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sixhours · 8 months ago

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One Day at a Time - Chapter 4 - Gestation

Series Chapter Index | Read on AO3 | Complete

Rating: Explicit, 18+, here be smut Series tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel Miller x f!OFC, Joel & Ellie, mostly follows canon, SMUT, gratuitous smut, dubious consent (drunk sex), unplanned pregnancy, fluff, references to past miscarriages, angst, hurt/comfort, romance, age gap (~21 years), childbirth, fluffy baby stuff, I've probably forgotten some so please let me know <3

He’s browsing at the trading post when he sees Charlie again. He’s checked off 14 more days in his little calendar, and each time he picks up the pen, it stirs a bittersweet feeling of anticipation and sheer terror in his gut.

He’s picking over the trades, looking for new sneakers for Ellie, when his eyes fall on something else.

Footed pajamas, impossibly tiny, the little plastic price tag still clipped to the sleeve. His hand drifts over the yellow fabric, faded but minky soft. Warm. Good for winter.

Sarah had pajamas like this once…a sleep suit with a hood and little round ears peeking up from the top. He hasn’t thought about that outfit in…well, decades. The memory of her toddling toward him with those silly little ears poking up from her downy head is so vivid that he can almost hear her trill of laughter and he has to lean on the table to catch his breath, the yellow onesie still clutched in his hand.

“Joel? Are you okay?”

Charlie’s voice comes from over his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie, and he turns around.

“Yeah…yeah just, uh…yeah, m’fine. What’re you doin’ here?”

He hides the pajamas behind him, balling them up in one large fist.

She holds up a white package. “Heard they had TP. Figured I’d better get down here and snag a roll before it was all gone. You?”

“Lookin’ for stuff for Ellie.”

“Find anything good?”

“She won’t think so.”

Charlie smirks. “Teenagers, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, shoving the onesie deep into his bag and making for the counter. He drops off a sack of old clothes into the donation bin, all the stuff Ellie has outgrown, and watches as Charlie does the same with her trades.

They find themselves outside, the warmth of late spring making everything smell fresh and green. Charlie’s button-down shirt floats over her jeans in such a way as to hide her midsection, but her proportions have changed. Her face is fuller, her breasts are swollen, and her skin looks so soft and smooth and—

He coughs and looks away, feeling a brief wash of shame for noticing her. Again.

“So you’re, uh…still…”

“Yeah…I’m still,” she says.

“That’s good,” he says, and means it. “Feelin’ okay?”

She shrugs. “A little tired…but yeah. I feel better. So far, so good, I guess.”

He nods thoughtfully and bites his lip, thinking of the calendar next to his bed. He can almost hear the days falling away.

“Look, I…uh…I shoulda said somethin’ before now. I…know I haven’t been the most…uh…I’m not trying to get out of…anything.”

She blinks up at him, brow furrowed, waiting for him to make sense. He winces, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I wanna help,” he tries again. “However I can. I know it’s not easy goin’ it alone,” he says, looking down at the bag with Ellie’s clothes and the onesie tucked at the bottom. Then he’s thinking of Sarah, of long nights spent pacing and rocking and soothing.

“You’ve done enough.”

“Oh,” he chokes out. “Uh, I, uh…s’pose I deserve that.”

Her eyes widen, cheeks turning a faint pink. Now it’s her turn to fumble her words.

“Oh…I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…you’ve been good. You’ve helped. I–shit. I’m sorry.”

There’s a painfully awkward silence as this sinks in and he bites back a smirk.

“We’re pretty fuckin’ bad at this, huh?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “We are.”

This admission seems to ease something between them. Before he can lose his nerve, he continues.

“Could I come to your next appointment? Is that somethin’ people still do?”

She nods slowly, considering this. “I have one next week. It’s not very exciting, but…you could come with me.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’m not sure you will,” she says. “The midwife is…intense.”

“I’ve heard,” he says. “I think I can handle it.”

He can’t handle it.

The midwife, Joanie, is cold and abrupt and downright abrasive. He can’t imagine this person welcoming anyone, let alone his future child, into the world. He wants to put his arm around Charlie, turn her around, and tell her they’ll find someone else.

But he can’t. Jackson has one midwife. And the town doctor is a 76-year-old man who “doesn’t do babies”.

The woman is dressed in a long, flowing caftan, gray hair pulled neatly into a braid down her back. She looks like a hippie but her eyes are sharp, and her tongue is sharper.

“You brought the boyfriend this time,” she says as Charlie settles on the makeshift exam bed, a chaise lounge with a sheet draped over it. Joel can’t help but notice that Charlie doesn’t bother correcting her.

“You can sit,” Joanie says to him, gesturing to the chair next to the chaise. When he doesn’t move, she throws her hands up. “Or keep hovering. Whatever.”

Joel crosses his arms and barely restrains a snarl. Charlie shoots him a look as she slides her unbuttoned jeans down to her hips.

I told you.

The woman performs a cursory physical exam in silence. It’s obvious they’ve done this routine several times, and neither seems to feel the need to explain it to Joel.

The midwife is frowning, digging into Charlie’s belly with pointed, demanding fingers, feeling around until Charlie winces. Joel clenches a fist at his side, resisting the urge to snap at the woman for being so careless and rough.

“Growth is on track. You’re measuring at sixteen weeks.”

She pulls out a speaker attached to a wand–he vaguely recognizes it from appointments with Sarah’s mother at the beginning–and a tube of gel. She covers Charlie’s lower abdomen with goop and presses the wand in, levering it this way and that, seeking the sound of a second heart. There’s a long moment where he thinks they won’t find it–that this will be the day it all goes to hell.

But then there’s a familiar but distant echo, a rapid pulse of sound, the memory coming back to him across thirty-five years and an apocalypse. It’s the sound that once filled a small room in a sterile hospital. He remembers it as a black-and-white flutter on the ultrasound screen, fast and vigorous and alive .

Mine , he thinks dimly. He sinks into the chair because his legs no longer want to hold him.

The midwife, satisfied she’s found what she’s looking for, holds the wand steady and looks at her watch. It’s the shortest fifteen seconds of Joel’s life and he doesn’t want it to end.

“One-twenty-six. You can sit up.”

Charlie does. Joel notices she doesn’t bother trying to button her jeans. He vaguely remembers Sarah’s mother needing soft, stretchy things, and wonders if Charlie has anything like that.

“Any cramping?” Joanie asks, flipping through a file.

“No.”

“Still bleeding?”

Charlie hesitates for a fraction of a second. “A little. Not every day.”

Joel’s eyes snap to her at that, but she’s not looking at him.

The midwife frowns. “Given your advanced maternal age and your history, I don’t like to hear that.”

Her sharp eyes focus on Joel. “You’re, what, sixty?”

“Fifty-seven.”

“Mmm. Sperm quality after fifty is a crapshoot,” she sighs. “You’re looking at an increased risk of genetic defects.”

Joel grips the arm of the chaise hard enough to rip it from the frame. He’s going to kill this woman.

“Look, I’ll be honest with you,” she continues. “Maternal-fetal medicine in this country was a shitshow before cordyceps, and the pandemic might as well have sent us back to the dark ages. I’ve seen one death for every five live births. Maternal survival rates are better, but only slightly.”

She’s looking at Charlie. “I can’t tell you you’re going to be okay. I can’t tell you your baby is going to be okay. I can only tell you what I think will help your chances and then…we wait and see.”

Charlie nods, her face drawn into a flat, emotionless mask as she takes this in.

“No more patrols. Light duty work only. No lifting. I can give you a doctor’s note for the council to reassign you if your regular job is too strenuous. No sex,” she says, looking pointedly at Joel. “And if the bleeding gets worse–if it’s bad enough that you need a pad–you go on bed rest immediately.”

Her eyes shift back to Joel. “Stress is a baby-killer. Your job is to take care of her and make sure there is no stress. None. If you can’t do that, you need to find someone who can.”

He grinds his teeth so hard he thinks he hears a molar crack.

“We’re done. I’ll see you next week,” she says dismissively.

And then Charlie’s off the chaise and ushering him to the door before he can open his mouth to give the woman hell and they’re stepping out into the rain. They make it to the end of the street before he stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says, hating the way his voice shakes, recognizing the animal clawing within his chest as barely contained rage.

“I did–I warned you,” she frowns. “She’s rough.”

“No–I mean, the bleeding. You said you were fine.”

“I was. I am,” she says flatly. “You heard the heartbeat.”

“S’not what I meant and you know it,” he hisses.

Her lip curls in a snarl. “You fucked me once . You think that gives you the right to—to everything?”

He blinks. “That’s not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying?”

When he can’t answer, she turns and walks away. The sight of her retreating back hunched against the rain only serves to stoke the fire of his anger further. Her shirt is getting soaked.

Where the fuck is her jacket? She’s going to get sick.

He catches up and grabs her by the arm, turning her around and holding her in place.

“You heard her. How am I supposed to take care of you if you won’t fuckin’ let me?”

Only then does he see the tears in her eyes, rain mingling with salt on her cheeks. Guilt stabs at him and he loosens his grip.

“I don’t know,” she hisses. “I can’t just…be that person with you. I don’t fucking know you! I don’t even know your middle name, but we’re having a fucking baby. Or maybe we’re not, because our odds are shit, and I should have taken care of this when I had the chan–”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. Without thinking, he pulls her to him, wrapping her in his arms until he’s holding her in the middle of the street. “Stop. Please.”

She shudders but doesn’t push him away. The sky rumbles, threatening a downpour.

He ducks his head, speaking softly. “It’s Arthur.”

She snorts into his shoulder. “What?”

“My middle name. S’Arthur. After my grandfather.”

She makes a noise that sounds like a sob…or a laugh. He can’t tell. The sound stirs a frantic need within him and he grips her by the shoulders.

“Move in with me.”

“What? No.”

“Just until the kid gets here. Let me take care of you both.”

She looks up at him, eyes ringed with dark circles. A raindrop splashes on the tip of her nose and drips into the divot above her upper lip.

“Do you even want this? I need to hear you say it.”

Any lingering anger melts away. He thinks of the soft yellow onesie still tucked into the bottom of his pack.

“I do,” he says, hoping the two little words are enough to hold her, to convince her.

She ducks her head with a watery sigh, close enough for her hair to brush at his chest. “Let me think about it.”

He nods. “Alright, but…not too long, okay? You’re, uh…”

He trails off as the back of his hand touches her stomach, just grazing the fabric over her bellybutton, before dropping back to his side.

She sniffs. “Yeah. I’m well aware we’re on a schedule.”

“Okay…okay then,” he nods, resuming their walk toward town. They’ve almost reached the trading post when she speaks again.

“It’s Sarah, by the way.”

The name takes his breath as it always does, pulls at that black hole in his heart that even Ellie can’t completely fill.

“I don’t under–”

“My middle name,” she sniffs. “You didn’t ask, but…it’s Sarah.”

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, just ducks his chin in a nod. Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get out of the rain.”

That night, she appears on his porch. The rain has let up, but her hair is still damp, matted to her temples.

“I’ll stay with you,” she says without preamble. “Under one condition.”

He blinks. “Anything.”

“We don’t talk about the kid. No names, no what-ifs…no…playing house. I can’t do any of that,” she says. “We take it one day at a time and…see what happens.”

“If that’s what you want,” he says, swallowing hard.

She nods, satisfied. “Alright. I can bring some stuff by tomorrow.”

“Good. That’d be good. But I uh, need to tell Ellie,” he pauses, thinking. “Can I make dinner for you? For the three of us, I mean?”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Not playin’ house or whatever,” he clarifies, feeling a blush creep up his neck. “Just…figured the news might go down better with food.”

She nods slowly. “I could do that.”

“You like spaghetti? S’Ellie’s favorite and it’s hard for me to fuck it up.”

“I like spaghetti,” she says, smiling a little. “I get off work at six.”

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Six. See you then.”

That night, instead of staring at the ceiling during his usual sleepless hours, he moves most of his clothes into the spare bedroom closet and cleans his stuff out of the attached bathroom.

As he works, he thinks of Charlie’s unbuttoned jeans straining around her womb and the climbing summer temperatures. Soon there would be no hiding her stomach under a jacket or sweater.

Jackson was friendly, but it was still a small town. People got bored and they talked, and anyone who paid attention would have seen Charlie and Joel together. There were already enough rumors about Tommy Miller’s broody older brother and his mysterious adopted daughter, the one who wore long sleeves even on the hottest days and carried a switchblade.

Ellie.

Another pang of guilt gnaws in his gut. He’d done enough damage to their relationship as it was, and now he’s about to drop a fucking bomb.

He finds himself knocking on the garage door the next morning, hands rubbing restlessly at the thighs of his jeans as he waits for her to answer. He realizes it’s been a few days since he’s talked with her beyond a simple “hello” in passing, or to pass the salt at dinner, or to ask where she’d put the TV remote. He chides himself; Ellie is independent by nature, but she’s still a kid, still his responsibility. She’s never going to trust him again if–

She answers the door, rubbing her eyes and blinking owlishly up at him. She looks so young when she first wakes up, hair tousled, sleep lines on her cheeks.

“Hey, I uh…we’re, uh…having dinner at the house tonight. Makin’ your favorite. Spaghetti.”

She raises an eyebrow. Joel doesn’t usually cook if he can help it; the caf is easier and less prone to burning things. “What’s the occasion?”

He swallows hard. “There’s somethin’ I need to talk to you about. And…Charlie will be there.”

“Ooooo-kay,” she yawns. “Love a good third wheel situation, I guess.”

“S’not like that,” he shakes his head. “She’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, I bet,” she smirks, then sighs dramatically. “I guess I can make room in my packed social calendar for dinner. As long as it’s spaghetti. Maria’s sauce, right? ‘Cause yours is…yikes.”

She sticks her tongue out to drive the point home.

He snorts softly. “Yeah. Maria’s sauce. And garlic bread.”

“Cool.”

He nods, and the moment draws itself out, that awful, awkward, twisting silence filled with all the things he can’t say.

“So…was there something else?” she asks. “I gotta get ready for school.”

“No…nope,” he mutters. “I guess not. I’ll see you tonight, kiddo.”

He doesn’t quite burn the garlic bread, but it’s pretty fucking dark. He’s scraping the crumbs into the sink when Charlie appears at the door with a salad in hand and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She’s wearing an oversized blue button-down over soft black leggings. For comfort’s sake, he hopes the jeans have been retired for a while.

“Thanks,” he says, taking the bag, frowning at its weight. “You’re not s’posed to be lifting stuff.”

“I can handle a bag of clothes.”

He grunts, gestures to the salad. “You can put that on the table. Ellie’ll be over in a few.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“You can sit,” he says, perhaps too gruffly, placing her pack by the stairs. On the stove, the reheated marinara starts to bubble, spitting red flecks. He rushes to take it off the heat.

Ellie arrives just as Joel is setting the last bowl on the table. She nods in a wary greeting to Charlie, then helps herself to spaghetti and salad and bread.

“So what’s up?” she asks around a mouthful of food, forgoing any small talk—his kid, through and through.

Joel swallows hard, looks at Charlie, who simply shrugs as if to say this is your show .

He opens his mouth but the words are stubborn and nothing seems right.

You’re going to be a big sister.

Your old man is going to be a dad again.

I fucked up and we’re having a baby.

He’d never had to worry about this with Sarah. On the rare occasion a date went further than dinner, he’d been cautious to a fault. He’d been considering a vasectomy before the pandemic but time and savings were sparse. He probably could have had the procedure done back in the QZ, but Tess had been his only partner, and she’d had a hysterectomy in her thirties. An operation that would put him out of commission for any length of time seemed like an unnecessary waste of ration cards.

He realizes he’s lost in thought, and they’re both watching him, still waiting.

“So, uh…Charlie’s gonna move in with me for a bit,” he says. “I’m givin’ her my room, and I’ll take your old one…if that’s okay.”

Ellie narrows her eyes. “You two aren’t… together ?”

“No,” Joel mutters, meeting Charlie’s eyes across the table. “S’temporary. She just needs a place for a bit.”

“Weird, but…fine with me,” Ellie shrugs, then turns to Charlie. “Joel’s good at taking in strays, it’s kinda his thing. Case in point.”

Charlie smiles a little at this, takes a sip of her water.

“She’s, uh, gonna have a baby,” Joel continues, focused on his plate, pushing the food around.

“Oh shit, congrats!” Ellie grins at Charlie, then looks back at Joel. He can’t meet her eyes.

There’s a heavy silence. Joel grips his fork until the design in the handle makes an imprint in his palm. He waits for Ellie to do what she does so well, to pick up the hints, put the pieces together, and say the things he can’t.

“Wait,” Ellie says, looking back and forth between them, mouth dropping open in a scandalized O .

“You didn’t—”

She coughs then, choking on a mouthful of food, and fumbles frantically for her water glass.

“Joel,” she says when she can speak again. “Tell me you didn’t.”

All he can offer is a tiny shrug.

“Holy shit ,” she breathes, fork clattering to her plate. “You slut !”

Not for the first time, Joel wishes she had a proper full name–Elspeth, Eleanor, Elizabeth, Eliza–anything that, combined with a solid middle name, made for a convincing and forceful reprimand.

“Sarah Elizabeth Miller” was always effective when his first kid was being a little shit, even if he rarely had to use it.

As it is, he can only growl Ellie’s short-and-sweet name under his breath and watch it roll right off her back. She doesn’t miss a beat.

“Wow, I can’t…I mean, you just said you weren’t even together –”

“We’re not,” he grates out. “It was a…a one-time thing.”

His face is so hot, he can practically feel the vein throbbing at his temple. He wonders if his second kid will give him a fucking aneurysm before his third kid can even be born.

“Thanks for that, now I need to bleach my fucking brain,” she says. “Gross. So, so gross. Dude, you’re like, sixty .”

“I’m fifty-seven,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, so really fucking old . Do you not know how babies are made ? FEDRA school was shit but even they taught us how to put on a fucking condom—”

“Ellie, we didn’t—“

“Don’t, dude. Just stop. You’re really fucked up, you know that? Like, I know I have issues, but this is fuckin’—”

She’s interrupted by a muffled snort from the other side of the table. Charlie has clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes are brimming with tears. She’s going to fucking cry because his kid is an asshole and he is an even bigger asshole and this has gone all fifteen kinds of wrong.

Joel would like to die, right now, face down in a plate of spaghetti with his face the color of marinara—anything to end this godawful conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie gasps, and it dawns on him that she’s not crying at all–she’s struggling not to laugh. “I’m so sorry. It’s just, I haven’t–this is just–holy shit .”

She breaks out into a peal of giggles, leaving both Joel and Ellie in stunned silence.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, heaving and hiccuping as she tries to catch her breath. “Everything has been so awful and serious and…this is just so…so…fucking funny –”

Ellie blinks, looking back and forth between Joel and Charlie in wide-eyed amazement.

Something in Joel’s chest unfurls from its tight, anxious knot, and when he meets Charlie’s eyes, he can’t help but return her grin.

“You two are fucked ,” Ellie pronounces, but there’s a slow smile spreading across her face.

“We are,” Joel agrees. “We’re fucked.”

“Totally fucked,” Charlie agrees, then giggles again.

Ellie shakes her head in disbelief, digging back into her spaghetti. “Welcome to the fucking family, I guess.”

Joel shows up for work the next day feeling lighter than he has in weeks. He’d finally slept . Ellie, while completely disgusted, hadn’t disowned him; she’d even hugged him before returning to the garage. And Charlie had made herself at home, joining him on the couch to watch a movie after dinner.

Maybe this could fucking work.

His newfound peace lasts about as long as it takes for Tommy to find him and clap him on the shoulder.

“What’s this I hear about you takin’ in strays?”

Joel scowls, picking up an extension cord and trying to untangle it from a pile of the things. “Don’t believe everythin’ you hear.”

“So Charlie isn’t shackin’ up with you, then?”

“S’not like that. It’s temporary.”

“Uh-huh.”

He shoots his brother a look over his shoulder, weighing his options. The rumor mill isn’t churning as fast as he thought or Tommy would be all over it by now. He rolls his eyes, knowing what comes next will be just about as bearable as a tooth extraction, aware he can’t put it off any longer.

“She’s gonna have a kid.”

“Right,” Tommy snorts. “Your kid?”

Joel turns and holds his brother’s gaze.

“Holy shit,” Tommy breathes. “You’re serious?”

“You’re gonna be an uncle again,” Joel says dryly.

Tommy whistles. “Well, don’t that just beat all. How the hell–”

“The usual way,” Joel grumbles, turning back to his work. “Can we not do this here?”

But Tommy has never been easily deterred. He practically launches himself at his brother for a bone-crushing hug while half the work crew looks on, bemused.

“Christ, get offa me.”

Tommy doesn’t. When he finally pulls away, grinning and gripping Joel’s shoulders, he’s almost teary-eyed.

“Maria’s gonna be thrilled.”

“I doubt it,” Joel mutters, thinking he’s already not held in high esteem by his sister-in-law. Knocking up a girl twenty years his junior is hardly going to redeem him.

“Does Ellie know?”

“Yeah, we told her last night. She’s…about as excited as you’d expect.”

“Damn. I can’t—I mean, I always thought—after—“

Tommy sobers, and the word lingers heavy between them.

After .

“I know,” Joel says, realizing with a dull ache that his brother is the only other person alive who understands the gravity of the situation…the only one who knew Sarah as more than a sad story in their history.

Joel closes his eyes and sees his brother at twenty, Sarah’s tiny arms wrapped around his neck as she clings to his back, laughing wildly as he dives through the sprinklers on the front lawn.

He blinks the memory away, busies himself with the extension cord again. He doesn’t even remember what he wanted it for, but he needs to do something with his hands.

“But it’s good, right? This is good,” Tommy says, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Joel swallows hard. “It’s good.”

Tommy grins, then frowns just as quickly. “Oh, man. The midwife–”

“Yeah, she’s awful.”

“Maria damn near killed her when Izzy was born.”

“‘Bout ready to myself,” Joel mutters.

“And…you and Charlie ain’t…?”

Joel glares at him in answer.

“Alright, brother. Damn, man. A kid…and at your age…”

Tommy laughs and ducks just in time to avoid the extension cord as it whips by his head.

#fanfic #fic recs #joel miller #the last of us hbo #the last of us #babyfic #pregnancy #tlou fanfic #tlou fic

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miguelswifey04 · 1 year ago

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Hi Lin! Could we ask for a Miguel O’Hara fic who secretly misses/worries for his loving partner, Spider![S/O] [Gender Neutral] because they’re away on an assigned mission in another dimension which may take some time like a few days/weeks?

