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natalianovnas · 14 days ago

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༄ `. 𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒 & 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 — ⌗04

summary : raised in the heart of the countryside, you, Y/N Langford, has always known the rhythm of ranch life—early mornings on horseback, sun-drenched vineyards, and a quiet kind of freedom carved into the land passed down through generations. however, your father's recent colleague is interesting enough.

genre : country!au, wlw, countryside life.

warnings : smut (only in the beginning), baby talk & that's about it. (i think?)

words count : 4.4k (-ish??) || masterlist

an : this took very long to come ik and i'm sorry. writers were right about writers block not being funny. also, not nicely proofread so if this chapter doesn't make sense idk anymore T-T

𖦹 part one 𖦹 part two 𖦹 part three 𖦹 part four 𖦹 part five 𖦹

HORSES & ROMANCE:

— Sweet As Sin

��The Langford Ranch House

Clare Valley, Southern Australia

The night air was thick with the scent of grilled meat, blooming roses, and fresh soil — a proper summer evening on the ranch.

Dinner, the usual you had every Fridays at the main house with your grandmother, your dad and now Nat joining you, had gone surprisingly well. Georges, ever the stoic cowboy type, had talked about fencing issues and cattle prices, while your grandma insisted on feeding Natasha an extra slice of peach pie she “clearly needed.”

You’d caught Nat’s eyes more than once across the table — dark green glinting with mischief every time she stole a glance down your tank top or let her boot press lightly to your ankle beneath the table.

And now, in the quiet hush of the kitchen, the others settled outside by the firepit, you were at the sink washing dishes, sleeves of her worn over flannel pushed up, cheeks warm from the wine, the heat and all her teasing.

You didn’t hear her come in.

But you felt her.

Strong arms slipped around your waist from behind, grip firm and possessive. Her hands slid just under your tank, warm against your skin.

“You know,” She murmured, breath brushing hot over your ear, “watching you being all domestic like this? Kinda drives me wild.”

You chuckled softly, hands scrubbing the soapy sponge over the porcelain plate. “Because I’m washing dishes?”

“No, because you look so damn good doing it.” Her lips grazed the shell of your ear. “That, and I’ve been waiting hours to get my hands on you.”

You leaned back into her, heart already picking up pace. “They’re right outside,” you whispered, knowing her intentions, the thrill of it crackling between your legs.

"Mm," The Russian hummed in acknowledgement. “Then keep quiet.”

Her hands slid lower, fingers toying with the waistband of your shorts, making your breath hitch in the slightest. “You wore these on purpose, didn’t you?” she asked. “You knew what they’d do to me.”

“They’re just shorts, Romanoff.”

You'd breathed out, your eyes almost fluttering close. You almost allowed yourself to get lost in the moment but you couldn't fully.

“They’re absolute torture,” She muttered, and then kissed down the curve of your neck, slow and lingering, her hands finally slipping inside — knuckles grazing over lace and skin.

You gripped the edge of the sink.

“Tasha—”

She smirked against your skin. “I’ve been thinking about something. All evening, really.”

“Mm?”

Her hand cupped you gently, just enough pressure to elicit a little whimper out of you. “What if I put a baby in you?”

Your entire body went still — except your heart, which leapt like a startled colt. You turned your head slightly, caught her gaze. She was smiling, sultry and serious all at once.

“I’m not joking,” She whispered, nose brushing against your jaw now. “I want that with you. You, barefoot and pregnant on this ranch. Belly round with our kid.”

You swallowed thickly. “You sure that’s not just the excess of pie & wine talking?”

“Nope,” She grinned. “That’s all me, love. You’ve got me so gone I wanna give you a baby and build you a damn crib from scratch.”

A shaky laugh escaped you. “God, you’re ridiculous.”

“And you love it.” Her fingers dipped lower, just enough to make your knees buckle.

You let out a quiet gasp, biting your lip hard. “Tash, my dad—”

“Is right outside,” She purred. “And you’re gonna stay put and quiet while I make you say yes to everything.”

She gently took ahold of your jaw and turned your face toward hers, lips already claiming yours in a searing kiss — her hands still tucked inside your shorts, slow and purposeful. She devoured you right there, against the sink, soft moans swallowed between kisses, until your hips rolled and your fingers clawed her shoulders, your whole body taut with the want she'd built all evening.

Outside, the fire crackled. Grandma Elise laughed at one of your dad’s dry jokes.

Inside, you came apart for Natasha — silently, breathlessly, pressed between her body and the scent of soap and sin.

And when she finally pulled back, she didn’t let go of you.

“Think about it,” She murmured, kissing your temple. “You, me, and a little one running wild on this ranch. I’d kill to see you like that.”

You weren’t sure if it was the orgasm, the wine, or the picture she painted — but the thought didn’t scare you. It made your chest ache.

And when you kissed her again, slower now, you realized something: you already belonged to her.

. . .

It had been three days since the dinner.

Three days since Natasha whispered about babies in your ear with her hand beneath your waistband, her mouth grazing your neck like a promise.

Three days since you laid in bed beside her in the quiet hours after, tangled in limbs and morning sunlight, and realized that maybe, for the first time in your life, the idea of forever didn’t scare you.

But before you could even dream of forever, you knew you had to face the man who raised you. The man who taught you to ride, to fight back when you were right, and to shut up when it mattered.

He was out by the chicken coop when you found him. Feeding the hens, straw hat shading his sun-weathered face, boots deep in the dirt. A cigarette hung from his lips, unlit — he hadn’t smoked it since your mother died, but he still liked the feel of it there.

“Dad?” You said, stepping just close enough that he glanced up from the feed bucket.

“Hey, kid,” He grunted. “You eat that leftover pie, or did Grandma sneak it home again?”

You gave a weak chuckle. “She took it. Of course.”

He nodded, going back to tossing seed like the world wasn’t about to shift on its axis.

You rubbed your hands together, nervous. “Can we talk for a sec?”

That got his attention. Slowly, he set the bucket down and turned to face you fully. His brow furrowed just a bit — not angry, just… aware.

“I’m listening.”

You took a breath then let it out.

“It’s about Natasha.”

His silence was telling. He didn’t nod, didn’t blink — but something in him stilled.

“She’s… not just a neighbor. Or a friend. We’ve been seeing each other for a while.”

“And by seeing,” He said, voice gravel-dry, “you mean…?”

“That I’m in love with her.”

His jaw ticked. His eyes didn’t leave yours.

He glanced away, toward the pasture, the breeze catching the brim of his hat. You stood still, heart thudding, waiting for something to fall apart — for the silence to stretch into disappointment.

But instead…

“I figured.”

Your breath hitched. “You… did?”

He shrugged. “You’ve been smiling more. Not just the polite kind. The real one. Like your mama used to.”

You blinked hard, warmth rising in your chest and eyes at once.

“I didn’t know when you were gonna tell me, but I figured you’d get there.”

You stepped forward, a little overwhelmed. “You’re okay with it?”

“Hell,” He muttered, tugging off his hat to rake a hand through his hair, “I ain’t some fool who thinks love looks one way. All I ever wanted was for you to find someone who’d ride through storms with you. Who wouldn’t leave when things got rough. And Romanoff ? She sticks.”

You laughed, more relieved than you could ever say. “Yeah. She does.”

He looked at you then, eyes a little softer than before. “You planning on telling Grandma?”

“One step at a time, old man,” You said, nudging his arm.

“Well,” He muttered, grabbing the bucket again, “when you do, better make sure you’ve got something stronger than sweet tea on hand. That woman’s sharper than a rattlesnake in July.”

You grinned. “So you’re not mad?”

“No, sweetheart, of course not.” He said, then paused. “But if she ever hurts you…”

“She won’t,” You cut in, serious. “I trust her.”

That seemed to be enough. He walked up to you and pulled you in his arms, the grip familiar and soothing.

“You know I love you, right? I only know what's best for you and I trust you're old enough to decide what's best for you.”

“I know. Thank you, Daddy.”

. . .

You found her on the porch swing just after sundown — boots kicked off, legs curled up, her flannel unbuttoned halfway over a black tank top. The sky behind her bled peach and rose, and the fireflies had just begun blinking into the dusk like scattered sparks.

Natasha looked up from her book when you stepped out. “You’re smiling.”

“I talked to my dad,” you said, closing the door behind you. “Told him about us.”

She sat up straighter, eyes searching yours. “And?”

You walked toward her, barefoot across warm wood. “He figured it out already. Said you make me smile the way my mama used to.”

Her expression softened, just a little — like something in her uncoiled.

You settled beside her on the swing, pulling your knees up as her arm slid easily around your back, fingers spreading over your hip like she was anchoring herself.

“I didn’t know how it’d go,” you admitted. “But he was calm. Real calm. Said he just wanted me happy.”

Natasha let out a breath you hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Your dad’s a good man.”

“He is.” You leaned into her. “But you’re a good woman.”

Natasha smirked. “You sure about that, sweetheart?”

You laughed softly, pressing your forehead to her jaw. “Mostly.”

Her lips brushed your temple. “So, how are we celebrating this little coming-out party?”

“Quietly,” you said, dragging your hand up the inside of her thigh, “just the two of us.”

The way her breath hitched wasn’t subtle.

You climbed into her lap, straddling her on the swing, your fingers running up the back of her neck and into her hair. Her hands found your waist like it was instinct — like she was made to hold you.

“You know,” you whispered, teasing her ear, “he said you stick.”

“Stick?” she repeated, amused.

“Yeah. That you ride through storms. Don’t leave when it gets hard.”

Her voice dropped to something low and smoky. “It always gets hard with you around.”

You laughed against her throat. “We’re supposed to be celebrating quietly.”

“Oh, I am quiet,” she said, hands sliding under your shirt, calloused palms dragging heat across your skin. “You’re the one who gets noisy.”

Your hips rocked just once against her, teasing, and her mouth found yours — slow and claiming and sure. No urgency. Just heat and sweetness and years of ache melting away into one soft, perfect kiss.

She pulled back just an inch, lips brushing yours. “I’m proud of you.” You blinked, surprised.

“For telling him,” she added, one hand cradling your jaw. “For letting me be seen. For us.”

You leaned in again, kissing her harder this time, until her hands were fisting the back of your shirt and you were both breathless.

“Let’s go inside,” you murmured, lips ghosting her cheek.

“Mm. We could,” she said, eyes glinting, “or I could take you right here on this swing.”

“You’re impossible,” you said, blushing and laughing all at once.

“And you like me this way.”

You kissed her again, grinning into it.

Because she was right. And for the first time in your life — with the stars rising above the fields and the air sweet with summer — it all felt right, too.

. . .

The porch creaked under Natasha’s boots as she stepped outside with two mugs of coffee. Sunlight was low and golden, catching the edges of the wood grain, the dust, the worn ridges of old family tools stacked by the side of the house.

Georges Langford sat on a rocking chair near the edge, his hat pulled low, gaze fixed out over the land like he’d been born to guard it.

“Thought you might want some,” she said, holding out one of the mugs.

He took it without looking at her right away. “Appreciate it.”

Natasha leaned against the porch railing beside him, quiet for a beat. She wasn’t always good at stillness around other people — but she’d learned that with your father, silence wasn’t something to rush. It was something to earn your way through.

They sat like that for a while. A soft breeze stirred. Somewhere out in the barn, the cows shifted.

“You work hard,” he said finally.

She glanced sideways. “I’m used to it.”

“You like it here?”

“I do.” Her voice was honest, low. “Peaceful. Good kind of quiet.”

He nodded. “That’s why I built this place the way I did. Thought maybe I’d scare the fast ones off.”

She let out a short, amused breath. “And did you?”

“Some.”

He looked at her then — not harsh, not unkind, but direct. Like a man who had carried the weight of a family and wasn’t about to hand pieces of it over without looking someone square in the eye.

“I don’t know everything about you,” he said.

She met his gaze. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“But I know the way my daughter looks at you.” He sipped his coffee. “That ain’t nothing.”

A pause. The wind rustled the trees.

Natasha shifted slightly, straightening her shoulders. “She’s the best thing that’s happened to me.”

He studied her.

“I mean it,” she added. “I’ve seen a lot. Done more than I probably should’ve. But she… she makes me want to stay.”

The man gave a quiet hum. “You’re not running from something, are you?”

“No.” She said it firmly. “I’ve already done enough of that.”

He nodded slowly. Looked back out over the fields.

“She’s my only daughter,” he said.

“I know.”

“I don’t care who she loves. But I care how she’s loved.”

Natasha swallowed, jaw ticking just slightly. “She’s loved safe. And full. And real.”

That made him go quiet.

She added, more softly, “I didn’t plan for this. But I’ll stand by her. Wherever this goes.”

He glanced at her again. “You ever think of settling? For real?”

Her mouth twitched. “Depends what you mean by ‘for real.’”

He raised a brow. “Do you want a family, Romanoff?”

She blinked. That hit a little deeper than she expected.

“I’ve thought about it,” she said carefully. “With her… it doesn’t seem so far away.”

A beat passed. He exhaled. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

“I can’t pretend I know everything about your past, and I won’t pretend it’s not hard for me, having my little girl in love with someone like you.” He smirked faintly. “But I see how she glows when you’re around. And how you soften when you look at her. So… yeah. Alright.”

Natasha stared at him, a little stunned.

“I appreciate that,” she said, genuinely.

He stood, stretching his back, and tipped his hat back just enough to meet her eyes again. “You hurt her, you’ll see how fast I stop being calm.”

She smiled. “Fair enough.”

Then, to her surprise, he reached out — not quite a handshake, but a squeeze to her shoulder. Solid. Approving.

“Come help me chop some wood before it gets too hot.”

She blinked. “You want me to—?”

“Consider it a trust exercise.”

Natasha laughed, taking off her flannel and rolling up her sleeves. “Alright, old man. Don’t slow me down.”

The sharp crack of splitting wood echoed through the open air, birds scattering up from the fence post as Natasha swung the axe again. Her shoulders gleamed with sweat under the midday sun, muscles flexing with every strike. Your father stood nearby, arms crossed, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he watched.

“You weren’t kidding about not slowing down,” he muttered.

Natasha leaned back with a grin, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “You’re lucky I like you.”

He chuckled, nodding toward the stack. “You got rhythm. Must’ve done this before.”

“Not quite,” she said. “But I’ve broken a lot of things.”

That earned a raised brow. Natasha didn’t elaborate. She bent, picked up another log, and placed it on the stump.

“You ever think of taking her with you to where you’re from?” he asked, almost casually.

Natasha hesitated only a second before lifting the axe again.

A swing then a crack.

The wood split clean.

She exhaled, watching the pieces fall. “Yeah,” she said, voice lower, softer. “I have.”

“You think she’d want that?”

“I don’t know.” She set the axe aside, resting her hands on her hips. “But I want her to see it. The parts of me that still live there. The city wasn’t all noise and ghosts. It was… home, once.”

He eyed her curiously. “That life still part of you?”

“Always.” Natasha looked out toward the horizon. “But so is this place. This farm, this porch, her hands in the earth. I never thought those two things could exist in the same world. But now…”

She trailed off, lost for a second in thought.

He leaned on the fence, keeping quiet.

“I want to take her,” she continued after a beat. “Not forever. Just for a few days. Let her see the apartment I used to live in. The rooftop where I used to think about running. Let her walk down the same streets I did, but hold her hand this time.”

Georges didn’t answer right away.

Natasha added, more quietly, “I’d bring her back, of course. She belongs here. I just… I want her to know all of me. Not just the version that chops wood and drives the truck.”

“You think she don’t already?”

A faint smile. “She does. But I still want to give her the whole picture.”

Another beat of silence stretched between them, filled only by the rustling wind and the soft crackling of leaves.

“She’d follow you to hell and back, you know,” he said finally. “But just make sure you’re not trying to take her somewhere to run. She was raised with roots. She ain’t built for drifting.”

“I’m not running anymore,” Natasha said. “I want to take her because I finally have something worth bringing with me.”

That silenced him. And then — with the faintest twitch of approval — he nodded.

“Go clean up. I’ll take over from here.”

Natasha raised a brow. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

He just smirked.

She grabbed her flannel off the fence rail and made her way back toward the house. And as she crossed the dirt path toward the back porch, she saw her — You, hair in a loose braid, barefoot in cutoffs and an old tee, standing by the sink through the window, singing softly to yourself.

. . .

The crickets had started their nightly song as the sun dipped low behind the barn. Inside, the only light came from the soft glow of the kitchen lamp and the flickering from the fireplace they’d left burning low.

Natasha sat behind you on the couch, legs spread comfortably as you nestled between them. She was brushing her fingers lazily over the inside of your arm, chin resting lightly on your shoulder, the scent of lavender and earth clinging to her skin after a full day in the fields.

“You tired?” Natasha asked, lips brushing against her neck.

You only hummed. “Mm. Not with you doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing where you touch me like you don’t know you’re doing it.”

Natasha grinned and did it again, slower now, letting her fingers trail all the way to your wrist.

They stayed like that for a while — comfortable, quiet, until Natasha whispered, almost casually, “What would you think about the city?”

You shifted slightly. “The city?”

“Just for a few days.” Natasha’s voice was smooth but unhurried. “You and me. I’d show you around. Not the tourist stuff — the real parts. My places. My past.”

Youvleaned back enough to glance at her. “Your past, huh?”

Natasha gave her a crooked smile. “Only the parts that matter.”

You studied her face, reading the weight behind the offer — the invitation tucked inside it.

“I’d take you to my old neighborhood,” Natasha continued. “We'd grab coffee from that place with the terrible service but the best damn pastries. The streetlights there buzz like bees — it’s annoying as hell, but it’s home. Was, anyway.”

You turned fully to face her now, legs folding up on the couch. “You miss it?”

“Some days.” Natasha’s eyes softened. “But it’s not about missing it. It’s about wanting you to see it. I’ve seen so much of your world. Felt it. I want to share mine with you too. Just a few days. Just us.”

Your thumb brushed against the edge of Natasha’s jaw. “You really think I’d survive city traffic and overpriced coffee?”

“I’d protect you,” Natasha smirked. “Like a good little farm girl bodyguard.”

“You're my bodyguard now?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

You both laughed, the kind that curled under the skin like warmth. Then you rested your forehead against Natasha’s.

“I’d go,” You answered quietly.

Natasha blinked, eyes searching yours. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You nodded. “But only if you promise to make fun of me every time I get excited over stupid city things.”

“I will mock you relentlessly.”

“And I get to see what you looked like before flannel and cowboy boots.”

Natasha grinned. “You’re not ready.”

You leaned in and kissed her — soft, deep, like sealing a promise with her lips.

And later, as you two climbed into bed, Natasha whispered, “Thank you,” just against her neck.

“For what?”

“For letting me have you — in every place I’ve ever been.”

#𓂃 ๋ ࣭ 𔘓 natalianovnas #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader #black widow #natasha smut #natasha romanoff

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heartsriki · 3 months ago

Text

CLICKBAIT ROMANCE⌇사진

pairing ᝰ jake x fem!reader — featuring.. sunoo

word count: 3.5k+

⌇ … warnings & genre ↺college au!, frenemies to lovers, fluff, bickering, teasing, cheesy.

synopsis — When the head journalist of the university magazine is paired with campus heartthrob Jake Sim for a fake dating photoshoot, the lines between pretend and real begin to blur.

lee's ₊˚⊹ ᰔ comment ┊I really hate this actually but I gotta drop a fic so… BETTER FICS COMING OUT TRUST.

Your university had a reputation.

Not for its academics, not for its sports teams, not even for its prestigious alumni. No, your campus was famous for one thing—love.

At first, it seemed like a silly exaggeration, a running joke passed down from upperclassmen to freshmen. But after multiple surveys and actual research, the results were undeniable. Your university had one of the highest couple rates in the entire country.

Everywhere you looked, love was on full display. Couples held hands between classes, exchanged gifts in the courtyard, and whispered to each other during lectures. It wasn’t just on Valentine’s Day—it was as if Valentine’s Day was every day.

And somehow, you were one of the last people standing.

As the head journalist for the university’s magazine, you prided yourself on being an observer, not a participant. But when your department was tasked with coming up with a bold new feature to attract new students, the solution was obvious:

A front-page story on why this campus was the perfect place to fall in love.

No big deal. Just another article.

Except for one small problem.

You had to work with Jake Sim. The school’s star photographer.

And the one person who got under your skin like no other.

“Tell me you’re joking.”

You stare at your editor, brows furrowed in disbelief. The harsh glow of the newsroom’s fluorescent lights only makes the situation feel more like a nightmare.

“Not joking.” Sunoo, the editor-in-chief of the university’s online magazine, taps his nails against his desk, barely hiding his amusement. “The couple we lined up for the article bailed last minute, so you and Jake will have to step in.”

Your stomach drops. “Step in?”

“As in, pretend to be a couple for the shoot,” he says, grinning. “It’s just for the ‘Perfect Date Spot’ feature. We need photos, and you need a partner. Jake’s already agreed.”

Jake Sim. Campus heartthrob. Star photographer. Your walking headache.

You spin around to see him leaning against the doorway, camera slung around his neck, smirking like this is the best news he’s heard all week. “How’s my gorgeous girlfriend doing?” he teases.

You glare. “First of all, Fake girlfriend, Second of all,You actually agreed to this?”

He shrugs. “I like a challenge.”

You cross your arms. “Oh, so pretending to date me is a challenge?”

“Exactly.” His smirk widens, like he enjoys riling you up. “But don’t worry. I’ll make you look good.”

You scoff. “I always look good.”

Sunoo claps his hands, cutting through the tension. “Great! Now that we’re all on board, you two are scheduled for a shoot tomorrow evening. Candlelit dinner, cute coffee date, maybe even a romantic walk under the city lights. Not sure yet but we need variety.”

Jake chuckles. “Sounds like a real date.”

You roll your eyes. “Except it’s fake.”

He tilts his head, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Too bad, huh?”

Your breath catches for just a second before you snap out of it. This is Jake—cocky, frustrating, and way too confident. There’s nothing romantic about this. It’s just a collaboration for the magazine.

You tell yourself that as you storm out of the newsroom, Jake’s low chuckle falling behind you.

The next evening, you find yourself standing outside a charming little cafe, arms crossed as you wait for Jake to show up. The air is crisp, and the soft glow of string lights overhead makes the setting almost too picturesque.

It would be romantic if it weren’t for the fact that you were here with Jake.

You check your phone, scowling at the time. He’s late. Of course, he’s late.

“Miss me?”

You whirl around to see Jake strolling toward you, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, looking irritatingly effortless as always. His camera hangs from his neck, and he flashes you a grin like he enjoys the way your jaw tightens at the sight of him.

“You’re late,” you snap.

He shrugs. “Better late than never.”

You huff, resisting the urge to argue because Sunoo had already threatened to kill you both if this shoot didn’t go smoothly. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

Jake chuckles. “That’s the spirit.”

You shoot him a glare, but he only winks before heading inside.

The cafe is warm and cozy, the kind of place that practically begs couples to curl up in a corner and share a slice of cake. Sunoo has already arranged everything—two lattes with heart-shaped foam, a plate of macarons, and a corner table bathed in soft candlelight.

Jake lets out a low whistle as he pulls out a chair. “Damn, Sunoo really set the mood.”

You sit down stiffly, suddenly hyper-aware of how… intimate this looks. “Let’s just get the shots and go.”

Jake smirks as he adjusts the camera. “Sure. But if we’re faking a date, we might as well sell it.”

You arch a brow. “What are you suggesting?”

He leans forward slightly, his gaze playful. “Relax. Talk to me like we’re actually on a date.”

You scoff. “Why would I do that?”

“Because,” he says smoothly, lifting his camera, “a real couple wouldn’t be glaring at each other like they’re plotting murder.”

You hate that he has a point.

With a reluctant sigh, you force your expression to soften. “Fine.” You rest your chin on your hand, putting on your best charmed and totally not annoyed look. “So, Jake. What’s your biggest flaw?”

He grins, snapping a photo. “Too good-looking.”

You make a show of gagging. “Try again.”

He hums, pretending to think. “Alright, alright. I guess I can be… a little cocky.”

“A little?” you deadpan.

Jake laughs, the sound warm and surprisingly genuine. The click of his camera follows, and when he lowers it, his gaze lingers on you for just a second longer than necessary.

The moment hangs between you two, thick and strangely personal, as if the fake date has blurred the lines into something real, something you didn’t expect. But then Jake clears his throat, as if snapping out of it, and his grin returns, albeit with a little less bite this time.

“Let’s not get all deep now. It’s supposed to be a fun date,” he says, his voice light, almost teasing, as he snaps another photo.

You roll your eyes, thankful for the shift back to something familiar. “Yeah, I know. Fun.” You take a sip of your latte, the warmth soothing your nerves. “So, what about you? What’s your idea of the perfect date?”

Jake leans back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the table, eyes narrowing in thought. “Hmm… I’d say a quiet evening, no distractions. Maybe a walk along the river with good conversation and no phones.” He pauses, his gaze drifting to you before he adds, “And definitely some great food. Gotta have the right atmosphere, right?”

You blink, caught off guard by the sincerity in his voice. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

He chuckles. “I’m full of surprises.”

Your heart skips a beat, but you push it away, focusing instead on the delicate foam heart in your cup. This is just for the shoot. Nothing more. You remind yourself again, but the thought feels hollow this time.

The waiter approaches, setting down a plate of macarons with a flourish, and you both pause to exchange a few polite words. As the waiter walks away, you can’t help but notice how comfortable you’ve become sitting across from Jake, how the small moments—like the way he catches the light, or the way he holds his camera so naturally—suddenly feel like you’re seeing him in a different way.

“So, what’s your idea of a perfect date?” Jake asks, snapping a photo of the macarons.

You look at him for a moment, trying to push aside the flicker of something—something soft that you didn’t want to feel. “I don’t know. Something simple, I guess. A dinner, maybe. But nothing too fancy. I like the idea of just… being with someone, talking, not worrying about the rest of the world.”

Jake watches you closely, and for a second, you wonder if he’s actually listening. His eyes soften, and the usual teasing glint is absent. For a moment, you think he might say something else—something deeper. But then, as quickly as it appears, that thought vanishes.

He smirks again, snapping another photo. “I think that sounds like a good date. Simple’s underrated.”

The silence stretches between you as Jake adjusts his camera and you both sip your drinks. And then, just when you think the moment has passed, Jake sets his camera down and leans forward slightly, his gaze never leaving yours.

“You know,” he says quietly, “I could get used to this.”

The words hit you harder than expected. You open your mouth to say something—anything—but the words get caught in your throat. It’s not a joke. It’s not an attempt to flirt. It’s just… different.

And before you can respond, Jake’s grin returns, just as quickly as it left. “Just kidding,” he says, winking playfully. “You’re way too uptight for me, anyway.”

You blink, trying to steady your breath. “Whatever,” you say, though your voice sounds a little unsteady. You take another sip of your latte, trying to act like the crack in your composure didn’t just happen.

But Jake doesn’t seem to notice. He picks up his camera again, clicking another shot, and the air between you settles back into the familiar rhythm of a fake date—perfectly staged, perfectly managed.

You and Jake are assigned to another fake date shoot, the weather clears up, leaving behind a warm, golden sunset that makes the campus feel like something out of a romantic movie. Sunoo has yet again arranged everything—this time, a park on campus with winding trails, a small lake with a bridge over it, and a picnic setup waiting for you both by the water.

Jake meets you at the park entrance, dressed casually in a t-shirt and a hoodie, his hair still damp from a quick shower, and his usual grin already in place.

“Ready for round two?” he asks, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes giving away the fact that he’s probably already plotting how to make this shoot less of a chore for him and more of an adventure.

You shoot him a look. “You really love making this more difficult, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” Jake says, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Just trying to make it a little more… authentic.”

You suppress the sigh threatening to escape. “Right. Authentic.”

Sunoo’s instructions were simple: get some romantic shots by the lake, maybe catch a candid moment in the park as if you were actually a couple out on a date, and try to make it look effortless. But as you start walking toward the lake, the path lined with blooming flowers and soft greenery, you can’t help but wonder: how exactly does one make a fake date look effortless?

