about the most recent gossip across from you––your two friends could be your villain origin story.

But again, you love your friends, you do. So you don't have the heart to tell them to leave. You've managed to naturally tune out most of the conversation, anyways, for this––your friends coming to hang out while you're trying to study––is no rare occurrence by any means.

"Oh yeah, Jay Park texted me last night."

You hate how your brain's filter suddenly turns off at Hana's words.

You hate how your ears catch the sudden mention of Jay Park's name.

You hate how the thought of Jay Park gets to even occupy a single brain cell of yours.

You hate how you even know who Jay Park is. Well, knew.

Past tense. Because up until eighth grade––when Jay decided to just suddenly pretend you didn't exist––he was attached to you like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.

And if you had asked past Y/N, ideally, Jay would've never left your side. Ideally, he would've never left you to fend for yourself when entering high school. Ideally, he would've stayed your best friend through out all four years of high school and ideally, you would've eventually told him how you really felt about him after growing up with him all your life. And maybe it would've lead to a completely different story. But for the sake of this fic, we don't live in an ideal world.

So yes, if it wasn't for his attendance at the very same university as you, you would've forgotten about the boy who brought you the painful memories of your childhood.

And since the universe clearly doesn't work in your favor, avoiding Jay Park's existence like he's the plague would have to suffice. And it works.

For the most part.

Until some people, bring him up uninvited into your conversation. Like now, for example.

"When was the last time you guys talked anyways?" Heeseung mindlessly asks as he reaches across the table to grab one of the many snacks you usually bring to your study sessions.

"Uh..like a few weeks ago. Give or take. Whenever you threw your house party. Can't say there was much talking involved however," she teasingly says with a giggle and wiggle of her brows.

Heeseung's rolling his eyes as you scoff and chuck a nearby crumpled piece of paper that was once one of your many essay drafts at her.

She bats it away right as it's about to hit her face as she laughs. "Doesn't matter anyways. He ghosted me the next morning, as he does with everyone else. Telling you this now," she extends a finger right at you, "stay away from Jay Park. That kid's just bad news."

You nod in response, mentally telling her she has nothing to worry about.

Been there, done that.

College. Ah yes, the very concept of spending four years of your life imprisoned on a campus where you'll be tearing your hair out from stress and spending all your life's savings just for a laminated sheet of paper with a golden stamp at the end of it all. We live in a society.

Because of said college, and all the weight that comes along with it, you had adapted a strict daily schedule in order to not completely lose your mind. It's a simple schedule really, one of a typical college student who's just trying to get by everyday with as little mental breakdowns as possible.

Wake up, get ready, go to class, go to the library to do your homework, walk all the way across campus to get back to your dorm, shower, then sleep. Oh and eat, of course. And maybe if time permits, be an actual social being and socialize.

It's gotten you this far into the college life without dropping out so, you conclude, you must be doing something right.

Sometimes, if you're feeling nice to yourself, you'll tweak the schedule a bit to fit in some exceptions. Maybe squeeze in a little trip to the bubble tea shop that's on the other side of campus, or maybe get dinner at that one dining hall that you don't usually go to because of the unncessarily long lines (but because they serve ice cream, you go anyways). It doesn't matter what the exception is, you still plan it out to fit into your schedule somehow. Everything is planned out.

Sometimes, however, the universe disagrees with your schedule, to your demise. Such as today, for example.

Because what you didn't expect for today was for a particular blonde-haired boy who you haven't spoken to in almost six years (but who's counting?) to approach your table in the library––a table you were sure no one could find you at, as it was quietly tucked away in the back corner, right next to the Astrophysics shelves. Because who browses the Astrophysics aisle for fun? Actually, maybe Jake Sim would. Anyways.

You definitely didn't anticipate a visit from the boy you've been actively avoiding, so you definitely didn't expect the first words coming out of his mouth when he sees you for the first time in six years to be:

"Fake date me."

You blink up at him.

Yeah, definitely not expected.

But you only let it phase you for a split second, until you feel a slight annoyance beginning to bubble up deep inside of you.

"Wow, hello to you too Jay! It's been what––half a decade? Yeah I've been pretty good, thanks for asking!" The sarcasm is practically dripping off your tongue.

You don't know what runs through Jay's mind, but apparently it isn't common sense––or the ability to read the room. Because next thing you know, he's sliding the chair across from you out from underneath the table and making himself at home.

And he's smiling right at you.

Curse him and his smile.

But no, you're not giving into it.

Not yet, at least.

"What do you want?" You deadpan at him when he makes no sign of making the next move.

"A girlfriend," he deadpans right back at you, as if he was casually telling you what he wanted for dinner. As if you two were close-knit friends that could approach one another without any proper greeting. As if you two had kept your friendship all these years. As if you two even had a role in each other's lives.

"Can't help you there," you scoff, deciding to not even question his lack of manners on top of his uninvited presence.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why?"

"Well gee, seeing that the first few words you decided to say to my face for the first time in forever were a demand, a demand to date you no less, then....no," your monotone voice says as you keep your eyes focused on your laptop screen, not daring to look at the boy across from you.

In the Introduction to Sociology course you took your freshmen year, you had learned of one important term: interactional vandalism. Textbook definition being: "ignoring signals of disinterest in a conversation, leading it to an offense."

Your definition being: "are you oblivious or just plan dumb, read the room!"

This was interactional vandalism, alright. Whether Jay's truly oblivious or just trying to annoy you until your head explodes (it's really the former, but you're convinced it's the latter), he takes your signals of disinterest and tosses it right out of his head to continue the conversation.

"I'm stuck in this stupid bet with Jake--do you remember him? He bet me that I couldn't date someone for more than three months and I figured having someone fake date me would be easier than actually dating someone, right? That's where you come into the equation," he proposes as he leans back in his chair, as if he had just finished a sales pitch to a prospective customer looking to buy a car.

You couldn't believe this. You're 98% sure this has got to be a prank. You're mentally preparing for a camera crew to jump out from in-between the library's aisles any moment now and scream into your ears that you've just been punk'd!

The remaining 2% of you, however, wouldn't put it past the two boys to get themselves in such a situation. The last memory you had of Jay and his friends were pretty much their childish selves back in middle school. And by looking at the current scene unfolding in front of you...it's needless to say they haven't changed much.

"Again, can't help you there. Ask one of the many girlfriends I thought you had." Ouch.

"But Y/N, you've known me all your life--"

"Up until you dropped me a few years ago but sure, let's call it that."

"--and convincing other people is gonna make me look--"

"--desperate? Yeah."

"C'mon, Y/N. What do you have to lose anyways?"

"Uh..my dignity? Pride? Self-respect? Sorry Jay, not happening," you turn your attention back to your unwritten essay in front of you, mentally checking out of this conversation. This would be a good time for that camera crew to jump out now.

"Look, no one else is gonna do it, Y/N." Jay has always been stubborn, you suppose. But so are you.

"Yeah, because you've managed to push every being of the opposite gender away from you. You gave yourself this reputation in the first place," you give it to him straight. It's not like you had a relationship with him to uphold anyways––Jay himself broke that friendship years ago.

Jay hates that you're right.

You're always right. He remembers how he used to always go to you for advice and clarity on the world's biggest problems. Granted, the world's biggest problems to him at the time equated to what he should dress up as for the fifth grade Halloween party, but still. A tough decision, for the mind of a ten-year-old.

You abruptly stop typing and begin putting your laptop and textbooks away as you huff in frustration. There's no point in trying to get your work done now. The longer you stay arguing with Jay, the bigger your headache gets. The longer he continues to occupy any part of your brain, the bigger your headache gets.

Getting up from your seat, packed and ready to slam your head into your pillow, you turn to the blonde one last time.

"Look Jay. We went on our separate ways years ago. If you weren't so notoriously known around campus and my friends would stop talking about you, I would've long forgotten you. I'm sorry you're in this situation, really. If I were you, I'd just tell Jake I can't do it. Or don't, I can't tell you what to do. Just don't get some innocent girl involved in whatever stunt of yours this is."

Jay stares at you, mouth agape, as you find your way out of the library and through the main doors. By the time he comes back to his senses, he realizes how he looks plain stupid––standing in the middle of the library, the look on his face screaming befuddlement, to say the least. Jay quickly makes his way out of the building, in hopes of convincing you one last time.

Jay catches sight of your figure already half-way down the walkway that connects the library to the main quad of your school's campus. Geez, you walk fast.

Not fast enough to outrun Jay's legs, however. If Jay running after you through the middle of campus in order to convince you to fake date him doesn't show how desperate he is to win this bet, I don't know what will.

"Wait, Y/N!"

You groan to yourself before turning to face the boy who can't seem to take a hint and leave you alone. You stare at his out-of-breath state as he heaves up and down from the slight jog he had to endure to get to where you are. If you're humored by him chasing after you, you do a good job of hiding it.

He meets your unimpressed state before stating his final proposition: "I'll pay you. Five hundred dollars."

You nearly stop breathing.

Now this catches your attention––after all, you're but a broke college student who's just trying to survive. And preferably not by feeding yourself instant ramen cups every night.

And so, naturally, you begin rethinking about the opportunity presented in front of you. You narrow your eyes at the boy as you weigh your options.

The first problem being, it's Jay Park––the bane of your very existence. You spent the last few years of your life pretending he didn't exist...for good reason. Not only did he do you dirty when you were merely a couple of 13-year-olds, but you just didn't want to be involved with someone like him. Someone known for his nature, someone who left your own current best friend ghosted. And not that Hana herself would care, for she has called herself the "female Jay Park", but you're sure this would be breaking some rule in the girl code handbook. Plus, if you agree to this, you'd be betraying 13-year-old Y/N, the one who decided to never speak to nor think of Jay Park again––which by now you've failed, but you get the gist.

Second problem being, three months is a long time. Three months is practically the rest of this semester, and did you really want to spend the rest of the semester tied down to the label of being Jay Park's girlfriend? There would have to be some negative connotations that came along with that title, right? No offense to Jay, but being his first girlfriend since, what, high school could make you come off as..naive, for lack of a better term. As if the only person you could settle for was Jay Park. As if you barely had any standards for yourself. Again, no offense to Jay.

Needless to say, if your school's debate club had to argue on why you shouldn't be doing this, you're sure the negating side could win with these two reasons alone.

But before you're rejecting the boy currently standing in front of you one last time, you find yourself mentally listing rebuttals.

First of all, you'd be getting paid. And again, you're merely but a college student living the stereotypical broke college student life––burdened by the costs of tuition, textbooks, and midnight McDonalds runs for when you're out of aforementioned instant ramen cups. Five hundred dollars could provide you with more than enough chicken McNuggets to last you the semester, and maybe some more to treat yourself to an online shopping spree.

Second of all, it's not like you were going to do anything better with your next three months anyways. It's safe to say you were too busy being a diligent student to actually look for anyone to date, per say. And if anything, having a fake boyfriend might actually be helpful in your case. Your mom would be off your ass about how you're still single, for one. And two, your friends (though it's really just Heeseung) would stop trying to hook you up on blind dates with guys that you would choose Jay Park over any day (and that really says something).

Third of all, it's Jay Park. As much as you despise the kid, you still know him. He's not a complete stranger to you, no matter how much you try to deny it. It could be worse, it could be a complete rando asking you to date him. At least you two have some sort of history, which would take care of the typical small talk and getting to know each other bit of this equation. And truth be told, you'd be lying to yourself if you said you weren't a tad bit satisfied by the fact that Jay chose you, of all people, to pull off this stunt with him. You don't know if it's the nostalgia of your childhood memories rushing back to you, but it reminds you of the endless schemes you two used to plan behind your parents' backs all the time. Granted, your childhood schemes––such as the both of you faking sickness so you could skip school together––don't even fall close to being in a fake relationship with one another, but still. It's the thought that counts.

All of those reasons plus, Jay isn't the worst to look at. He may have a spoiled reputation, but at least he has his looks going for him, you'll give him that (you're still secretly wondering when and how did he get his glow up, but don't tell him that).

And so by the guidelines of a college student's logic that states the pros outweigh the cons, you come to the overarching conclusion that maybe, this won't be so awful after all.

"Five hundred?" You ask, just for clarification. Jay's immediately nodding at your words. You continue to ponder on your thoughts as he stares at you hopefully.

The silent atmosphere of your campus heightens the tension so much, you swear you're in one of those overdramatic pausing scenes that occur too many times in k-dramas.

You sigh, then nod.

"Okay," you're internally praying that you won't regret this decision. "I'm in."

The next time you see Jay is at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building that's home to your awfully long Capitalism in the Western World class.

You're going down the steps of the building, mentally deciding where and what you're going to treat yourself to for lunch––as the three hour lecture you had just attended drained all the life and energy out of you––when you hear the slight call of your name.

Turning to the source, you're met with a waving Jay, leaning against the passenger's side of his car, parked in front of the lecture hall building you were currently leaving.

Great.

You walk over to where he's casually waiting––he's unaware of all the stares he's attracted from fellow students leaving the same lecture as you. Can you blame them? It's not everyday you see a sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition pull up in front of your Friday afternoon lecture. It's not everyday you see Jay Park waiting for anyone outside of his said sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition.

"Hi," you simply let out as you plant yourself in front of him, not sure whether or not to question him why are you here? Surely, he wasn't waiting for you?

"Hi," he smiles down at you. There's a beat of silence. "I was waiting for you."

Bingo.

"Oh. What are you, my chauffeur?" You raise an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Maybe. I am your boyfriend, after all," he says into the air, loud and clear, as if he wanted people to hear. Well that is the point, you suppose.

But still, all you want to do is smack the smirk right off his face.

Before you have time to put your next question into words, he answers it for you.

"I'm taking you out for lunch," he declares as if you have nothing else planned for the day. Well, to be fair, you didn't have anything else planned for the day. Except for your usual library run. But you figure the library could wait.

"Oh, like on a date?" You raise your eyebrows teasingly at him as you get into the car, Jay holding the door wide open for you. "Is Jay Park treating me to lunch as a date?"

Jay fights the scowl (or is that a smile?) growing on his face as he bends down to meet your eye level from inside the car. "Don't flatter yourself, princess. We've got fake lives to live."

"Call me princess one more time and you won't have a real life to live," you flash him a sarcastic smile and slam the door in his face.

Jay meets his own shocked reflection on the passenger's side window.

Cute.

"When you said you were taking me out to lunch, I expected like...I don't know...the diner on campus. Not whatever this is," you mutter to Jay as the two of you are brought to your table by a waitress at an upscale sushi restaurant, one that is undoubtedly out of your usual budget, but for sure an upgrade from your dining hall's pizza you were planning to have. You should've figured as much, the drive here was a little more than out of the way from campus, and who are you kidding, it's Jay Park you're eating with.

You stare down at your current outfit, which consisted of a hoodie you've owned since your junior year of high school and leggings that you threw on without second thought this morning––because you didn't exactly wake up and decide I'm going to go to a fancy sushi bar for lunch today!

"Why are we here anyways?" You ask him when you're both settled in your seats and the waitress walks away after listing the chef's specials for the day.

"Oh, they have killer dragon rolls here, you have to try it," Jay tells you nonchalantly as his eyes rake the menu in front of him, blocking your view of him.

How dense can one be? Your hand snatches his menu as you stare into his unamused eyes.

"No, Jay. I mean, why are we here? It's not like anyone's around to see us put on a show anyways."

"Oh. I figured," Jay's quick to grab the menu back from out of your hands as he continues, "that we should sit down and establish how exactly we're going to deliver this performance. After all, you're stuck with me for the next three months."

Again, smacking the smirk currently resting on his face would satisfy you beyond relief. Just once.

"If I drop out halfway through, do I still get $250?" You tease, leaning back.

"Ha ha. Funny. No," he narrows his eyes at you from across the table. "It's all or nothing."

You dramatically huff to make a show just for his annoyance.

"Worth a try. But sure, let's solidify this. What's the game plan?" You sit up in your seat, leaning over the table as if the two of you were hosting a secret meeting.

"It's simple really," Jay mirrors your actions, face leaning in close to where yours is hovering over the table. "Just pretend to be deeply in love with me for three months, and try not to actually be charmed by my cunning looks."

If someone gave you five dollars for every time you've already rolled your eyes at him today, you wouldn't even need to be in this deal for the five hundred dollars.

"Wow, smooth. Can I just remind you you're the one paying a girl to be in a fake relationship with you because you're just not competent enough to find an actual girlfriend?" You lean back, arms crossing over your figure.

Jay, unfazed, laughs, tongue briefly hitting the inside of his cheek. "Touché."

Your eyes go back to the menu in front of you as a silence falls over the table. Because you're not a loaded trust fund baby who comes to fancy five-star sushi restaurants for lunch on a daily, you don't recognize half of the entree names on the menu. You spot the dragon roll Jay suggested, but seeing that a basic California roll is less expensive, your natural broke-college-student-instincts figure the California roll shall do.

"Okay, in all seriousness," Jay begins as he puts his menu down. "It's simple really. We'll just go on weekly dates and post cute pictures of each other once in a while and a little after three months, I'll just say it didn't work out. I'll give you the five hundo and boom, we move on with our lives."

It's clear Jay's put some thought into this. Safe to say he's put more effort planning this out than the amount of work he's been putting into his classes. Someone's got their priorities straight.

You're impressed to say the least––you figured Jay would just be the kind to go with the flow and wait for the situation to unfold on its own and maybe blow up into flames. But seeing as he was just as serious about winning this bet as you were with making five hundred dollars, your doubts about this entire situation were slowly withering away.

Don't get it wrong, though, you still despise him. To an extent, at least.

"And don't worry about the dates. I'll pay on your behalf, as the loving, doting boyfriend I am," Jay finishes with a wide, cheesy smile you can't help but return a growing smile back at.

"Well then, as the loving, doting girlfriend I am, I shall gift you coffee, breakfast, all that fun couple stuff, whenever you please. Or maybe unannounced, if I'm feeling nice," you figure you should pitch in as much if he's paying for all your dates. And deep down, you find the idea kinda cute. But don't tell anyone that.

"Wow, look at us. We should become Dispatch's couple of the year already!" Jay exclaims, earning himself a small giggle from you, which pleases him to say the least. He thinks that maybe when this is all over, he'll hopefully make a good friend (well, for the second time) out of it.

And you're thinking that maybe the next three months won't be as bad as you initially had thought.

As the two of you delve deep into a debate about who would be the better significant other to each other, the waitress comes over to take your orders.

And because you're laughing and Jay's brightly smiling at you from across the table, you order the dragon roll.

The second time Jay takes you out––this time he gives you a heads up to get ready––it's at a, once again, high-class steakhouse.

The third time, you insist on the on-campus diner that's popular amongst the student population. Partially because you feel bad for the amount of money he's spent on you (even though he couldn't care less), but mostly because if you have to put on another fancy dress to just eat an overpriced meal that doesn't even fully satisfy your hunger, you might lose your mind.

And by this third time, Jake is aware of this newly blossomed relationship.

"Three dates! I didn't know you had it in you, going on three dates with the same girl!" Jake excitedly exclaims as he jumps into the empty spot on Jay's dorm bed and shoves his phone's screen into Jay's face.

The smaller screen displays Jay's most recent Instagram post: an image of you sitting behind your too-small-to-be-this-expensive-steak and smiling right into Jay's camera––a memory that brings a smile to his face:

~ ~ ~

"C'mon! We said Instagram posts would be a part of the deal! How else can we convince people we're dating?" A pout rests on Jay's face as he stares at you from across the table in the middle of the extravagantly decorated restaurant he picked out for your second date. You remember your eyes bulging out of their own sockets when you saw the "$$$$$" rating Yelp gave the place when you searched it up earlier.

"Okay, okay! One picture," you give in, already slightly annoyed that you were here instead of the comfort of your own bed, where you could be rewatching your favorite Netflix show for the third time. But because you made a deal and because you're desperate for money, you had to follow through––so here you were.

You flash an unconvincing smile to Jay's camera, which doesn't satisfy him, to say the least. "At least pretend you're somewhat enjoying this date," he frowns at you.

You sigh, until a thought crosses your mind and a smile grows on your face. "Only if you get me boba afterwards."

He narrows his eyes at you, but then meets your smile. "Sure, whatever you want. But only because I've been craving some mango milk tea lately."

"You're a fruit milk tea kind of guy? Sorry, but I might have to fake break-up with you," you tease as you take a sip of your overpriced drink to go with your overpriced meal.

Jay scoffs, feigning hurt by placing his hand over his heart. "Ouch. But before you break up with me, let me get this Instagram post in."

"Wow. Your priorities are so straight," you roll your eyes at him, eliciting a cheeky smile from him as he watches you through his held up phone screen.

"3,2,1."

"Hey, I wasn't ready! That was like mid-laugh!" You reach over the table to grab the phone, but not quick enough for him to put his phone back into his pants' pocket.

"Nope, nuh uh," he laughs as you quickly sit back down into your seat, not wanting to cause a scene in an establishment as proper as this one.

"It's fine. It's a good picture, you look cute," he casually lets out, unaware of the blush rising to the surface of your cheeks, thanks to the fact that you were suddenly interested in playing with the left-over food on your plate.

"Jay! Delete it, I'll let you take another one," you whine from your seat, imagining just how bad a candid picture of you could be.

"Ugh, fine. Ever so picky." He playfully rolls his eyes at you as he takes his phone out and opens the camera app as you prepare yourself.

"Okay, how's this?" Jay turns the phone screen to you after he takes a few snaps on his phone.

"I approve," you grin at him as he goes through the pictures himself, unaware of the smile growing on his face.

"Okay now delete the first one," you point your finger at him, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Okay, okay! Bossy," he laughs as he raises in hands in surrender.

When Jay gets home that night, he recovers the image from his Recently Deleted folder, telling himself it's for the sake of the memory.

Obviously.

~ ~ ~

"It's not that big of a deal," Jay mutters from his spot as his eyes go from the Instagram post to his Exile and Belonging in Modern Literature reading that's due tomorrow, bright yellow highlighter in hand. Typically, you'd find the reading buried deep at the bottom of his school backpack. But because Jay ran into you this morning and because he complained to you about the amount of work he's fallen behind on and because you had threatened him to do his work or else you're not going on another date––a fake date that is––with him, he figured he should at least get one reading done and annotated, despite his strong dislike for highlighters (they hurt his eyes, okay?)

What he doesn't know, however, is how your threat was completely full of bluff––but don't tell him that.

"It is so a big deal, for you at least!" Jake hops off the bed and lands on the wooden floors of Jay's dorm room so hard, Jay winces and sends a mental apology to the poor person who lives below him.

Jake suddenly gasps. "I have to meet her, Jay! As your best friend, it's practically mandatory that I meet her."

Jay opens his mouth to protest, but not before Jake interrupts him once again. "Oh! We can bring Sunghoon too, it'll be so fun! The best friends meet the girlfriend."

Jay can't think of anything worst. Jay imagines that bringing you to meet his best friends would just intimidate you out of dating him––fake dating him, that is. Obviously.

He stares at his friend in agony then back at the reading in front of him––the one Jake said he'd come over to help annotate, but the intention completely left Jake's head the second he heard about Jay's recent dating life.

"You don't have to meet her," Jay says pointedly. "Plus, you already know her."

Jake frowns at his friend's excuse. "Yeah, but that was in middle school! This is different."

Jay's hands shuffle through the reading's pages in front of him as he realizes there's no way the two of them are going to finish the assignment at this point. He supposes he'll have to save death by blindness from highlighters for another day and hope you still agree to go out with him.

Jake suddenly gasps in realization.

"Oh my gosh! Childhood best friends turned college sweethearts," Jake says so dreamily, he might as well plaster heart eyes on. Hopeless romantic, this one.

Before Jay can argue, the piercing sound of three loud knocks echo through the small room, followed with a:

"Jay, are you in? It's me!"

Jay stills at the sound of your sweet voice. He whips his head to Jake, who is also frozen in place.

But the widened-eye boy is quick to come to his senses––unfortunately quicker than Jay himself––because the next thing Jay knows, Jake's eyes are lighting up and he's running to the door, ignoring Jay's screaming whispers through this seething teeth that were somewhere along the lines of Jake––stop, I swear to god if you open that door I'm gonna fucking--

"Y/N!" Jake swings the door wide open, revealing an overly excited him and a frozen Jay half-way to the door, as if he was about to grab the very boy welcoming you in. It's as if we're living in a Sims game and the player clicked pause on this very moment.

Jake's eyes are wildly going back and forth between you and your supposed boyfriend, as if he was waiting for Jay to run over and smother you in hugs and kisses...or something couple-y like that. Jay wouldn't know.

"Uh––hi," you're awkwardly standing inside the room now, a relatively large paper brown bag resting in your palms as you look around for a surface to place it on. Jay makes his way to you without a second thought, quickly taking the bag out of your hold.

"You seemed stressed out earlier, so I figured I could bring you some food as a little pick me up. I didn't know what you liked, so I kinda just got a little of everything from the dining hall. Nothing fancy," you're rambling, but smiling so excitedly at him, Jay doesn't know what to say.

Instead, his mouth slightly drops open as he stares at you in awe, mostly because he's not used to being on the receiving end of such spontaneously generous actions––all while Jake's still excitedly looking back and forth between the two of you, as if he was expecting a marriage proposal to come next.

"Oh wow. Thank you. Really," Jay, still touched by your simple act of kindness, softly says as he places the bag on the limited amount of empty space on his desk surface––the rest of it is covered with his untouched textbooks and unfinished assignments. He wonders if you did this out of playing your role or just because you wanted to. He internally hopes it's the latter. "Seriously, you didn't have to do."

"Nah, don't worry. I wanted to," you shrug with such a genuine smile that Jay realizes he actually missed your smile.

Despite having seen you during your brief run-in this morning when you were fetching your morning coffee, Jay realizes he missed you. The two of you haven't been seeing each other recently because of your busy schedule and if Jay didn't realize it before, he's now sure he missed your company and presence around.

Weird.

"Well, you two have fun! Sunghoon needs me for something," Jake suddenly chirps from his place near the front door, halfway through with putting his shoes on already, breaking the comforting silence that fell between the two of you.

Jay frowns. "But you said you were free all da––"

"SUNGHOON IS CALLING BYE!" And before Jay can even register what's happening, Jake's out the door without another word.

"Er..sorry about him, he's...weird," Jay scratches the back of his neck as he returns to his spot on his bed, mentally setting a reminder to yell at Jake later for leaving the two of you alone. Jay doesn't know exactly why, but he's nervous at the fact that you're here in his room. It's not like you two are complete strangers––or whatever you guys were before––anymore. "Good job on your part, though. How'd you know Jake was here?"

"Oh uh, I didn't"," you let out an awkward laugh. "I just felt like doing it."

Heat rushes to Jay's cheeks and he's not sure 1) what this newfound feeling is and 2) how to respond, yet again.

Having expecting you to leave after dropping the food off, Jay's taken by surprise when you take your shoes off and come over to his bed to look at the pile of work he's spread out.

"Is this everything you have to do?" You question the stressed-out boy as you flip through the various assignments, readings, and essays he put off in the past week.

"More or less," he groans. This is no rare occurrence by any means––Jay being behind in his work––but this time, Jay realizes he may actually be in deep shit, considering he has no idea where to begin.

Right as Jay's expecting a scolding from you, he looks up to meet a look of sympathy on your face. "Well, I mean, I'm pretty much done with my day. I can try to help, I recognize some of these readings from last semester."

Jay thinks to himself that the universe has sent him an angel through the form of you.

"Really? Wow, you were't kidding when you said you'd be a good girlfriend," he sends you a surprised look.

"I'm just being nice, Jay. A concept I'm sure you're not familiar with," you remark back at him, causing his forming smile to grow into a laugh.

"I can too be nice! Need I remind you of who's paying you $500, covering all of our dates AND giving you rides to class everyday?" He remarks pointedly at you, a teasing look resting in his eyes as you're reminded of the first of many times he's come to pick you up before class:

~ ~ ~

You're late.

This never happens.

But then again, your life's been a series of unexpected occurrences lately. Such as the fact that you're currently known as Jay Park's girlfriend, for one.

You're scrambling out of bed once you take one look at your phone and realize shit, you're already late for class. Throwing on whatever articles of clothing your eyes land on first, you're already mentally groaning at the fact that you'll have to skip breakfast and run across your campus to get to said class.

Curse your professor for hosting her lecture at the furthest possible building away from your dorm. Curse the architect who decided to make your campus so large.

You're running down the steps outside of your dorm building's doors when you're abruptly stopped by a familiar sounding cough. You look up from trying to gather all your belongings together at once to meet the gaze of the source of the sound––Jay.

"Wow, you're a mess," he smirks as he gets up from the spot on his car he was leaning against to make his way over to you.

"Gee, thanks! Good morning to you too," you flash him a sarcastic smile before your default frown quickly makes it way back onto your face.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why I'm here?" He grins as he grabs hold of your backpack to sling it across his own back as the two of you walk towards his car.

"Why are you here, Jay?" you sigh, your sarcastic tone hard to miss.

"To give you a ride to class, of course!" He's beaming at you, as if he's a pre-pubescent teen who just won their first girlfriend a prize from the arcade's claw machine.

Oh. That explains the car, you figure. Deep down inside, you're relieved that you'll no longer be bursting through the lecture hall's doors as a sweaty mess––a result of having to run across campus to get to class.

Determined to not let your satisfaction completely show, you resort with a little smile directed towards Jay as he opens the passenger door for you.

The second your enter Jay's car, the strong scent of coffee hits you, and your attention is targeted at the two small cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders of the car.

"Breakfast?" Jay asks as he enters through the driver's side and reaches into the backseat to whip out a small pastry bag. A small, deliciously smelling, pastry bag.

Okay, well. You suppose you could drop the annoyed act now.

Your eyes widen with joy as you grab the bag from him and open it to reveal your favorite breakfast sandwich. He's been taking notes, you'll give him that point.

"Okay, you win. Thank you," you grace him with a soft smile before taking a bite into the glorious gift in your hands.

"Of course, I was just feeling nice," he grins at you as he starts his car. "But don't get used to it." His tone is serious, but his smile directed towards you says differently.

And the fact that he still showed up to drive you to class the next morning.

And the next.

~ ~ ~

"And need I remind you who has to date your dumb ass for the $500 in question?" Your eyes narrow at the boy who can't seem to get that damn smile off his face.

Jay sticks his tongue out at you, ending the conversation. Really Jay? What are you, five? Well, mentally––probably.

You're looking around his minuscule dorm room for a place to sit down, and Jay can't help but feel embarrassed now that you're here, in his messy single studio room that pretty much reflects how Jay treats every other responsibility of his oh so hard life: neglected.

"Uh...here, you can sit on my bed," Jay immediately offers as he moves to the side to make room for your presence––and it isn't much, considering the university only provided him a twin XL bed which is definitely not built for two grown college-aged kids.

If you told yourself a few weeks ago that you'd be shoulder to shoulder on a bed belonging to the guy you cringed at the very thought of, you wouldn't have believed yourself. You wouldn't have believed yourself if you said you were actually glad Jay let you stay instead of kicking you out after delivering the food. Huh.

Weird.

"You know, this kinda reminds me of when we were kids. I always carried us through those horrible multiplication tests in the fifth grade," you wink at him as you settle in the spot next to him, hands grabbing hold of the papers in his lap.

Jay let out a laugh, nudging your shoulder with his. "Hey! The twelve times table is hard, okay?"

You roll your eyes at him––a habit of yours he's noticed whenever the two of you are together, but more recently, he thinks it's been more out of fun than annoyance.