Spider![S/O] always update reports to Miguel about the mission and would text him, “I miss you, babe. I promise to stay in one piece when I come back to the Spidey H.Q. With maybe a few scratches here and there. Love you, Miguel <3”

miguel o’hara x spider! gn reader

you’re away on a mission and for the love of god does miguel misses you so much

cw//fluff and comfort

miguel paces back and forth, his worry evident in the furrowed lines on his forehead and the constant tapping of his fingers against his thigh. the absence of you, his loving partner and confidant, weighs heavily on his heart as he anxiously awaits any news of your well-being. the creaking of the door catches his attention, and miguel’s eyes light up as he sees a notification on his phone. it’s a message from you, filled with a mixture of reassurance and longing. a bittersweet smile tugs at the corners of miguel’s lips as he reads the heartfelt words.

he quickly types a reply, his fingers flying across the screen as he pours his emotions onto the virtual canvas. “damn, i’ve been a mess without you around. don’t go thinking you can come back with a few scratches though. i expect you to come back in one piece, untouched by danger. i miss you. more than words can say. can’t wait to hold you in my arms again. stay safe out there. love you always.”

the tension in miguel’s shoulders eases slightly as he hits send, knowing that his message, filled with love and concern, will reach your heart. he finds solace in the fact that you are doing important work, even if it means being separated for a short period of time. days turn into weeks, and miguel yearns for any shred of information, any indication that you are safe and sound. he keeps himself busy, using his skills and intelligence to contribute to your shared cause, but his thoughts always drift back to you and the joy you bring to his life.

late one evening, as miguel sits at his worktable, surrounded by advanced technology and blueprints, his phone buzzes, interrupting the stillness of the room. his heart skips a beat as he sees your name appear on the screen. with trembling hands, he unlocks the phone and reads the message, relief flooding through his veins as he absorbs the news. "hey, babe. i’m finally back in our dimension. mission was a success! a few scratches here and there, like o promised, but nothing serious. can’t wait to be you, miguel. i’ve missed you so damn much. be ready for a hot reunion. i love you lots miguel <3"

a sigh of relief escapes miguel’s lips as he reads the message, his worry dissipating like mist in the wind. a surge of anticipation courses through his veins, and a mischievous grin spreads across his face as he types his response. “that’s the best news i’ve heard all week. i can't wait to have you back in my arms, to feel your warmth and hear your laughter. get ready for a reunion that'll set the room on fire. hurry back, love. i’ve missed you more than words can say. see you soon."

with renewed hope and excitement coursing through his veins, miguel sets his phone aside and looks forward to seeing you later that day. until then, he continues to work tirelessly, ensuring your shared home is a place of comfort, warmth, and love, ready to welcome you back with open arms.

tags 🏷️!! @kairiscorner @emiemiemiii @meeom @obi-mom-kenobi @sabcandoit @astro1bloom

#spiderman atsv #spider man: across the spider verse #miguel o'hara #atsv x reader #🌱 lin writes #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel o’hara x y/n #lin’s asks #♡´･ᴗ･`♡ lin answers #miguel o’hara x gn reader #miguel o’hara x spider! reader #miguel o’hara x yn #miguel o hara #miguel x y/n #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o’hara drabble #miguel o’hara fluff

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gomzdrawfr · 8 months ago

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Everything but you

another fic for PriceRaven, BUT this is an art + fic combo fic :3 I'll do a separate post for just the art (or you can check out this clip i posted on twt), so for now, enjoy this mess

this fic is within PriceRaven's cannon timeline, somewhere after MW3 and during fishy arc

tags:

angst and fluff, hurt/comfort, slow burn, canon-typical violence and behavior, character study (done poorly), grief, major character death (MCD), mention of MW3 content, author trying to be poetic but most likely just messing up the narrative flow, miscommunication, happy ending

author's note:

word count: 6,048 (the back part is not proof read)

the italics are internal thoughts or third perspective thoughts

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━ [this divider represent a time skip]

Raven knew the possibility of Price having to leave for a period of time, and was fully aware of the escalation of things when the news of Makarov started popping up.

“To update you on the breaking news of a Russian passenger jet that crashed…”

“A hundred and thirty-three passengers and nine crew members were on board the flight…”

“Descending very rapidly…..unexplained descent…..”

“Kastovia flight 761 bound for sochi…”

“...just hours after a missile attack on Arklove Military Base…..looks to be a terrorist attack”

They both knew then, that this would be the beginning of a long separation.

A quick goodbye, a hug and a kiss.

A swift departure, leaving Raven to tend to their home with their two lovely cats, their girls, after the shit show that went down between Cobra and Vik.

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━

Months later, Price would return a changed man, sprawled on the front door and drenched by the rain, clutching onto Raven for dear life as he shakes.

She’d never seen this man in this state; never seen Price that would openly show his distress to this level.

She could deduce that the operations most likely did not go well, and something terrible must’ve happened.

The guess confirms itself in the form of a watch.

Soap’s watch. Resting on his desk.

And later, a conversation.

“We’ll have to abandon everything”

“The house, the plants, the cars-”

“The girls…”

There was a sense of urgency in his tone, its timbre deepened and solemn since his return. A frown etched between his brows, accompanied by an increased consumption of cigars and even cigarettes.

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━

“I tied one of many loose ends”

He murmured into her skin in the quiet of night where the world is asleep. Price returned hours ago, dressed in a dark overcoat and a beanie, with a handgun beneath his shirt.

“Did you now?”

Shepherd huh.

She whispered back, feeling his chin resting on her shoulder, his beard tickling her skin slightly, properly nestled in his arms, but there weren't the usual giggles and laughter that surrounded the two.

No, this was their last night on this bed, on this home.

Their last night in the comforts of their safe haven.

“Mm” He mumbled back, palms covering her arms as he hugged her closer, spooning her in his arms.

Nervous that somehow, she’ll slip away, taken away from his grasp.

“....” “Tell me, Pricey” She brushed his knuckles, easing his tension.

“Will you follow me still, Raven….? Even if we have to leave…” he trails off, leaving things unsaid.

She understood fully the gravity of the question. Even if we have to leave away our hopes and dreams, dreams of settling down, growing old peacefully, dreams of comfort and promises of the future.

“Where would I go if not with you, John?”

“...I don’t know, Singapore?”

“...and what does Singapore have to offer again?”

“Really good seafood”

“So you’re assuming I’ll pick seafood over you?”

“Well, I was hoping you don’t”

A small chuckle escapes her, which made him smile in return, some of the pressure and uneasiness dispersed from this exchange.

“I won’t leave you” She whispered back, holding his hand up to kiss his fingers. Bittersweet murmurs exchanged throughout the night that comforted the two. “Alright then, Eira”

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━

It was exhilarating and intense for Raven to get back on the field with Price, joined as an ally to provide much-needed support in the mess and development following the escape of Makarov from the Trojan Horse mission.

But they have to admit it was exhausting having to move constantly without a proper place to settle down.

Physically and mentally.

Which explains why they’re here now, on this island that Raven can only assume that it's a personal island owned by Price.

“You telling me you own this place?!”

“Ah well, I wouldn’t say “own”, birdie…”

She still doesn’t fully comprehend what he meant by that.

It was a much needed break, being surrounded by the ocean and forest, exploring the places, catching fishes and crabs.

Price hasn’t seen Raven smiled this much in a long time.

Raven witnessed a side of Price she had longed to see: relaxed, carefree, and at peace. Yet, beneath his newfound calmness, she sensed something off about Price that hinted at a deeper turmoil within him.

There were moments when he'd gaze into the distance, lost in thought, thinking.

Pondering.

This was, unfortunately, one of the many truths Raven had come to understand about Price.

More often or not that contemplative look of his means he is plotting or thinking ahead of things, which inherently, is not a bad thing.

It only became problematic when he kept these plans from her, setting things in motion without her knowledge.

Because that’s what Price does.

Plan, execute, reflect, repeat.

The other negative trait from this, is that it always means there is something he was harboring within that was threatening to break apart. Troubles he would rather deal with alone.

Things that slowly etched eats him out bit by bit on the inside.

Now, Price was a man of many many thoughts, meticulously organized into mental compartments, sealed, and cast into the abyss of the unknown.

A man who had no room for lingering emotions: guilt, anger, sadness – anything that could hinder his motives, his plans, his every step.

A man that is calm, quiet, composed and in control, with a constant battle inside he can never say or show.

Behind his eyes, Raven saw it all.

The ocean behind those eyes of his are no longer violent and roaring, similar to when they had to toss their belongings into a pool of fire after that last night in their home.

Freedom tastes like ash and anger after all.

His eyes are now shrouded in darkness, like the deep blue sea.

Suffering and screams muffled in silence.

Drowning.

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━

“Up for a ride, birdie?”

“Sure”

It wasn’t uncommon for them to venture into the sea at night, they would drive out in their trusty lil boat (named Cash ‘n’ Fly) far enough until the horizon stretched endlessly, with a seamless line between the sea and the starry sky.

It creates an illusion of infinite space and solitude.

A small escape from everything.

What set this trip apart was the cigar hanging loosely between Price’s lips.

She counted the amount of cigar he used daily, and it was reduced to one or two per day during their break.

So to see him light it up, the fourth one of the day, right now, especially when it's dark and quiet, it could only mean one thing.

“You know…Eira”

And so it begins.

Everything but you.

She had anticipated this conversation, in some form or another.

She didn’t know it would be…this.

Leaving me with the island? I’ll have everything?

And I am supposed to be content with this?

Price was a hardened soldier, a veteran.

A seasoned Captain that has done enough chaos and has enough body piles up below him more than he could handle.

Battles stitched across his skin and back, hands coated in blood and regrets that clung onto his soul.

Far from a savior, close to a sinner.

Hands that were better suited for violence, instead of softness.

It should’ve been just another one of those moments, where he’d tell off some of his men, his soldiers, people who depended on him, boys and girls alike, to leave, to never come back.

To leave him.

So why is it so different when it comes to…the person before him now?

Why does this ache so differently?

What Price has in mind, doesn’t quite align with what John wants.

Needs.

John craves for the simplicity of being loved. Yearns for warmth and understanding, desperate for someone to look into his eyes and see the real him.

John thinks about Eira, thinks about her, her hands, her voice, and he wants more, more and more, a beast that is never satisfied, that can never get enough.

John wants to drown in love. In her.

Price fears that John loves more than he is ever allowed to.

Price wants what is right.

It’s for the best.

The one sentence that helps justify everything, doesn’t it?

“....”

Price watches as she stood up abruptly after a long uncomfortable silence, seeing her approaching the bow of the boat-

“Raven?--”

A loud splash was heard, and his body moved before he could process anything.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?! Have you lost your mind?? RAVEN??”

Raven, out of all the possible reactions he has anticipated, does none of what he expected and dives into the black sea.

“I'm going back to land!” She yells back with a strain, huffing as she proceeds to swim to the general direction of where the shore was.

“That’s way too far!! You’ll freeze your arse before you could even reach it!!” “GOOD, I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DIE IN THE OCEAN ANYWAYS”

“EIRA!!”

God dammit.

He quickly drove the boat, starting up the engine to propel the boat towards her, careful not to hit her as he quickly pulled her aboard.

“What–what are you trying to achieve by doing something stupid like this?”

“Nothing productive”

“Ei-”

He stops mid-sentence, seeing her freezing and trembling form, sea water coating her entire form as she shakes like a leaf on the wood.

For a split second, he wanted to ask if she cried, when he saw the red corners from her eyes.

Instead, he took off his jacket and outer shirt to wrap it around her.

The ride home was nothing but silence.

━━━━━━❆━━━━━━━

A letter and a necklace, that should be all.

Price thought to himself as he placed the necessary items on the table outside their room, with a heavy bag on his left as his thumb lingered on the necklace.

An owl head marble piece hangs at the end of it, an item he found comfort in whenever they were separated.

Not like it would be…of any use now.

He brushed it one last time, before heading out, leaving Raven behind.

At least, that’s what he intended to do, to leave behind the one person he had willingly, and stubbornly let into his life.

And now, he’s walking away like a mad man.

He sees Nik’s heli in the far distance, the sight both a relieving but solemn reminder of what is about to happen.

Usually, he wouldn’t think.

Just walk, it’s right there.

Yet, he stays rooted in the sand, as if waiting for a miracle.

“Is that it?!” A shout made him flinch slightly, turning around only to be completely knocked down into the sandy beach.

“You think you can throw me aside like a doll, a birdie with songs you’ve grown bored of, is it?”

“Wha-”

A loud clean slap, with the sting now buzzing on his left cheek as his eyes widened.

“You– you don’t get to decide what’s right for me”

“Listen here you– prick! Old geezer whatever the fuck you are right now-”

“You only get to choose me once, you either live with me forever, or we live our lives apart”

“Can you live your life without me?”

“Eira–”

“Don’t you dare say anything other than to answer my questions”

A long uncomfortable silence stretched between them, as Raven stayed straddling his chest as he lay against the sand that felt like it was burying him up.

It wasn’t when he felt the warm drops of tears on his cheek that his eyes truly met her.

“....do I mean nothing to you? Am i…just another pawn for you in the grand scheme of things? That could be abandoned once you’re done?”

“What happened to staying together through thick and thin? What about the vows you exchanged when you put this ring on my finger?”

More tears streamed down her face, hands shakily but tightly gripping his collar

“Answer me, coward”

That finally broke Price out of the trance as he quickly reached up to cup her face, brushing away the droplets of pain and sorrow that dampened her delicate face.

“I have to go…” “Why…? Just…just why?” “I wrote everything in the letter-” “I don’t care about the damn letter…tell me straight in the face”

“I can’t-” “John, please”

“I CAN’T LOSE ANOTHER ONE–”

Now it was Raven’s time to pause, a frown that formed for a split second before it softened.

“....” She sighs, letting go of his collar as she cradled his cheeks.

“....you know you won’t” “That’s what I said to him too…you know”

“....it wasn’t your fault”

“sunshine…I called him sunshine…Eira….I-”

“You didn’t know”

“I should’ve…”

His eyes glistened as vision blurred, the months of unshed grief escaping, cascading down to the sand.

Price never got to grieve, it swirls inside, a little bit like a black hole, like infinity.

A small part of him is lost with every soldier and civilian he loses.

And Soap took a big chunk of him, a good part perhaps, one of his– kinder shards.

Another, is stuck frozen in the moment, in the tunnel. No goodbye, just an absence, sudden, abrupt end, a gunshot louder than any screams that ensues.

Price tends to get rid of grief, one way or another, because it reminds him of his mistake, because it feels like he is holding onto a lost cause.

But here’s the thing about loss, grief is hanging onto love.

It is why it is always felt at all times.

Even on days where he thought he’d healed, while other days it was like old wounds opening up deeper than before.

There was not a day where he wouldn’t miss his favorite Scottish gremlin.

And if his absence was strong enough that it makes it hard to breathe, he could only imagine what it would be like if Eira’s gone as well.

“I can’t lose you”

There is no more desperate creature, than a human being on the verge of losing love.

She sighs, leaning down as she lays down next to him on the sand ungraciously, staring up the sky with him

“....leaving me alone here on this island doesn’t guarantee my safety either, you know that right?”

“I have my people watching you here…” “And a tsunami could come and drown us all”

“Well if that happens I would know-” “No, no you won’t”

She can tell he was about to argue as she shushes him gently, turning to face him, uncaring for the sharp sandy stones that scratched into her ear.

“You can’t always take the blame for things out of your control”

She murmured, holding his palm

“...and you can’t let your worry cloud your conscious and…do something stupid like this”

“Don’t push me away, when you’ve already made a place in my heart that will never be replaceable by anyone.”

“....you think this was dumber than you jumping into the ocean?”

“Absolutely” He chuckles lightly, raising a brow as he smiles.

“I don’t want to be…your regret, John” She whispered, voice breaking a little

“Even if we were not meant to be together…we’ve proved that idea wrong, time and time again…”

He shifted, sitting up slightly as he pulls her onto his lap, hands brushing away the sand on her hair slightly (failing, sands are stubborn lil shits) as he lets out a quiet sigh

“I dream of a time where…the universe was never wrong to begin with, and you’re mine to keep…forever”

“Well you ought to pick a better dream” She smiles, leaning up as she landed a small kiss on his nose

“This dream is already true, because Im yours forever, and ever”

“You are stuck with me, whether you like it or not”

“I suppose I am, aren't I…” “Absolutely…” He smiles, and hugged her tightly, everything about this felt neither wrong or right.

It felt like home.

“Now, are you going to continue mopping around in the sand or will Nik start throwing a tantrum when we get there? Last time he did he defied physics..."

“Im sure man’s busy with the coconuts and alcohol over there, plus we need to get your stuff–”

“It’s in your bag”

“my–what?”

He unzips the cover, and realize that somehow Eira’s sneaked her belongings inside

“No wonder it got heavier…” “Im telling you, you’re an idiot” He laughs slightly, ruffling her hair as they stood up, pulling her closer by the ends of her shirt as he kissed her forehead.

“Yes…but I’m your idiot…”

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qserasera · 2 years ago

Note

HEWWO mewwy for the ask meme: 16, 18, 20 and ALSO an additional one from me: are there any fic that has inspired you in terms of your own writing in the past year??

my friend coco!! o w o so good to see u in the askbox hahah

this is from the fic ask meme found here 16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? i feel like without checking, i would probably guess hurt/comfort huehuehue ... lemme go look │･ω･`)/

SKDFJSASDF ok the additional tag Fluff is first with 22 usages....Hurt/Comfort is second with a surprisingly low number of 9 usages lol. 18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? oh gosh...i don't know what you're talking about, my blorbos are Very Well Behaved!! jk jk, i want to say like...Childe perhaps. i struggle a bit more sometimes with whether his ease with violence/bloodlust/foul legacy form/fighting capability really comes through in my writing in the appropriate times, but that's not usually the genre im setting the fics in isn't That concerned with it. so. hahahahh. i know i am a little weaker with writing straight-out ruthless characters (thanks matoba :'') while some other ppl are Really good with maintaining that edge in characterization in fics, which i definitely applaud them for.

it's ok if he's going to be the emperor's consort he can keep up with his fighting skills for fun...makeout sparring...beating up giant goevishaps for mental enrichment yes... 20. Which work of yours have you reread the most? :3 i suspect it's probably a thousand gold, a thousand pearls

otherwise it's probbly the Earring fic which was my debut fic and i wrote it feeling like it was a fever dream KSJDFKSDJF Additional: Are there any fic that has inspired you in terms of your own writing in the past year??

ahhhh coco asking the hard-hitting queries!! let's see... i wouldn't say there have been any that have Directly inspired any changes for my own writing style, but i really really did admire these few fics in terms of their bittersweetness, their melancholy, the sharp, raw edges to their lines and here i would be doing the :eyes: emoji going 'this writing. is so. Cronchy.'

Rainmaking by Bidoof

if i only could (i'd make a deal with god) by smallghosts (locked for registered users only) to feel, deranges by ohwickedsoul (criminally underappreciated chili fic which i haven't seen many recs of, but the quality of it. delicious!!)

anyways all of those were like little pieces of very dark 80% cacao chocolate that i had a hard time finding anywhere else lol. i don't think my own writing is going to noticeably head in that direction but i did definitely Feel inspired with artistic emotions after reading them

#memeity meme #replies to an admiring bog #apricotlipped

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l0vergirlwrites · 2 years ago

Text

come over ; peter parker

warnings: sweet angst & fluff post no way home (btw i didn't really edit this, don't judge)

also, listen to "pistol" by cigarettes after sex while reading <3

it was cold, considering it was the start of december. snow continued to fall from the sky at a steady pace, adding to the snow-covered streets & buildings upon where spiderman sat. peter dangled his feet off the edge of the building, gloved hands resting in his lap as he peered out onto the busy streets. "last christmas" by wham mixed in with "all i want for christmas" by mariah carrey blasted from the shops below, families eagerly trekking up & down the sidewalks with gifts & winter attire.

peter sat alone with that familiar ache in his chest. he couldn't suppress it any longer. it overtook him, making him feel both heavy like a brick & as light as the wind. heartstrings likely snapped as he caught the figures of his former friends below, faces full of smiles as they headed to mj's work.

he was happy his old friends were safe, but it was still bittersweet. more bitter though.

moving away from the ledge of the building, he dusted off the snow that gathered on him, ignoring his cuts & bruises that made him wince, & he swung to his apartment window to sit on the fire escape. while his head rested against the rusted metal, feet moving back & forth to pass the time, he waited for you--the only person he has left-- to call.

he soon heard the sweet bluebird tweeting from his phone, the ringtone he picked for you, & felt a bit of tension ease from his muscles. swiping right on the call, he put the phone up to his right ear & lifted his mask to be just under his nose.

"hey, i just got in" your voice told him, sounding soft like sleep due to the yawn you let out.

"you sound tired" he noted, looking up to see if he could catch a glance of your apartment window, only to see a bit of light seep through the curtains a few windows above.

"i can say the same thing about you. so, come over" you insisted as you plopped onto your couch, letting out the smallest sigh as the cushions enveloped you after a long day of studying.

"i really miss you & i don't know what else to do..." you admitted, hoping that'd be an incentive.

feeling his chest grow a little lighter now, the ache going away, peter gave in. he didn't like being alone anyways.

"give me five minutes?".

he could almost feel your smile beaming from the phone "see you then, peter".

ending the call off with a smile, you reluctantly rose from the couch to pull out some cleaning supplies from your bathroom, knowing that he'd likely have a few things he'd refused to patch up, so you'd do it for him.

taking a quick shower to get off any sweat & body odour, peter closed his eyes as the water pelted his skin. he grew tired of looking at all his scars, so he learned to do his routine blindly. once his body smelt of an aloe body wash he bought a few days ago & his hair was freshly clean, peter didn't bother to look at his reflection as he threw on a pair of sweatpants & a hoodie, locking his door to make his way to your apartment. lightly knocking on your door, peter could hear a few pill bottles rattling & a kettle going off, making him furrow a brow as he listened in.

but once you opened the door, his senses tuned out & he felt somewhat normal again. your warmth pulled him in, & he held you close, even though his bruised ribs weren't fond of your body's pressure; but he didn't care. his eyes closed & his arms held you tight. the comfort of your body against his felt nice.

"i missed you" you mumbled into his shoulder, smelling the aloe on the skin of his neck, which was littered with some light bruises. pulling away to get a better look at him, your hands scaled his skin before resting on his slightly hollowed cheeks as you inspected an old cut that was healing quite well.

"i'm okay, you don't have to clean me up tonight" peter whispered, knowing you worried too much cared for him.

you looked into his eyes & gave a knowing a look, a look that said "i don't completely believe you".

"okay, just checking" rubbing your thumbs along his soft skin, his hands did the same to your waist before you pulled him inside, locking the door & heading for the couch.

as he got comfortable on the cushions, you nudged his knee to look at you pointing at the tea & pain pills on the small coffee table. looking back at you with a "really, i'm okay" look, you nudged him again, urging him to take them. smiling happily when he took a few sips of hibiscus tea & the two pain pills, peter nudged you this time, a small smile forming on his lips.

"thank you" he said, his eyes twinkling at yours in the dim light of your apartment, feeling your hand slowly reach out to hold his, waiting for him to accept your touch even though you were pressed into his side.

"you're always welcome" you smiled back, heart fluttering when he rested his head against your shoulder.

comfortable silence overtook you both for a while. peter was enjoying your presence, your touch--just being there with you seemed to somewhat cure of him.

resting your head on top of his, your left arm taking a hold of his left upper arm, you asked him "do you want to talk?"

the question made him shift to peer up at you, his tired face looking at your slightly concerned one, & he tightened his lips.

but you squeezed his hand again, "no pressure, okay?" you nodded to him, just letting the option be out there because you knew he needed it.

with his eyes faltering a little, peter became conflicted. "i don't want to burden you" his hesitant voice said.

"it won't burden me, spider boy" you squeezed his hand again.

putting his head back on your shoulder, peter squeezed your hand three times, a sign that he'll talk. he quietly updated you on everything you've missed for the last few days: seeing happy again at may's grave, his old friends continuing their lives during their christmas break from MIT, the loneliness that continued to creep at him--he slowly broke through his hesitation & took off the things that made him grow hollow.

as he spoke, peter took notice of your heartbeat, your hand in his & how they both grew with empathy as he went on.

"... i-i just feel a little lost" he ended his vent, sighing deeply & shutting his eyes as the emotions he keeps trying to hide break through the surface.

you stayed silent for a minute or so while you gathered your thoughts, rubbing his arm with your left hand & rubbing his knuckles with the other.

"peter, you know you don't have to be strong right now, right?".

unsure of what you meant, peter moved his head to the the couch pillow behind him & looked at you, trying to read you.

"i-i, i-i don't know what you mean by that" he didn't understand.

biting the inside of your cheek, you tried explaining it. "you've been through so much in these last few months-- hell i could even say these last few years-- but throughout everything, you've been so strong haven't you?" you asked him, seeing him nod his head.

"i had to be" he added, to which you agreed.

"right. so you haven't had much time, until now, to process everything & take your time with it, right?" he nodded again, slowly seeing what you were getting at.

moving your hand up to his cheek again, you sighed at him, looking so fragile & precious, so vulnerable.

"you don't have to put up a front or ignore what you're feeling, even in front of me" your sincere voice told him like a vice, coaxing him out of his old isolating habits.

"it's okay to not be strong all the time".

in response, peter just nodded his head & felt his eyes begin to water, feeling more & more comfortable to be in this state with you.