Jake slows his pace next to you, his camera hanging loosely around his neck. “Alright, how about this? We take a nice stroll around the lake, chat a little, and see what happens.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Chat? You mean like the last time, where you gloated about your looks?”

He grins. “Sure, but this time, I’ll be a bit more… charming.”

You roll your eyes. “Good luck with that.”

Jake shrugs, his grin widening. “You’ll see.”

The two of you walk in silence for a few moments, the setting sun casting a warm, orange glow across the water. The breeze feels nice against your skin, the peace of the park in stark contrast to the energy that Jake brings with him.

When you reach the edge of the lake, Sunoo’s setup is already in place—a picnic blanket spread out with some snacks, flowers tucked neatly beside it, and a basket filled with what looks like sandwiches and fruit. The water glistens in the fading sunlight.

Jake notices your hesitation as he sets his camera down. “What’s wrong?”

You glance over at the blanket, wondering how to keep this all casual. “It just seems a little… too much, don’t you think?”

Jake follows your gaze, then shrugs. “It’s all for the shots. We’ll be done soon, I promise.” He plops down on the blanket, stretching out his legs with a casual ease. “Besides, I think I could use a break. You should sit down, too.”

Reluctantly, you sit down beside him, your gaze drawn to the ripples on the water. For a moment, it’s quiet. You can hear birds chirping in the distance, the soft rustling of leaves, and then, Jake speaks again.

“So, have you ever been in love?” he asks suddenly, voice surprisingly soft.

You glance at him, wondering if this is part of the “charming” act he mentioned earlier. But the sincerity in his voice makes you pause.

“I… don’t know,” you admit after a beat. “I think I’ve had crushes, but love? I’m not sure.”

Jake looks at you, his expression unreadable. “I think I get it. It’s about finding someone who can make you feel like you when everything else is chaos.”

You blink, caught off guard by how real that sounds. “I didn’t expect that from you.”

Jake grins. “I told you, I’m full of surprises.” He nudges you again, this time with a little more force, making you laugh despite yourself. “But seriously, sometimes it just takes the right person to help you figure things out.”

You stare at him for a long moment, trying to decipher whether he’s being genuine or if this is just part of the act. His usual playful smirk is gone, replaced by something more thoughtful.

Before you can respond, the sound of a camera shutter breaks the silence, and Jake leans back. “Gotcha. You looked cute right there.”

You scowl, but it’s half-hearted. “One of these days I’m going to strangle you with that camera strap.”

He laughs, but there’s no teasing edge to it this time. “I think you like it, actually.”

You shove him playfully, and for the rest of the shoot, the two of you fall into a surprisingly easy rhythm. You take photos by the water, walk along the lake hand-in-hand for a few shots, and exchange casual conversation like two friends who don’t have to pretend to be anything they’re not.

By the time the sun dips below the horizon and the shoot is finally wrapped up, you realize that, despite the fake nature of it all, you’ve had more fun than you care to admit.

“Not so bad, right?” Jake asks as he packs up the camera, still holding your hand.

You hesitate, then nod. “Not bad.”

As you walk back toward campus together, the distance between you and Jake feels just a little bit smaller.

The lake near campus is calm, its surface shimmering under the warm afternoon sun. It’s the perfect spot for your final photoshoot—a peaceful location to end the “Perfect Date Spot” feature. The air smells fresh, the light is golden, and there’s a gentle breeze that adds a sense of serenity to everything.

You, however, are not at peace.

“Kayaking?” you repeat, eyes wide. “Sunoo, we’re supposed to be pretending to date, not reenacting The Notebook scene in a canoe.”

Sunoo grins from behind his camera setup, his usual mischievous energy in full swing. “It’s not a canoe. It’s a kayak. And it’s perfect! Plus, this will be your best shoot yet. Trust me.”

Jake, already wearing a life vest, leans against his kayak with a confident smirk. “It’ll be fun. Just relax.”

You roll your eyes, trying to hide your nerves. Kayaking seems like an ordeal on its own, and the added pressure of pretending to be the perfect couple while Sunoo snaps away from the shore makes you feel more awkward than ever.

But, here you are.

“Alright, let’s do this,” you mutter, stepping into the kayak. Your feet are a little unsteady, but Jake steadies you with a hand, his touch lingering for a second longer than necessary.

“I got you,” he says, his voice unusually soft for someone who usually teases. “Let’s just paddle together, okay? It’s easier than you think.”

You nod, glancing back at Sunoo, who’s already poised with his camera, looking entirely too excited about the whole thing.

“Okay, ready?” Jake asks, his paddle raised in the air like some sort of announcement.

You give him a thumbs-up. “Ready I guess.”

You both start paddling, and at first, it’s smooth. The two of you glide across the water with ease, the peacefulness of the lake contrasting sharply with the nervous energy you’ve been carrying since the shoot started. For a moment, it feels almost… natural.

“See? This isn’t so bad,” Jake says, glancing over at you.

You roll your eyes but can’t suppress a small smile. “Don’t get too cocky. We’re barely out of the water.”

Jake laughs, the sound echoing across the lake. “You’re just worried about tipping over. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

Of course, that’s when he does it.

With a sly grin, Jake shifts his weight and—splash—you’re thrown into the cool, refreshing water.

You barely have time to process what’s happened before you’re fully submerged, bubbles bursting around you as you come up gasping for air, blinking away the droplets.

Jake is dying in laughter, still sitting safely in the kayak, as if he hasn’t just launched you into the water. “You should’ve seen your face!” he says between fits of laughter.

“Jake Sim!” you shout, splashing water toward him with as much force as you can muster. “You are going to regret that.”

Without thinking, you grab the edge of the kayak and, using all your strength, pull it—and him—into the water with you.

Jake’s eyes widen in horror just before he plunges in with a loud splash, the kayak tipping sideways, sending both of you into the water in an awkward, laughing heap.

The world is suddenly full of bubbles and laughter as you both surface, gasping for air. Your hair is plastered to your face, and the lake water clings to your clothes. But, for once, you don’t care.

“That’s what you get!” you shout, though you can’t help the laughter bubbling up inside you. “What were you thinking?”

Jake wipes water from his eyes, still grinning. “I think I just made the best decision of my life.”

“Oh yeah?” you challenge, splashing water at him. “You sure about that?”

“I’m definitely sure,” he says, swimming closer, his eyes sparkling with mischievous intent. He splashes water back at you, and soon, you’re both caught up in an water fight, the laughter and splashing filling the air.

Sunoo, still on the shore, lowers his camera for a moment, watching you both with a grin. “This wasn’t what I had in mind but.. They actually look like a real couple right now.”

You pause for a moment, catching your breath between laughs. You’re soaked, your hair is a mess, and your heart is racing—but it feels good. It feels real.

Jake treads water beside you, his smile softening. “This might be the best part of this whole fake dating thing,” he says, his voice quieter now, the teasing edge gone. “Being with you.”

Before either of you can say anything else, you both hear Sunoo laughing from the shore. “Alright! No more mushy stuff. Get back in the kayak, we still need more shots!”

Jake raises an eyebrow, playfully sticking his tongue out toward Sunoo. “Mushy stuff? Really? I’m just trying to get my fake-girlfriend to admit we’re actually a thing.”

You roll your eyes but swim over to the kayak, feeling a little bolder than before. “Fine, I’ll admit it. This has been fun. Now, let’s finish this before we drown.”

Jake laughs and hops back into the kayak, offering you a hand. You take it without hesitation, finding your balance again, this time without the nerves. The two of you resume paddling, this time with more ease. The tension that once existed between you has melted away, replaced with something lighter, warmer.

The sun begins to dip lower in the sky as Sunoo takes his final shots from the shore. For once, there’s no pretending. No acting. Just two people—laughing, paddling through the water, and finally allowing themselves to be real.

And when the shoot is over, as the evening winds down, Jake turns to you with a grin that could light up the entire lake. “You wanna go on a real date after this?”

You grin back, feeling something shift inside you—something good. “Yeah, why not?”

With a final splash of water, you both make your way back to the shore, ready to leave the lake behind… but not the moments you’ve shared.

And maybe, you’ll get to share a few more.

#enhypen #enhypen fluff #enhypen x reader #enhypen fanfiction #enhypen fic #fanfic #fluff fic #enhypen jake #enhypen sim jake #sim jake x reader #jake enhypen #jake sim x reader #jake x reader #jake sim #jake

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comicaurora · 1 year ago

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Opinions on fullmetal alchemist?

Brotherhood is the best anime ever made.

It's the most tightly-plotted slowburn mystery I've ever seen. Everything ties together. It makes more and more sense the more times I rewatch it, which in a mystery story is goddamn rare. In the very first episode, the filler villain at one point says "You don't understand the shape this country is in!" and that's a completely innocuous thing for this character to say except no it isn't

The magic system is a beautifully hard arrangement that never breaks its own rules, and it effortlessly explains everything you need to know to follow every alchemy-based twist just through the explanation of equivalent exchange and the question "what could equal the value of a human soul?" Alchemy follows equivalent exchange at all points and functions basically like Advanced Chemistry, and whenever it looks like the rules are being broken, it's just because somebody is burning human souls to do it.

The cast is massive, but never crowded. Everybody has a part to play. Even the seemingly-interchangeable minion characters all end up being unique contributers to the plot; there is truly no separation between Main Characters and Minor Characters because at any point anyone can turn out to be suddenly deeply important.

Contains a profound philosophical meditation on how even the most powerful person is not omnipotent, and the purposelessness of a power that can't be used to save the people they love, and this theme culminates in the only instance of the "extremely cool powerful badass sacrifices all their powers" trope that I actually 100% like.

Somehow this slowburn hard-magic mystery builds up to a massive anime confrontation about teenagers using the power of friendship to kill god and it never makes any buckwild leaps to get there. The resolution is emotionally satisfying and ridiculously kickass.

There are stories that I come back to more often, or hit me harder in the moment, or contain higher highs, or had more impact on their genres, but FMA:B is, pound for pound, the best anime ever made. 10s across the board.

#asks #not aurora #media recs

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simpxxstan · 10 months ago

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HELLOOO!!! CONGRATS FOR THE 550 FOLLOWERS ON TUMBLR I HOPE U GET MORE FOLLOWERS BC UR WRITTING?? DELICIOUS 💗💗

But I would like to request seungcheol + dilfism ?? Like have u SEEN that man??

Thank you!! Have a good day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVOURITE MAN <333 thank you for sending this in! LOVED writing dilf cheol. i swear this man and his sexiness of 30s will be the death of me. inspired completely by his new glasses look at caratland 2024.

this is a part of my 550 followers event, but requests are now CLOSED.

genre: smut, enemies to lovers, age gap, dilf!seungcheol, lawyer au.

word count: 13k words.

warnings: MINORS DO NOT INTERACT 18+ nsfw content. 13 YEAR AGE GAP, mention of suicide, single dad!seungcheol, a ton of legal terms (not vouching to be accurate because i am neither a lawyer nor a law student nor is my research perfect), seungcheol is a bit selfish and toxic (but there's a redemption arc), ANGSTY angst, but A LOT OF FLUFF TO COMPENSATE. smut warnings: protected sex, oral receiving (f and m), mild dirty talk, implicit size kink, implicit spit kink.

"it's my first case!" you whine in surrender, slumping on the shoulder of your friend, as you both re-read the case file in front of you for the n-th time this morning. yoona pats your head, but she knows even she can say nothing to console you. it must be either sheer bad luck or some unknown person's vengeance, that you're against choi seungcheol in the very first case of your life.

y/l/n y/n: the lawyer of the plaintiff, hwang seola.

choi seungcheol: the lawyer of the defendant, KNT enterprises pvt. ltd.

nothing can save you from losing your first case in the worst way possible. not even the stellar letters of recommendation from your professors. not even your exceptional performance in the national lawyers examination process. not even your diligence during your interning years that's earned you the title of golden rookie. everyone expects you to make it big, including yourself- but that's clearly not going to happen if you lose the very first actual case you have to face in your life.

"at least no one will mock you for losing," yoona says in a meek voice. you scoff indignantly, "as if that's any comfort. still doesn't change the fact that i'm going to start off my career on the worst foot possible. why does my luck have to be so shitty?"

"hey, think about the positives. imagine how much of a learning experience it'll be. i know best how much you consider seungcheol as your idol."

you sigh. five years ago, when seungcheol had blown up across the country because of his historic debut in the court of corporate law, winning case after case and setting precedents that were welcomed with open arms, you'd looked up to him. five years ago, he'd walked into your college for an invited seminar during your first semester and blown your mind away. five years ago, you would cry in joy at the opportunity to even spend a minute in the same courtroom as seungcheol and see him in action. five years ago, he'd been the ideal man of your dreams- perfect in every damn way possible.

the only issue with that is that he's still the ideal man in your eyes. even if losing the case against him won't make your nervous, just being in close quarters with him for long hours will make you infinitely nervous.

"maybe i should recommend boss to let you take up the ca-" you tease yoona, and she squeals, whining protests instantly. "no thank you!" you laugh, hoping to lighten the tension of the moment. but the relief is only temporary, and the weight of the upcoming case lingers in your mind for hours later.

the first trial of the case is a week later. before that, you decide to change your mindset to a better thought process- even if you simply assume that you're going to lose this case, you're still going to give in your 100% so that you can step away with no regrets and only more knowledge gained. the first step to that, of course, is speak to your client personally, without the intermediation of the firm you work at.

mrs hwang turns out to be a woman just a few years older than you. the primary reason why she's suing the company her husband used to work at is because her husband had been driven to suicide by the constant pressure in his workplace to keep some illegal activities and fraud under the covers, which had not only harmed his mental health and morals but also affected the way his superiors judged his work performance. she may be young, but she's lost her husband merely three years after their marriage, and just one look at her face makes your heart ache in sympathy.

this isn't the first time you've seen such a case. during your years of study, you've studied plenty of cases involving companies ill-treating their workers and leading them to take up drastic steps in desperation. not only does this case come under a serious mistreatment of employees under labour laws, but also violates laws governing corporations which demand them to steer off illegal activities and maintain integrity. it's a very interesting case, and you're highly intrigued and instantly drawn into the case. there are several nuances that you know you may miss out by a hair's breadth if you're not careful. but you cannot take chances. if you have to even put up a fair fight against choi seungcheol, you're going to have to leave no stone unturned.

at the end of your discussions with mrs hwang, you're fully convinced that the company is indeed at fault here. however, you're going to have to prove it in court with the meagre evidence you have- which is low anyway, considering how big companies use their financial and social capital to turn such cases remarkably in their favour. the primary example of that being them getting seungcheol, the country's top corporate lawyer, to represent them, while mrs hwang can only hire you, a rookie lawyer at a lesser reputed firm.

however, as you walk into the courtroom, you convince yourself to not think about how the odds are against your favour from the first moment itself, to calm your nerves. you're here to debut with a bang, and you will fake it till you make it.

it doesn't work.

it doesn't work because the moment you enter the courtroom, you see choi seungcheol sitting next to the defendant's CEO on the other side of the room, dressed in the most immaculate suit, his glasses perched on his nose as he inspects the documents you've submitted in court prior to the trial as preliminary evidence. when you walk towards the bench you're going to sit at, he looks up at you.

it's a careful, measured glance. a glance of confidence, a glance of self-awareness. he knows he's going to win. and yet, he smiles at you indulgently.

moments later, he meets you halfway across the room.

"good morning. i'm seungcheol," he extends his hand for a shake, his nose upturned as he looks down at you with an aura that nearly blows you away. you wish that you hadn't worn heels tonight- because if he keeps looking at you like that, your knees are going to give up.

"of course, who wouldn't know you?" you steady your voice mustering a smile.

seungcheol's smile does not change. "it's nice to meet the golden rookie finally."

his words send shivers down your spine. there's just something about meeting your idol from so up-close that you want to submit instantly to his infinitely higher knowledge and experience to you. there's also something particular to him that's affecting your mind and body- because if seungcheol at thirty-one was handsome, he's absolutely godly at thirty-six. he's aged like fine wine- the rimless glasses sitting firmly on his nose, tiny wrinkles around his eyes, and a few graying hairs around his sideburns.

you don't get a chance to respond as the judge enters the court and you're pulled away to your bench, sitting next to a very nervous-looking mrs hwang. you forcefully drag your eyes away from seungcheol, who still has that tiny smile on his face as he talks to his client, and focus on your client, giving her much-needed confidence boosts (needed both by her and by you).

as anticipated, the first trial does not go well. it's just your fucking luck that the judge knows seungcheol already- but then, it was wrong of you to not consider that already, knowing how famous he is. on top of it all, mrs hwang breaks down in the middle of seungcheol's questioning, shaken completely by his straightforward questions and uncaring gaze, and the court gets adjourned, leaving you stranded without any proper progress against seungcheol's stronger case. the next trial is scheduled for a week later. you wish you could think that your work has been cut out for you, but it's far from that.

the second trial comes quickly- but it doesn't let you progress much further. seungcheol looks even more nonchalant on the second trial- dressed in another suit, he's less fierce today during his questioning. you don't notice it, because you're too flustered with your own work, but his eyes stray towards you more often. his eyes glaze over with something soft every time you make eye contact, and you immediately look away, like you've been caught in the act. but seungcheol doesn't let it slip- he keeps up his passive aggression when he's shaking hands with you before exiting the courtroom.

"tough luck, rookie. focus between the lines more."

his words make you even more nervous than before, but you put on a brave face for seola's sake. this motivates you to change your gameplan, and you decide to stop focusing on existing evidence, which is scarce, and use more verbal reports of other employees who have willingly stepped up to speak the truth after the suicide of their friend and colleague. by the time you're just three days before the third trial date, you have a solid set of verbal witnesses who will provide evidence on your side, but every time you feel slightly more confident than earlier, seungcheol's voice rings in your ears and you lose all hope.

on the morning of the fourth day, you receive an email from your boss.

y/n, please attend a lunch meeting on my behalf with some of our older clients (whose list i have attached below) today.

you jump to the opportunity- being provided a chance to interact with the old clients of the firm is a lucrative opportunity to impress those who've stayed with the firm from the beginning (and naturally, have graduated into stakeholders at the firm).

so it's safe to say you're in for a rude shock when you reach the lunch spot at a five-star restaurant along the banks of the han river, and find none of your clients but instead you find seungcheol waiting for you.

"close your mouth and stop drooling," jeonghan's voice somehow appears in his mind when he sees you enter the restaurant. "you make it obvious how hot you find women in suits."

but seungcheol cannot take his eyes off you. hasn't been able to for the last two times he's seen you. even if the courtroom is no place for indecency, he's had plenty of indecent thoughts whenever he's seen you, dressed in your suits and blazers, your curves prominent and your hair tied up in a practical ponytail. he should not think like this about you- he knows it. you both are set up at natural odds because of the case- but somehow, that makes him more interested in you. and seungcheol would not have it any other way. he looks forward to each trial of an otherwise boring case just to see you- the passion on your face whenever you're arguing your case, the way your mouth opens in shock whenever seungcheol casually dismisses a piece of information you've clearly worked hard on, the way you stare in exasperation at the witnesses when they speak against your stance, the hunger in your eyes whenever you're questioning his client, and the fire in you that burns you to work harder before each trial. seungcheol hasn't seen a lawyer as passionate as you in many years- most would have given up even before starting just due to his formidable reputation, but you're not even intimidated by his on-brand dead stare that works on everyone.

"i was told i'm here to meet clients of my firm. i didn't know you hired our firm for your personal needs," you cock an eyebrow as you stand in front of him, and seungcheol smirks. that attitude does nothing to filter his thoughts.

"would you have come if i'd invited you personally?"

you open your mouth to say something but he beats you to it. "have a seat, please. let's enjoy lunch."

you do so immediately. submissive. "but i still don't understand why i'm here." bratty.

he places a finger on his lips as the food he's pre-ordered arrives. the smell of the delicious food breaks your frigid attitude, it obviously helps that seungcheol's ordered your self-proclaimed favourite dish on your public instagram account. "i'm sure you must be hungry." seungcheol digs in himself, his eyes on yours as he carefully licks the spoon clean. your eyes flicker to his lips instantly before you're staring back into his eyes, defiance laced in your gaze. you pick up the spoon and start eating as well. seungcheol smiles.

i'm a dad to two daughters. i know how to tame brats.

after a few minutes, he finally speaks. "do you know the first step to winning a battle, rookie?"

you look up and tilt your head slightly in question.

"knowing your opponent."

"i already know you."

"that's what you think. that's why you're not going to win."

your eyes flash with anger. "are you just going to rub that into my face? is that why i'm here?"

"so what? you don't want to win? isn't the most loved story of human history the tale of the underdog?"

"frankly, my opponent isn't even you. it's your client, who isn't even here. so i don't understand the point of this meeting."

"so much can be learnt merely through observation, rookie. you can't know someone by looking at their annual reports and how much money they pay their employees."

"i don't need to know anything more than that! unlike you, i don't wish to meddle in people's personal lives to win cases. i don't need your brain games."

seungcheol chuckles. "the courtroom is nothing but brain games, rookie. think how far facts can take you, and then think how much further imagination can take you."

you gasp, pinching your nose. "i'm sorry, what? imagination? i'll win on evidence and evidence only. i used to admire you as an icon of law. but now, when i see you defend an obvious criminal with such blatant stubbornness, i'm having second thoughts."

"obvious criminal? are you telling me you've obtained the evidence you need to prove my client guilty in court?"

"and what if i do?"

seungcheol sits back, squaring his shoulders to his full stature. "you shouldn't tell me about it then, rookie."

"when you'd walked into my law school five years ago for a seminar, this wasn't the choi seungcheol i'd grown to love as an icon."

fuck. five years ago? just how young were you?

"i'd advise you not to get emotional about the case. the courtroom is no place for admiration or lov- or any other emotions."

"and yet, you have no desire to live up to the expectations of hundreds of law students like me who look up to you? you don't care about the youth you're letting down with this attitude?"

"why should i? i'm surviving just fine, aren't i?"

by this point, seungcheol can see the way your nails dig into your own palms in frustration. it's so amusing, how emotionally you're dealing with this. in a world of black and white, seeing you behave gray in every scenario makes seungcheol think he's lived thirty-six years of his life incorrectly.

finally when you cannot come up with any rebuttal, you stand up, dragging your chair on purpose to make noise. "there's absolutely nothing more for me to talk to you about. i hope you've learnt about me today, choi seungcheol. i've certainly learnt a lot too." and you walk away before he has the opportunity to say anything.

lunch with seungcheol leaves you shaken and stuttering. even as you open the door of the cab outside and ask the driver to take you to the office without a second thought, you spend the entire journey lost in your own thoughts. every little moment of the meeting lingers in your mind, unsettling your confidence. from the way he calls you rookie to his quiet arrogance and confidence, everything about him is so frustrating and yet... he draws you in. your perception about him has definitely changed after today, but even with the added understanding of just how selfish choi seungcheol can be, you can't ignore the sheer attraction you feel towards him.

it stays on your mind through the next three days. and on the morning of the third trial, you're stuck with two different thoughts plaguing your mind.

the first: a genuine concern about how the third trial is going to pan out. it's likely to be your last chance to even bring the judge's opinion to your side, because if you can't present good enough evidence today, there's no way to sway the jury to your side.

the second: choi seungcheol is a man who annoys you but you also have this innate craving to impress him. your respect for him hasn't changed, but your conversation with him has revealed to you just how cutthroat the world of law really is. and his suave attitude, the confidence with which he's so sure he's going to win, and his infinitely superior experience to you makes some part of you so desperate to seek his attention and impress him. show him that you can do well too. show him that you're not going to make beginner's mistakes. show him that you're more than a mere rookie.

but when you walk into the courtroom, seola next to you, your sunglasses perched on your head, you stare at the empty bench behind you. it was supposed to be full with the four witnesses you'd invited today and were relying on to sail through the the third trial. frantically, you ask your colleague who's assisting you in the trial, "where are the witnesses? are they running late? can you ple-"

"they're not going to come today, y/n."

seungcheol's icy voice cuts through the chaos and reaches you sharply. you spin around to find him dressed immaculately in a midnight blue turtleneck that shows off the stubble growing down his jaw.

"sorry, what?"

"you heard me the first time. none of them are going to come today."

"and how do you know?"

seungcheol smirks as he shrugs and takes a step closer towards you. "i have my ways, rookie."

you're fuming at this point, but you really can't speak your mind because seola breaks down in tears right next to you and you can't help but shift away your focus from seungcheol's dangerous eyes and take care of her.

it's honestly a miracle that after the complete sweep that seungcheol presents in the third trial, with no new evidence nor substantial evidence from your end, you still get another chance at a fourth trial, scheduled two weeks from now, in a pitiful announcement from the judge, imploring you to use this final chance to collect as much as evidence as you can.

when the trial ends, you ask seola to go home, and you lock yourself up in a bathroom stall in the court building, trying to come to terms with everything that's come to pass today. it's been an overwhelming morning and you're still shaken badly by it all. every moment you spend in this world with seungcheol, he seems to make it his personal mission to show you that there's no place for softness or emotions in this cut-throat world.

when you exit the washroom, you find seungcheol standing outside, an unlit cigarette between his lips.

"did you bribe them?"

he turns to look at you, his eyes clearly wide in surprise. "what are you saying?"

you take a step closer to him, your entire body shaking with fury. "did you bribe the fucking witnesses?"

"we're in public, woman, control your tongue."

"i'm not ashamed of anything i'm saying though, are you?"

seungcheol's lips twist in distaste and he drags you away from the public place to a quieter spot secluded near the parking lot. "i understand you're frustrated because of that no-show today, but you're speaking nonsense-"

"i'm speaking perfect sense, seungcheol! only you knew that i was going to bring in witnesses today."

"only me?"

"except two people at my firm, one of who is my best friend, and the other is a colleague who's assisting me in the case."

"who knows? maybe your friend's the snitch-"

you step closer to him, seething in anger. "don't you fucking make false allegations, choi seungcheol!"

"you're the one making false allegations here, really."

"you'll have to admit it, seungcheol. someday. if all your fame and reputation has been through such cheap tricks and under-the-table dirty business, you'll have to pay for it-"

"or what?" seungcheol puts back the cigarette between his lips, and lights it with a lighter. he takes in a big puff, and exhales right into your face. "or what, y/n? maybe you should take my advice instead. and stop making rookie mistakes."

as he walks away from you, you shout behind him, "i'm going to expose you, seungcheol!"

"empty threats, la la la." his voice trails back, sending shivers down your spine, as you're left alone in the dark parking lot, wallowing in your own pathetic helplessness.

your search for further evidence has led you to a complete dead-end. the most important thing that you need, the one that will clinch the case for you absolutely, is any - even one- document directly coming from KNT to seola's husband. unfortunately, you've gone through his emails and fax multiple times, but found nothing. nothing on his laptop, no hard drives, no soft drives, no external devices, nothing on his mobile phone or other such devices either. today you're searching all his belongings again and again, but it's still the dead-end. you realise that there's no point looking for more witnesses because seungcheol's just going to drive them away by whatever tricks he's using. and you're confident that seungcheol's thinking a step ahead of you- so any new evidence sources that you might come up with now might have already been dismissed by seungcheol through some back-up plan of his.

"seola, i need you to think once more, please. did he use any other device apart from the one at his office and the one at home? any laptop or any other mobile phone?"

"no... i can't remember anything else, really. we couldn't afford anything more too..."

you grimace. "i hope you don't get offended, but i'm sure he received quite a bit of money from whatever services he was providing KNT. enough to motivate him to keep quiet and hold on for so long. otherwise an honest man like him wouldn't want to get into this mess, would he?"

seola doesn't reply immediately, tears silently dropping down his cheeks.

you sigh and place a hand on her shoulders, rubbing softly as she breaks down into more tears. in the last few weeks, you've become surprisingly quite close. you've comforted her through her worst moments, feeling compassionate both as a woman and as a lawyer. and she, in turn, has helped you without any qualms, in not just the case but also lent a patient ear to you whenever you've wanted to rant, made ramen for you whenever you've worked till late, and let you stay over at her place whenever the rain outside's become too torrential for you to take the bus back home.

after a few long moments, seola is finally able to gain back her composure. "y/n.... he did mention something about an outstation office... towards the outskirts of the city. he used to go there twice a month. he told me it was for sending out packages to the other branches of the company... but maybe you could see there once?" your eyes light up with excitement as you hear seola's words. is this finally the breakthrough you'd been looking for through high and low? is this finally going to be your trump card to win the case? your rational side tells you to not become overjoyed immediately, but something in you is desperate to see that cockiness wiped off seungcheol's face, and bring him down to earth from whatever higher place his arrogance has placed himself at.