He wonders why.

When Jay had first brought up the idea of bringing you as his date to his father's company dinner, you had expected a fairly fancy five-star restaurant with a formal dress code––for you've become accustomed to Jay's lifestyle. Turns out, your expectations can continue to be exceeded. Because what you had expected to be a simple dinner with a few other business men and women turned out to be an entire party, hosted in a hotel whose interior resembled something close to a castle (Or what you assume a castle looks like, as you've never personally been into a castle yourself, but this hotel is close enough).

Your eyes sparkle at the extravagant columns and diamond chandeliers hanging high above you, and Jay smiles at the expression on your face; like a little girl being brought to the amusement park for the first time ever.

"Wow, this is...wow," you mutter as you drink in the scene in front of you: people dressed in formal attire likewise to yours and Jay's, mingling and drinking what you imagine to be beverages that cost more than your entire life's worth.

Jay laughs from behind you, "Yeah the company goes a little...extra when it comes to these company dinners."

You scoff as you look up at him. "Oh really, you don't say?" You look around and you're suddenly aware of the many people surrounding the two of you and the attention you've acquired ever since entering the building.

"Jay, people are staring." You shuffle closer to him, your voice lowering down to a whisper.

"Well, it's not everyday the son of the company's CEO brings his girlfriend with him, so...looks like we'll be the talk of the party tonight. Smiles on," he winks at you, and you just know he's loving the attention the two of you are receiving right now.

"Jay Park? Is that you?" You hear a warm voice call out from behind the two of you.

The two of you turn around to meet the owner of the voice, a middle-aged woman dressed in an evening gown that matches the pattern of high-end brands you've been recognizing ever since arriving.

"Mrs. Lee! It's so nice seeing you again," Jay cheerily addresses the woman as the two of you bow in greeting.

You internally giggle at the thought of your Jay being so picture-perfect in the eyes of his father's co-workers.

"This is Y/N," he continues, his hand finding its way to your back, protectively resting it there as you go to introduce yourself. "My girlfriend."

You swear you feel goosebumps rise from where he's lightly touching you, and more so when he introduces you as his girlfriend.

You tell yourself it's just your nerves. Yes, that's it, you're just nervous. I mean, you're in a room filled with people who could easily pay off all your college loans with just a snap of their fingers, who wouldn't be nervous? Right? Right.

"Y/N! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, I've heard so much about you!" Mrs. Lee excitedly exclaims as you turn to Jay with a slightly confused look plastered on your face. He mirrors your expression as he shrugs, moving to stand behind you completely, bringing his hands to rest lowly at your hips.

His hands feel like feathers on the thin fabric of your evening gown, so light, so delicate, as if he's unsure if he's crossing a line. It leaves you wanting more, wanting to naturally lean against him and his warmth. You quick to shake the thought of your head as Mrs. Lee chirps up again.

"Jay's father is always talking about how you've been keeping Jay pleasantly busy nowadays! Good thing too, about time this poor boy settle down for someone as beautiful as you," the woman rambles on as you feel a blush creep up on your cheeks at the thought of Jay talking about you to his dad. If only they knew.

"We should probably go find our seats, I think the dinner is beginning soon," Jay says from behind you, saving the two of you from having to listen to Mrs. Lee's story of how she's known Jay ever since he was five years old and seeing him grow into this mature, loving, young man is so amazing. Oh look! I have baby pictures.

Yeah, he was more so saving himself from embarrassment.

The two of you bid your goodbyes before Jay gently uses the hand on your back to maneuver you through the crowd of socializing business moguls.

"She's not wrong, you know," you feel Jay dip his head so he's speaking near your ear, his warm breath tickling your earlobe, as the two of you make your way through the large foyer room.

"Hm?" You hum in question, turning your head up just enough to be able to make eye contact with him as he responds to your look of confusion.

"You look beautiful tonight," he says, eye contact not breaking once. You freeze in your steps.

You stare back at him in silence. Oh.

Your mind is panicking as it flips through your mental book of responses, unsure of what to say back. But because your mind is cloudy from staring at a put-together Jay in a dark navy suit to match your dress (mixed with the nervous butterflies in your stomach––have they always been there?), the only sound that's able to leave your lips is the small stutter of a:

"Huh?"

Wow Y/N, you had one job. A simple "thank you" could've sufficed! And you went with "Huh"?

You felt like a fifth grader who just learned from a friend of a friend of a friend that their crush likes them back.

"U-um. Mrs. Lee. What she said about you. You look good, really," somehow your nervousness made its way over to Jay now––his eyes flickering from yours to anywhere, anything, else in the room––the awkward tension growing tenfold each second.

Goddamnit Y/N, this is just Jay you're talking to, get a grip.

You're knocked back into reality when he slightly nudges your back to continue making your way to the main ball room, where the dinner is being held.

"Is that a compliment from the Jay Park?" Your smirk can't be seen by Jay, since he's still trailing behind you, but he can definitely hear it through your tone.

"Don't make me take it back," he chuckles, his words felt against your neck, leaving behind a tingly sensation you're not sure why you're feeling. You're glad he's behind you, so he isn't able to see the blush creeping onto your face for the second time tonight.

Jay gives a small nod to the people behind the check-in desk stationed at the entrance as the two of you waltz right into a large ball room lined with countless circular dining tables. So much for a small business dinner.

As the two of you approach one of the tables placed at the front of the room, you notice a familiar figure seated next to the seats reserved for you and Jay.

"Y/N!" Jake exclaims as he gets up from his seat to greet the both of you. "I'm so glad you made it, Jay was so excited to bring you tonight. Deadass would not stop talking about it."

Jay lets out a noise that falls somewhere between a cough and a goose being strangled, his widened eyes warning his talkative friend to just shut up. He's silently cursing the company for always seating his and Jake's family at the same table for these events.

"Aw, is that so? He's lucky he's cute or else I wouldn't have agreed," you grin, winking at your assumed boyfriend sitting next to you.

"Hey, YOU were the one excited to come! I recall a certain someone's face lighting up when I suggested we go shopping for tonight," Jay immediately retorts.

"Only because you were buying," you giggle, causing Jake to laugh as well.

"Damn, Jay. Tough," Jake jokingly adds as you laugh alongside him. The scowl sitting on Jay's face expresses the opposite of what he's feeling right now: warmth filling him up from the sound of your laughter and the image of you getting along so well with his best friend.

"I'm gonna get us some drinks, you two have fun making fun of me," Jay narrows his eyes at the two of you as he gets up from his seat. You bid him off with a smile before turning back to Jake.

"No but really though, this boy would not stop talking about you coming tonight. Then again, he doesn't really ever stop talking about you," Jake nonchalantly says, not knowing how much he was exposing his friend to you right now.

You raise an eyebrow up in response, "Oh really?"

"Seriously! I don't know what you did to him, Y/N, but this Jay I've been seeing recently is new. He complains a lot less about life nowadays, especially on the days he sees you," he leans back in his chair as his comment brings a smile to your face. Little does he know.

You stretch your neck up to find the boy in question and spot him right as he's returning to your shared table, two drinks in hand. You lock eyes with him from across the room and without a second thought, you're giving him a genuine smile that he's immediately returning.

Your heart beats faster at the view.

You wonder why.

It's 3:07AM when you hear the first ding.

You're not 100% sure as of why you're awake at this hour on a Tuesday night––perhaps a combination of your restless thoughts and feelings not letting you sleep plus the typical stress that comes hand-in-hand with the life of a college student.

It's 3:09AM when you hear the second ding, and you brush it off, assuming it was just Heeseung spamming you with memes again––something he does often when he also can't sleep (you found this out the hard way).

It's still 3:09AM when you hear the third ding, and at 3:10AM , you finally reach over and decide to acknowledge the being who's bothering you at this godforsaken hour.

Jay [3:07AM]: Y/N

Jay [3:09AM]: hi

Jay [3:09AM]: r u awake rn

Y/N [3:10AM]: unfortunately so

Y/N [3:11AM]: why are you up

Jay [3:11AM]: come outside

Y/N [3:13AM: jay it's 3am

Jay [3:13AM]: ye and? don't tell me ur a college student with a curfew

Jay [3:14AM]: plus im alrdy waiting for u outside so u have no choice

Jay [3:15AM]: :)

You groan at your bright phone screen currently illuminating your dark dorm room.

You ponder the consequences you may have to suffer tomorrow if you stay up any later than you already have. But considering the fact that you're probably just going to stay awake lying in bed for god knows how long anyways, why not?

(And you would like to point out that this decision has nothing to do with the fact that you haven't seen Jay in a few days and that maybe a tiny, tiny, tiny, part of you may have missed his presence. Nothing.)

And since that logic is obviously valid (you really gotta work on justifying your life choices), you're suddenly grabbing a hoodie from your closet and hoping it'll be enough to keep you, who's merely in an old band t-shirt from high-school and pajama shorts, warm.

The breeze hits your skin the second you open the doors to your dorm's building, and you're met with the view of Jay's sleek, black BMW that probably costs more than your tuition. He waves at you from the driver's seat, motioning for you to get in.

"To what do I owe you the pleasure at this hour," you deadpan at him with a stone-cold voice as you enter through the passenger's side door, hoping your tone was enough to hide the fact that you're giddy at the fact he invited you out at 3AM in the morning. Like a high-school girl sneaking out of her house to meet up with her bad-boy boyfriend that her parents dislike.

The second you enter his car, you're instantly comforted by the warm air blasting through his vents and his playlist softly playing in the background. Jay's pajama pants and messy hair give you more than enough information to know that he probably just rolled out of his own bed as well. You don't know why, but your view: Jay in his oversized hoodie with his unkept hair in front of your dorm building at 3AM on a Tuesday night, gives you comfort in weird ways you can't explain even if you tried.

But it's obviously just your cloudy, 3AM mind not thinking straight. Obviously.

"When I can't sleep, I go on drives around campus. It helps clear my mind," he says, looking over at you to give you a quick smile before starting his car. "Plus, SnapMap said you were still awake, so...figured you'd wanna join."

"Oh so what, you're my stalker now? You're not driving to the woods to kill me now, are you?" You tease, an eyebrow brought up. Jay lets out a laugh from beside you as he begins to drive further into your campus.

"Guess you'll just have to wait and see," he throws you a wink before reverting his gaze back to the road, mindlessly driving to wherever the road decides to take him.

A comfortable silence falls in between the two of you as Jay continues to drive endless routes around your campus. You look over to the boy driving next to you and take in his features––you don't know what changed, but you no longer feel the same anger or annoyance bubbling within you when you're around him. You're not sure when this changed, but you figure it's just the effect of desensitization. After all, you've been spending so much time with him, you're bound to get used to it. Right?

"Why were you up?" Jay finally asks after a few minutes of just the two of you silently basking in each other's presences.

"Ah, you know. The usual. Endless thoughts running through my mind, stress from school, nothing new," you sign, giving him a soft smile followed with a shrug.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

You answer him with silence as you search your head for the answer.

"I don't know. This is kinda weird, isn't it?" You don't know why you get a sudden surge of confidence, but before you can stop yourself, you find yourself rambling on. "If you had told me a month ago that I'd be here driving around with you when it's nearly 4AM, I would've laughed in your face."

Jay doesn't know whether to laugh or scoff. "Is the idea of hanging out with me that unappealing to you?"

You give him a serious look back. "I mean, up until a month ago when you needed me for whatever this game is, you literally pretended I didn't exist."

Oh. Awkward.

You freeze at your own words, mentally screaming at yourself for letting the words leave your mouth. Why, why, why.

"Y/N..." Jay says after clearing his throat after a few seconds of silence.

"No it's fine, it was a joke," you awkwardly cough and direct your attention to anything else around you right now. The view of your campus' buildings zooming by. The clicking of Jay's blinker when he switches lanes. The quiet roaring of his car's engine. The nervous tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel.

The rest of the ride is excruciatingly silent as he exits the main road and into an empty parking lot of some administration building made out of glass that has too many floors for you to count.

You don't know why you feel your heart beating in your throat as Jay puts the car into park––why you feel uneasy. You slightly turn towards him in your seat, hoping to pick up any sign of well...anything from him.

You don't know why you feel a twinge of guilt––it's not like what you said was necessarily wrong. If you were being honest, you were slightly bothered by how the two of you seemed to silently agree not to mention your past all this time. You were always one to seek answers, to seek closure. You couldn't help but bring it up––Jay was your best friend during those years. For him to just wake up one day and pretend you were nothing to him hurt you, and you couldn't help but still wonder what in the world you did to initiate his actions.

"I'm sor–" You're interrupted with his timid voice, as if he was almost afraid to speak.

"I'm not good with people." He's nibbling on his bottom lip, fingers nervously picking at a spot on the steering wheel.

You're opening and closing your mouth, unsure how to respond. You're 100% positive you look like a fish right now. Good for you.

"I don't know why. Jake calls it commitment issues but in order to have commitment, people have to stay in my life. And people just...don't. They're all bound to leave at some point. So what's the point of putting in effort into relationships if they're just going to leave you at the end?"

You're stunned by his sudden confession, not having been prepared for such a heavy topic to arise between the two of you. Up until tonight, your interactions had always been light-hearted and easy––you guys got along well. You didn't know this is how he felt all along.

But you knew where he was coming from.

You knew what Jay had gone through as a child––his mother having left him and his dad when he was young. You remember when your parents had told you the news at the young age of 13, and you remember the pain and sorrow you felt for your then friend. All you wanted to do was go to him and comfort him, but he had already cut you out from his life by then.

"Or maybe I'm the problem. My dad barely acknowledges my existence because he thinks giving me an allowance is all the parenting I need, my friends probably only stick around because they feel bad for me, you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the bet, and, fuck, I'm literally known as the campus' fuckboy," Jay continues, falling deeper and deeper into the hole he dug himself.

He hates this, he hates opening up and feeling vulnerable, so he doesn't know why he's doing it now. He doesn't know why he feels comfortable voicing out his fears and worries when he's around you. But he does know it's a new feeling––one he doesn't know how to deal with.

"Jay," you lace your voice with as much comfort as you can provide. None of this is his fault, you want to tell him. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything," he says with a hint of bitterness and you can't tell if it's directed towards you or the topic at hand.

You're completely turned in your seat now to face him––despite the fact that he refuses to meet your gaze, afraid that looking at you is gonna bring out the most vulnerable in him. "You can talk to me. Talking about it makes it a lot easier. I'll always be here for you, as a friend."

Jay doesn't know what it is or why, but something in him snaps at the sound of a certain word falling out of your lips. Friend. Friend.

Friends don't make his heart beat nervously whenever he's around them. Friends don't keep him up at 3AM in the morning, pondering about his feelings for them. Friends don't provide him with this new, warm comfort he's become accustomed to whenever he's around you.

Deep down, Jay knows you didn't mean to add fuel to the fire. But because he's strong-headed, stubborn, and hates how vulnerable he feels next to you, he unleashes his emotions without thinking about the destruction coming along.

"It's none of your business, Y/N. Forget I said anything. You're just a toy for this stupid game and when it's all over we can go back to our own lives and forget this ever happened."

His sudden words cut deep, but they hurt him more than you. The second the words tumble out of his mouth, he's hit with the feeling of instant regret washing over him, and the lump forming in his throat restricts him from finding the right words to take them back.

The silence that falls between the two of you this time is different. It's a cold silence. A loud silence.

Jay feels his walls coming back up around him––the ones you managed to get through––and all he wants to do is apologize but he's terrified. Terrified of seeing your reaction, terrified of losing you again. For the second time.

You tell yourself he doesn't mean it. You tell yourself that he's just enduring more pain that one should ever receive.

But you also tell yourself that this wouldn't be the first time Jay leaves you in the dust.

You tell yourself that you're foolish for ever believing a friendship, or more, could come out of this act at the end. That you're so naive for feeling those stupid, stupid butterflies you've started to notice in your stomach whenever you see, or even think of, him.

"Okay," you begin with a firm tone. You're hurt, but you refuse to show it. You won't let him hurt you for a second time. Not again.

"Just...find me when you need me. As your fake girlfriend or just...me. I'm still here for you," is the last thing you say before un-clicking your seatbelt and leaving his car, beginning your walk back to your dorm hall.

Jay is unsure about many things in life. He's unsure about what he wants to do in the future, he's unsure of where he's going to settle in life, heck, he's unsure about what to have for lunch tomorrow. But he's sure about one thing.

That he's wearing his heart on his sleeve right now, and it's all because of you.

That you've become this new lifeline and he has to choose between holding onto you or drowning.

When Jay wakes up the next morning, his first gut instinct is to get ready to pick you up for class. But today's different. Jay doesn't know where the two of you stand now, especially after last night.

Jay doesn't know how to deal with this combination of unknown emotions he's been feeling lately. They didn't come out of no where, by any means, he realizes. They've been slowly growing over the past month of seeing you so often––like a plant he's been watering overtime, not expecting it to bloom into a flower so suddenly––but he figured it was nothing more than just enjoying the company of a friend.

Until he realizes that the term friend just doesn't suite you anymore––not to him, at least. And that scares him. It scares him that you've made him genuinely smile more in this past month than he ever has in his 19 years of living. It scares him that when he's around you he can't comprehend his own thoughts, his feelings. It scares him that you make him vulnerable, that you've changed him. That you've managed to make the walls that he's spent so long building and polishing to crumble with a simple tap of your finger.

In a perfect world, Jay would have already told you all this––he would be unafraid of how you would react, unafraid of your rejection, unafraid of losing this growing relationship with you. But alas, we don't live in a perfect world. And so when Jay drives to class that day, he drives right past your dorm building.

"Where's Y/N?" is the first thing Jake questions when he enters Jay's car that morning, confused by your absence, having been used to you being in the front seat every morning when Jay goes to give Jake rides to class as well.

"I don't know," Jay mutters, unemotional eyes focused on the road in front of him, not interested in continuing a conversation that involves thinking about you.

Jake hesitates as curiosity gets the best of him. "Did you guys get into a fight or something?"

Jay's hands tighten around the steering wheel of his car. "Or something. Let's just leave it at that."

There are a few beats of silence before Jake speaks up again.

"Well, I guess this works out because I wanted to talk to you about something."

Jay continues to stare straight ahead of him, focusing on just trying to get by without mentally beating himself up at the simple thought of you.

The simple thought of you and your smile. Your witty remarks. Your stupid eye rolls. Your laughter. Your kindness. So much for not thinking about you.

"I'm calling it off," Jake's words catch Jay off guard.

"Huh? Calling what off?"

"The bet. I'm calling it off. I don't care about the textbook fees I'll have to pay next semester. Look, fight or not, you and Y/N are good for each other, everyone can see it. And I really don't want this to end up being one of those messed up teen TV shows where the girlfriend finds out the entire relationship was based off of a stupid game and then they break up and the boyfriend falls into eternal sadness and regret. And I don't wanna see you sad, dude. So yeah! Congrats," although he's admitting defeat, Jake's beaming widely, just content with the fact that his best friend has finally found happiness through the form of you. "You win."

But Jay feels like the opposite of a winner. Because even though his only intention coming into this was simply winning the bet, his life isn't as simple as it was a month ago. Because he discovered something much more valuable than some stupid textbook fees or five hundred dollars or getting his physics homework done for an entire semester.

Something he's scared he's already lost.

You.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next time you see Jay is at the same time and place as when he first ever appeared to pick you up––at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building home to your awfully long Capitalism in World History class. This time, however it's different.

Because this time, it's one month later, and Jay Park is no longer a forgotten side character in the story of your life. This time, you're frustrated because it's been three days since you've last heard from Jay. And because it's been three days since you've last heard from him, you can't focus on anything else, and because you can't focus on anything else, you're falling behind on every other aspect in your life. Jay's somehow managed to become the center of your life without even having to be present.

Well, up until now. Up until you go down the steps of your lecture hall's entrance and look up to be met with a figure leaning on a car you're far too familiar with. You freeze in your steps as you make eye contact with the boy you've been thinking about non-stop for the past month three days.

Your mind tells you to walk away, to just follow your flight instinct instead of fight, to just go back to your normal life. But here's the thing. Ever since Jay's made his way back to your life, it's been far from normal.

And if you're being honest, you had no interest in going back to your normal life. Normal's overrated anyways. You find your legs bringing yourself over to him, your heart leading the way.

"Hi," you simply say, planting yourself right in front of him.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?" You already know the answer, but you want to hear him say it.

"Waiting for you," Jay doesn't hesitate in answering you. This time will be different, he tells himself.

"I can walk myself home, thanks," you state, but your actions tell differently, as you make no sign of moving from your spot in front of him.

Jay's mind contemplates telling you everything. About how he regrets that friendship-breaking decision he made that one fateful day in the eighth grade, about his true feelings, about how he first suspected these feelings when he was 11 years old and saw you in your fancy get-up for the sixth grade dance but put it off as a little crush, and about how the same feelings grew into something so, so much more in the present. But seeing that putting all these thoughts into words would involve more than one functioning brain cell (which is all he's convinced he has in the moment, for the view of you staring up at him, looking like that, has his brain short-circuiting), he settles with:

"He called it off. It's over. The bet."

"Oh."

Silence.

Okay, Jay. This is your chance. Say it.

"Is that it?" You lift an eyebrow, awaiting for more explanation. When it doesn't come, you slightly nod and start backing away. "I'll see you around then."

Is that it? Do the two of you just go back to your respective lives now? How can Jay do that, when he doesn't even recall what his life was like before you entered it––and especially when he has absolutely no interest in going back to that life?

Fuck it.

"Y/N!" He stands up straight, a newfound confidence taking over. This time will be different, he tells himself. Because now, he knows what he wants. For sure.

You turn towards him, to see him already making his way towards you, stopping in his steps when he finds himself close enough to you that he can't concentrate anymore.

"I'm sorry for ditching you in the eighth grade. I'm sorry for ignoring you since then. I'm sorry for dragging you into this stupid mess and for pushing you away and I'm sorry for calling you a toy. Because it's far from truth. I like you. A lot. And––and I'm scared. I'm scared of what this means for us, because I just keep messing things up and all I know is that I don't wanna wake up tomorrow and realize you're not in my life anymore and––"

"Woah, woah, Jay. Slow down," you look up at him, the corners of your lips threatening to curve up into a smile. "You're an idiot, you know."

Jay's never really confessed his feelings to anyone before, per say, so he doesn't really know what to expect. But he's watched enough Netflix rom-coms in this lifetime (which is still not that many) to know that hearing the words "you're an idiot" isn't what you're supposed to hear after pouring your heart and soul out. Surely not, right?

"I––I'm not sure how to respond to that," he quietly says, searching your eyes for a sign, for anything. You giggle at his sudden shyness as you grab both his arms and look at him right in the eyes.

"It's okay. I get it, if anything, I'm also scared. But you somehow got me wrapped around your stupid finger, and I hate it," you smirk at him, your hands slowly making their way up his arms to circle around his neck.

Jay's hands naturally fall at your waist as he lets out a breathe he didn't even know he was holding as he returns your smirk. "Well, I could say the same about you. And I also hate it, for your information."

"Hmm, is that so? I guess it cancels out then, right?" You smile at him as he's pulling you in so close, your head turns cloudy.

Jay grins at you, his eyes holding so much joy and endearment as they quickly flicker down to your lips before returning to your own eyes. "I guess this only means one thing then."

"Mm, and what's that?"

And before Jay can answer––and because your life's been anything but normal lately––you make the first move this time, moving your head up to close the small gap between the two of you.

His arms instinctively tighten around you as you capture his lips with your very own, and Jay swears he's about to lift off into space right now. He's on cloud nine, and he makes no plans to touch the ground ever again.

The kiss quickly becomes fervent, all the pent-up tension that the two of you had for one another finally finding its way out, all the words that were previously left unsaid finally expressing themselves. You don't even care if you're being judged by the conservative faculty members of your school right now, or by the looks of fellow students walking past the two of you.

You try your best to keep yourself from smiling as he continues to press his lips against yours, his hand moving to hold your chin, guiding your mouth with his.

Before you find yourself getting carried away, you step back to take a breath, resting your forehead against his chest as his hands rest against your back. He smiles at the sound of you giggling against him.

Jay takes a step back to take one look at you and realizes, in this moment, that change can be good. And he's willing to undergo this change. As long as it's with you.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next morning, you bounce down the steps of your dorm building's entrance to meet the wide, bright smile of your ex-childhood-bestfriend-turned-fake-boyfriend-turned-real-boyfriend waiting for you in front of his car, small pastry bag in hand. You smile back at him.

Jay drives you to class that day.

And everyday after that.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ :

✰ let me know what you think! if u made it til the end, mwah :') <3

[tuanhood]

35,000 ft

pairing: mark tuan x reader

genre: smut, angst, some fluff?, exes to lovers

warnings: 18+, language, dirty talk, cheating, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected sex, public sex (mile high club ALERT)

word count: 9,800+

summary: two years have passed since you last saw your ex-boyfriend. when you’ve thought about running into him again, it certainly wasn’t at 35,000 ft and it certainly wasn’t like this. 

a/n: wow my longest one shot yet... UMMM it’s a little messy and all over the place but don’t hesitate to let me know what you think or if anyone wants to cry over the photos of Mark at home playing in the pool sMH. also i do not CONDONE cheating fyI 

part 2: 125 ft

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“Yes, yes, yes I’ll call you when I land…” You mumbled through the phone, half paying attention and half trying to decide which sandwich would best suit your needs. 

“Okay but seriously… call me. I hate it when you’re over there enough so not getting a call freaks me out even more.” 

You wanted to roll your eyes and gag, but you stopped yourself knowing that it wasn’t what a typical girlfriend would do when on the phone with her boyfriend. You two were supposed to still be in the honeymoon phase, not the “he gives me the ick” phase already. 

Then again, you had never even been in the “he gives me the ick” phase before. Yay for new experiences you guessed. 

“Brian, it’s so fine. It’s one of the safest cities in the world, I’ve been so many times I don’t even need a map to tell me where I’m going.” 

“I hope you still do though… Use a map. I don’t want you to get lost and I know that’s easy to do in those modern, technologically advanced smart cities.”

Being with Brian sometimes felt like there wasn’t even a fourth wave of feminism. 

You weren’t sure why you were sticking around. Part of you felt pressured because you hadn’t had any actual relationships in… well awhile and your mom was constantly asking when you were finally going to get a ring on your finger and give her a grandchild. 

Judging by all the outside influences that were currently controlling your life, it felt like maybe there isn’t a fourth wave of feminism. You were setting everyone back just based on your own sad life. Maybe it was best to just dump Brian and go back to your hook up days, the year and a half before him that was just endless amounts of sex with random guys trying to fix a piece of you that would never be put back together. 

“Y/n? Are you still there?” 

“Yup, still here Brian.” 

Even after being together for almost 6 months you couldn’t bring it in you to call him something besides his name. It was always Brian this, Brian that. Calling him a pet name made you cringe. 

Yeah… Maybe it was definitely time to break up with him. 

“Listen… I should go. I want to get something to eat before they start boarding since it’s a long one and all.” 

But you’ll just do it later. 

“Okay… sounds good. Get a small sandwich or something so you’ll feel full enough before they actually feed you on the plane.” 

Suddenly you didn’t want a sandwich. 

“Got it… Bye.” 

“Love you, bye.” 

You hear a noise letting you know the call has been disconnected and drop your hand, gripping the device at your side. 

That was another thing. Brian had told you only 3 months of dating that he loved you – to which you had responded with “oh wow… that’s- that’s… so nice of you.” Being the nice guy, he was completely fine with you not saying it back, because he felt so sure that one day you would. He understood that you had issues with a past relationship that you weren’t quite ready to let go of yet, therefore your heart wasn’t completely available. He felt with time you would give in and love him too. 

As of now you weren’t too sure… Especially if you did end up breaking up with him. At a later date and time of course. Maybe when you came back? 

Your mind went blank as you looked at the shelves of the poorly made airport food in front of you. The sandwiches that had once looked good and enticing suddenly lost their luster and the last thing you wanted to do was waste money on one. Sighing, you glanced back down at the phone in your hand. The object felt more like a heavy weight and a burden rather than just a phone. It wasn’t due to work or family; it was just all because of Brian. 

You’re startled when your phone comes to life once again under your gaze, buzzing softly. 

Brian. Remember don’t forget to text me when you board! 

It was like he had a sixth sense for whenever you were thinking of him. And to be honest it wasn’t that often. 

A couple of weeks ago you were out to lunch with a few friends from college and when updating those who you hadn’t seen in a while on the goings-on of your life, you had at first redacted the fact that you had a boyfriend completely. 

“Anyone romantic in your life?” Your friend Alice had asked you. 

Without thinking you had begun telling her how he was in game design and was from LA just like you, but soon cut yourself off before you could talk about how cute his dog was. That’s when you realized you weren’t talking about Brian. Brian was in fucking accounting, not game design and was 100% allergic to any kind of animal. When your friend asked about your love life, you had him in mind and not Brian even though so much time had gone by.

You were starting to believe that you weren’t ready for a relationship at all.

Sighing, you figured that maybe chips would be a better and less smelly option for the plane ride. Knowing yourself you would probably dig into them within the first thirty minutes of the thirteen-hour trip. 

You whip around to find wherever your newly desired snack choice could be when you catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of your eye. The goosebumps that make their way to the surface of your skin and the hair on the back of your neck standing up so eagerly causes your entire body to freeze with fear. There was only one person who made you feel this way, one person who made your blood run cold. The person you had just indirectly been thinking of.

No, no it couldn’t be. 

You’re afraid to turn around, because more than anything you don’t want to be right. If you felt stressed thinking about Brian, you were going to have a panic attack from seeing him. Pivoting yourself to the left, you bite your lip anxiously unsure of how you’re supposed to react if you are right. Taking in the sight behind you, you’re met with a father and daughter selecting candy from the shelves of the store. The individual causing your anxiety nowhere in sight. Your entire body relaxes. 

The last thing you wanted was a fiasco in the international terminal at LAX. It certainly wouldn’t do you, your family and your company any good to make headlines. It especially wouldn’t have made Brian happy; he probably would have called you a hundred times in worry. 

“I can’t fucking believe it.” 

And just like that you’re snapped out of your daze, your false security vanished, goosebumps emerging once again. This time there were no questions. That voice. It was him. 

Turning back around you find yourself under the gaze of your ex-boyfriend. Your ex-boyfriend who you haven’t seen in over two years. 

You wish you could say that time hadn’t been good to Mark, but that would be a bold-faced lie. He had somehow become even more attractive in the last two years and the only real thing that seemed different about him was his hair color. The last time you had seen him he had been blonde, but now he had opted for a dark brown color. As much as you hated thinking it, it definitely suited him.

The last two years felt like a long blur of trying to forget him and everything or everyone associated with him. Those were of course difficult things to do, many of the people in your shared three-year life with Mark becoming some of your closest allies and the fact that Mark wasn’t an easy person to erase. Since the two of you met – even when you were just friends – you had a magnetic like pull to one another that couldn’t just be forgotten and dismissed. You were even feeling it right now after everything. 

He’s wearing a tight smile, almost as if he too can’t believe you’re standing here in front of him. It was as though you were the one inconveniencing him, when he had been the one to even say something to you. If you had seen him first, you would have turned around and ran the other way pretending like it never happened. For some reason he was willing to acknowledge you. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” his tight smile soon fades away and his voice is smooth as ice, a nonchalance to it that makes you question whether he even cares about this run in.