"c'mere, it's okay," you cooed at him, letting him rest in the safety of your chest, hugging him as he held onto you tight. "i'm here for you" you told him quietly, lips pressed against the top of his head.

peter hasn't felt so cared for in so long after it being an official year since his old life came to a stop. you reminded him whats its like though--his light through the fog, through the tears & the endless nights where he didn't feel worth it, where he wished his dark thoughts would just consume him to the point of no return--you, the girl he met on the roof while stitching himself up, helped him through it one by one.

retreating from your chest, peter rested his forehead on yours as your hands ran through his hair, the act so domestic; so normal. his teary eyes closed as he breathed you in, the hollowness in his chest was there, but it wasn't so bad this time.

"it's been on my mind for so long... i've been meaning to properly thank you but--".

sadly smiling, you almost paused him but he shook his head, his nose bumping yours a little.

"i need to tell you how much you mean to me, 'cause you're all i got. i wait for your calls every night. i feel normal when i'm with you, i feel okay & i don't get to feel that much anymore... i-i..." opening his eyes to look at you, he genuinely smiled with so much ease where he looked almost like his old pictures from his homecoming he once showed you.

"i wasn't sure i'd get another chance at this..." he hinted, throat becoming dry due to his nerves.

"what is it?' you asked, even though you knew. you needed him to say it.

"love. i didn't know i'd get another chance at love" peter finally confessed, squeezing your hand in hopes you felt it too.

he was still hurt. he knew he still needed time to heal. but, he loved you & you need to know it.

with teary eyes, you lifted his hand to your heart which was beating loudly against your chest, & you both chuckled. tapping his hand to make him open his eyes, peter looked at you with an adoring gaze, immediately knowing you felt the same.

"i love you too, peter" those five words sounded like heaven to his ears.

they became his favourite.

#tom holland au #tom holland one shot #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland #peter parker angst #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker #tom holland spiderman #spiderman x reader #spiderman mcu #peter parker fluff #spiderman no way home

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litgwritersroom · 2 years ago

Text

Alphabetical in order of Islanders, a list of all submissions based on prompts and Character Spotlights the page has hosted.

Bobby 🧁

Angel Food Cake - A submission from @banirareiko for the Character Spotlight before she was a bombshell. Spinning off from her 'Ashes & Lillie' one-shot set in WW2, Corporal McKenzie settles down after the war by opening up his own bakery. 🌷

Panic at the Mansion - A submission from @tammyisobsessedwith for the Character Spotlight before she was a bombshell. Set during CMM, Bobby gets protective when MC gets trapped in the escape room. 🌷

See Him as a Friend - From @whatisreggieshortfor. A sweet tale of Bobby and MC putting each other to ease for The Lie Detector Challenge prompt. 🌷

Camilo 🩳

Bailalo - A submission from @banirareiko before she became a bombshell. A rewrite of a sexy dance-off scene from Season 3. 🌷

Gary 👵

The Truth Is, It's Easier To Ignore It - From @ellegreenwxy. Despite always having been coupled up with different people, Gary's mind has never been far away from MC. He's kept it to himself, never having a reason to spill the truth ... that all comes crashing down when The Lie Detector Challenge is introduced. 😖

The Heart Wants What it Wants - From @0shewrites0 Lottie tries to pull an ON on Gary and Maeve. Written for the Operation Nope Challenge. 🌷

Kassam 🎧

All Your Lies - From @0shewrites0. Nearing the end of their time in the Villa, the couples are pretty much set by now. What better time than to throw in a lie detector test to heat things up? 😖📚

Lottie 🕷️

She - From @aislinnstanaka. Soulmates Villa fic that's Lottie/Marisol. Written for the Operation Nope Challenge. 🌷

Lucas 🏍

Of Betrayals and Bad Jokes - From @lemon-island. Henrik and Hannah team up behind Lucas and Ross' back to betray them trying to pull an ON. Written for the Operation Nope Challenge. 😖🌷

I'm Yours - From @queen-of-boops. Lucas and Dani are in the Villa and victims of Hope and Noah for this take on the Operation Nope Challenge. 🌷

Marisol 📝

I'm Not in Love - From @aislinnstanaka. A cute and adorable in-villa soulmate story, featuring some of your favourites from multiple different seasons! Written for the Lie Detector Challenge prompt. 🌷

Noah 📚

Secret Moments in a Crowded Room - Submission from @tammyisobsessedwith. A rewrite of the sexy dance-off scene from Season 2. 🌷

Seb 💀

But Lately... - From @rebelrayne. Seb isn't overly emotional. He's not a sticky sweet guy who loves a big romantic gesture, or someone who would pick up a bouquet of roses on the way home. But lately... There's something about Valerie. 😖

Suresh 💘

Come Back Home - A fan written fic from @luckyqueenobject that follows Jaded from the MC's perspective.

The Answer Was Simple - From @willkimurashat. After ending up stuck in a couple with the man she was trying to forget, MC sees an opportunity with The Lie Detector Challenge, but does the machine know her better than she knows herself? 😖

Operation Summa - From @perfectlysunny02. Finn allies with Dana to do an ON to spilt up Emma and Suresh. Written for the Operation Nope Challenge. 🌷

The Final Recoupling - From @krislizz. It's the very last recoupling from Suresh's POV as his ex takes the stage to reveal her decision. 🌷

Will 🌤

Just a Feeling - A second submission from @whatisreggieshortfor. Will's feeling for MC come out during the Lie Detector Challenge. 🌷

Youcef 🥖

Happiness - From @mergrl. A bittersweet look at a love triangle from more than one side, showing that things aren't always as clear cut as they seem. 😖🌷📚

Season 5 🤡

Operation Wilfie - From @litglola. One thing after the other for MC as she continues to be screwed over again. From Suresh to Alfie, when will it end? Written for the Operation Nope Challenge. 😖

Crossover 💞

Lies Make Friends - From @justtuesdays. A LITG and Lovelink crossover, written for the Lie Detector Challenge. 🌷😖

#litg #litg writers room #writers room #submission #submissions #masterlist #litg masterlist #litg fanfic #love island the game

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savorysatori · 4 years ago

Text

— SCANNING: ✯ 𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆. ✯

“I’ve been reminiscin’, sippin’, missin’ ya.”

— SYNOPSIS. being surrounded in work, keiji hasn’t been able to make it up to his love. one night when you get fed up the work is pushed away and scattered on the floor where your clothes lay.

WARNINGS. dacryphilla (m), lil’ of selfish reader, teasing manner. oral (f), use of petnames, neglect-ion. age-gap, mention of smoking, daddy kink. praise at the end, fem!reader, dilf!akaashi, some fluff. milf!reader. slight angst, a bit of dom!reader, mention of blood.

% WORD COUNT. 2.5k.

↷author’s notes. ehehe, this was pretty fun to write! I enjoyed it a lot and I hope you all do too. annd let me not forget to say thank you to @kaijime for letting me join this collab. please checkout the other works, support them if you can!

➤ @kaijime, DILF COLLAB. <//3

“Make it up to me. Let me hear your cries.” The soft beating in his chest sped up rapidly, eyes low to see you underneath him, smile so wide and bright, it was almost blinding. And he gave you exactly what you wanted that night; him. To make up for the things he’s done.

“I didn’t forget.”

It was the night. The one night you the most had been waiting for, anticipating the wait for the clock to strike midnight, exactly. The night you went shopping just for, buying the most revealing lingerie you could find, muster up the courage to show him. The only night you could have with him without your kids in the way, the sounds of a child crying no more, they weren’t here and you could finally have the time to enjoy. The night of your sweet, sweet anniversary.

And he had forgotten.

Completely forgetting the night you both had met, gotten married, and wore the big shiny ring he had exactly picked out for you, pronouncing you as his dear wife. It was today. And the only thing you wanted was him. Dearly. It would all be made up, because you were certain things would go smoothly, once again. Like always.

Certain that the work cranking its way into his brain would vanish as soon as you walked in, alluring his attention onto you, for the night. Letting the overwhelming feeling of stress leave his body for you to be let in, soothing him with the words you both wanted to hear, letting him know that you were here and he could focus on you. Let his mind race till the thoughts turned to you, thinking of you. And no one else. Tonight was about the both of you, nothing was to interrupt.

“No, you did.”

You were enchanting. Younger, rocking the age of your late twenties, being married to someone who was much older, twice your age. Figure against the doorway of his neatly styled office, head tilted with eyes filled with the hues of anger and lust. Glimpsing at his regretful behavior; you knew. Knew he was sorry, and that’s what fueled you, made you feel good inside. You could see the desire to be in your presence, flooding through his face. You could hear the sounds of fingers firmly scratching against his scalp, in a nervous tic. A sure sign that he was anxious and worked up. You could almost feel his gaze through the thin fabric of your dress, leaving a pleasant warm sensation to the skin of your legs. You could hear his breathing hitch, as you slowly drag your nails down the center of his chest in a straight horizontal line. Smell the distinctive ichor of smoke and fresh cigarettes, mixed in a pleasingly intoxicating perfume.

You look at the man in front of you, dressed in an impeccably clean white button-up shirt with no tie, and a pair of dark slacks. His hair is slicked back from his face, and you can see the faint outline of a speck of lust in his dark-blue-covered eyes. Eyes that are looking at you in a mixture of hunger and longing. You can practically taste the desperation in his mouth, as he attempts to keep his composure. He is hurting, and you revel in every moment of it. After the countless days of feeling neglected by his act, you were the one to bring him to his knees, now. Feeling as if he only catered to his work — leaving you to deal with the cries of both your twins, feeling selfish.

Now, he is here before you. All of his anger, frustration, and need. You see it in his eyes, and you touch him to let him know how he can make it better. A gentle yet firm grab of his hand, pulling him towards you. Eyes meet, and he breathes in slowly, before you taking off his glasses, settling the tension with a kiss that felt fiery against your tongue, head swiveled with desires that was needed to be relieved. Whispers of encouragement, ensuring you.

“Fuck, ‘m so sorry.. so, sor- sorry, doll.” Keiji’s eyes looking up at you for hope. “I know.” You did. As much as you enjoyed the slip of “sorry’s” leaving his lips, that’s not what you wanted. You needed him inside of you right this minute, and you were desperate for it. The haze of your eyes cleared, and you could see the bulge in his slacks. He was sitting right in front of you, and you could practically touch his body through the thin fabric of his clothes. "Now, now, please." He pleads, his voice filled with a mixture of desperation and lust. His words, and your body's instinct took over. Hooking a finger through the belt loops of his slacks, you gently tugged him closer to you. Your other hand moved to the back of his head, fingers lightly tracing his hairline as you brought his face closer to your own.

"Please, what?" You ask in a sultry tone, looking into the eyes of your husband.

"Please, let me make it better."

Your tongue darted out, licking the corner of his lips and tasting the bittersweet flavor of his saliva. He hesitated at first, as he seemed unsure of how to react. He was probably so used to getting his way. But, he didn't fight you as his hands began to roam your body. The kiss was met with your hunger. Tongues twisting and turning with one another, as the both of you tasted the vile flavor of each other's mouths. You could feel his tongue move, sliding against your questing tongue. He tasted like smoke and whisky, a scent that was all too familiar to you.

Keiji ran his hand up your thigh, to the edge of your thigh-length dress. His touch was hot and sent a jolt of electricity through your body. He moved his hand up your inner thigh, before slowly moving it down to your knee. Your hands moved from his head to his shoulders, digging into the fine hairs on his broad shoulders, as you both seemed to consume the other. His hands were impatient. Going from one place to another, stilling when the soft material of your panties rubbed up against his knuckle. He slowly, gently slid your underwear down, as you stepped out of it. You let out a gasp as the cool air hit your skin, and you felt lightheaded. Keiji's breath was hot on your neck, and he moved his lips to just below your breast — down to the curve of your hips.

Just a moment later, you felt his hot, wet tongue on your thigh, moving up towards your pussy. A shuddering sigh, pushing your head back as you felt his lips and tongue moving up your legs. You could hear his heavy breaths as he licked your thighs, his lips barely touching the sensitive skin of your folds. His wet, cold tongue ran up your pussy, almost tickling most amazing as it went over your lips, up to your clit. His lips closed around your clit, sucking on it gently as you felt your knees start to weaken. You fell forward, your hands grabbing at his head as you moaned into his ear. He giggled, before sucking your clit into his mouth, running his tongue over it. He sucked on it gently, and you could feel yourself starting to fall into the abyss of bliss.

Fingernails digging into the scalp of his head, mouth agape with heavy breaths escaping from your chest. Everything was incredible, the bucking of your hips didn’t stop when the churn of your stomach flipped you to whine, knowing you were close, close to cumming in his mouth with just a flick of his tongue against your bundle of nerves. You could almost feel it crashing over your body as the feeling was beyond description. Your eyes low with a glossy cover, head hammering with the feeling of euphoria coursing through your veins.

“Fuck. daddy, s’so good — ‘m gonna cum!”

You panted, barely managing to get out the words as your body shook and shuddered, hips bucking forward to feel everything at once. His mouth didn't stop, his tongue moving faster as you knew he wanted to please you, make up for the things he’s done. Mind going blank with eyes fluttered close, the warm flow traveling through you as you came with a stuttered breath — heavily, exhausted.

“Not done,” Keiji eased up from the ground, standing his full height to nudge your faltering legs open for him. “‘M gonna fuck you good, doll. Gonna let you know that I’m sorry, baby..”

You felt a deep, visceral desire to submit rising within you. It felt good to let him lead, let him open your legs for his hands to roam, part your soaked folds for something dark to stir within you, as he slowly sank into you — his thick cock breaching your tightness. He was sincere. Angling you onto your side, face against the wood exterior of his office desk, his cock his cock plunged in deep. You bit your knuckles hard enough to draw blood, as he began to fuck you slow and soft. Passive. Delicate. Showing you with heavy breaths of your name on his lips the whole time, eyes glistening from the overstimulation with tears of sincerity pelting from the swell of his rosy cheeks.

It felt so good to be taken like this. As he fucked you steadily, his breath hitching as he moaned, fucking you for all he was worth. You felt powerful, in a role reversal that you found wonderful. You felt your fingers dig into the wood of the desk as he started to speed up, pounding deep into you for your face to grimace in the act of ecstasy. It was too much. The pleasure he felt when he serviced you and when you clamped down around him had been too much for him to contain. Your attempts to contain him were in vain.

You were like a pretty drink on a sunny day, luring him in with your sweet essence contaminating his tongue. Keiji’s mind was woozy, his face puffed up from the starry tears heavy on his lashes. Cock stiff, but so so, hard to move from the way you were leading him on, he was happy to follow the rhythm you set. You could hear him whimpering, desperately holding onto the strength to keep him moving. He struggled to speak, but panted and groaned in a way that made it hard to tell what he was trying to say. “‘S my pussy, right? — it’s mine, m-mine. I know it, and I’ll show it to you, doll.” You could barely make out his words, but the tone sure was sweet. Your mouth curved into a smile as your head moved, nodding when you cranked it up to place your hand up against his cheek. “Y-Yes, daddy.. all yours.” Is what came from your lips, shaky breath with a small whine.

He was satisfied.

Keiji was pleased with your response. Palms gripping the fat of your thigh to place on his shoulder, a contented look with a sinister smile playing along on his face. You were sweet, a darling. His, to do as he pleased. You didn't know what he had planned at that moment, but you were ready to drown in the pleasures of the night. "Daddy, d-daddy! ..." you hiccuped as he fucked you, your vision going hazy. The sickeningly sweet taste of blood coated your tongue as you awaited his response. A devious smile spread across your face, as the pounding in your cunt became more intense. The wet sound of his spit and your fluids dripping into your moan peppered out as the sound of him fucking echoed in your ear. Tight... so tight... every thrust was met by a deeper, throatier scream, your hands clutching onto what they could find in his office to hang on to. He fucked you hard and fast, churning you into submission as your vision continued to narrow, each breath filling your lungs with pain mixed with the relations of pleasure. You felt something tighten inside of you, a release of sorts. The squeezing so intense that you thought you were going to shatter, as the feeling only spread from your cunt to the top of your head.

Keiji was satisfied, and so were you.

"C'mon, doll. Let's see how you take it. Let's see if your body — can take it."

Muscles tensed and relaxed, and it was just one long, pulsating wave of ecstasy. His words sent you spiraling into delirious pleasure, your mouth opening to release a whiny moan that sounded nothing like your own voice. You felt his finger trace circles against the inside of your thigh, as he bit down on your neck to leave aching hickeys. Your mouth was wide open, your babbles releasing, as you met his devilish eyes. He smiled as he gave you what you wanted, his cock throbbing within you as he bent over and bit into your neck. Keiji's rhythm was fast and wild now, his free hand clutching at your hair, as his hips slammed into you so hard that you felt like your back might break. You dug your nails into his hand and held on for dear life, reveling in the pure ecstasy of the rough, brutal fuck. He seemed to be enjoying this just as much as you were, if not more, his eyes half-lidded and dazed. Your body tensed up, as your eyes watered and your ears pricked. He was rough but deep, and you found yourself gaping with a moan on your lips.

“Da- Daddy! just like that, t-thank you! more, m-more! please- fuck me stupid.” Your throat hoarse, managing to let out a scream for his ears to pick up on. You wanted more; more of him. So badly.

“Look at me, doll. I’ll give you want you want, just- f-fuck.. — cum for me. Cum on my cock, darling, let me see you do as I say, just f’me.” The words sent you over the edge, as you felt your womb clench around his cock. He didn't stop, didn't falter, and didn't look away as he stared deep into your eyes. He was entranced, just like you were. His shaky voice was whiny and sexy, the pounding of his hand and your own pulse allowing you no other choice but to follow his commands. The head of his cock drifting against our velvety walls till the warm sensation of both your cum’s leaked down his cock, mixing to create a thick substance, his eyes glued to the way it dripped. It was nasty but enchanting.

“Are you alright, pretty? I didn’t go too hard, right?” After the rough intercourse, he was still soft, holding a sweet spot for your pretty face.

“‘M just fine, love. And I forgive you; you truly made it up to me and that’s what I love of you.” Manicured and polished fingernails stroked against his sweaty hair, as he brought you closer to him. His lips pressed against your cheek as a new feeling replaced the one you just experienced: love. You were beautiful, a doting little wife he adored, truly, giving into your small desires with everything you had wanted. A trance of love, enchanting falls. He gave you what you want that eventful night; him.

Just what you wanted, that anniversary night.

#akaashi x reader #akaashi smut #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu!! smut #haikyuu x reader #dilf!collab👠#cw dacryphilia #cw blood #cw smoking #cw age gap #🤍.akaashii #keiji akaashi smut #keiji haikyuu x reader #akaashi haikyuu x reader #cw dilf #haikyuu smut

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wincore · 4 years ago

Text

runway (m) | jung yoonoh

pairing: model!jaehyun x fashion designer!reader

words: 18.7k

summary: there are some things that come with dedicating your life to fashion: a taste for finer fabrics, a splash of love for art, and an appreciation of the human body. none of these are supposed to include the hottest model you have ever laid eyes on, or the fact that you completely, utterly hate his guts.

genre: enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, light smut, comedy-ish

warnings: sexual content, mentions of anxiety

a/n: woohooooooo she’s finally here!!!! i cant believe this!! everything aside, i do not have first hand experience working in the fashion industry so please do take this with a grain of salt. i’m also going to pass out. good night <3

A list of things you appreciate: colours, satin, comfort.

A list of things you do not appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.

The hum of the car engine has little effect on you; you travel like this almost every day. Tall buildings, scorching pavement, the blare of traffic—it’s Seoul, after all. You sigh, more of a short expression of annoyance, scrolling down with your thumb and back up again. Since when did he get permission to post pictures from pre-fittings? And one of your works, no less.

His feed is so messy. You click your tongue. For a model, that is.

You open the story again and consider messaging him. It’s your cherry red coat, or rather the collar of it, golden thread sewn in swirls of patterns, and a sheer floral shirt extending all the way up to cover Jaehyun’s neck. You frown. It’s meant for showcase, not teasers. Even if the picture extends just from the curve of his shoulder to his parted lips, you can’t stand the sight of it on him. It’s not bias, you try to tell yourself. This is business. You tap your fingertips rapidly against the back of your phone. This is obviously business.

Seoul Fashion Week is the height of your anxiety, which means you have little regard for anything else decorated around you. With a new frenzy arising in every minute of your day—you don’t have time to think, a sense of madness in the way you keep busy. Your Elixir collection is more than what you had hoped for it to be, a twinge of satisfaction sitting at the pit of your stomach. It nicely puts together everything rich and extravagant, humanity’s first love—everything you despise really, so Jaehyun wasn’t a bad choice for a model.

You backspace on your text. Is this rude? Should you care if you’re being rude? How unprofessional, you imagine his voice saying. It wouldn’t be the first unprofessional thing you’d done.

The final text reads ‘Glad you’re enjoying my designs, but they were not meant to be publicly displayed before the official show, as common sense predicts.’

No, of course you’re not trying to be snarky. It’s perfectly formal. All that time writing professional complaint letters to companies for ripping off your designs paid off, you suppose.

You exit the Uber, thanking the driver quickly before you rush into the building, checking the time on your watch. It’s sunny, and hotter than you anticipated. You can only hope it’s cooler tomorrow so the heat doesn’t suffocate your models.

The company building is another madness in its own. Joohyun greets you with a quick smile, a bunch of fabrics being handed to her before she can make any conversation with you, and the rest of the workers bow in greeting before getting back to their own individual windstorms. You step over a few boxes on the grounds, beelining to your workspace so you can settle down your bag.

You’re team leader, you tell yourself, a short breath tumbling out of your mouth. Even so, you don’t do very well under several pairs of eyes on you at once. Some part of you is still the timid fashion designer, packing your entire identity into a small sketchbook.

The sunlight is blaring out of control in the place—it’s meant to be spacious and sunlit, of course, but the heat makes you adjust your collar before you can move forward. The bustle of the style and design team along with the production team in the same place is akin to a nightmare, and you trace your steps quickly.

“Guys,” you begin, fidgeting with the leather strap of your watch as you continue, “Firstly, good job.”

There’s a bunch of short cheers and clapping to interrupt before you can continue.

“As for tomorrow…stylists, I need you to touch up the collars in all the Western-style coats. The detailing needs to be kept clean and sharp. I want the audience to be able to see it.”

You pause, your tone still neutral. “And let’s not start again on the lacing. We had that discussion yesterday.”

There’s some nods and sounds of affirmation.

“Production team…I don’t think I can say much to you without Doyoung getting on my case.”

There’s collective laughter and you crack a smile. With a few more rapid words, you dismiss yourself, walking over to your colleagues to help them out. You’re team leader, the one with the final say in all the designs, but you can’t possibly imagine completing it without Joohyun or the others.

“Good pep talk there, (name),” Joohyun says, walking over to you as her hands sharp and steady as they go through the clothes rack.

“They think I’m an asshole,” you say, breathing out. You know your words are too direct. Drunk co-workers on a Friday night are not the best place to discover facts about yourself. Sometimes even you think you sound bossy. You check the key parts for each item, knowing you’ll be doing this once again before the show.

“We wouldn’t be going anywhere without direction,” Joohyun responds, laughing as if you’d said something silly. “We’re all glad you’re here, (name).”

Words like these are so easing for a mess like you, not that you’d admit it. Joohyun has always been a sort of mother figure to you after you entered this company, followed by Doyoung. A good few years senior to you, she started out as a model before she moved on to designing.

It’s her last year working in this place. But of course, it’s a given when she’s starting her own label (mom clothes and children’s apparel, she’d called her clothing line, rolling her eyes) and one of the most well-known names in South Korean fashion not having her own label is sacrilege (according to your colleagues anyway). She’d said to contact her when you start your own family, and maybe she’ll send a congratulations package for both you and your baby. You’d laughed. Out of all the insults you could ever receive, that was perhaps the loveliest one.

Ridiculousness aside, you’ll miss the comfort of her presence. You were still in school when your designs led you to a showcase in New York Fashion Week, your sponsor more than generous. You stepped into it too soon, too eager. It was breath-taking and awful all at once—and the first time you saw a world outside of your own. It was overwhelming. There are few people in this new world as kind as Joohyun.