"seola, can you give me any tentative location for it? i'm going to go check it now."

"now? but the forecast is showing there's going to be thunderstorms tonight! there's so much thunder grumbling out there-"

"it doesn't matter, seola. i can't afford to lose any more time."

seungcheol's been stuck in traffic for almost an hour now, and the windshield wiper is absolutely useless in preventing the rain from cascading on his front window. the rain is relentless- just like the thoughts tormenting his heart. the reason he's returning home so late is because there had been a dinner party at the workplace cafeteria, hosted by his colleagues and closest friends, jeonghan, joshua, wonwoo and minghao. they're all lawyers with their own reputations, and the only friends they all have now. the point of the dinner? celebrating seungcheol's (upcoming) win in the KNT vs mrs hwang case. (and also to get seungcheol's mind off y/n, who's distracted him from his work all week, ever since their encounter at the parking lot of the courthouse.)

it'd been a mistake to stay out for so long. a sheer lapse of judgement, and seungcheol has not choice but to curse at himself right now. his daughters have called him already, their voices sleepy as they stay up for their father to return home to eat ice cream with them, before they fall into bed.

"and yet, you have no desire to live up to the expectations of hundreds of law students like me who look up to you? you don't care about the youth you're letting down with this attitude?"

y/n's words ring in his mind.

as the rain pours down cruelly, seungcheol's heart lets out silent cries.

he's a failure.

he's failed his family. thirteen years ago, when his parents had cast him out of their house after he'd failed to get a job at a good law firm.

that attitude's gonna get you nowhere, kid! stop running your mouth and focus on your work!

he's failed his first love. nine years ago, four years before he'd finally made his mark in the country's law scene, his wife had divorced him and left their children with him, because he'd not been able to earn enough for her.

stop being such a social activist, seungcheol! the world isn't soft like you. stop being so stuck up and emotional!

and now he's failing his daughters. day after day, they'd stay up late, waiting to spend some quality time with their father. night after night, they'd end up sleeping alone because seungcheol's insomnia didn't let him sleep with them. month after month, he'd promise to take them to their long-due vacation, but he was always too busy to take leave for two weeks at once. year after year, they'd wait for him to come to sports' day but seungcheol could never make it.

appa, if you can't take us to jeju... can we go for the school trip this year to jeju? all our friends are going to go for it...

all these painful thoughts triggered simply by one person- you. you're an unprecedented variable in his life, someone he couldn't even imagine to be a part of his life even a month ago. and yet, you've made him feel so many emotions, that had become dormant for years, in such a short span of time.

he's disappointing you too.

he doesn't know why it hurts what you think of him. seungcheol had thought that at thirty-six, he's finally ascended from these petty thoughts. but somehow your judgemental gaze, your innocent words and your fresh perspectives have shaken him to the core.

or perhaps he does know why, and he doesn't want to acknowledge it.

you remind him of himself.

but you're far better than he was. he'd been a coward, a loser, too quick to give up, and too hasty to drown in his own pity party. you're a fighter, a challenger, not accepting the cruelties of status quo, and too passionate to give up your sense of justice just to fit in with the cut-throat dirty reality.

you're 10 times the lawyer than he could ever be, and something about that makes him so inexplicably drawn to you.

because you're the person he's always wanted to idolised.

no wonder that when you'd told him that you'd looked up to him as an idol, he'd laughed at himself.

the traffic jam disperses slowly, and seungcheol breaks out of his daze. the clock shows 10.30 pm, and the rain shows no sign of stopping. thankfully, the traffic is now moving smoothly.

after almost half an hour of standing at the bus stop, waiting for something to pass by, there's finally a car with a very bright beam slowing down in front of you. it's a private car, but you hope it can give you a l-

"what are you doing here?!" the words escape your mouth as soon as you notice who's in the driver as the car window rolls down.

"get in, rookie."

you consider hesitating, but seungcheol's car looks warm... and safe. so you do get in, hating how there's water everywhere you're touching, spoiling the clearly expensive leather of the seats. but seungcheol doesn't say anything even as you shuffle in and finally settle on the passenger seat.

he thankfully doesn't ask you anything as he lets you take a breath and get warm enough. so about five minutes pass before he asks you, "what were you thinking, standing out there in this rain?" his voice is low, almost cracked, but laced with serious concern. you notice that he's still dressed in his typical suits. is he returning from work so late?

"i had work here," you say carefully avoiding the connection about the case.

"so late at night?"

"it was important."

"that it couldn't wait till the morning?"

"no."

you're aware by the way his jaw is clenched that he's getting annoyed by your short answers. but you have no option except to be as vague as possible- his mind works too fast for you.

"where's your home?"

you tell him the locality, and he sighs. "that's on the opposite side of town."

"i know, just... maybe you can drop me at a more crowded bus stop? the one where i was waiting was a bit remote, but a more crowded one will definitely have more frequent buses-"

"you're out of your mind."

"huh?"

"just because you're irresponsible doesn't mean i will be too. i cannot and will not leave you in the middle of the road in this rain so late at night."

"seungcheol, i don't want to barge-"

"you're not barging into anything. you'll come home with me, change into drier clothes and sleep in for the night so that you don't fall sick."

"y-your home?"

"yes. do you have a better idea?"

you gulp, his gaze stern. you don't have a better idea, in fact getting to change into warm clothes and get into someone's house sounds divine right now. the only problem is that it's.... seungcheol's home. if you can't handle him in his everyday suits, you wonder what thoughts seungcheol in his natural abode will spark in you.

"i'll always be grateful to you."

seungcheol nods, and the rest of the journey is silent.

seungcheol doesn't know yet if it's a good or a bad idea. he did it as an impulse- perhaps some part of him hopes he's still redeemable in your eyes, so he wants to do the right thing for once. but he won't know if it's the right think for everyone until he reaches home.

when he parks the car and takes you up to his flat, he can hear the television blaring harry potter from outside the flat, and he can see the way your eyebrows furrow at the sound. so he slowly unlocks the door, to reveal his two daughters sitting on the couch, undoubtedly watching their favourite harry potter movies again, wearing identical pyjamas specially designed for the identical twins.

he can hear you gasp as you step into the house, and the girls come into your view.

there's an awkward moment of silence and staring, before sol comes running to him and wraps herself around his waist. "appa! we're right at the last scene of prisoner of azkaban, your favourite part!"

seungcheol almost tears up. how can they welcome him so warmly every night even though he's come home so late?

he clears his throat. "sounds like you've been having fun, girls. but first, say hello to y/n unnie-"

"imo," you whisper next to him, your figure shrunk with the cold.

"no unnie," he whispers back. "this is choi sol, our maknae, and that's choi byul, my eldest." the girls wave and shyly say hello, their dimpled smiles flashing politely as they bow. you bow back, "hi sol and byul! sorry you're meeting unnie in this state~"

"are you also a lawyer?"

"did you get caught in the rain?"

"do you work with appa in his office?"

"do you want fresh clothes?"

you giggle at the contrasting questions from the two girls, their starkly different personalities evident. "yes, yes, no, and yes please, if you could be so kind," you smile back, your dainty lips curving into a pretty bow that takes his breath away. sollie shifts from where she'd been wrapped around seungcheol to take your hand gently. "do you think my clothes will fit you? i think byul's clothes will. she has a very warm nightdress..." and she drags you away to her room, welcoming you in without even a single moment's hesitation. byul is more reserved in her welcome, but still warm. she follows the two of you shortly, and seungcheol is left at his doorstep alone, but filled with such a flurry of emotions in his heart that leaves his soul warmed unlike he's felt in years.

about twenty minutes later, he comes out of his bathroom after a refreshing warm shower, his hair soft after the shampoo. he can hear voices from the kitchen, loud-pitched voices of his daughters and the softer, lower voice that he recognises as you.

"unnie, do you want to have ramen?" byul's voice rings out. "we were going to have ice cream but you might feel too cold for that." sol adds, "did you eat dinner, unnie? didn't appa eat dinner with you?" "no, w- we- he picked me on the way when he saw me stranded in the rain. we didn't have dinner... together."

seungcheol's heart breaks and heals a little at the same time. he's taken the right step for now... but seeing his little girls like this have generated images and thoughts in his mind that he had shelved away forever.

the idea of a family.

the idea of giving them a new mother figure.

as he walks towards the kitchen, he can see the way sol and byul cling to you although they've met you barely half an hour ago. perhaps it's because they don't have any cousins and you feel like a sister? perhaps it's because they like bossing over adults, especially since they boss over him so much? perhaps it's because they've already been charmed by your magnetic appeal- your softness and your innocence, mingled with an intelligence that lets you befriend everyone.

"are y'all annoying y/n already?" byul immediately faux pouts, and he can see your eyes light up. "seungcheol, she looks exactly like you," your voice whispers with the revelation. "yes, she's my daughter. kinda expected, don't you think?" he laughs. it's sarcastic of course, because sol and byul actually resemble him more than any other father-daughter pair he's seen in his life. it's almost like they haven't gotten any of their mother's genes. and seungcheol doesn't really regret it. it's been nine years, he's gotten over that pain. his only regret is to not be able to provide a second parent to his children, who'd grown up in spite of being cut off completely by their mother. and his busy life has left him with no space to date or even think of marriage...

except right now.

right now, when he sees you wearing byul's nightdress that barely reaches your knees, cooking ramen with sol sitting on the kitchen counter next to you, chatting away about harry potter, and byul carefully carving out ice cream into bowls for the four of them, seungcheol thinks maybe it's time.

maybe he's found the one.

and maybe, he's already fallen beyond scope to return.

you didn't get much chance to talk to seungcheol last night, but when you wake up on the guest bed the next morning, you can see him as soon as you open the door. he's sitting in the balcony, sipping a cup of tea, reading a newspaper, his glasses sitting prettily on his nose.

"morning," your voice is still raspy in spite of your sleep being perfectly fulfilling.

he turns to look at you, his gaze uncharacteristically soft, much different from how he sees you at court.

"hi. tea?"

you nod, and wobble over to sit next to him. the tea clears your throat a lot, and you can finally open your eyes wide enough to see the glorious view from his balcony. so you soak in the nature for some time, while seungcheol buries his nose into the newspaper again.

"i didn't know you were a father."

seungcheol hums. "did you like them? my girls? they liked you a lot."

"can't help but not like them. they balance each other so perfectly- as if they're your twin personas."

"that's deep."

"but it's true."

seungcheol chuckles and goes back to his newspaper. the morning air hits your face and you feel so much more alive than you'd normally do on a thursday morning. "when do you have to get to work?" he asks you.

"i still have about an hour and half left."

"will you go home and then-"

"yeah. the office is really close to my place, like a minute's walk. so i'll leave soon, don't worry-"

"you'll stay for breakfast." seungcheol says firmly. "the girls will want to see you before you leave."

and you can't turn that down. so you simply nod in agreement, carefully taking a look at the man sitting across you. seungcheol at home is so unimaginably different from seungcheol at court. if he's fire in the courtroom, then he's water at home. he's cold and practical in the real world, but with his daughters, he's the most gentle person you've met. something about the soft smile he gives when he indulges his girls. something about the way his eyes light up whenever they talk to him about anything, even if it's trivial. something about the way he's taken care of you since last night, not just giving you a shelter during a terrible night but also giving you so much warmth from his personal life. it's all made you see a completely different side to seungcheol than you'd met at the courtroom, and it's changed the way you've grown to see him completely.

now you know that seungcheol was not harsh to you that day at lunch, he was simply being realistic. his cockiness and arrogance is just self-confidence, it doesn't define who he is as a person. and he's still a man you can look up to and admit, without shame, to yourself that this is the ideal man in your eyes.

your phone pings right then, and you open it to see the mail that's arrived.

the cup of tea almost slips and falls from your hands as you jump up in your seat in joy. seungcheol looks up at you in alarm, "what happened?" your smile is bright, just like the sun this morning. "i have an emergency at work, i'll have to leave now! please say goodbye to sol and byul from my side!" and you rush into your room to change into your clothes from last night, still damp but at least cleaner, and you literally run out of the house, waving and thanking seungcheol again and again, leaving him very very confused indeed.

seungcheol feels incredibly at peace the next day when he walks into the courtroom. even though you'd disappeared suddenly like that without any explanation, he's quite sure that he's back in your good books. not that it matters much- because what really counts is how he's feeling about himself. and after many years, he's feeling good. the usual guilt that engulfs him as a whole every day as he wakes up to face a new morning, isn't bothering him. he feels like he's achieved something, he's done something right, and he's going to get better from now on.

but as soon as he pushes open the doors of the courtroom, he feels like he's missing something out. everyone on his side of the bench seems flustered as hell, papers rumpled and expressions distraught. but he doesn't get an opportunity to ask what's going on because you catch his attention first.

"seungcheol, can we talk for a second?"

"not right now, i have to talk to my team-"

"this is urgent. you'll want to hear this, i promise."

seungcheol lets out a long sigh as he takes in your words. there's a crisp confidence in your words today that intrigue him. "okay go ahead," he finally replies.

"in private, if you please." he follows you wordlessly out of the room, and you lead him out towards a small isolated office in the corner of the building, that's totally deserted. seungcheol leans back against the closed door, completely silent as he waits for you to settle your papers and finally look up at him.

"so what's this about? you wanna kiss me or someth-"

"you're going to lose the case today. i've found enough evidence to prove the absolute guilt of KNT, and the ceo will go to jail by the end of the court session today."

"you're bluffing me."

"i can show you the evidence, but i'd rather you'd see it in court."

"then why are you telling me this now? to pity me?" seungcheol's mouth fills with bile as a dread settles over him. the tables are turned- now he feels as rattled as he had seen you feel that day at lunch. what if you're being serious right now? what if you've actually found incriminating evidence? but he's gone through all potential sources of evidence with his client, left no stone unturned to hide all tracks-

"so that maybe you can step off the case in time. do you really want your daughters to find out you've been defending your client for so long knowing you're defending a criminal?"

seungcheol's heart skips a beat.

"do not bring them into this."

"i'm not bringing anyone into anything. this is just me being nice to you because i know what it feels like to be disappointed by someone you look up to."

"do you hear what you're saying, y/n?" he takes two steps closer to you. "this is borderline blackmail. i don't even know if you're bluffing or not, and you're already blackmailing me using my daughters. have you fallen to the same crude level i'm in? are you going to disappoint me like this?"

his words have the expected effect on you. he can see your cheeks flush pink. "seu-seungcheol, don't twist my words." you take a step back, your back straightening as he sees confidence seep back into your face.

"and maybe you should stop worrying about my morals and worry more about how badly you're going to lose the case. from next time, don't make rookie mistakes." your finals words, before you leave the room, ring in his ears and cause goosebumps to erupt all over his skin.

as soon as you're gone, seungcheol slams the desk in front of him, his brain running at a hundred miles an hour. what might have slipped from his sight? what might he have missed? he immediately calls the ceo of KNT enterprises.

"what have you been hiding from me?"

"oh? mr choi, what happened to greetings? good morning to yo-"

"nothing's good about today morning, mr kim. what have you been hiding from me? i'm not going to ask you again."

"nothing! i've bared my entire soul to you for the case."

"mr kim, there's a fresh piece of incriminating evidence that's been found, and i cannot do anything to stop mrs hwang's lawyer from submitting it to the court unless you tell me what it is exactly."

"mr choi, you're mistaken, there's nothing left to be wiped-"

"the first rule of a client and lawyer relationship," his voice is seething and snarky, volume rising with each word, "is that you should never lie to your lawyer." seungcheol knows if mr kim was in front of him right now, he'd be quaking in his shoes. he can imagine a similar situation on the other side of the phone too. he knows he's intimidating enough when he wants to be.

"i didn't think it would be important-"

"you're not the person to judge what's important and what's not, mr kim."

there's a sigh and the voice becomes shaky.

"there's an outstation branch..."

the case ends unceremoniously. there are no paparazzi waiting for you outside the courtroom, ready to capture your life's first win. there are no cameras flashing on you, no historic moments being documented, no crowds gathering to celebrate this win for the masses.

there's just seola's happy tears and a wildly beautiful feeling of victory in your heart as realisation ultimately sinks in for you. it's a clean win- the evidence showing unmatched proof of orders coming from KNT to mr hwang, detailing all sorts of illegal activities and even records of payments being made to mr hwang. it's really crazy how it's not been eradicated cleanly already by seungcheol. clearly, either he or his client had underestimated you.

but you'd proven them wrong.

yoona's the only who comes to see you outside the courtroom after the win. there's a bright smile on her face as she hugs you and congratulates you. seola promises that she's going to take you out on a treat right now. other colleagues from your workplace call you to congratulate you on the win.

and yet you feel empty.

seungcheol's gone. he hadn't come for the trial. he'd not been in the courtroom for the final statements, his aide quoting something about a family emergency. he'd run with his tail between his legs, ashamed of his failure and finally realising his stupidity. this thought should be giving you satisfaction, but surprisingly, it doesn't. it leaves you feeling empty, still wanting something even though you've won the case just now.

but there's no way to reach out to him. you don't even have his number for god's sake, and it would be awfully awkward to go to his house. and what would you say? that you missed seeing his sad face in court when the verdict was announced? that you wanted to see if he'd be proud of you for winning the case? that you wanted to impress him by beating him in the case cleanly without any dirty tricks? so you go to eat out with yoona and seola, and decide to stop thinking about seungcheol any further.

it's about seven in the evening when you make it back to your tiny flat in a shabby part of town, the house dark as you'd left it in the morning after rushing home from seungcheol's place. you smile to yourself when you unlock your home using the password on the door, thinking of how you'd been with seungcheol's adorable daughters last night, and how much fun you'd had with them.

your bag falls from your hand as you open the door.

"seungcheol?!" your voice is a shaky whisper, shocked to see him inside your house. "how the fuck did you get in?"

he's still wearing the suit he'd worn in the morning, and yet he looks divine in the dim reflection of lights from the world outside the window.

"your password's your birthday. got it on my first try."

"and how do you know my birthday?"

he takes a step closer, his body towering over yours. "shhh. it's called knowing your opponent."

there's something so oddly intimate about seeing him in your flat, in the shadows of your home. the street light illuminates one side of his face, and you can't breathe because of how gorgeous he looks.

"why do you know my birthday, seungcheol? really it's not going to help you in any way-"

"it did help me get into your house."

you lightly pick up the bag from on the floor next to you, and you walk past him. "which brings me back to the first question. why are you here?"

you're purposely avoiding his gaze, the intensity making you feel things. there's a plethora of emotions in your heart right now- finally the emptiness in your heart dissipates as you can feel yourself surrounded by seungcheol. you're taking off your blazer, untying your hair, walking over to the sink to wash your face... but you can't ignore the way you can feel seungcheol's eyes on your back. his heady scent clouds your senses, and you feel weak in your limbs. first he's intruding your house, and now your heart too?

"i have a question to ask you." he speaks after a long time, when you've finally cleaned up and taken out a cup of strawberry yoghurt from the refridgerator.

"you could've asked me on the phone." you lean back on a wall, putting yourself as far away from seungcheol as possible in your tiny flat. he's in the darkness, you're in the light, but you're still feeling small and vulnerable under his gaze.

"i couldn't. it's serious." he starts walking towards you.

"seungcheol, if this is about me trying to expose your shit, i'm not going t-" seungcheol puts his hand on your lips, pushing you against the wall.

"fuck that. this isn't about that."

you cock your eyebrow, mumbling against his hand, "then what is it about?"

seungcheol doesn't answer at once, his gaze continuing to pin you against the wall, and a hand comes around you to trap you between his bigger body and the wall. "seungcheol?"

"answer me honestly, okay?" his voice is raw, slightly wobbly, and you're getting more and more curious. you nod slowly, encouraging him to say whatever's on his mind. but he doesn't say anything. a few minutes pass just like that- or maybe an hour. his scent makes you dizzy, you can't think of anything but how his big figure is over you totally.

"when you said you looked up to me in college... i know i ruined that image. b- but... can you... fuck. wait. canyoueverforgiveme?"

"what?" you ask, confused at what he just said. he removes the hand from your mouth, standing even closer than before.

"can you ever forgive me? will you let me show you a better side of me? can i ever get in your good books again?"

your breath stops for a second. why does this matter for him? doesn't he already know the state he's left your heart in since last night- ever since he'd brought you into his car, he's already been promoted to your ideal man again.

"show me a better side of you? what do you mean, seungcheol?"

he sighs for a second, before straightening his posture, becoming impossibly even bigger.

"will you ever see me as a man, y/n?"

your knees almost give in. the fuck is his implying? are you dreaming this? is this a fever drea-

seungcheol leans in and kisses your cheek, close enough to your lips, his breath falling on your skin, and making your body tingle. "will you let me show you myself to you like this?" on instinct, you tilt your head away to give him more access, your body shivering with the intimacy. so he kisses your cheek again, closer yet to your lips, and you turn your head slightly to capture his lips, but he moves away.

"y/n, don't leave me hanging please. i know you might find this odd... but i've come to feel things for you that i didn't even know remained in me. you're an extraordinary woman, one of a kind. in all my life, i haven't met anyone like you. not even my ex-wife. you don't know this yet but you're the ideal image of perfection i've always thought of."

then he stops talking for a second, clearly expecting an answer from you. but your mind can't form words, not with the way you have tunnel vision on his face right now, your eyes drifting to his pretty cherry lips, to his long eyelashes, to the beautifully expressive eyes you've fantasised about since your college days.

"y/n, say something please." his voice is desperate, and you break out of your daze.

"you're my ideal man too, seungcheol. you have no idea for how long." there's a blush creeping on your cheeks, but in the dim yellow lighting, you can see an identical blush rise on his cheeks too. so you lean in and finally kiss his elusive lips, feeling the taste of his chapped but pretty lips on yours, feeling the way his body steps even closer to yours, one arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you to him, and your body melts as you feel the warmth from his body. the kisses slowly grow in pace, the momentum rising, as he kisses you more and more hungrily, his tongue entering your mouth too, as he begins to bite your lips and leaves you breathless and moaning just from a few kisses.

"god, rookie. you sure know how to kiss."

"i know how to do a lot of things, seungcheol." you know you're bad at dirty talk, you've never really succeeded at it during your few college experiences of sex. but somehow, seungcheol's eyes roll back at your words and you feel his heartbeat quicken up too. maybe it's working on him?

you try to test your hypothesis by gently wrapping your hands around his neck, slowly untying his tie, slipping it to the floor. once it's off, you rub your hands all over his chest, feeling the pure hard muscle flex under your muscles. his breathing is as hot and heavy as yours, and you slowly untuck his shirt from his pants, unbuttoning it carefully.

"must you torture me like this, y/n?" his eyes are glazed over, but you look up at him innocently. "what, seungcheol?" "fuck it, you're such a tease, princess." princess. he pushes you against the wall and kisses you again, one hand wrapped around your hair as he pulls you in, and another hand helping you unbutton his shirt and get it out of the way. seungcheol doesn't stop kissing you even when he begins to unbutton your own shirt, but his hands wander all over the skin he slowly unravels. it's like his own adventure mission, the gentle but urgent way he touches your skin, almost worshipping.

"you're so perfect, y/n." you whimper when he cups your breasts from over your simple black bra that does nothing to flaunt your tits, but somehow seungcheol's appreciating it all. are you really his perfect woman?

"do you mean it, seungcheol?" your voice is so weak, but it takes seungcheol aback. "what do you mean, y/n? you don't think i find you beautiful? is that why i've been dreaming about you every night these days? is that why you're always on my mind? is that why i died and came back from heaven last night when i saw you with my kids?" your breath hitches as he tilts your face to look at him. "you're the most perfect woman i've ever met, i told you. you've gotta believe me, y/n. or do i have to show you?"

"maybe, yes?"

he groans at your words, and his eyes become darker. "fuck, where's your bedroom, babe?"

seungcheol's touch is like moonlight caressing the ripples of a pond at midnight. a soft, gentle touch that lights up every inch of your skin that he touches. as the moonlight kisses the water and makes it ebb and flow with it, seungcheol's movements guide your body too. he's laying you out on a bed, his hands wandering all over your skin. as he takes in your figure, you let him, because he's making you feel so good. he kisses all over your body, your limbs tangling as you can't get enough of each other. seungcheol is all muscle, his hard planes flexing against your supple skin. he pins you against the headpost of your small double size bed, one hand wrapped around your waist, and the other caressing your breasts, making sure there's not even a single inch of your skin that's left untouched.

"did i tell you i think you're perfect?" his words are feverish, and leave you lost for words. so you can't reply to him, hoping he gets the way you feel about him too through your desperate whines and moans, pulling him closer if he puts even a hair's distance between your bodies. something about him being so big and engulfing your smaller stature is so hot, you can feel yourself getting aroused by the minute.

"seungcheol, i w- want to... touch you," you finally whisper out, and he pulls away from where he's been kissing your neck. "but you are?"

you shake your head and shove him lightly until he's on his back, and you're hovering above him. he's still wearing his pants while he's stripped you naked, so you do the honours for him. "what are you doing," his voice is strained. "want to touch you there," you focus on taking his trousers off until he's just in his underwear under you- his bulge quite obvious to you. if you weren't wet enough earlier, seeing the massive wet patch on his grey boxers leaves your own underwear soaked. is he this aroused because of you?

seungcheol seems to read your mind as he brings your face towards his own, whispering with hot breath, "do you see what you do to me, princess? got me wrecked and ruined." his confession is so raw, you lean in to kiss him again. as you do, your hand wraps around his clothed dick, and he groans into your mouth. "fuck fuck fuck," he curses as you begin to rub it softly. "i'm going to cum right now if you do that- babe, p-please!" he finally gets your hand off his dick, eyes large.

and then you giggle. something about seeing seungcheol so desperate triggers something off in you, makes you more determined to ruin him. so you pull off his boxers and take his erect, red cock straight into your mouth. seungcheol's body trembles with surprise, your name leaving his mouth in broken moans as he cannot take the pleasure of your mouth sucking him off in an excruciatingly slow speed. and you don't stop, even when his hand comes around the nape of your neck to keep you in place, even when you feel his entire body tense up with the imminent orgasm. you don't stop until he comes inside your mouth, spewing string after string of his hot seed, and you swallow it all. his breathing is laboured as he watches you lick off the last bits of the orgasm from his dick.

but your self-satisfaction of having the upper hand only lasts for so long. seungcheol's competitive side kicks in soon and he quickly flips over to pin you under him on the bed, his teeth nibbling at your chest, leaving pretty hickeys all over.

"let me return the favour, darling."

you don't know what he means right then by return the favour, but never in your wildest dreams, did you think it would include seungcheol burying his face into your cunt, his nose rubbing against your clit as his tongue laps up your wetness.

"fuck! no- seungcheol- pl-please, cheol!"

"do you want me to stop?" he asks you, his face barely moving up inches from your pussy to look into your eyes.

you hesitate before answering, so he softly kisses your stomach. "tell me, princess."

"i've never done this before..."

"what? sex?"

"no. oral. like no one's ever gone down on me before..."

and seungcheol doesn't waste another minute. he uses his teeth to push aside your panties and inserts his tongue right into your sloppy cunt, and you scream out his name. he doesn't go slow, and you don't want him to go slow. he's showing you all the stars in the sky, so you grab onto his hair to move his head back to a particularly good spot, and he moans incoherently when you tug at his locks. and within minutes, you're reaching your high, your screams getting stuck in your throat as you close your eyes and arch your back off the bed.

thankfully, seungcheol gets his face out of your cunt and hovers over you to take in your writhing figure under the impact of the orgasm.

"so how was your first experience?" he asks you when you finally open your eyes and look at him, his lips smeared with your essence and his body.