“Me either. Good to see you… Now if you’ll excuse me…” You replied pushing past him to continue your previous task of looking for chips. Much to your dislike, he follows you as you embark on one of the aisles, your eyes scanning the items placed out oh so carefully. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to?” 

The last you had heard of Mark was that he had moved to Beijing after being given a position at a video game development company. At first you had been surprised at Mark taking a job overseas, he had always expressed to you how even over his own dead body he would never leave LA, but ultimately him in China relieved you. No longer did you have to avoid your favorite spots in the city for boba or the park bench where you got most of you best thinking done. You didn’t even have to be worried about getting invited to a party or dinner with a friend, wondering if Mark was going to show up. With Mark gone you could freely have your life back and not walk around with the fear of running into him. But you guessed that it could only have lasted so long before fate – as cruel as she was – brought you two together again. 

“No that’s okay. I’m good,” you go down another aisle, he still follows suit.

Where were those damn chips? 

“If you’re looking for the chips, they’re over there,” he said pointing behind you to the back wall in a location that you should have noticed sooner, “and if you want your favorite brand of salt & vinegar chips, they’re on the bottom shelf.”

Your stomach churned, he thought after all this time he would be able to still just know you like the back of his hand? What snack you’re looking for? What chips you like? No way. 

Wordlessly you march to the back and stare at the shelves in front of you. You felt your hand dangerously moving forward to the bottom to grab the salt & vinegar chips Mark mentioned, but you control yourself and pull back not wanting to give him the satisfaction. Instead you opt for plainly salted kettle chips. 

“Thanks… you’ve been a big help. See you never,” you scoffed turning around to face him and pushing past him to pay for your item, leaving Mark in the dust behind you. 

“What you’re not going to even pretend that it’s nice to see me?” 

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” you practically spat at him, the father and daughter from earlier staring at the two you, the father particularly appalled for your colorful choice of language. 

Mark’s silent and you turn back to the self-checkout to scan your chips, hopeful to not think about your ex-boyfriend for the next thirteen hours. He watches you carefully as you take out your wallet to pay and tap your card against the reader. It isn’t difficult for him to sense the tension in your body, he can see it just from you performing the simple and mundane task of paying. The worst part is that he knows he’s the cause. 

Grabbing your snack, you exit the small store and Mark follows you, grabbing your wrist, he tries again, “you could say something nice? Like you care? It’s been two years y/n… Can’t we just be normal people with each other?” 

At this you feel something in you snap, “I don’t care how much time has fucking passed Mark… I’m never going to get over you just completely throwing our relationship out the window. I can’t believe I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you… I was so fucking dumb to think you cared about me for even one minute. So, to answer your question… no we can’t just be normal people with each other. We were never normal people with each other to begin with.” 

The two of you had started off as friends, just friends. It was something new for Mark, being just friends with a girl and not having sex attached. Many people in your life warned you not to get close to him, that he was just a fuckboy who didn’t care about the emotional – it was only the physical with him. Ultimately you ignored him, becoming his friend and finding that you two just worked together. First you worked together as friends and soon you fell under his Mark Tuan spell, working together as lovers. 

Throughout your entire relationship you did your best to trust Mark, which you accomplished for the most part, but in the back of your head you would constantly hear the voices of everyone around you. You would hear the stories of the girls he had before you and how terribly he treated them, but you ignored it all. After a while you started to think of it all a little less, people even congratulating you on lasting so long with Mark – something that tended to annoy you. You knew that they didn’t see the Mark that you knew, the Mark that wanted to be something else for you, the best for you. Then after three years together, almost a month after your anniversary, you found out he had been with someone else. 

The old Mark had perhaps never truly vanished, but was just immensely good at hiding. 

Now here you were in front of him and you couldn’t tell who this Mark was. 

Mark scoffed, “you haven’t changed at all…” Now he was mad at you? “It’s probably better we just say goodbye here.” 

You rolled your eyes, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole time.” 

He wanted to say more, but looking at how annoyed you were at merely being close to him, he let it go. It was hard for him to understand how he was feeling. He longed for you, but he also felt a lot of anger towards you that he wasn’t sure how to control. 

Both of you stare at one another, neither of you wanting to be the first one to walk off. Without a word, you both collect yourselves and assumedly prepare to embark on your respective gates. Mark gives you a final glance with his fists now clenched in frustration and turns to walk toward his flight. 

You realize he’s going the same direction as you and you follow awkwardly behind. After a moment – as if he can sense you’re still there – he turns around and scowls at you. 

“Why are you following me?” 

You snorted, the actual audacity of Mark Tuan. This is an airport for fuckssake, you can’t control where your flight is, “as if I would ever follow you! I’m going to my gate! I think the better question is why are you following me?”

“I’m going to my gate!” 

“Okay!” You yell a little too loud, “Okay!” he repeated, matching your volume. You can sense that people are starting to stare at the two of you for your truly unprompted yelling. 

Mark looks back at you once again, rolling his eyes. The two of you may have gates in the same area, but you can’t stand to look at him any longer – much less his back which you couldn’t help but notice has become much broader. Not that you would admit it to him… or anyone. 

You pick up your pace, passing Mark and causing him to trail behind. You expect him to say some snarky remark or rude comment when you go in front of him, but instead all you hear is an annoyed groan. It’s when you finally reach your gate and sit down in the waiting area that you feel Mark is no longer right behind you, but instead frozen in the main concourse, in front of the space you’re seated in. He feels his mouth go dry and he wants to scream. All he wants is to just be rid of you, to not be forced to think of you when you’re right in front of him. He wanted to wipe his brain clean. 

It suddenly dawns you on the reason why Mark is frozen as if he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing. You stand up abruptly, “this can’t be happening.” 

He snaps out of his trance with your words and comes closer to the gate, approaching where you’re seated. You’re just about to wave your hands, warning him not to come any closer when he huffs and sits down on a chair only few away from your own. 

“You’re going to Seoul?” He says it as if you being allowed in the Korean peninsula is a disgusting idea. 

“I’ve been traveling between LA and Seoul every 2 months for the last year and a half, so yes I am. Aren’t you supposed to be going to Beijing or something?”

He smirked, “I thought you didn’t care about what I was up to?” 

“I only care if it assures that you’re as far away from me as humanely possible.”

Your ex looks at his watch and at the screen of the gate alerting passengers that boarding would begin in a few minutes, “well since you’re so curious. I didn’t like Beijing, so I found a job in Seoul that I like much better. 

“Didn’t want to come back to LA?” 

He looks back to you and you almost wish he hadn’t, “there’s not really a lot left in LA for me anymore.” 

Both of you stare at one another for a moment, and you feel your stomach flip. Does he mean what I think he means? Your eyes drift down to your lap and you feel yourself pulling out your phone, not needing any more Mark. 

You manage to pass 10 minutes this way, aimlessly refreshing your emails and ignoring Brian’s latest text asking if you’ve boarded yet. Being so engrossed in your phone, you didn’t even notice Mark’s constant glances up at you, wondering what you were looking at or who you were talking to. 

There it is again, he thought to himself, Do I care? Do I not care? What the fuck, make up your mind dude. 

When the call for First-Class boarding comes to your dismay, both you and Mark stand up. You try to just tell yourself that it’s not important, you would probably both be seated aisles apart, not having to spend any more unwarranted time together. 

Even when you’re finally on the plane and find yourself behind him once again in the aisle, you tell yourself that this will be the last moment you have to see Mark Tuan. 

“Here’s your seat sir, can I get you any drinks or snacks before take-off?” the flight attendant asked Mark when she shows him his seat. He gives this shit eating grin that makes you want to slap it off his face, you couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of you. What? Did he think he was going to get to fuck the flight attendant as an extra First-Class amenity? 

“Ah no thank you, I’m fine for now, but I’ll let you know if anything changes,” you feel awkward standing in the aisle watching this unfold, especially since you can see the attendant is giving in, blush creeping up on her face from Mark’s smooth gaze. You clear your throat, reminding her that you too are there and she quickly turns to you, an apologetic look on her face. 

“And here's your seat Miss,” she graciously steps back to let you slide into your seat and you don’t move.

This had to be a joke. 

You looked from your seat, to Mark’s and then to the flight attendant. 

“I can’t sit here... I’m sorry but there has to be another seat available.” 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but there are no other openings in First Class. We only have seats available back in economy.” 

This couldn’t be happening. You had been saving all of your miles for a First-Class upgrade for forever, there was no way you were going to give it up, “Mark move to coach.” 

“Huh? Are you joking? My company paid for this; I’m not moving back there! You move!” 

How were you supposed to sit in front of Mark Tuan for the next thirteen hours? The man who had loved you so deeply, but also caused you the most pain. 

Just as people had stared at the two of you in the terminal, the other passengers in your surrounding area were also beginning to look. Maybe if the two of you got into one of your notorious screaming matches, someone would feel bad enough and offer to trade. You couldn’t do that to someone, you wouldn’t wish being stuck next to Mark Tuan on a long-haul flight on your worst enemy. Well… Mark was your worst enemy. 

Smiling, you turn back to the flight attendant, “It’s fine… I’ll just stay here. Thank you though.” She gives you a smile, but you can sense some annoyance behind her eyes. You can’t blame her. 

Mark looks at you wide eyed, previously caught up in organizing his space, but snapping out his activities when he hears your dismissal about moving seats, “uh… what are you doing? Are you seriously going to sit here?” 

“Yes Mark. Unlike you, I paid for my seat so I’m not moving anywhere.” 

He scoffed, “Fine.” 

“Fine!” 

-- 

hour one 

“Ma’am could you tell the gentleman in 3A to stop chewing so loudly?” You asked the flight attendant, putting on the sweetest voice possible. Mark was driving you up the wall and you were only an hour into the flight. 

It was almost as though you could hear every single cough, every shifting in his seat and it was all driving you up the wall. Just knowing he was there irked you.

The flight attendant looks clueless and as she opens her mouth slowly, unsure of how to respond. You hear Mark’s low voice grumble from behind you, also addressing the attendant, “uh ma’am can you tell the lady in 2A to mind her own business, pop a xanny and just go to sleep?” 

She clearly wasn’t expecting to deal with any difficult passengers this early on in a thirteen-hour flight. For her sake you wish you could deal with Mark and be more civil, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. 

hour three 

“Y/n…” 

Be strong, you tell yourself, don’t look back, you can get through this.  

“Y/n?” 

It’s probably not important… He just wants to annoy you. 

“Y/n!” 

Screw being strong. 

“What the fuck do you want?” Being in semi-pods in First-Class it was difficult to just whip around and face Mark, to show him your annoyance under the lights beginning to dim. 

“Do you have any extra AirPods?” 

“Why the fuck would I just carry around extra Airpods around with me? Are you an idiot?” You sneered. 

“Jesus Christ I was just asking. You don’t have to be so vicious. Maybe someone should fuck the tension out of you,” he said, mumbling the last part. He says it so quietly and so half assed that you almost think that you misheard him. 

“Choke on a dick Mark,” you replied quietly, not wanting the other passengers to hear or disturb the few who had already drifted asleep. 

He scoffed, “maybe you should be.” 

You were wrong, the Mark that you had reunited with was just the same old fuckboy Mark who didn’t give a fuck about anyone. 

Placing your AirPods in your ears, you close your eyes and ignore the rest of Mark’s efforts to speak to you, just wanting nothing more than to fall asleep and wake up in your hotel room in Seoul. 

hour seven 

You pop your headphones out of your ears in frustration, feeling as though you hadn’t managed to get any real sleep during the hours that had passed. You look behind you to Mark’s seat, and feel relieved to see his eyes closed and a slow, shallow breath coming from his mouth. 

It felt weird to gaze at Mark and know you were no longer apart of his life. Sure, it had been two years, but you hadn’t seen  him or had to deal with the reality that there was now a separate you and a separate Mark. Two entities that had nothing to do with one another anymore. Although sometimes it felt like you were still anchored to him. 

Suddenly he shifted over onto his side, mumbling incoherent words in his sleep. The only thing you could make out was your own name. It made you feel uncomfortable, not because he was clearly dreaming about you, but you felt as though you were invading his private space, infiltrating an intimate moment. 

“y/n… please…” he mumbled. 

You felt like you’d heard enough. The flight was making you restless and you weren’t sure what you would do if you kept listening to Mark’s breathless calls for you. Standing up, you decide it’s probably best now to stretch and go to the bathroom, before you embark on your further slumber. 

When you finish up in the bathroom, you almost have a heart attack pulling back the door to be met with Mark’s tall figure.

“Oh my god you scared me,” you said placing your hand on your chest. You shake your head, stepping out of the bathroom with the door closing firmly behind you. Attempting to go back to your seat, you position yourself to move past him, but he moves along with you to keep you from leaving.

“What are you doing?” 

Mark doesn’t know what’s taken over him, he had woken up in a frenzy, his dreams not doing anything to help his mental state. He hadn’t dreamt about you in months, but of course as soon as you’re back in his life he has to have fantasies of you wrapped around him once again. It was torturous, especially with you only a few feet away from him. He dreamed about having you every way and any way, feeling like he was going crazy. When he saw you missing from your seat, he immediately got up almost as if in a sleep induced haze unable to control his actions.

"When are you going to stop pretending that you don’t want to be under me again?” he purred.

Your blood goes cold. Was he drunk? His words make you nervous, scared that someone could hear, but looking around the dark cabin it seemed as though everyone in First-Class was fast asleep. 

“Mark…” you begin, your tone clearly frustrated, but also weakening a bit, clearly evident that his words are affecting you. It had been so long since someone talked to you like this, and you felt that the hours you had spent on the plane already altering your sanity.

“You were always such a good girl for me, what changed? When did you become so stubborn? What happened to my girl who was always so willing and sweet?” 

“I was screwed over by an asshole, that’s what happened,” you mumbled trying to avert his gaze and prayed that maybe if you weren’t to look at him you could pretend that there wasn’t a part of you hanging on his every word. 

“That was in the past. I’ve changed now… But I’m still your boy. Even after two fucking years, I’m still yours.” 

You want to fight with him, say that if he was always your boy and still is then he would have never cheated on you. He would have never spent a night with someone else.  

“Let me fuck the anger out of you.” 

“What?” Okay he had to be drunk.

“You and I have too much sexual tension, and we’re both angry so let’s just fuck to relieve the tension.” 

“You’ve said some pretty fucking dumb things before, but this is… this is…” you drift unsure of what exactly you think it is. 

“A good idea?” 

“Mark I’m not having sex with you in an airplane bathroom.” 

“What? Like that’s bothered you before?” 

When you were with Mark, the two of you would have sex in the riskiest places, so you weren’t a stranger to the kind of sex where you could be caught at any moment, but you had never joined the mile-high club before. 

“We’re not together. I hate you and you hate me… for some reason.” You never understood why exactly Mark had been mad at you all of these years and acted as though you were the devil himself when he had been the one that ruined the two of you. Maybe it was because you hadn’t given him a second chance? Maybe it was from the influence of you hating him? Or maybe it was because you had never been enough for him, otherwise what would have caused him to spend the night with another woman? 

Mark clicked his tongue and it causes you to bring your attention to his mouth. It almost makes you lose focus completely. “So what if we’re not together anymore? Does that matter?” 

Does that matter? 

His words make you remember something. Something very important. 

Brian. 

“Yes, it matters. I-I have a boyfriend,” for some reason the word “boyfriend” seems to be hard to get out. It was always weird to associate Brian as your boyfriend or your “partner,” but saying it to Mark felt like the weight of a ton of bricks. 

In the dark lighting of the cabin you can just make out the frown that spreads across Mark’s face. Just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone and the cocky façade is back. 

“And that’s a problem?” your ex asked. 

As you’re about to protest and tell him that commitment in relationships is important to you, Mark reaches his hand out to rest on your bare shoulder, running it softly up and down your arms in a soothing pattern. It was a common gesture between the two of you, something Mark would constantly do whenever you were telling a story or the times you would fall asleep at night. It puts you at ease and you feel yourself close your eyes at his touch. 

Mark would be lying if he said the word “boyfriend” coming out of your mouth didn’t disappoint him. In fact, he felt a similar pain to the one he felt two years ago when you had broken up with him. Mark wasn’t daft, he knew what you thought of him – a player, a fuckboy and someone who never cared about you in the first place. It hurt him to know that you were just like everyone else around him who had a preconceived notion of who he was or what he did. At one point in time he thought you were different. 

But now looking at you and having you back in his life – even for only a thirteen-hour plane ride, he just wanted you back in his arms, back under his touch. He knew he should have felt guilty for not giving one fuck about this “boyfriend” you had acquired at some point during your two years apart, but he didn’t care. If he was going to have to be that cocky fuckboy who paid no mind to any consequences to get you, then so be it. 

“Come on… it’s been two years… let me feel that pussy that I’ve missed so so much,” he whispered seductively against the shell of your ear, “let me fuck into it so good, because I know no one’s filled it up so well since me. Especially not that boyfriend.” 

His words cause you to moan involuntarily and the noise awakens both you and him. You immediately shoot your hand up to cover your mouth, unsure of what’s getting into you. You were supposed to hate Mark, you had spent the last two years training yourself to hate him just in case a moment like this were ever to arise. But maybe that was an easier thing to imagine when you hadn’t seen him, because now with his hands gently caressing you and his request to be inside of you once again, you feel anything but hate. You feel want.

“Fuck Mark…” 

“Just say the word baby, and you have me,” he whispered, delicately placing an open mouth kiss on your wrist, slowly continuing up your arm. 

What were the pros and cons of this? If you were in any other difficult situation you would take a pause and list all of the good and bad things that could come from this. The big con was Brian… Even if you had been feeling strange about where your relationship with him was going and found him to be suffocating, you couldn’t do to him what Mark had done to you. Another negative factor emerged in your mind… you didn’t want to be put under Mark’s spell again, you couldn’t. Even being this close to him made you feel things that you had been trying to forget for two years, sleeping with him after all this time would only make it worse. That worried you. But judging on the primal way your body was reacting to Mark – your wet core being a clear sign – you knew this wasn’t going to be a logical decision where the cons outweigh the pros. 

“I-” you’re about to do it, you’re about to gain enough strength to tell him you don’t want him anymore, but when he pushes your hair away from where it lays on your shoulder and attaches his lips to the side of your neck, any willpower you had vanishing. His gentle sucking on the sweet spot of your neck that he knows oh too well causes you to let out a whimper and he smiles against your skin, knowing he has you. 

“Do it,” you mumbled, eyes still closed. 

Mark brings his lips back to your ear, “do what baby?” His cocky tone makes you want to roll you eyes. He had always done this – torture you until you were begging to feel his touch. 

You open your eyes and give yourself a moment to readjust to the dark lighting of the plane and focus on Mark’s face in the small space in front of the bathroom. You want to see his gaze when you make your non-logical decision.

“Fuck me.” 

The corner of his mouth turns upwards as he brings his arm forward and behind you to pull open the bathroom door, pushing you backwards into the cramped space. 

It’s when he’s pressed up against you and locks the door behind him that the reality of what you’re doing sets in. Just as you feel yourself get used to the harsh lighting, you freeze at Mark’s intense stare. 

“What are you looking at?” You asked. 

He smiled and glanced down at the floor shyly, then back up at you, “You.” 

For the first time since seeing him again at the airport store you feel those feelings in your stomach. No hate, no indifference and no bitterness towards Mark - not even just lust. Instead you felt a warmth for him that reminded you of the good days, not the bad ones. The swell in your heart worried you and you didn’t want to feel or dwell on it so you lean forward and kiss him.

Mark’s lips on yours doesn’t do anything to eliminate the softness you felt for him moments before, if anything it only intensifies it. It feels as though no time has passed for the two of you and the missing piece of the puzzle that you had been searching for has finally found its way back to you. 

A low growl comes from Mark’s throat and it sends your hands to find shelter in his hair. When you were together you had always had a weird thing for Mark’s hair. You loved running your fingers through it, gently massaging his scalp and tugging at the roots. Mark would always joke that you would probably break up with him if he ever shaved his head, which you didn’t exactly argue with. And now it just felt so good to have your hands where they belong. It’s almost as though Mark’s read your mind and he smiles against you lips when he feels your hands, “pull as hard as you want.” 

You feel his tongue at the seam of your lips, urging itself through to deepen the kiss and you tell yourself that it’s not too late, this can be the moment that you opt out for what a mistake this would be. With his hands drifting down from your hips to your ass, you feel yourself part your mouth voluntarily, realizing that you don’t want to stop this. You want to make this mistake; you want nothing more than to let him feel you and taste you even more. 

“I want to taste you so bad,” Mark whispered against your lips, “see if you taste as good as I remember.” 

You want that more than anything. Mark had always been so good with his tongue and just thinking about the hours he had spent between your thighs in the past made you even wetter than when you were having sex with Brian. Judging however, on the space you were both in, you didn’t know if it was physically possible. He can sense your hesitancy by the way your lips begin to still against his. 

He breaks apart from you and gently rubs his thumb along your jawline and lips, “don’t think too much.” In an instant Mark’s crouched down in the very small space in the bathroom and you immediately find yourself worried about his comfort level, “are you sure you’re okay?” 

He looked up at you, a dark look in his eyes and waved you off, “don’t worry about me babe, I’m about to have the best meal of my life.” At the end of his sentence he reaches up to the hem of your leggings and pulls them, along with your panties down in one sweep, pushing them aside. You’re almost surprised at his loftiness, but you remind yourself that it’s Mark. He moves a hand around to the back of your knee, hoisting one of your legs up onto the closed toilet seat, pushing the rest of your body up against the small sink counter. Although the space was already limited as it was, the position brought your core closer to his face and as you looked down to see the way his tongue stroked across his lips, you felt yourself already get lightheaded. 

He began with leaving open mouth kisses along the inside of your lifted thigh and another on the top of your pubic mound. It was enough to make you feel shaky, as though the one leg that was supporting your weight would give out at any moment. You found yourself unfazed, you knew Mark would be there to catch you if you fell. 

Mark leaned in further, his tongue delving between you folds to gather up as much of your wetness as he could, giving you a noisy taste that had him groaning, head pulling back and licking his lips after his first taste in two years.

“You taste even better than I remember, how the fuck could you get sweeter? I don’t even want to go back to my seat after tasting you, I could sit in this bathroom with my mouth on you till the end of the flight.” 

You found yourself wanting nothing more than to be stuck in this crammed bathroom with Mark for as long as you both could get away with. The person who was contemplating whether or not this was a bad idea didn’t even exist to you anymore. One lap of his tongue on you and you were reminded of all the ways he could make you fall apart. 

He tongued your clit slowly at first, every stroke almost teasing – as if he was making up for the years you two spent a part. His tongue would slip lower, working its way along your gushing entrance to remind you how much he relished your flavor before returning to your clit, the wet sounds of Mark’s sucking not even embarrassing to you. It was when Mark began to groan against you and swirl his tongue and suck that you felt your hands go back to his hair, roughly pulling him closer. 

“Mark, I-I can’t… I’m gonna – fuck,” you moaned out unable to form a functional and coherent thought. As you feel your orgasm on the horizon and just around the corner, you tug at Mark’s roots further, which encourages him to pick up the pace of his tongue, wanting you to cum on his face just like you had many times before. He wanted to drive you to the brink of pleasure, but he also wanted to prove to himself that he could still bring you to the edge with just his tongue.

Any delicacy he had been exhibiting before is completely gone, the way he laps at your clit and swirls his tongue around your sensitive bundle of nerves causes your chest to heave and sweat on your brow. You’re so caught up in Mark that you barely notice your foot beginning to slip from its security on the toilet. Mark swiftly acknowledges your pending loss of balance and tugs the leg up onto his shoulder, not removing himself from you for even a moment. 

You could feel yourself twitch and the arching of your hips towards his face, “come on baby I know how close you are, I need you to cum for me. Cum for me like all the times before, all over my face. I want it so bad.” 

Mark’s muffled words against you and the final groans he emits from how much he loves your taste is the last straw as you finally let go and the waves of release crash over you. He doesn’t give way as you buck yourself further into him one final time, his back practically hitting the wall of the bathroom. Your body comes down from your climax and you look to see Mark gratefully clean up the release he caused. When he takes his mouth away, you feel your core wavering against the emptiness and loss of warmth it had felt, almost as though it wanted Mark to be a permanent attachment to you. You’re breathless, head falling back to the mirror behind you as Mark stands up, wiping the back of his mouth and jawline which had become messy and shiny with your juices. 

“I knew you were still my little slut,” he pushes the hair that had fallen in front of your face behind you, “letting me have you in a fucking bathroom at 35,000 feet. How else will you let me have you?” He asked attaching his lips back to that spot on your neck. 

It dawns on you that there’s no winning. You once again are completely under the spell and at the mercy of Mark Tuan, willing to let him do whatever he wants to you. “M-Mark whatever you want.�� At your response he simply smirked, quickly pulling his joggers and boxers down, his painfully hard cock slapping against his lower stomach. 

“Fuck I’ve been waiting so long to have you around me again. I never thought I would, and I’m going to make every second count.” 

He positions himself in between your legs, gripping your hips and pauses for a moment, clearly contemplating something. Mark hadn’t planned on having sex on the plane, nor did he plan on even seeing you again. 

“Mark if it’s about the condom, it’s fine… I don’t care, I’m still on the pill and I-I trust you.” 

At your trust in him, something he had so deeply been wanting all these years, he doesn’t hesitant another moment at placing himself at your entrance. His teasingly slow rubbing against your slit causes you to let out almost a growl at how much you needed him to be inside of you.

“How much do you want it y/n?” 

“So bad.” 

He pushes into you suddenly, “you’re still my cockslut, huh?” The feeling is too good and too great to answer him, but he’s not satisfied with your nonresponse.

“Answer me.” He sunk himself inside of you further and you do your best to let out the smallest and most inaudible “yes” you’ve ever heard, which thankfully seems to be enough for him. 

“God,” he groaned, “you’re still so tight.” He looks down at the space where your bodies meet, fixating his gaze at the visual of his cock slipping inside your sensitive and swollen folds. Mark waited for a moment for your pussy to get used to having him inside you again, to get reintroduced to his length and girth which it had been so accustomed to in the past. Despite the time that had passed, you felt no discomfort except for the mental discomfort in your head that just wanted him to fuck into you quickly and harshly. 

“Taking me so well, squeezing every inch of me. This pussy knows who it belongs to, who it deserves to be fucked by.” 

“M-Mark,” a final moan of his name is all it takes for him to begin his first real thrust into you, pulling himself out almost entirely. You feel so sensitive and overworked from your earlier orgasm that you aren’t sure how long you can last with the way your walls are clenching around Mark. 

His pace soon became brutal and you’re thankful the loud sound of the engine could cover up the whimpers coming from your mouth and the sounds of skin slapping against skin. Mark’s fingers press into your hips so firmly that you know there will be bruises that you’ll have to explain later, but for now the only thing you can focus on is how full Mark is making you feel. He removes his hand from your side and brings it down between the two of you, fixating on your clit, rubbing until it ached. It caused your body to clench on him further, the continual touch and his fucking into you making you roll your eyes into the back of your head. 

Mark groaned at how snug you felt and how deep you were taking him, his head falling into the crook of your neck and against the bathroom mirror, “whose are you?” 

You know what he wants you to say, but you don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, even in the heat of the moment. It could lead to misunderstandings and a more complex outcome than just that of having sex with him in a fucking airplane bathroom. 

“Whose are you?” He repeated, this time a little bit softer and removing his head from your shoulder to look at you with worrisome eyes. Mark knows that if you say you’re his it’d most likely be untrue, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to hear it one more time, even if it’s a complete and utter lie. He wants to know he has you, even if it’s for this one moment. 

“Yours, I’m all yours,” you breathe out. It comes out on its own, without any time for you to process or comprehend what you’re saying. It surprises you so much that you aren’t even sure if it’s a lie or not. 

That’s all he needed and he thrusts into you even harder, hitting the spot inside of you that makes you want to completely fall apart and combust. You’re too caught up in the pleasure of him ramming into you that you don’t even feel the pain that comes with your backside being continually pushed into small counter of the sink. 

“Cum for me baby, I’m close and I need us to do this together. It’s all I want,” Mark said. His tone perplexes you. It’s forceful and authoritative something that you were no stranger to when it came to sex with Mark, but there was a clear tenderness to it that had you second guessing everything. Maybe this wasn’t just sex. 

It’s one more strum of his cock against your g-spot and the pinching of your clit with his thumb and index finger that has you climaxing around him. The almost violent pulse from your pussy around him due to your orgasm has Mark following close behind, spilling himself deep inside of you. The ecstasy coursing through you causes your entire body to shake and twitch, wanting to collapse completely onto the bathroom floor. You fall against Mark’s body and in his own exhausted state he holds you close, protectively wrapping his arms around you making you feel secure. 

You should want to get out of the situation immediately as a one-time thing, but somehow you can’t bring it in you to remove yourself from his grasp. You felt at home with Mark’s arms around you and him still inside of you. It was a comfort a sense of normalcy you hadn’t felt with anyone since Mark. He softly strokes your hair, placing gentle kisses on the top of your head remembering how much you liked it after a tiring session of sex.

It feels as though no time has passed, but soon you find yourself out of Mark’s hold. He removes his now soft cock from you and you can feel yours and his cum leaking from your core, down to your thighs. It’s almost as though this movement has finally woken you up. You delicately collapse onto the toilet, making sure to take extra care with your now jelly-like legs. With your head in your hands in disbelief at the actions you had just willingly followed through on, Mark stares at you. 

“Fuck… I’m so mad at myself.”

With the small amount of space, he has, Mark shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “why? That was so fucking great.” 

You looked up at him in a scolding manner, he still had no perception of reality, but apparently now you were one and the same. “Because now I did the same thing to Brian that you did to me.”

There’s a pause and Mark avoids all eye contact with you. He had imagined this talk so many times – the talk the two of you never got to have and he really didn’t want it to be here, like this. But by some strike of luck, fate had brought you back to him, even for a short period of time and he may never get the opportunity to come clean again. 

Choosing to continue to avert your gaze, Mark sighs deeply and busies himself with pulling up his joggers. 

“I didn’t cheat on you.”  

You feel like ice and your whole body goes numb, “W-what?” 

He sighs again, looking down, “I never cheated on you.” 

You think there’s no way you could have heard him correctly. Your entire break up, the reason you ended your passionate love story with the one person you saw a future with came from his cheating. It couldn’t be a lie… Could it? 

One thing was for certain, you knew Mark so well and judging by the fidgeting and fiddling with his fingers you can tell you still do. And he was telling the truth. Your stomach flipped. 

“Then why did you let me believe that you did?”

“You were the only person in my life who didn’t believe all those stupid rumors about me, the only person who didn’t believe I was a fuckboy like everyone thought… but then the moment someone tells you they think they saw me with someone, you pack your bags. I figured you wouldn’t believe me, just like everyone else.”

It’s ridiculous. The words coming out of his mouth are ridiculous, but part of you understands what he’s saying. Maybe you had been too quick to judge, too quick to believe everyone else’s preconceived notions regarding your own boyfriend, but what were you supposed to do when he didn’t even defend himself? 

“You know… even after all this time, I still don’t know why I hated you. I really don’t know if it was because I thought you cheated or because you never went after me when I left.” 

Mark’s silent, and the weight of the situation continues to hit the two of you like a bus. Part of you feels betrayed by him. More betrayal then when you first heard the rumors. The two of you could have been together this whole time, saved each other from years of pain, sorrow and longing, but instead it’s almost as though he forced it upon you both.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Jesus fuck Mark we’re not Marianne and Connell from Normal People, we can talk to each other.” 