The sound of your notification snaps you out of your thoughts. You swear you kept it on vibrate, a little irked at having to search for your phone when your hands are full. The notification itself brings on a stronger wave of vexation.

_jeongjaehyun:

My manager told me it was good publicity

But I could take it down for you

The ‘for you’ adds an unnecessary effect, you think as you hold back a scowl. And what does ‘could’ mean? A miscommunication with the sales team isn’t even on the list of things you need to worry about. Honestly, you don’t have time to fight him, quickly typing out a ‘whatever. it’s okay’ before looking back up.

You jump, the look on Joohyun’s face a little suspicious for what might come out of her mouth.

“It’s not a crime to text people.” She shrugs, shuffling through the rack one more time to take the clothes for transportation.

You’re quick to jump to your defence. “I have nothing to do with him.”

Joohyun looks at you, amused. “He’s not a bad person, you know? How long are you going to keep hating him for one thing he did?”

“It’s not one thing,” you groan, averting your gaze to the clothes so as to help her. “I just- he’s so- so- oh come on. You know how I feel about him.”

“I’m just saying you don’t have any reason to. Everyone’s different from what they appear to be. Especially in this line of work.” Joohyun balances the clothes you give her across her forearms.

“So he’s fake. I hate that even more.” You sigh, pulling out the blue silk overcoat, the colour matching Joohyun’s work dress.

“You mean unreal? Models tend to be that way—don’t be so harsh on him, honey.”

You simply shake your head, words entering one ear and out the other. Joohyun presses her lips into a line but lets it go soon enough. She knows you’re capable enough to separate professional from personal and that should be enough. You’re not keeping a tab on something as warming as spite.

You can’t believe you’d ever been within five feet of him without turning your nose. You can’t believe you’d smiled at his jokes once, even if it was just that one night. He was the godsent Prince Charming, just perhaps not yours. Paris surely had a distressing effect on you that year.

You don’t make the same mistake twice.

You walk back to your desk to take a seat and scavenge through your belongings, most of the people already outside. Fashion Week, which once upon a time was a faraway dream, now is part of life—exciting and exhausting. It’s almost always over in a flash, your love for it whisked in peaks of bittersweet. (“You work your ass off for six months and it’s, what, fifteen minutes long?” your mother had asked after you’d brought her to one of the shows.)

This line of work is a nightmare without mental preparation. You have a degree, you have experience and yet it doesn’t feel enough, confidence easier to drain in a person than blood. And you’re not very fond of pale cheeks.

It came to asking yourself if you really have it in you for a few months—a test of sorts everyone puts themselves through at least once in their lives. At that time, your favourite professor, a bald man nearing his retirement years with the wrinkliest face you’d ever seen, had asked you just one question.

Do you love it?

Of course you fucking do.

You couldn’t say that to his face, sure, but you know he saw it in you—either the effort you put out every day of the semester or the way your hands moved across fabric like a machine, your designs made with the persistence of nature. Your final year project landed you an internship at one of the largest clothing brands in Seoul and your internship landed you a job at the same. Your job, well, lead you to Jaehyun, among many other things.

You scowl at the image of his face that appears when you close your eyes, massaging your forehead—it’s hard to not see it everywhere already, from Cosmopolitan to Vogue.

While you were biting your nails in New York, Jaehyun had flown out to Paris with Saint Laurent, one of the younger male models to show his face for the first time. He’d taken the whole place by storm, you had heard from a friend. To say half the world had fallen in love—either with his dimples or his confident walk—would be an understatement. A privilege, to be gold-plated in a mercenary world.

You’d briefly made eye contact at the airport the first time you saw him, a year later, when you were arriving in Incheon and he was leaving it. It was London, that time. For him, Milan. As much as you couldn’t believe living a fashion student’s dream, Jaehyun’s face was truly, unironically much more unrealistic. Your classmates’ gabs and gossip in sewing class had suddenly made sense. You taught yourself to not be swayed by faces, even if they look like they’re stitched together by Aphrodite and Apollo with their bare hands—friendly advice from seniors at the orientation night ‘party’.

You’d met him formally in Paris, after you’d graduated from fashion school. He was certainly the most beautiful face in the room—and you weren’t the only one aware of it. The entire night you’d been starting conversations you couldn’t relate to, till he came along with his charming dimples and a faux connect. You were naive, and a little tipsy. The attraction was obvious, and it had been you by the bathroom pulling him in for a drunk kiss till he’d snapped out of the daze—as if it were some joke you’d been playing. He’d apologized before leaving, like it wasn’t a big deal, with silken lips parted in a gesture of remorse and a short, firm bow. It didn’t settle very well alongside the merlot in your gut.

You. You’re a big deal.

You were alone in a room full of painted faces and he sat atop the throne they worshipped. Why had you expected any more from him—in the understanding nods or the few kind words that escaped his lips? You felt stupid. He made you feel like smiling for the first time that night and you hated him for it—you’re sure he doesn’t care either way. Or maybe he does, with the wonderfully irked responses he graces you with.

Jaehyun made something out of himself in these nine years, just as you have. Runway supermodel to the face of South Korean men in fashion to an entrepreneur, he might as well have a documentary on him—and he would if he didn’t evade paparazzi and reporters like his life depended on it. Enigmatic, the articles wrote. You scoffed. Conceited, more like. After the initial years, he decided to settle in New York, frequently flying to Seoul and other fashion capitals for business and contractual events. Some of those occasionally include your shows.

Having Jaehyun gets more attention but it’s not like you’re a new, doe-eyed kid. Your works have been featured for popstars and foreign celebrities, and you’ve been invited to several interviews with big magazines. You’ve gone global (albeit under the brand’s name) and you’ve been to places you’d only seen pictures of in the very same magazines you looked up to. They can describe your work as unique all they want—and you don’t mean to sound fucking pretentious—but your job is nothing more than an expression of the self. It’s a part of you; you first started sewing patches onto things simply because your closet lacked colour. And eventually, you found yourself searching for more—colours, fabrics, dreams. You’re devoted to your job because you love it, you want to do it. You’re allowed to be a little arrogant about it.

If only trying desperately to be arrogant did something about your insecurities.

You hope your works redefine themes, your need to stand out contrasting with your fear of it. Eye-catching is always your forte; this time it’s fairy tales and royalty in a mix of East meets West.

D-1. Same feeling, new season.

The press is here, you take note. Photographers. Models. Students. Vloggers. It’s a burst of colours down there.

You hate running late, rushing down the stairs to the plaza through the crowds of people. Some recognize you, as they make their way to you but you end up walking a little faster to minimize your presence. You curse yourself for wearing the jacket. It goes nicely with the rest of your outfit and March isn’t supposed to be this hot. You wipe the sweat from your hairline, hoping the makeup is waterproof like it said.

You consider stopping at the café for a fix of coffee but stop when you notice Joohyun holding a bunch of cups by the venue. She doesn’t look too happy about the sun, or the burdening errand of fetching coffee. You adjust her little red beret at her request, smiling at her annoyance but trying your best to keep it hidden. You don’t want to get cussed out by Joohyun.

“Someone tell Doyoung to get his coffee,” Joohyun complains. “I’ve been waiting for half an hour.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” you say, sipping your coffee. The taste fills your senses with a pleasant dose of energy and you hum out a satisfied note. “Why are there so many students out here? Influencers? Did we sponsor this many kids?”

Joohyun shakes her head. “Jaehyun just got here.”

You suppress an eye-roll. “Wonder why he still comes back for Seoul when he’s booked full for New York.”

“It’s his hometown.” Joohyun shrugs. “I’d come back too. Even if I’m paid more out there.”

You finish your coffee and duck into the fitting room, much to Joohyun’s displeasure as she’s left alone again. Doyoung’s in for an earful, you chuckle thinking about it.

It would look like a hell of a mess to anyone not accustomed to this. Everyone is a flurry by themselves alone but if you mix them with the eclectic crowd you find at a Seoul Fashion Week backstage, it’s more of a disaster. A colorful one, at the very least.

New York was worse. You were too young, in a world that was too big. It’s a miracle you even received an opportunity from so big a name. But, you suppose, it hardly matters now.

You no longer live in a world where Seoul is far from Paris. Fashion and art are things unmarked by place of origin.

It’s easy to spot Jaehyun in a corner, two people adjusting his coat for better fitting at the waist. His makeup’s done, you notice as you get closer. Good, you think. If any makeup were to get on the fabric, you’d go feral (although you do have full confidence in the makeup artists here and their choice of product).

“Jaehyun,” you greet. Your co-workers give each other a look before excusing themselves. You raise an eyebrow, too late to stop them. They didn’t finish the looping of the belt properly, you take notice. You wrinkle your nose. Sloppy.

“(name).” He responds with an equal lack of amusement.

You pull the belt at his waist, Jaehyun stiffening at the contact.

“What are you doing?” he asks, looking down at you with a raised eyebrow.

“My job? What do you think, genius?”

Jaehyun presses his lips together and lets you complete the altercations. The chiffon shirt allows you to see the hazed definition of his core, a rather flustering thing to be exposed to for anyone with eyes. When you look up in a moment’s mistake, you’re reminded of why his face is everywhere. Flawless, almost. You hate it. Averting your eyes, you fix the collar so the pattern stands out more. You can feel his eyes over your outstretched hand all the way to your face, subtle as ever. If Jaehyun thinks you’re bothered by it, he’s an idiot for believing so.

You take a step back to analyse the coat. The golden threads are flawlessly detailed, spiraling in patterns of different flowers and vines around the collar, gradually getting larger as they twine at the base of the neck. They meet the polished rhinestone buttons a little lower. You almost smile. You’d sewn each thread and each button in yourself the first time. It hardly looks the same now.

Bright red is an eyesore if you look at it longer than five minutes, you realize. The frown that’s been itching to show up finally does. Suddenly, you’re glad Jaehyun is modelling this piece. You shake your head and look back at his face, from his deep-set brown eyes to his full, tinted lips before pausing. The little Swarovski pearls line strands of his hair in a starry display, perfect in every angle of it. It’s easy to appreciate the human beauty when you see his face, and even if you claim your vehement dislike for him, you’re not a liar nor an idiot.

How infuriating it is, to let things be. Bad blood can only dry to an ugly, unusable brown.

You narrow your eyes at the thinning layer of glitter on his peach-blushed cheeks. He doesn’t exactly need much more of it but the unevenness bothers you.

“Your makeup needs retouching,” you say, frowning. “Did you touch your face? I thought you were a more...professional model than this, Jaehyun.”

“You walked in,” he replies, casually. “I was distracted.”

You feel your cheeks colour. “That’s- that’s not a reason.”

He smiles politely. “I suppose I’ll leave you then. You must have other work to do.”

You hold back a biting remark. His playfulness doesn’t sit well with you; he’s polite just enough to annoy you and straightforward just enough to make you want to throw something at him. He could’ve directly told you to fuck off maybe—but oh no, it’s Jung Yoonoh, seamless and radiant, with only the sweetest collection of words on his tongue. You think of the first time you met, something warm in the corner of your heart. You’d mistaken it, of course.

He didn’t care for you, or any of the people trailing after him and his silver flute, or the rest of the shallow carcass of a world so undeniably obsessed with him. It didn’t hit you till he’d left you hanging, mangled memories of something close to hurt. You’re glad you didn’t kiss him. You wouldn’t be able to get over the embarrassment, the blow to your pride had it escalated any further.

And of course, the one thing he did to make you absolutely certain of his distaste—was simply choose another designer’s work over yours when given a choice. It seems silly, unprofessional even, but the lack of response to your Fall/Winter ready-to-wear collection had been embarrassingly low, someone else’s designs sold out at an equally awful rate. You—your insecurities—wanted to blame your own failings—maybe it was the lining of the coats, or the colours maybe— the fabric? Perhaps, you hadn’t focused on comfort all too well. But it was clear, a word from Jung Yoonoh could change the minds of a fashion-forward youth as easily as his face and physique scored contracts with the biggest brands and labels. And it was clear he didn’t like you very much.

You walk over to the other models, eyes scanning down to the T. You glance over one of Joohyun’s designs, a modern men’s hanbok. The blood red paired with yellow is certainly easing on the eyes, though the shades vary from top to bottom, like a sunset. The dark grey chunky shoes fitted under dark tights complete the entire future oriental look you suppose she was going for. She’s only showcasing two of her designs this year and they’re just before the centrepiece. You shake your head, clutching the fabric of your jacket sleeve. You hate seeing other designs before a showcase, even if they’re a friend’s.

You turn your head to make eye contact with Jaehyun across the room. It takes a few seconds but you snap your head in another direction to break the spell.

How strange. You haven’t had nearly enough coffee to feel jittery under his gaze.

You’re forced to take a breather away from this jungle of liveliness.

The amount of people outside the venue gives you yet another headache. Excited college students and fashion vloggers stand outside expectantly, and you give a short bow and polite ‘hello’ to anyone who approaches. You desperately want to be left alone. Even if it’s for a few seconds.

You walk quickly, your feet soundless against the floor. Your mask performs considerably (and surprisingly) well in hiding you. You consider visiting the Design Market to enjoy a seat alone and charge your phone before it’s show time.

Open spaces. You need open spaces. Suddenly, the DDP seems to be suffocating you despite its tremendous size.

“Hey!” You’re greeted with a sudden force to your right side, an arm wrapping around you. You look up to see Johnny, a wide grin on his face and you let yourself mirror it, shaking your head.

“Big day,” he says. “Want me to take some pictures? I’ve got some time between shows—lovely outfit, as usual.”

It’s strange how Johnny’s the photographer and not the model—you’ve heard he receives a lot of requests to get on the other side of the camera though he always refuses. He doesn’t visit Seoul as often, but he has much to do in uplifting the mood with his strangely effective sense of humour. The coffee-coloured shirt he’s wearing goes well with the plaid grey coat, reminiscent of Fendi’s Spring collection, and sometimes you wonder whether a job as a fashion photographer ever had much to do with his style. Johnny has always been effortlessly impressive.

You politely decline, your mind still focused on the smooth running of things. Nothing’s ever on time when it comes to Fashion Weeks—yes, it’s called fashionably late but it just makes you annoyed. You consider ducking back to your venue, adding some final final touches and any more last-minute altercations. Years have passed and you’re still not used to it, fingers itching to do something about everything. You’re grateful the company gives you your creative space but it only makes you wonder just how far the limits are.

Johnny accompanies you to the charging station till he’s distracted by some of the children in the latest Fendi kidswear and you make a mental note to never bring your kids to Fashion Week, if you ever choose to have them.

You breathe in and out for a few moments, feeling lightheaded before the sense of reality touches on you. People walk in and out of the stores lining the pathways, a soft buzz of conversation in the air as your eyes follow their movement. You wonder if you’ll have your own stores opened in plazas like this—here, in Seoul, and on brightly lit streets of the world outside. After all, colourful dreams are the hardest to get rid of. You sit quietly till you get a text from Doyoung asking you to get your ass over there quickly with several exclamation marks. You smile to yourself. Joohyun might have had a sour effect on him.

You arrive back at the venue, trying to tear your eyes away from anything that might want to make you fix it. You avoid Jaehyun’s eyes even more so, like you’ll jinx something right before it’s showtime.

The buzzing reaches a peak before everything is drowned out.

The show finally starts. And it’s over. Twenty-two minutes, this time.

That’s the way it goes. You hold your breath till you’re sure it’s safe to let go, blind to everything that goes on in between. Sometimes it’s underwhelming, sometimes you can’t give a fuck when you love doing this anyway.

You breathe a sigh of joy when everyone gathers backstage, Johnny making all the models pose together for one giant group photo. It’s like a ritual for him, always finding time for a backstage picture with the models goofing off.

Jaehyun looks at you instead of the camera, a nervous shiver running through you. His gaze is not something of inconsequence, eyes piercing into you with words hanging in the air that you don’t care enough about. You think he sends you a smile, cockier than you’d like. Despite your efforts, you have to look away.

Now, what should your dear Fall collection look like? You exit by yourself, relief humming through your veins when you think of getting back to your apartment, papers to be sketched on in your hands, soft fabric to be sewn on your table. Maybe they’ll display your works in the front rows of the stores, maybe you’ll even have displays outside of Seoul. You’re not a student anymore and your job has taken you enough places.

Even so, Paris and Milan sneak into your dreams often. You used to dream of them so much that it was hard to consider them reality—finding yourself in those streets, in between all those beautiful picture-book monuments.

You prefer Seoul, you decide after conscious thinking. You don’t have to worry about the world outside.

Afterparties are not your thing.

You somehow still find yourself in them, hoping to catch a drunk video of Doyoung for blackmail or make eye contact with an attractive stranger only to stop at exchanging numbers because you never find the time.

It’s a social event. You’re supposed to be doing social things. It’s exhausting.

The last person you expect to bump into is Jaehyun, drinks in hand as he looks down at you with a greeting of surprise on his tongue. He’s wearing a simple dark Oxford button-down, two buttons at his chest undone, and tucked neatly into his pants. His hair looks untouched since afternoon, parted in messy waves, minus the pearls. The music changes to something with slower beats as you stare at each other for a few moments.

“What are you doing here?” You raise an eyebrow. There are other afterparties he could be attending. Big ones.

Jaehyun tilts his head, cracking his neck before smiling. “Charming, as always. I’m here because I want to be here, obviously. So does everyone, I’m sure.”

“Fucking narcissist,” you mutter to yourself. You think Jaehyun might have heard you because you get a dirty look thrown your way, masked with the signature apathy across his relaxed lips.

“That’s a little rich from you,” he mumbles.

The muscle by his mouth twitches but he doesn’t say anything more. This is probably the most emotion he shows, you think. Wouldn’t his lovestruck magazines relish seeing him riled up like this? They’d still find a way to fall in love with him.

You could have, too.

No way. You tell yourself that’s ridiculous.

You’re aware he’s booked for at least three other shows this week. It’s a miracle he agreed to yours, considering your mutual distaste for each other. You suppose it had more to do with his agency than himself but it wasn’t like you were the keener one. Jung Yoonoh is the face professionals look for and your company loves the publicity, although you keep telling yourself your designs would still shine without him.

Jaehyun excuses himself before you can get on with any unpleasant conversation you might have. At least you have something in common—that is, trying to avoid each other as much as possible.

A few minutes (and uncomfortably snaking through swarms of bodies) later, you find Doyoung, unfortunately sober and intending to remain so, people congratulating him with claps on the back for securing the position of PR Head. You think it was supposed to be a secret, but someone higher in the ladder must have spilled early. Joohyun never attends these, and honestly, good for her.

Afterparties are not your thing.

You shouldn’t have taken those shots but you’re on the dance floor now anyway—what more could happen? It’s easier when you’re not paranoid about all the eyes on you, dancing against a stranger with a lion tattooed against his neck. Maybe you’ll go home with him, maybe you’ll leave at the first signs of attraction. Romance isn’t quite on your to-do list, but an occasional intoxication with the skin works just fine. You could live like this for a few moments.

Your back runs into someone else’s rather forcefully and you turn around, apology bubbled up to your tongue already, mixing with the alcohol.

“Oh look.” You roll your eyes. “It’s the prince of high fashion. What can I get you today, sire?”

Jaehyun drives his tongue over his lips, quite definitely over your antics. Soft breaths leave his mouth in a rhythm irrelevant to this box of laughter and blaring music called a party. You love how he never knows how to respond—what new words will he choose to keep false dignity? If you think about it, he’s the embodiment of why you always thought everything was so out of your reach—big names, exclusive parties, not for kids like you. They were never for fashion students too honest to know their own worth.

“Jealousy isn’t a good colour on you,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear.

You scoff, a pang of annoyance sizzling through you. “Jealous? Of who? You?”

You sneer at the last part, Jaehyun’s frown deepening. Some days you just like to think you’ve won. A few moments pass between you two, the sound of pop music filling in the gaps.

Jaehyun presses closer to you, your chests almost touching as your breath hitches in your throat.

“Do you know what makes success?” he says, head dipping lower to look you in the eye. The smell of alcohol disturbs you for a second before your heartbeat gets loud enough to drown it. You try to not focus on how his mouth is so near yours—and perhaps if you were drunk enough, you might commit a mistake against the very core of your being, something you’d been dangerously close to once.

You stay quiet, the pulsing in your ears too loud in the shallow distance between the two of you. You swear it’s always the two of you pressed up like this once you’re drunk enough, the dislike growing stronger and stronger with every breath exchanged. You’ve intertwined each other into a strange garden of contempt, easy to forget when you're facing him. Jung Yoonoh has the prettiest face in the industry, and the only one you can’t bear seeing.

“It’s confidence,” he answers, as slow and steady as ever. “And there’s a thin line between confidence and arrogance I intend to keep. I’m not so sure about you.”

The rest of the night passes without conflict and you retire early, Jaehyun’s breath still hot against your face. Only when you collapse on your bed do you get an urge to shout, yell, anything that doesn’t make you call him up and scream at him. You have your precious dignity too, something he seems to look past. The effect he had on your breathing, the crawling over your skin—God, you hate him. You’re too stubborn to not continue doing it.

“What’s this?” you ask, your eyes darting in between the director of design and Lee Taeyong.

To say you were surprised to see him would be an understatement. You note the simple dark rimmed glasses in contrast with his light dyed hair, the mellow blue of his cashmere sweater sporting his own label’s logo—Lee Taeyong is a household name. You feel yourself shrink the tiniest bit.

This industry’s all about names, you think miserably. You meet people and you remember the ones who can get you ahead. It’s tiring.

Taeyong started his career even earlier than you did, and before he had changed his major to fashion. He’s a little older than you, though he doesn’t look it and he had begun with working exclusively on jackets. Several rejected designs later, he had popped up as one of the designers to look out for in Seoul Fashion Week. Now he has his own global label slowly turning brand, several worldwide stores and everything dreamers in the same place as you look up to. You think you’re fine here, you tell yourself despite that.

The director smiles at you, her hand gesturing rapidly at you to come forward.

“You’re going to be so happy,” she says, signalling Taeyong to continue.

“Uh, hi,” he greets.

A little awkward for a world-class designer, you think.

“I’m Lee Taeyong. You might have heard of me—”

“I know who you are,” you interrupt, ignoring the disapproving look of the director.

“Oh, that’s good!” He smiles. “I’ve seen your work—I’ve been following your work for a few years now…and, well, I’d love for you to work under my label—in a collaboration of sorts. You’ll have full creative freedom, of course! I’m just there more or less for supervision, really…”

You think you feel your heart stop for a few moments, Taeyong’s sudden stream of information fading out. The pinnacle of your career, you believe, had been Paris Fashion Week four years ago and you’d been dreaming of it ever since. This is a business contract, you’re sure, and you don’t know if you have a real choice but maybe you could take that step forward you’ve always wanted to.

“Isn’t that great, (name)?” The director interjects. “You get to work under the Lee Taeyong label. And…surprise! You’ll have your work presented at New York Fashion Week in September. They’ll hit the stores a week later.”

You freeze.

“New York?” you manage to squeak.

“Yep!” Her voice a notch away from annoying. She’s not the first person you’ve met who sounds so goddamn manufactured. “Pack your bags, darling. You’re flying next weekend.”

You must be looking like a deer caught in the headlights because Taeyong opens his mouth to say something, alarmed. You speak before he does.

“Okay,” you say, more to yourself than them. It should be a good thing. It’s supposed to be a good thing. Even so, you feel the anxiety in your ribcage threatening to overgrow into thorns.

“I’ll- I’ll do it,” you clarify. Looking from your manager’s bright yet stern face to the hopeful smile on Taeyong, you don’t think you have much of a choice.

New York, huh. How long has it been? You shudder at the memories, your focus a little off for the rest of the day.

Joohyun visits you a day before you leave. She places the box of chocolates on the coffee table, that Doyoung apparently sent for you.

“You know, I’m really happy you’re getting this chance,” Joohyun says, crouching down beside where you’re splayed, trying to count the travel essentials and everything else on your messy checklist.