"heavenly," you whisper, before pulling him into you, and kissing him again. you can get drunk on his kisses. he's leaving your lips abused and raw, but when he's spitting into your mouth, you wrap your legs around his waist to pull him closer, feeling the toughness of his back muscles shift under your touch. this position ends up making his cock graze against your clit, and you jerk in overstimulation. but you can feel how hard he's getting with the kissing and the way your hands are tugging his hair. the heavy length rests on your stomach, and seungcheol pulls away.

"need to be inside you now, princess." his words have this rawness to them- long gone is the smooth-talker lawyer choi seungcheol. it takes several moments for you to process that you've caused him to descend to this desperation.

"do you have a condom?" he asks you.

"hmm, i do." you point towards the dresser next to your bed, and he casually bends away to take it out from the dresser. you're getting more turned on by his easy flexibility, and as soon as he's got the condom rolled on to his dick, you pull him for kisses again.

"patience, baby," he laughs, as he pulls away again after kissing you, to nudge the tip of his dick on your folds. "nooo, need you now. need your lips." "did my kisses break you?" "i think so," your voice is a whisper and he leans in to kiss you again, a beautiful smile showing off his dimples.

and then he's slowly pushing inside you, making you whine out his name as you feel him stretch you. it's not an easy fit, but his kisses make the pain easier to bear. when a tear escapes your eyes, he asks you, his eyebrows furrowed in concern, "is it very painful?" "not very but it's been a while." he leaves kisses on your hairline. "i'll be gentle, princess."

you grip his locks tighter, pulling his face away to make eye contact.

"you better not dare, choi seungcheol."

something breaks in him. his hips begin to move faster, as he pushes your hands above your head, holding them as if handcuffed, and he's biting hickeys all over your neck. he's thrusting harder now, and your second-hand bed is already making noises. but it seems to arouse you more for some reason. something about him shaking everything around you and moulding you and everything about you to him makes you want him more.

you can't stop moaning his name, as he whispers into your ear, "i can feel how close you are baby. can feel your cunt clenching around me." "pl-please, cheol. need you more, please!" "more? faster?" you nod feverishly, and he pulls away, biting his bottom lip in concentration, one hand gripping the bed, and the other your leg around his waist, as he fucks into you.

you take in his full form, towering over you like adonis. beads of sweat falling down his pecs and his hair falling into his eyes. the sight is so beautiful that you cum right then, even as seungcheol fucks you through the orgasm.

you can feel that he's close, his dick twitching inside you, as he's making your eyes roll back. even after one orgasm, he keeps fucking you. "give me one more, baby. cum with me." and then he shifts one hand to rub your clit, and you moan under the additional touch. the last straw is when you clench around him so hard that he lets out a strangled moan and reaches his climax too. you can feel the condom become warmer, and you tremble all over as you cum again because of that sensation.

when your eyes open again, seungcheol's pulled out from you, but he sneakily lets in a finger in between your folds and licks it clean.

"seungcheol?" your broken whisper makes him look up at you.

he smirks. "you taste like nectar, baby."

seungcheol's insomnia doesn't let him get a full night's sleep on most nights. if he's lucky, he'll sleep for four hours at once, dreamless rest that leaves him fully charged for the next day. on other days, he'll stare into the night sky for hours, sleep eluding him. some nights he'll go to his daughters' room, and watch them sleep, his heart filling up with a warmth that's comforting like chicken soup. on other nights, he'll open his laptop, put on his glasses and finish his case files.

everyone wonders how seungcheol is so efficient at his profession. only he knows why.

but ever since you've come into his life, everything's changed.

he can no longer focus on work. he's distracted, making silly typing errors and forgetting details. but he's sleeping the best ever in a long time. he doesn't remember when was the last time he'd slept this well. it must've been before the fights had started with his ex-wife.

today, seungcheol sleeps for eight hours straight.

and he knows why.

it's because he's wrapped around you, your body melting into his under the duvet. your head's resting on his arm, but his arm doesn't hurt at all. your hair shines with the sunlight streaming in through the gaps between the curtains, but you sleep through the slight pouring into your eyes. you look particularly angelic today morning, and he feels his entire being shiver with the new-found affection for you.

you're his.

finally.

well, hopefully.

jeonghan had told him yesterday when he'd told him about his feelings for you, you've not been turned down until you've been turned down. so shoot your shot.

and oh, he had shot his shot. shot it too fast in fact. the clarity of the morning makes him suddenly worry if going straight into your bed last night had been too quick and you'll think poorly of him now. then there's the worry about you going to sleep without eating dinner last night- what if you wake up angry? another worry crops in his head as he realises it's a saturday. he doesn't have to go to work today, but you might have to. what if you get upset at him for not waking you up on time? the warm, glorious light in seungcheol's heart dims slightly as he realises you have so many reasons to turn him down.

so he lightly shakes you, whispering your name in your ear, until he feels you whisper out a soft five minutes. it makes his heart melt again, but he's more worried about you missing a work day.

"wake up, princess, you're going to be late."

as if hearing a magic word, you jolt awake, staring right into his eyes.

"late?! what's the time? fuck, it's nine-thirty!"

"it's saturday though. do you have work today?"

and then you fall back on his arm with a huff.

"saturday! of course i don't have work today. why did you wake me up!" you whine and turn around so that you're now snuggled into seungcheol's bare chest, your hair only slightly tickling him. the warm light in his heart shines bright again as he feels you cling to him.

"i didn't know if you work on saturday or not." seungcheol leaves a kiss in your hair, and you let out a satisfied sigh.

"now you know. never forget, okay? never wake me up on weekends."

never forget.

"i won't." another kiss in your hair. another sigh that makes his chest buzz. another kiss. and then you open one eye to peer at him, and he smiles at your cuteness. so there's another kiss, and then another, and then-

"stop!" you move out of his arms, giggling, your eyes finally open.

"i can't. you're too cute."

"shhhh!" you lean in to kiss him on the mouth, a gentle peck, and seungcheol takes the opportunity to wrap you in his arms again. "don't go far away." he's more serious that his tone implies, but somehow you realise that too. so you snuggle in closer, your head almost on his chest now. "i won't."

after a few long minutes of you being still in his arms, and him smelling your scent through your hair, you finally shuffle and pull him down so that his head is now resting on the pillow and you're resting your head on your palm, perched on the pillow using your elbow as support, looking down at him with clear fondness in your eyes.

"you're very romantic today, mr choi."

"do you not like it?"

"no. on the contrary, i love it."

at your words, he smiles, and you let out a fake gasp. "the rabbit has dimples!" and you attack his face with kisses, leaving him giggly and blushing as you smother him with love.

when you're finally done, he pulls your face in for a kiss and then you go back to your position to look at him from above.

"come lie down next to me."

"no this view is prettier."

seungcheol scoffs, hiding the way his heart is racing with your words. it's been years since anything barely romantic- a few dates here and there. but this is teenage seungcheol again, falling head over heels for a girl with a pretty smile and a cute way of speaking her mind.

"this view is the prettiest," he says and he's rewarded with your pretty smile again. so he spends a minute staring at the view, taking in your beauty.

you've not been turned down until you've been turned down. so shoot your shot. somehow jeonghan's nagging voice comes up in his head again and makes him remember that he's yet to ask you properly.

so he counts to three and says it.

"i like you, y/n. a lot. as i told you last night."

a strawberry latte blush taints your cheeks.

"and as i told you last night, you're pretty much my dream man, seungcheol. i've been crushing on you since my freshman year."

well that was easy.

"that long?" seungcheol feels his confidence cruise back, a smirk on his lips.

"don't laugh at me."

"i'm not. it's just unbelievable that you liked me back then. i wasn't even well off back then."

"who even cares about that! you were confident, manly, intelligent and passionate about your work. and so, so handsome. how could anyone not like you?"

"am i not handsome now?"

"of course you are, silly. that's why i still like you." you roll your eyes, as if it's so obvious. "i couldn't even date guys for a long time because i kept comparing them to you in my mind."

seungcheol's eyes go wide. "wait, really? that's kinda sad."

you laugh. "maybe, but who cares? none of them were nice in the end. that's why i kept going back to crushing on you." you lean in to kiss the mole on his cheek.

"how long has it been since your last relationship?"

"hmmm, about seven months? broke up before i graduated."

"and sex?" he hopes you can't see the way he's holding back his breath as you answer. "about a year."

and then he lets out his breath.

"and you?" you ask him, running your fingers through his hair.

he hesitates before replying. "nine years," his voice is weak.

and then you do what he's been fearing for so long.

you laugh.

"wow. that's like... that is long." but your expression changes into a serious one soon. "but you haven't lost any of your technique yet. so it's a win in my books. i don't even have to be jealous of anyone else. who was your last lucky lady?"

"my ex-wife." seungcheol winces as he mentally prepares himself for all the reasons you might turn him down.

but you don't. your serious expression remains even as you're surprised. "you were married? is she the mother of sol and byul?"

"yeah."

you nod your head slowly, digesting the information. after a second you say, "i can't fathom why anyone would leave you and your two perfect little girls."

seungcheol's smile turns bitter. "she did. but it doesn't matter. she's found a better life now, after moving away to the US with her new husband. and i've found a better life too, moving away from her."

you nod again. "you're very brave, cheol." and you kiss his cheek again, and seungcheol's heart swells at how maturely you've handled this conversation. but there's yet more reasons for you to reject him.

when you pull away to look at him again, you softly ask him, "are your daughters okay with the idea of you dating again?" dating. there are tingles all over seungcheol's body as you finally quash all worries from his mind. "i haven't explicitly discussed this with them," he says with some hesitation. "that being said, i think they like you a lot. you made a very strong first impression. and trust me, for ten year olds as stubborn as mine, a first impression is all that matters."

"they're just like you," you giggle, your hand fondly cupping his cheek. "but seriously. they like me as a friend... as your colleague. what if they don't like me as your... girlfriend?"

girlfriend. seungcheol wants to flip you down on the bed and make love to you all over again, but he resists his urge. he settles for wrapping his hand around your hips and caressing them. "they'll love you, princess. they've longed for a mother figure for long enough." after a pause he says, "i'm worried they'll not see you as a mother figure but as a sister."

you burst out laughing. "what?!"

"i'm much older than you, y/n."

"so?"

"i'm thirty-six, y/n."

"that's not old. i'm twenty-three."

seungcheol chokes on his own words. "exactly. i'm literally old enough to be your father, y/n."

"well, you'd have to become a father really really early then," you say, laughing.

"y/n, be serious."

"i am being serious. i've met men who're twenty but act like they're forty. what really matters is what you've got here-" and you poke at his chest where his heart's supposed to be.

"i'm going to die thirteen years before you!"

"darling, i don't think that's how death works."

darling. seungcheol's heart hammers against his chest as he pulls you in for a deep kiss. and then you pull away from him. "you're a dilf, seungcheol. that's like 80% of why i'm attracted to you. bet i wouldn't be attracted to twenty-three year old you." there's a teasing glint in your eyes, but seungcheol still whines as he feels upset at your teasing words. "babyyyy!" you laugh at his deepening pout, and lean in to kiss his pout in a peck, before getting out of bed.

seungcheol's mouth falls open as he takes in your soft curves which look even more alluring in the daylight. something about the way your ass sways as you walk makes his dick twitch in interest, but seungcheol curses himself. he can't be thirty-six and this hormonal, for fucks' sake.

you open the closet door to pull out a loose t-shirt and shorts, wearing them without any underwear. "do you want to stay for breakfast?"

a lazy grin spreads on seungcheol's face as he stretches his body in bed, relishing the way you ogle his stretching biceps, and he casually pushes the blanket away from his hips to reveal his toned stomach to you too.

"i want to stay for the rest of my life, rookie."

he's left with no doubt of reciprocation of his feeling as he sees the blush on your face as you hide and run from him at his cheesy words.

637 notes · View notes

amyzworldds · 3 months ago

Text

Title: Solo Adventure

Masterlist

After a New York mishap, Seungcheol punishes Seventeen's maknae yn with a 7 PM curfew and two months of dorm-cleaning alongside Dino, Vernon, and Seungkwan. A month in, boredom drives yn to sneak out at midnight for ice cream. Pairing: Seventeen x 14th member Genre: Fluff, Humor Timeline: 2017

It had been a month since the New York disaster, and Seungcheol wasn’t messing around anymore. The two-month dorm-cleaning punishment was in full swing—Yn, Dino, Vernon, and Seungkwan were still scrubbing floors and wrestling with laundry piles—but the leader had zeroed in on the real troublemaker: YN. The boys? They were just her reluctant sidekicks, dragged along out of worry or sheer inability to say no. So, Seungcheol grounded her—and her alone—with a curfew tighter than a drum.

“7 PM, YN,” he’d declared, arms crossed like a stern dad. “You don’t leave the dorm after that unless it’s for work, with a member, or a family member’s dragging you out. That’s your punishment.”

Her parents, who’d known Seungcheol since yn was a squalling baby, were fully on board. Over a crackly phone call from their vacation abroad, her mom had chimed in, “Make it 6 PM, Seungcheol-ah! She’s been stressing us out since she could walk. Teach her a lesson!” Her dad had just laughed in the background, muttering, “Good luck, kid.”

The members tried to keep her entertained—board games, impromptu dance-offs, even letting her direct a ridiculous dorm “movie” where Hoshi played a tiger and Mingyu was a damsel in distress. “We’re not letting you sneak out again,” Joshua had said, tossing her a controller for a video game. “You’re a menace when you’re bored.”

But yn? Boredom was her kryptonite. She could handle the cleaning—grumbling through it with dramatic flair, like when she’d “accidentally” dumped a bucket of soapy water on Vernon’s head—but the curfew? The isolation? It was torture. Seungcheol even banned late nights, insisting she sleep by 11 PM. “You stay up late, you get wild ideas,” he’d said, eyeing her like she might tunnel out with a spoon.

For a month, she’d sulked, stomping around the dorm, ignoring Seungcheol’s every command with the petulance of a grounded teenager. “Two months of cleaning for all of us, but I’m the only one locked up like a criminal?!” she’d whined to anyone who’d listen. “This is unfair! Dino was there! Vernon too! Seungkwan’s got lungs—why not ground him for screaming Coups’ name in New York?!”

“Because you’re the mastermind,” Jeonghan had teased, flicking her forehead. “They’re just your minions.”

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One fateful night, a month into her sentence, it all came to a head. It was a rare day off, and with her parents out of the country, yn had been cooped up in the dorm all day. No schedules, no outings, just her and the four walls of her room. She felt like a caged lion—or maybe a hyperactive hamster, pacing and plotting. By midnight, she was sprawled on her bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling with a scowl that could curdle milk.

“This is prison,” she muttered, kicking her blankets off dramatically. “A death sentence! I’m 18, not 80! My feet are itching—they’re screaming to run free!” She flopped onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow and fake-sobbing loud enough to wake the dead—except no one came running, because the dorm was silent, everyone else blissfully asleep.

She sat up, eyes glinting with rebellion. “That’s it. I’m done. Curfew? Psh. Grounding? Overrated. I’m sneaking out—solo mission!” She grinned, the thrill of defiance bubbling up like soda in a shaken can. “Let’s see what chaos I can stir up tonight.”

Tiptoeing out of her room, she moved like a ninja—or at least, her version of one, which involved a lot of exaggerated crouching and humming spy music under her breath. “Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh, secret agent yn, on the case!” she whispered, nearly tripping over a stray sock in the hallway. The dorm was a snoring symphony—Hoshi’s wheezy snorts, Mingyu’s deep rumbles, and Seungcheol’s occasional grumble about “schedules” in his sleep.

She crept to Dino and Vernon’s room, peeking through the cracked door. Dino was sprawled across his bunk, one leg dangling off, snoring like a chainsaw. Vernon was curled up in a ball, muttering something about “pizza” in his dreams. “Useless,” yn huffed. “They’re out cold. No backup tonight.”

Seungkwan’s room was a no-go—he bunked with Seungcheol, and waking him was a death wish. “Guess it’s just me and the night,” she said, rubbing her hands together like a cartoon villain. “Perfect. I thrive in chaos.”

She grabbed her hoodie—bright yellow, because stealth wasn’t her forte—and slipped on her sneakers, already buzzing with excitement. The anxiety of sneaking out alone? To her, it was a rollercoaster thrill. “What’s the worst that could happen?” she mused, easing the dorm door open with a creak that made her freeze. No one stirred. “Ha! I’m a genius.”

Out in the cool Seoul night, yn practically skipped down the street, her grin stretching ear to ear. “Freedom!” she whisper-shouted, twirling under a streetlight like she’d escaped Alcatraz. She had no plan—just pure, unfiltered yn energy. Maybe she’d hit a 24-hour convenience store for snacks. Maybe she’d find a park and swing until dawn. Or maybe she’d just wander and see what trouble found her first.

Back at the dorm, the clock ticked past 2 AM, and the silence held—until Seungcheol rolled over in his sleep, mumbling, “YN, don’t you dare…” His leader instincts were tingling, but he didn’t wake.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Yn was in her element, strolling through the quiet Seoul streets at 2:30 AM, a cheap convenience store ice cream cone in one hand and a bag of chips dangling from the other. Her yellow hoodie glowed under the streetlights, and she was belting out a goofy rendition of Seventeen’s latest song, swapping lyrics for nonsense. “Oh, I’m a pretty troublemaker, yeah, sneaking out ‘cause I’m the best—ooh, ice cream, don’t melt on me!” She twirled, nearly dropping her cone, then caught it with a triumphant, “Ha! Skills!”

Her solo rebellion was going swimmingly—no grumpy managers, no snoring members, just her and the night. She licked her ice cream, humming happily, when a soft whisper cut through the air. “Yn? Is that… yn?”

She froze mid-lick, turning to see five girls huddled near a bench, eyes wide and hands clasped like they’d just spotted a unicorn. “Oh my gosh, it is her!” one whispered, barely containing a squeal.

Yn’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Hey, cuties!” she chirped, bounding over with her trademark grin. “What’s up? You guys carats?”

The girls nodded frantically, too starstruck to speak at first. “Can… can we get a picture?” one finally stammered, holding up her polariod with shaky hands.

“Totally!” Yn said, striking a goofy pose with her ice cream. “But listen—don’t post it, okay? Coups oppa grounded me, and if he finds out I’m out here, I’m toast. Like, ‘cleaning-the-dorm-for-eternity’ toast.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “He’s got me on lockdown ‘til 7 PM unless I’ve got a babysitter. Can you keep it a secret?”

The fans giggled, nodding like bobbleheads. “We won’t tell! Promise!” one said, snapping a quick photo of yn mid-wink, ice cream dripping onto her sleeve.

“Sweet! You guys are the best,” Yn said, wiping her sleeve on her hoodie without a care. “Hey, wanna walk with me? I’ll buy you ice cream if you’re down—just no posting, deal?”

“Deal!” they chorused, falling into step beside her like a little entourage. Yn led them back to the 24-hour convenience store, her energy infectious as she waved her melting cone like a conductor’s baton.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Inside the store, yn played ice cream fairy, grabbing cones for everyone—strawberry for one, chocolate for another, and a weird green tea flavor for the boldest fan. “This one’s either amazing or tastes like grass,” she warned, handing it over with a laugh. They plopped onto a bench outside, and yn launched into full yap mode, regaling them with dorm tales—carefully curated for maximum fun, minimum privacy invasion.

“So, Coups oppa is, like, the worst,” she said, waving her cone for emphasis. “He’s got me grounded because of this whole New York thing—long story, don’t ask—but why am I the only one suffering? Dino was there too! And get this—Woozi keeps stealing my cola stash. I’ll hide it under my bed, and he’s like a bloodhound, sniffing it out! Then he’s all, ‘Oh, YN, didn’t see your name on it,’ while chugging it in my face!”

The fans laughed, hanging on her every word. “And the cleaning!” she groaned, flopping back on the bench dramatically. “Two months of scrubbing because of one tiny sneak-out! Mingyu keeps ‘accidentally’ leaving his sweaty gym socks everywhere, and Hoshi’s like, ‘Yn, you missed a spot!’ while he’s eating chips on the couch I just vacuumed!”

One fan, clutching her strawberry cone, giggled. “Sounds like they’re torturing you!”

“They are!” yn wailed, then grinned. “But I’m sneaky. See? Here I am, free as a bird, eating ice cream with you angels. Coups oppa can’t stop me!”

The clock ticked toward 3 AM, and YN showed no signs of slowing down. She was mid-story—“So then Jeonghan oppa pretended he lost his phone just to make me search the dorm, and it was in his pocket the whole time!”—when one fan’s phone buzzed loudly. The girl’s face paled as she answered. “Mom? Uh… I’m just out with friends… I’ll be home soon!”

The call ended, and the fans exchanged guilty looks. “Yn, we’ve gotta go,” one said hesitantly. “It’s super late, and our parents are freaking out.”

Yn pouted, her ice cream now a sticky puddle in her hand. “Aw, already? But I was just getting to the part where Seungkwan screamed so loud he woke the whole dorm!” She sighed, then perked up. “Okay, fine. You guys head home—but promise you’ll keep this on the down-low, yeah?”

“Promise!” they said, beaming. “Take care, YN! We’ll support Seventeen forever!”

“And tell Coups oppa to chill!” one added, giggling as they waved goodbye.

“Ha! Fat chance,” Yn called after them, watching them disappear into the night. She sat back, finishing her chips with a satisfied crunch. “Best fans ever. This is why I sneak out—freedom and friends!”

--------------------------------------------------------------

By the time yn tiptoed back into the dorm, it was pushing 3:30 AM. She kicked off her sneakers, tossed her hoodie onto a chair, and flopped onto her bed, still buzzing from her adventure. “Mission success,” she mumbled, pulling the covers up with a smug grin. “Coups oppa who? Grounding what?” She was out cold in seconds, dreaming of ice cream and adoring fans.

Morning came, and the dorm hummed with its usual chaos—Hoshi banging pots in the kitchen, Mingyu yelling about missing socks, Seungcheol barking orders. Yn strolled out of her room, yawning like nothing had happened, her secret triumph tucked safely away. Seungcheol eyed her suspiciously over his coffee. “You’re awfully chipper for someone who’s grounded.”

“Just happy to be alive, oppa!” she chirped, dodging his gaze to grab a juice box. “Cleaning duty’s got me in high spirits!”

“Uh-huh,” he muttered, but let it slide. Vernon shuffled by, squinting at her. “You look… rested.”

“Sleep’s my superpower,” she said, winking. Dino just groaned, lugging a laundry basket past her. “Why am I still suffering and you’re all perky?”

“Positive vibes, Dino-yah!” she sang, skipping off to avoid further questions.

The fans kept their word—no photos surfaced, no whispers spread. Twitter stayed blissfully quiet, and Seungcheol’s spidey senses didn’t ping. Yn had pulled off the perfect midnight sneak-out: no evidence, no fallout, just a night of ice cream, laughter, and a little rebellion to keep her sane.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Next day, fan meeting was in full swing, a buzzing sea of Carats clutching albums and grinning ear to ear as Seventeen signed away. YN sat smack in the middle, flanked by Seungcheol on her left and Jun on her right, her energy dialed up to eleven. She was in her element—winking at fans, doodling little hearts on their albums, and tossing out playful banter like confetti.

“Yn, you’re my favorite troublemaker!” one fan gushed, sliding her album over.

“Aw, thanks! I try,” Yn chirped, scribbling her signature with a flourish and adding a tiny bunny sketch. She handed it back with a grin, oblivious to the storm brewing just a few fans down the line.

Next up was a girl with a sweet smile, her eyes twinkling with something yn couldn’t quite place. “Hi, yn,” she whispered, leaning in close. “I’m one of the girls you bought ice cream for at 3 AM.”

Yn’s pen froze mid-heart. Her eyes ballooned, darting to Seungcheol and Jun, who were busy charming their own fans—Seungcheol nodding at a question about his favorite food, Jun doodling a cat on someone’s album. She snapped her gaze back to the girl, pressing a finger to her lips with a frantic “Shhh!” before plastering on a grin. “Hey, good to see you too!” she said, a little too loudly, signing the album with a shaky hand.

The girl giggled, then slid a polaroid across the table. “Can you sign this too? It’s us from that night!” It was a goofy shot—yn in her yellow hoodie, ice cream dripping down her wrist, flanked by five girls striking silly poses with their own cones. The date and time were stamped in the corner: two days ago, 3:12 AM.

Yn’s brain short-circuited. It’s fine, it’s fine, she won’t show anyone, she told herself, forcing a laugh. “Love this pic! Our little secret, right?” She scrawled her signature across it, adding a winking emoji, then handed it back with a conspiratorial wink. The girl nodded, tucking it into her album, and moved down the line, blissfully happy.

The girl reached Seungcheol next, still beaming. “Hi, Coups! You’re so cool!” she said, sliding her album over. He smiled warmly, chatting about the tour as he signed with his usual neat precision. But as he flipped the album closed, the polaroid slipped out, fluttering to the table unnoticed. The girl didn’t see it, too busy gushing about his leadership skills, and Seungcheol didn’t either, handing the album back with a “Take care!”

The signing wrapped up, and the members shifted gears—fans settled into their seats, and the stage turned into a playground. Hoshi pranced around in a tiger onesie a fan had gifted, Mingyu tried on a pair of oversized sunglasses, and yn was busy tormenting Woozi, belting an off-key version of “Adore U” right in his ear. “Woozi-yah, love meeee!” she warbled, dodging his swat with a cackle.

Jun, meanwhile, lounged at the table, sipping an iced coffee and fiddling with a plush cat toy. “This is cute,” he mumbled, squeezing its paw—until his eyes caught something under the pile of gifts. A Polaroid, half-buried under a scarf. He tugged it free, squinting at the image, and his jaw dropped.

“Yo, what?!” he yelped, holding it up to the light. There was yn, grinning like a fool with ice cream smeared on her face, surrounded by five girls mid-laugh. The date glared back at him: two days ago, 3:12 AM. “No way. No way!”

Yn, still oblivious, was now trying to drape a flower crown on Woozi’s head. “Hold still, you grumpy gremlin!” she laughed, completely missing Jun’s growing grin.

Jun grabbed his mic, voice booming across the venue. “Hey, carats! Who’s this in the picture?!” He waved the Polaroid like a flag, then turned to Seungcheol with a devilish smirk. “Coups, come look at this!”

The fans erupted in curious cheers, craning their necks. Seungcheol, mid-conversation with Joshua about a fan-made banner, frowned and ambled over. “What’s so funny, Jun?”

Yn’s head whipped around, and when she saw the polaroid in Jun’s hand, her eyes ballooned to saucer size. “Oh no,” she whispered, dropping the flower crown. She bolted across the stage, arms flailing. “JUN, GIVE ME THAT!”

But Seungcheol was faster. He snatched it from Jun’s hand, holding it out of her reach as she leapt like a frantic cat. “What’s this, huh?” he said, scanning the photo. His smile froze as he clocked the date—two days ago, 3:12 AM. His gaze slid to yn, who skidded to a stop, hands clasped in a desperate plea.

“Coups oppa, it’s not what it looks like!” she squeaked, her voice hitting a pitch only dogs could hear.

“Not what it looks like?!” Seungcheol roared, holding the Polaroid up for the members to see. “This is you, two nights ago, at 3 AM, with ice cream and fans! You’re grounded, yn! 7 PM curfew! What part of that didn’t stick?!”

The fans gasped, then giggled, the girl from the signing sinking low in her seat. “I didn’t mean to!” she whispered to her friend, mortified. “It just fell out!”

Jun was doubled over, laughing so hard he nearly dropped his coffee. “She’s unstoppable! Grounded and still sneaking out for ice cream? Legend!”

Yn lunged again, but Seungcheol sidestepped, waving the photo like a prosecutor with evidence. “You’re dead, kid. Dead! What’s your excuse this time?”

“I was bored!” Yn wailed, flopping dramatically onto the stage. “You locked me up like a prisoner! I needed air! Ice cream! Freedom! And those fans were so nice—they didn’t post it, see? No harm done!”

“No harm?!” Seungcheol barked, though a tiny smirk tugged at his lips. “You’re lucky they didn’t, or we’d be trending again—‘Seventeen’s Maknae Escapes Jail for Ice Cream!’”