He furrowed his eyebrows, “Who?” 

“I’ve been watching a lot of TV since we broke up.” 

There’s another silence between the two of you and in the small space it feels deafening and suffocating. You want nothing more than to go back to your seat and forget this even happened. Weirdly enough, the sex part you were fine with. It was this conversation that left you feeling like you couldn’t get a proper breath of air into your lungs, almost as if you were drowning. 

You take a piece of toilet paper from the roll beside you and use it to attempt to clean up the mess that had already begun drying on your legs. Mark watches you mindlessly, unsure of what to say himself. He knows he made a mistake from not telling you and effectively keeping the two of you apart, but every time he would reach for the phone to dial your number he would be reminded of the pain he felt and all the things you had called him that day. 

Everyone was right! Why didn’t I just fucking listen to them? Does a three year relationship mean nothing to you? I thought you changed… were different… but now I just feel like I wasted my time.

“I-I really don’t know what to say if I’m honest,” you finally stuttered out, grabbing your discarded leggings and pulling them on, “did you want me to leave you?”

Mark shakes his head vigorously, completely taken aback at you even thinking that, “no... Not at all... I just- it was complicated.”

“Right and you don’t do complicated. Got it.” You stand up and move to unlock the door, but Mark moves in front of you as he did earlier. 

“Y/n... Can we just talk about this? When we land can we just go to a cafe and talk about everything? I still- I mean... even after all this time I-” He begins, but you’re too scared to hear him finish the sentence.

“Mark we’ve had a lot of time to talk. Just please let me go back to my seat.” 

This time he makes no effort to stop you from leaving and you quickly slip out of the bathroom, fearful someone might see you. Luckily, everyone is still fast asleep and you walk back down the aisle to your seat wanting to forget about what Mark had said.  

You couldn’t deal with the what ifs, you couldn’t get lost in a fantasy of imagining that maybe you and Mark could be married already if he would have just said something. You couldn’t be that cruel to yourself.

After a few moments, you notice the bathroom occupied sign go away, signaling Mark’s arrival back to his seat. 

He knows he could just sit down and go back to sleep, falling back in to the way things were. But he had already not tried to go after you once before and he had been regretting it ever since. He had to say fuck that to all of the fears he had of being judged and put trust back into someone again. He wanted you.

Your eyes which had drifted closed soon shot open as you felt a movement at the side of your chair, turning to see Mark crouched down next you

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“I already let go of you once, I’m not doing it again. If I have to spend the next,” he brings his watch up to look at the time, “six hours convincing you, then so be it. I’m not letting walk away from me this time.” At his final word he moves his hand to brush a strand of hair behind your ear and goes to sit down. His eyes piercing into the back of your seat.

You felt Mark’s words, you felt them deeply in every part of you and it made you think that the Mark you love was still in there. 

Love.

You still loved him.

The beating of your heart made it difficult to fall asleep, but when you finally did you had a decision made and a smile on your face. 

[beca-mitchell]

we are the wild youth (4/5)

chapter 4:  catch us in the mirror (it looks a lot like love)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Summary:  New semester, new/old feelings. Same Beca and Chloe. Supposedly.

Usual warnings apply! Smut w/ a dose of fluff this time. chapter title from “Another Place" by Bastille ft. Alessia Cara.

Word count: 5k

Read below or on AO3.

Figuring it out in the morning doesn’t quite come right away. Though they spend the night together, Beca regretfully has an early breakfast with her father and stepmother—a breakfast promised to them many weeks ago. It is a tradition at this point—an end-of-semester breakfast with her father as she begrudgingly admits that maybe four years at Barden wasn’t so bad.

“I have to get breakfast with my dad,” Beca murmurs, pushing at Chloe’s arm. She gives up on that when Chloe rolls further into her and captures her lips in a messy, early morning kiss. Beca almost caves completely, debating how upset her father would be if she skipped out.

“You should go,” Chloe whispers.

But we should talk, Beca thinks. “I should go,” Beca reiterates. “But—”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Chloe says slyly, leaning back with a grin. Beca groans at the blatant way Chloe tucks her arms behind her head and lets the sheets slip tantalizingly low.

“You’re horrible.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Beca scowls. “Yes you are, you’re doing too much.” With that, she scrambles to climb back on top of Chloe’s body, letting her hands fly up to cup her breasts possessively.

Her previous mild hangover is already a distant memory.

 - - x - -

 So she’s a little late. Whatever. She’s done with her second last semester of college ever.

Her stepmother shoots her father a knowing look. Beca tries not to think about what that means.

Chloe has already sent her a text.

Chloe i’ll see you tonight

“And tutoring?” Beca’s father is asking her. “That went well this semester?”

Beca shrugs, stifling a smile as she puts away her phone. “I can’t complain.”

What her father doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

 - - x - -

 “You look beautiful,” Chloe murmurs.

Beca blushes furiously under the intensity of Chloe’s gaze and the deep sincerity in her tone.

It wasn’t that Beca had never been on a date before—she had a small share of relationships over her past few years at Barden, but nothing had amounted to anything serious.

She mulls over how surreal her life seems now, especially as Chloe’s hand wraps around her own, soft and warm all at once.

“Where are we going?” Beca murmurs. She uses her free hand to draw the lapels of her jacket together as she shivers.

Chloe pauses immediately and slowly steps in front of Beca so she can gently pull up the zipper on Beca’s jacket. Beca shivers again, this time because of how close Chloe is standing to her; because of how softly Chloe rests her hands against her shoulders when she finishes zipping up her jacket. The act, in all its simplicity is incredibly intimate and so, so rife with gentleness.

It almost feels like Chloe is a completely different person, but the softness in Chloe’s expression is all too familiar. A gaze that Beca had grown accustomed to over the past semester, even amidst brief moments of tension and annoyance.

It is nothing new, simply just a fresh outlook for Beca.

“We’re going to get dinner,” Chloe says simply. “Then to celebrate you finishing your last exam for the semester, I’m going to let you have your way with me.”

Beca swallows.

Right. Nothing new.

 - - x - -

 Beca grunts, keeping up the vigorous pace she’s set. Her fingers, slick and dripping with Chloe’s wetness, slide easily through Chloe’s cunt as Chloe’s cries intensify in volume.

She keeps her eyes trained on Chloe’s face, tracing over the furrow in her brow, her parted lips, and the deep flush on her cheeks—all serving to make Chloe even more attractive than she already is.

Chloe’s hands, clenched and unable to move by way of being restrained, tremble with the force of each precise, deep thrust of Beca’s fingers.

“Good?” Beca rasps, concerned when Chloe makes no noise for a few seconds.

Chloe hums, a thick rattling sound from deep within her chest, before nodding shortly. She stares up at Beca with bright eyes, brighter than usual. Her hips arch up wantonly when Beca’s fingers slow to a stop, buried deep inside Chloe. Beca tries to keep up some degree of focus, but the fucking clenching Chloe is doing is kind of fucking distracting.

“Chlo, words,” Beca urges. They’ve already been in bed for hours. Beca knows they should have stopped a while ago, but the thought of being apart for a couple weeks during Christmas break hda been too daunting.

“Yeah,” Chloe mumbles. “Yeah, just a bit more, baby.”

As always, the newfound nickname sends a thrill through Beca’s body. She shivers even if the heat in her room is cranked and the windows are sealed shut. Outside, cool air all around and the slightest hint of rain.

It is a typical Atlanta December just outside her window, but Beca finds it hard to care that another semester has just up and gone like that. Not when her entire world zeroes into the beautiful girl unraveling in her arms.

 - - x - -

 It is incredible how much better Chloe is at waking up in the morning.

But somehow, she makes waking up horrendously early a more enjoyable experience. Somehow.

Maybe it has something to do with the way she presses a slow lingering kiss to Beca’s shoulder, mapping the edges of her tattoo. Maybe it has something to do with the way she makes no move to leave the comfort of Beca’s bed and instead wraps her arms around Beca.

“I have a question,” Chloe asks. “Do you think I passed?”

It isn’t what Beca expects, but it makes her laugh. “Can we not talk about school right now?”

“What should we talk about?” Chloe wonders aloud. She sighs and nestles her chin just over the curve of Beca’s shoulder. Beca tilts her head back to watch Chloe carefully while her fingers gently trace over place where Chloe’s wrists had previously bore red lines from the scarves tying her wrists to the bed.

“I don’t know,” Beca finally says when Chloe continues to watch her.

“I have another question,” Chloe murmurs, gently easing Beca onto her back. Beca allows Chloe’s to drape her body over hers, like a second blanket because of how warm and comfortable Beca feels then.

“Should I be charging for tutoring services right now?” Beca snarks before she can help herself.

Chloe smiles, beautiful and carefree. “Depends. Will you be my girlfriend?”

It is entirely not what Beca expects at all. Her eyes widen and she takes in Chloe’s sincere expression, bright-eyed and open. It is such a far cry from just months ago, the end of August. Chloe’s dark-eyed gaze hellbent on simply making Beca come against the dresser multiple times. Possession and lust.

This is so much more. Just a matter of months and Beca finds that she has uncovered an entirely new version of Chloe Beale. One that she has grown to care for; one that she might even admit to loving.

It is so, so frightening knowing that there is a very tangible pressure hanging over both their heads. Beca, as Chloe’s tutor and essentially her ticket out of Barden. Chloe...as Beca’s one-way trip out of Barden as well. Out of Atlanta, for good.

“I think we can work something out,” Beca murmurs. “But I think I can’t accept money for that. Ethics.”

“Good, I wasn’t planning on paying you anyway. Not in money at least."

Beca shuts her up with an eager, messy kiss, already looking forward to the rest of the morning; looking forward to the rest of their mornings. 

Chloe drives her to her father’s house later that day with the promise to message Beca while she’s away. Beca hates herself for the immediate thought that follows, that a family vacation to Paris and Nice for Christmas never sounded so horrible.

It is the oddest feeling to Beca. As she watches Chloe drive away, her lips still tingling from the kiss Chloe planted on her just before giggling and hopping in the car, she wonders where this feeling came from.

It is the feeling that she would rather be in Atlanta than anywhere else in the world.

 - - x - -

  Chloe <3 i passed calc :)

That is the message Beca wakes up to followed by a series of kissing emojis.

Beca calls Chloe immediately, cursing whatever Gods decided that Beca had to be across the globe in France of all places travelling with her father and stepmother on a fun family holiday. Emphasis on fun.

Chloe answers on the second ring. “Hey you. How’s Paris?”

“You did it! You passed!” Beca exclaims.

Chloe laughs. “Yes I did.”

“What’d you get?” Beca asks.

Chloe giggles. “I don’t want to tell you, you’ll let it go to your head.”

Beca exhales noisily. “Chloe. Tell me,” she whines, uncaring that it is probably too early in the morning for that kind of nonsense. She can’t help but smile at Chloe’s dramatic exhale.

“Fine,” Chloe sighs.

Pause.

“Chloe!”

“Beca,” Chloe drawls, clearly enjoying herself. Then, finally, “I got an A minus.”

Beca gasps, shooting straight up in bed. “Holy shit, I knew you were faking it.”

Chloe laughs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you just casually got an A minus. Alright.”

Chloe laughs again. She does not comment on Beca’s sarcastic tone. The brief silence that passes between them is comfortable. Beca lies back on her hotel bed, smiling up at the ceiling and wishing she could just be back in Atlanta so they could celebrate together.

Beca takes a stab at expressing her emotions. “I miss you.”

Chloe’s smile is nearly entirely audible through the phone: she sucks in a breath and pauses for a one delicate moment. “I miss you, too.”

 - - x - -

 Just like that, winter break is over.

Beca finds herself stunned at how little time she actually has until graduation. Residual Heat rings in the new year and new semester for her by requesting more samples of her work. That first week back at school ends up being one of the longest weeks of Beca’s life and she spends the majority of the week holed up in her room except when she dashes out for class. It sucks, but she hardly gets to see Chloe except for a very brief study session in which Chloe had diligently completed a preliminary statistics assignment without much guidance from Beca.

It is not until Saturday that Beca realizes that Chloe is lounging on her bed reading a thick novel that barely looks like it is in English.

“What day is it?” Beca asks in wonder. She glances to her side realizing that there is a bowl of yogurt and diced fruit as well as a steaming mug of tea.

Chloe giggles quietly, putting her book down while scooting over to the edge of Beca’s bed. “You’re surfaced, finally. Happy with what you’ve been working on?”

Beca nods. “Want to listen?” She is so grateful for Chloe’s presence. Neither obtrusive or invisible, Chloe had simply waited for Beca to finish.

“Yes,” Chloe says immediately, eyes lighting up. “You still owe me music.”

Beca laughs, amused at her girlfriend’s antics.

“Come here and let’s listen to it,” Chloe declares, patting the space next to her.

“Excuse me,” Beca says haughtily. “This is my room.” She clambers up next to Chloe nonetheless, pulling her laptop up with her. “Save comments ‘til the end.”

“Don’t you want live feedback?”

Beca would respond—she has a response ready—but Chloe’s hand comes up comfortingly to rub Beca’s neck, the gentle curve of the top of her spine, and up again to her hairline.

It is ridiculously nice.

“Stop,” Beca warns.

Of course, Chloe just doesn’t stop. She simply switches to an even slower, even rhythm. Her hand remains soft, yet firm against Beca’s skin.

“Well?” Chloe asks, her voice low and quiet. It makes Beca want to kiss her. “Show me.”

Beca finds that she really does not mind sharing—it is incredibly easy to open up to Chloe after all. It is something she has had the privilege to learn.

 - - x - -

 It isn’t that she has stopped learning things about Chloe. She learns more about the freckles on her body, along her neck. The curve of her breast. She learns exactly what kinds of touches draw out the sharpest breaths or the gentlest moans.

Beca kind of never expected to be that person, but she ends up skipping a class or two just to lie in bed with Chloe, watching the sunshine dance across their skin. Where one begins and the other ends is a mystery that Beca has no intention on solving.

She learns—and she aches to learn—more about each breathless gasp. Each telltale sign.

It feels like they have all the time in the world, or more specifically, that they have all the time in their world between the stacks of assignments and between classes.

It is every college cliche rolled into one whirlwind romance and Beca has long given up trying to assess risks and calculate the trajectory of heartbreak.

And Chloe—Chloe continues to figure out how to unravel Beca more and more. Each touch of a hot mouth between her legs shatters Beca’s resolve. All kinds of words threaten to spill from her lips, each more dangerous than the last.

Be mine—

I love you—

I love you—

Stay—

Please don’t leave me.

And with every sure stroke of Chloe’s tongue against her wet, aching clit, Beca finds herself losing all semblance of the carefully-constructed path she had set for herself. She just has no idea when it was that Chloe tore down her walls.

 - - x - -

 “Before break, you, um, mentioned that your mom…” Chloe trails off hesitantly. “We don’t have to talk about her,” she says hesitantly watching Beca slowly close her book. “But I just wanted you to know that we could. If you want to.”

Beca observes how Chloe bites her lower lip slowly. The way her hands are curled into loose fists. “You can ask,” Beca allows, fixing Chloe with a gentle gaze.

The thought of talking about her mother is daunting most of the time. At least ninety-seven percent of the time. But Beca finds that it is something she wants to share with Chloe, if only to comfort both of them in that moment.

“I don’t really know what to ask,” Chloe admits.

“That’s okay.”

“I...when did she—?”

“I was probably five or six,” Beca replies, wracking her mind for some kind of memory. They are foggy at best. “She was sick,” she says simply. “That’s, um, all that I really remember. I have pictures of me with her, but that feels like an entire lifetime ago. My dad said that she liked to sing to me. Maybe that’s where the music thing comes from. I think about it now, you know? What it’d be like if she were still around. All of this.” You, Beca wants to say. She doesn’t manage to make it slip past the tip of the tongue.

Chloe nods with nothing but care in her expression. She reaches across the table to place her hands over Beca’s as the noise in the cafe fades to nothing but a dull nothingness. “I think she would be very proud of you.”

Beca marvels as that statement unlocks the floodgates of memories over the past few years at Barden. Yet another experience that she will not get to share with her mother, but the thought is comforting in how much Beca really believes Chloe when she says it.

“She would,” Beca agrees finally.

Chloe smiles at her and returns to her notebook.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been…” Chloe licks her lips. “I’ve been coming to terms with what happened to Jamie and just how bad things have been at home. And I just...don’t know what I would have done without you last semester and this semester.” She smiles, a little shyly. “You’ve helped me more than you know, Beca.”

“I have?”

“Not just with the homework and the tutoring because I guess...I never really needed it. But what I needed was somebody like you to help pull me out from my own self-sabotage.”

“You did it all by yourself, Chloe. I’m just here to support you.”

Chloe’s lips twitch, this time neither sad nor happy. “You’re the first.”

Beca is quiet for a moment. “Jamie would be proud of you too, Chloe. No matter what you end up doing. He would be like...stupidly proud.”

“That sounds exactly like something he would say.” Chloe appears mildly amazed. “How do you always know what to say?”

Beca could say the same about Chloe.

 - - x - -

 “So New York, huh,” Beca’s father notes over dinner one cool evening. “That’s the plan.”

“Yes,” Beca says shortly because she doesn’t know what to expect.

He breaks into a smile. “I’m proud of you, Bec. You really stuck through it. And you’re almost done with tutoring forever. I assume it’s going well.”

That makes some of Beca’s previous elation dissipate quickly. “Yeah, it’s going well.”

It’s kind of hard to admit to her father that she’s kind of in love with the girl she’s tutoring. Not exactly dinner material.

 - - x - -

  Chloe <3 your original music is EVERYTHING I love it so much <3 And your voice!!!

Beca Glad you liked it :) I made it with you in mind

God, Beca knows she’s a sap, but she can’t help it. She can’t imagine what the freshman version of herself would say about all of this.

Chloe <3 Come over? I miss you

Beca supposes there isn’t much to say about that.

 - - x - -

 Somehow February flies by in a blink. Between tutoring and working part-time and the dawning realization that she really is going to move to New York at the end of the school semester, time is flying by far too quickly for Beca.

“Come with me to the studio today,” Chloe suggests. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, Beca,” Chloe explains, sounding very much like an exasperated adult lecturing a child. “Do you like surprises?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“I feel like you might like this one.”

“Will it involve sending your minion children to attack me?”

Chloe gasps. “No, but oh my God, that’d be adorable.” She smirks. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”

Beca grumbles to herself. “Fine,” she agrees. “But one whiff of sabotage and I’m out of there,” she promises with no real bite.

“Deal,” Chloe laughs and pulls her in for a kiss.

Beca ends up learning exactly what Chloe had been teaching her little rascals all semester.

“I used your original song,” Chloe says shyly when the first notes reach Beca’s ears. She loops her hand around the crook of Beca’s elbow, tenderly stroking her skin while being ever mindful of young eyes. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“You choreographed a dance to my song.” 

Chloe nods. “I mean. Multiple," she admits sheepishly. "We started with your Rihanna remix. They love your music.”

“They’re ten.”

“Not that song. Your other remix. "We Found Love". I love that one," Chloe says in a dreamy tone. Beca knows exactly what Chloe is talking about. She had absolutely made it (as with most things recently) with Chloe in mind.

“Oh,” Beca murmurs, now entranced by the smiling, happy faces all around her. The dance is adorable and surprisingly complicated for a group of ten year olds.

It dawns on her fully that Chloe choreographed a dance to her music. Beca isn't necessarily one to really judge romantic gestures, but this makes something in her chest grow very tight. She can imagine the smile on Chloe's face as they had planned this little surprise over the previous few weeks. 

“This is what I want to do,” Chloe says suddenly and so quietly that Beca almost misses it.

“You want to do what?” she asks, leaning into Chloe’s side, eager to feel the warmth from Chloe's body.

Chloe’s arm comes up around her shoulder naturally. “Teach. Teach kids. Teach them how to be better like you taught me...well.” She trails off, shy for once. “Like how you taught me.”

“You want to be a teacher,” Beca clarifies.

“Yeah.”

“Chloe, I think that’s perfect.”

And it really is so amazingly perfect. Beca isn’t quite sure what to do with this new information. It hadn’t been something they had talked about, Chloe’s post-grad plans. Beca had (wrongfully, she notes) assumed that Chloe would just continue on to work for her father and then eventually work on something like a medical degree like her brother.

God, the thought of more years in school makes Beca want to die.

“You think I could be a good teacher?” Chloe asks, insecurity creeping into her tone. “I’m not...I’m not good at explaining things like you.”

“I’ve seen you with these kids,” Beca assures her. “You care so much about them and everything you teach them. And please, as if I could ever choreograph something and then teach it to somebody. Everybody’s teaching style is a little different.”

Chloe flushes, pleased by the compliment. “I mean...I guess it’s something to consider, right?”

“Right,” Beca agrees.

“Also,” Chloe begins, nudging Beca. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’ve kept this whole singing thing from me. Imagine my surprise hearing your voice on that remix.” Chloe lowers her voice. “Surprise might be a loose word for it…”

Beca flushes this time, bright red. She can feel it on her face. “There are literally children around, Chloe. Shut up.”

“You can make me later.”

 - - x - -

 As expected, the lines blur between what they consider dates and Beca still keeping up the pretense that Chloe needs tutoring. With calculus well out of the way, statistics is an easier course to handle.

“We should study,” Beca murmurs, though she makes no move to wriggle out from underneath Chloe. She likes Chloe’s solid weight on top of her. She likes the feeling of Chloe’s soft curves pressed against her.

She likes knowing that Chloe is there.

“We should,” Chloe agrees. “I am paying you.” Her hand glides dangerously low down Beca’s belly before sweeping up again to gently grope at her breast, plucking at an already-stiff nipple.

Beca’s body is too easy.

“I don’t know if this was included in the lesson plan,” Beca breathes, though her hips have already begun to rock upwards against Chloe’s body to alleviate some of the pressure between her legs.

“Should I pay you extra?” Chloe asks, voice muffled by Beca’s neck. She begins to hum and whisper-sing into Beca’s neck, the opening bars to Titanium.

What a lovely voice, Beca thinks. She wishes she could have heard it more.

 - - x - -

 April comes too soon. After an extremely short spring break—thankfully spent along the coastal shores of Savannah at a quiet Airbnb (clothes optional)—Beca finds herself getting ready for a gala honoring Chloe’s father.

Beca knows that Chloe hates having to go to these kinds of events, but when she is the only daughter of the man who has buildings named after him on campus, it sounds like the kind of thing she has no real way out of.

“I think I am way too underdressed,” Beca complains, tugging at the fabric of her dress. “You look like a million bucks. I look like ten dollars. Maybe fifteen.”

Chloe laughs from where she is adding finishing touches to her make-up. The expanse of her back that is visible to Beca from where she is seated on the edge of Chloe’s bed sends all kind of dark, dirty thoughts through her head at an alarming pace.

Beca sits on her hands.

“You look wonderful,” Chloe says without even glancing in her direction.

“You didn’t even look at me.”

Chloe sighs, like she thinks Beca is being exceptionally annoying and puts down her mascara. Beca isn’t quite prepared for the heated, direct look Chloe fixes on her when she turns around. “I’m looking now,” Chloe all but purrs, stalking towards Beca with all the grace of somebody who knows exactly what she wants. “And I like what I see.”

“Oh,” Beca squeaks out when Chloe pulls at her hands so that they’re standing face-to-face.

“Stop worrying,” Chloe whispers, breath hot against her mouth.

Beca wishes she could just shut off her brain like that. “I’m not worried,” Beca murmurs, eyes trained directly on Chloe’s glossed lips.

“You’re worried,” Chloe singsongs before walking back to her vanity to again fiddle with her make-up.

Beca follows slowly. “You’re worried,” Beca says knowingly. Chloe rolls her eyes.

“No,” she replies. “I’m just annoyed that I have to go to this dumb event. Just to watch my dad get yet another award that he doesn’t need. A glorified paper weight”

“You don’t have to go,” Beca suggests even though she knows it’s a weak suggestion.

“Oh, yes I do,” Chloe laughs.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Chloe shoots her a look. “Are you sure you want to come?” she asks for the fifth time since she herself invited Beca.

Sighing, Beca reaches out so she can gently trap Chloe against the vanity. “Do you not want me to come?” she asks, trying to ignore the flash of pre-emptive hurt that rushes through her at the thought of Chloe not wanting her there.

“No,” Chloe says. Quick and urgent. Her eyes dart up to meet Beca’s in the mirror as she drops her make-up again. “No, I want you there,” she murmurs. “I just…don’t want you to be bored. It’s going to be boring and I don’t know how not boring I can make it for you.”

It is a reflection of Chloe’s influence on her that Beca’s first thought is something incredibly inappropriate for a gala, black-tie event. She stifles the thought, filing it away for when they return to Chloe’s apartment later that night.

“We can be bored together,” Beca suggests. “I downloaded like two episodes of The Office on my phone.”

Chloe relaxes, twisting in her arms. “Good episodes?”

“I guess we’ll see.”

“I like the idea of being bored together,” Chloe admits.

Beca nods, determined to brighten Chloe’s mood. “And there’s going to be free food.”

“I can’t promise it’s going to be good,” Chloe teases. “It’ll be that annoying fancy food that you hate. Just like in the movies.”

Beca reaches up to brush hair away from Chloe’s face. “Smoked salmon and cucumbers and crackers that I totally could have bought at the grocery store?”

“Yes.”

“I’m suffering through this for you so we’re definitely getting McDonald’s after.”

Chloe brightens, clearly charmed. She loops her arms over Beca’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Like each time Chloe pulls her into her orbit, Beca is breathless with how dizzying the force of her emotions are. “Carls?” Chloe asks eagerly.

“Pancakes it is.”

“Last chance,” Chloe warns. “You sure you don’t want to spend your Friday night with your friends?”

“Chloe,” Beca whines. “I want to be with you.” The words tumble from her before she has a chance to take them back or modify them to correct the course how deeply she actually feels for the woman in front of her. “I don’t want you to go alone. It’s final.”

“Beca,” Chloe murmurs. The heat in Chloe’s gaze makes Beca want to retract all her previous statements so they can spend the entire evening in bed. Beca’s sure she can convince Chloe.

Beca tries to smile innocently. “Is it working?”

Chloe sighs. “Is what working?” she asks with exasperation in her tone, but she is already stifling a smile.

“Making you feel better, weirdo.”

“I like the idea of coming home with you. That's making me feel better.”

Beca blows out a frustrated breath. She hates that Chloe can say impossibly sweet things but somehow make it completely dirty all at once. “Can I kiss you or will it mess up our lipstick?”

Chloe sighs exaggeratedly and finally sags fully into Beca’s arms. “I can fix it after,” she whispers before she is moving forward so that their lips can press together.

The event itself is nothing more than an opportunity for high-powered figures in academic and professional circles to schmooze with each other over expensive, endless alcohol and as Beca and Chloe had predicted, a surprising assortment of unnecessary finger foods.

“We should probably sit,” Chloe murmurs.

Beca startles, lowering her champagne flute from her mouth. She hadn’t thought about it before this very moment and it occurs to her that they’re probably going to be in plain view of Chloe’s parents. At the very least, Chloe’s father. Beca had tried to forget about that first dinner at Chloe’s parents’ house, but it was kind of difficult to shake Dr. Beale’s general intimidating force.

“We’re not sitting with your parents are we?” Beca asks in a panicked tone. She’s sure she has lipstick on her teeth.

“No, they get to sit with the other adults. I just get to be thrown into a photo later on.” Chloe smiles. “Why? Scared?”

“I mean, a little. Considering…” Considering we’re dating and now he knows I spent more time imagining you naked than tutoring you.

“Considering we have sex regularly,” Chloe finishes sagely. “Totally understandable.”

“No! Just...since I’m still tutoring you.” Beca hasn't necessarily considered their relationship like that in a long while. It is still jarring to think that other people perceive her and Chloe's relationship as being an entirely professional and educational one.

Chloe flutters her eyelashes. “You are?”

Beca swallows and quickly passes off her glass to a passing server. “Stop.” She glances around. “He could be anywhere.”

Chloe laughs and pulls Beca to sit down at their designated table. “You’re overreacting. He’ll probably be happy to see you. He thinks you’re a good influence.”

That eases some of Beca’s nerves for whatever reason. She supposes it might be something to do with the fact that her girlfriend’s father approves of her in some capacity (though not necessarily the right capacity). Beca allows Chloe to steer her into a seat.

Chloe politely greets the people seated at their table and makes small talk with some professors that Beca has no idea what department they’re even from.

It is a completely different world.

Beneath the table, Chloe’s hand moves to grip hers.

Beca never wants to let go.

/end ch. 4

read chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever had FOMO (fear of missing out)? Yeah.  If so, what’s caused it? I’ve missed out on a lot these past few years alone because of my physical and mental (that more than anything). I’ve just been a hermit crab, wasting my life away, distant and withdrawn from everyone. Are you happy with your social life? I don’t have one. If not, what would you have to do to change that? The sad thing is I don’t want one? At least that’s what my brain tells me. Like, part of me wants to want one, but. I don’t know, man. I’m a mess. Have you ever hosted a party? If so, what kind of party was it? Yeah, just a couple times. I don’t like hosting, it’s too stressful.

What’s the best thing you can cook yourself? The only thing I cook is ramen. Are there a lot of graffiti around your neighbourhood? Not around my neighborhood, but in my city. What kind of a phone do you have? iPhone XR. What kinds of stuff do you have on your keychain? One key and a shitload of keychains haha. I have several on the ring with the one key, but I have so many that I had to start putting them other places like on every purse/mini backpack I own. Have you ever made something with your own hands that you’re proud of? Probably when I was a kid. If so, what is it? What is your favourite Jack Lemmon film? I don’t have one. What is your favourite David Hyde Pierce film? A Bug’s Life and Adam’s Family Values are the only films of his I’ve seen. Have you ever made your own soda? (Soda Stream doesn’t count!) Nope. Do you have a hobby that forces you out of the house? If so, what is it? No. My hobbies are all done at home and can be done in the comfort of my bed. Have you ever been part of a theater group? No. If so, did you get any lead roles or mostly supporting roles? Which IM app do you use the most? I don’t use any. I mean, I have Facebook Messenger, but I haven’t used it in a long time. What’s the most ecological thing you do? Recycling plastic bottles and cans. What’s your favourite board game? Why do you like it best? Hmm. That’s tough. I love board games. Besides English, what other languages can you speak? Just some Spanish. Besides English, what other languages can you read? Some Spanish. Do you think you could make it as a chef? Uh, no. What’s your favourite kind of tea? I rarely drink tea, but I do like Chamomile and peppermint tea. How do you like your tea? With a packet of sweetener. Girls, do you ever just say “Fuck it!” and go without a bra? Yeah. I have small breasts and wear oversized shirts, so. I didn’t used to do that (ever), but the past few years I stopped caring about a lot of things. What’s the most freeing thing you’ve ever done? Hmm. Have you ever had a restaurant dish that was made with bugs? Noooo. If not, would you even want to try one? Noooo. Do you think today’s kids are really impatient? A lot of people are. I am. Although, I bet kids today probably are worse because they’re used to being able to access things quickly and have a lot of things at their disposal. Have you ever tasted birch sap? No.

How about the young buds/shoots of spruce trees? No. Which edible flowers have you tasted? None. I’m not an adventurous eater AT ALL.  What has been your worst restaurant experience? I really haven’t had a horrible restaurant experience.