“He gets promoted and now he can’t even come visit me, huh?” you say, shifting to grab the box and tear off the clear wrap.

Joohyun laughs. “He’s certainly enjoying his duties. I can’t wait to boss him around again after I leave.”

Your shoulders hunch, a sigh leaving your lips. “Great. You’re leaving. Doyoung’s too busy to annoy. And now I’m a part of this godforsaken project for almost six months.”

Joohyun softens a bit, running her hand through your hair. “I heard you accepted it. All by yourself. You’ll do just fine, don’t worry.”

You feel yourself turn pink, a feeling of warmth you’ve been missing for a week. It’s cozy in your apartment, always the right temperature with a tinge of happy memories. You wish you could find comfort in people as easily as others do. Everything happened so fast, you can barely remember the conversation you had with Lee Taeyong. A few moments pass, Joohyun and you picking out chocolates before you can rummage through your suitcase again.

“I hate New York, Joohyun. Just what else can you throw into the mix to make me hate it even more?”

She freezes for a fraction of a moment, pressing her lips together before clearing her throat. “Oh. Uh. I probably shouldn’t tell you what I was about to tell you then.”

You turn your head to her, eyes narrowing. “What?”

She shrugs, eyes not meeting yours. “You know. New York. Fashion capital of the world. Lots of things to love.”

“What are you not telling me, Joohyun?”

She sighs, defeated. “A certain someone might be on the same flight as you. I was about to give you his number in case you needed help.”

You pause to think, curling your lips. “It’s Jaehyun, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

You groan, dropping your head back and yelping when it hits the coffee table. Joohyun moves to rub your head and ease the pain as you let out a stream of complaints.

“You really thought I’d call him for help?” you yell. “Him? Of all people?”

“I think you’d rather have a known face there. Besides, he’s a good kid,” she reasons, looking you in the eye. “And stop yelling.”

You quieten a bit at her glare, gulping. She adds the number to your contacts, saving it with a professional ‘Jung Yoonoh’ before she helps you clean up, advising you on how to manage your finances abroad. You know she’s trying to ease you, but how could she—after dropping this awful news on you like it shouldn’t matter at all? She doesn’t even know what happened—almost happened in Paris, or the fact that your honeyed feelings had turned bitter so easily. She’s worked with him before, you know this, when he was a much younger model and she trusts him more than you ever could.

But maybe, just maybe she can’t see what you see—after all, she’s also part of the elite, crème de la crème of this industry, more so in this country. It’s frightening, and so vague what goes on up there, at the top of the chain; and whatever you have—it might never be enough.

You’re you. Sometimes, that isn’t enough.

You jump at the water rushing from the shower, too cold for skin and scramble to twist the knob the other way. This time, the water’s too hot and you yelp, shutting it off altogether.

You press your hand against the shower glass, breathing heavy. You’re trying—you’ve been desperately trying ever since you landed a week ago. Change is not something you can take lightly. You miss the dim lights of your apartment in Seoul that Joohyun always warned would get you some brand new prescription glasses. You miss walking down the streets to your favourite convenience store at three in the morning to get honey butter chips. You miss picking fights with Doyoung over which detail to scrutinise during your project discussions. This project seems to have torn apart several things that belonged to you.

You can’t seem to get your head into it either—even spacing out during the meeting you had with Lee Taeyong among several other things. You can’t remember a single design detail he’d specified or what the theme was even supposed to be—a bunch of bright foggy lights replacing whatever fuzz was growing in your head. A twenty-something-year-old shouldn’t be letting homesickness affect them like this.

You finish the rest of your shower with a heavy heart and a clouded head.

Taeyong booking a luxury suite for you was a bit…much. Not that you’re complaining, but it gives more fuel to the profound sense of emptiness you keep drawing. There’s no intimacy to this place, no love. It’s a little hard to create things without love, and comfort.

Still, you grit your teeth and get dressed into something more comfortable for the night. If not today, then tomorrow. Something will have to give, even if it costs you—whatever the hell your parents keep telling you when you’re going through problems. What if you don’t want to be cost things? Compromise isn’t as delicate as it sounds. You try to comfort yourself, rocking yourself on the much too large couch, hugging a pillow close and trying to think of things that don’t immediately make you want to throw up.

The memories of your first visit are a little less than pleasant. You think you cried after the entire ordeal because you thought you did a bad job of talking, socializing, the most ordinary things. There are some people who are good at wearing masks—good at making copper look like gold, good at shining under dim lights, and good at using words that don’t have much meaning to their existence other than being pretty.

You were not one of them.

The intense need for everything to be perfect was still there, even when you couldn’t possibly have achieved it. You wanted to make things and show them to the world—what was so wrong with that? Why did being there make you feel like you could never even touch your dreams? You were so out of place, feeling completely out of touch with yourself. There were people from the top there, established and famous. It felt out of your grasp. You felt fake.

The city lights twinkle with life but there’s no sound, the windows shut tight. The ambience of the room is kept to a caramel minimum—the best you can do to honour your sweet little home back in Seoul.

The hatred for everything pretentious was born with your first step into this place, into the game that the big boys play. It showed in your designs, your choice of fabric, your distaste for certain people. You wanted reality—you wanted a taste of life in your everyday clothes. You wanted that flavour you feel on your tongue in a room full of strangers or the one on a quiet night by yourself at your apartment rooftop. You didn’t want dignified fur coat ensembles, you wanted the naive chaos you feel every day and you wanted to make it look good. It’s driving you insane just how much you feel like you’re losing now.

You take out your phone after what seems a few minutes of contemplation.

Jung Yoonoh. Your finger hovers over the call button. What would he say if his night is interrupted by your voice?

You’d met at the airport after landing, though you were only two seats away in the plane. You’d made no error in acknowledging his presence, browsing through the inflight magazine half-heartedly. Truth be told, sometimes you couldn’t really seem to get over him. Sometimes the thought of him made you so pissed, you had no idea what to think of it.

“Welcome to New York,” he had said shortly after you’d exited, a giant crowd of people greeting out-goers, holding up placards with names of people, in numbers you’re unaccustomed to. Or, used to be accustomed to.

You hadn’t talked since—and really, you weren’t expecting to.

You press your home button, any lingering thoughts of him vanishing at the force with which you tell yourself it’s not worth it. How is Jung Yoonoh better than anyone else you know here? He might have been living in New York for quite a few years now, and he’s probably the only one you’d feel comfortable enough to swear at—that doesn’t mean you’d actually ask for help. That doesn’t mean he’d actually help. Joohyun must have had her hopes far too high to have convinced you for even a moment.

The couch feels colder all of a sudden, and you turn down the air conditioner. This place will never adjust to you, and your stubborn little self won’t either.

You think of Jaehyun from the afterparty, loose shirt and knowing eyes, and you wonder if he feels just the same frustrated agony, if not more. You think of his parted lips and breathing words close enough to be provocative, discomfort growing at the base of your stomach. Who does he think he is? He might have the airs and dignity of someone way up in the hierarchy of society but you know what people can be like. You know envy, you know malice, and you know lies. He has to fit in there somewhere—and perhaps you would have hated him less if he did.

Even if you’d scoffed at the idea of jealousy, that might very well be the closest to what you feel, what you keep hidden in the darkest corners of your locked chest. When you first met at that star-spangled dinner, you’d felt what it’s like to watch a fireworks show or a big musical opening; but the fireworks are being blocked by skyscrapers and you’re only the helping staff at the theatre, watching from a balcony at the very back. Jaehyun was impressive with barely any words. It annoyed you so much and somehow, the only solution you arrived at was the tremendous need to understand him, pick him apart and see what made him.

No. That’s wrong. You were annoyed because you still wanted to kiss him after he’d pushed you away, his dislike steaming clear. It strikes you as gently as lightning that the only reason someone would have to hate Jaehyun is being attracted so violently to him. God, you hate making a fool out of yourself.

You pass the night in quiet contemplation, promising yourself a better tomorrow. After all, no one else is going to do it.

You walk with your chin up as if you don’t feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. You picked out your black Harrington jacket to look at least a little more professional, but you might have miscalculated the size and the material in the equation because you look completely and utterly ridiculous in it. No one would look at you and think you even work in fashion, much less be competent in that line.

(To be fair, you wear the same beige sweater and black corduroy pants to work and if your coworkers choose to judge you, you wouldn’t blame them.)

It’s only been a month and somehow, it translates to forever to you. You think you’re adjusting better now, and you pat yourself on the back for it. It’s not raining today at the mercy of the skies, a tidal wave of sunlight splashing through the buildings every time you take a turn. The city doesn’t scare you all that much anymore. It’s a good day, for once.

You lean your head against the car window, eyes trailing up and down the reflective blue of each skyscraper. You can barely see any clouds, and the sky’s endlessly the same, comforting blue. Just like back home, you think for a moment. Your eyes move back to the sidewalk, people passing by—mothers with their babies in strollers, kids clutching the strap of their school bags as they run, men and women in all levels of professional clothing. No one stops in this city. Except the fucking traffic apparently.

You sigh, glancing at your watch. Only moments ago, you were moving and yet again, you’ve stopped. The cycle keeps repeating and you’re trying to keep patience focusing on things around you that you can appreciate.

Maybe you jinxed it when you said it was a good day.

You reach Taeyong’s studio just in time (not that you’d get yelled at or anything, he’s too nice of a guy). Your eyes fixate on the numbers that light up on the elevator one by one till it finally reaches the first floor.

You walk right into someone’s chest, an apology tumbling out of your lips as you bow out of habit.

“(name)?”

You look up to find Jaehyun in the elevator of Taeyong’s building, a casual white shirt clinging to his frame that’s tucked into his jeans to look somewhat formal. A pink overshirt hangs at his forearm and from the windswept styling of hair and his perfected dark locks, you’ll assume he’s here for a shoot—even without it, he looks like something from a teen magazine, someone people would see and instantly daydream of. Best known for high fashion, Jung Yoonoh is still a spectacle in casualwear.

“I can’t believe I have to see your face here too,” you mutter, getting into the elevator. You’ve had your share of moments with him.

“Good to see you too,” he says, bemused.

You make a sound of acknowledgment, taking out your phone to turn the damn notifications off so you don’t feel it vibrate in your pocket every few minutes. You feel eyes on you for a moment and snap your head to the side.

Jaehyun has his eyes focused on the door, quiet breathing fresh against his lips and you hesitate before concluding you might have been mistaken in your perception.

“You’re here for a shoot?” you ask, curious about his relationship with Taeyong.

“What else can I be here for?” He says nonchalantly.

“Sarcastic. Very nice.”

“It’s a little weird, you trying to make conversation with me. You’re usually raving about me too much to actually talk to me.” He smiles, the dimples provoking and eyes the familiar beguiling brown.

“I’m not trying to make conversation,” you hiss, crossing your arms. “I’m sorry, I forgot you’re only a person in front of cameras.”

Jaehyun takes a sharp breath before turning to you, a not-so-happy look on his face despite the calmness over his features. You’ve seen it enough times.

“How long are you going to keep up the pretentious this and pretentious that before you face it, really?” He looks at you with tight lips, poisonous implications in his question. “Why you love to get up in my case all the time?”

The words take time to settle in. You shake your head when you realize, a sardonic laugh leaving your lips. Of course he’d think that.

“Oh my god,” you scoff. “You’re so full of yourself. You think I’m interested in you? Don’t let what happened years ago get to your head.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Oh, what did you mean then? Pray tell.”

“First of all, stop cutting me off,” he says, taking a step towards you. A certain feeling of uneasiness runs through you when you detect annoyance in his quiet statement.

“Secondly,” he says, taking a another step forward just as your back hits the wall of the elevator, “Stop treating me like I’m the bane of your existence. I have nothing to do with you.”

He’s right, of course, but the words sting where they hit. Asshole, you think. He has no business telling you what to do and what not to do. But in this moment, you can’t fish for the correct words—you don’t have the strength to when you’re so close to each other like this, the scent of his cologne syrupy and sickening. His tall stature is intimidating, with his straight shoulders and proud jawline.

The elevator dings at the seventh floor, Jaehyun stepping away from you without a glance or care, striding out just as smoothly as on a runway.

You take a moment to breathe, unsaid words burning holes into your tongue. You wish you could’ve said something better, anything that didn’t make you feel so pathetic. Maybe you should’ve told him to stick his words up his ass, sounding vulgar being the least of your worries. You wait patiently to reach the last floor, each ding souring your mood little by little.

You are so glad you didn’t call him that night. To think he’d ever help you knowing it’s mutual, the whole hating each other’s guts. You just can’t believe the audacity of him—to accuse you of, what, romantic feelings? In an industry where you can’t tell apart gold from copper? Where all the people warming up to you are fair weather friends and competitors? He must have let all that attention get to his head. Runway faces aren’t as easy to fall in love with as he thinks.

“(name)! Come quick!”

Taeyong’s voice urges as soon as you enter and you settle your bag down, rushing to him. His smile drops when he sees your seething figure place your bag on the desk with a loud thud. You turn to him, without a hint of sweetened formality and ask him the day’s schedule.

Taeyong gulps before responding, undoubtedly afraid of your lips, a twitch away from a scowl, but he explains nicely nonetheless.

“Can you do a rerun of these designs for me?” he says, arranging the papers on the desk. That’s how he says these need improvement. No wonder the interns love him.

Taeyong’s in his usual attire, still too chic for you but strangely comfortable to look at. You nod, immediately scrutinising them, your (almost pointless) years of training trying to give you hints as to where you went wrong. You’re not really expecting to find big flaws or anything—just details you can enhance. You’ve learned enough about Taeyong in a month and it’s that his sense of style encompasses comfort, even in the most abstract of concepts. You respect him for that. It doesn’t change the fact that you think it’s a little overdone maybe.

Taeyong laughs, breaking you out of your daze. You raise an eyebrow.

“Is- Is something wrong?” You look at him, perplexed.

“It’s just that- It’s just you remind me a lot of the fashion students.” He smiles at you.

Your shoulders droop. Amateur. New. Unprofessional.

“Oh.”

Taeyong rephrases himself quickly, waving his hands about. “I don’t mean it as a bad thing! It just means you still…love doing it.”

It sticks with you longer than you’d expect, as you work throughout the day. You think Taeyong is too nice to criticize you properly but he eventually gets the point across—stick to the theme, written in Taeyong’s dainty handwriting and pinned to the softboard.

Secrets.

What an atrocious concept. Firstly, it makes no sense apart from sounding like a fucking lingerie collection. Secondly, when you went over Taeyong’s designs with the layers and patches, you supposed he wanted to focus on the inside of things because everything he’d drawn was inside out. Thirdly, when you heard him explain it, you were a little taken aback to hear it was going to be all about you, us. The designers, the models, the photographers, the magazine editors—there are millions and millions of people working to make sketches come to life, for a few items of clothing in someone’s closet. It feels nice to hear that from him. You promise you’re going to perfect it.

And perfection is your dear old friend.

It’s what you always strive for, but end up with something else that’s a little less beautiful. You take slow breaths, removing and adding details (after all, art is in the details). But perfection can easily grow tiresome. It makes you increasingly frustrated and you don’t think you have the heart to tell Taeyong everything in his studio stresses you out.

“So, you’re working with Jaehyun?” you ask, trying to look less antsy.

Taeyong blanks out for a moment before responding. “Yes. Why? Is he- Is he making you uncomfortable?”

Uncomfortable wouldn’t even begin to explain what he makes you feel.

“No,” you deny. “Just curious.”

Taeyong smiles. “We usually work on summer shoots together. It’s like tradition.”

“That’s…nice,” you say, trying to reciprocate his smile.

“Oh, but we’re having terrible weather so the shoots keep going longer than planned. That’s why I’m having to compromise planning time with you. Sorry about that.”

You try to keep your posture despite the mild annoyance brewing at the back of your head. Great. Now you have to see Jaehyun’s unbelievably annoying face every time you walk in. Maybe if you plead enough, you’d get permission to leave early and not want to throw some insults at him.

You decide to walk, despite Taeyong insisting his driver help you get home. He doesn’t act like it but he’s a busy man, with side projects and interviews coming up so often you lose count. It’s no wonder he had to, and you hate using this word, hire someone for the label’s next venture. You think articles like Lee Taeyong loses touch and hires designers instead of doing his job would make him upset but he seems to genuinely not let it bother him. It’s about ideas to him. His label, almost large enough to be a brand, is for ideas; what a pretty thing to base your business around. While you thought you were a big shot back in South Korea, you’re almost nothing more than Lee Taeyong’s co-designer—assistant here.

You feel drops of what you felt years ago trickling down your throat. Overshadowed. Powerless. Imposter. Something about New York makes you want to pull all your hair out. You wish you hadn’t been here in the first place, maybe then this would seem more of a fun trip than memories weighing you down. But then if you hadn’t been here, you might not have even started.

You hug yourself at the sudden downpour, clouds kind enough for it to be nothing more than showers but you’re soaked anyway. Kind, but still a little cruel. Running under the eaves of a store, you curse yourself for not bringing an umbrella the only day you needed it. You stand there for a while, just breathing.

Real life is never like movies, is it? Cameras lie. Pretty faces lie. Sometimes you end up stuck in New York rains without an umbrella or a friend to call or a lover to protect you. You end up getting an Uber, taking awfully long to arrive due to the traffic the rain had ensued and try your best to ignore the disgruntled driver mumbling about you wetting his seats.

You still don’t know how the goddamn shower works.

You manage to complete without either scorching your skin off or freezing it to Greenland and back—a feat much more successful than whatever you had going on for today. You slip into the absurdly soft mattress, pillows and covers swallowing you into a state of sleep.

You start the day almost pouring coffee onto Jaehyun’s spotless white shirt. And you might have were it not for immense self-restraint, and the fact that Taeyong’s eyes were trained on the two of you.

“So…are you two…a thing or something?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“No,” Jaehyun responds calmly while you sputter it out.

Taeyong apologizes, a laugh following. “You seem to have worked together before. Jaehyun, you never told me that.”

“I…I thought you knew,” he answers, leaning back against the tabletop.

“Ah, well,” Taeyong shrugs. “Thanks for helping me out with this, (name). Maybe- maybe we can draw some inspiration for the collection from outdoors.”

“Of course,” you say as you smile wide, trying hard not to break the coffee mug in your hand.

If you’re being honest, you had a gut feeling you’d be asked to help with Taeyong’s (apparently) infamous summer shoot. He walks into his studio every morning with hair in a disarray, talking to more people than he might enjoy and the entirety of New York weather against him. There’s only so much time a man can have and under pressure, he’s going to have to choose. It’s easy to feel sorry for someone like him.

This should be the stylist’s job. Jaehyun stands with his chin up as you adjust the fitting, smoothing out creases and making sure the cerulean shirt is pinned right, satin feeling cool and nice under your fingers. Sleeveless is back in trend this summer, and so are low-cuts.

“Careful there,” he says when you hand brushes a little lower, just below the full-grain leather belt.

You hope your face isn’t steaming from the rush of heat but you manage to limit your emotions to a sound of discomfort, remembering the horrendous accusation he’d thrown at you. “I don’t care about your dick, twit.”

Jaehyun laughs, bending a little to whisper. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“You look like you’re having a wonderful time making me uncomfortable.”

“You’re just so easy to work up.”

His dimples are getting on your nerves. You reach up to button his collar, perhaps a little too harsh because he chokes, an uncharacteristic sound leaving his mouth as he winces. You suppress a smile, glad you managed to do something about the look on his face.

The sunlight over this park feels like Christmas come early, with the way Taeyong is flitting from model to model and stylist to stylist with the intensity of a five year old after an ice-cream truck.

“Is he- Is he usually like this?” you ask, eyes on the makeup artist getting directions from Taeyong.

“I just assumed all of you are this way,” Jaehyun, responds looking at the same sight.

You roll your eyes. “We’re not all crazy.”

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe a little bit,” you correct yourself, watching Taeyong almost trip over someone’s bag in order to greet the magazine’s style director.

Jaehyun chuckles, eyes meeting yours for a moment before the two of you go about your own business.

You like magazine shoots for the most part. You never find a glass of water anywhere, but some intern or the other will definitely be there to fetch you Starbucks. There’s at least three people fussing over each model and at least two exasperated photographers trying very hard to snap clean shots. The stylist and designer look as though they might explode any minute, although the relief on their faces after it’s all over is something worth looking at. The skies are so bright and blue, you think, for a cosmopolis. The trees and shrubs lining the park are in a state of tranquility compared to the chaos it encircles.

Magazines might not be as important in an age of social media advertisement, almost part of nostalgia now—but maybe some of you are not yet willing to deny kids the thrill of reading a magazine under their blankets in the middle of the night. It often gave hope to little boys playing dress up and little girls sewing their own clothes.

You��d forgotten just how exhausting shooting with magazines is. The models must be having it worse but their masks don’t come off easy. If you had ever underestimated their job difficulty, it comes back to throttle you at full speed every time you’re at a shoot.

Looking good in front of a camera is pretty damn hard.

They don’t even get to keep the clothes, unless some asshole of a designer decides to pay them in apparel instead of actual money. Most models leave New York in debt. Men are paid even less than women. You’re surprised Jaehyun is as celebrated as he is—or the fact that he was clever enough of a businessman in launching his own high fashion-themed restaurant. You’ve heard he barely visits it, like a careless afterthought. But you’re not one to get carried away by sketchy articles on the internet. All you’ve needed are more reasons to hate him.

You sip the iced coffee, its effect pretty much worn out during humid afternoons. It’s time for a break, but no one’s willing to break momentum. You find yourself feeling a little awkward, as nothing more than a guest with creative advice, and so you sit under the comforting cool of the giant green umbrella at one of the tables. You could sink into your chair were it not so damn uncomfortable.

Jaehyun takes a seat right beside you to your surprise, offering you a box of diced mango before you fervently decline. You still think he’s an asshole. It doesn’t make any sense—why accuse you of unsaid affections and then flirt with you like he never said it? It’s not like you’re even friends, how ridiculous. There are quite a few jerks you’ve met in your life, but Jung Yoonoh really takes the cake.

“What?” you snap when his gaze gets on your nerves.

“I didn’t say anything.” He raises his hands defensively, eyes still on yours. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“I enjoy the air conditioned suite Taeyong booked me more than this, yes.” You sigh, leaning back. “I don’t really have anything to do.”

“I’m assuming he booked you the luxury suite on the fifteenth floor,” he says, chuckling.

You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not impossible that Jaehyun knows Taeyong’s favorite suite to book for guests.

“The view’s pretty nice from there, right? Oh, and you must be enjoying the silence.”

“I actually like the outside sounds,” you defend. “It’s calming.”

“Not when you’re on the third floor,” he says, shoving a piece of mango into his mouth with a fork. “All you hear is middle aged men screaming.”

You rest your elbow on the table, placing your chin against your palm. The shade is separated from sunlight by a thin line against his chest, pale blue satin glimmering where the sun meets it. Jaehyun’s eyes shine a darker hue of honey under the shade, moving to the box in his hands occasionally before trailing back to the background noise again. Taeyong really does love pretty fits, but this might just be one of the most gorgeous pieces you’ve seen this summer (and you’ve already been through all the ready-to-wear lookbooks you possibly could). A thought passes you in a breeze, that maybe it's the model making it seem that way.

“You’re talkative today,” you note quietly, the sun harsher on your cheeks than before.

Jaehyun shrugs, hurrying to finish all the pieces. He suddenly pulls a face, one you don’t see very often in high fashion websites and Instagram pages. It’s almost cute.

“Sour.”

You find yourself laughing, a gentle influx of peace filling the inside your chest. You quickly recover, looking back up to see Jaehyun simply staring at you, breathing. He looks caught off-guard, no camera to warn him. You straighten, your cheeks flushing with heat.

“Is- Is something wrong?”

He immediately shakes his head, more to himself than you. There’s a pause before the two of you are happily distracted. The style director appears to be gesturing at him from the other side and Jaehyun responds with a curt wave.

“You’re doing two different concepts today?”

“Three, actually.”

You raise your eyebrows. Well, they’re definitely taking advantage of the good weather. They could just photoshop it, in your opinion, but authenticity is everything when it comes to magazines nowadays.