The members piled on—Hoshi howling, “She’s a ninja!” while Vernon muttered, “I knew she’d crack eventually,” and Seungkwan clutched Dino, whining, “Why am I not surprised?” Woozi just sighed, finally free of her singing, and deadpanned, “Can we trade her for a quieter maknae?”

The fans cheered, loving the chaos, as yn scrambled to her feet, pointing at Jun. “This is your fault! Why’d you pick it up?!”

Jun grinned, tossing the cat toy at her. “Because it’s hilarious! You’re a walking disaster, and I live for it!”

Seungcheol shook his head, tucking the Polaroid. “This is evidence. And your grounding? Extended. 6 PM curfew now, thanks to your parents’ brilliant suggestion. And don’t even think about sneaking out again—I’m putting bells on your door.”

“Bells?!” YN gasped, clutching her chest like she’d been shot. “That’s inhumane! I’m not a cat!”

Seungcheol stood center stage, the incriminating photo still in his hand, his leader glare dialed up to maximum. The members were scattered around him—Jun still snickering, Woozi nursing a headache, and yn sprawled dramatically on the floor, fake-crying about her extended curfew. The fans buzzed with excitement, loving every second of the chaos.

Seungcheol raised the mic, his voice cutting through the chatter. “Okay, whose Polaroid is this? Who’s the mastermind behind this evidence?”

A timid hand shot up from the crowd. It was the girl from the signing, her face a mix of guilt and glee. “Uh… me?” she squeaked, sinking lower in her seat as every eye turned to her.

Seungcheol sighed, marching to the edge of the stage and hopping down to her row. “Here,” he said, handing the Polaroid back with a stern look. “Keep it safe this time—and maybe don’t let it fall into the wrong hands, yeah?” He flashed a quick smile, softening the edge just enough to make her blush, then climbed back up, mic in hand.

The girl clutched the photo, whispering to her friend, “He’s so cool even when he’s mad!” The crowd cooed, and Seungcheol shook his head, turning his attention to the fans at large.

“Alright, listen up, Carats,” he said, pacing like a disappointed dad. “You’re all amazing, but some of you? You’re part of yn’s trouble squad now! I know she’s a handful—” he shot a glare at yn, who stuck her tongue out—“but if she sneaks out again and you run into her at 3 AM, tell me. Send me a text, a carrier pigeon, whatever! I need to know what she’s up to!”

The fans giggled, and one brave soul shouted, “What’s your number, oppa?!”

He smirked, wagging a finger. “Nice try, but no. Seriously, though—what did she do that night to keep you all so quiet? Spill it!”

The girl with the Polaroid piped up, voice shaky but proud. “She bought us ice cream and told us funny stories about you guys! She said Woozi steals her cola and Hoshi tortures her with cleaning!”

Woozi groaned from his seat, muttering, “It’s not stealing if it’s in the fridge,” while Hoshi cackled, “She’s just mad I’m a better tiger than her!”

Seungcheol’s eyes narrowed at the crowd. “Ice cream at 3 AM? And you all just went along with it? How old are you guys—teens, right? What were you doing out that late? Don’t your parents worry?!”

The fans squirmed, some laughing nervously. “We were just… hanging out!” one called, earning a chorus of agreement.

“Hanging out’ at 3 AM?!” Seungcheol barked, throwing his hands up. “You’re as bad as her! Next time, go home and sleep—don’t let yn rope you into her chaos!”

Yn popped up from the floor, grabbing her mic with a grin. “Oh, come on, Appa Coups! You’re stricter than my real dad! These Carats are my heroes—they kept me company while you had me locked up like Rapunzel!”

The crowd erupted in laughter, chanting “Appa Coups! Appa Coups!” Seungcheol’s face twitched, caught between annoyance and amusement. “Appa, huh? You wanna talk parents? Your mom and dad text me every week thanking me for dealing with you! ‘Seungcheol-ah, you’re a saint,’ they say. ‘We’re so sorry she’s your problem now!’”

Yn gasped, clutching her chest. “Lies! They love me! You’re just mad because I’m aging you faster than a bad dye job! Look at those stress lines—because of me, you’re gonna be gray by 25!”

Seungcheol smirked, leaning into the mic. “Oh, I’m way past that. Thanks to you, I don’t even want kids anymore! One yn is enough—I’d rather adopt a rock. Less trouble!”

The fans roared, and yn flopped back onto the stage, wailing, “I’m a blessing, not a curse! Tell him, carats!” The crowd cheered wildly, waving their lightsticks in solidarity.

Dino, who’d been quietly basking in the chaos-free zone, grabbed his mic with a grin brighter than the stage lights. “Wait, wait, wait—can I just say something? For the first time since I met yn, I’m safe! She didn’t drag me into this one! I slept through it like a normal person!”

The fans cooed, and Seungkwan jumped in, mic in hand. “Same! I was snoring with Coups hyung—no alley chases, no dumpster dives! I’m free!”

Vernon nodded sagely, sipping a water bottle. “First time in years I didn’t wake up to her plotting. It’s a miracle.”

Dino spun to the crowd, eyes gleaming with fan-service energy. “You don’t get it, Carats—she’s a manipulator! Every time, it’s the same! ‘Dino-yah, it’ll be quick,’ she says. ‘Just a snack run!’ Next thing I know, we’re lost in New York, hiding from fans, and I’m cleaning toilets for two months! She’s got those puppy eyes—‘Please, Dino, I’ll die without you!’—and I fall for it every time!”

Yn sat up, pointing at him. “Excuse you, I don’t manipulate! I inspire! You love my adventures—admit it!”

“Love?!” Dino yelped, clutching his hair. “I loved sleeping last night! That’s the real win! You should’ve seen her in New York—‘Dino, let’s sneak out, it’s fine!’—and then we’re running from a mob, and I’m praying to survive!”

Seungkwan nodded furiously. “She’s a menace! That night in New York, I screamed so loud I woke myself up, and she’s just laughing like it’s a game! I’m still traumatized!”

Vernon smirked, leaning into his mic. “She’s like a chaos magnet. I only went because I didn’t wanna be the guy who let her die. Now I’m just glad I’m not grounded too.”

The fans were in stitches, shouting “Poor Dino!” and “Save Vernon!” while yn pouted, crossing her arms. “You’re all so dramatic! I’m the victim here—grounded, belled like a cat, and now betrayed by my own maknae line!”

Seungcheol stepped forward, waving the crowd down. “Alright, enough—here’s the deal, Carats. You’re my spies now. If yn sneaks out again, you tell me. I’ll give you a signed album or something—just keep her in line, because clearly I can’t!”

The fans cheered, and one yelled, “We’ll protect you, Appa Coups!” He flashed a thumbs-up, then turned to yn with a mock glare. “And you—6 PM curfew starts tonight. Try me again, and I’m chaining you to the dorm.”

Yn flopped back, kicking her legs like a toddler. “This is oppression! Carats, save me from Appa Coups!” The crowd laughed, chanting her name, and she popped up to blow them kisses. “I love you all—even if you’re snitches now!”

Jun, still giggling, tossed the cat toy at her. “You’re never beating the troublemaker title, yn. Own it!”

Dino leaned into Seungkwan, whispering loud enough for the mic to catch, “Finally, I’m not the fall guy. I might cry.”

“Cry later,” Seungkwan shot back, “we’ve still got laundry duty because of her last stunt!”

The fan meeting rolled on, the members diving back into gift-opening and fan games, but the air buzzed with yn’s latest legend. Seungcheol kept one eye on her, the polaroid incident filed away as ammo for future lectures. The fans, now honorary S.Coups spies, adored their chaotic maknae even more—and yn? She was already plotting how to sneak past her new 6 PM jail sentence, because no amount of scolding could dim her wild spark.

232 notes · View notes

forlix · 2 years ago

Text

𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠・h.h.

— you're uninviting, there's no doubt about that, your resolve like unpolished diamond and tongue like broken glass. but hyunjin finds you're not half as impossible as everyone assumes you are.

words・11.1k

pairing・idol!hyunjin x female stylist!reader (inspired by this)

genres・fluff, angst, eventual smut so MDNI, some hurt/comfort, some humor, mc is a bad bitch and hyunjin is a #simp, enemies? to lovers, sexual tension, workplace relationship, mutual pining, slow burn, nonlinear narrative

warnings・reader vividly remembers an anxiety attack, alcohol is consumed, lots of compartmentalization and imperfect communication, complex people feeling complex emotions, smut warnings under the cut

playlist・farewell, neverland by txt・like crazy by jimin・black friday by tom odell・collide by justine skye・crying lightning by arctic monkeys

a/n・call me victor frankenstein bc i've given birth to a MONSTER (except i actually love and care for mine ofc). this was easily the greatest challenge of my fanfiction-writing career and it feels like my magnum opus; i hope it's worth the wait! also a huge shoutout to sahar for being my voice of reason and my biggest supporter :’) i don’t deserve u i love u

smut warnings・cunnilingus, overstimulation, creampie (practice safe sex!!), mild dacryphilia

Present day. Cannes, France. 5:54 P.M.

You’ve long made peace with the fact that Hwang Hyunjin is incapable of shutting up for more than five minutes.

As it is, the man has a mouth that runs like a cross-country marathon; then throw in his uncanny aptitude for annoying you, and what do you get? A nonstop slew of terrible jokes and teasing quips, tailored according to his thorough mental manual of what gets under your skin hardest and fastest.

This is the reality you live in, presumably because you were evil in your past life, and you’ve steeled yourself to see it through.

But twenty minutes have passed since you and Hyunjin ducked into the back of a cab and gave the driver the show’s address—and, as stunning as the red rooftops and lazuline coastline of Cannes are, you find you’re more interested in Hyunjin’s peculiar silence.

You move your gaze to his face. He’s looking outside, his chin resting upon the palm of his hand, the afternoon sunlight dusting over his chiseled features like polish on pottery; his complexion an exuberant gold against the cream-colored linen that makes up his clothing.

Maybe it’s because you opted for a simpler makeup look today, leaving the most telling contours of his face warm and bare, or maybe it’s because you’ve spent the last year committing his every mannerism and expression to memory. Nevertheless, you see through his pursed lips and tight brow right away.

“Nervous?”

Hyunjin’s head swivels towards you with a small snap, like he’s forgotten you’re here. His lips fall open, their glossy peach color glinting with the small shift.

“No,” he replies reflexively, but then his facade flickers. “Fuck, maybe a little. It’s just hard to believe, you know?”

You do know. It was a huge honor for both of you when Hyunjin was named the newest global ambassador of Versace. For you to be attending the brand’s pop-up show in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, among some of the world’s most prolific creatives, is truly incomprehensible. Even you’ve been feeling antsy since you landed; you can only imagine Hyunjin’s anxiety.

You have never been good at consolation. You think your mouth is too coarse, your propensity for honesty too strong. But you’ve always known just what to say when it comes to him.

“Just remember who you are.”

Hyunjin takes a few seconds to process your words, but his understanding washes over his whole body; straightens his back; hardens his gaze. You don’t see this change in posture, though. You’re too busy looking anywhere else, all of a sudden feeling quite embarrassed.

Nor do you see the private smile that disperses across Hyunjin’s lips; his eyes softening so, so marginally when they peer at your profile; his hand twitching where it rests on his knee, as if contemplating reaching for you with a mind of its own.

Thirty seconds. That is the amount of time you have left to bask in this otherworldly tranquility. And then he speaks.

“I want you to meet my parents.”

Your arm reacts before your mind can. Without having to turn your head an inch, you smack him squarely in the bicep, sending him crumpling against his door with a bark of a laugh; “please,” he adds, and you’re biting back a smile as you hit him again, with less conviction this time.

The cab driver nearly misses an exit, too busy wondering about the peculiar pair in his backseat and the nature of your relationship. He can’t tell if you hate each other or if you’re married.

One year ago. Seoul, South Korea. 8:42 A.M.

“I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”

“For my newborn daughter.”

“Yeah, okay. I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me for your newborn daughter. What does that brat have that I don’t?”

“My genes, to begin with.”

“That’s unfair. She’s using—”

An important-looking pair of women step out of the nearest elevators, the clacking of their heels ricocheting sharply off the lobby walls. Hyunjin straightens his back so quickly he thinks he pulls a muscle. He and Seojun incline their heads in perfect sync, their “good morning”s prim and professional.

“She’s using cheats,” Hyunjin hisses the second the women are out of earshot again, and this wrests a laugh from the older man at last.

Around one month prior, Seojun confided in Hyunjin that he and his partner were expecting their first child soon, and that he would be putting his career on indefinite hiatus to welcome her into the world.

Hyunjin had never felt so conflicted in his life. On one hand, he’d grown closer to his stylist over the last two years than he’d thought possible, and he knew it was stupid to be anything but delighted for him and his expanding family. On the other hand, it was precisely because they’d become so close that he wanted to grab the man by the ankles and shake the decision clean out of his body. He couldn’t imagine a dressing room or tour bus without him.

Today is a Saturday, but it’s also Seojun’s last day with the company. Hyunjin dragged himself to the JYP building at half past eight with much less reluctance than he let on. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

“Fourth floor,” Seojun instructs after the pair enter the elevator, and Hyunjin presses a knuckle to the according number. “Thanks.”

The doors slide shut; the floor numbers tick upwards.

“What was her name again?” Hyunjin asks.

“Y/N,” Seojun returns. “Y/L/N.”

“Is she here already?”

“No, she’ll be here at nine.”

There’s a small pause.

“Hyung.”

“Hm?”

“I feel like I’m being married off to another family for political reasons.”

“God, I can’t wait to be free of your theatrics.”

At this, the two men make eye contact; exchange smiles. The elevator announces their arrival to the fourth floor, and they step through the doors.

“You’ll be in good hands,” Seojun reassures. “She’s the best of the best. I hear she’s basically running the industry these days. I’m surprised she agreed to take you on.”

“I’m surprised an old fry like you knows someone like her,” Hyunjin replies, and the look Seojun gives him is so withering that he thinks he pulls a muscle again with his apologetic bow.

“You’re not wrong, though,” Seojun concedes. “We happened to work on the same project back when she was still a small name, and we’ve kept in touch ever since. She’s a great kid. Ambitious, hardworking, strong as hell—”

They arrive outside their destination, and Hyunjin holds open the door to the conference room. Only to find that Seojun has stopped in his footsteps, temporarily stunned by a new realization.

She reminds me of him.

“He’s forgotten how to walk,” the him in question whispers like he’s narrating a nature documentary, and the moment is over. “Is this what fatherhood does to a man?”

Seojun kicks Hyunjin into the room by the seat of his pants.

The minutes pass slowly. Seojun moves his eyes between the door and his phone every few seconds, visibly antsy about the imminent meeting. In the meantime, Hyunjin makes the groundbreaking discovery that these office chairs are absurdly and almost suspiciously comfortable. All it takes is a chin upon his palm and a few seconds of shut-eye, and he’s suddenly slumped over the table, snoring softly into the crook of his elbow.

At 8:57, Seojun’s phone lights up with a new notification. At 8:58, he notices that Hyunjin is asleep, and closes his hand around the crumpled receipt in his pocket. At 8:59, he scrunches said receipt into a ball and launches it in Hyunjin’s direction. It hits him squarely on the head, and the boy is nearly knocked to the floor like a bowling pin.

“For that,” Hyunjin sputters, “I’m the godfather.”

“Absolutely the hell not.”

Then, it is 9:00.

When the door of the conference room opens, Hyunjin is still trying to gather his wits, wondering if the bastard is leaving the makeup industry to secretly pursue a career in professional basketball. He just barely notices the unfamiliar figure who steps into his line of vision.

“There she is,” Seojun greets warmly, rising to his feet right away. “God, how long has it been? Two, three years now?”

You’re not doing anything remarkable when Hyunjin sees you for the first time, simply walking across the room and bowing graciously in Seojun’s direction, but he is immediately under the vague impression that you’re cutting through space as you move, scorching the particles of air that dare obstruct your path.

With his head cocked slightly to the left, like a fascinated puppy, Hyunjin watches the stunning smile that forms on your lips when you take Seojun’s hand; your finger as it tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear with the elegance of rippling silk. His mind feels impossibly slow, like you’ve tapped open his skull and robbed him of his ability to think.

Then, you toss Hyunjin a look over your shoulder, and he’s reminded of lightning forking towards the earth. Terrifying, volatile, beautiful.

“Something like that,” you say, turning back to Seojun, and time starts to move again. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Lee. Congratulations on the baby.”

“Please, Seojun is fine,” he answers hastily. “And thank you. Thank you for all of this, actually. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have you.”

“You’re too kind—I’m excited too.”

Upon uttering the word “we,” Seojun delivers Hyunjin a fleeting side-eye; he takes the hint and pushes himself to his feet, feeling uncharacteristically clumsy as he moves towards you.

The second time he meets your gaze, it feels wrong, almost, for him to hold it for as long as he does. Like he’s approaching your throne with his chin held high and eyes fixed forward instead of his head sweeping the ground.

Except he swears he senses a strange warmth within the rings of your irises, and he spends every second of eye contact following, chasing it, almost craning his neck with how badly he wants to get a closer look. Until he’s as close to you as is socially acceptable for a first meeting and comes to a halt.

He ends up losing its trail, but he won’t forget that it’s there.

“My client, I’m guessing?” You say, extending your hand. “Y/N. It’s a pleasure.”

Your fingers are freezing cold where they meet his, and Hyunjin already knows that melting the permafrost that coats your flesh and guards your soul will be the tallest task of his life.

But he finds his next words accompanied by an involuntary smirk; he’s nothing, if not tenacious.

“Hyunjin,” he returns. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Nine months ago. Paris, France. 6:16 P.M.

Hyunjin isn’t sure why—maybe you forget that he can still steal glances at your reflection over your shoulder or through the gaps of your fingers—but he’s learned over the last four weeks that you’re different, gentler, when you’re doing his makeup.

Your cold hands request instead of demand that he angle his head a certain way or suck in his cheeks. Your syllables are rounder somehow, your voice never traveling above a murmur. Even your eyes mellow out when you move in really close, your pupils dilating as you detail the final touches to the fresco you’ve painted upon him.

Your expression doesn’t give you away (it never does), but his hunch is that there’s a sprinkle of doting somewhere among the intense focus. That would explain why he feels like a flower in the moments when your fingertips and gaze move so carefully over his skin, like you’re touching his petals, trying not to tear them.

Too bad you never let him daydream for long.

“Close.”

“Huh?”

“Your eyes. Close them.”

His lashes have hardly brushed his lower lids when you begin to empty what feels like an entire bottle of setting spray on him. At the moist surprise, Hyunjin’s features scrunch up around his nose and he lets out a distraught hack like an old man.

A few seconds later, the barrage stops, and he cracks open a wary eye to scope out his surroundings. You wait until he does this to give his face one last spurt.

“Witch,” Hyunjin mutters, clawing back up the vanity chair.

“Thank you,” you reply, completely earnestly.

And whatever Hyunjin was going to say next suspends instantly on his tongue when you bring the pad of your thumb to the very edge of his lower lip and drag it across the soft flesh. He wonders if you know how hard he tries not to look at your mouth whenever you tend to his. He wonders if there’s anything you don’t know.

“You smudged your lipstick already.” There’s a small streak of coral pink on your hand when it falls back to your side. “See? That’s why we need the setting spray.”

“Uh huh.” And Hyunjin spots a ghost of a smile flit across your face, gone nearly as soon as it appears. The only evidence of it ever existing is the quickened heartbeat it leaves behind within him.

“You’re done, by the way,” you say, stepping aside. “Take a look.”

He slips out of his seat and moves closer to the vanity, peering at his reflection as curiously as if he’s never seen it before. But that’s how he’s felt since he started working with you.

Seojun was right: you are the best that the makeup industry has to offer. Hyunjin has come to understand this for multiple reasons. Your phone screen is incessantly illuminated by new notifications and incoming calls. The other stylists heed your advice like it’s the law. Brushes and pencils move like water when it’s you maneuvering them. And then some.

He would call what you have “talent,” but he knows it’s more than that. You show him a new version of himself every time you turn a mirror in his direction, like there are facets of him that are visible to you and you only. As much as he delights in the notion that you have such intimate knowledge of him, it should be impossible, considering you’ve only known him for two months. So no, it’s not just talent that you possess. It’s some combination of talent, hawkish perception, and raw artistry that is utterly inhuman—and sexy as fuck.

Speaking of sexy. Hyunjin’s look is relatively rudimentary tonight, the makeup light, the outfit a simple black tank top beneath a jacket and pants made of bright red velvet. But it’s the details that tie the whole thing together: the wide, loose sleeves causing the jacket to slip continually off his shoulders; the inner layer tight in all the right places. His face doesn’t look half bad either, with the sultry carmine powder that fringes his eyes and the intentionally mussed state of his hair. He pushes a hand through the dark locks, regarding himself with thorough appreciation.

You appear in his periphery as you start cleaning up your work station. “You can just take the jacket off when your sweat glands start malfunctioning, by the way. I thought you’d appreciate that detail.”

At this, his smize cracks into a laugh, the sound loud and uninhibited and uniquely yours to hear. “You suck.”

He looks away from his reflection just in time to glimpse another of your phantom smiles, and he thinks it’s so painfully on brand that the two times it’s appeared tonight have both been from you making yourself laugh. You might be the most insufferable person he’s ever met. He might be obsessed with you anyways.

“Well?” You implore. “What do you think?”

“No notes.”

It’s the answer you’re expecting. You survey him from head to toe one last time, decide that you, too, are satisfied, and slip your makeup into your bag; hike its strap over your shoulder.

“I’ll see you after the show, then.”

You have an important conference call to attend before tonight’s concert, hence why Hyunjin had to come in early for hair and makeup. This is also the reason why the two of you have been the only people in the dressing room for the better part of an hour.

It’s rare that he ever gets you alone, and he doesn’t want it to end. Not just yet.

“I lied, actually,” he calls. “I do have notes.”

You already have one foot out the door when you hear this, and you turn around so slowly and in such disbelief that he has to fight to constrain his laugh—the concept of imperfection is truly unthinkable to you. Insufferable, like he said.

“Do tell,” you say, dropping your bag back onto the floor.

“You have any jewelry for me?”

You chew on this for a moment. You did have a selection of necklaces prepared for tonight, but they were heavy and numerous, not exactly the best-suited for the group’s dynamic sets. You still like them, granted, and you know Hyunjin would as well.

You articulate all of this to him, and he asks if he can take a look at them anyways. “Come here, then,” you say, the words so tantalizing when they fall from your lips that nearly trips over himself trying to obey.

You take out a flat rectangular box from your bag and set it down in front of the lightbulb-studded mirrors. Hyunjin observes quietly as you show him its contents: three thick, gold chains with varying lengths and boasting different pendants, plus a beaded bracelet and an assembly of rings of the same material. His devious plan aside, he does love the selection.

“You’re sure you won’t be uncomfortable?”

He nods, and you pick up the longest of the three chains; turn to him expectedly. He takes this as his cue to move closer to you, except he overshoots a little, and he feels the tips of his shoes accidentally bump into the ends of yours; discerns the warmth emanating from your body against his own. He expects a withering glare, a kick in the shin, maybe, but you don’t seem bothered by the proximity at all, unblinking as you bring your hands around the either side of his neck and fasten the first necklace with a soft tap. Your fingers then brush over his collarbones to adjust the pendant, and he thinks your hands would have to be numb not to perceive the frantic heartbeat threatening to burst straight out of his skin.

Entire minutes pass before Hyunjin musters the courage to actually look at you. By then, you’re already working on the third and final necklace. It’s not a surprise that your face is mere inches away from his; he’s been watching your reflections out of the corner of his eye; he knows you’re closer to each other than you’ve ever been. But there are parts of you that the mirror doesn’t show—the soft curve of your lashes, the concentrated narrow of your eyes, the shapely protrusion of your pursed lips—and these surprise him so thoroughly that he slips and slides out of his right mind.

You are the type of beautiful that’s been around longer than humans have, the same as that of the true blue color of forget-me-nots. And Hyunjin feels enveloped, intoxicated by you from this minuscule distance. The idea forms numbly in his head that maybe, just maybe, he was put on this earth to admire you.

In this inebriated state, he makes a venturesome decision.

When you finish centering the last pendant upon the his chest, you are about to take a step back and review the updated look, but you’re debilitated by the feeling of fingers grazing over your hip—lightly, so lightly that you mistake them for a gust of wind at first, but the contact is enough to push the small of your back against the edge of the counter. Then, both of Hyunjin’s hands reach behind you, pressing flat against the marble surface, and, just like that, he has you right where he wants you, ensnared between cold stone and hot flesh.

And so begins an equilibrium so fragile that it’ll shatter if one of you so much as blinks the wrong way, your rattled breath fluttering against his lips, his eyes dark and hooded and out of focus as they survey the fine lines of your expression. It still doesn’t give you away (it never does), but he finds that in this moment he just doesn’t care.

“Let me take you out,” he murmurs. “One date.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You reply under your breath.

“You know what I’m talking about, beautiful.”

Upon uttering that last word, he angles his head almost imperceptibly, the movement challenging, daring you to say something about it. But you don’t. You merely hiss out a whetted “you’re fucking crazy,” and that’s his opening to drag this on a little longer; push your limits a little more.

“About you? Damn straight.”

At this, finally, fucking finally, there is a semblance of something in your face that isn’t just your usual mildly-irritated nonchalance. Instead, he detects surprise in the whites of your eyes as you widen them; as you part your lips with a response that only comes much later.

And he’s surprised by your surprise. Surely, with your skills of observation, you would’ve noticed long ago how his world shrinks down to only you and your gorgeous voice and your confident glare and your shitty sense of humor whenever he’s been granted the privilege of your presence.

This might be the first time he’s admitted it out loud, but he hasn’t tried—hasn’t been able—to hide how he feels about you, not now, not ever. It’s been that way since the moment the sole of your shoe met the carpet of that conference room on the fourth floor of the JYP building.

“Hwang—” You begin.

“Hyung!”

At the sound of a third, new voice, your arms tense like you’re about to shove Hyunjin off of you, but he only leans in further, so that his lips almost graze your jaw and your hands have nowhere to go except the taut surface of his chest. The surprise is gone; now you’re just pissed. He can feel the heat of your furious eyes and the tremor in your hands as you form fists around the fabric of his top. But he takes his sweet time in scooping up the bracelet and rings, and only afterwards does he pull away from you and straighten to his full height.

“Hey, Innie!” Hyunjin chirps, and Jeongin materializes in the doorway, looking thoroughly perturbed by the older boy’s sunny tone. “What’s up?”

In the meantime, you turn around to snap the lid of your jewelry box shut, and it takes a singular glance in the mirror for a truly horrible realization to settle upon your shoulders. You don’t think anybody would be able to tell even if you announced it outright, but you know yourself and the little nuances of your face all too well.

You’re flustered.

You feel like a horror movie heroine breaking the fourth wall.

“Nothing, weirdo. I was just announcing my arrival,” Jeongin says. Thank fuck you did, Hyunjin thinks to himself, completely unaware of the epiphany you’re having behind him. “Chan-hyung mentioned you were here already? Why?”

“She’s in high demand.” Hyunjin points out the she in question by jutting his chin in your direction. “The usual.”

“Ah.”

Jeongin inclines his head towards you in polite greeting. You return his hello, but your expression starts to feel tight when his eyes dart between the strange smile on Hyunjin’s face and your awkward stance (still glued to the edge of the counter) as he drops his duffel by the couch. The boy isn’t stupid, unlike his older counterpart.

“I saw a vending machine on my way here,” Jeongin says, turning to leave the room again. “You want anything, hyung? Noona?”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you say.

“I’ll have whatever you have,” Hyunjin says.

Jeongin flashes a thumbs-up and dips out of the room, perhaps a little more hastily than he intends to come across. And then there are two. Again.

You wait until you can’t hear his footsteps anymore, and then you turn to glower at Hyunjin so intensely that he thinks you’re about to place a curse on his whole bloodline.

Then, your phone starts vibrating, and he knows he’ll live to see another day.

“You still owe me an answer,” Hyunjin calls as you turn around and leave the room.