Have you ever had a life threatening condition? If so, what was it? I’ve been in a couple life threatening situations. Do you ever compare your life to somebody else’s? If so, why? Eh, it’s something we can’t help but do sometimes. <<< Yeah, I definitely find myself doing that. Like with people my age who are further along in life it seems and doing more with it. Even people younger than me who seem to have way more together than I do or ever did.  What is a food item or a dish you absolutely cannot stand? I don’t do seafood. Have you ever had a custom print done on a shirt? If so, what was it? I’ve decorated my own shirts for concerts before. What does your favourite mug look like? It’s a Peter Pan one that’s blue on the outside and yellow on the inside.

Do you ever copy surveys to Facebook Notes and share your answers? I did that sometimes years ago. I set the privacy settings so only certain people could see them, though. To be honest, I usually did ones with answers I wanted Joseph to see. :X Yeah, I was that girl who posted quotes and lyrics for certain people to see. What’s the best thing about today? It’s only 5 in the morning, not much has happened. Do you ever read other people’s survey answers? Yes, always. Everyone I follow on here writes very well and it’s always interesting to read their answers :) <<< Awww, yes same. We have a pretty cool survey community. (: Do you like daytime or night time better? Why? Nighttime, I guess. It’s when I like to do surveys, listen to ASMR, and read. What’s your highest level of education so far? I have my BA in psych believe it or not. If you could have any job in the whole world, which would you like? I don’t know. :/ Describe your ordinary day. Wake up between 2-3PM, have coffee, do my Bible study, check social medias, perhaps watch some YouTube, watch TV, eat at some point, lounge and mess around on my phone, play Animal Crossing, have dinner, watch some TV, eat ramen and watch more YouTube, scroll through Tumblr, do some surveys, listen to ASMR, read, play some more Animal Crossing, go to sleep. A lot of just lounging around, honestly. I also spend time with my family. Would you ever have a UV tattoo? Nah. What is the brand and colour name of your favourite lipstick? It’s been a long time I’ve since I’ve even worn any, but I really liked NYX. What do you like on your tortilla? Beans, Spanish rice, cheese, guac, and sour cream. Or a breakfast burrito. How about inside your pita bread? I don’t eat pita bread. What do you like in your burger? Not a big burger person, but if I have one just mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and cheese. Signature sauce when available like on a Big Mac (which I know is just Thousand Island). How about on your pizza? White sauce, feta and ricotta cheese, garlic, spinach, crumbled meatballs, and pesto drizzled on top. Would you ever take part in a games club? A games club? If so, what would be your ideal club? How about a survey club, ha. We kinda have that going on here. Would you be able to give a speech on your favourite subject right now? Noooo thank you. I do not miss having to do speeches and presentations. Ugh, those were awful. It never got any easier for me. Do you work better alone or in a group? Alone. Group projects just made me stress out more, honestly. 

Which one of your friends have you known the longest? For how long? What is your favourite song right now at this very moment? I’ve been listening to the Savage remix a lot lately by Megan the Stallion ft. Beyonce.

[monochromaticinsignias]

Park Jimin | Your, My

Full Title : Your Last Dream, My Last Dance

      Sub / Other Title : Dreams, Dance, and Wedding Rings

Bestfriends au

Non idol au

Words : 12k

A/N : I am SO sorry for the lack of updates! ;_; This one is longer than what I usually write, so I hope this makes up for my absence? Have a shit ton of angst, luv. 

Ps. By far the longest I’ve written?

Summary :  The two of you were at a rocky path, it's just not how it used to be--as best friends, not when he completely misunderstood you. Not when all you did was to keep him away from pain. You'd do anything to keep your best friend happy, even going as far as to let go of your only wish for his sake.

     Sub - plot : You love ‘him’, you really did. So when ‘he’ left, you can’t help but question yourself; “what if I told him?”

Your Last Dream, My Last Dance | ft. Jungkook

The sweet sound of bells was present in that dreamy landscape, just as he himself imagined. But there was no one there atop that lone beautiful cliff with an outstanding view of the setting sun, only him, and his wife to be.

The black haired man smiles sweetly, the orange rays delicately picturing his sculptured face as his arms round the waist of the girl in front of him. 

She looks beautiful in white. 

The wind suddenly picks up around them, and it only increased her beauty as he held her hands in his own. As the magical sounds of the bells died down, he slips a pretty, gold ring on her finger. Smiling widely as he laughs, and scoops her up for a kiss that ended all worries, and all heartaches. 

He doesn’t want to wake up, but he does.

Jungkook awakens from his sleep due to the ringing of his phone, his form held upright as he looked around for the device. It took him off guard a second later, however, when he feels a cold sensation slipping down his cheeks. 

He reaches for his phone whilst swiping off .. a tear, from just under his eyes. 

Why is he crying?

Shakily pressing the answer button, he nears it to his ear. About to demand why he was awakened at an ungodly hour in the early morning when the caller beats him to it.

It takes him a minute or two, but when the words finally processed in his mind, he breaks down and drops the phone.

You are Park Jimin's best friend, although many thought you two were a couple, you were not. You were his friend and he was yours, there's a fine line dividing your hearts and you two preferred it that way. You'd do anything for him, especially when his happiness is at stake. And of course it's not only him, it's also for his wife-to-be, Seolhyun. 

You knew each other ever since you were both children, your parents are awfully close that your mothers even had you sleep next to each other when you were babies. There's a photo in the album that proves it. Each photo probably shows that wherever you are, Jimin is there, and wherever he is, you're there. You are technically each other's half. 

You were with him and he was with you through running around playgrounds in kinder, through roleplaying in gradeschool, through puberty in highschool and to that stressful part in college that leads on to your jobs. You've known him for more than a decade. 

Many assumed that since you two have been together for so long than your exes and his, it would've been impossible not to have catch up on some feelings with one another. But no matter how much they tried to push one onto the other, it just doesn't work. 

You tried working it out in a date, but that ended pretty amusing. Because at the end of the day, you two came to a conclusion that it just won't work out--that you're better off as besties. 

No one complained, and thus the start of your life adventures with your best friend.  

That was until the two of you left the province to go to the heart of the South; Seoul, where he stumbled -literally- on a fine girl named Seolhyun. You remember standing by the side flashing him kissy faces when he kept apologizing with a red face, and stammered a whole lot before going back at your side. You figured he really liked her, so you took the initiative to get her number with your winks that practically screamed 'I'll-help-you-get-the-dude'. Which, is not quite needed since Jimin obviously has the hots for her too. 

The adventures you've had with Jimin ended slowly ever since the appearance of the beautiful, kind hearted Seolhyun who trusted the two of you and is fine whenever you two get a bit touchy, not too much, but subtle. She knew you two were friends and that's that, but of course, a girlfriend's gotta be jealous sometimes. 

So there came the first argument. 

You were just sitting on one of your chairs in front of the canvas, a brush in your hand with the bristles coated in a leafy green colour. Jimin came barging in at four in the afternoon looking so drained and somewhat guilty. He clasped his hand around your wrist, taking you by surprise. 

"Jimin?" you voiced out that day, "What are you doing here? I thought you were on a date with Seo?" he flinched the second he heard her nickname. The two of you had been close, being girls and all, and somehow.. She managed to get so jealous.. To the fact that she assumed something so wrong and taboo. 

"I was," Jimin mumbled, not once letting go of your wrist, but tightening it in lieu of dropping it down. "But you came up in the subject." he finished. You were much too bright to quickly pick up that the topic about you was not entirely on a positive note, but a negative one. 

You chuckled, "Ah, did she spoke of our sleepover? I told her not to te--" 

"You need to stay away from us." The words he said processed slowly in your brain, your smile ever so slowly giving way for a frown. 

"W.. What?" 

He sighed. 

"We can't hang out that much anymore. I.. I have Seolhyun, now." 

You dropped the brush in shock and disappointment. Did she doubted you and your sincere feelings for Jimin as a friend? Did she not.. Trust you and him? Or was this just what she really wanted? 

"Yes, you have her, so what? That doesn't mean I have to stay away from my best friend, now, right?" came your strained reply. 

The ethereal looking man sighed, his fingers running across his hair in exasperation. 

You were always so stubborn, you wouldn't back down. 

"She thinks we're having an affair behind her back, [Y/n]. I can't let her think like that." he said in defeat, an utterly lost look in his eyes. Minutes ago, he's in a conflict because he didn't know whether to go by his lover's wish or keep the friendship he had for more than two decades. 

It was her or you. 

"But we're not!" you exclaimed, splattering the rest of the paint accidentally on the ground due to your unexpected outburst. "How can she think like that? She knows you're loyal to her and her alone! Why is--" 

"Shut up! Don't speak to her that way because she has the right to think like so! She's my lover and you're my best friend! A girl, [Y/n]. It's obvious she'd be thinking that we have something going on, and I can't let that happen." You fell silent as you watched Jimin pace around the room in a worried manner. 

Constant murmurs leaving his lips. 

"And I can't let the love of my life go.." he whispered. 

You felt bad. 

You had no idea Jimin felt like this all along. He must've been torn in decisions, you knew he thinks of your well being as much as he thinks of hers, and to decide between a lover he wants for the rest of his life and a friend he's supposed to keep in touch with.. Is difficult. 

So perhaps.. Maybe this time, you could help him, even if it hurts you. 

Jimin is a part of your life ever since you were born, and as you know, you were his half. His platonic half, you two had a friendship unbreakable. For him to suddenly just say that you should.. Keep your distance, even with all the plausible reasons he has up in his sleeve.. Is just terrible. 

But for him, you could do it. 

".. Okay," 

He looked up at you with wide, beady eyes that glossed over with a sanctum of tears. He couldn't believe his ears when you agreed to his words, and somehow can't help but feel anguish at the sight of you looking so defeated. 

"Y-you.." he stammered. 

And to confirm his statements, you gave him a strained smile. 

"I'll uh, keep my distance. I just hope that what I'm about to do will at least help you make amends with her, again.." 

You were an angel brought to this world and Jimin knows it, you were so kind--too kind. He knows that maybe at some point, he's using this to his advantage, but he can't help it. When Seolhyun appeared, it seemed as if she had been the centre of his universe. With his best friend retaining the position of being the millions of stars that depicted his everyday with you. 

With a mixed cry and laugh, he hugged you tightly. Repeating his thank you's all over again before parting and scurrying away with a wave of your hand. 

Leaving you with an unsure heart of despair and longing. 

The weeks that followed afterwards is complicated, difficult. You were so spent away, the brushes that flew over the canvas are too dull. The paintings are too simple, so bland. Your mind isn’t working properly and for some reason, everything is so grey and black and white. 

You were used to your best friend’s presence. 

To have him like, away for more than ten feet as much as crazy as it sounds, is rather depressing.

You were huffing as you entered an art shop, you were a usual there so you knew where is what. Taking a basket, you subconsciously trudged through the aisles and greeted whenever an employee you know greets you.

You took more brushes, more paint, and pencils and sketchpads. One can never get too much pencils when it comes to art.  

You weren’t looking in front of you as you made your way towards the cashier, yawning to yourself as you began imagining what you might paint later. 

Or maybe you could just go to the park--

Completely taken off guard, a body slams into you quite literally, something landing on your foot so badly that it caused you to grasp onto your basket for dear life as you stumbled backwards. Luckily enough that you didn’t fall, but half your side did hurt like hell. And your [c] Timbs are now dirty!

“Oh, oh crap. I am so sorry, I swear I--” 

A bit infuriated yet calm, you look up, only to see a man your age. He was taller for sure, and his black hair is slightly swept to side, he’s garbed in a black tee and pants--and Timberlands.. !? 

Oh, an eye catcher, this dude is. If only he didn’t ram into you.

You noticed he has not completed his sentence, and is instead staring at you in what seems to be awe. You scrunch your nose lightly.

“Yeah, well, sorry, too. Now I must be on my way and wash my boots--”

That seemed to perk his head up, because you were not even far away when his hand grasps your wrist. His heavenly voice ringing out.

“Wait! I uh, I’ll pay for you,” this caught you off guard. 

Looking at him over your shoulder, you blink. 

Ah, he’s cute.. 

His cheeks went pink. 

Immediately realizing what just happened because you, apparently, had just said that out loud, you jump backwards. But his grip was firm, thus causing him to topple forward as well, only decreasing the space between you.

And if his cheeks were pink before, they were flaming now. 

“Oh-uh, I er, thank you.” he swiftly takes the basket from you and speed walks to the cashier, giving you no choice -even if you scream- but to follow the heavenly bunny like stranger. 

Along the way, you couldn’t help but notice you’re a bit livelier now. A smile decorating your lips as you stand behind him, watching as he paid for your things, including his as well; which seemed to be a bunch of photo papers and a scrapbook. 

“You really shouldn’t have bought me these.” you mention as he held the door open for you as the two of you made your exit from the shop. 

A boyish chuckle erupts from beside you.

“Nah, it’s the least I could do. I’m Jungkook by the way,” he introduces himself.

You find yourself smiling, looking at him, only to find him already doing the same to you.

“I’m [Y/n].”

Seeing as it was quite the evening, Jungkook walked you back home. And you found out he’s actually quite near to your house, his being only like, a block away from yours. 

You were smiling the entire time you entered your abode, laying down the bag of stuff he had bought for you due to that accident. You began to put them out of the bag one by one, checking if you got all necessities when your fingers grasped a torn piece of paper. 

Puckering your lower lip out in thought, you pull it out, only causing your cheeks to redden in the subtlest way possible.

;>

09 - XXX - XXXX

Jungkook

You went to bed that night peacefully, you enjoyed that day. Meeting Jungkook was a great way to actually get rid of Jimin in your head for a while, you had nothing more to worry about. At least, not when your best friend’s about to be married to the love of his life. 

The next day, as promised in the tiny scrap of paper in your bag told, you received a call with the exact numbers written on it. 

“Helloooo~” you giggle as soon as you heard him drawling out the last syllable of that simple word, you can basically see his contagious smile over the phone. 

Setting down your cup of coffee, you leaaned against the counter, smiling.

“Good morning, Jungkook.”

A muffled laugh was heard from the other line, a masculine voice, actually, so you figured he wasn’t alone. Still smiling, you let them bicker, until--

“Hi! I’m Hoseok--”

“Hyung, gimme back my phone!!”

“--Guk really finds you easy to talk to and says you’re pretty, so can I ask you out on a date?”

“H-Hyung!? You traitor!”

Another laugh and some occasional tumbles and thuds erupted from the other end, and you remained silent until you could process the words the man named Hoseok had told you.

You have never been called pretty, not even by your exes--which is a stupid thing for them not to say, actually. Jimin’s definition of calling you ‘pretty’ is similar to how he says ‘you look cool’ and that’s it. So you could explain why your heart is beating so unnaturally fast right now.

Unaware of the escalating screams on the call, you were only taken back into place when you heard the familiar sound of a door slamming shut, and the sound of a body hitting a mattress. 

“Sorry, my friend is a bit of a blabbermouth.”

You bit your lower lip, anticipating the events that will probably come after.

“Oh, that’s fine. Reminds me of Jimin, really.”

You weren’t even able to process what you said until you said it out loud. 

For fuck’s sake, why did you have to mention his name right now?

The other end was silent for a tiny bit, and you nearly sighed in disappointment to yourself, thinking he had already hung up. 

But then.

“Oh, you have a boyfriend?” he sounded a little down.

You jumped at your place, “Best friend! He’s my best friend, actually..” you drawl out a nervous laugh afterward because you sounded quite desperate to your liking. 

As if your lucky day -which it is- , Jungkook laughs.

“Great~ So does this mean I can take you out later?”

No words escaped your mouth, you stood there dumbfounded in your dining area, a stupid grin decorating your red face.

“R-really?”

He snorts, “Yeah, really. Why not? I really want to get to know you--a-and maybe even more, if you don’t mind..” he grows embarrassed at the later parts of his sentence, his voice growing meeker with each passing second. 

This was just a man who you had bumped into at an art store, and yet your heart seemed to agree with the chances of meeting up with him again.

So with a doubled grin, you chuckled.

“I don’t mind.”

True to his word, as soon as it struck ten, he was already at your door. You had dressed up well but not too much. Casual yet fancy along with your favorite pair of Timbs to go. 

You knew you made the right choice when he flashed a certain glimmer in his eyes when he took notice of your boots.

“I noticed you wearing a different pair last night but I didn’t expect you to like them as much as I do.” your smile widens when you realized he was wearing the exact pair. No words were exchanged when he raised his arm for you to take, you only held it with a sweet lopsided grin, and stepped off your door. 

You had lunch at a place in between fancy and normal, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You thought he’d actually be the guy who usually takes out their dates to movies and such and spoils them of stuff, but Jungkook actually took you to the amusement park. Where he, by the way, murdered your soul after three continuous roller coaster rides.

He didn’t stop there. He made you go on all dangerous rides and even went laser tagging, which you beat him at, much to his surprise.

Your day was filled with laughter and bliss as the day eased slowly into night, you were more than two hours in the amusement park that you actually lost track of the time.

You were only reminded by it when you were eating your cotton candy and laughing at a humiliating story of Jungkook, when your phone vibrated in the pockets of your jeans--indicating a message.

Excusing yourself, you took it out only to view the all too familiar name of your best friend. 

‘Where are you? You’re not home, it’s our movie night! :(’ 

It read. And for a moment, you felt a tad bit guilty for forgetting that it was indeed your movie night. It was a Friday! But how could you remember it when he skipped the last three in a row?

Sighing in exasperation, you tucked the device back in your pocket and faced Jungkook -who looked concern- with a strained smile.

“Sorry, it was Jimin.”

He bobs his head, fringe bouncing as he took half of the cotton candy in his mouth. Working wonders as he downed it as if it was a tiny candy. 

“Best friend problems?” he casts you a glance, enough for him to see your twitching eye. Your knuckles were white and your cheeks were flushed red in what seems to be annoyance as you nodded in reply. 

“Care to tell me?” he tips it off with a little grin, his pearly bunny white like teeth showing--you couldn’t resist smiling back. “He has a.. what you can call a serious relationship right now, he seems to really like her--a-and we’re friends, too. Me and the girl. But as of now, she’s ticked off with the fact that Jimin and I are still close when he already has her. Now he’s not hanging out that much anymore with me, and I didn’t know he’d be dropping by to watch movies tonight because he skipped the last three Fridays!” you ended with a large intake of air, unable to believe that you were able to finish that in a single breath.

Jungkook looks pretty baffled, obviously not expecting the entire story. 

You take a glance, expecting a face of discomfort, or anything that will give way of his sudden dislike, but there was none. If anything, there’s only understanding and a soft smile. 

“Hey, don’t worry ‘bout him. If he already has someone, then it shouldn’t bother you at all. Everyone’s bound to fall in love, right?” there’s a peculiar shimmer in his eyes when he said that that made your heart skip a beat. 

Although you knew him just a day ago, you couldn’t help but feel like you knew him forever. It’s probably just you liking him a teeny, wee bit, though. 

So you ignored the constant vibrating of your phone and locked eyes with the handsome man in front of you.

It was ten in the evening when the two of you stumbled back to the front of your door, still laughing at each other’s corny jokes and humiliating stories. 

He bids you a good night, even going far like kissing the back of your hand in either pure sincerity or mockery. Either way, it made your cheeks pink. 

Jungkook waves goodbye to you before hopping on his motorbike and riding off.

With a stupid grin on your lips, you entered the confines of your abode, only to freeze when you spotted Jimin standing just at the entrance way to the living room. A remote in his hand and his phone in the other. By the silence, you can hear the familiar dialogue of “The Fault in Our Stars” playing, a tear-jerking movie you watched with him and laugh about stupid stuff in the end. 

“.. Hi.” you greeted him after taking off your boots. 

Jimin looked ready to explode, his face already similar to a ripened tomato.

“Hi?! Are you insane!? It’s this late and you arrived just now—and who was that guy I heard from outside?!” he bellowed, throwing his hands up in the air in distaste. 

You made sure that he can see the roll of your eyes, wanting to present that he wasn’t only the one at fault here. 

You walked past him, bumping his shoulder with your own.

“Yeah, say that to the guy who ignored me for weeks on end, skipped promised movie nights, and has the ego to come here and be angry at me.” you spat, plopping back on the couch as you switched to a different movie. You don’t feel like watching the usual.

Judging by the silence, you knew Jimin’s face had softened and his anger died down. 

Good.

He should at least know he’s partially at fault, as well.

You said nothing when he sits on the other end of the couch, but you can feel his stare digging at the side of your face, eager to look for attention or any sort of reaction he’d get from his silence.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

You snorted loudly in mockery.

“I meant that!” he shouts, and you find yourself shrinking and being annoyed all over again. You didn’t know why you were acting like this. It’s not like you’re his lover or anything, you were just a best friend.

Jimin crosses his arms, facing the other way with a glare.

“Why the heck are you being like this anyway?” he mumbles discreetly.

You didn’t know yourself, but you had a hunch as to why. 

You were so attached to Jimin that you were scared of letting go of him, your best friend, whisked away by his lover and you’d be left alone. You had no right to keep him to yourself, not when you know you aren’t the one making him happy. You were just a best friend, that title meant the world, but you still couldn’t help but want him around.

“I’m sorry, too. I know you were just worried.” 

But that doesn’t change the fact that he ignored you as if you were nothing. 

The voice plagued your mind, and you know that much that it’s true.

It doesn’t change the truth that he can neglect you because he has Seolhyun, now.

At your eigth date with Jungkook, he had taken you to watch movies. The cinema was quite packed, in fact, and the two of you had just bought your tickets and popcorn and are preparing to go inside the theater while sharing another one of your jokes. 

You were too busy laughing at him demonstrating an embarrassing move he once did at high school to bother apologizing properly to someone you had bumped into. 

But before you could take a step further, his voice spoke amidst the crowd. 

Evidently freezing you in place.

“[Y/n]? Is that you?” 

You could feel your heart thundering as you were turned to face him, eyes going wide at the sight of his hand holding another. Seolhyun, who was glaring at you for some reason.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” 

Jungkook.

You figured the aforementioned man in your thoughts took his place beside you, with Jimin’s face contorting into that of confusion. His free hand on your shoulder withdrawing itself rapidly. 

“Who’s this?” he emphasizes his tone, eyes narrowing and hand tightening around Seolhyun’s, the latter squealing in pain. 

You gulp.

But why should you be nervous?

“Jungkook, this is Jimin, my best friend. Jimin, this is Jungkook, my..” you drifted off almost immediately upon realizing the fact that you and him aren’t under any labels of sorts. Your silence was slowly irking your best friend, his foot tapping in impatience.

Say he’s a colleague or something--

“Boyfriend.” Jungkook spoke up after assuming that your voice had gone.

You went frigid, colors draining from your face.

Did he just!?

There was a look of disappointment.. or hurt, that flashed over Jimin’s face. You didn’t know why, and why he had the audacity to feel so, but he seemed enraged all of a sudden.

“We’ll talk, later.” he hisses at you, whisking Seolhyun away to the busy crowd in lieu of properly saying farewell.

Jungkook turns you back to the place towards the cinema, huffing out his irritation, not realizing his draped arm on your shoulders.

“That guy’s your best friend? Pfft. Seems like he has issues.” you couldn’t resist the smile covering your lips at his words, foolishly chuckling along with him.

Until.

“Wait, what’s the deal with you saying you’re my boyfriend, huh?!” you slammed a fist on his chest, Jungkook, laughing at your attempted attack. He didn’t even budge. Rolling his shoulder, he winks your way.

“What. I was going to ask you if you’d be my girlfriend, either way.”

“W-what!?” Redness overcame the entirety of your face, your fingers twitching as the man before you placed a surprising kiss at your left cheek. Chuckling at the warmness of your face.

Lacing his hand in yours, he pulls you to the cinema. And for that moment, your worries were briefly removed. 

When Jungkook dropped you off your house as his ‘official girlfriend’ and had parted ways for the night, you wore a smile on your face.

You have completely forgotten what you were supposed to expect the second you came to the living room. There, Jimin was waiting, like he did when you ignored him. But he didn’t look too happy. No, he was mad.

“Care to spill why you never told me of this?” he demands, stopping in front of you with a glare that sent shivers up and down your spine. 

You licked your lips in thought, crossing your arms.

“It didn’t matter to you, you have Seolhyun now, remember?” you reminded him, reminded him of the same words he used on you. 

Steam blew from his ears as his cheeks reddened in what seems to be annoyance.

“I thought we’re through with this? Are you jealous right now? This argument ended months ago. I have Seolhyun for more than two years!”

You faced him back, a glare in your face as you snorted.

"That doesn't change the fact that you pushed me away every single time, your best friend you were supposed to hang out with, as well!"

Jimin's anger reduces lightly, but it wasn't removed completely.

"That—"

"I waited for you, Jimin. I waited but no! What would make you drop your girlfriend so easily for your best friend, anyway?" you looked away, feeling the tears brim your eyes.

Silence took over the room, but you were a hundred percent sure the tension is lingering somewhere.

You wanted to take back what you said, knowing it will make the situation worse, but you couldn't. It felt right stating what you were feeling, how unfair it was of him to just think of.. of her.

".. Nothing,"

Your ears perked up, and you glimpsed back.

"What?"

Jimin looked appalled, his eyes searching everywhere but yours. As if dancing from one place to another.

Finally, after what seems to be an eternity, he looks at you. Certainty playing right through his shining eyes of ebony. There's this unsettling sentiment creeping into you—almost as if warning you that something bad's about to happen.

"You're right. Nothing would make me drop her for you."

Your fingers twitched in response, eyes growing astonishingly wide at his wordings. Did he just flat out degraded you? Worse, think that you're not even needed in his life, anymore?

"Yeah, why should I care about that boyfriend of yours, huh? You live your own life, and I live mine. It's not either of our obligations to know what happens to who." Jimin was ranting right now, eyes rolling in infuriation as he turned his back on you and without hesitance, started walking away with a huff.

Not wanting to feel inferior to him, you cursed aloud.

"Fuck you, Park Jimin—I hate you for doing this to me!"

That made him stop in his movements. Taking in a minute to process the words you blurted behind him. And when he did, he was certain that the clenching of his heart was evident that very instant.

With tight fists at his side, he strolled away, mumbling a sentence you managed to hear.

"I hate you all the more."

A gasp leaves your lips the very minute he walked out of your door, and possibly even your life. You never took Jimin to torment you with a deadly choice of terms in his vocabulary as a rebuttal, but he did, and it hurt.

It hurt badly.

You didn't know what went wrong, nor when the tears started slipping away from within the confines of your eyes, all there was is pain, agony, and regret. You could've handled the situation better than bursting out like that. If you did.. would the situation have changed?

Either way, you were on the floor, a blank look casting over your face as his words went on loop in your mind. Repeating itself to abuse your faulty entity all over again.

"[Y/nnnnn]~!"

You slammed the locker door shut, not fazed at all even when Jimin was already present from behind the once opened locker door.

Facing him with a childish grin, you seemed to have an inkling feeling as to why he's looking so giddy at 8 am on the first day of high school.

"Good morning, Chim. How's summer?" you grinned in a toothy fashion.

The playful nudging of his sent you laughing, thus causing him to roll his eyes with a reverberating chuckle.

"Shut up, we spent summer together. Enough of that, though! We have all our classes together!! Ain't that great!?" he squealed, jumping in his place with two sheets of paper -which were already crumbling by the way- in his hands. His actions, of course, drew attention. To which you slammed a hand on his mouth to prevent him from squealing all the more.

You give him an eye smile, taking his hand in yours as you tugged him along the crowding hallway.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great if we don't wanna be late for uh.. Pre-Calculus."

That seemed to bring forth his focus.

"Oh! Shit, [Y/n]—we're gonna be late!"

The remains of the laughter that bubbled from your throat went free, unable to actually say that it's what you had just mentioned a while ago and just let him drag you along.

"[Y/nnnn].. [Y/nnnnnnnnn]."

You heard the distinct sound of your best friend calling your name softly from the other side of the room. There were a few, choked sobs according to your hearing, and maybe even hiccups. But you didn't know why.

"Jimin?" you mumbled silently, still drowsy at the fact that you were awakened at whatever time it was in the early morning, but still, Jimin's a priority right now. He rarely cries.

So with the continuous soft whimpers you're still hearing, you slipped off the soft mattress and wore your bunny slippers. Rubbing your eye with a fist, you yawned, walking out in the hallway and not wasting a precious second to go inside Jimin's.

He was sleeping over since his parents are out on a business trip, and since he was practically like a second child to your own family, he was given a place to stay as long as he likes.

Back on the matter at hand, you closed the door behind you as you stared at the figure beneath the bundle of thrown covers with pillows surrounding it as if it's his territory.

You walked closer.

"Jiminie,"

The figure stopped shaking.

A mop of black hair peeped out from within the cover, then came the doe eyes that you've come to see every day. They were red and sore, however.

He sniffled.

"What's wrong? Nightmares gotcha?" you asked, sitting beside him on the bed with open eyes. Wanting to help him even at the deadly hour of the morning.

Jimin sits upright, the duvet falling onto his shoulders as he sniffs.

"You died."

You blinked in surprise.

His lower lip trembled.

"W-we were already in our twenties and we got into a fight, t-t-then all of a sudden you just.. I couldn't get to you because I d-didn't know and—"

He cut himself right off, professedly unable to continue that nightmare as he shook in his place.

".. And I was all alone."

His tears were once again falling like a waterfall as he sobbed into a pillow.

You were a loss for words. How did Jimin, a fourteen-year-old, cry over a nightmare like this?

Simple, it only meant he valued you so much that he'd cry about you.

Giggling, you began rubbing his back in order to calm him down. Under your touch, you could feel him easing up, his shaky sobs lessening until it turned into tiny sniffles.

"That's funny. You know I'm with you through all of this, right? I wouldn't be leaving you anytime soon! I won't be the best man if I died young~" you teased, pushing him playfully to get a reaction.

And you did.

A small laugh that became chortles, before he was full on smiling at you as if he hasn't had that nightmare from only mere minutes ago.

He appreciated you so much for being there for him.

"Thank you, [Y/nie]."

For being his best friend.

"Anytime."

To say that you were devastated by your best friend's departure from your home - and most likely your life - would be a total understatement. He meant so much to the point that you worried and fussed over him when he's not even your lover.

You didn't even care if he doesn't think of how you're doing like you do to him. All that matters is knowing if he is alright.

It had actually been another good four months without his contact, and you didn't think you could go on for such a long time. But that's all thanks to Jungkook, your own lover who held you upright the entire time.

He's been acting kinda off for a while now, though.

Ever since your latest argument with him concerning about Jimin—then again, all of your arguments are about the latter, he started being weird.

A morning after a week of not speaking with Jungkook, you felt odd.

You had awoken on the same side of the bed as usual and did your morning routine, but decided to skip a day of work with the permission of your boss because you felt peculiar that day.

So, you busied yourself around the house. Dusting off the countertops, doing the laundry, jamming to music, baking random goods, and reading a bunch of books that came from the shelves.

It was ten in the morning when it happened.

At first, you didn't mind it. It was just a headache, it can be done by anything, right? Maybe you really tired yourself out, or maybe it's the migraines kicking in. You have been staying up late for weeks on end.

But when it started to worsen; your vision blurring, your chest aching, and nose trickled down your nose, was when you started to be concerned.

All of a sudden, the world was spinning around and there was this sound of a flatline ringing in your ears sharply as if it was meant to slice your eardrums. Your head was being hammered and then your body was hot all over like you were sunk into a pool of lava and is entirely coated by an array of blue and red flames. Each step you took felt as if you are stepping on burning embers and sharp knives.