“Well, don’t let me hold you back,” you say, your tone dismissive. “Go get changed into whatever pretty shirt Taeyong has up next in his collection.”

“The next shoot doesn’t have a shirt,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirked upward.

You almost choke on your coffee, blaming the heat for your weak state of mind. You’re just having one of those strange days—just that, nothing else.

You finish the rest of the coffee, cup resting in your hand till you find the energy to get up and find a trash can.

Jaehyun was right. This time the shoot’s a little too wet and a little too much skin for you to enjoy. The only thing added to Jaehyun above the waist are a dainty red scarf knotted over his neck and a small, flat hoop earring on his left ear. The velvet fingerless gloves, although you’re not very fond of them, complete a rather rugged yet soft look. You didn’t expect Taeyong to come up with something like that.

Jaehyun’s well-developed physique, while you’ve seen it in other shoots and online articles, is completely different when you’re a few feet away from it. The dark blue cargo pants, silken, are a signature style of Taeyong but the details don’t distract you easily enough. Funny, this is the first time you’re feeling somewhat flustered in a place full of half-naked models.

You suddenly think of reds and oranges, lilac shrubs and a hint of Burberry men’s perfume. In a way, it reminds you of the strums of the guitar your roommate used to play while you stayed up late, coming up with concepts. Cherishing, soothing—and special, just enough. The corner of your lips twitch and you take out your pocket sketchbook. It’s never too late to add a design to the collection, right? After all, you have secrets too. Maybe Taeyong was right about the outdoors for inspiration.

Something sets into motion, subtle but sharp.

The next time you walk into Taeyong’s studio, you feel the sun on your face better. Everything seems to be fitting into place, as you smooth through designs at a pace your student self would be jealous of. When Taeyong praises your work, you feel a rush of pride smearing the inside of your chest and you finally feel like everything’s not falling apart. It feels good. It feels like you’re someone.

The days go by in what seems like barely seconds—you know what they say about New York minutes. The mustard cloth draped over your desk to the cottage blue of your curtains, the colours around you change as quickly as the wind. Sometimes they’re abstract—and other times, well, they have more to do with a stranger’s eyes, or the swirls within a coffee cup. It’s the way in which transition occurs around you, that you often forget it moves something within you too.

You’ve put together some samples with Taeyong, most of them by yourself; the process of making is ever comforting, fabric even more so. You’ve sent the revised designs for production, feeling giddy about whatever is to come like it’s something new. (It shouldn’t be.)

You fucking hate how different this is. Seoul is nothing compared to New York. The anxiety is nearly ten times worse, the streets are far more attractive when it comes to inspiration and the figure of Jung Yoonoh is no longer as easy to ignore.

Even after the summer shoot’s over, Jaehyun often comes by to hang out at the studio, dressed in what you would call the simplest fucking thing you’d ever seen and still managing to look just as gorgeous. He blends in well with university students, often wearing the ugliest baseball cap you’ve ever seen, and the look of his face feels much, much worse than ever before. It’s at ease, smug even, but never failing to smile at you when you’re trying to focus. You don’t care how good of friends Taeyong and Jaehyun are—you want to tell him to leave.

But you just can’t bring yourself to. It’s not that you don’t trust yourself, you certainly do, but whatever New York has done to you, includes making you feel a different way about him. Sometimes you find yourself pressing your legs together harshly, stiffening at any proximity with him and a pool of warmth at the base of your stomach you’d rather not feel.

It’s embarrassing to even think about it—the fact that he makes you feel that way, so hot and bothered like it’s your first time. You blame your lack of going out these few months because after all, anyone could fall in love with runway faces. It doesn’t have to mean it’s him you want. You carry on doing what you’ve been doing for the most part of your career, your best to avoid him. There are more pressing matters, and your head might just implode if you keep on worrying about things (a man, of all) you need not.

Time passes even faster when all your thoughts revolve around the same thing.

One month. D-30. Whatever the hell you call time before the end of the world.

Your palms sweat a whole lot easier here. It’s a little weird, considering you don’t find much difference in humidity between Seoul and New York. Your heart often catches up in your throat too. Not a great feeling, your heart choking the breath out of you, but you’re used to it. You cope and you learn, that’s what it means to be human.

You pull your hand down before it reaches your teeth. The day ended in a meeting with Taeyong’s production team—everything’s running smoothly so you need not worry, he said.

Why are those the words that make you worry the most?

You check the time on your phone. 23:05 and a whole month to go. You better get some sleep for all the meetings you have scheduled tomorrow. You close your eyes and for a while, everything falls quiet.

You dream of New York Fashion Week. People come here to feel included. Everyone wants to be a part of something they don’t understand.

The models walk down the runway in increasingly uncomfortable outfits. You didn’t design any of them. Where are the ones you worked on? You can’t move from your seat, or turn your head from the runway, anything at all. Something’s wrong, everything’s wrong. You don’t belong here. Thunder strikes outside the venue and you wake up with a gasp caught in your throat, and the clock on the bedside table flashing 2:14.

You’ve had enough. You swear you’ve had enough.

You get up out of bed, pacing the giant bedroom, the empty spaces making you feel more and more miserable. The city twinkles with innumerous stars beyond your window, curtains half drawn so they can comfort you whenever you need—but these lights don’t shine for you, or anyone else. They shine for themselves. That’s what it means to be in New York again.

What time is it in Seoul? Could you call your mother? Joohyun? Everyone must be busy right now—you don’t know what to do. It’s been a long time since you’ve felt so helpless. There’s a reason you’ve been avoiding New York for this long and now it’s come crashing down on you.

This was a mistake. All of it was a mistake.

You look down at your phone, the light hurting your eyes despite being set to the lowest brightness. You think a little, and then some more. There’s no one else you can call. Even if he’s busy charming all the other employees whenever you see him, even if half the world is in love with him, there’s no one else you can call. This time you don’t stop yourself.

You tap the call button beside the Jung Yoonoh saved neatly. Tapping your foot against the floor nervously, your mind goes blank for a few seconds or so. He answers when you’re just about to hang up, breath hitching in your throat at the sound of his voice.

“Hello? Hello? If this is a reporter—”

“It’s me, Jaehyun.”

The line goes quiet for a moment and your voice overlaps his before he can begin.

“I- I didn’t mean to call so late. Sorry…uh.”

You scrunch up your face at your own voice. This is not getting you anywhere.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice lower.

You fall silent, unable to answer without breaking down into tears. You did not call Jung Yoonoh for that.

“Yeah,” you choke out. “Fine. Completely fine. I just…”

You trail off, trying to get yourself to breathe.

“I’ll send you an address. Be there in an hour.”

You blink back tears, confusion adding to the burning pile of worries inside your head.

“What?”

“Address. I’ll text you. Be there. One hour.”

“I’m not stupid, Jaehyun,” you snap, strength refilling your voice. “Why?”

“I’m not answering questions, just be there.”

With that, the line goes flat and an embarrassing amount of ‘hello’s get you to realize that he hung up. A notification pops up a minute later and you’re too groggy to decipher it, logging it to Maps instead so you can follow. It’s fifteen minutes away, you realize with a sigh of relief, so you can at least present yourself within the given constraint.

You can’t grasp what you feel in the moment, the night air and warm streets beckoning you to leave the clamped apartment soaked in fear. You think this is unlike Jaehyun, what he’s doing, but you’re too shaken to care. You need some respite, even if it comes from somewhere you can’t picture.

“You…wanted to meet me at a Korean barbecue restaurant?”

Jaehyun’s ears turn red, as they often do when he doesn’t know how to respond to you.

“I-It’s not that I…Never mind,” he tries to explain, fidgeting with the cloth over his shoulder. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”

We? You think, eyes scanning his face in confusion. If you want? Where’s the uncaring Jaehyun you’ve known, foreign eyes and impassive lips? He hardly looks the part he’s meant to play—a billboard face with a confident jawline and nothing more behind it. Outside of work—you don’t even know what else to call this—Jaehyun looks hardly intimidating, or abrasive. He seems different, gentle almost, although the dark circles under his eyes might have something to do with it. Maybe he’s too tired to say anything more and that’s it.

But he still came all the way here.

“Aren’t you a little…overdressed?”

There comes the remark you were hoping to not hear. You just wanted to look nice; you’d hardly call this overboard. The loose, mustard-colored chiffon shirt cinches at the waist, paired with your nicest (only not faded) pair of light blue jeans and shoes that haven’t seen the light of day since you arrived here. You barely ever design clothes for yourself anymore but you thought you looked good in this.

“No,” you defend quickly, feeling your face grow warm. “You’re underdressed.”

You say that, but he clearly looks good in anything he wears. Could you expect any less of a supermodel? He doesn’t seem to have dressed in as much a hurry as you had. Clad in a plain black T-shirt that’s half tucked into skinny jeans, he’s added his hideous baseball cap and a pair of navy blue shades which looks just as ridiculous as it sounds. You really think he shouldn’t be leaving his house without the help of a stylist.

“I…I just mean you don’t wear anything other than the same sweater and pants combination to work, so… please excuse my surprise.”

Jaehyun's eyes flicker over your figure before masking it with an awkward cough. You reach out and pull the shades over his head, the look bothering you more than anything else. He doesn’t respond to it, at least not in a way that’s obvious, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to do—you fixing his hair and unquestionably awful sense of style.

“There’s a soju place a few blocks ahead. Or if you’re not into that, there’s a noodle shop just at the edge of K-town,” Jaehyun rambles on, not meeting your eye. “If you’re looking for something inexpensive—"

“You came all the way here to give me directions?” You raise an eyebrow. You might even be enjoying this, although your inner voice bites back at you, denying it.

Jaehyun shakes his head, the red in his ears pulsing back up. “No. I…I needed some fresh air.”

“You…have someplace to be then?”

Jaehyun might not realize it, but the answers he gives always have room for teasing. Aloof. Vague. Yet somehow sweet.

“And you’ll go alone? At this hour? No, I’ll accompany you,” he says out loud, trying to play off the sudden vocal inflection. You sigh. Boys will be boys, as they say. Even if they’re twenty-six.

You let him keep you company. Though the first few minutes are painfully quiet, neither of you knowing quite what to say without starting a disagreement, you continue your walk through a city that never sleeps. It’s awkward even, being side by side without you seething at his charming, (undoubtedly) fake smile. He feels real, for once, and you don’t know how to react. There seem to be some gold-tinted cracks appearing in your reality, slowly but surely, and you’re not very good at patching anything other than fabric.

“You know, it’s actually a little relieving to see Korean letters here,” you say, sighing. You never thought you’d be so corny, but it really does feel good being here.

Or is it him?

“Thanks,” you add quietly, hoping he doesn’t hear. No, maybe you do. You can’t tell at this point.

“I…I know what it’s like,” he says, so softly that it almost gets carried away by the wind. He clears his throat, an ‘ah’ escaping his lips as he stops abruptly.

“We…We missed the turn,” he declares, a little sheepish as he scratches the back of his head.

You look at him in disbelief. “Jaehyun, how long have you lived here?”

“Oh, I was born here actually,” he says, tilting his face to look at you, blunt sarcasm evident on it. “How many times have you lost your way to the convenience store in Seoul?”

“Literally zero times.”

Jaehyun puffs a cheek before going back to normal and turning a hundred and eighty degrees down the street.

“Hey, wait up!” you huff at his increased pace, half jogging to keep up.

You reach the acclaimed noodle shop, your breath barely within your lungs and swearing at Jaehyun who looks like he wasn’t bothered one bit. He reaches his hand out to help you and you swat it away, chest still heaving with your hands on your knees.

“Dickhead,” you hiss.

“I don’t think I deserved that,” he responds with a widening smile.

“Asshole,” you say, standing up straight to glare at him.

“What would Seoul say hearing their beloved designer swear like this?” Jaehyun looks almost amused, as if you hadn’t shared an awkward time together, like two teenagers who were forced to walk home together from the bus stop.

“They can go to hell,” you retort. “As can you.”

Jaehyun laughs, a strange sound to hear and you blink a few times, unsure of what to do. You wonder if it’s the night playing tricks or if Jaehyun really is an actual person, not the basket of preprocessed insults you were used to. The cracks are widening—you’re not sure if they’re meant to be patched.

Perhaps you were a little eager to enter someplace warm, but you feel immense relief in this little shop, despite the smell of chili paste and noodle soup wafting through the air. It’s a little empty; in fact, you two seem to be the only people there apart from some students at the other corner, but you sit there in your own bubble, talking with Jaehyun of all people about which singer is better. He laughs occasionally, still managing to catch you off-guard with how honest it sounds and you wonder for a moment, how nice this feels. For the first time in a month, your heartbeat seems to have settled at a normal rate.

“What?” you enounce, a little offended. “What’s so wrong about my love life?”

“You just- You just don’t seem that type,” he explains, his ears as red as the bowl.

“I don’t have time for commitments, Jaehyun,” you sigh. “It’s what happens when you’re good at your job.”

Jaehyun nods, something akin to agreement in his response.

“So, your, uh, what is it? Training camp? What’s that about?” you ask, in between blowing your food.

“You could really Google things once in a while, you know?” he replies, bringing his chopsticks close to his mouth.

You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not one of your creepy stalkers, Mr. Jung.”

“Nothing to do with that,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s for kids interested in fashion, modeling, photography—stuff.”

“Oh? How so?”

“I just sponsor them. You know how difficult it is to get noticed in…this industry,” he explains, like it’s not a big deal. Nothing ever seems to be a big deal to him.

You nod, unable to help the smile. Maybe it isn’t a big deal, but you’re sure now that you were mistaken. Just a little bit.

“I was lucky,” you mumble. “I can’t believe they saw those ugly embroidered patches and decided to sponsor me, oh my god. That sweater was hideous.”

Jaehyun laughs loudly. “They saw me cleaning outside my school and decided to pick me up and ship me straight to Paris.”

“Nothing’s worse than the first day.” You take another mouthful, the taste savoury and filling.

“You know, I’m pretty sure they photoshopped my ears out in the first magazine shoot I had.”

You laugh, leaning in a little closer. “Your first year was rough, huh?”

He hums, his eyes flickering from your nose to your lips. It makes you a little self-conscious, blood rushing to your cheeks at an unexpected pace. Who knew Jaehyun could have such an effect on you?

Your eyes flutter over his face once again.

He’s handsome. But it’s the sort of handsomeness that tells you, you don’t know much beyond it. You look back at your bowl, sobering up and completing the rest of the noodles.

It’s still midnight blue in the faraway sky as you walk down the streets. Most of the people you see out and about are those drunk off their faces from club hopping or a particularly enthusiastic group of tourists. The watermelon soju, while better with budae-jjigae and arguably the best soju flavor, somehow had little effect on you with the bitter aftertaste still settling in. The crowds in other places would make for great people-watching but you walk in a lonely street that calls for proximity. Beside you, Jaehyun sneezes, the sound of it making you jump on the quiet sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ, Jaehyun,” you huff, wincing at the sound, “you sounded like a fucking tractor.”

Jaehyun laughs, looking down at the pavement. When he looks back at you, the circles underneath his eyes seem to have darkened and you wonder if yours are the same. Yours can’t possibly be as important as his, though, and you wonder if it’s appropriate to laugh at how dorky he looks.

You find yourself not wanting to walk back into the safety of your suite. Jaehyun has a look of calm across his features, drawing over the landscape around you. New York lights don’t faze him, they only reflect in his eyes.

The way his soft breaths fan out against his lips remind you that he is human, after all—he has a soul and body, thoughts and its beautiful intricacies. When he turns back to you, you feel those criminal feelings all over again, except this time it’s even louder. It feels so wrong, and yet you can’t help but think of the liberation that could come with his lips on yours.

You could swear out loud, all the colorful words ready at the tip of your tongue.

“Your collar’s…”

Jaehyun’s voice trails off, his hand moving to fix your flipped collar, and when the heat of his skin brushes your neck, you try to not think of where else his hands could be, his lips could be.

In fact, there’s a moment within where it’s perfectly reasonable for him to kiss you, the taste almost on your tongue. But Jaehyun moves away, an indecipherable look across his face.

“I should get going,” he says, “I have a- I have a shoot early tomorrow—today.”

You nod, cheeks coloring at your own unsaid thoughts. Just what have you done to yourself? Why is your skin searing, why does your stomach feel upside down and why were you so ready to give in to him? To Jaehyun? You’ve never felt want like this before, this need to press skin against skin in a manner so illicit.

You part with a short goodbye, the sudden loneliness in your path making you want to backtrack, ask if you can go somewhere else again—maybe there’s a club nearby so you can see him through a round of shots as you usually do. Maybe the bitter feelings will return then.

When you think of the words you exchanged over the course of so unusual a night—your former unforgiving words contradict you. You hate the realization but being so obscure in front of a camera doesn’t have to mean he’s pretentious. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe someday you’ll even admit it.

You feel a flash of heat in your face. You are not running to Jung Yoonoh—what an embarrassing thought. If the very core of your being isn’t repulsed by it, there’s something wrong with you.

There’s something definitely wrong with you, love.

You breathe sharply, trying to organize your thoughts. As if the paparazzi wouldn’t have a treat out of this meeting you had with him if they got to know. You’d better limit it to the only one.

You bite your nails out of force of habit. It’s not going to help. You know. But there’s hardly anything else to cool your nerves.

Front row tickets to New York Fashion Week—the most mortifying dream out of all the ones you’ve ever had. The way Taeyong fidgets, you want to believe he’s in the same boat as you—it makes you thankful even.

Even outside of New York, Lee Taeyong is known for booking out exclusively intimate spaces. There are some props for the pre-show photography, including inked sketches on giant vertical banners stuck to the walls and tables with a messy collection of coffee cans, pencils and a sewing machine. Diverse types of fabric roll off the table in long strips, gently lining the floor till they end midway to another table. It’s a mess—a mess you made look good.

You’d left that and the backstage behind now. All eyes are on the sparsely lit runway, your aspirations coating the air in a thick veil. Are you ready? You won’t know till the first model steps out and till you can elicit a response from the audience.

Jaehyun’s at another venue—career before friendship, or, heaven forbid, attraction. You’d seen the fitting, cape skirt doing daringly well with his long legs clad in black pants, and a classy vest over a ruffled white shirt. You hate seeing other designs before a show, but god, were you glad you’d visited Givenchy to meet Johnny.

But you’re relieved even, that Jaehyun isn’t here. You don’t have the strength to face him anyway, all your energy directed into this chasm of whatever you’d call six months of effort. You want to call yourself accomplished. You want to be proud of yourself.

So this time, you remember all twenty-six minutes of it.

God, they look so beautiful up there, when they’re being looked at, seen for what they are—you’ll never get over it. There’s still hardly much to remember, except this time you’re happy to do it all over again. Effort only exists if it’s acknowledged.

It settles in quite a while later, the weight of all you’d done. You could almost cry, but that’s better left to pillows and the unrelenting skies above a midnight-coated rooftop. This is your moment. For once, you’re anything but afraid.

Afterparties are still not your thing.

However, you had your nicest outfit picked out and Lee Taeyong’s fancy, themed afterparties are something notorious among your colleagues. You’ve heard designers tend to go all out, wearing the best things they’ve designed even if it makes them a little embarrassed to be wearing their own work.

You feel a sigh leave your lips as you finally find a place to sit, your earlier conversations leaving you drained of social energy. You don’t feel alien—it’s strange—and their compliments feel almost warm. The music playing over the speakers is something, you’re sure, from a 60’s American movie, and while it has its own strange allure, the champagne gives you a larger dose of relief.

In fact, if you’re not mistaken, it’s quite like the ballroom in Paris, although significantly smaller. Burgundy wallpaper and lit up crystals hanging in hexagonal shapes across the ceiling—it’d look lovely on a dress too.

Taeyong’s speech, of course, gives you a spike of anxiety with the sudden announcement of his label’s future, a brand now. He smiles on the small podium, everyone admiring his radiance when suddenly he gestures at you, the glass in your hand feeling hotter and hotter.

“…I couldn’t do this without the only designer I felt was up to this—the first designer to work under my brand, as of now…”

You try not to blush under all the pairs of eyes that turn to you.

“(name), thank you.”

Success feels good. Gratitude feels even better.

Everything feels natural, as if a dream gone right. You’re no longer afraid of the world you stepped into, or the accumulation of feelings that molded you into the person you are now. The confidence you so chased after as if it were morphine, you’re going to be keeping an eye on it before it can run away again.

There’s still one little problem to your night of triumph, though.

Jaehyun hasn’t taken his eyes off you ever since you entered, a conversation yet pending. You already know he looks good in the plainest of T-shirts, so it might be a no-brainer that he looks absolutely stunning in a suit. The crystals lining the lapels of his coat glimmer amidst the crowd he’s gathered. It’s hard to come in contact, however. He’s magnetic, almost formidable in the way he attracts attention, and you know it’s something that comes with being a man of few words.

“You’re not enjoying the party?” you ask, taking in Jaehyun’s figure on the veranda overlooking the garden. He sits on one of the mahogany chairs, swirling the glass of champagne with a look of indifference coating his eyes and lips.

“I am,” he says, turning to face you. “Needed a short break.”

“I suppose being the most attractive man in the room needs a break,” you say, taking a seat beside him.

A wry laugh leaves his lips, as he lays his eyes on you. “You don’t seem bothered by it though?”

“I believe that pretty is as pretty does,” you say, your lips twitching.

Jaehyun smiles, furrowing his eyebrows yet still. “You think multimillionaire companies are built on things like inner beauty?”

He’s right. What’s inside is beautiful—it’s too idealistic a phrase. You sigh, adjusting your sleeve. It’s a difficult life, walking the runway no one dares to step on.

I think you’d make that cut too, you want to tell him.

“You know the best thing I got told today?” you ask, diverting the stream of conversation. You think he’s a friend. Even if it could be the champagne talking. Even if you want something more than the innocence of friendship.

Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “Did Cristóbal Balenciaga’s ghost show up to compliment you?”

“No,” you emphasize, laughing at his pronunciation. “It was this girl. A student. Said she wrote an essay about me.”

Jaehyun hums, dimples marking his cheeks. “I didn’t know a student could get you so giddy.”

You laugh, looking down at your hands before resting your gaze on him again. He leans forward in his seat, strands of hair falling over his face from the rest and a contemplating look over his features. He looks much, much different from when you first saw him, and even handsomer, if that were possible. He’s grown up from the awkward boy you saw in the press release pictures of the Saint Laurent Fall Collection—he looks sharp and valiant on front covers, his shoulders broad and his eyes darling. Jaehyun is still unironically the most breathtaking man you’ve ever met. He might even be one of the sweetest, inside out.

You look to his lips, full as ever. Perhaps you have something to confess. Secrets aren’t meant to be kept so long.

“Jaehyun,” you call, bringing his attention before faltering. It’s not like you’re the only one fawning over his smile. You get up instead, excusing yourself. “I’ll see you inside I suppose.”

“You know I like you, right?”

You turn around. “What?”

Jaehyun gets up, brushing his suit and fixing the lapels. The gentle night haze and the contrasting calls of the brightly lit party inside brush over an effect you’ve never felt before. “I…I like you. It’s pretty straightforward, I think.”

You deny it, or rather, some repressed little emotion inside you denies it vehemently. “Jaehyun, really. I admit I was a complete asshole to you and- and...it was…kind of you to accompany me that night but—”

“Stop. Don’t- Don’t call that kind. You’re not seeing the full picture.”

You stand there, unsure of what to do as you feel your chest grow warmer. Jaehyun turns his head upwards, letting out an audible breath. You can see conflict on his face, the struggle of someone still mulling over the perfect words.

“I don’t hate you. I never really hated you even if I wanted to.”

You suppose it wouldn’t be the right time to say that you might have indulged in that.

“I did,” you confess. “I hated you for a very, very long time, Jaehyun.”

“I know,” he whispers, looking straight at you. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging—”

“Jaehyun, I don’t care about that,” you say, your voice rising, “You told me you felt suffocated in bow ties and laughed when I asked if you wanted to run away with me. I just ended up thinking you were a goddamn liar.”