“Don’t hold your breath,” you reply.

One day, I’ll break her, is the predominant thought that resides in Hyunjin’s head as he slips on the remaining jewelry; watches your figure disappear around a corner. One day, I’ll break his face, is the predominant thought that resides in yours as you stalk away. That’s the two of you, in a nutshell.

Six months ago. Osaka, Japan. 3:03 P.M.

When you walk into the dressing room, you find Haeun hunched over an overflowing photo album with her hands forming fists in her hair, muttering to nobody in particular, “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

There’s an amused look in your eye as you set your bag down by Hyunjin’s empty vanity chair. She hasn’t noticed your presence yet; approximately three hallways down, the members are rehearsing for tonight’s performance on the main stage of the Kyocera Dome, and the music is so loud that you think you actually saw the walls vibrating while you were in the hallway moments ago.

You rise to your tiptoes and encroach upon her, waiting until she’s within reach to tickle the back of her neck. She nearly flies out of her seat with a shriek that can be heard over the heavy bass.

“Never gets old.” You hand her the photo album that went soaring also, and Haeun snatches it back with an affronted flourish.

“I can’t remember the last time you said hi to me normally, unnie.”

“Me neither, now that you mention it.”

Haeun and Han are your favorite stylist-idol duo in the world because they’re so eerily similar—and it’s adorable. They both illuminate every room they walk into; they both have grins too big for their faces, laughs too loud for their lungs. You always regret leaving your sunglasses at home when you catch sight of the effulgent pair.

But today you cannot detect the usual radiance in Haeun’s voice, nor so much as a hint of her easy grin. Then again, that’s another quality that she and her client share; they’re both well acquainted with the burdens that come with unwavering passion.

Every stylist has their own modus operandi. Haeun’s is a scrapbook of images that she cuts out and saves from catalogs, advertisements, newspapers, et cetera. You’ve seen it many times before, but never in such a state: messy handwriting stuffing the margins to their very brims, numbers and symbols like clusters of rainclouds over a sea of different outfits, arrows and circles and squares highlighting pant cuffs and cascade collars and dangling earrings. Telltale signs that Haeun hasn’t a clue as to what Han will be wearing tonight.

You gnaw on your lower lip, deliberating your next move. You end up placing a firm hand against the album’s cover and pushing it closed.

“Come with me,” you say. “We’re gonna try a new approach.”

Haeun opens her mouth to protest, but unfortunately you have an extensive track record of being right.

“What do you have in mind?” She sighs instead.

“You’ll see.”

With that, you stand up, tuck a small towel under your arm, and angle your head in the direction of the music.

The two of you make your way through the labyrinth of hallways that comprise the venue’s backstage. Eventually, the color of the floor changes from speckled white to solid black, and you step onto the part of the stage that is concealed from the audience by drawn curtains and heavy equipment. You say a quick hello to the group’s manager as you dip past him, and eventually reach the edge of the curtains, where you and Haeun have a good view of the eight members as they run through their setlist for tonight’s concert.

Haeun settles into the spot beside you, still confused as she follows your gaze.

“Let me ask you this,” you say, just audible over the din. “Can you style a performer if you don’t know how he performs?”

And understanding seeps over her features like poured tea.

“I want you to watch him,” you continue. “Tell me how he performs.”

Han’s part begins, as if on cue. His voice rings out through the empty stadium as he ducks to the front of the formation, a microphone held loosely to his lips, his face taut with focus. Haeun stares at him for some time, silently trying to fathom her observations, but she sees you shaking your head in the corner of her eye.

“Don’t think, Haeun. Just speak.”

She blows out a deep breath before obliging. “It’s hard to picture Han doing anything but laughing or making other people laugh, he’s so goofy and lighthearted most of the time. But he’s like a different person on stage. He’s so intense, it’s almost intimidating. Not intimidating in a douchey way, though—you just get the impression that he’s very confident in himself and his music.

You don’t say another word, but don’t need to. She’s hit her stride.

“His voice and enunciation are so clear. It’s crazy how he sounds exactly like the studio recording. Plus, his delivery feels genuine; he’s not just reciting lyrics, but speaking straight from his heart.

“And this is gonna sound bad, but I didn’t know Han could dance. Like, yeah, I knew that he could dance, but not like this. His movements are so sharp that I feel like my attention is being—”

Right there.

She cuts herself off, reaching the same conclusion.

“It’s his turn to talk, and he wants you to cling to his every word," Haeun articulates slowly. "He’s demanding your attention. He needs you to listen. That’s how he performs.”

A satisfied smile bolts across your face like lightning. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Haeun pictures her scrapbook again, and there are now only a few articles of clothing and accessories that fit the framework you’ve helped her forge. She’s almost dizzy with disbelief, tearing her eyes from Han to look at you instead.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?”

“I do, but I appreciate the reminder.”

She can’t help but giggle. It’s a you answer if she’s ever heard one. “Do you do that with all of your clients?”

Haeun asks the question arbitrarily, without thinking. But you respond in a way that she doesn’t think she’s ever witnessed before, and she’s momentarily baffled by the sight: you hesitate.

As the song’s final chorus approaches, Hyunjin is the one folding himself into the center of the eight-person throng. You can only see his back from this angle, but even then it’s palpable how expertly and effortlessly he molds his body to the modulations of the music; how much fervor and feeling he expresses with every jerk of his spine and flex of his hands.

Within a few short seconds, innumerable descriptors and sensations skim the surface of your mind—but one word knocks the rest clean out of the water, the way it always does when you watch Hwang Hyunjin perform.

Artistry.

“No,” you reply. “Not all of them.”

And where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?

Haeun furrows a brow, understandably puzzled by this response, but you don’t elaborate. Partially because you feel like being coy, but mostly because you know that any explanation you offer will sound like a confession.

The song ends, leaving your ears ringing with the abrupt absence of sound. The members hold their poses with heaving shoulders, staring out into the empty stands until the stage manager’s voice comes through the monitors.

“And that’s a wrap! We’re all set for tonight. Good work, everyone.”

There is a ripple of movement around the stage as the boys relax. Jeongin jogs over to Minho, hoping to review a particularly challenging dance break; the manager asks Chan if he has a second to discuss travel logistics; Seungmin plops onto the edge of the stage and downs the rest of his water; Hyunjin beelines toward you the second he sees you, because of course he does.

You get a good look at him as he skips closer. Stray blonde locks plastered against his damp skin, tank top dyed several shades darker by the perspiration rolling down his neck, the muscles of his arms actually rippling as he swings them around stupidly, a shit-eating smile plastered across his stunning face.

You’re annoyed before he says a word.

“I didn’t know they were letting fans backstage now,” he hums happily. “Want an autograph, gorgeous?”

“Put a sock in it.” You whisk the towel you’ve been holding in his direction. “Wet freak.”

But he catches and tosses it over his shoulder straightaway, and your heart sinks to your fucking ankle. You’ve seen this movie before. You know how it ends.

“No.” You take a shaky step back. “No, nope, don’t even think about—”

The next thing you know, Hyunjin is lunging towards you and winding his arms around your waist, nearly sweeping you clean off your feet as he pulls you into his sweaty embrace. To your complete dismay, your face presses flat against the clammy plane of his chest. “Call me a wet freak again, go on,” he manages to say through his laughter.

In response, one of your hands wriggles free of its slippery prison and snatches the cuff of Hyunjin’s ear with impressive accuracy. He yelps and loosens his hold on you, but doesn’t relent completely, not even when he catches sight of the murderous expression on your face and cackles so forcefully his whole head is thrown back.

You tighten your grip. “Wet,” you seethe, “freak.”

“Ow—okay, don’t make it hot, what’s wrong with you?”

“Wha—what’s wrong with YOU?!”

As the two of you dissolve into your fatuous arguing, Haeun is no longer sure that she’s still standing here. She’s not even sure if she’s in her right mind anymore. She thinks she might be hallucinating the way everything about Hyunjin softens next to you, or the way your biting tone only seems to nibble when it’s him on the receiving end.

“Psst. We’ve been placing bets on them. You want in?”

Han suddenly materializes next to Haeun, and she would have been jumpscared into a different dimension if she wasn’t so fixated upon the bizarre occurrence before her.

But what if she’s not hallucinating?

No, not all of them, you’d said, like you were disclosing a forbidden secret.

“Yes,” she says, and Han beams. “Absolutely.”

Three months ago. Seoul, South Korea. 2:26 A.M.

On a tranquil Saturday night, you’re sitting at your desk, your knees tucked to your chest, the newest episode of your drama playing quietly on your laptop, a half-empty glass of rosé and open sketchbook laid before you. This is your happy place—a safe haven that the trials and tribulations of the real world can’t reach. But you think you’ve really gone and lost your mind when you find yourself thinking about your job.

Well, not your job, exactly. More like the man who makes your job feel fucking Sisyphean.

You know your way around fabric and foundation better than anyone, but you have never struggled with anything as much as you have trying to navigate Hyunjin. You show up to work every day ready to just put some makeup on the man; instead, you wind up stumbling around the potholes of his dimples and the hills of the veins that run over his forearms and hands like a hopeless drunkard. Scouring the creases of his smile and the oscillations of his voice like they’re topographical maps. Mentally replaying your interactions with him time and time again like you’re monitoring security footage, trying to detect illicit activity in every casual touch he leaves on your shoulder or waist; every babe or gorgeous he throws your way, seemingly without a second thought.

You’ve been trying to understand him and his intentions for seven months now, and your efforts have yielded no fruit whatsoever, save for a few theories that you feel insane for even humoring.

You down the rest of the blush-colored liquid, and as you set down your empty glass you notice your fingers itch with a familiar urge. The pen that you’ve been twirling over your knuckles stills, then swivels; its tip hovers over the last free corner of the sheet of cartridge paper below you. And then it presses upon the surface and starts to move, as naturally as if on its own.

When you were little, you came across a children’s book that you no longer remember the name of, about a little girl with a magical pen that brought her every drawing to life. You decided then that you would one day be that girl.

At some point, the subjects of your incessant sketching became almost exclusively runway models and makeup advertisements. You cemented that you wanted to work in fashion as early as your high school graduation, and by then you already possessed the conviction and charisma of the industry’s most experienced members. Your portfolio was stellar; your personality prophesied of wild success. So your career took off, propelled by the neverending positions and projects that various companies continually laid before your feet.

You stand and pad to your kitchen to refill your glass, only to bring the entire bottle of wine back to your room instead. With one hand, you flick the cap off and lift the whole thing to your lips; with the other, you seize your pen again, not wanting to lose momentum.

For the year or so after you joined the industry, you basked in your idyllic prosperity. Even the doodles you scrawled on random napkins during banal business lunches would appear on some of the world’s most renowned faces the next week. You had indubitably become the little girl from your story; made a career out of giving your imagination tangible form. And what a fruitful career it was going to be.

If only you knew how it would strengthen you in ways you never wanted.

The first time someone called you cold, it took you a while to realize that they were talking about you. The phrase was said so casually and lightheartedly that it sounded at first like a piece of unimportant small talk. But the whisper of cold bitch was then followed by a bout of stifled laughter and what was undoubtedly your name. Your heart stopped along with your footsteps, and you looked towards the source: two interns whose names you had yet to learn, while yours was already in their mouths.

You felt nothing until you were three stops away from your apartment, and then the bottom of the subway gave out beneath you and suddenly you were feeling everything. Only confusion, hurt, and rage at first, but then the other emotions that you’d been smothering tirelessly for who-knows-how-long tore free of their cerebral shackles too, and together they formed an amalgamation of anxiety that closed up your throat within seconds.

As your pen studs details into a shapely jawline, you remember how you’d shoved your way off the subway and made a mad dash into the night air. You remember how you collapsed against a utility pole in an unfamiliar neighborhood, how your knuckles paled around the ashen wood, how your tears tumbled over your lips and salted your tongue. You remember wanting to go home so badly that you thought your ribcage would cave in on itself with the weight of it. You remember begging for air, for you.

By the time the oxygen had returned to your lungs, the streets were empty save for you, crouched on the curb, your face buried in your arms, spent, shattered, and alone. You were only nineteen at the time.

You are now twenty-two, and the word “cold” has become a regular guest in the lodgings of your heart. You never invite it over, but you’re no longer surprised to find it at your door. It’s a thief, swiping pieces of you when it thinks you’re not looking—a fragment above the fireplace, a scrap from the cracks between the couch—and you know whenever you’re being robbed, know that you lose parts of yourself upon its every visit. But better that than acknowledging what you lose.

You allow it to walk away with full pockets every time.

Hyunjin does not.

“Three words to describe yourself. Go,” he said a few days ago, the two of you heading back to the tour bus after a filming session.

You were so used to these irrational inquiries of his that you didn’t bother trying to dodge this one. “You first.”

“Smart, sexy, suave,” he said immediately, but burst into a sheepish laugh at the sight of your weary glare. “Fine, fine, let me think. Ambitious, for one. Introspective, definitely—maybe overly so. And artistic. I’d like to think so, at least. Satisfied?”

The most creative person you knew doubting his own ingenuity was absurd to you, but you nodded begrudgingly. It was a good answer, for the most part.

“Now you.”

Honestly, the thief had surfaced the moment you heard the question, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to inform Hyunjin of its existence. Not because you didn’t trust him—you did, more than you had anyone in years—but because you didn’t know what you’d do with yourself if he agreed. You weren’t sure your heart would be able to take it.

When you met the boy’s gaze, though, the carob brown of his eyes was so curious and so comforting that you suspected that was never a possibility.

“Cold,” you mumbled. “I’ve been called cold before.”

There was a pregnant pause. You found yourself holding your breath. And then—

“That’s a joke, right?”

Hyunjin began to count off his fingers.

“Mean. So mean. Impossibly, infuriatingly confident. Talented, stubborn, strong. Funny, sometimes, I guess, though I’d rather you hit me with a metal pipe than admit that ever again.”

At this, you caved; a laugh erupted from your lips, leaving a genuine smile in its wake.

“Determined. Eloquent. Bossy. Some kind of evil, twisted genius. Contemplative, caring, compassionate. Fearless,” he went on. “You get my point. You’re a lot of things, Y/N, but cold isn’t one—”

He was about to say something mind-numbingly stupid. You could sense it in the air.

“—and not just because you’re hot.”

You smacked his bicep, the smile on your face now an uninhibited, helpless grin. And as he vanished into a fit of high-pitched laughter, you thought you sensed him crack open your door and slip your missing artifacts back to their rightful places.

Hyunjin began to climb into the bus, and you caught the cuff of his sleeve, your feet still planted on the pavement.

“Thank you,” you said.

The tremors of his fond chuckle traveled to your very core.

“Idiot,” he sighed softly.

Idiot, you write, and the drawings are complete.

When you stand up, the bottle is mostly gone—and so are you. You splash some water on your face in lieu of your skincare routine and prod the inside of your mouth a few times using a dry toothbrush, and then you dive beneath your duvet and are dead asleep in minutes. Your slumber is interrupted only by dreams of a world where your theories about Hyunjin aren’t just theories.

If you’d had even one mouthful less of rosé, you might’ve remembered that you picked up your phone and opened your most recent conversation somewhere between steps two and three.

[3:10 A.M.] To: Hwang Hyunjin (Stray Kids, JYP) Audio Message.wav

Hi. I’m drunk and I’m going to regret this tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow’s business. There’s something I need to tell you tonight.

After I moved to Seoul, I used to get these bouts of homesickness. Not in a standard ‘I wanna go home’ kind of way, but in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below me. I was always ready for it to swallow me alive. I would’ve been happy for it to.

But I haven’t felt that way since I met you. I realized this not too long ago, and it threw me for a fucking loop. I’ve never felt seen the way you see me. I’ve never been known the way you know me. Every time I look at you or hear your voice, it feels so much like returning home that I don’t have to dream of it anymore.

You called me fearless the other day, but you’re wrong. I’m terrified. I’m terrified that history is going to repeat itself, that another home will slip through the cracks between my fingers and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. And that’s why I’m so hesitant towards you, towards whatever this is, because I don’t want to go through that ever again.

So the thing I need to tell you is that I care about you. I care so much that I’m scared speaking it into existence will make it real and vulnerable to all the worst parts of the world. But it’s not speaking it into existence if I’m drunk, right? Maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe you’ll never even hear this. So it doesn’t count. That’s how that works, surely.

Sorry if this was totally nonsensical. And sorry that I’m so bad at feelings. You must think I’m impossible, and I don’t blame you.

Good night, Hyunjin. Thank you, again.

One month ago. Los Angeles, United States. 12:37 A.M.

When Hyunjin steps out of the hotel’s tall glass double doors, he’s wearing a teatree facemask, and his bags are draped over the crooks of his elbows like he’s an upper-echelon socialite on his way back from a lavish shopping spree. And then he sees you standing next to the curb, and the situation dawns on him in bits and pieces.

You’re the only one here. The vans that were supposed to take you to the airport are nowhere to be seen. Boarding begins in four minutes.

A soft flinch crimps his features. Oops.

“Tomorrow night,” you’re saying into your receiver, but your attention is on him only, your penetrative gaze putting the dead in deadpan. “The absolute earliest. You’re sure?”

When you finish listening to the manager’s response, you heave a sigh that sags your shoulders and end the call with a jab that should’ve splintered your screen protector.

Then, you start walking towards him.

“Hi,” Hyunjin says, his eyes pleading for mercy. “You are so talented and beautiful. I don’t tell you that often enough, do I?”

He expects you to grab him by the cuff of his ear again, to throw him a retort that’s twice as mean as it is witty, something along those lines. But you merely push your suitcase in his direction, and it is then when he notices that your face is hard enough to chip enamel; that your eyes are eerily, entirely empty. The tendril of warmth that’s always dancing among the subtleties of your expressions, that he’s always pursuing to the very borders of his dreamscapes, is nowhere to be seen.

A shiver travels down Hyunjin’s spine as he curls his fingers around the plastic handle.

Something’s not right.

“We’re gonna have to stay here another day,” you say. “Can you check us in? I have some calls to make.”

“Us?” Hyunjin repeats.

“Junghan could only reserve one room,” you reply, your phone already glued back to your ear. “The hotel is fully booked for the next few months.”

With that, you’re already preoccupied with the next thing, turning to the side to reschedule a meeting. But Hyunjin can only stare blankly at your profile, trying and failing to grasp that he’s going to spend a night with the subject of his every daydream. Though you might be leaning more towards the nightmare end of the spectrum at the moment, considering the way your head snaps back in his direction like a woman possessed.

Go, you mouth, and he obliges.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin is in the elevator by himself. He speculates it’s an ingenious, intentional choice that the lights are turned off, so that whoever’s inside can watch the psychedelic lights of Los Angeles sprawl further and wider the higher they go. But he can’t think of anything except for the subzero nothingness where your irises should’ve been.

Hyunjin’s initial guess was that he crossed a line with this missed plane, but the more he thinks about it the clearer it becomes that this isn’t an isolated issue. It’s the culmination of something bigger. Something continuous.

You have become as familiar to him as the lines of his eyes or the ridges of his knuckles. He’s learned where to look for your feelings when he can’t find them in your face; studied your words and the undertones of your voice like they’re verses of scripture. Yet, it was around two months ago when Hyunjin looked at your side profile and couldn’t recognize you. He’d blinked, startled, and then you’d asked why he was looking at you so strangely, and everything returned to normal. He wrote it off as a side effect of sleep deprivation and paid it no more mind that day.

Except it happened again a few days later; again, not too long after, and Hyunjin began to suspect that he was losing his mind. You didn’t seem all that different—a bit more taciturn than usual, maybe, but you’d been busier than usual, too, your workspace always full of empty coffee cups by the end of the day, the pages of your planner more colorful and crammed than ever. The minor variances never struck him as a reason for worry.

“Stupid,” Hyunjin whispers bitterly.

He replays your interaction one more time. You, shoving your suitcase against his palm, telling him to go check in. Him, fastening his hand around the handle, sensing the bottomless void within you, feeling like he’d been dismissed from before your throne.

As he steps off the elevator and walks towards your designated room, he doesn’t understand how or why—but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s failed you.

Nearly an hour passes. The room only has one bed, so Hyunjin turns off the lights, folds himself onto the armchair by the floor-to-ceiling window, drapes a complimentary robe over his shoulders, and tries to sleep. He doesn’t know why he even tries. He’s exhausted, but he knows damn well there’s no hope of him getting any rest until he has you in his proximity again.

He doesn’t look at the door when he finally hears it open, but the knot of tension in his chest comes undone as soon as your silhouette appears in the hallway. He takes out his first real breath since leaving you at the hotel’s entrance.

You hear the sound it makes. You fall still.

“Hyunjin?”

His heart physically aches at how tired you sound. “Yeah?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” you answer. “Move to the bed. You’re not sleeping on that thing.”

He remains where he is, his chin resting on the side of his fist, his eyes glued to the flickering panorama of neon lights below him. You crouch to unzip something, and there’s a heavy thud of metal meeting cloth, presumably your laptop being tossed onto the bed’s mattress.

“Hello? Did you—”

“Is everything okay?”

A short pause follows his interruption.

“I still have a few emails to write, but everything’s been rescheduled, so as long as you don’t miss tomorrow’s flight, too, we should be—”

The robe slides off his lap as he pushes himself to his feet. “That’s not what I mean.”

The only source of light in the room is the lone light above the entrance, but it’s enough for him to see your face and the surprise etched upon it. You open your mouth, utter one syllable, and stop yourself immediately after, stunned into silence by the sobriety in Hyunjin’s expression.

“Enlighten me, then,” you say finally.

“You really don’t know?”

“What is there to know? That you missed a flight and pissed me the fuck off? Trust me, I’m aware.”

“No, that’s not—”

“So what are you talking about, then? Why are you talking in riddles? Fuck, what is it that you want from me?”

There’s real frustration in your voice, and it’s the first time you’ve shown him any emotion in pure, unadulterated form. With this, Hyunjin understands that he was right; this conversation is heading towards a culmination of some kind, and so are you, with the devastating force of a natural phenomenon.

He wonders if you’re prepared to destroy yourself, too.

“I know how you are around me,” you whisper. “You’re always acting like you’re trying to unearth something, and I figure this ‘something’ must be wonderful, because you look at me like I’m made of stars; you speak to me like you’re serenading a lover. But I am constantly, ceaselessly haunted by the possibility that this ‘something’ doesn’t exist, that you’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong person.

“I know it’s selfish to ask for anything more than what you’ve already given me—you’re so kind, Hyunjin, and you’ve been nothing but since the day we met. But grant me one more wish, even if it is the last time you ever do.

“Tell me what you see in me,” you plead. “Otherwise, I will spend the rest of my life mourning the months of yours that you wasted on me.”

With that, it occurs to Hyunjin, falls upon and cracks open his mind like a piece of firewood, that you have never been aware of—never asked for—the throne you sit upon.

For an indeterminate amount of time, the two of you stay there, standing in silence on opposite sides of your dark hotel room. You haven’t felt anything like this in a long time, your chest heaving with your heavy breaths, your vision muddied by both the lack of light and the desperation searing through your windpipe.

When Hyunjin finally begins to speak, his words wrest the oxygen from your lungs.

“After you moved to Seoul, you used to get these bouts of homesickness.”

Your mind careens; your heart reels.

“They came in a way that felt like a hole had opened up in the ground below you.” He takes a tentative step towards you. “You thought it was going to swallow you alive. You would’ve been happy for it to.”

You never got to listen to your voice note. You were blacked out when you recorded it and horrified when you discovered it in your chat logs the next morning; the wretched thing was unsent so quickly that you couldn’t check for a read receipt.

But there’s not a doubt in your mind that these are your words falling from Hyunjin’s lips.

“You haven’t felt that way since you met me, though.” He is only a few feet away from you now, and getting closer still. “You’ve never felt seen the way I see you. You’ve never been known the way I know you.”

God, you said that? Did you propose to him too?

“You’re terrified that another home will slip through the cracks between your fingers and there will be nothing you can do to stop it.” Hyunjin flattens his left hand upon the drywall next to your ear; pushes you back ever-so-gently against the hard surface. “I must think you’re impossible.”

And he brings his face so, so close to yours; looks at you with so much adoration, so much tenderness, that you feel the final bulwark around your heart fracture—

“I don’t,” Hyunjin breathes, cradling your cheek, “because you’re not. And I want to prove it to you, even if it takes me the rest of my life. That’s what I see in you.”

—and crumble.

You form fists in the lining of his hoodie. Hyunjin’s hand tightens where it lays over the curve of your jaw.

When you crash your lips upon his, he tastes the metallic sheen of electricity and the salt of tearwater both; he witnesses crying lightning, for the first time in human history.

Present day. Cannes, France. 9:15 P.M.

Hyunjin never thinks when he fucks you.

One part of it is that he physically can’t; his cognitive facilities shut down when he has you quivering beneath him, like his desire to pleasure you is too overwhelming for his mind to bear. The other part is that he doesn’t want to. He’s afraid that the voices of cynicism and trepidation that plague his mind every waking moment will taint the actualization of his wildest dreams.

Lucky for him, you manage to erase his mind on a daily basis with only one accidental touch or an apparition of a smile, so he doesn’t stand a chance whenever you let him between your legs.

“Trust me?” He whispers, imprinting the words upon the inside of your thigh.

“More than anyone,” you breathe, and just this has him tenting against his satin slacks.

Hyunjin used to see you scolding managers or moving racks twice your weight and think that was you in your element—tonight, he learned otherwise. You were so confident that even just the way you puffed your chest out prompted heads to turn and low voices to ask for your name; so charming that even by the end of your self-introduction you had every guest you spoke to eating out the palm of your hand.

Eating out your pussy, though, is Hyunjin’s privilege alone.

He wraps his fingers around the hem of your dress and pushes it upwards, creating a halo of red fabric around your midriff; slides your panties off your legs and tosses them over his shoulder. All obstacles out of the way, Hyunjin winds his arms around your thighs and pins your hips to the mattress, slotting himself between your knees as they fall apart. Your ankles fold over the top of his head, and you’re about to ask if he’s okay like this, but then you feel the hot muscle of his tongue trace over your dripping folds—and every word of every language you’ve ever known is dispelled from your brain and your mouth in the form of a stuttered, euphoric moan.

He teases you first, drags his mouth over you so that he’s lapped up all of your slick, and just when you feel your patience thinning he pulls you apart with reverent hands and begins to suckle on your clit, as attentive to your every solicitation as always. You arch your back so high off the bed that your ankles knock Hyunjin’s head down a few inches, but the new angle is even better; grants him access to more of you.

He reinforces his grip around you, presses his torso right up against the side of the mattress, and gorges: sluices your labia until you’re spilling from his chin onto the sheets; flicks against your bundle of nerves until it’s pulsating and swollen on his mouth; fucks his tongue against your favorite spot until you’re curling your toes, seeing the whole solar system.

“Coming,” you blabber after some time. Tell me something I don’t know, he thinks to himself. “Coming, Hyune. I’m—fuck—”

Hyunjin is aware of the way you clench so hard around nothing that your pelvis hurts. He is aware of the way you’re so dilapidated from pleasure that you’re genuinely struggling to breathe. He doesn’t care. He wants to get the cadences of your climax tattooed into the gray matter of his brain, and there can’t be rests in the sheet music, can there?

He presses a hand flat on your stomach in preparation for your body’s protest, then returns his face to its place between your thighs; starts to leave kitten licks around the edges of your puffy folds before you can finish riding out your high. You press your tongue against the back of your front teeth, emitting a pained hiss as you draw a sharp breath, tears stinging at your eyes.

“Son of a bitch—”

“Trust me?” He asks again, his voice vibrating against your sore cunt, and your complaints quiet into whimpers as you bring a hand over your quivering mouth, and nod.

At least Hyunjin bridles his thirst the second time he eats your pussy open, his lips smacking openly and slowly over your every inch except the one that would be truly unbearable for you right now. He’s so rough and so fucking careful at once like he can’t decide between obliterating and worshipping your cunt.

He’ll end up doing both.

Within a few minutes, your legs have gone slack on either side of Hyunjin once again, and another coil has begun to tighten behind your bellybutton, equal parts pain and pleasure—but he knows your pussy just as well as he does your person by now, and it’s not long before the former is compounding with the latter.