Everything stung.

As you swayed for your phone in order to call for help, your body gave in to the unexpected pain you were going through. Your knees collided with the ground, and your upper body followed right after. You landed on the carpeted floorings of your house, wheezing for air as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Shakily muttering his name, but getting no obvious help, you were caved in by the darkness.

"I can't wait,"

Seolhyun smiles sweetly as she coils her arms around her husband to be's shoulders. Looking at what he was doing as she stood behind him.

Atop the table laid out envelopes in peach coloring. Tiny roses designed around the corners of the cover with the initials of his name and his bride calligraphed beautifully on the front with gold ink.

Seolhyun kisses the crown of his head, "Thank you for making my dream a reality." with that said, she untangles her arms and walks off to do other necessities for their upcoming grand memory.

Jimin is silent as he brought one envelope to the air, a longing sigh leaving his lips as he turned it over and read the name to whom it's intended for.

[Y/n] [L/n] ,

~ You are hereby invited to the wedding of Song Seolhyun & Park Jimin ~

He had done the invitations himself, wanting to convey his feelings for everyone they plan to invite. Every heartfelt letter was done by him, so he hopes that those who received the invitation would be grateful.

Jimin glances to the parchment on the table at the side, it contained nothing but his handwritten note towards his best friend. The girl he had a fight with over a month ago and had just honestly remembered her when Seolhyun asked if they'll invite her as well.

He felt like crap when he did remember.

He knew that they fought badly and had left her house in grave terms, but it was not an excuse to forget her that easily just because of his upcoming wedding. No matter how busy he was.

Sighing, Jimin tucks in the parchment in the designated envelope before sealing it shut. He held it in his hands for a good minute, heart clenching.

She'll forgive him, right?

He tightens his hold on it.

She'll come by to his wedding.

He sets it down and stands up with a hopeful smile.

He's sure of it.

The soft sound of a beeping monitor overlapped your sense of hearing. Gently as it began, the black void suffocating you blended in with pretty colours. Slowly morphing into white nothingness.

Or so you thought.

The first thing you saw the second your eyes adapted to your environment are the white walls and [c] curtains at the side. It was fairly cold in the room, and the beeping sound of the monitor seemed close than what you actually thought.

It came to you that you are in a hospital bed, wires attached mostly to your arm. No doubt analyzing your pulse and your heart rate.

You breathed in, then out.

Who brought you here?

As if your questions were answered, the door to your room opens up, only for a doctor to come inside with a clipboard in his hands. When he spots you awake and sitting, a solemn look comes across his face.

"How are you feeling, [Y/n]? I'm Namjoon, your assigned doctor."

You nod your head to his statement, serving as a greeting. You cleared your throat and replied that you're fine now than before, soon asking about how you got to the hospital in the first place.

Namjoon blinks, saying that a neighbor had come to your house because you were not answering the phone when you were called. And had come across to your unconscious form on the ground.

You sighed in relief, unaware of the heartbreaking news that will come upon you a minute away.

The doctor sits beside you, handing you his clipboard in silence. Not completely trusting his voice, fearing it may crack at the depressing discovery in store for you.

Unsure why he had gone soundless, you lowered your gaze to the bold words written in the paper.

You look back up, only for him to frown at you.

"I'm sorry."

You walked down the sidewalk with a blank expression on your face, a bunch of papers clutched in your hand as you trudged your way to the front porch of your house. Stopping by the mailbox when you saw a part of a letter sticking out.

Humming absentmindedly and without a care in the situation, you slipped it off the mailbox. Your eyes immediately brimmed with tears the second you realized what kind of letter it was.

You bit your lip as you raced for the door, barging inside and shutting it close with the softest force. You raked a hand through your hair in hopelessness, wondering what you did to have such a consequence.

Taking off your shoes, you proceeded to the living room, planning on just shutting the blinds and bask in the darkness whilst rethinking your entire life. But you were halted in place when you spotted a hunched figure sitting on the couch.

He looks up.

Your lower lip trembled.

"Jungkook.."

There was a look of forlorn dancing within his eyes as he stands up, whispering your name and towering over your slightly shaking stature.

You didn't speak, you waited for him to utter something—anything—but maybe that's where you've gone wrong.

Maybe you should've said something first.

He sighs, worriedly looking at the floor as if it suddenly enraptured his senses.

"Listen, I don't think this," he points at you and him, "Is working out." he finishes with an exhale.

From that moment on, you felt your life draining out.

Were your ears deceiving you?

But you know they're not. Jungkook himself said so. You were not dreaming, you were living reality. And he had just broken up with you.

"What? But we're doing fine!" you argued, suddenly clutching the papers close to you. Feeling inferior at the fact that Jungkook doesn't seem disturbed at all by what you said.

He shrugs simply.

"I don't think so, [Y/n]," there was disdain all over his voice. "Every time we talk, it's about us—then it drifts over to Jimin."

The gears in your head began turning.

"It's always Jimin. I get that he's your best friend and you fought with him, but for fuck's sake, [Y/n]."

You began to understand what drove him to his breaking point.

But the second you looked up at him in fear, in hope of correcting what you've done wrong. One look at his determined face, you knew you were too late.

It was obvious that he was trying his best not to let the anger get the best of him, but it was showing off in his diction and the tone of his words. His balled up fists at his side showed up as a shred of evidence, too. He was just attempting to be calm so he wouldn't blow up.

Probably as his last act of tolerating your behavior.

"Was I not enough for you? I thought I helped you overcome the fact that Jimin is no longer your best friend?" he presses on, taking a step closer to you. "Are you still living a lie? Or maybe it's him that you love, after all."

Your eyes widened, and immediately butted back.

"That's not true. I love you, Jungkook!"

But that's all you could say.

He narrows his eyes, not once interested in what you had to add.

"Doesn't seem like it. Goodbye, [Y/n]." he walked away, brushing your shoulder over as he made his way to the front door.

Your heartbeat was pounding so loudly in your ears as you spun around, a desperate look in your face as your knees buckled.

This can't be happening!

The tears that once lined your eyes came back up along with the heavyweight against your chest, suffocating you and dragging you down to that inescapable abyss of guilt.

"Wait!"

Jungkook stops.

For that moment, there's this single thought running in his mind. Something that made him halt and wait. There was just.. something that glued him to his place, as if warning him that if he walked out, he would be regretting that decision.

He waits.

And thinks, that if you said anything, if you could just.. say something for him to stay. He will. He wanted to hear you say that you need him with you, just something along those lines and he'll stay.

But your voice was gone.

You stood there, grasping a bunch of papers that told your remaining chapters. Your life was on those papers, your heart was in the brink of shattering—but you couldn't say anything.

You didn't know how.

"I.."

You couldn't tell him.

And that made him walk away.

Just like Jimin did.

"When my wedding day comes, I want you to be my best woman."

You choked on your milkshake, eyeing your insane friend who sat smiling as if it's normal. He actually appears serious.

"I'm not a man, pabo. Can't do that I guess." you laughed in between slurps as you swung your legs back and forth from your seat on the swing.

Jimin was already whining by the time you finished your sentence, already knowing beforehand that you'll counter whatever he plans on saying.

"Then you'd be the first one to ever do it—I need my best bud giving me the rings. I'll lose them myself because I'm an idiot and I don't want my future wife to think that I—"

"You're blabbering.."

"Right! Sorry." Jimin miraculously stays silent, deciding on entertaining himself by playing with the bendy straw that poked out of the cup of his frappe.  

The two of you swung with little to no sound, only kicking each other's legs in a playful manner in lieu of words.

".. I'm serious about it, though."

You hummed at his murmurs, glancing at how he looks quite determined and demanding.

"About what.. ?" you mumbled.

His radiant smile reaches his ears.

"We'll attend each other's wedding!"

For Jimin. For him, you thought to yourself.

You held the pretty little invitation in between your fingers, showcasing it to a perplexed looking Jimin who sat.

You texted him to meet you at the local café because you have to tell him something. He probably thought that you'd make up for the better, but who said you were doing that?

It hurt you to see that the smile on his face vanished as soon as he saw you throw the invitation in front of him.

"I won't attend your wedding."

You managed to say, not believing that you said that without an ounce of wobble in your voice. But still, inwardly, you were tearing yourself apart.

Jimin gulps, a silent look of rage playing before his face before softening.

He stands up and clutches the envelope in his grip. He didn't question why you wouldn't attend, and you were thankful for that—but he pushed the card into your hand, either way. And that was what hurt the most.

You could see the hope flickering in his raging eyes but soft visage.

You were a loss for words as he held your hands in his, your heart was already trying to jump out of your chest at what he was doing. You could practically see him clinging onto you, pleading.

"Take it, and if you decided.. to change your mind." he drifts off, and you snarl, whisking your hand away rather harshly.

It triggered a reaction, a pained gasp leaving him as he watched you glare at him with intensifying venom before you spun around and left him there.

The last sight you've had of him before you broke down yourself with the invitation crumpled in your hand, was a devastated Jimin.

The piano medley is already playing in the church, a few ways besides the altar, where he can truly hear the same tune softly bounding in his ears.

The bride—his wife-to-be, is still hiding behind those two doors.

So as the flower girls came walking down the aisle, he took his chance to scout the room with his sharp eyes. There are his friends standing at the sidelines, all wearing tuxedos and bright grins that showed up when his eyes flashed by them.

His family was there, Seolhyun's family was there, but—

Jimin's breath got hitched in the middle of his throat, and he clasped his hands together as his tongue darted outward to lick his lip in anxiousness, beginning to shift from foot to foot.

—There's no sign of her, [Y/n].

The girl he wanted to see at this special day, the girl he deemed his ultimate best friend, and the girl he wanted to apologize so badly to.

Even when she said she wouldn't attend, he still hoped.

The strings of the violin came into the melody, indicating the arrival of the bride. And she did. The enormous double doors opened to give way for the beautiful bride in white to walk in, stunning everyone who stood in the process.

She's beautiful, indeed, with grace as she walked forward.

He felt tears collecting in his eyes, but for not the latter reason.

No.

It was because he had his hopes up.

She promised she would attend his wedding, she promised she would stick by his side no matter what! Even when they had a huge fight that would undoubtedly crack their friendship, she said she's always come back.

Jimin smiles bitterly as Seolhyun approaches the altar, taking her hand in his as they faced the altar.

His last act of reconciling with you, down the drain.

—Why would you do this?

He breathes in and out as the priest began.

—I really.. really hate you, [Y/n]

If you could curse fate for doing this to you—or anything that controls humans' life, you will.

What did you do to gain this consequence? Where have you gone wrong to be able to acquire such punishment?

Maybe because you were too bitter?

Was it because you failed to 'spread your wings' like your mother and father taught you? To enjoy the beauty of life as you grow old, and not for it to revolve around your best friend you believed would stick by your side 'till the end?

Or was it because you did pay too much attention on him, that you didn't succeed on holding on to the new, sweet addition to your life—a lover?

Maybe because you were too selfish?

Ah, you didn't know.

You really didn't know.

You wish you could've at least corrected those, at least. To remove the bad blood you've most likely caused to interfere between your friendship with Jimin, and your love with Jungkook. They were understanding, but then you were probably too self-centered to bother realizing the upcoming, inevitable end held for you.

You could almost hear the inviting echo of the church bells, resounding together with a symphony of euphoria and bliss that awaited the newly weds; your best friend. 

As you laid on the white hospital bed awaiting for the end, you could only cast a sorrowful glance on your bedside table. Which has the wedding invitation that was torn in half and a dusty bunny plush toy. Each depicting two major chapters of your life; Jimin and Jungkook. Who both, in the end, left your life -to your will- without knowing the truth to your lifestyle. 

You could see the disappointed, possibly angered look on your best friend's face when he noticed that you didn't attend. Wouldn't attend. Couldn't attend.

I'm sorry, Jiminie

You could perfectly imagine the look of heartbreak against your ex-lover's face when he left, you knew he loved you, but he couldn't stay. Because he thought that you were too clingy with your best friend's life, that you had fallen for him. Which is not true.

You simply couldn't balance everything in your plate.

And by the time you were realizing all of it, your life—and everything in it, was already crumbling down.

I'm sorry, Jungkookie

You could only wish that the happiness that they’re pursuing for is granted in the end. It was better that way, your death remaining to yourself without anyone knowing. Your family had gone ahead, Jungkook had left, and Jimin..

Isn’t your best friend anymore. 

The mere thought of it was more than enough for your well-hidden tears to resurface, causing you the difficulty to regain an even breathing. 

You could remember how Jimin first stared at you with a look of utter disappointment and silent rage as he processed how you said you wouldn’t attend his wedding. 

You wouldn’t. Not couldn’t. 

And the fact that you would not dare step into a beautiful memory in his life, as he deemed, is unforgivable. He took the invitation from you and clenched it in his fists, muttering how he even tried. He tore it in half, with his eyes teary and knuckles white. He declared, before he went away, that you were no longer his best friend. Or if you ever were one in the beginning. It was his breaking point, and somewhat your achievement. Having him turn his back on you would be easier than letting him see your current state, just like you want Jungkook to do.

.. Ah, Jungkook. Your first, true love that you took seriously, but didn’t expect to end it in such a bad note. 

You’ve had it planned, how you’d break up with him, but he had gone first before you can do anything. 

You were too engrossed at the fact that Jimin is getting married, and he’s upset with you, to the point wherein you nearly forgot you had Jungkook, a partner you could entrust anything to. But you were too secretive, too mysterious, that even with his burning love for you and you the same, he had to let go.

At the same place, although raining, Jungkook uttered those words you couldn’t forget. You remember how even under the umbrella, the rainfall of tears that left his eyes that meant that it was difficult for him to be with you, broke your heart.

Because you did love him, but that love wasn’t enough. 

You couldn’t open up, you were too afraid.

He gave you another chance that rainy evening, asked you what’s wrong, and why you won’t say anything. But you didn’t reply.

And that led to him turning away from you for the final time. 

You never saw him again.

Those two boys who played a great role in your story would forever remain in your slumber, as two figments in your memory in the blackness. 

As the world around you flashed in and out of your eyes and of your grasp, you knew the sand was falling fast. You had no time left, no time to apologize even if you wanted to. No ‘I’m sorry’ for Jungkook, and no ’Congratulations’ to Jimin. 

You were dying, and that was your final call.

But perhaps, in someway or another, you would be able to re-approach them again. May it be a dream, or a hallucination. You’d find your way to them as your last and final thank you, for bearing with you until the end. 

That was the dying wish you embraced to your heart to the very finale, as your eyes finally closed, and the sounds of the requiem died down with you.

It had been a tiring day—his wedding day.

Even with all the mishaps and the false hope he was given, it was still a happy event to remember. His dream of being married has been accomplished, and now he's bound to set off into a new chapter of his life.

Then his thoughts lingered to someone.

Someone that brought a frown to his face even when he has his wife curling beside his arm.

He hasn't made up with you, yet.

He thinks why, thinks of all the reason why, but he couldn't.

You didn't show up, and that's it.

There's this bitterness residing in the pits of his chest, unable to accept that you were just able to drop down more than a decade long of friendship, for a silly argument like that.

With a scowl, Jimin shuts his eyes, the exhaustion tolling all over and almost immediately bringing him sleep.

The blackness morphed into something else. In fact, it was a familiar place--it was the venue for his wedding reception. His grand wedding that didn’t seem so grand and regal anymore because there’s a presence lacking. 

“Jimin.” 

He turns around, and his lips part gently as his eyes settled upon a woman he ended bonds with. Her pretty [c] hair fell and cascaded down her shoulders, her body covered in a pretty, gentle white dress that flew to the back of her knees. 

“[Y/n]?” he whispers in bewilderment. 

The girl only smiles at him.

Jimin couldn’t believe it, he’s dreaming for sure, his desperate wishes of seeing his (ex) best friend attending his wedding finally giving in to his subconscious and perfectly molding it into a dream.

When he doesn’t reply, still bitter about her not wanting to attend, the [c] haired female steps closer to him. 

“I’m really sorry, you know that.” 

He looks at her, conflict and confusion swimming in his orbs of charcoal. His arms were crossed as he faced her, his eyebrows furrowing in suspicion.

“Are you? I don’t think so. What kind of friend wouldn’t want to attend their best friend’s wedding?” he scoffs as he asks this, his eyes rolling back and forth.

“A scumbag,” she replies. 

He tried to contain the urge to lift his lips upward. Their constant perky conversation already brewing in like it used to before. 

Finally, he places his whole attention on her.

“Why didn’t you attend my wedding, [Y/n]? Where did it go wrong? When did we grew so far apart?” Jimin asks, his voice breaking as he once more, attempted to conceal the water behind his eyes. The girl before him is a sore topic, for she already had a place in his heart as a friend he could count anytime, and they just.. parted off like what they blossomed together; their friendship, was nothing.

The girl in front of him stayed silent, her eyes showcasing sadness, yet her lips remained sealed. 

Jimin waits for a few more seconds as he searched her features for any signs of an answer, but there was none. 

He sighs.

“You’re never going to tell me, are you?” 

She shakes her head with a frown. 

“I’m sorry, you know I am,” she leans forward and clutches both of his hands in her own. They fit together like a glove, like they were meant to be true best friends who will held joined hands together until the end. 

Their bond was still not broken.

Suddenly, a soft ballad played over, surrounding them like water. It was gentle to the ears, and has a timid beat that’s enough for them to pick up on and start swaying. 

“I couldn’t dance with you at your wedding, and even if I did, I’m sure as hell others would be questioning why you’re not dancing with the bride.” 

To this, Jimin finally laughs, his eye smile not leaving as the two of you danced and swayed to the music. It brought so much nostalgia. Ever since childhood, she was by his side and vice versa, he even attended prom with the girl as his partner. Together they turned down anyone who practically screamed that they should be a couple, no. 

They were truly best friends. 

He realized that the moment the soft ballad playing was slowly fading out, and the chandelier seemed to grow dimmer, but you appear to glow. 

As he stopped dancing, he looked you in the eye, his hands descending to your waist as yours moved to his shoulders. There was so much you knew he wanted to say, wanted to ask, but he silenced that with a hug. 

His body was warm as he hugged you tighter. 

“I miss you.” he utters.

You could only rest your head upon his chest, mumbling how much you missed him too. But this dream is only temporary, and most likely will never happen again. You know this was the last time you would ever see him. 

Still encased in his hug that you would forever miss, he asks.

“Could you be my best friend, again?” 

Jimin pulls away as you laugh at him, and he couldn’t stop the smile that reached his ears as your eyes twinkled. 

“Of course, I’d always be your best bud.”

He couldn’t explain why your answer seemed heavy in his chest, or how there are tears that seemed to gather in his eyes with your reply. All he knew is that he’s happy, as he embraced you again with a tearful laugh. 

Until the blackness comes again to take him back away.

“Forever, Jimin.”

It was early in the morning when the ringing of the phone overlapped his dreamscape. A minute later, Jimin was opening his eyes to the dim lighting of the room, and his phone that kept on vibrating and ringing on his bed side table.

Seolhyun was still sleeping soundly beside him, covers bundled over her bare shoulders.

Not wanting to wake her up, he begrudgingly takes his phone and squints his eyes at the brightness of it.

The caller ID read..

"Jungkook?" he mutters.

How did he even got his number?

Shrugging, he was about to dismiss the call when an urging feeling basically yelled at him to pick the phone.

He hesitates.

But then again, he's never the one to ignore, so he picks it up either way.

"This better be good." he immediately says as soon as he hears Jungkook's heavy breathing.

"You have to come see me right now."

That was it.

Jungkook ended the call before Jimin could even ask why, and when it ended, there was already a message that came from the younger man. An address that read his assumably current location.

Grumbling, Jimin rolls out of bed in order to dress properly. Even if it's just the casual sweatpants and a shirt under a jacket, it'd do good. He slips on his running shoes and exits the house, but not before kissing the cheek of his wife who smiled in her sleep.

With the phone in hand, he trudges the sidewalk, teeth chattering as he internally repeated curses in his head. He turns the corner, looking up at the street sign which is identical to the one in the text, and continues.

There, on a lone bench just in front of a 24 hour fast food chain, is Jungkook. His figure is lurching forward, the black hoodie pulled over to cover his face.

“What is it?” Jimin asks silently as he approached Jungkook, who was seated on a bench, his head down until his voice came cutting through the silence. 

The newly wedded man looks flabbergasted upon the sight of Jungkook, whose eyes are red and swollen, looking as if he had cried terribly. Due to his fairly white complexion, he can see how there are dried stains on his cheeks.

“What happened to you?” Jimin asks breathlessly. 

The younger man couldn’t decipher why the best friend appeared so casual and normal. Is he aware of what happened, even?

“You.. you didn’t know?” he questions, eyes widening slightly. 

Jimin’s heart skips a beat, and almost immediately, his stomach churns. 

He has a bad feeling.

When he didn’t reply, Jungkook drags a lazy hand through his black hair, trying his best not to break down yet again as he stated to the unsuspecting man.

“[Y/n].. [Y/n] has died.”

Jimin felt empty. 

A blank look in his face, the gears in his mind turning and turning until it locked in place. 

Died.

It couldn’t be. 

He hears Jungkook shouting his name, and he only realizes by then that he had taken off running. His eyesight cloudy as he panted and ran towards the nearest cemetery he knows is in the neighborhood. 

An image of his best friend, laughing with him on the swings took over his mind.

It couldn’t be.

A memory of his best friend patting his back to relieve him of his nightmares overtook his thoughts.

Not [Y/n].

Voices screaming at one another in his head, reminded him of the last and the most heated argument they’ve had. 

Their last contact. 

He turns left to a corner, and by just a glimpse, he saw Jungkook running after him. His pace was pretty quick. 

Please..

He sees the entrance way, the arch that served as the gate of the cemetery, and his heart increased its rate. His running picked up in speed.

Tell me it’s a lie.

“That’s not true. That can’t be true.” Jimin repeats to himself as he turned corners and ran, his feet seeming to know where to lead him. Under a large tree with a clear view of the upcoming sunrise. The first rays of orange, red, and yellow, already slicing through the atmosphere.

And there, he stopped. Upon a tombstone, that had the name of his best friend carved onto the stone. 

No.

His breathing became rash, his shoulders jumped, and the tears clouded his sight.

No, no, no.. !

“[Y-Y/n]..” a cry breaks out of his lips that he tried so badly to clamp shut. 

His face morphs slowly into a look of denial, and his heart finally snaps apart and shattered asunder. 

Jimin falls to his knees, eyes leaking with tears as he envisioned the tombstone as your usual smiling self, bidding him congratulations because his lifelong dream of being wed to the love of his life had finally come into light.

Sobbing, he shakes his head, arms reaching forward to hug the stone. 

But it contained no warmth.

He only sobs even more when sudden memories came flooding his mind, no doubt causing more pain than he is in at the moment. 

All those times. 

All those times of you trying to talk to him, even for just a second of his time you wished to take, he would push you away. Too busy with life.

Too busy with Seolhyun.

“She died at your wedding day.” 

Jungkook’s voice comes to life slowly, and that was the sole weapon that pierced his chest. Jimin detaches his arms from the stone and gives a look of vulnerability to him.

She died on his wedding day. The day she told him she 'wouldn’t’ attend. 

And it only broke him even more. 

Jimin whisks his head back to the tombstone, clutching the grass beneath him as he whimpers along to the sorrow in his chest. 

“That’s why you didn’t want to tell m-me.. isn’t it?” he cries, “You didn’t want m-me to know. Because you’re sure I’ll call off the wedding, isn’t it?”

Jungkook looks away, his heart clenching all over again. 

He promised not to cry anymore, he promised not to just a while ago. 

“She told me once, that she’ll do anything to keep your happiness intact. I.. guess that covered why she didn’t want to tell you. She didn’t want to delay your wedding.” 

Jimin couldn’t help but just cry, and cry, and cry. Even though he knew he should stop. Why does it hurt so much? So bad? He couldn’t feel like this, Jungkook is probably hurting even more--he was the lover.

Even so, he didn’t know that there was a possibility that he could feel something so deeper than the word ‘hurt’ can explain. He’s beyond it. Jimin couldn’t accept the fact that he had failed to notice that his best friend was hurting--that she was dying even. And he had the audacity to even push her away even farther.

It sickened him. 

“I’m sorry..” Jimin covers his face with his hands, feeling shameful to even kneel before her grave with everything that he had done wrong. 

[Y/n] had done everything for him, why couldn’t he have done the same? 

He couldn’t even say sorry.

That was the word that circled his conflicted mind as he cried his anguish out to the person that will never return to his side, his sobs followed by another as he kept repeating that mere, one syllable word.

Why. 

“I’m sorry, [Y/n], I’m sorry..”

Jungkook merely averts his gaze and tries his best to block his hearing, but it seems impossible. Not when his heart is just as broken--probably even more, than the man on his knees.

The dream that he had, specifically when he had slipped on the ring on your finger and kissed you, claiming that you are his alone, broke him completely.

Knowing that it couldn’t and would never happen because he left you, he was the one who broke up with you. The truth that he could never have you as his bride, shattered him. 

And was the final strike for Jungkook, who, as same Jimin, could not grasp why he never noticed. Noticed your frown, your pleading eyes, and frail actions that ultimately gave away your suffering. Your condition. His reason of breaking up appeared solid and stable, you were too mysterious, but his reason isn’t good enough.

You were scared, you were terrified. The courage you had that made you seal your lips in order not to spill, in order for them not to worry about you, until you were alone on your death bed, was exceptional.

He wasn’t even there at your side when you left the world. 

He couldn’t kiss you anymore, he wouldn’t be able to see you anymore, nor grasp your fingers and hands in his own. 

You could never be his again. 

The truth of it all made Jungkook weep silently, his tears betraying his promise as the image of you in a wedding dress burnt itself into ashes. 

He was too late.

He couldn’t even tell you how much he loves you.

Jimin slams his fist on the wall, crying loudly as he pounds his back hardly against it, only to slide down to the floor in despair with a loud, desperate cry.

After his mutual exchange of tears with Jungkook at the cemetery, he had ran over to the house you were living at. Surprised at the fact that it still belonged to you, and came to the conclusion that your parents wanted to keep it as a complete memory of their beloved daughter.

His eyes searched your room, clean and neat, as you would leave it.

Only, you were in it no longer.

One look in your room and he had begun crying all over again, bringing his knees to his chest as he sobbed your name out loud.

“C-come back.. !” he traces your cheek in the photo, having taken it out of the frame, only for his tears to rain down upon it.

His grip on it trembled as did his lips, whimper leaving after whimper.

“I’m sorry, [Y/n]—I’m so sorry, please!” he started hugging it to his chest, desperately imagining it was you in his arms. Be it when you’re alive, or even when you just died, he didn’t care. 

He just wanted to hold you.

Jimin’s stature shook as he cried, so terribly filled with anguish he didn’t know what to do anymore but to cry for you to come back. 

“Jiminie,”

The ghost of a gasp leaves his lips as his head whisks upward to the voice.

Your voice.

There you were, sitting atop your bed as usual, eyes glossing over his in concern.

"What's wrong? Nightmares gotcha?" he resisted the urge to bawl right there, hearing you ask him if he’s okay, if he needs anything, it broke him apart.

He shook his head, eyes brimming with the residue of his tears.

"You died. I couldn’t get to you because I didn’t know a-and—"

You were silent.

“.. And now I’ll be alone.” Jimin’s voice cracks.

I don’t want that.

“You know I'm with you through all of this, right? I’ll be here,”

He shakes his head, still crying, because he knows.

I don’t want to be alone—don’t leave me alone.

He knows this was only his mind playing tricks on him. But even still, he clung onto this delusion, because he isn’t—and will never be ready to let you go.

“I love you, Jiminie. I hope you remember that.”

How long has it been.. when was the last time you expressed your love for him as his best friend?

I can’t do this without you.

His heart twists, and his grip on the photo hardens considerably.

He glances back at you.

“I—..”

But you were gone. 

Why did you have to leave me?

Jimin’s heart falls apart.

The pain and the agony entered once more as his gaze descends to your smiling face on the photo, his thumb going across your cheeks.

He would never be able to hug you ever again.

He wouldn’t have someone to turn to when he’s at his lowest point, anymore.

Jimin’s tears landed once more, a soft, broken cry leaving him as he held the photo close to his chest.

“.. I love you too, [Y/nie].”

Masterlist 

Oh well ._. Sorry for the long wait!

[agustdomain]

Running Circles Through My Mind

Synopsis: You weren’t sure when he started to become a regular thought in your mind. It was subtle, yet inevitable. The only problem was perhaps the feeling wasn’t mutual after all.

Word Count: 12.7 k 

Genre: Best Friend!au, Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Language

Member: Jaemin, ft. the other Dream boys

“Hey! Hey you! I know you hear me calling you.”

You huffed underneath your breath, opting to raise the volume on your headphones instead. However, ignoring this particular friend never ended well, because he was the most persistent of them all. He proceeded to rip your headphones out of your ear, your annoyed glance meeting his equally frustrated one.

“Can I help you?” You groaned, reaching for them but with no success as he gave you an unimpressed look. You and Renjun were good enough friends to have learned how to communicate through facial looks, but more often than not you often found yourselves bickering for seemingly unimportant reasons.

“Why do you have to be so anti-social? You saw me walking over here. Who puts their headphones in when someone is approaching them?”

“I do.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t have that many friends,” He grumbled, giving up by placing your headphones down and taking the seat across from you at the table. It was early morning, the air slightly brisk and the sun hidden somewhere in the clouds. You were midway through first hour, but luckily it was your senior year and you had miraculously managed to score a free first hour. Renjun happened to be one of the smartest guys you know, and had the smallest schedule possible, getting to leave campus around 2:10 in comparison to your 4:00.

“What do you want? You’re usually on your way to school at this time,” You mindlessly throw out there, sliding one headphone in your ear and leaving the other out to be courteous. You nibbled on an apple slice as you eyed your friend across from you.

You and Renjun had known each other most of your high school career. When you were tiny freshmen, you had a couple classes together, and rode the bus to and from school together. Your friendship really hadn’t sparked up until halfway through junior year, when you heard Renjun singing one of your favorite songs on the bus ride home. You don’t know where your spark of courage had come from, but at some red light you joined him at his seat- remembering his startled face still made you chuckle to this day- and said, “Seems to me like you might have some good music taste.” To figure out if that was true, you guys had spent the rest of the ride to his stop comparing artists you like. The rest was history.

Though you only had one class with him this year, you spent a chunk of the day missing him. You would never admit it to his face. But he was one hell of a friend.

“I want some acknowledgment once in a while. A text. A ‘How are you, Ren?’ I’m doing well, in case you were wondering.”

You just blinked at him, his antics not at all unfamiliar. After all, he was well known for his dramatic attitude, and it didn’t at all surprise you how he used to that to his advantage in the one class you guys had together: Theatre.

“No, but seriously. You never come this early. What’s up?”

He just sighed, looking around at the slightly vacant campus before slyly commenting, “I’m hanging out with some people this Friday and I was wondering if you wanted to join.”

“Ren, are you talking about that pizza place we were all thinking about hitting up?”

“You know about that?” He was genuinely surprised.

“I’m in the same group chat as you. And last time I remembered, we have the same group of friends.”

He rubbed his neck sheepishly before throwing out there, “You’re the least active person in the group chat. Don’t blame me for wondering whether or not you knew.”

“I have things to do. I can’t spam the group like Chenle and Hyuck half the time.”