“Fine,” he says quietly in his baritone timbre, sounds of the chatter from inside numbing away. “Then let me be honest.”

“When I met you, I thought there was someone like me doing just the same—so…suddenly in the midst of everything. Even if you were a complete asshole to me. You were still real.”

He phrases it delicately, lilting, as if that hasn’t been your whole purpose here. He’s only a breath away from you, but you don’t want to push him away this time. There’s a moment’s pause.

“Between work and myself, which is more important? For once, I thought I could answer that question.”

Your breaths are soft and shallow as they fall, trying to understand his words.

“And then you just fucking stopped. You stopped flying out and I’d barely see you outside of Seoul like you- like you gave up or something. I didn’t understand—what happened to you?”

Jaehyun looks at you with a hardened expression, ears turning red as if he hadn’t expected this outburst of truth. He gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. It’s not like him to open his mouth and let out words that are raw and honest; it makes you feel the weight even more. You were still kids that night. You’re not anymore.

“Jaehyun,” you whisper before reaching your hand out and placing it against his cheek.

It’s so hard to not take in the details. The prominence of the muscle by his mouth when he speaks, the fine lines by his nose which appear sporadically or the look of complete reverence in his eyes when he’s staring at you like this—everything those runway shots can’t possibly capture. Your eyes trail to his lips, your own drawn to it with a desire you don’t know how to comprehend—and don’t quite wish to, either.

You want to believe he made the first move but you give in so easy, it’s alarming. Your lips move against his in a rhythm new and frantic, his hands gripping you with full strength at the waist and you part your lips to allow a deeper kiss. Your hands are free to roam his perfectly styled hair, tousling it in a fashion that makes him groan, only to push you harder against the wall.

“I should’ve- I should’ve let you kiss me that night,” he mumbles against your lips. “Maybe I…I wouldn’t have made you hate me.”

“Maybe you should shut up and kiss me right now,” you respond, your tongue pressing against his, effectively doing the job.

It’s not difficult to see stars when his hips press against yours, his hand resting on one thigh to pull it up slightly. You feel the impact of it head-on, almost moaning out loud when his fingers press harder against the back of your thigh.

“Tell me- Tell me you want this,” he breathes out when he breaks the kiss.

You respond with reconnecting your lips, your tongue sliding against his in fervent affirmations. You’ve already forfeited your modesty, there’s no reason to stop.

You leave early, getting into the car you’d booked for the night. It would be far more embarrassing were it not for the separation between the front and backseats, when Jaehyun’s hands are up your clothes and his lips rough against your neck. The lip colour has smudged by the side of Jaehyun’s lips, a short giggle escaping you when you notice. It’s not enough to halt the kissing, or feeling each other up —something that feels long overdue. You try to keep your sounds to a minimum but Jaehyun seems to not care about things as worthless as shame, at least for the moment.

“Well, you’re about as graceful as a sea lion when you’re off the runway,” you hiss when Jaehyun’s teeth prick your skin.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” he responds in a low tone, the rest of his retort pushed away by his lips against your mouth.

You don’t have time to take in the details of Jaehyun’s apartment because he’s already carrying you to the bed, your legs around his waist and continuing to kiss you as if making up for something. All those years, you could have been doing this. Maybe you do have some regrets.

The material of his dress shirt feels expensive but clothes are not what you need right now. His phone rings once but he drags a finger over it to reject the call, his mouth still pressing against your collarbone. The only sounds you hear are rugged breathing and you fumbling with the buttons of his shirt as you pull it over his shoulders. The city lights below you reach through the drawn curtains, all the unrelenting complicacies left behind in those faraway streets.

Jaehyun makes a sound of annoyance at the phone ringing yet again. He breaks apart from you, receiving the call while his fingers massage his temple.

“Hyung, I’m fine. I’ll talk to you later—”

“I was just wondering where you disappeared and you don’t even grace me with a hello?” Johnny’s voice rings clear in the all too silent bedroom.

“Hyung—”

“Wait a minute.” There’s a pause within which Jaehyun seems to tense up. “Are you fucking? Like did you leave the party to get la—”

“Hyung. I’m hanging up.”

The coral pink spread over his ears is almost as pretty as the look of pure annoyance over his face.

“That—”

“Didn’t happen,” you complete, giggling. If someone were to tell you’d be seeing Jaehyun like this a few months ago, you wouldn’t know whether to be embarrassed or exhilarated.

You place your hand at the nape of his neck, pulling him into another kiss.

Sex is barely ever beautiful—even if it’s Jung Yoonoh over you, planting kisses from your mouth to jaw, neck to chest and whispering sweet, delicious words against each part. He certainly knows how to use that tongue of his, better than you’d expect from a boy so pristine.

It doesn’t matter if it’s not beautiful, when it’s just like a slow dance—in shared solace and love out of time. You bite your lips to stop smiling too often for it to feel as serious and indifferent as all the other times. Sometimes you feel Jaehyun grinning into the crook of your neck, the giddiness of love taking over the movement of your hips against his. The perfect anatomy of his, paired with his candied words makes you think that maybe you do fit together.

Jaehyun pushes into you at a steady pace, your fingers digging into his back and over his shoulder blades only to draw out sounds more pleasing to your ears. You let someone else take charge for once, his praising whispers of ‘that’s my baby’ or ‘you just look so good’ far too teasing but he follows through, your body barely able to respond apart from shaking and shuddering till you reach your high.

The sound of skin against skin dies down well into the night and you get cleaned, still blissed out from making the summit of all your senses. It’s warm inside, despite turning the air conditioner on.

“Jaehyun,” you call, lowering yourself to press a quick kiss to his lips.

“Hm?” He gives you a drowsy smile, arm under his head and hair sticking to his forehead funny.

“Did you really not hate me? Not even once?” You rest your cheek against your palm as you lie beside him.

Even under the dim lights, it’s not hard to spot the blush on him when he positively glows. Jaehyun reminds you of warm auburn and the touch of cool satin—it’s easy to make things, find inspiration in love.

“Oh my god, you were lying!” you accuse, sitting up straight. “There’s no way you didn’t hate me. I called your modeling as good as a coconut’s!”

“As you so love to remind me,” he mumbles.

There’s a brief moment before the two of you crack up, his deep laughter perfectly mismatched with yours. There’s hardly many sounds on the eighteenth floor, but maybe you’ve always been yearning for this privacy—this proximity in shared laughter and warm touches.

“No, I didn’t,” Jaehyun answers your question after it’s quiet once again. “I thought...I think you’re…”

Jaehyun trails off, his eyes flickering over your face before fixing on your lips as his own tug into a smile. He gulps. “I think we’d be in trouble if the paparazzi saw us throwing choice words at each other, don’t you think? You were barely out of school then.”

“Me?” You laugh. “You were thinking about me?”

“And a little bit about me.”

You fall asleep against Jaehyun’s chest with the certainty of kinder tomorrows, a thing he teaches you through whispers against the pillow and fingers playing with your hair. There’s something private in the way he holds your face, something delicate and homely running from his long fingers to his flushed knuckles and the rest of his hand as it presses against your cheek. It’s warm here, and safe, and maybe home is where the heart is, after all.

“Really? You’re not even a little bit sad I’m leaving?” you ask, placing your hand over your heart. “Who’s going to help you when you’re getting bullied in the workplace now?”

Doyoung huffs in annoyance, placing the box down beside the moving truck. “You’re the only one who bullies me in the workplace.”

You adjust the ugly baseball cap on your head, the one Jaehyun had pulled over your head in an attempt to stop you from complaining about his messy apartment. You hadn’t realized you’d worn it all the way to Seoul till the articles about your questionable choice of accessories had surfaced.

“Your boyfriend’s calling,” Doyoung says, making a face as he picks your phone up from the box near him. “I can’t even believe this. All those years of flirting and—”

You snatch it from him, glaring at him for the choice of words. He raises his hands defensively, rolling his eyes at your sudden movement.

“Are you sure you don’t want me flying to Seoul?”

“Unless you’re planning to work in a truck rental.”

You hear Jaehyun laugh on the other side of the line. Is it normal to have blood rush straight from your chest to your ears at the sound of laughter? You hope that doesn’t change.

You’d visited him a day before your flight. It hasn’t been all that long but Jaehyun certainly makes it out to be, just so he can use his cheesy one-liners. You try not to smile thinking about how he had flung his hair band out, immediately tousling his hair back into a pretty mess and struggling to keep a straight face when you’d visited out of the blue. Jaehyun wakes up at one in the afternoon when his schedule is empty and it had appalled you enough to help him out with basic chores before you left. (It didn’t end well. He kept putting his chin on your shoulder and sneaking his arms around you while you did the dishes.)

“(name)? (name), are you daydreaming again?”

You sigh. “You can’t wait three more days, Jae? It’s, what, one in the morning there!”

“Do you want me saying something cheesy?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I don’t think I can sleep without waking up to your face.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose, unable to grace him with a response. The dreamy languor in his voice is more than recognizable and if you’re not mistaken, he’s going to be saying something highly inappropriate.

“Do you know what dream I had last night?” he asks, the smile almost evident with how suggestive it sounds.

“Jaehyun, no,” you warn before lowering your voice. “I swear if it’s another dirty dream—”

“Come home and I’ll tell you all about it. With demonstrations.”

This time you can’t help the laughter, trying to mask it with a cough only to fail. You push the back of your hand against your cheek in order to soothe the involuntary blush. Your perfume smells just like him, and you realize suddenly why he’d gifted it to you.

“That definitely makes me want to leave faster,” you quip.

“I certainly hope so.”

It’s different now, especially if you remember your feelings just last February. Change feels easy for the first time in your life. You check off your list of items, counting the boxes as they’re lifted onto the truck. It took a good amount of thinking, and a bunch of fights before you could decide. New York isn’t so bad. Not when you have reason to be there. You’d like to call it love.

A list of things you do appreciate: Jung Yoonoh. Jaehyun. Whatever.

5K notes · View notes

360iris · 4 years ago

Text

Masterlist

Poly!Marauders

Like You (Remus Lupin x Reader x Sirius Black x James Potter)

Summary: The reader recounts significant memories leading up to her polyamorous relationship with the boys.

Word count: 2,644

Content: 97% fluff, 3% smut at the end

Like Then (James Potter x Reader x Sirius Black x Remus Lupin)

Summary: Why do girls always leave The Yule Ball heartbroken?

Word count: 1,201

Content: Hurt/comfort? Angst? Splash of fluff to ease the pain.

Bedroom Headcanon Blurb

Summary: How would the boys act during private times?

Content: nsfw

Best Hugger/Cuddler/Kisser Headcanon Blurb

Summary: What are the boys’ strong suits?

Content: 99.9% fluff, 0.9% smut

Wind Down Hour Headcanon Blurb

Summary: How would the boys react if you’re too tired to take off your own makeup?

Content: 1000% fluff!

Talk (Sirius Black x Reader x Remus Lupin x James Potter)

Summary: The reader discovers that communication is useful after all.

Word count: 691

Content: Angst? Fluff? Why not both?

Cry Baby (Sirius Black x Reader x Remus Lupin)

Summary: The boys haven’t been letting you finish but you finally get what you asked for.

Word count: 1,136

Content: Smut!

Can’t Handle Change (Remus Lupin x Sirius Black x Reader)

Summary: The reader meets Sirius Black and her friendship with Remus is put to the test.

Word count: 3,002

Content: Teen love triangle drama!

Lover’s Rock (Marauders x Gender Neutral!Reader)

Summary: The reader comes out as agender.

Word count: 417

Scent Headcanon (Marauders + Lily)

Summary: What I think the Marauders smell like.

Unlocking The Marauders’ Daddy Kink

Summary: Scenarios where you call each of the boys “daddy” for the first time.

Sirius Black

As It Was (Sirius Black x Reader)

Summary: You get jealous at the most inopportune moment and Sirius isn’t laughing.

Content: All smut! There is nothing else here!

Bossa Nova (Two Slow Dancers Part Two)

Summary: Moving on is a bittersweet endeavor.

Word count: 2,140

Overheated (Sirius Black, Remus Lupin x Reader)

Summary: What is Sirius Black supposed to do when he’s stuck in quarantine and sexually frustrated? Browse porn sites of course.

Word count: 740

Content: Smut

Luv, Hold Me Down (Sirius Black x Reader)

Summary: Enemies to lovers WIP

Word cound: 2,209

Eye for An Eye (Sirius Black x Reader)

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Soft Sirius Blurb

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Content: Smutty blurb!

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minghaocouture · 4 years ago

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Title: Crazy in Love Pairing: Xu Minghao (SVT) x Gender Neutral Reader Genre: Fluff, Single Parent AU Warnings: Mild Language WC: 8k+ Collab: Love is: on the Radio - hosted by @haechanblr and @secndlife

A/N: So...I know this is an x reader but when writing this I definitely focused more on Minghao’s relationship with the reader’s daughter, and I’m not sorry. I absolutely loved this prompt and got a bit carried away with it lol. Also I did use the term ‘Nini’ as a gender neutral parent term for the reader! Also, ALSO am I dropping this after almost 3 months of inactivity...yes, did I write this back in like...December? Also yes.

Tag List: @woozisnoots @kpop-in-new-albion @tleeee @uglychildd @samemagicpoint @rjsmochii @svtjuniverse @karmacqre @dwcljh @taeyeon-got-shmoney @seungsanhun @haotheheckk @karrotkarrotkarrot @skylions-den @sehunnies-hunnie96 @coppertrashi

“That’s a wrap for today. Great job everyone, remember to practice at home during the week okay?”

A small chorus of affirmation echoed through the small dance hall. Minghao couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he watched his class pack up their belongings so that they could join their parents out in the waiting room. It was always a bittersweet feeling, sure he liked teaching his adult classes but the lessons with the children were always much more entertaining. Always dancing just for the fun of it all, rather than for some end goal. A part of him missed being that carefree, which is probably why his 6-10 class was his favorite.

“Mr. Haohao.” He was pulled from his thoughts by the small voice of one of his students, Sofie. She was rather short for a 7 year old, but she made up for her height with her fiery temper. He’d even seen her hit one of the older boys once when he had been insulting one of their classmates (which he had let slide, chastising her slightly but also getting onto the boy she had punched for being rude.). Currently though, that fiery temper was replaced with a small almost pitiful pout.

“Uncle Jiji isn’t here…” She muttered, her tiny fists clenched the straps of her backpack as she stared up at him. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and honestly Hao felt bad for the young girl. She was usually dropped off an hour or so earlier than the rest of the class, so she was forced to sit with her back against the wall as Minghao taught his ages 11-15 class, and she would always be the last to be picked up. He had never met her parents before, only this ‘Uncle’ of hers named Jihoon, who was almost consistently late when it came to picking her up.

Minghao knelt down and gave her a small smile, gesturing his head towards his office to the left. Such a simple action had a small grin start to spread over the child’s face.

“Well, you can head to my office. You know where the snacks are so help yourself.” Just like that, her sour mood was turned on its head and she let out a cheer before dashing towards his open office door. He pushed himself back up, and followed after her, preparing to get some paperwork done before his next class which thankfully wasn’t for another hour and a half. He watched as she climbed into his desk chair and pulled open the top drawer of his work desk. He had started stashing snacks in there after the first few times she had been left here after hours, as people tend to get hungry after dancing and Sofie was no exception.

As soon as the pepero box was in her hand, she jumped off of the chair and dashed over to one of the plush armchairs that he kept on the other side of his desks for when he had meetings. Minghao couldn’t help but laugh a bit as she tore open the lid of the box, grumbling at the foil bagging on the inside and how it always seemed to give her trouble when she tried to open it. Minghao took his seat, letting her fumble with the item for a moment as he got a few of his papers in order. He knew better than to offer help too early, she would get upset if he did, so he always waited.

As if on cue, she sat up on her knees in the chair and leaned over his desk with the box stretched out towards him.

“Open please!” He did just that, ripping the thin foil with ease before passing the box back to the child. She quickly began munching away on the chocolate sticks and Minghao began working. It was sort of a routine that the two had developed since she started talking lessons with him.

“Sofie, why doesn’t your parents ever come pick you up?” The question left his lips before he could stop it. Despite the girl’s unusual situation, he tried not to pry into the lives of his students so he had never asked. He just let her leave with Jihoon, who had also signed her up for the class, and then went through the same routine the next week.

He watched as the young girl pulled another stick out of the box, shoving it into her mouth at lightning fast speeds. Watching her, it reminded him of a chipmunk the way she was furiously munching at the snack as if it would disappear if she took too long.

“Nini works a lot! So they ask Uncle Jiji for help sometimes.” She began, munching loudly on her pepero as she swung her tiny legs out to lightly kick his desk. He had asked her once why she did that, and she just said she liked the noise it made, so he didn’t bother telling her to stop. “But Nini always comes home after work and we play tea party and superheroes together before bedtime!”

It wasn’t a lot of information but at least Minghao had a small grasp on the situation. At least it seemed like Sofie was coping well? Or at least from what he could tell, obviously he wasn’t around all the time. Despite that, he had come to care for the young girl after all the time the two had spent together.

As he went to ask another question he heard the sound of the door to his dance studio swinging open, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps. His head snapped towards the door to his office, but from the angle he was at he couldn’t see whoever had entered.

“Sofie??” An unfamiliar voice echoed through the empty space. This person was obviously looking for the little girl sitting across from Minghao, but it wasn’t the familiar voice of her Uncle this time. Before Minghao could look back over at the child to question her, she had already bolted out of room and towards the mysterious voice. So, Minghao did what any sane person would do and followed her.

“Nini!” The child screamed, rushing over to the ‘stranger’ and jumping into your open arms as you knelt down. The person, whom Hao was now assuming was in fact Sofie’s parent, pulled the girl close and held her tightly. “Nini, I thought you had to be a vampire hunter tonight??”

You laughed, pulling away from the girl just enough to squeeze her cheeks between your palms. Sofie laughed as her you shook her head from side to side, making a no motion.

“Well, they didn’t need me anymore. Turns out I’d fought most of those silly vampires! So I came to pick you up,” Your smile softened, and just from that Hao watched your smile drop for a fraction of a second as you explained yourself. He could only assume that you had been fired from...vampire hunting? He was definitely going to ask about that, he was a bit too curious not to.

Sofie let out a cheer and threw her arms up into the air, knowing that you would now be able to spend more time with her. Almost as if she just realized where she was, Sofie pulled away from you, and turned back to look at Minghao.

“Mr. Haohao! This is my Nini! They came to get me instead of Uncle Jiji!” She exclaimed, her hand wrapped tightly around your much larger one as she introduced the two of them. He couldn’t help but laugh a bit as Sofie bounced on the balls of her feet, obviously excited to introduce the two of you. You stood and flashed him a small nervous smile and gave a small wave with your free hand. It was such a simple action but Minghao had to admit that your smile was cute, even as small as it was now.

Seeing you also brought a bit of comfort to the male. He had been a bit concerned about Sofie’s home life, but he could tell how much you cared for your daughter. It was a relief to know that she was loved so much.

“Sorry for being late, there was some really bad traffic and I had to make sure Jihoon didn’t try and come pick her up too. That would have been awkward, ya know I get here and she’s already gone.” You rambled, which Minghao thought was fair, it was your first time meeting and first meetings with teachers were always awkward. So Minghao shook his head, as if to tell you that it wasn’t a big deal.

“Sofie’s a good kid, Jihoon’s usually late to come pick her up so we’re used to hanging out until her ride gets here. Isn’t that right Sofie?” At his question, the girl rapidly nodded to confirm. She quickly held up her basically empty box of pepero, shoving it as high towards your face as she could.

“Mr. Haohao gives me snacks when I wait, so you can keep coming late.” Her words brought a laugh to the two of you. It was a tender moment, one that Hao was surprisingly content with being a part of.

“Why don’t you go grab your bag so we can head home, Uncle Gyu is coming over to make dinner tonight for us while Nini looks for a new job.” You instructed, patting your daughter on the back before watching her run back to the office you had seen her come out of. With Sofie gone, you looked back over at Minghao and the look on his face made your heart catch in your throat. He was watching after Sofie, as if she had hung the stars just for him as she dashed through his studio. The moment was soon over and he turned his attention towards you.

“So, vampire hunting?”

“I work...worked at an Italian restaurant, and Sofie says that I’m hunting vampires because of the garlic in the food. I figured I’d let her think that for now, didn’t want to crush her imagination and all.” Hao nodded, chuckling a bit to himself and thinking about how many little stories Sofie would tell him during their times waiting for her ride. It made sense now if her parent was encouraging her.

“Again, sorry for being late. I just...coming to get her was pretty last minute. I wasn’t supposed to be off until after 10.” Once more Hao gestured for you to stop, with a small soft smile of his face.

“Like I said, it’s fine. Sofie’s a good kid, and my next class doesn’t start for another hour. So it’s no problem for me. Honestly, it’d probably be a bit weird for me if she just suddenly was getting picked up on time.” He confessed, it was strange that he was admitting this to you. Usually he was a bit more closed off towards the adults, but you just seemed like someone he could be honest with. Like he could literally just say things and you could listen.

He felt a strange happiness well in his chest as you let out a laugh, as if he had just told you the funniest joke ever.

“Noted, I’ll make sure to be at least ten minutes late from now on. But if you ever want her out of here earlier just let me know.”

“How would I do that without your number?” Minghao thought himself pretty smooth with that one. He wasn’t...technically flirting, but he wouldn’t mind talking to you more often. He met so many parents that either seemed to be filled with disdain for their kids or had only signed them up for his classes so that they could force their old dreams onto them. You didn’t seem like that, and he was grateful.

“Shit, I totally didn’t have Jihoon give it to you when he signed her up did I? Here.” With a groan you pulled out your phone, tapping on the device for a moment before passing it over for Hao to put his number in. Wasn’t the exact reaction Hao was hoping for but it was so endearing that he didn’t mind.

As soon as the phone was handed to him, Sofie came rushing out of the office with chocolate smeared around her lips and instead of her box of pepero she now had a small bar of the chocolate clutched in her tiny fist. He heard another small laugh escape your lips as you knelt back down in front of the young girl.

“And what do we say to Mr. Minghao?” The leading question had Sofie pause, her eyes widening as she wracked her little brain for the correct answer. When it seemed she had figured it out, she turned to face her teacher once more.

“Thank you Mr.Haohao for the snacks!”

“And…?”

“And….for…”

“Watching me while I wait for Nini.” You whispered the answer to the young girl who parroted it back to Minghao. The male passed your phone back over to you as you returned to full height, contact info saved into the small device. Soon goodbyes were being said and the two of you were exiting the building.

Needless to say, he was a bit hopeful to see you again.

Which was exactly what happened, now every Tuesday after class he and Sofie would wait about 15 minutes and you would arrive. You would have some small chats while Sofie showed off to you what she learned that day. It was nice, and Minghao was growing just as fond of you as he was Sofie.

These casual chats led to more messages between the two of you as well. You would see some funny meme and send it his way, sometimes you would even send videos of Sofie practicing her choreography at home in a room he could only assume was hers. The plethora of toys shoved into the corner as she practiced was kind of a give away. In return he would send you images of things he’d made for dinner, or if he saw a cat on his way to work he would snap a picture for you. He could almost say that they two of you had become actual friends, despite not seeing each other outside of that designated time frame on Tuesday nights.

Today though, wasn’t a day he would be seeing you. It being a Friday, and one of the only days where he doesn’t schedule classes, he was getting errands done. Though for some reason he had decided to bring Soonyoung and Junhui, his roommate, grocery shopping with him. Something that he already knew was a bad idea, the two were like children and after the fourth time that one of them tried to sneak in a non essential item into their cart, Minghao felt regret filling him.

Never again.

“Sooo, the Valentines dance recital thing is coming up soon right?” Junhui questioned, his eyes drifting over to Soonyoung who was once again trying to put some popsicles into the basket without Minghao noticing. Unfortunately for him, he was about as silent as the tiger he claimed to be.

Minghao grabbed the box from his hands without looking and returned it to the freezer where it belonged before grabbing the handle of the cart and continuing down the aisle.