Round two has a faster ascent and a steeper drop. He finds your spot again with the precision and ease of a trained marksman and fixates upon it like a man starved. It has your cries devolving to incoherent profanities and, to his unfettered delight, your foot actually shaking, your heel tapping against the back of his neck every time it comes down.

As if referencing a metronome, Hyunjin matches the rhythm of his tongue to your accelerando. Only when your leg is nearly convulsing does he wrap his lips back around your clit; slide two fingers into the place he leaves empty and pumps them into you until you are liquifying, igniting around him, your mewls lamenting the second orgasm he plucks from your core.

After your body has stilled, Hyunjin lifts his head, his face drenched in perspiration and saliva and you. His eyes travel over the slopes of your arms and the hills of your breasts, over the tears streaming from your eyes and staining the pillow you lie on. It is this last bit that has him shrugging off his shirt and undoing his dress pants with one hand, palming his throbbing cock with the other.

He clambers over you, and the kiss that follows is filthy, your mouth falling apart when he rolls your nipples between his fingers, strands of spit suspending between your tongues before dripping down onto your collarbone. You can sense what he wants in his craving lips, his pleading tongue—and you know he won’t ask for it. He’s tested you enough tonight; he’d rather your comfort than his pleasure.

But you guide his leaking head to your entrance, returning his stupefied look with a watery smile.

“Love me?” You ask this time, for the first time.

There is not even a nanosecond of hesitation when he answers, “with everything in me.”

He comes inside you the moment he bottoms out, your name leaving his lips in breathless, desperate repetition like a broken prayer as he topples off the same cliff he’d dropped you from moments ago. You curl a hand in his hair as he stutters against you, bring your lips flush against his ear, and whisper that you love him too—and the sight of you beneath him blurs he also starts to tear up.

This is the reality Hyunjin lives in, presumably because he was a saint in his past life, and it would be his utmost pleasure to see it through.

Two years later. Milan, Italy. 11:28 A.M.

For the last half hour, a ray of sunlight has repeatedly struck the diamond that sits between the second and third knuckle of your ring finger, and the Vogue journalist on the other side of your desk thinks he is slowly losing his vision. But when he asks his final question, your hand comes to a much-appreciated stop, the fountain pen you’ve been twirling around clattering to your tabletop.

“Where do you find your inspiration?”

As the journalist blinks the phosphenes from his eyes, he finally manages to get a good look at the face of Versace’s newest designer, and he detects something ineffable and warm in your expression.

“My inspiration, hm?” You fall silent for a short time, thinking. “If you asked me this at the start of my career, I’d have said ‘people.’ Their postures, their expressions, their wardrobes. I knew I was a goner when I watched a fashion show for the first time and noticed how the models’ attire helped them harness their innate power and grace—I wanted to orchestrate that kind of symbiosis, too. In that aspect, nothing has changed, actually. I still find wonder in human beings, and not just the ones on the runway. I think it would be difficult not to, don’t you?

“Some time ago, a good friend of mine was having trouble with an outfit for her client. She asked me a similar question, and only then did I realize that it was no longer just people that inspired me most, but a singular person. I had always been skeptical of the idea of a ‘muse’ until I met him. But I could only spend so long denying how he ventured closer to my soul than anything ever had, how he knew me and saw me like nobody ever could. He understood my art. He was my art, so—”

Your eyes dart over your ring, and the journalist would’ve flinched out of habit if he wasn’t so mesmerized by your eloquence.

“—where better to find inspiration than inspiration himself?”

A few seconds elapse, and then you clear your throat and straighten your back, returning to your office from your trip down memory lane.

“That’s the long answer, anyways. The short answer would be my fiancé.”

The journalist laughs, and he doubts you’ll give him this next piece of information—but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

“And who would that be?”

He’s right. You don’t answer the question. But you do flash him an enigmatic smile, and for some reason it reminds him of lightning.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe

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jaeyunluvbot · 7 months ago

Text

sad beautiful tragic

genre/tags 𝟅𝟈 angst, lovers to exes, joshua hong x reader, fiance!joshua x reader

word count 𝟅𝟈 4.2k

part two

NOT PROOFREAD

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

It’s your freshman year of college. You’d taken the risk and moved across the country to go to UCLA. It was your first exam season and you were sorely regretting this choice, wishing you had your family and friends to lean on.

The library is dead silent except for the occasional rustle of pages and the distant hum of the air conditioner. Your head hurts from staring at your statistics textbook for too long, the numbers blurring together like they’re mocking you. You press your palms into your forehead, trying to focus, but it’s useless.

You’re on the verge of packing up and leaving when a voice interrupts your spiral.

“Mind if I sit here?”

You glance up, your eyes landing on a boy holding a tray with two coffees. He’s tall, with a warm smile and a slightly oversized UCLA hoodie that makes him look impossibly soft.

You nod, gesturing to the seat across from you. “Go ahead.”

As he sits down, he slides one of the cups toward you. “You look like you need this more than I do.”

You blink, taken aback. “What—how did you know I needed caffeine?”

He chuckles, the sound light and easy. “You’ve been glaring at that textbook for like ten minutes.”

You laugh despite yourself, the tension in your chest loosening. “Fair point. Thanks... I guess I owe you one now.”

“Nah,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Think of it as my good deed for the day. I’m Joshua, by the way.”

“Y/N,” you reply, taking a cautious sip of the coffee. It’s just the way you like it—strong but not bitter. “This might actually save my grade.”

“Glad to be of service,” he says with a grin.

For the next hour, you pretend to study, but really, you’re watching him out of the corner of your eye. He’s quiet but not shy, the kind of person who makes you feel at ease without even trying. By the time you pack up your things to leave, you realize you don’t feel so alone anymore.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

Life after college had been better than you'd ever imagined. When you moved to California for college, you’d never expected to find more than just a degree. Joshua had been the anchor in a world that felt so foreign—your solace when homesickness hit you hard. By the time graduation rolled around, the two of you were inseparable.

Your careers had fallen into place perfectly. You landed a job in New York, but when Joshua asked if you’d stay in California with him, you didn’t hesitate. You turned down the offer, found a great position in LA, and never looked back. Being close to him felt worth every sacrifice.

The proposal had been perfect in its simplicity. One quiet evening in your shared apartment, he’d set the table with your favorite takeout, candles flickering between cartons of food. You’d laughed when he nervously fumbled with the ring box but cried when he asked, “Will you marry me?” The answer had been a resounding yes.

At first, Joshua was just as excited as you were. He’d scroll through the boards with you, offering opinions on everything from table settings to wedding bands. “Simple and elegant,” he’d said, his voice laced with warmth as he picked out a gold band that matched yours. He’d even gotten himself a matching engagement ring, claiming he wanted everyone to know he was spoken for.

But then work started picking up for him.

It was little things at first—missing a cake tasting or zoning out during a discussion about the guest list. “Whatever you think is best, babe,” he’d say with a tired smile. At first, you brushed it off. He was busy, and you didn’t want to add to his stress.

Then, he missed your appointment with the wedding planner. It was supposed to be a big one, the meeting where you’d decide on the venue. You’d picked out three options together, but sitting across from the planner with an empty chair beside you made your stomach twist uncomfortably.

You called him after the meeting. He answered on the third ring, his voice apologetic but distant. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. The meeting at work ran over, and I couldn’t get away. Did you pick something?”

You paused, the lump in your throat growing. “Yeah. I went with the vineyard. It felt right.”

“That sounds perfect,” he said quickly, relief evident in his tone. “I trust your judgment.”

You tried to smile, but it felt forced.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

By the time he missed the florist appointment a week later, it wasn’t a surprise. “Sorry, babe. Just go with whatever you like,” he said when you called him, his voice rushed. “I know you’ll make it beautiful.”

You hung up feeling a mix of frustration and sadness. It wasn’t just the missed appointments. It was the way he seemed to disengage completely, like the wedding was your project and not something you were supposed to be building together.

He still wore his ring, still kissed you goodnight and said, “Love you.” But his words felt like a habit, something automatic and unthinking. You told yourself he was just busy, that once the stress of work eased up, things would go back to the way they were.

But deep down, you couldn’t ignore the growing ache in your chest.

The phone feels heavy in your hand as you sit cross-legged on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen. Joshua isn’t home yet—another late night at the office, or so he says. You’ve been scrolling aimlessly through your wedding Pinterest board, but even the dreamy photos of lace gowns and candlelit venues can’t shake the dull ache in your chest.

When the call connects, your mom’s warm voice cuts through the silence. “Sweetheart, how’s my favorite daughter?”

You manage a smile, even though she can’t see it. “Hi, Mom. I’m... okay.”

“Just okay?” she asks, a hint of concern in her voice.

You hesitate, unsure how much to say. “It’s just... I don’t know. I think I’m feeling a little lonely.”

“Lonely? What about Joshua? You two are practically glued together.”

Your throat tightens at the mention of his name. “He’s been so busy with work lately. And I don’t know, Mom, it’s like... I can’t really talk to him about how I’m feeling. I don’t want to add to his stress.”

“Sweetheart, you can always talk to me,” she says gently.

“I know.” You pause, picking at a thread on the couch cushion. “It’s just hard sometimes. All my friends here are his friends, you know? I can’t exactly call them and say, ‘Hey, I think Joshua’s pulling away from me.’”

There’s a soft sigh on the other end of the line. “Oh, honey. I wish I were closer. Are you sure everything’s okay between you two?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “He’s... different. He’s not excited about the wedding anymore. He misses every appointment, and when I try to talk about it, he just says to do whatever I want. Like it doesn’t even matter to him.”

Your mom’s voice softens even more. “Sweetheart, planning a wedding is stressful for anyone, but it sounds like you’re taking on all the weight by yourself. That’s not fair.”

Tears sting your eyes as you blink rapidly, trying to keep them from falling. “I just miss you, Mom. I wish you were here.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “I’ll come see you next month, okay? We’ll spend some time together, just us girls. Sit tight until then.”

“Okay,” you murmur, even though next month feels like a lifetime away.

After you hang up, the apartment feels even quieter than before. You glance at the dining table, still set with the meal you’d made hours ago, untouched. The ache in your chest feels heavier now, pressing down until it’s hard to breathe.

You wonder, not for the first time, if this is what homesickness feels like—not just for a place, but for a version of your life that feels like it’s slipping away.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

“You really need to decide on your groomsmen soon, Josh,” you say, your voice soft but edged with the faintest hint of impatience. “I can’t finalize the bridesmaids until I know how many you’re having.”

It’s late, and he’s seated at the kitchen counter, scrolling through his phone while you try to bring up yet another wedding detail. His hair is tousled from work, and he looks tired, but you push forward. You’ve been asking him about this for weeks now.

He looks up briefly, his expression unreadable. “I know, Y/N. I’ll get to it, I promise.”

You pause, trying to keep your frustration in check. “It’s been two months, Josh. You haven’t even mentioned it to anyone yet.”

“I’ve just been busy,” he says with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I’ll figure it out soon. Don’t worry.”

“Okay,” you say, forcing a smile. “But you really need to. It’s not just about the numbers—it’s about including people who are important to you.”

He nods distractedly, his eyes already back on his phone.

That night, as you lie awake in bed, you replay the conversation over and over. It’s such a small thing—picking groomsmen. It shouldn’t feel like such a big deal, but somehow, it does.

It’s not the first time he’s brushed off something wedding-related. It’s not the first time he’s promised to “get to it.” And it’s certainly not the first time you’ve felt like you’re the only one putting real effort into planning the day that’s supposed to celebrate both of you.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

By the time another week rolls around, you’re still waiting. Another week of him saying, “I’ve been thinking about it,” without any actual decisions. Another week of you wondering if this is what the rest of your life is going to look like—waiting for Joshua to care about something as much as you do.

When you ask him again, gently but firmly, his response is the same. “I’ll get to it.”

But he doesn’t.

And as you sit at the dining table that night, staring at your wedding planner and a half-empty glass of wine, it hits you like a punch to the gut: he’s not avoiding the groomsmen because he’s busy. He’s avoiding it because it doesn’t matter to him.

Because maybe you don’t matter to him—not the way you used to.

The thought sends a chill down your spine. You push the wedding planner aside, get up, and walk to the bathroom. His ring is still on the counter, where it’s been more and more lately. You stare at it, the dull ache in your chest flaring into something sharper.

“Oh,” you whisper to yourself, the word heavy with realization.

You leave the ring where it is and head to bed, the sheets cold and uninviting. For the first time, you don’t wait up for him.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The next morning feels heavy before it even starts. You wake up to an empty bed again, the sheets on his side rumpled but cold. You find him in the kitchen, sipping coffee and scrolling through emails on his phone, still wearing the same distracted expression you’ve come to know all too well.

“Hey,” you say softly as you pour yourself a cup. “We need to figure out the wedding party today. We’ve been putting it off too long.”

Joshua glances up, his brow furrowing. “I know. Let’s sit down after breakfast and go through it.”

You nod, hopeful for a moment. Maybe today will be different.

But before you can even finish your coffee, his phone buzzes on the counter. He picks it up, and you watch as his expression shifts from tired to tense.

“It’s my secretary,” he mutters, holding up a hand as he answers.

“Mr. Hong,” her voice is clear even from where you sit, “I’m so sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but the investors are furious about the delay. They’re demanding an emergency meeting.”

Joshua runs a hand through his hair, already moving toward the bedroom to grab his bag. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Thanks for letting me know.”

When he returns, he’s tucking his phone into his pocket and slipping on his shoes. “I’m so sorry, babe,” he says, leaning down to kiss the top of your head. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

You look up at him, frustration and sadness bubbling beneath the surface. “We were supposed to figure out the wedding party today, Josh.”

“I know,” he says, his voice rushed. “We’ll do it tomorrow. I promise.”

You glance at the counter as he heads for the door, and your stomach sinks. His ring is still there, sitting carelessly next to the fruit bowl.

The door closes behind him, and the apartment falls into silence.

You sit there for a long time, staring at the spot where his ring rests. Then, slowly, you slip your own ring off your finger. The weight of it has felt heavier these past few weeks, more a reminder of what’s slipping away than what’s supposed to be.

You carry it to your bedroom and place it gently in the jewelry box on your dresser, nestled between a pair of earrings your mom gave you and an old bracelet from college. It doesn’t feel right, taking it off—but it doesn’t feel wrong, either.

That night, you go to bed alone again, the silence in the apartment pressing down on you. You wonder, as you lie there staring at the ceiling, how many more nights will feel like this.

And for the first time, you don’t cry. You’re too tired to cry anymore.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The next evening, Joshua finally comes home. It’s later than usual, but you’re still awake, sitting on the couch with your wedding planner open in front of you. You’re not really reading it, though. Instead, you’ve been staring at the untouched coffee cup you poured for him hours ago, now cold.

“Hey,” he says softly as he steps inside, setting his bag by the door. He glances at you, and his brow furrows slightly. “You’re still up?”

“Yeah,” you say, keeping your voice steady. “We need to talk.”

He hesitates for a moment, then nods. “Okay. Let me just—”

“Now, Josh,” you interrupt, standing and closing the planner with a soft thud.

He blinks at the sharpness in your tone but joins you in the living room. You sit on the edge of the couch, hands clasped tightly together, while he sinks into the armchair across from you.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. The tension in the room is palpable, stretching like a rubber band about to snap.

“Are you having an affair?” The words leave your mouth before you can second-guess them.

His eyes widen in shock, and his posture stiffens. “What? No! Y/N, how could you even think that?”

“Because you’ve been pulling away from me for months,” you say, your voice cracking despite your best efforts to keep it even. “You miss every appointment, you don’t care about the wedding, and you keep leaving your ring on the counter like it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

Joshua’s face falls, and he runs a hand through his hair. “Y/N, I swear, it’s not that. Work has just been—”

“Don’t,” you say, cutting him off. “Don’t blame this on work. Be honest with me, Joshua. Do you even want this anymore?”

His silence is deafening.

“I—” he starts, then stops, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I don’t know.”

You feel like the air has been knocked out of your lungs. “You don’t know?”

“We’re so young, Y/N,” he says finally, his voice quiet but firm. “I love you, I do, but... I don’t know if I’m ready for this. For marriage. For forever.”

You stare at him, the weight of his words sinking in like stones in your chest. “You don’t feel it anymore,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper.

He looks up at you, guilt written all over his face. "I don’t know what I feel anymore."

The tears sting, but you refuse to let them fall. "I stayed here for you, Josh," you say, the words breaking free before you can stop them. "I left everything—my family, my friends, my life—just to be with you. And now you’re telling me you don’t even want this anymore?"

Joshua’s expression falters. He opens his mouth, but no words come out. His silence cuts deeper than any answer could.

“Then let’s break up,” you say firmly, the words tasting bitter on your tongue.

“Y/N, I—”

“No,” you say, standing up. "If you don’t want this, then we’re done. I can’t keep fighting for both of us."

He opens his mouth again to speak, but the words don’t come. He just nods, looking down at his hands.

“I’ll move out,” he says after a long pause.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” you reply, your voice hollow, as if you’re already a stranger to him.

That night, he sleeps on the couch, and you lie in bed alone, staring at the ceiling, feeling the space between you grow wider by the second. The silence in your apartment is suffocating, and for the first time since you moved to California, you feel truly and deeply alone.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The next morning, Joshua leaves for work as usual. His footsteps fade down the hallway, and the door clicks shut behind him. The apartment feels cold without his presence, but the tension, the weight of everything that’s happened, keeps you from feeling anything else.

You take a deep breath, steadying yourself, and begin packing your things. You leave behind the little things—the pictures, the mementos from your time together that once meant so much. The engagement ring stays on the counter where he left it the night before, untouched. You gather your essentials—clothes, toiletries, a few items that remind you of who you were before all of this. You’re doing this for you.

As you pack, the tears come, and you can’t hold them back. The weight of it all—the loneliness, the heartbreak, the way he’d stopped caring—finally crashes over you. You grab your phone and dial your mom’s number.

“Mom,” you choke out, barely able to speak through the sobs. "I—I can't... I can't do this anymore. I... I’m so lost."

You hear her soothing voice on the other end, muffled but full of warmth and concern. "Sweetheart, what happened? Where are you?"

“I—I'm in California, but I don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t do this alone. I... I left. I left him. I don't know what to do, mom."

Her voice softens, and you hear her take a deep breath. "Don't worry. You don't have to do it alone. I’ll book your tickets, I’ll get you home, okay?"

The relief that floods through you is overwhelming, but it doesn't stop the tears. Your mom insists on getting the earliest flight available, even going the extra mile to make sure you’re on the next plane out.

You hang up with her, still a mess, but knowing that, at least for now, you won’t be alone. You finish packing quickly, making sure to leave everything behind except what’s truly necessary. You wipe your eyes, trying to pull yourself together.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

By the time you finish, it’s still a few hours before Joshua will come home. You take one last look around the apartment—the place that was once filled with shared moments, warmth, and love. It now feels like a shell of something that used to be, cold and unforgiving. You make sure your essentials are packed, then head out the door, locking it behind you.

When Joshua comes home later that evening, he expects to find you resting, taking the nap you often took after a long day at work. He quietly enters the apartment, shedding his coat and bag, and makes his way to your shared bedroom. He pauses at the doorway, frowning as he notices the emptiness of the room.

There’s no sound of you resting, no gentle hum of your music. The bed is neatly made. A sharp unease twists in his stomach.

He turns toward the dresser, his eyes catching something familiar—something that doesn’t belong there.

It’s the love letter he wrote you years ago, the one you’d always kept in your wallet. The edges are frayed now from years of being carried close to your heart. It’s placed on top of the dresser, in the spot where you used to keep it safe, along with the ring he’d given you.

He picks it up, his hands trembling slightly, and unfolds the letter. The words are still familiar, and yet, they now feel like they were written by someone else.

His eyes scan over the message, the sincerity in his writing that once made you feel loved, now leaving him cold. He puts the letter back down slowly, the full weight of the situation settling in.

Joshua’s gaze moves to the counter, where the engagement ring lies, cold and unclaimed. The reality of it all hits him like a brick wall. You’re gone.

The apartment feels like a vacuum now, empty and silent. His throat tightens, but no words come. All the things left unsaid, all the moments missed, hang heavily in the air around him.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

The plane ride feels like an eternity. You’re sitting by the window, watching the clouds drift by, but your mind is a whirlwind of thoughts, doubts, and emotions that you can’t escape. It’s hard to breathe, to focus on anything other than the overwhelming emptiness that seems to have settled inside you.

Your phone buzzes constantly with messages, and you can’t help but check them. It’s Joshua.

Joshua: Where are you? Please, answer me. We need to talk.Joshua: Y/N, I’m sorry. Please come home. I can’t lose you.Joshua: I was wrong. I didn’t mean for it to end like this. Where are you?

Each message hits you like a punch to the stomach, but you know you can’t respond in the way he wants. You’ve made your decision, and no amount of begging can change the way you feel.

You almost find it funny, how little his words mean to you now that you had left.

You tap out a response, slow and deliberate, your hands trembling slightly as you type.

Y/N: I had to go. I’m sorry, Joshua. I wish you well. It's for the best.

You hit send and put the phone down, hoping he’ll respect your silence. The flight attendants come by, offering you a drink, but you don’t take it. You just keep your gaze fixed outside, the horizon blurring as you fight to keep it together.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

By the time you land and step off the plane, you can feel the weight of everything pressing down on you. You’re exhausted, emotionally drained, but there’s one thing you’re certain of: you made the right choice.

Your mom is waiting for you at the airport, her face full of worry and warmth. As soon as she sees you, she pulls you into a tight hug, and you collapse against her, tears streaming down your face. She doesn’t ask any questions. She just holds you, murmuring soft reassurances as she strokes your hair.

“I’m here, sweetheart. You’re home now. I’m here,” she whispers, and somehow, it makes everything feel a little less heavy.

The drive back to the house is quiet, the only sound being the hum of the tires on the road. You try to collect yourself, but the emotions keep rushing back, overwhelming you in waves. You know you’ll have to explain everything, but for now, all you want is to be wrapped in the comfort of your mom’s arms.

Once you’re home, she takes you straight to the living room and sits you down on the couch, making you a cup of tea. “Tell me what happened,” she says gently, her voice soft but insistent. “I’m listening.”

You take a deep breath, recounting everything—from moving to California, to the engagement, the wedding planning, and the slow unraveling of everything. You tell her about how Joshua had been pulling away, about how you tried to wait for him, tried to understand. You tell her about the ring left on the counter, the distance, the fighting, and finally, the breakdown of your relationship.

Your voice cracks as you speak, and she pulls you closer, wrapping an arm around you. “Oh, baby,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t easy. But you did the right thing. You deserve someone who’s all in, who’s going to love you fully, just like you deserve.”

You nod, wiping your eyes. You’re still so raw, but her words give you the strength to keep going.

As the night wears on, she handles everything for you. She cancels the wedding bookings—everything that had been set up for the wedding is erased. The vendors are contacted, the plans are halted, and you don’t have to worry about any of it. Your mom handles it all, taking the burden from your shoulders as you sit there, just trying to breathe.

When she finally gets off the phone with the last vendor, she sits next to you again, her hand resting on yours. “You’ll heal, sweetheart. And when you’re ready, we’ll figure it all out. But for now, just rest. You’re safe here.”

You close your eyes, resting your head on her shoulder, feeling the weight in your chest finally start to ease, if only a little. The pain is still there, but at least for tonight, you’re home.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

author's note 𝟅𝟈 lowkey wanna start a taylor swift songfic thing. i'm obsessed with this song so yk i had to write a fic based on it!

masterlist.

#kpop #jaeyunluvbot #y/n #seventeen #joshua hong #joshua #hong jisoo #svt #svt angst #seventeen angst #joshua x reader #joshua x y/n #angst #lovers to exes

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shjsnjkj · 8 months ago

Text

MY SUMMER LOVE┊ p.sh

kinktober day 5! - masterlist

warnings: smut, MDNI, unprotected sex, making out, pussy eating, nicknames, crying

genre: smut

taglist: @blackp1nkfan @mitmit01 @pasteltheghost16 @harukayoiiiiiiizzz @mlywon @lhspeachie @seraphira @kaykay11sworld @winuvs @yuniesluv @shhth @rizzki09 @mylettterstoyou @d-dilemma @moonpri @blushbunini

wc: 2,8k ✧.*

☆ sunghoon x reader ; It was August 31st, and you were heading back home tomorrow because of school. Unfortunately, sleep didn't come easily. Your mind kept replaying all the memories you had with Sunghoon this summer, except for one. The one you'll be making tonight with the help of his camera. “Fly through the deep night to you. In the thick darkness, I will hold you again”

After all that time at university, you were finally ready to travel somewhere. Somewhere you could unwind and leave all your stress from the past few months behind. You considered traveling to a new city or even a country, which seemed like a great idea. However, you didn't have anyone to travel with because your friends had other commitments during the summer. That's when you saw your grandparents coming in sight. You don't get to see them often since they live far away, but you figured it was time for a visit. After all, you went to Hawaii when you were just 10 years old. You really missed your grandparents, but video calling was a great way to keep in touch with them.

That night, you discussed the idea with your parents and purchased the tickets for yourself. In less than a week, you had packed everything you needed into two suitcases and one bag. You brought at least five bikinis and planned to buy more when you got to your destination. You pictured yourself going to the beach every day, making new friends, learning new dances, putting flowers in your hair, drinking coconut water, and doing other fun things. This was all you could think about while you were on the plane.

When you arrived, you first met your grandmother and then your grandfather, who walked behind your grandmother with a beautiful flower lei. They were more than happy to meet you. You received many compliments and hugs from them, which made you happier than ever.

On the ride home, you rolled down the car windows and put your hands out to feel the air hit your fingers and blow your hair. The first surprise to you was the house where your grandparents parked. You didn't understand where you were. You remembered that there was a normal, cute white house with a balcony and a garden in the back, but this house was almost the opposite. At the entrance, it was kind of the same, but there were trees in front of it, so you couldn't see much from the house. When you walked in, you were shocked. The house was huge! Everything was much bigger than before, there was even a pool in the backyard, not to mention the ocean view right behind it. Your bedroom also had a window overlooking the ocean, so you could admire it every time you were there. Your grandmother bought you some bikinis, straw hats and dresses. They were so pretty and you couldn't wait to wear them while you stayed here.

The other day, just before you sat down to eat, a sudden ringing of the bell interrupted you as you were putting the food on the table. Your grandmother went to see who it was, and you continued your task.

"Grandma, who was that?" -when you looked up, she wasn't alone; a boy was standing next to her.

Your eyes widened for a moment at how handsome he was. Jet black hair and deep brown eyes. He was quite tall and slim, yet muscular. You didn't want to be weird, so you looked away. You assumed he was just some neighbor's son asking for something, but your grandmother proved you wrong.

"Y/n do you remember Sunghoon?" -she asked in a soft voice.

"Uhmm, yeah? The boy who was my best friend when I was little, right?"

"Yes, oh you remember. That's good to hear, Y/n" -she became so happy.

"But why are you asking me this now, when we have a guest? What's up with him? Is he doing well?" -you put the silverware next to the plates.

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Come on Grandma, I haven't seen him for ages and I don't even know where he lives anymore. How could I ask him anything?" -A long silence remained between the two of you, and you realized that you could be so stupid to say such things when Park Sunghoon himself stood right in front of you.

"Oh..." -all words stuck in your mouth.

"It's good to see you again Y/n! I missed you a lot!" -he stepped forward and gave you a big hug.

"Oh...Sunghoon...yeah it's nice to see you too!" -you hugged him back, still processing who you had just met.

Sunghoon was your best friend. Or is he still yours? You were not sure.

He, you and your 3 other friends formed a group of friends when you were little. There was nothing to do in the summer and your parents always worked, so you came here every summer and met these amazing people. Unfortunately, your friends moved to another country and you lost touch because you were little, but Sunghoon stayed and the last summer you were here in Hawaii, it was just the two of you, just like now.