“Okay. What do you have to do? Watch dog videos and talk on the phone with Lisa?”

“I don’t judge you so you don’t judge me, got it?” You pointed an apple slice at him, his hands raising up in surrender before losing your attention to your notebook. “So, why did you feel it was so important to come see me before school starts and tell me about this get-together.”

You glance up, not failing to see his little grin before letting himself hide it. He proceeded to announce in a funny voice, “I may or may not know that a certain someone will be joining us for the special occasion.”

“Spit it out. Come on.”

Renjun cleared his throat, pausing once more for dramatic effect. Just as you were about to reach across the table and grab him to shake some sense into him, he exclaimed, “A very tall and broodingly handsome guy who goes by the name Hyunjin told a little birdy he might be down to try a new pizza spot.”

Your eyes grew as wide as saucers. You spluttered, trying to form a sentence, but your mouth failing to work properly. Renjun stood up briskly, bowing as if he were performing before motioning as if he were quieting down an audience. “I know, I know. No need to thank me. In fact, I don’t even know how I did it. He’s usually so quiet in our math class. Kid barely smiles. Yet, when I see him with his friends he literally smiles like it’s a job. Anyways, he heard Mark and I talking about it in class and asked if he could come. Strange, right?”

“Are you messing with me now?”

“Nope.”

“You promise?”

“Geez. Ask Mark if you don’t believe me. You know he can’t lie for shit.”

“Ren,” You reached over, grabbing onto his arm aggressively. He gave you an annoyed look but didn’t say anything, “What do I do? I’m so embarrassing when I’m around him! I can’t go with you guys anymore!”

“Dude, relax. It’s not that serious. Just act like he’s one of us. Besides, I thought you said you were over your crush on him.”

You threw your head back, groaning in frustration. “Renjun! You’re so dense sometimes for being an actual genius! I had no choice. I approached him and literally embarrassed myself! He rejected me, remember?”

Renjun raised a finger in the air for his next point. “Technically he didn’t reject you.”

“He indirectly did.”

“No. He just told Mark, “Are you trying to set me up with one of your friends? Because if you are, don’t.”

“That’s telling me that I approached him for no reason and he let me down nice and easy before I decided to approach him a second time.”

“Okay. So what’s your point?” Checking the time on your phone, you just shook your head, feeling unnecessarily stressed about the entire situation. You could recognize that there was sense behind Renjun’s words. But you just couldn’t get your embarrassment out of your head. This was Hyunjin.

Hyunjin was a guy you hardly came across at school at all. In fact, it was your senior year and you only found out about his existence this year. He was cute, funny, and seemed quiet. Hence, why a pep talk from Donghyuck and Mark a few months ago had inspired you to approach him and ask him if he wanted to get to know each other better. He had agreed, and advised you to get his number from one of your mutual friends- which was Mark since they often did sports together- but much to your horror, only a couple days later, Mark had approached you and told you that Hyunjin had instructed him to stop trying to set him up with people he didn’t know. You were mortified, to say the least. A few months into the future, and here you were now, trying to avoid any interaction with Hyunjin at all costs.

Taking note of the bell ringing in under five minutes, you started packing up your stuff. Your silence seemed to tick Renjun off, and he childishly crossed his arms across the table. “So you’re telling me you’re going to handle this like a child and not come to hang out with your friends simply because you feel embarrassed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” You stood up, feeling satisfied with that being the end of the conversation. Just as you waved at him and started to walk off to your class, you heard Renjun call, “We’ll see about that.”

Lunch rolled around that day, and you began to feel like this was the longest Monday you had ever experienced in your life. However, the last classes of your day were the most laid back- one of them being theatre- so you had hope that it would be more fun than draining.

“-And then I proceeded to whoop his ass in the next three rounds,” Donghyuck’s proud voice travelled over to your ears as you approached your signature lunch table. The way your high school was set up, half of the lunch seating area was in the cafeteria and the other half was situated outside under ramadas. Since freshman year, your group of friends opted to sit outside, no matter how hot or cold the weather could become.

“Dude, how are you going to sit there and lie to my face? You did not win those rounds in Mario Kart. First of all, who the hell plays with Koopa Troopa?”

“Me, asshole. And guess what? I kicked your ass with him!”

“Oh, shut up! I want a rematch as soon as possible-”

“Bring it on, wannabe wario-”

“Y/N! I’m so glad you’re here,” Lisa announced, drawing the attention of the others. She got up to hug you briefly before whispering, “I’m so tired of their arguments. They’re so ridiculous.”

“We can hear you, you know. We’re right next to you,” Donghyuck deadpanned, staring at her as he sipped on his chocolate milk.

She just rolled her eyes before patting the seat next to her. “It’s days like these that I wish we had classes together. Today is so long,” She complained.

You definitely agreed, reaching over and ruffling Jisung’s hair who grumbled and kept his attention on the game he was playing on his phone. “I bet this will be recorded as the longest Monday in the book of world records.”

“Hey Y/N. Where’s Ren? I need to borrow a dollar.”

“He’s working on a project in the library. He’s not eating lunch today.”

“Hyuck, you need to stop mooching off all of us. We’re not going to be around forever. Learn how to save money,” Mark pointed out, spreading ketchup across his burger. Donghyuck began scarfing down his fries, mulling over Mark’s words.

“I have money. I just leave it at home so I’m not tempted to spend it.”

“Then proceed to spend our money?” Mark amusingly said, shaking his head.

“It’s not like you guys tell me no.”

“He’s right,” Lisa said, shrugging her shoulders. Mark opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it. You just shook your head, slipping your headphones in and turning on one of your favorite playlists. You bobbed your head to the music, your thoughts trailing to other things, like a movie you recently watched and the cute boy you saw at the grocery store the other day. Your thoughts halted when you heard Lisa mutter, “Here comes lover boy and his princess.” The last word, she said bitterly, because as much as she pretended to be bothered by Jeno and his girlfriend, she actually found them adorable and just felt sad about her last relationship failing.

“Hey guys,” Chaeyoung said softly, waiting for Jeno to place his stuff down at the table before following suit.

“Hey Chaeyoung. How’s our boy doing? Is he being a pain in the ass like usual?” Donghyuck asked casually, smiling in the face of Jeno’s glare.

“You’re so annoying,” Mark commented loudly, his smile a contradiction to his words.

Chaeyoung looked genuinely confused, her eyes trailing to Jeno before looking back at Donghyuck. “No. He’s always kind and sweet to me.”

“That’s new.” Jisung speaks up for the first time, his gaze glancing up shyly over his glasses before returning to his game. Jisung was the youngest out of your group of friends, only a sophomore. It made you sad that he was going to be left here for two more years while the majority of your friends, including you, would be starting the next chapter of your lives in the upcoming months. At least he had Chenle for another year though, since he was a junior.

“Don’t listen to them. They just like to tease.” Jeno smiled at her sweetly, before shooting everyone a glare.

Lunch went on for a few moments in quiet chatter, everyone finishing up slowly and one by one. Jeno and Chaeyoung were lost in their own little worlds, Jeno taking the time to shower her in affection and spending almost every moment making her laugh. Donghyuck and Mark had their heads bowed together, looking at who knows what on Donghyuck’s phone and snickering here and there. Lisa would walk away from the table to go talk to other people then come back and talk to you for a little before heading to the vending machine and disappearing for longer than necessary. Jisung opted to read a book after getting bored of his game. This was your guys’ typical lunch routine.

“Where’s Chenle? And Jaemin?”

At the mention of Jaemin, your ears perked up, actually wondering the same as Mark about where he was at. You hadn’t seen or heard from him all weekend and was looking forward to seeing him.

“Chenle wanted to play soccer so he’s at the field right now,” Jisung quietly said, flipping a page from his book.

“I don’t know where Jaemin is. Y/N, do you know?” Jeno inquired. You two were the closest to Jaemin, so naturally one of you would typically know the answer to the question. However, you didn’t know either so you just shrugged. “He’ll show up eventually. That’s how he is,” Jeno said with finality before turning to Chaeyoung.

“Jaemin owes me a candy bar. He lost that bet on Friday, and I am expecting my damn candy bar-”

“Is there ever a moment where you’re not demanding something?” Mark said exasperatedly.

Suddenly, two hands covered your vision, and you reached up to feel them. They were soft and familiar, and you felt an uncontrollable smile grow on your lips. “Guess who,” a voice sang as you recognized it immediately. Even though he was trying to mask it by using some ridiculous high-pitched voice, you could recognize him anywhere.

“Nana! We missed you!” Donghyuck hollered, Jaemin’s presence instantly disappearing and you swiveled your head to catch him pushing Donghyuck’s arms off of him.

“Thanks, Hyuck. I missed you guys too even though I saw you this morning.” He looked down at you then, gracing you with a soft smile as he reached down and tugged your ear. That was his thing- or both your things. You don’t know when or where it started, but it was his way of saying he was happy to see you. It was never hard, only gentle, but it always made you happy when he tugged on your ear.

“Good to see your face. Today has been painfully long,” He muttered, taking the seat beside you.

“Aye. That’s Lisa’s seat.”

“You mean ‘Ghost Lisa’? Because I don’t see her sitting here now.” Jaemin silenced Donghyuck immediately, causing Mark to laugh at his priceless facial expression. You watched as Jeno and Jaemin did a handshake as a greeting, the latter flashing a friendly smile at Chaeyoung before turning to you. He raised his eyebrows at you before inquiring, “Why so quiet? You’re usually talking Mark’s ear off. Actually, I take that back. These days you’re as quiet as Mouse over here,” he gestured to Jisung by hooking his thumb towards him.

Jisung sent him an unamused look before returning his attention to his book.

You just shrugged. “Guess I’m not in the mood these days to talk.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, chewing the bite he just took of his burger before swallowing and saying, “What have you done to Y/N? You’re not her.”

You just tsked, pushing his head slightly before causing him to chuckle and shake his head. You guys sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s presence. Lisa came back, greeted Jaemin, then grabbed her stuff and went off who knows where. Since Jaemin was there, you didn’t really feel like listening to music anymore so you put your phone and headphones away, yet you still sat in silence.

You had known Jaemin the longest. You met him freshman year, and became friends within the three weeks you first met. He was so easy to get along with, at least you thought so. He was witty, but not in a rude way. He loved to make you laugh, and vice versa- and you two constantly laughed about the same things since you had a similar sense of humor. He was shy once in a while, but vocal about his opinions when the situation called for it. He had a way of being attentive that it felt intimate, like there was no one around but you when you were talking. He was amazing in every sense of the word, and just like Renjun, you missed him like crazy when he wasn’t around. Without him, these last four years would have been one hundred times worse.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, his eyes flickering to you before returning to his yogurt he was currently eating.

“You,” you calmly voiced, his eyes widening at the one word. You watched as his face flushed, as he spluttered, trying to gather his words coherently. You relayed it back to how you must have acted this morning when Renjun had told you Hyunjin was joining your friends on Friday to go eat.

You reached out and squeezed Jaemin’s forearm gently before adding, “Relax. I was just thinking about what you said the other day. When you mentioned going on a small trip with your family. Like camping, right? Is that still happening?”

Jaemin had taken the time you were speaking to pull himself together, returning to his normal self. You oddly found it super adorable how randomly flustered he had gotten. He was the most composed guy you knew, at least majority of the time. “Yeah, that’s still happening. I’m leaving school early on Friday to hit the road. I sort of don’t want to go, but oh well. I’ll be back by Tuesday.”

“You’ll have fun. Don’t be bummed out.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jaemin scraped at his yogurt cup, his thoughts overtaking his mind, it seemed, before he checked his phone and cursed. “I need to go see my counselor. I’ll see you in class, okay?”

He gathered his stuff quickly before saying goodbye to everyone and leaving. It was just like him to see his counselor every waking moment he got, and you envied how dedicated he was to the task. College was nearing in the future quicker than you would like to admit, and though you were practically jumping with excitement for graduation, you still felt the inevitable goodbyes starting to weigh on your chest. But you had almost an entire semester left, and you were going to cherish what little time you had with your friends until you went your separate ways.

“Hey, so who’s going on Friday?” Jeno said, glancing around the table. “If anyone needs it, I’ll pick you up.”

“Aren’t we going straight after school?” Donghyuck asked, confused.

“I don’t know. Who planned this?”

“Chenle.”

“And of course he’s not here. Okay, so who’s riding with me to the pizza place?”

“I will,” Donghyuck said, then added, “Lisa probably will too. Jisung, what about you?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” He quietly said, turning to you, “Are you coming, Y/N?”

“Um,” You said, looking for the words as everyone’s gaze turned to you.

“What do you mean, ‘Um’?” Donghyuck sassily asked, raising his eyebrow as if he were your mother accusing you of lying.

“I don’t think I am.”

Mark immediately looked concerned, knowing you never liked to miss out on hanging out- when pizza was involved, it was most definitely a yes from you. “Is it about money? I got you covered if it is.”

“No! It’s not that… I’m just… not feeling it?”

Everyone grew quiet, gazes being exchanged between everyone.

“What?” You asked, looking around and feeling as if you missed something.

“You? Not feeling pizza?” Jeno offered, with no emotion laced into the words.

“You’re lying. Tell us the truth,” Mark announced.

“Is Mark pissing you off these days? Is he annoying you? Because I understand then if that’s the reason you’re not going- Ow! Mark, that hurt!”

“It was meant to hurt, dumbass! Cut it out! You’re not even funny! Y/N loves me! Right, Y/N?” He said the last part, sounding hopeful and a little self-conscious.

You shook your head and said, “It’s nothing like that. And of course I love you, Mark. I just... Got a lot going on. I’m tired and I want to take the weekend to de-stress.” You’re not necessarily sure why you didn’t tell them it was because you were embarrassed that Hyunjin was coming, because you knew Mark would more or less understand and Jisung supported mostly everything you did. And you knew Jeno would probably brush it off, leaving Donghyuk to make fun of you. But you just couldn’t bring yourself to explain the situation. And the only ones who technically knew about it were Renjun, Mark, and Jaemin.

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” Mark said seriously before smiling and proudly saying, “Besides, we all know it’s going to be lit in my car if it’s just Chenle and me.”

“Excuse me while I go barf,” Jeno said. Mark threw a carrot at him, causing you to laugh and allow your thoughts of your embarrassment fade away.

It was your final class of the day, and you had to admit, it indeed was the longest Monday you had ever had. Of course, you were being dramatic, but now you were tired and grumpy and your last class happened to be math, your least favorite subject. However, the upside was one of your favorite people happened to be in this class.

See, you had depended on Renjun to make your class right after lunch fun, but he spent  whatever chance he got to pester you about coming on Friday, which in turn made you snap at him and cause him to give you attitude back. Eighth hour dragged on too, and here you were at your last class. Your class with Jaemin.

“Hey,” Jaemin’s bright smile directly contrasted with the tone of the day, his eyebrows raising at your grumble in response. You slid into the desk next to his, your head finding its way to the cool desktop. “You’re looking rough.”

“Because I am. Today sucked. And we have four more to go until the weekend.”

“Think of it as three. Friday never really feels like much work, does it?” You moved your head to rest your cheek on the desktop, so you could view Jaemin instead. He was looking right back at you, his pretty features quite literally knocking the breath out of you. You couldn’t fathom sometimes just how beautiful this guy actually was, and whenever you pointed it out he would just brush it off. Watching you silently for a moment, he proceeded to make a silly face and cause you to laugh, adorning a smile to brighten up his facial features.

“Attagirl. That’s better. What’s got you so down?” He asked genuinely, leaning on his hand and turning on that attentive charm that secretly you were a sucker for; you didn’t know how he did it, but he was another shade of what it means to be a friend. A beautiful friend.

“I don’t know. First off, it’s a Monday. Mondays tend to suck,” Jaemin simply hummed in agreement, “And school’s been kinda rough in general anyways. I just keep having this sinking feeling that somehow I am going to mess everything up, fail every class, my college retracts my enrollment, and then I drop out and get a job where I miserably work for the rest of my life,” You took in a deep breath after that statement, feeling oddly relieved for expressing what sounded like a ridiculous worry.

Jaemin took in your words for a moment, the minute bell ringing signalling there’s one minute left until class begins. He reached over then, gently caressing the side of your head before patting it and saying, “Y/N, I know how you are. You tend to get caught up in irrational worries. I know you’re struggling with classes right now, and I see how much your stress is taking a toll on you. You probably think no one notices, but I do. We all do, but everyone else probably won’t say something until it’s too noticeable. I’m not like everyone else though.”

He leaned closer then, your heart suddenly stopping as you unconsciously held your breath, not expecting his close proximity. His head was tilted at an angle to match your resting head atop the desk, his facial expression more serious than you’re typically used to, and his eyes immediately drew you in- not that you weren’t listening before.

“You’re one of the most resilient people I know. Don’t forget I’ve known you for four years, seen you when you’re struggling with stress and schoolwork. And you always pull through. This time isn’t any different. Keep your head up and keep it on straight,” He proceeded to tug on your ear and flash you a gentle smile, your throat suddenly feeling dry at his actions, “We’re almost at the finish line. Before you know it, we’re going to be graduating and moving on. And I know you can’t wait, because I can’t either.”

The bell rang then, seeming to signal the end of the conversation and begin your teacher’s lesson. You raised your head and directed your gaze to the teacher at the front of the classroom, your attention nowhere near the math she was writing on the board. Because for whatever reason, you couldn’t describe why your heart was racing and your throat felt so dry.

“I must be going crazy,” You whispered, feeling uneasy at the thoughts surrounding Jaemin, and why your heart reacted to that. In the end, you just decided to ignore it.

After the bell rang, Jaemin walked you down the stairs and to Chenle’s locker, waiting for the latter to meet you there and walk to the bus with you guys. You guys stood in silence, but it was comfortable as he looked around at the people walking by and you scrolled through social media on your phone.

“I heard from Ren that you’re not going to eat pizza on Friday. That’s not like you,” Jaemin said with innocence. You stopped scrolling, not feeling the annoyance that came with Renjun’s pestering. You blamed it on Jaemin’s tone and the way he executed his sentence, not because it was Jaemin himself. Definitely not because it was just Jaemin.

“It is like me. Because I plan to binge-watch some criminal show and eat ice cream for dinner.”

Jaemin tilted his head, looking at you curiously before retorting, “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. You want to tell me the reason you don’t want to go?”

You sighed. “You already know why. You don’t have to play innocent.”

“I’m not playing innocent. I don’t know your reason why. Yeah, I heard what Ren thinks is the reason. But I want to hear it straight from your mouth. And you know how he is when it comes to explaining things that upset him. It’s more complaining than about the actual situation.”

You leaned your head back on the locker you were standing in front of, cursing Chenle for walking so slow and probably chatting up Jisung about some show they’re both watching.

“Do I have to?”

He looked away from you, quiet for a moment before saying gently, “Of course not. But I think there’s more to your side of the story. And maybe you’re not as dramatic as the situation is painting you to be.”

You had to admit the situation did seem dramatic, and Jaemin wasn’t one to sugarcoat how he looked at a situation. So you decided maybe it was a good idea to confide in him and see if he thought you were overreacting. “I’m sure you know that Hyunjin is tagging along,” You waited for his nod before continuing, “Which, I mean, is totally fine. I have nothing against him personally. It is a little weird to me considering Ren and Mark don’t know him too well and just decided, ‘Hey. Let’s invite a stranger to hang out with our friends.’ But I mean, I guess Mark does know him because they played basketball and baseball together. Whatever. Point is, I have nothing against the guy. He seems cool, I guess. I just…”

“I’m assuming this is about what happened a few months ago?”

Your phone dinged, and you looked down to see a message from Chenle letting you know he was riding with Jeno today to run some errands. You let Jaemin know and you guys began your walk to the buses, replaying his question in your head before answering. “Yes. I guess that’s really it. Look, I know it might sound like I am being a big baby about it. I’m choosing my embarrassment over hanging out with my friends. But if I could control my emotions, I would. Before I approached Hyunjin in the past, I used to never see him around. And now it’s like life is messing with my head. Because I see him everywhere around school now. And he seems to recognize me too, but I just ignore him and try and get far as quick as possible. The embarrassment is unreal.”

Jaemin nodded as you talked, and you took his silence as a comfort, causing you to feel comfortable enough to continue. “I could go out with them on Friday. But I would just feel self-conscious, and worried Hyunjin would bring it up and then embarrass me more. Then Donghyuck would find out and never let go of it and I just- I don’t want to deal with it.”

You let yourself end there, because you didn’t know what to say anymore. It was quiet for a while, the bus stop nearing as you wondered what Jaemin was thinking. You peaked at him, his dark brown hair resting on his hair in fluffy strands, looking particularly bed-headish today. You took note of his slightly tired face, and wondered how he could be so lively on days where he was tired.

“May I tell you what I think is actually the problem? And you can correct me if I’m wrong.”

His words caught you off guard, not sure where he was going with this, because after all you didn’t feel any other way about it. At least, you thought. You motioned for him to continue, him proceeding to nod and collect his thoughts before continuing.

“I think… You might still like Hyunjin. Or, have a crush on him is probably a better phrase,” You gave him an incredulous look but he held a hand up as if to to signal for you to wait, “And that’s probably why you feel so passionate about not going. I know how you are. If a situation affects you emotionally, you will retract yourself from said situation. Simple as that. If you didn’t care about it, then you wouldn’t go to the extremes of being so adamant about not going.”

You immediately shook your head. “But it’s not because I’m still crushing on him. It’s because I’m-”

“Embarrassed. Yeah, I get that. But you have been embarrassed all the time around us and that has never stopped you from hanging out with us.”

“I don’t personally know this guy though. What if he brings it up in front of everyone?”

“What if he does? It’s not like you made a fool of yourself. You told him if you wanted to get to know each other. He said yes. Then he went back on his word and told Mark to not set him up with anyone. That’s on him. Why are you letting a stranger hold you back from hanging out with your friends?”

“And why is everyone pestering me about going? It’s not that serious.”

“Exactly.” He poked your temple, causing you to swat his hand away and that familiar smile to creep on his face. As you reached the bus stop, you turned to him and met his gaze, his eyebrows raising as if to ask you a silent question. He broke the silence instead, letting you know what questioning thought was plaguing him. “So you don’t like him then?”

“No.” In your head, it had sounded firm, but it sounded unsure coming out of your mouth. His face became serious, and it weirded you out, because he was usually smiling. It gave you an odd feeling in your stomach.

“If you do, there’s nothing wrong with it. It would make more sense, because then the embarrassment would be justified. And if that’s the case, then you should explain that to Ren so he stops being so annoying. You should also consider maybe going and showing this Hyunjin guy what he decided to miss out on. You’re pretty amazing, after all.” His words were nonchalant, but his face stern. That feeling that crept up on you earlier in class started to come back again, and it almost felt similar to being sick in a weird way. Your stomach flipped, watching Jaemin drone on about the situation, his words hardly registering in your mind anymore. Your throat felt dry again, your eyes traveling the expanse of his straight nose, following his dark and very slightly curved eyebrows. His hair was a bit on the messy side today, which was unlike him, but you disregarded that. He was truly beautiful. “Y/N? Are you listening to me?”

You blinked, the feeling fading away as quickly as it came.

“I hear what you were saying,” It wasn’t a complete lie. “And I guess you’re sort of right.”

“So you do like him,” He tilted his head, his eyes trailing to the pavement beneath your guys’ feet. His words sent a panic fleeting through, jumping to deny it.

“No, Jaemin- I can’t like him. I don’t even know the guy. Gosh, this is so frustrating. Why do I have to keep having this conversation? I thought you were the person that understood me the most. Don’t you think I would tell you if I actually liked him? If it’s so important for everyone that I show up on Friday, I will.”

As if on cue, the bus turned the corner and slowly made its approach.

Jaemin opened his mouth to speak, but you held your hand up, wanting the conversation to end. “It’s okay, Jaemin. You and Ren are right. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ll just pretend that nothing happened and I’ll pretend I’ve never talked to Hyunjin before Friday. It’ll be a fresh start.”

He just shook his head, a sigh of exasperation slipping past his lips. “You’re missing the point here. Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? The vibe I’m getting from you is that I’m being dramatic and I should get over it and just go on Friday.” The bus rolled up then, and you were never more grateful than now. Just as you turned to climb into the bus, you caught Jaemin motioning by waving his hand over his head and uttering, “Went right over your head, of course. Unbelievable.”

And as you boarded the bus, and took your seat, watching through the window as he stalked off in the direction of his house, you couldn’t shake the nasty feeling that was left behind by the conversation you just had. And on your ride home, it was Jaemin on your mind. Unbeknownst to you, it was not the first time he was plaguing your thoughts. You couldn’t shake whatever it was you were feeling, all you knew is you didn’t like how you and Jaemin had ended off the conversation. Because that wasn’t how you guys were at all. And you hoped it wouldn’t start being like that. You were proud of your dynamic with Jaemin, and it wasn’t like you guys to end a conversation on a sour note. But maybe you were overthinking it. Maybe you were always overthinking about Jaemin, and you just didn’t know it.

It was around 11:30 that night when you received a text from Jaemin. He was saved under Minnie Mouse, because you thought you were clever as a Freshman and you never changed it considering you enjoyed how it made Jaemin cringe.

Minnie Mouse:

Hey. You up?

You:

You know I am. I’m watching a show on my phone. But I am surprisingly getting sleepy. It’s so early tho…

He didn’t respond for a few minutes. You shook the feeling off, and tried to focus on your show, but you immediately clicked the notification when he responded almost fifteen minutes later.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry about earlier. I was being really intrusive, which isn’t like me. I stand by some of what I said, but the way I worded it was bad. If you don’t want to go, don’t go. Don’t listen to Ren, and don’t listen to me. I understand what you meant by everything you said, and if it were me, I’m sure I wouldn’t want to put myself in that situation either. Remember not to put your life on pause though based on your embarrassments. If that is the only thing keeping you from going, then think about it a little more before outright rejecting the idea. But you’re one of my best friends, and I don’t want you to be miserable on Friday. Again, I’m sorry.

You read it over a few times, feeling anxious for some reason. Your eyes skimmed it, continued to re-skim it before trying to type out a response. However, everything you tried to write didn’t sound right or it was awkward, so it took some time to eventually be semi-satisfied with what was written. You sent it and tossed your phone to the side, wondering why you kept replaying that moment with Jaemin earlier. Seeing his frustration. Being the cause of his frustration. You didn’t like it at all. You liked making him smile, making him laugh. You even liked seeing him flustered during lunch. You didn’t ever want to be the reason behind him being upset. You reached for your phone slowly upon hearing it vibrate.

You:

You don’t have to apologize, Jaemin. You were being yourself. You were curious about why I was being so dramatic. And everything you said made sense. Though I don’t agree with everything you said, you had a point. I did a lot of thinking since our conversation earlier. And I’ll go on Friday. I think even without talking to you, I might’ve reached this conclusion myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have… you tend to be my voice of reason when mine isn’t working. I think I just needed to take a moment and get over my embarrassment.

You:

Honestly, it was months ago. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember. And if he does, it’s not a big deal. And I do want to have pizza. I want to hang out with my best friends. I’ll just treat him like one of you guys. Be friendly. And there’s no reason for me to halt my chances of having fun just because of a cringey moment in my past. Thanks, Nana. Sometimes the sense you knock into me is one of a kind <3 Ren definitely would’ve just made it worse haha

Minnie Mouse:

It’s what I’m here for, to knock some sense into you.

Minnie Mouse:

But honestly, don’t force yourself to go if you don’t want to. What you want and what makes you happy is the main priority.

You:

This will make me happy.

Minnie Mouse:

Good. I want you to be happy.

You stared down at his text, your fingers hovering over the screen. You licked your lips in thought, wondering why you felt stuck at his words. In fact, you hardly ever had a conversation with Jaemin where you didn’t know what to say. Conversation always flowed naturally with him. Today really must have been an off day for you.

You:

Likewise, Nana. I think I’m going to get some shuteye now. Goodnight. Sweet dreams.

Minnie Mouse:

Sweet dreams, Y/N.

You prepped for bed, replaying the conversation in your head. You thought back to today in class, when Jaemin heard what you thought were ridiculous worries, but made you feel sensible. He comforted you about worries you never voiced aloud. He said what you needed to hear, and he was always good at that. He smiled his dazzling smile at you, granting you a stress reliever by the simple tug of your ear. He was incredible in every sense of the word, and you were so grateful to have him.

As you laid in bed, the last thing on your mind was Jaemin. You were too tired to notice, or perhaps it was something you never bothered to notice at all.

A couple days later, it was Wednesday and it was the dead middle of the week. A day that your friends sometimes like to utilize as an excuse for desserts after school.

“Hump day!” Chenle hollered, pumping his fist into the air as you all walked towards the parking lot.

“Hell yeah! I’ve been craving a banana split all week,” Donghyuck groaned, dragging his feet.

“You’re a banana split,” Chenle called back to him.

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Okay, who’s riding with who?”

“I’m going with Mark!” Chenle declared, dashing over to the passenger side of Mark’s small little white car.  Jisung silently followed him.

“Ride with me and Jeno?” Jaemin asked you quietly, his arm falling across your shoulders. You froze, instantly stiffening up at the gesture. You gazed up at him, a small smile curving his lips and his eyes as attentive as usual.

Your throat felt constricted for a moment, before you felt your body relax and a smile grace your own. “Of course. Is that even a question?” Something strange happened then. Jaemin’s small smile faded, his face taking on an odd look. You didn’t realize your close proximity, but his face was closer than you expected. You waited for something, anything from him, but only watched as he wiped the odd look off his face and turned his attention to Jeno, shouting at him to hurry up and kiss Chaeyoung goodbye already. His arm was still slung around your shoulders. And you found yourself too lazy to look away from his face. At least that’s what you thought.

“Hey. I’ll ride with Jeno too. So go with Mark, Ren.”

“No! I was already here!” Renjun said sassily, leaning back on the car to make a point. Lisa stepped toward him and crossed her arms. That didn’t faze him, however, and he only proceeded to straighten himself out. Their height difference was very slight, but Ren still managed to make himself seem taller as he looked down at her over his nose.

“I don’t care if you were here already. I want to ride with Y/N.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

“It would be crowded with you in here. So ride with them.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were my boss.”

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing in frustration. “Why do you have to be so annoying all the time?”

He grinned. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Jaemin shook his head and stepped in, placing a hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Dude, just ride with Mark. Before you kill the vibe for everyone.”

“What?! How am I- Whatever. I don’t have the time for this,” He strode over to Mark’s car without another word, sliding into the backseat. Both you and Jaemin watched as Mark pulled the car out, Chenle rolling the window down and blasting the music, shouting, “Y/N! This is my jam! This is the song I was telling you about! I- Stop, Ren! Anyways-” By that time, Mark was pulling out the parking lot and he couldn’t shout at you anymore.

You smiled fondly, shaking your head and glancing at Jaemin who was watching you with an emotionless look. You just brushed it off, wondering where Jeno was. Lisa must’ve been wondering the same thing because she continuously kept on calling him, with no luck in him answering.

“Literally all the guys we hang out with are so frustrating! If it’s so hard for him and Chaeyoung to stop sucking faces, then bring her along!”

Jaemin responded with, “I’m not frustrating. I’m the coolest guy you’ll ever meet.”

“Sure. Keep dreaming, sweetheart,” She said.