“Yeah, my kids class and my adults class seem to be prepared but my teens are struggling.” He confessed, turning left and entering the next aisle. His eyes scanned the shelfs for the items that they needed at home, hoping he didn’t forget anything. He had previously had a list but Junhui had distracted him on the way out and so it was left sitting uselessly on their kitchen counter.

Soonyoung, still pouting, was gripping the edge of the cart like a child making the metal basket swerve like a drunk person was driving it before he spoke.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine. You’re a good teacher so just keep doing what you’re doing and they’ll be ready.

As Hao was about to agree with the elder male, a loud shriek came from behind the trio. This was followed by the sound of footsteps running against the tile floor of the supermarket, and the weight of something slamming into the back of Minghao’s legs, which nudged both him and the cart forward.

“Mr. Haohao!!” Only now did he realize just where the scream came from. Doing his best to twist his head around to see the small girl who was currently clinging to his legs, he grinned.

“Nice to see you too Sofie.” He greeted as the girl pulled away, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she stared up at him with wonder in her eyes.

“What you doing here?” She questioned, her hands moving up to fiddle with the zipper of her jacket. “I thought you would asplode (explode) if you left the dance place!”

He heard a series of laughs coming from his roommates, and he rolled his eyes at them before kneeling down in front of the child.

“Nope, I gotta leave there sometimes too, kiddo. My roommates would get lonely if I didn’t come back.” He reached out lightly pinched one of her cheeks, which brought a small bubble of laughter from her as she shoved his hand away. He did also leave out that his roommates would probably burn their apartment complex to the ground if he wasn’t at home at least...some of the time. Sofie didn’t need to know about his dysfunctional found family.

Speaking of family, he glanced up looking to see if he could fine either you or Jihoon somewhere in the aisle, but no such luck.

“Where’s your Nini?” He questioned, his eyes returning to Sofie as she continued to bounce around happily. The young girl shrugged in response.

“I wanted to play hide and seek! So I hid!” Just as she spoke, the crackle of the loud speaker went off above the group, causing all three men to look up in surprise. A male worker’s voice began the announcement, letting the store know that a ‘Sofie’ was in fact missing, before describing what she would be wearing and finishing off the broadcast by asking for her to be brought to customer service if she was located.

The trio’s eyes landed on the young girl, who didn’t seem to be phased at all by the announcement. Minghao couldn’t help but laugh as he stood back up.

“Well, we better help you find Nini then.”

“I wanna ride in the buggy!” She exclaimed, her arms stretching out in the universal sign that she wanted to be lifted up. So Minghao did as she requested, lifting the girl and situating her in the children’s seat of the cart.

The duo next to the cart quickly began chatting with Sofie, asking her all sorts of questions about the princess dress she was wearing, what her favorite game was, literally anything. It was pretty funny, and she was 100% willing to give them whatever answers they asked for.

“It’s nice to finally meet the famous Sofie.” Soonyoung eventually said, grinning at the tiny girl as the group traversed through the store towards the front where customer service was. “Your Mr.Haohao has told us all about you, he even says you’re the best in his class!”

“Soonyoung…”

“He’s right,” Sofie agreed almost instantly, nodding rapidly in response. “ ‘Cause I listen, I don’t talk in class! Like Ria or Jinjin! They talk all the time, and Mr. Haohao has to give them tally marks!” She continued to ramble on about her classmates, as they continued their trek.

It gave Minghao a small sense of...domestic life. He wondered if this was what his kid would be like if he ever had one. He had never been able to imagine himself as a father, he was far too busy for that. Yet in that moment, he hoped that if he did ever have kids, that they would be at least half as charming as little Sofie.

As they pulled into view of the customer service area, Hao could see you standing nervously at the front. Gently chewing on the nail of your thumbs and tapping your foot as your anxiety grew. So before they reached the area, Hao stopped the cart and looked down at you.

“Sofie, you should apologize to your Nini.”

“Why?” Her tiny head tilted to the side in confusion, not understanding the need for an apology when in her mind she had done nothing wrong. She had just wanted to play and it wasn’t her fault that Nini wasn’t good at hide and seek.

“Because you scared Nini, and that’s not nice. You don’t want to be mean, do you?” His words had the young girl gasping in shock, she of course hadn’t thought of it like that. Before Minghao could say anymore, her tiny eyes welled up with tears. Hao’s heart dropped at the sight, he had never seen the young girl cry and to his shock it made him feel terrible. She didn’t say a word though, simply shaking her head as she sniffled, silent tears beginning to streak down her cheeks.

“Good job Hao, you made her cry.” Soonyoung quipped causing Junhui to snort slightly as the group began walking again. Once close enough, Hao called out your name, causing you to turn and look at them. When you eyes landed on your daughter’s back you let out a large sigh of relief.

Hao carefully picked up the small girl once more, setting her feet on the ground just as you rushed up and knelt down in front of her. As soon as you were within her sight, she let out a soft sob. Which was a bit surprising to Minghao, he had expected wailing like with most children but Sofie was different...he already knew that though.

“Nini, I’m sorry!! Mr. Haohao said I scareded you!” She exclaimed, wrapping her short arms around your neck as she cried. Without hesitation, you wrapped your arms around your daughter, resting her weight on your hip as you let her cry into your shoulder. A few comforting words leaving your lips as you tried to calm her down, confirming that you were scared but only because you didn’t want her to get hurt. After a moment her tiny sobs became non-existant, and she turned her head in the crook of your shoulder so that she could watch as you began speaking to Minghao and his roommates.

“Thanks Minghao, I’m honestly so grateful you’re the one who found her. I was so worried some creep had just run off with her.” You confessed, stroking Sofie’s back as you spoke. Before Minghao could respond to you, Junhui came up to his side and rested his elbow on the shorter male’s shoulder.

“Just call him Hao the Hero! That’s what we do!”

“You do not!” Minghao retorted, lightly shoving Junhui away from him and rolling his eyes. That was enough to get Sofie’s attention again.

“Mr. Haohao is a superhero?! I knew it!” She exclaimed, dried tears and snot still one her face, but the former emotions seemed to be all gone as she was now excited at the possibility of her teacher being a superhero. You couldn’t help but laugh at your daughters antics once again.

“I really owe you guys one, I don’t know what I would have done if anything happened to her.”

Once again, Minghao found himself stunned silent by the smile plastered on your face. It was like a scene in some romcom film, where he was the love struck protagonist that was struggling to find the words to speak.

Wait...love? His heart was pounding in his chest at this realization. Sure the two of you messaged each other more casually now but...love? He never thought he would be someone who could fall in love, figuring he’d be alone forever, maybe buy a cat or two for company if Junhui and Soonyoung ever moved out. But love had always seemed like such a far reaching concept for him.

“You could make it up to us and come have dinner at our place tonight!” Soonyoung exclaimed, almost as if he could see the gears in Hao’s head as they turned. Minghao felt his heart leap into his throat as his head snapped over to Soonyoung, who continued. “Hao’s making dinner tonight, and we love having guests!”

As if your situation was mimicking Minghao’s own, you were cut off and unable to answer when your daughter spoke.

“I wanna go! I wanna!” She exclaimed, bouncing as you held her causing your frame to shake a bit from the little one’s excitement. With a chuckle, you nodded firmly.

“Well, if Fi wants to go then I guess I can’t say no.”

“Yeah! You said is rude to say no to inva-invamatations” Sofie declared with a firm nod. With a small correction to her sentence, you looked back over at Hao with a small smile.

“I...better finish up my shopping. Just, text me when it’s good for us to head over. Sofie’s bedtime is at 9 though so…”

“I usually make dinner around 6 so you should be able to get her home in time for bed.”

The smile that spread across your face was enough to send Minghao’s heart into overdrive.

“I’ll see you then.”

Once again, Minghao watched the two of you walk off to go finish your shopping. This time he could hear Sofie explaining that she made friends with Soonyoung and Junhui too and that she was going to draw everyone in a picture before dinner tonight. Minghao was snapped out of his longing stare when Junhui lightly elbowed him in the gut.

“You’ve got it bad, Mr. ‘I-make-dinner-at-6.’. I don’t think you’ve cooked dinner before 10pm in all the years we’ve known each other.” Minghao felt the tips of his ears heat up at the accusation. He refused to make eye contact with his roommates who were casually throwing out teasing comments in his direction.

If Minghao thought that the teasing would stop once they arrived home and he started meal prep for the night, then he was a fool. In fact it only got worse. It eventually came down to Minghao threatening to kick the two older men out of the house until dinner was over. Despite some whining, the two agreed to calm down their teasing. For now at least.

“So...you really like them don’t you?” Junhui questioned. The tall man had climbed up onto the free space of the counter, sitting cross legged as he watched Minghao cook. He didn’t seem to be teasing this time, his curiosity genuine.

Minghao paused for a moment, staring at the dish he was cooking as if the food would give him the answer he desired. Unsurprisingly, it did no such thing. So he didn’t respond, which prompted Jun to continue.

“I mean, you get along well with their kid so...it wouldn’t be weird if the two of you got together.”

“Look, I know you mean well but I don’t want to pressure them. I also don’t want to lose Sofie. If I tell them about these feelings I’ve caught, they might be uncomfortable and take Sofie out of my class.” Minghao confessed, it was weird saying these things out loud. Things he had only thought about in passing before today, since he had just now realized how much he had grown to care for you.

“I don’t think they’d do that,” Jun retorted, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as a small mischievous grin slithered onto his face. “They were looking at you with the exact same heart eyes that you had.”

“Shut up, and get out.” Hao groaned, trying to return his focus on the meal so that he didn’t ruin anything.

Which he didn’t, the dinner was a success with both you and Sofie loving the food. There was a soft, almost domestic aura surrounding the table that the five of you sat at, even with Soonyoung and Junhui there. Sofie seemed overjoyed to be there, looking around every few minutes and asking questions like ‘why don’t you live at the dance studio?’ among other things. It was something Minghao could grow accustomed to.

As the night began to wind down, Soonyoung and Junhui offered to take Sofie out to play in the backyard. Something you were okay with, saying it would help tire her out before bed time. Minghao knew their motives though, they wanted to get you two alone and it made his heart flutter with anxiety. Hoping he wouldn’t say something dumb.

He distracted himself by picking up the plates left behind by the goofball trio, as he had now dubbed them, and transporting them to the kitchen so that he could clean up. To his surprise, you followed behind him, picking up what dishes he couldn’t grab on his first trip.

“Here, let me help.” You offered, your eyes scanning for a scrub brush near the sink so that you could clean off some of the dishes. Minghao quickly shook his head, taking the dishes from your hands after setting down his own.

“No way, you’re the guest.”

“And you made dinner, it’s only fair I help.” Right then was when Minghao realized just who Sofie got her puppy dog eyes from, for you were giving him basically the exact same look. He felt his heart seize up and he quickly averted his gaze before you could see the flush growing on his face.

“Fine, I’ll wash them and you can dry.”

The task went by rather quickly with the both of you working. He would scrub and rinse before passing them off for you to try the excess water off and set them in the drying rack. It was silent as the two of you filed things away, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. In fact Minghao would have found it quite comforting if not for his worry that you could somehow hear how fast his heart was beating.

“Sofie’s really fond of you.” You said, setting the last dish into the rack before turning your gaze to the young dance teacher. “She’s always talking about you when we’re at home. I think by this point most of the art she’s put on our fridge also has you in it too. I guess what I want to say is...thank you for being so kind to her.”

Minghao couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he met your gaze.

“You don’t have to thank me, I enjoy getting to spend time with her. She’s definitely better company than my nosy roommates.” His words brought a bright laugh from you, covering your mouth as you did so. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from you, feeling his heart swell with this newly realized feeling. He liked that he could make you laugh or smile.

The silence returned, the two of you locking eyes once more. From your body language, he could tell that you were struggling to speak, words lingering just beyond the surface that you didn’t know how to get out. So he decided to say fuck it.

“Are you doing anything on Valentine’s day?” As soon as the words left his lips it was as if time had frozen. Was that too presumptuous? Should he have not mentioned the holiday? Sure he knew you weren’t seeing someone at the moment, you had told him yourself, but that didn’t calm his nerves.

“Yeah, my uh...one of my jobs was asking for people who didn’t have plans if they could work that day so...I said yes.” You replied sheepishly. He felt his heart sink a bit, he knew you worked a lot. Being a single parent was expensive so you had taken two jobs to support your family, which was why your best friend Jihoon, who worked from home, usually babysat Sofie when you were busy.

“Ah. That makes sense.” He couldn’t stop the light disappointment from seeping into his words. His eyes flickering to the floor, embarrassed. Only for them to snap back up to you as you spoke once more.

“But...I might be free sometime the week after.” You confessed, causing a small bit of hope to return to the male. “I know the Valentine’s recital is on the 15th, and that was my only real day off that week.”

“How would Friday the 20th sound? I don’t have any classes that day?” He jumped in, his heart thumping loudly in his chest as he watched your face twist into one of deep thought. Another moment of silence passed between the two of you before you broke out in a grin.

“I’m pretty sure I can get that night off. So...it’s a date?”

***

Time seemed to pass almost too quickly, the next week was Valentine’s day and the dance recital. The day of recitals was probably the most stressful day of his career, he was always running around and making sure everything was set up and that no problems would arise. Much to his relief, everything went fine, of course there were some minor mess ups, but other than that all of his classes were spectacular.

As things began to wind down, students said their goodbyes and Minghao began the arduous task of cleaning up.

“Told you everything was gonna go great!” Soonyoung exclaimed. The elder male began unplugging the lights that had been set up for the show, as he and Junhui had stayed after to help Minghao clean up. The teacher laughed softly and nodded, while his roommates might be a little...wild, they were the kind of optimism that he needed in his life and Minghao was constantly grateful for them. Even if he rarely said the words out loud.

Grabbing his phone, which he had been using for the night’s music, he began deconstructing the speakers so that he could carry them back to the equipment room.

“Sure, sure, you were right. I supposed a blue moon does happen every once in a while.”

“Hey!” Soonyoung exclaimed, pouting a bit as Junhui and Minghao laughed at his expense. It was times like these where he knew who his people were, times where he didn’t need anything else. Or at least they used to be, a small part of him felt like something was missing. As he thought this, a loud familiar call of his name echoed off the walls.

“Mr. Haohao!” Sofie’s familiar voice called, her footsteps thudding against the flooring as she ran towards him. She was, of course, still all dressed up from the recital. Soft pinks and whites covered her fluffy dress, the skirt bounced excitedly with every step she took. Without thinking of it, Minghao set down the speaker and knelt down as Sofie rushed up and jumped into his arms.

“Did I do good Mr. Haohao?” She questioned, hugging him tightly as she did so. He couldn’t help but laugh at her question before giving a small affirmation.

“We both know you did great, Sofie. You’re a very talented dancer.” He reassured, causing a small noise of joy to escape the young girl. “I really hope your Nini decides to sign you up for the next set of classes.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I think Sofie would have my head if I didn’t sign her up again.” He had been so distracted talking to Sofie that he hadn’t even heard you approaching until you spoke. As his eyes strayed from the young girl in his arms, he was blown away. You had really outdone yourself tonight, all dressed up to look presentable for the recital. Not that you weren’t stunning beforehand, but he was still blown away nonetheless. For a moment he was just sitting there, staring at you, before he heard Junhui clear his throat behind him.

He stood as Sofie let him go, returning to your side and taking your hand in her own.

“We were...planning on going to get ice cream to celebrate the recital going well. Sofie wanted to invite you.” You began, Sofie nodding rapidly as she beamed up at him. It was definitely heart warming, but he knew he couldn’t. There was still so much work left to do and he couldn’t just leave it all for Junhui and Soonyoung. He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off before any sound could escape him.

“Sure! He would love to go!” Junhui’s familiar cheerful voice cut through, causing Minghao to pause and turn back to look at his friend in shock. The male in question grinned, winking at Minghao. “We can finish up here, we’ve been around long enough that we know where everything goes.”

“But-”

Before Minghao could protest, Soonyoung had practically leapt over to the male and pulled him into a tight hug. His lips brushing up against Minghao’s ear as he squeezed him.

“I know you have a ‘date’ next week with them but you better go get ice cream tonight or so help me. You’ll be pouting about it all night.” It was very unlike Soonyoung to take control during situations like this, but Minghao knew that he was right. So he returned the hug, getting one last big squeeze from Soonyoung as he said goodbye.

Sofie’s face lit up with the brightest smile he had ever seen when he confirmed that he would join the two of you for your daughter’s favorite after-dance dessert. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Minghao walked beside the two of you towards the entrance of the studio. As you neared the doors, Minghao felt a small tugging on his pants leg. He glanced down and saw Sofie’s hand extended up towards him, making small grabbing motions as she walked.

Taking the hint, he pulled his hand out of the pocket and it was soon firmly held in Sofie’s grip. In that moment, everything seemed to fit into place. He had thought about it before but he hadn’t really realized how much he wanted this until it was right in his hands.

Instead of taking a car, Sofie insisted that the three of you walk together. Chatting along as Sofie walked in between the two of you, swinging your arms excitedly as she talked about the recital. It was a nice little walk, the air thankfully was not too cold and the ice cream parlor was thankfully close by. It seemed like everything was moving so quickly and before Minghao knew it, it was over and Sofie was begging for him to go to their home so he could tuck her into bed.

So there he was, 8 at night and waiting awkwardly on your sofa as you get Sofie ready to go to sleep. He could hear the two of you chatting and heard something that caused his heart to practically stop.

“Nini, can Mr. Haohao be my new Papa?” The innocent question had him in shock, his hands sweating as he wrung them together. He couldn’t really hear your response but he heard the loud noise of affirmation from Sofie after, which was followed by the sound of footsteps rushing into the living room.

“Mr.Haohao! It’s sleep time!” Sofie exclaimed, clumsily leaping over the arm of the couch so she could fall onto his lap. A symphony of giggles coming from her lips as Minghao seemed to snap back to reality, lifting the girl up and standing from the couch.

“Well then we better get you to bed, Princess.” He glanced back down the hallway where you were watching, and flashed you a small smile. You returned the gesture before turning on your heel to lead him down the hallway towards Sofie’s room. He had seen glimpses of the room before in the videos that you had sent to him, and it was definitely a room that fit the young girl.

He made his way over to the small bed, noticing the Princess bed sheets and he could only assume that this was Merida. He wasn’t too well versed in Princesses, but Sofie had rambled to him about her favorite Princess so many times that it would be surprising if it were anyone else. He plopped her down gently on the mattress and watched as she wormed her way under the covers.

“Mr. Haohao, can you come play with me tomorrow?” She questioned, stifling a yawn as she stared up at him. He chuckled softly, pulling the comforter up to her shoulders and patting her head softly.

“I’ll ask your Nini and see what they say, but for now it’s time for sleep. Okay Fi?”

She nodded softly, rolling over to her side and squeezing her eyes shut. As if going to sleep quicker would enhance the chances of her seeing her favorite teacher tomorrow.

Minghao stood from Sofie’s bedside and turned back to face you, the look on your face caused his heart to practically skip a beat. You hadn’t seen someone get Sofie to sleep that fast since Jihoon made her that sleepy time playlist. It definitely made your heart flutter to see him be so kind to your daughter, you could see how much he cared. It made you wish that he could care about you just as much.

***

A week later, Minghao was practically beside himself with anxiety. He knew he was extremely fashionable but every outfit he seemed to try and put together for his date with you just didn’t seem to cut it. Despite that concern he had still pulled together a nice comfortable outfit that fit with the small mom and pop diner’s feel.

The two of you had decided it would be best to meet at the restaurant rather than drive up there together. Though, waiting in this booth had to be the most stressful thing that had ever happened to him. He had honestly never been this nervous about a date before, but he really liked you and he...really liked having Sofie around, so he didn’t want to screw this up.

The sound of the door chime rang in his ears, followed by the sound of footsteps against the linoleum flooring.

“Minghao, I’m so sorry I’m late! Sofie kept trying to come along and started crying when I was about to leave so it took me a bit longer to leave.” You explained, sliding into the booth with an apologetic smile on your face. You were a bit out of breath and your clothes a bit disheveled but Minghao had never seen anyone more breathtaking. You were about to continue your apology, worried that he would be upset that he had to wait, but before you could speak you found one of your hands being taken into his own.

“I’d have waited all night if it meant getting to have dinner with you.” All anxiety seemed to be gone now, and back was the calm and collected Minghao. If the night could have lasted forever, then Minghao would have liked it to.

It wasn’t anything fancy, the two of you wanted to keep it more of a down low date. Though Minghao did wish that there was at least some wine, but that was just his personal preference. The two of you chatted through the dinner about everything, life, your jobs, anything and everything. Until finally the topic strayed towards Sofie.

“Her...other parent, they didn’t really want anything to do with her.” You explained, your eyes straying from Minghao and landing on the table. You hadn’t really spoken to anyone about this, everyone who needed to know had been around when things had gone down. So breaching this subject had been one you had been dreading.

“It’s just been Sofie and me since she was born, I haven’t really tried...dating since then? I never wanted her to get attached to someone only for them to walk out on us. You know?” Minghao nodded in understanding, it was something he had suspected in all honesty.

“We’re a package deal, and I just...before we decide to try anything, I just need to know that you understand that.”

“At this point, I would do anything for Sofie...and for you.” Minghao confessed. “I’m honestly crazy about the both of you, and I don’t think that is going to change anytime soon.”

***

“Fi, come on get up. You’re gonna be late for school.” Minghao called out as he threw open her bedroom door and flipped the light switch on just to prove his point.. The teen in question groaned, rolling over and hiding her head under the covers.

The sight had Hao rolling his eyes before sauntering into the room, making sure to step over the clothing and books that had been left on her floor so that he could give her frame a small shake. It had been a good 7 years since he had started dating you and 5 years since he had moved in with Sofie and you. It wasn’t the life that he had expected to have, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

“Come on kiddo, don’t make me sick Uncle Jun on you. You know he’ll come over right now and tackle you.” That seemed to have her moving, throwing back her blanket with a groan as she looked over to glare lightly at Minghao.

“You’re such a jerk, Papa. Uncle Jun is the worst alarm clock.” She complained, throwing her legs out from under the covers and off of the bed. She stood and sluggishly trekked over to her closet to pull out her school uniform. “At least Uncle Gyu just wakes me up with food.”

“Well, I tried to tell you when breakfast was ready, but someone didn’t want to get up yet.”

“That’s cause you make breakfast at like...6” she complained. Minghao couldn’t help but laugh as she gestured for him to leave the room, which he did. Returning to the kitchen where you stood sipping on your breakfast drink of choice, about ready to head out for work.

“She finally get up?” You questioned, eyes following Minghao as he made his way over to press a soft kiss to your lips. Which you returned without any problem, your heart swelling with happiness even after all this time of being with him.

“I did have to threaten her with Jun, but she at least won’t be late now.” He explained, his arms wrapping around your waist as he rested his forehead against your own. “Speaking of late, if you don’t hurry that’s what you’re going to be.”

It was normal for him to distract you with affection right before you left for work, it was honestly something he looked forward to. At this point it was practically routine, even after all these years. He was still crazy in love with you and he doubted that would ever change. You and Sofie were his past, present, and future, and he decided that was all he needed in life, and so he wanted to show you that every day from now on. He never wanted you to have to doubt if his feelings were genuine.

“Then give me one last kiss you goof.” You instructed, pressing your lips against his own, just as Sofie walked into the kitchen.

“Oh my god you two, gross!” She jeered, sitting down at the table where her rapidly cooling breakfast was sitting. You and Hao pulled away from each other with one last small peck, making your way over to press a kiss to your daughter’s forehead.

“Have a good day at school sweetie. Jihoon’s gonna take you to the studio so you can work on that project today, make sure to meet him at the front doors when you’re let out. Okay?” You instructed, speaking to the girl as you grabbed your keys so that you could finally leave for work.

“I know Nini, I’ll see you for dinner tonight.”

It was a simple domestic life, but watching the two of you, his partner and his daughter, it was better than any film could have described it. He had found his family, and it was here.

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