“Wonder what’s bothering her,” Jaemin uttered near your ear, his breath fanning over your ear and over a sliver of your neck that your sweater left exposed. You looked up at him, watching him as he watched Lisa with curiosity. You started to notice just how much you stared at Jaemin these days, and you didn’t know what to make of it. You just wrote it off on being attentive to him constantly talking.

“There you are! Let’s go! I want a burger.”

Jeno jogged over, whistling and smiling like the giddy lover boy he was.

“I’m surprised your lips aren’t back with Chaeyoung,” Jaemin commented, causing you to laugh. He shot you a smile, but Jeno wasn’t too happy with the comment, leaving Jaemin locked outside the passenger seat for longer than necessary.

The ride there was relatively quick, but Jaemin kept stealing glances at you, a smile on his lips every single time. Lisa and Jeno filled the silence with their chatter and endless banter, but it was like you and Jaemin continued to have a silent conversation of your own. Whenever Jeno would say something that could have a double meaning, Jaemin would glance back at you with wide eyes, as if to say, “Did you catch that?” and you would shake your head and smile as if to say, “I did. And it was hilarious.” And if Lisa would say something weird or more than unnecessary, he would send you a, “Did she really just say that?” by raised eyebrows or a pointed look. And you would either shrug, shake your head, or just rub the side of your head in mild annoyance. But none of those moments were your favorite, no. It was the brief quiet moments. With soft music playing low on the speakers and floating in the air of the car. And the A/C blowing softly, to keep it cold enough that you weren’t freezing in your sweater. And there wasn’t any reason for Jaemin to look over his shoulder at you, but he would anyways. He would just send you a soft smile, his eyes light and carefree. The last time he looked back, when you were nearing the diner where you were to get your desserts, his lips weren’t curved with a smile. His expression wasn’t serious, but it was attentive as usual. However, it wasn’t like it usually is. He eyebrows were slightly drawn together in thought, his lips a bit pursed. His eyes scanned your face, before his lips parted and his expression relaxed. When his eyes came to rest on your own, he was shameless about his staring, and for some reason you weren’t bothered nor embarrassed. You boldly met his own gaze, holding it and letting the music travel to your ears.

No one spoke in the car. Nothing was heard but the soft music and the soft blow of the A/C. And you and Jaemin were having a conversation in a language you couldn’t decipher, but couldn’t get enough of as you let the moment wash over you. None of you couldn’t find it in you to look away, and it felt more intimate than any other time you guys held each other’s gaze. You didn’t know what it meant, but you knew that whatever it was, you wanted more of it.

Jeno spoke to Jaemin, and Jaemin answered him, glancing at him briefly before looking back at you. His eyebrows drew together again, his face more on the stern side, which was unlike him. You wondered what you looked like to him. Jeno continued talking to him, and Jaemin had no choice but to look away. And when he did, it was like you could breathe again. All you could think was, you didn’t know why you were feeling this way for Jaemin, and you didn’t know what you were going to do.

Thursday night. It was around midnight this time when you got a text from him. Lucky for him, you were wide awake. And you didn’t want to admit to yourself that it was because he was plaguing your thoughts.

Minnie Mouse:

You awake?

You:

Of course. What’s up?

Minnie Mouse:

Wondering why I procrastinate like an idiot. I’m nowhere near finished packing for my trip tomorrow.

You:

Sucks to suck.

Minnie Mouse:

Haha. Real funny. Want to keep me company?

You stared down at the text, confused. Another text came in from him though, and it made more sense, a smile uncontrollably reaching your lips.

Minnie Mouse:

By video call, I mean.

You:

Warning, I look pretty rough. After 11, I start resembling a hot mess, instead of the solid 11 that I am.

Instead of responding, you figured he signed into his account on his computer, so you followed suit. Sure enough, after you logged in you saw the little verification that showed he was online. You called him, waiting for him to answer, which didn’t take long whatsoever.

You waited for the call the connect, your heart rate picking up for seemingly no good reason. You glanced at yourself, seeing how tired and messy you looked. But this was Jaemin, and he had seen you at both your best and worst. When the call connected, you first noticed how his room was lit up by the light being on. His computer was set on top of his desk, which basically let you see a poster-clad wall that also had award plaques and shelves with books, trophies, and other things lined at the top of the wall. You could see a slit of his bed to the left and a small percentage of his walk-in closet that was cracked open with the light on in the back right corner. You always adored seeing his dark blue walls, longing for the same color to be for your room. Instead your room was a boring and dull brown.

The second thing you noticed was how even though it was late, Jaemin looked good. His hair was swept up and off his forehead, sticking up here and there in odd places but mostly in order. He was adorned in a slightly baggy black t-shirt and some gray sweats. He was leaned down in view of the camera. He smiled upon seeing you and waved, then started to move around his room, carrying things from out of view towards his bed.

“I see you at least started the process of packing,” You said, carrying your computer to your bed and treading over to your lights, hitting them, before walking back to your bed. You sat on top of your comforter, watching him move in and out of view. You spent some time in the dark using the computer screen’s light to study your nails. You altered between watching Jaemin and letting your thoughts occupy your attention. A chunk of your video call was just spent in a comfortable silence, with an occasional comment from Jaemin here and there. You enjoyed this, and you liked this time with Jaemin. As selfish as it sounded, it wasn’t often that you got to spend time alone with him. So you were going to drink it in as much as possible. It was because you enjoyed your talks with him, not because you were into him. That’s what you were telling yourself.

You glanced down at your pajamas, pulling your black hoodie sleeves over your hands

to keep them warm. You started getting sleepy, but blinked it away. You wanted to keep Jaemin company through the tedious process of packing. So you moved around on the bed, switching positions. You eventually decided on drawing your knees into your torso and wrapping your arms around your legs. You laid your head on top of your knees, slowly falling asleep.

“Y/N,” Jaemin sang, your head slowly raising and spotting his facial features close to the computer. You didn’t understand how he looked so rejuvenated as his face brightened at the sight of your face. “If you’re sleepy, you should get some rest.”

“I want to keep you company, Nana.”

He looked down in what you thought was shyness, a shy chuckle falling past his lips. He ran his hand through his hair, puzzling you immediately at how good he looked this late at night and how you never noticed that this hairstyle fit him so well.

“As much as I want you to be here with me, I don’t want to be the reason you’re falling asleep in class tomorrow.”

Your breath felt like it disappeared into thin air at his words, but you shook it off and blamed it on sleepiness. “No, I’m good. I promise.”

He just took a moment to look at you, before resting his head on his hand and puckering his lips slightly in thought. “Let’s talk then. If you’re going to stay up with me, I don’t want you to be miserable as you fight off sleep. I want to make your night.”

He said things so innocently, yet they held such strange meaning to you that you just knew would replay over and over in your mind long after the conversation ended. Something about Jaemin was changing the way you looked at things, that way you looked at him. Or maybe you always did look at him this way, it just took a bit of time for your mind to catch up to your heart. Whatever it was, you knew you were going to keep it to yourself.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

Jaemin simply smiled again and the continued his packing, calling out, “So are you looking forward to tomorrow?”

“What about tomorrow?”

“The new pizza place. Hanging out with everyone.”

“Oh. That.” You actually hadn’t thought about it much, and looking back on it, you were only a little nervous to say the least. You would’ve felt way better if Jaemin was going to be there, but you would live. You figured you would just spend your time talking with everyone. “It would be better if you were going to be there. But I’ll survive. I hope the pizza’s good.”

“I heard it was,” Jaemin was quiet for a moment, and you just figured he was distracted but upon speaking again, you figured it was because he was probably thinking of how to word his next question, “So you’re feeling okay about Hyunjin being there?”

You rubbed your hands in thought, massaging them as if they held the answer to your question. Your heart jumped as you heard Jaemin zip up his suitcase then move it to the floor. You waited for him, letting him finish things before turning out his lights and getting into bed like you.

His surroundings were shrouded in darkness, his face lit up by the computer screen. You couldn’t decide if it made him look angelice or eerie, but when he graced you with another smile, you decided it was definitely angelic. He was on his side, his head in his hand. And you realized you indeed were screwed, and you were definitely crushing hard on your friend Na Jaemin.

“So. Hyunjin?”

“Right. I mean, I guess it feels just like it did right before I first approached him the first time.”

“Oh. Really?” Jaemin asked quietly, his face serious.

“Of course, it’s a little different. Considering I’m not showing him my interest in him. It just feels a little nerve-wracking.”

“I would feel the same. It’s not everyday your closest friends invite someone who you used to have feelings for.”

“That’s true.”

You basked in silence for a moment, both you and Jaemin looking at each other through the computer screens. Although you guys were a distance away from each other, in different houses and merely seeing each other through the use of technology, the moment felt as intimate as the one in the car. Maybe even more so now that Jeno and Lisa weren’t around.

“You know,” Jaemin’s voice got quieter, and you may have imagined it being a little more deeper than usual, “You run through my mind. A lot.”

Your heart rate picked up, gauging his facial expression for any signs of joking. Your mind was racing, trying to decode his words, figure out his angle, read his intentions. But it was late at night, it felt wrong to kill the moment by overthinking, so even though you may regret in the future, you decided to let the late night tired buzz take over and let you speak your mind without holding back.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one.”

He hummed, his eyes getting sleepy and his words becoming more like a lull. “It’s hard not to think about someone like you.”

You felt like your appearance directly mirrored his, but you wanted to soak in his peaceful features, so through your sleepy daze, your eyes did its usual sweep of his facial features. You thought to yourself how could you possibly not be head over heels for this guy.

“Who wouldn’t be crazy over you?”

His eyes were closed now, his breaths deep and slow. You thought he fell asleep, so you slowly moved your mouse to hover over the end call button. Just as you were going to click, you heard his soft and sleepy voice mutter, “Wait for me, Y/N.”

“What do you mean?” But he was out like a light. And you were too tired to demand an answer. So you ended the call and went to sleep.

You didn’t know what was so different about this particular Friday, but the feeling in the air was vastly different from how you felt on Monday. This day, you felt warm, filled up, and every smile felt effortless. You were dressed nicer than you normally would be at school- nothing too fancy, just a white shirt, black jeans, and your favorite boots with a jean jacket to complete the ensemble. You were wearing a necklace Renjun bought you back at the beginning of the year and your hair was up, which was unusual for you. You even had some light makeup. Your friends would probably assume it was for Hyunjin when he would come out to eat with you guys. It wasn’t for him though. It wasn’t even for Jaemin. It was for yourself.

You felt wide awake when you woke up in the morning, a feeling so foreign to you. A smile graced your lips as you picked out your outfit, as you proceeded to get ready. You were in a good mood on the way to school, when you got there, and when you sat to eat breakfast. You were happy through your morning classes all the way to lunch. And maybe it was a little because of Jaemin, but it was mostly because it felt like some weight that was previously on your chest had disappeared. Or so you thought.

“Woah, someone’s looking fancy today,” Chenle commented when you walked up with your lunch.

“Are you dolled up for someone?” Mark inquired, his curiosity imminent as he glanced up from his applesauce.

“No. Just in a good mood. That’s all.”

“Is that so? That’s weird. You’re the grumpiest person on this Earth.” Donghyuck said, earning a punch from Jisung. You smiled at Jisung before shooting a glare at Donghyuck who only muttered under his breath,

“Hey. When does Jaemin leave for his trip?” Chenle asked the table. “We have class before lunch together and he was still here.”

“He’s getting picked up right now during lunch. I’m sure he’s going to say bye then leave,” Mark informed the table. And he was right- to an extent.

Shortly afterward, Jeno and Jaemin approached the table, both their faces oddly serious. It was so strange to see not only Jaemin, someone who genuinely smiles a lot, but Jeno, the prince of smiling, with no emotions flitted across their face. Jeno had food in his hand, but you assumed Mark’s assumptions were right because Jaemin was empty-handed.

“We were just talking about you! Are you leaving now?” Chenle asked, getting up and hugging Jaemin as a form of greeting.

“Yeah, actually, I am. I just came over here to say goodbye.” You were hoping he would do his usual routine of smiling over at you and tugging your ear, but you immediately knew something was wrong when he avoided looking anywhere in the direction of where you sat at the table.

He looked painfully gorgeous today. His hair was swept up and off his forehead once again. He was wearing a button up striped shirt, the sleeves rolled up like he didn’t know the air had a chilly bite to it. It slightly confused you that he was dressed like that when he was going to camp, but you dismissed it as his outfit for school.

Everyone simultaneously stood up and began saying their goodbyes, you hanging back a little bit to be the last one to say goodbye. You were worried about the way he didn’t look at you when he approached the table, but you figured it was because his mind was on the trip, not you. You watched as he had a little chat with Mark and they clasped each other’s hands, doing a one-handed hug. Mark said something to make him laugh, but you didn’t catch what he said.

Jeno was the last one to go before you, Jaemin’s expression becoming serious again. Their voices were low, and their conversation was brief, but they still hugged. You let Jeno move to sit before you took a step in Jaemin’s direction. Hiis eyes found yours for a brief moment, his lips pursed, before he began walking backwards in the direction of the office. You froze in your tracks, your mind going blank as you realized he was leaving without saying goodbye to you. He waved slightly at you guys, hollering, “See you guys Tuesday!”

Your eyes stared in the direction he left, still staring long after he was out of view. Your friends were quiet, obviously noticing what had just occurred. You found it difficult to turn to face your friends. You told your throat to stop feeling so tight, your eyes to stop being so sensitive, and you pushed it all down. Your friends know you a little too well. As you turned to them, Mark immediately said, “I’m sure he was just in a rush, Y/N. He wouldn’t do that on purpose. Especially to you.”

But you knew better. You knew Jaemin. It was what he didn’t do that mattered. And you knew that it was completely intentional.

The moment had come, the day you had been dreading and looking forward to all at the same time. Since lunch time, you hadn’t really felt like yourself, but you pushed it all to the back of your mind and anticipated going home later that night and crashing.

Like Friday, you were walking toward the parking lot for Jeno’s car. You were accompanied by Ren and Chenle, and they were chattering about something that happened in class earlier on, but you weren’t paying attention. You couldn’t help it, but whenever your mind trailed, your brain decided to torture you and replay what happened with Jaemin during lunch.

It was so painfully obvious what it meant, and how it conveniently happened the day after what you guys had said sleepily on the video call. Not only did it hurt, it made you angry that this was the way he was addressing what you both said. You deserved more, and if he truly decided to be rude about it, then so be it. You weren’t going to let it bring you down.

Reaching the parking lot, your heart uncontrollably jumped at the sight of Hyunjin standing at Mark’s car. His stoic gaze traveled over to you and the guys, and thankfully there was no sign of recognition in his gaze. Chenle bounded over, thrusting his hand out to greet Hyunjin. You watched their exchange, and watched as Hyunjin laughed over something Chenle said. He looked nice when he laughed. You shook off the thought before getting into Jeno’s car and waiting for the rest of the night to unravel, a certain boy running through your mind.

Through the car ride, you noted how Jeno was unusually quiet, and not his usual smiley self. You connected how he was acting with the way he was during lunch and made a note to ask if was okay later, before letting your mind wander elsewhere.

Eventually you reached your destination. The pizza place, not cleverly, was called Peek-a-Pizza, and was not necessarily impressive in appearance. It was small and didn’t look busy at all, which was weird since it was relatively new, but none of that fazed you or your friends as you entered.

You quickly found a booth, your heart literally jumping to your throat when you were second to last to slide into the booth and it left Hyunjin to be the one on the outside, right next to you. You had to admit, he looked as handsome as you remembered. His hair was as dark as ink and laid across his forehead in a oddly neat way for appearing a little messy. His face was quite intimidating when he had no facial expression, and past you would have been fawning about how potentially hot he looked. He was dressed in a baggy black long sleeve and ripped black jeans. You watched through the corner of your eye as he fiddled with the shaker that held Parmesan cheese. He twisted it in his hands, his eyes trailing around the small establishment. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, his eyes found the side of your face, no expression hidden in his features whatsoever. You tried calming down your racing heart, thankful that your expression was fixed and calm. Your eyes met his, just as silent as him and waiting for his reaction.

He just snickered before looking away, leaving you perplexed and turning away. As you waited for your pizza, you chatted with Lisa and Chenle who sat across from you. Hyunjin and Mark talked mostly to each other while Jisung sat on the other side of you, which caused you to naturally strike up conversation with him.

Everything was running smoothly so far. The food arrived, and it didn’t disappoint as you all dug in, feeling hungry and satisfied with every bite. Conversation only sparked up again after people started not feeling hungry anymore. As you were grabbing another slice, your ears perked at the mention of Jaemin’s name from Donghyuck’s mouth. You hadn’t caught the beginning of the conversation, but you froze in the middle of biting your pizza when you heard what they were actually talking about.

“No, me too. I’m surprised too.” Donhyuck exclaimed, quieter than usual.

“Especially Jaemin. You know how he is. His focus is school or Y/N,” Renjun said casually. You made it seem like you weren’t listening, your head facing Lisa and Chenle, but listening on the other boys’.

“I think it’s good for him. He needs to get out there and experience life already. We’re about to graduate, and honestly I’m all for it. Dahyun is a pretty girl. And she’s funny. I think she’s perfect for him.”

“I just didn’t see this coming. I thought he told you just last week that he wasn’t interested in dating Dahyun,” Donghyuck asked, a tinge of disbelief in his tone.

“Well, his feelings must’ve changed. I’m telling you what he told me, okay? I just gave him her number and he went on his merry way. He didn’t really give me details. He just said, ‘I thought about what you said. I think I’ll go on a date with Dahyun.’”

“What about…” Renjun didn’t finish his sentence, but you felt like you were going to throw up when you saw him flicker his eyes towards you to indicate who he was talking about. Immediately their voices lowered, as if you weren’t sitting at the same table as them. You felt like you were going to cry, and you felt pathetic, but you just sat there and tried to pull it together.

“What about her?” Jeno asked.

“Come on, dude, it’s obvious. Even I see it, and I’m me,” Donghyuck offered up.

“I don’t think it’s what he wants. And her either. They’ve been close this long and nothing’s happened. He can’t wait on her forever, and the same goes for her. Maybe they’re just meant to be friends.”

You heart felt like it was ripped out of your chest by Na Jaemin, and you willed yourself not to cry like some heartbroken fool in front of all your friends. You were stuck, frozen, as you tried so hard to think about something else and not let one single tear fall. The sound of Hyunjin’s voice called your attention.

“Why did you never reach out?”

“Huh?” If he noticed your red eyes and slightly quivering lips, he didn’t say anything, and you silently thanked him as he regarded you with an emotionless look.

“You asked me if I wanted to get to know you. I agreed. And I told you to get my number from Mark. But I never got a text.”

You were blown away, absolutely astonished that he had the audacity to play oblivious. And you were already not in a good head space, so you couldn’t prevent your face and tone from hardening. “Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Does it look like I’m joking?”

“You told Mark you didn’t want him meddling in your life.” “I did.”

“So there’s your answer.”

“I didn’t tell him to not give you my number though.”

You blinked, not realizing your voice slowly began to raise, “I’m sorry, but you don’t get to play dumb in the situation. Whatever game you’re playing at, I’m not interested.”

You realized that the rest of the table had fallen silent, but you didn’t care. You opened your mouth to speak, but Hyunjin smoothly exclaimed, “Let’s talk outside.”

“Why should-”

“Because I think you need it,” He said it low enough for only you to hear. And you realized that he was indeed saving you from embarrassing yourself even further, maybe possibly even crying and making your friends upset. So before you knew it, you were stood outside with Hyunjin of all people.

You were facing the side of his body, your tears immediately falling without a foreseeable end as he kept his gaze trained ahead. He was quiet, letting you cry it out until you felt like you could calm down and stop crying. Your crying eventually turned into sniffling and then silence. It was only until there was complete silence that he spoke.

“Feel better?” He looked over at you, his face as emotionless as ever. He stood stock still, which would’ve been unsettling if it was anybody but him. It was so fitting for him. He was definitely an enigma in terms of his physical appearance.

“No.”

“Crying is usually a hit or miss when regarding your emotions.”

“Why did you help me back there?”

“I could see you were trying hard not to cry. I assumed it was because you didn’t want your friends to know. So I thought of what I could say that could get you to come ‘talk to me.’ Bingo, bringing up the big elephant between us was the answer.”

You don’t know how you managed, but you laughed at his words. He stared at you, a small quirk at the side of his lips before his deep voice filled the slowly darkening sky. The sunset glow naturally fit his facial features, but did not suit the persona he was putting up.

“You don’t have to force a laugh if you’re not happy.”

You nodded, turning your body to face the same direction as his body. You both looked out at the mostly vacant street. It was peaceful, and it was odd that out of all moments throughout the day, the moment you felt at most ease was standing with Hyunjin alone in some parking lot.

“This is odd. But not bad.”

Hyunjin quirked his head and had a grin on his lips, showing his amusement. “That’s definitely how I would describe myself.” You laughed again, glancing over at him and catching a small smile before it disappeared. Without looking at you, he said, “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go back.”

“Okay.”

You don’t know what spurred you on; maybe it was standing with Hyunjin and being surprised that he isn’t who you expected him to be, or it was the conflicting emotions that filled you to the brim, but you impulsively pulled out your phone and typed a text that you knew Jaemin would only get when he would have service on Tuesday.

You:

Falling for you was my mistake. It’s best we forget what was said last night.

His response came sooner than you had expected- two days earlier to be exact. You came to the conclusion that he came back a day earlier, which meant that he saw your message earlier than you anticipated. On Sunday night, when you were laying in bed and heard your phone buzz, a part of you knew it was him. There was no one else who would reach out to you this late but him. You collected your thoughts as you stared into the darkness of your room, ignored your racing heart, and reached for your phone. Your assumption was right, the name Minnie Mouse lighting up your screen. Wordlessly, you clicked on the notification and read the message.

Minnie Mouse:

I’m sorry you feel that way. Thursday was… something else. But I agree It’s for the best that we forget Thursday night.

You shook your head, a painful laugh falling from your lips. You choked back your tears, wondering why you were so sad and getting angry because of it. You felt childish as you changed his name to Jaemin in your contacts, the first time in four years that it was touched. As you laid in the darkness, you couldn’t help but feel as if something had shifted between you and Jaemin. And it wasn’t good, it was the exact opposite of what you wanted. It felt like a piece of you had run off, and all you could do was sit there and put a brave face on for the spiraling situation. You were angry, because you were sure he was calm and over at his house, falling asleep without you in mind. And the saddest part was, even after what was said and done, and even though you were upset at the one person you didn’t want to ever feel this way towards, he was still running through your mind.

Falling for him was your mistake. A mistake you would secretly have to live with as he brushed it off like it was nothing.

>>> Next part <<<

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First Drive: 2018 Mercedes-Benz S Class

The 2018 Ramona-Benz S650 Maybach has a certain ring to it, don’t you think? If not for the order of four names on the birth certificate of a baby girl born in 1889 — Mercedes Adrienne Ramona Manuela Jellinek — it could very well be so. The Mercedes-Benz brand has come an infinitely long way from the heady, 19th Century roots of Mercedes Jellinek and her father Emil. Mercedes has come a long way, even, from the introduction of the first car to inspire the S-Class in 1954, the W180 “Ponton” sedan. Now, some 45 years since the introduction of the W116, the first car to be officially designated an S-Class, Mercedes-Benz is rolling out the latest version of what has become a time-tested benchmark of the luxury full-size sedan segment — the 2018 Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

Replete with all the semi-robotic functions you’d expect in a 21st Century gadget of six-figure proportions, the 2018 S-Class doesn’t disappoint, despite not being all that visually distinguishable from the 2014-2017 model it’s replacing, particularly inside. That visual similarity isn’t a bad thing; the S-Class was already a very handsome vehicle. Other than a new V-12-style grille, new lights all around, gently massaged front and rear bumpers and a few other minor updates, the sheetmetal remains unchanged.

But Mercedes’ engineers didn’t just phone this one in. They just spent their efforts elsewhere: on a whole new line of engines and transmissions; on a new 4MATIC+ all-wheel-drive system; and on enhanced technology on all fronts from self-driving to entertainment, and even into new frontiers of “well-being.”

An entirely new slate of engines and transmissions means there’s a bit of model-name mix-up coming for the 2018 models: the S560 replaces the S550, the Mercedes-Maybach S560 and S650 now sit atop the range in place of the S600, and the S63 and S65 carry forward, changed but with their names intact. A new S450 model will also join the range at launch. For the U.S., that launch happens in fall of 2017 for most models, though the rear-drive S560, the S65 sedan, and the Mercedes-Maybach S650 rear-wheel-drive won’t arrive until “late 2017.”

The S450 gets the 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 we’ve seen in several other applications from the brand (rated here at 362 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque), while its 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 finds its home in the S560 as well as the S63 after some AMG fettling. In S560 trim (both standard and Maybach), the 4.0-liter turns out 463 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque, a gain of 14 hp over the previous 4.7-liter twin-turbo. The S63 gets an even bigger bump, gaining 26 hp over the old twin-turbo 5.5-liter for a rating of 603 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque.

Behind the wheel, the power differences of the newer engines aren’t really all that palpable. The car’s all-new 9-speed automatic transmission, however, helps the updated 2018 S-Class feel a bit smoother and quicker, thanks to its close ratios and slick, easy shifts. No doubt the new 4MATIC+ all-wheel-drive system plays a role in making the car feel quicker off the line, too. But more on those in a second.

The biggest news in the S-Class engine world isn’t news at all for the United States. A new S500 model is being launched in Europe and elsewhere in the world, powered by an all-new M256 engine sporting a cutting edge 48-volt electrical system that allows it to combine mild hybrid functions with starter-generator functions through a sandwiched electrical drive unit. This, in turn, allows Mercedes to convert all of the external accessories from their archaic belt-drive to more efficient, and more controllable, electric-driven accessories. Getting rid of the accessories on the front of the engine also decreases its length, making it easier to package the M256’s inline six-cylinder layout. Electric-drive accessories on the M256 include the engine’s water pump and the air conditioning compressor, but also an electric supercharger that fills the 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder’s torque gaps. The result? A more efficient, smarter engine that’s capable of 429 hp and 383 lb-ft of torque in S500 trim. Those figures net the M256-powered S500 a 0 to 60 mph time of roughly 4.7 seconds. Unfortunately, we won’t get this powertrain in America — or at least there are no plans for it as yet.

The aforementioned 9-speed automatic transmission lies at the heart of every 2018 S-Class with the exception of the V-12s, which soldier on with the high-torque handling 7-speed MCT. For the non-AMG models, that means a 9G-Tronic with paddle shifters. The new transmission offers a wider spread of available gear ratios for more efficient cruising at speed. For the S63, the upgrade to 9 speeds means an AMG Speedshift MCT transmission with multiple downshift capability and a rev-matching feature that uses a single wet clutch in place of the torque converter.

Both variations of the 9-speed are crisp and responsive (noticeably more so in manual and sport modes) without acting balky or awkward at lower speeds. It’s not the sort of transmission to get a gearhead’s veins flowing with lube, but it is the transparently smooth sort of power delivery device you’d expect and want in an S-Class. That’s not to say the S-Class is sleepy; even the base V-6-powered S450 scampers to 60 mph in 5.0 seconds (4.8 with 4MATIC); the S560 manages the run in 4.5 seconds. The Maybachs are a touch slower, checking in at 4.8 seconds (S560 Maybach 4MATIC), and 4.6 seconds (S650 Maybach). The mighty, hulking S65 requires just 4.2 seconds to hit 60 mph.

Also new for the S63 AMG is the automaker’s 4MATIC+ all-wheel-drive system. Instead of the fixed-ratio setup AMG cars were once known for, this version now implements infinitely variable front-rear power distribution for the 2018 model year. This is made possible by an electromagnetic clutch, which constantly adapts to road conditions and driver behavior, functioning as a rear-drive car when grip is good, but adding progressively more torque to the front axle as needed. In practice, the 4MATIC+ system, like the new 9-speed AMG Speedshift MCT, is exactly as it should be: very good, and seamlessly transparent. Thanks to the combination of new engine, transmission, and 4MATIC+ all-wheel-drive, the new S63 shaves 0.5 seconds from its 0 to 60 mph time, now doing the deed in just 3.4 ticks of the stopwatch.

When the W222 S-Class debuted for the 2014 model year, it brought with it a huge innovation: Magic Body Control, which allowed the car to scan the road ahead and pre-adjust to upcoming road imperfections. Not only was it innovative, it’s truly effective, too. Now, it’s been enhanced, with even better bump-mitigation performance, but also with “curve-tilting” built in. That means it can make your S-Class very nearly lean into the corners — even though the standard air-ride S-Class handles the corners with minimal body roll. The upgraded Magic Body Control with curve-tilt is standard on S65 models, and an optional upgrade on all rear-drive S-Class variants.

It’s not the only driver assistance package that’s been upgraded for the 2018 model year. Improved camera and radar systems enhance the raw data being pumped into the car’s brain, allowing it to see further than before, while richer map and navigation data help the car automatically adjust its speed for curves and speed limits when using the Active Distance Assist DISTRONIC feature. The 2018 S-Class will also do an automated lane change, brake to a stop in an emergency, and even find a parking space and then park in it. The semi-autonomous self-driving system alerts the driver to return their hands to the wheel after 15 seconds, and abandons control of the car entirely when no human input is detected for 1 minute. It’s still just a driver assistance system, rather than a true semi-autonomous highway driving feature, but it’s as good at the parts of the job it does as anything else on the market. We did notice it had trouble keeping a lock on the lane when the road’s markings are faded or substantially outside the normal range. That said, when the 2018 S-Class is doing the steering for you, it’s perceptibly smoother and even more confidence inspiring than in the previous model.

One of the most curious offerings of the 2018 Mercedes-Benz S-Class is the optional Energizing Comfort package. This system could be thought of the Distronic Plus of vehicle cabin comfort systems, pulling together several previously independent systems to create a more holistic result. The only difference is that instead of integrating steering and ABS and throttle position and more, the Energizing Comfort system is integrating climate control, ambient lighting, massage, and fragrance to “configure a specific wellness setup to suit their current mood or needs, enhancing physical comfort and performance on the road,” per Mercedes-Benz.

Not that you’ll need too much digital cossetting to complement the analog comfort of the S-Class’s cabin. Real leather, metal, and wood abound, and even the plastic surfaces and buttons in the cabin are, with the exception of the controls mounted near the headliner, of top-notch make. The seats, already among the most comfortable and spacious in the industry, are as good as ever, ready for your longest drive.

All of this shows how far Mercedes-Benz has come since just 2014, let alone over the 45-year run of the S-Class, or the 63-year run of its predecessors. Not to mention the 131 years of car-building experience since Dr. Benz’s Patent Motorwagen in 1886. It’s enough to make you wonder what Mercedes-Benz will be up to in another four years —let alone in another 20, 50, or 100. Whatever it is, if it’s anything like the new 2018 S-Class, it’ll be pushing the boundaries of technology, breaking new ground in the human element of luxury, and continuing to set a benchmark that measures one of the longest-running traditions of excellence in any industry.

2018 Mercedes-AMG S63 Specifications

ON SALE Fall PRICE N/A ENGINE 4.0L twin-turbo DOHC 24-valve V-8/603 hp @ 5,500-6,000 rpm, 664 lb-ft @ 2,750-4,500 rpm TRANSMISSION 9-speed MCT LAYOUT 4-door, 5-passenger, front-engine, RWD/AWD sedan EPA MILEAGE N/A L x W x H 208.5 x 75.0 x 59.0 in WHEELBASE 124.6 in WEIGHT N/A 0-60 MPH 3.4 sec TOP SPEED 186 mph

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