He didn't stay for lunch, even though your grandmother tried to convince him, but it might be a good choice. It would be a lot for you at first. Still, you were so curious about Sunghoon. What happened to him over the years, how is he doing, does he have a girlfriend, what's up with his family and things like that. Wait, why did you care if he had a girlfriend?! Anyway, you went out to think about your feelings, accompanied by a tasty strawberry mocktail. You sat there for hours until you fell asleep and the only thing on your mind was Sunghoon.

The next day, you woke up in your room. Out of nowhere, you got up and went to your window to look at the sea, just in time for the sunrise. You were amazed by the beautiful sight when someone came into your sight. You immediately recognized that it was him, Sunghoon. He was sitting on the sand watching the sunrise just like you. Thinking that there was no reason to wait any longer, you wanted to talk to him and decided to go outside. You changed into your white bikini and wore a long white dress over it. You brushed your hair and did your morning routine in the bathroom. Then, as quietly as possible, you went out of the house and looked for Sunghoon. He was still sitting on the sand, wearing a white t-shirt and black pants. He was so good-looking you forgot that and also how much you loved him. You pushed your thoughts away and sat down next to him. He looked at you and smiled softly, then turned his gaze back to the sky.

After a few minutes, he finally began to talk to you. The two of you forgot about time and sat there until lunch. That day, he had lunch with you and was still talking about what had happened in the past years. You couldn't even remember the last time you felt this happy and free, but you knew that this feeling was everything to you and you didn't want it to end.

2 days later, Sunghoon asked you to go swimming in the late afternoon and you agreed. It was so much fun, you joked a lot and dived into the water where you saw beautiful fish and plants. As time passed, you felt more and more attracted to him. Sometimes you went out for dinner, coffee, and there were nights when you went out dancing hula and other dances. Some days you went swimming in the morning and some days you went swimming at night. You felt that Sunghoon must feel the same way because he showed you signs. Every other day, he would bring you a flower to put in your hair, making you blush every time. He took care of you and always brought happiness and a smile to your face.

One night when you went swimming, the two of you became closer. He kissed you for the first time. To be honest, you have been waiting for this moment since you were little and it finally happened. Sunghoon admitted that he felt the same and was ready to take steps towards you, but you stopped to come here. Yes, it was painful for both of you to bury your feelings in your hearts. But it was over and you were free to live your love lives this time. Your grandparents were incredibly happy for you both. They always knew how much you loved each other from the beginning, and they often invited him over for dinner, a day at the pool, or just to be with you. After a month, Sunghoon started sneaking into your room and spending the night with you. Those nights were your favorite because the way he made you feel had the power to make the whole world stand still for you.

All the love you had for each other, you couldn't describe what it did to your heart. And now it was the opposite of what you felt all these months. You just cried at the dinner table and felt that your heart was breaking because you knew that tomorrow morning Sunghoon wouldn't hold you in his arms, you wouldn't go swimming anymore, you wouldn't watch the sunrise anymore, you wouldn't see the lust in his eyes for you, you wouldn't be able to kiss his red lips anymore. At least for a year. It can be easy for someone, but not for you, you hated the idea of spending the days apart and you weren't ready for tomorrow.

Your grandparents tried to comfort you, but the tears didn't stop pouring from your eyes. The best idea was to go to sleep, but the moment you saw your suitcases ready to travel back to your hometown, it started again. Slowly you lay down on your bed and stared at the ceiling for hours because sleep didn't come easily. To be honest, you didn't even want to sleep because tomorrow would come faster and you didn't want that.

Before midnight, you heard your window open. It was Sunghoon.

"My love" - he said

"Sunghoon, what are you doing here?" -you ran to him and hugged him as tightly as ever.

"I know we talked about meeting tomorrow before you go back, but I couldn't be without you tonight Y/n" -he kissed your cheek.

"Do you know how much I cried today? I can't lose you Sunghoon" -tears started to form in your eyes for the nth time tonight.

"Baby, don't cry. It will only get worse. Look, I brought a camera for tonight."

"A camera?"

"Yeah, I was thinking about making a recording tonight. How do you feel about that?"

"How could we forget? That is a perfect idea baby. Let's do it." -you kissed him.

The next second, he put the camera down and started recording while you closed your door.

You kissed Sunghoon hungrily and he returned the kiss. You sucked on his tongue while his hands roamed all over your hot body. Goose bumps formed on your skin as his hands passed over every part of you. Soft moans left your mouth between wet kisses. He moved his left hand under your thigh and lifted your leg a little. You knew what he was going to do so you jumped and crossed your legs on his waist. He moved over to your bed and gently laid you down on the mattress. His kisses went from your lips to your jaw to your neck. You felt a little pain, but it was a good kind of pain. You assumed he was marking you and it made you feel even more lustful. His fangs would certainly leave deeper marks on you, but in no time his fingers traced the inside of your thigh. Sunghoon touched the hem of your dress and pulled your nightgown all the way up over your head. Revealing your already hardened nipples, he only reacted with a smile. He went back to your lower part, surprising you with his finger pressing against your clit over the fabric. "You're already so wet, baby. Let me make you feel better." He gave you a kiss on the lips before pulling off your white panties, which were a little stuck to your folds from the wetness. "You're so beautiful, sweetheart," he whispered before kissing your pussy as he grabbed your waist to keep you still. You felt his tongue doing all the tricks down there, making you tremble and scream inside for his touch. You closed your eyes and soon you felt Sunghoon put two fingers inside your pussy. Slowly he moves them in and out, making you see just starting from this. He watched your every move, all the sounds you made and he couldn't wait to hear your screams. To kiss you while you moan so loudly from the pleasure he gives to you. Sunghoon couldn't wait any longer and stripped off all his clothes. He positioned himself at your entrance and kissed you deeply the moment he pushed himself inside you.

Your folds take him so well that you have to cry out from pleasure. Making Sunghoon's wishes come true. "Don't hold back your beautiful voices Y/n" and right after that you let out a loud moan, hoping that your grandparents are asleep and don't hear anything from your room. Sunghoon just pushed himself deeper and deeper into you with a grin on his bitten lips.

"Sunghoon...mhhm"

"Tell me baby what you want"

"Please..." -you couldn't form a word anymore, just mewing nonstop.

The sounds of your skin, the kisses, the shallow breathing heightened all your senses. You buried your head in the pillows and felt like you were going to cum any second.

"Ahh.. Y/n. You feel so good." -He rolled back his eyes.

A few more thrusts and you came at the same time. His release filled you completely and as he pulled down he was covered with your white release as well. Sunghoon's muscles flexed and he collapsed next to you, sweat dripping from his face. Loud breaths filled the heated room and you could feel the cold night wind on your naked bodies. But it didn't matter, because after you had cleaned up, you were safe and sound in your lover's arms. You felt his breath on your shoulder and his heartbeat on your body. You didn't want this to be over, so you looked at Sunghoon for a few minutes after he fell asleep, capturing this moment in your mind forever.

You woke up early since it was time to go to the airport. Sunghoon was still in your bed but he was up as well. You went down to have a quick breakfast which your grandma made for you, and after he noticed Sunghoon he made another serving for him as well. Your suitcases were in the car and it was time to go. Still, you and Sunghoon were sitting on the sofa, watching the ocean view while making out.

As slowly as possible, you reached the car and Sunghoon gave you a gift bag which he insisted you open when you arrived home.

“My one and only love, please don’t cry too much. I’ll wait for you as much as it takes. I would wait for you until the end of the time because my heart belongs to you forever. Please smile a lot and call me everytime you want, I’ll be here for you Y/n! I’ll love you until the day that I die. Even after that I’ll love you. Here’s a flower for today as well” -he put the pink hibiscus in your hair. The same one he gave to you the first time- “You are the most beautiful human being in my eyes, take care, until we meet again.” -he held your hands and kissed you deeply.

“Sunghoon…” -you touched the flower and started to cry- “Thank you so much for everything, I’ll be back before you know it because life without you will be misery. I love you with all my heart until the end of time. I’ll always love you Park Sunghoon” -you pulled him in for another kiss and then waved him goodbye from the car. The two of you held back your tears but after you drove away you both broke down. You cried as much as you could until you got on your plane and he went back to work.

After a long flight and car ride, you were finally in your room. You put the flower from your hair into a glass box and then checked your messages. Of course, Sunghoon had already sent a lot of messages, but your eyes stayed on the video notification. You knew what was in the video and you couldn't wait to watch it. Before you opened it, you remembered what Sunghoon asked you to do. Open the gift.

Fighting back tears, you opened it. There was a T-shirt sprayed with his perfume, a white plush bunny, and a letter. You didn't hesitate to open it, only to find a ticket from Hawaii to your city with Park Sunghoon's name on it.

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nikid-aze · 9 months ago

Text

TOKYO ON EDGE. ˒˒ ﹙ niki! ﹚

╰┈⪼ moving to Japan wasn’t really on your plan through the year, but with your specialty being Japanese you had no choice but to accept. arriving in the middle of the year you found it strangely easy enough to integrate into your well-known class but over the days everything seemed to become boring and everything looked the same, the only thing that seemed to interest you was discovering the streets of Japan and the cultural differences with your native country. but, what you hadn't imagined was coming face to face with a car race, where one of the participants was one of your classmates, Nishimura Niki.

pairing ‎⸝⸝⸝ street racer!niki x student!reader 𓄷 iηcℓudᥱs 𓈓 older brother!jay, best friend!sunoo, best friend!haerin, bully!woonhak and heeseung.

genre﹙💬﹚⸝⸝⸝ serie, street racing au, enemies to lovers, kind of bully!niki, slow burn.

warnings ‎⸝⸝⸝ harsh talking, mention of violence and bullying, mention of drinking and smoking, cursing, mention of mental health, niki’s really dumb sometimes.

taglist ‎⸝⸝⸝ @r1kification @cherryrikis @moonpri @who-tf-soddhi @heeswif3y comment to be added to the taglist !!

rain’s note ‎⸝⸝⸝ i wanna scream so bad because I love the prologue so much I really hope you would like this story as much as I do

all feedback and reblogs are welcome! ♡

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000. boys like him get all the girls, except one.

guys like Nishimura niki thrive on danger, beautiful, intelligent beings drunk on adrenaline and always in the spotlight when trouble is on the front line.

those who have a reputation established by rumors and stories told across the school grounds, established by behavior worthy of the high school bad boy. the rumors stuck to their skin and all the bad choices followed him like their shadows.

guys like Nishimura riki had their populations following them no matter where their feet landed, for good or bad reasons.

those who noticed every girl pointing at them in the corridors of the establishment, who heard the whispers said about them no matter what room they set foot in. The hateful looks of the other boys falling on them while their girlfriends were fangirling over them.

guys like Nishimura Niki were known for their troublemaking behavior, who were fearless and who did not hesitate to use the strength of their hands to resolve any conflict.

those who had no shame in ending up with scratched, bloody hands at the end of a fight if that required it and who would be proud to see their opponents unable to get up without the help of someone.

guys like Nishimura Niki were the very definition of bad boys, who had no shame in behaving rashly around a teacher and ended up in the principal's office.

those who had no shame in taking responsibility for their faults before anyone with greater authority. just as they had no shame in disrespecting authority when the moment required it.

guys like Nishimura Niki were the type who came to class with bandages on their arms and hands after boxing practice.

those who spend their time in gyms, hitting punching bags for hours and venting all the hatred they felt.

guys like Nishimura Niki abandoned their boring student lives for late-night escapades and unconscious decisions to find themselves in the heart of pure danger, who loved the sound of cars through the empty streets of the night.

those who spent their nights behind the wheel of cars, adrenaline coursing through their veins as their feet mashed the gas pedal and the engine roared through the streets of Japan, seeking that freedom.

guys like Nishimura niki were the boys who were way too popular with the girls, who made every girl who saw them scream and who enraged the boys who weren't as popular.

those who spent their time rejecting girls who confessed to them no matter how they said it, who broke many hearts a day simply because they were in no way interested in love.

guys like Nishimura Niki didn't care about love and have no interest in it.

those who had no time to think about love, who simply did not prefer to have this waste of time.

guys like Nishimura who had no interest in shy, good girls, with only good grades and who had this cute and innocent look.

who didn't like girls like that. . . well normally they weren’t supposed to.

since your arrival in Japan and in this high school you had always hated boys like Nishimura Niki. No, you hated Nishimura Niki. Since you unfortunately met him in the corridors you had felt this feeling of disgust.

his name being whispered in every corridor, his first name which absolutely did not leave the lips of each of the girls you met no matter the day. you had always despised this name since you met him and you had never understood the interest that all his girls had for him.

every day he would walk into the classroom and while all the girls would whisper and be in complete awe of his good looks and demeanor, you would find yourself spitting out his every flaw while your best friend listened to you every time.

your eyes rolled in annoyance almost automatically when he was close to you. even when he wasn't close to you. he was so popular that you heard about him no matter where you were and it had the potential to drive you absolutely crazy.

the worst of all being that, despite all your efforts Niki did everything to make your life complicated, entering into challenges with you regarding exam grades, annoying you with just a simple sentence and this way he had of destroying the plans you made for every event, simply because he was popular and had no problem placing himself above you, despite your best efforts.

his behavior making you scream no matter what he did, making you on edge when you just wanted to spend some quiet time in the library.

oh you really hated Nishimura niki.

207 notes · View notes

leehslvr · 7 months ago

Text

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Kismet

── kismet. When you encounter something by chance that seems like it was meant to be, then it could be kismet, your destiny.

or ── Your solo trip to Barcelona was may more than what you expected after meeting a kind stranger on the plane and spending the whole duration of your tour with him.

pair ⟢ art student!jay x fem law student!reader

wc ⟢ 10.9k

genres/tropes/disclaimers ⟢ fluff, one shot, angst(?), strangers to lovers, meet cute, mentions of Sunghoon, Karina (aespa), and Wonyoung (IVE), very slight jangkku but nothing major

{let me know if I've missed anything}

authors note ⟢ I am not from Barcelona, nor Madrid so if I get anything wrong please let me know. Also I hope my memory and research serves me right about the history parts included in all of these. + this is a veeery old story I had and just rewrote it but i hope you enjoy!

You have never really imagined yourself leaving your house with a carrier in your hand and your mom's shower of kisses, going to the airport, ready to board a plane headed straight for Barcelona, all on your own for a good 3 days of your summer vacation. A solo trip has been on your list of things to do before you turn 30 ever since you were in high school. Growing up, you've always dreamt of going to another country without your parents dragging you to gift shops after gift shops while all you just wanted to do was to go to the beach or to see their local museum.

And now, all of those long-awaited dreams are finally coming true. It took a while to convince your mom to let you travel alone since she's always been so strict. She kept on asking why would you insist on doing that and why don't you want to take the family with you. But after begging her to let you do it on your own because you want to use this opportunity so you can enjoy some alone time and independence, she finally gave you her permission, but only for 3 days, and with your own money —a deal that was more than enough for you. At surface level it may sound a bit suffocating having your parents know every plan you wish to do, but you know that she means well. Your mom has always restricted you on a lot of things, but if she sees that it makes her children happy then she does her best to keep her worries aside and just let them do the things that they want (with the exception of anything illegal that it; she wouldn't let you see the next day).

I took you more than two whole semesters of working part time at the local bakery and fighting the urge to buy every cute new shirt on display in order to earn enough from your paycheck to buy a plane ticket and save up enough pocket money before you can finally get to your dream vacation.

Everything was going well, there was no traffic on the way to the airport, the flight didn't get delayed, you were now on your second plane after the layover, the sky was clear, you got a window seat, and you had enough leg room. The only thing that bothered you was the fact that the man sitting next to you doesn't seem to value your personal space.

It's been the 5th time since departure that he kept on placing his head on your shoulder every time he decides to take a nap. All efforts of freeing your shoulder of this unknown man were put to waste whenever he keeps putting them back. You're a person that usually understands these kinds of situations, but god it was getting annoying. A man, seated in an aisle away from yours, seemed to notice your struggle. He was quiet but he kept side glancing at what was happening.

Park Jongseong (or as his close friends like to call him as Jay) heard the person seated across him let out a sigh every time the old geezer unknowingly placed his head on her shoulder. He saw the discomfort on your face and all your efforts to get him off of you.

It was honestly painful to watch.

He keeps seeing this young girl push the head of the stranger but then it keeps happening again and again.

And now, for the sixth time that it happened, you just decided to politely tell the man that you were getting uncomfortable, when he woke up he apologized and tried to fight off his drowsiness.

Guilt suddenly crept up your nerves thinking that this middle aged man couldn't even get some rest because you felt uneasy. Staring out of the window to avoid any more awkward encounters, when suddenly Jay broke the quiet air. "Excuse me sir, could we perhaps switch seats? I need to ask my friend about something and I wouldn't want to be rude by talking to her while you're in the middle."

You averted your gaze from the window to the guy who was now standing up to gather his things. (Much to your surprise that is. Was he that tired to just let a random dude give him orders to switch places?)

A young man (who, based on his looks, was the same age as you) took the old man’s place; who now was resting quietly in his new seat.

You looked at the new stranger seated beside you and quietly observed his features. He had a high bridge nose, his lips were full and plump, his eyebrows were dark and he had a striking jawline to compliment them. His jet black hair seemed to match his tanned skin.

He looked at you and gave you a small smile.

Should I say thank you? You thought to yourself

You kept looking at him, with no expression on your face. Jongseong’s smile started to change into an awkward one, not really knowing what to do at this point. To him, he just wanted to do something nice for the girl who looked like was about to burst out at any given moment. But now, you're giving him a blank look and a quiet atmosphere that made him feel like he did something that bothered you even more.

"Uhm...thank you" You whispered.

With those words, his smile returned to his face. "No problem, I saw you struggle there for a bit. It'd be really tiring if you had to do that for the whole flight" He said to you in a hushed voice, being careful not to be heard.

“Well thankfully I wouldn’t have to experience that. It’s nice of you” You hushed back, removing your gaze off of him and back to the window of clouds and blue skies.

___

More than 5 hours had passed and the plane was still in the air.

After getting some shut eye, you're starting to feel numbness as you sit through the whole flight dozing off or watching a series. You and the stranger seated next to you haven't had a conversation since he switched seats with the other man. The only exchange you had after that was when you had to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom.

You weren't really one for conversation. You've always had trouble starting conversations with people, and you struggled to keep them going. And seeing that you were either too busy sleeping or crying over another episode of the drama that you were watching, the handsome boy didn't seem to bother to talk to you either.

You were onto the last few episodes and things were starting to get very emotional and being the type of person that gets their emotions attached to these kinds of dramas, you unfortunately couldn't control the tears that escaped from your eyes; in a place like this, besides a cute guy who was probably judging you right now.

Jay thought it was cute though; How this girl beside him reacted to every scene that she was watching. He doesn't even know if she was aware that he heard her gasp when one of the main character's secrets were revealed, or how she started smiling when the leads kissed. Now, she's been shedding tears and she was desperately trying to hide it.

While trying to cover your face with your hands by wiping the tears that fell on your cheek, you suddenly felt a tap on your shoulder, only to be met with a pack of tissues. You looked at the stranger (whose name you still don't know), and the tissues he was holding out.

"These might help" He smiled at you once again and you couldn't help but feel embarrassed. You hesitated to grab them. His hand was still reaching out and he continued by saying "Take one, I completely understand. Episode 16 was the worst"

With the small piece of dignity you had left, you took a piece, quickly thanked him, and returned to your screen. You can see from the corner of your eye that he let out a small laugh.

Great. He must think I'm a total weirdo.

After finishing the last episode, and milking your eyes out, You have finally decided to take a rest from watching. Jay looked at you and gave you a thumbs up, non-vocally asking you if you were okay.

Letting out a small laugh, you looked at your feet before speaking.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that" You told him in a hushed voice while trying to avoid eye contact. "It's fine, I couldn't stop crying myself when I finished the drama"

Deciding to try and have a good conversation with the nice guy, you finally looked back at him. "So are you traveling alone?" You asked him.

"Yeah, I've always wanted to go to Barcelona. They say their beaches are the best, and could make you speechless and I want to see it for myself" He excitedly told you.

"Is it your first time to travel alone?"

"Not really. This would be my third time" You nodded and told him how lucky he is that he got to do it often.

"How about you?" He asked you back. "Is it your first solo trip?"

You said yes by slowly nodding your head. "I'm really nervous if I have to be honest. My mom usually plans our trips. I don't even know what I would do If I got lost. I didn't even get a tour guide, because that wouldn't fit my budget." You start talking while playing with your fingers.

"It's going to be fun. Don't worry too much. If something bad happens, then it happens. You could miss out on so many great things if you begin to worry."

He gave out another smile. Something that is weirdly comforting from a stranger.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now approaching Barcelona where the local time is 1:00 PM. Please be in your seat with your seatbelt firmly fastened...."

With the sound of the speakers telling everyone to prepare for landing, the conversation was immediately cut off. You went to check if your seatbelt was fastened and if the seat tables were stowed away properly. Your phone was turned off so you didn't have to worry about it. You've always hated take offs and landing. The ear clogging is painful and irritating. Just as you were about to prepare for ringing in your ears, the guy beside you started to pass you something again.

This time it was chewing gum.

"Do you want some? I chew on them it so my ears won't hurt during landing"

How does he seem to have a solution for everything I go through?

You grabbed the gum and thanked him before you could even hear the insufferable ear popping.

When you felt the plane land and when the cabin crews finally announced your arrival, you stood up quickly feeling the numbness in your legs that you have to pray to the gods that you wouldn't stumble over and make a fool out of yourself.

When you've finally got a hold of all your carry-ons, you prepared yourself to head out of the plane doors but before you did, saying thank you to the kind stranger who treated you well wouldn’t hurt.

But as you turn around in search of the striking set of eyes and beautiful tanned skin, he was nowhere to be found

Your eyes scanned what was left of the plane but only a few people were there, and none were of him.

I guess that was it. I never even got his name.

When the Barcelona air had hit your face and the unfamiliar landscape had come into your view, you've finally realized something; you're going to be doing this on your own now. No parents. No siblings. No tour guide. Not even a kind stranger to help you sort things out.

It's just you, alone, ready to take on an adventure that you've waited for so long.

___

You were lucky to get a great hotel at the heart of the Gothic Quarter, located just near the cathedral. It was summer and a lot of families were on vacation so you worried whether you'd be getting a good place to stay without having to pull out any more money than you've already had. Luckily for you, one of the hotels with good reviews that offers a cheap price had a room fitted enough for your liking and budget.

After setting down your things in the room, you decided to give the place a tour. The walls were painted white and they were accented with wood to fit the classy mood. There was a huge sliding window that connected the room and a small balcony that gives you a great view of the skyline. The room was small so there really wasn't much to look at. It was your typical summer hotel room but you couldn't complain. You were just glad you got here. You decided to go outside and take a look at the whole building before you decide to tour Barcelona. Grabbing your camera, you headed outside on the way to their lobby.

It was crowded, a lot of families were already here. Some were lounging on the couch and the children were running around. The staff was busy but they still accommodated their guests well. You decided to ask them for more inclusions and fair enough, you were pretty satisfied. They served a breakfast buffet and a rooftop pool. Although most hotels have that now, you still couldn't hide your smile.

It was time that you decided to go tour the city, starting with the cathedral that was a few blocks from my accommodation. A lot of people have said that the Barcelona Cathedral was something everyone must see in their lifetime. And there was no denying how amazing it was. With its gothic architecture and tall structures, you would’ve beat yourself up if you missed the chance to witness it.

You quickly took out your camera and started snapping pictures. Growing up loving the arts, you have always appreciated these kinds of things. The way the building was structured had you at awe. Photos wouldn't capture its beauty. You decided to go closer when you heard a deep voice behind you.

"Excuse me, could I take a picture?"

You turned around, surprised by the voice, but what surprised you more was who owned it.

It was him. The kind stranger that sat beside you on the plane. He was holding his camera that was hanging from his neck. He gave you a smile once again and a wave of his hand as if to say hello. "Either this is a coincidence or fate just wants us together”.

"What are you doing here?" You asked with surprise and confusion written on your face. "I mean, I did tell you I'm here on vacation right?" He said as if it was obvious.

Of course he is, why would I even ask that.

"I'm sorry I scared you." He apologized while giving a worried smile.

"No, don't worry, I just wasn’t expecting anyone. Just a bit surprised, that's all"

It really was a surprise. Even Jay questioned whether it was her or not.

He just got to the cathedral when he saw her standing in the middle with her looking through her viewfinder. He didn't believe it at first but after getting a good look, he knew it was her.

Then it felt awkward. There were hundreds of people and cars making noise around but the silence between the two of you was deafening.

To avoid the atmosphere you decided to just look through the photos on your camera. Until he spoke again.

"Do you want to check the inside?"

Without hesitation, you nodded your head since that was what you were planning to do before he arrived.

And so two pairs of feet led the both of you inside the infamous gothic church. The stranger was standing beside you making it seem like the both of you arrived together on purpose. People who don't know any better would think that the both of you are on this trip as a couple on their honeymoon (not that you would want people to think that).

It's either he must really respect your space or he was just as fascinated as you as he decided to not hold a conversation after entering the wide doors. Jongseong quickly took notice of the fact that you took your time to admire the interior of the cathedral. After looking at the beautiful ceiling he glanced at your amazed expression and involuntarily let out a small smile that even he wasn't aware of.

As you took your time looking up at the sculpted pillars and the intricate details of the altars and pews that were lit with a golden tint, mixed with the natural light that came from the stained glass windows, the mysterious man started talking again.

"Its other name is The Cathedral of the Holy Rosary and Saint Eulalia"

Looking from the altar to his face that the natural lighting perfectly captured, you waited for him to continue what he was saying, intriguing your curious and hungry mind. He was looking away from your gaze as he went on with what he had to say. "Most people know the place as the Barcelona Cathedral while locals like to call it La Seu."

After his explanation, he looked back at you and met with your eyes and went back to his discussion. "They named it after Saint Eulalia. She was a martyr. Was only 13 at the time that she was murdered by Roman soldiers. Poor soul was even tortured before her death. 13 different times specifically."

"Why'd they murder her?" You asked back, curious as to what happened.

"They said that she didn't want to renounce her Christianity when everyone was told to do so" His voice trailed off. He placed his hands inside the pockets of his coat and rocked on his heel. "I think it's admirable how she stuck to what she believed in despite other people telling her otherwise."

You thought to yourself, this man was really full of surprises. You came to this country hoping to learn something new but you never thought that it would be from a boy you met on the plane. "I guess you've done your research before coming here" You stated.

"I've read them somewhere. Stuff like these have always piqued my interest. Churches, paintings, sculptures, you name it."

"Art student?" You asked him with a raised brow.

"Was I too obvious?" He replied with a smirk. The both of you started to let out a small laugh while unintentionally synchronizing as you both stared at your feet.

"How about you?" Confused as to what he meant, you stared up at him with both brows raised. "Art student?" With a sad smile you shook your head left and right slowly. "Uhm...no. Legal management actually" He hummed and nodded at the same time in response.

"Lawyer?" He asked again. "I hope so". Jongseong seemed to notice the way you reacted but didn't dwell too much as to why. He just decided to switch back to your previous topic. "Well attorney, the locals also said that their cloister is also a must-see" His deep voice enthusiastically mentioned letting go of your previous conversation. "Then we should"

The both of you walk down the path on the way to the open-aired garden. At the heart of it was a beautiful sunbathed oasis that housed geese. Holding out your camera, you looked through the viewfinder to get a perfect shot of the scenery. Adjusting the zoom, aperture, and the angle in order to capture all of its beauty.

To your right, unknown to you, Jongseong was taking his own pictures. Not of the scenery. But of the person who captured his attention.

Your mom would pull out every strand of her hair all at once if she ever finds out that her daughter is roaming a foreign city with a man she just met.

You're honestly surprised that you aren't kicking your ass for something that could possibly be so dangerous. For all you know, this man could have been a serial killer or your stalker that had finally cornered you in a place that you know nothing of.

But alas, here you are heading for a small bookshop on the corner of La Rambla, Barcelona, because the both of you have found out that you enjoy the aura of bookstores.

You don't really understand it yourself as to why you would agree to let this man take you there without even knowing his name. However, something about him made you rely on him. His cold exterior was washed over by his warm and kind personality that you just couldn't help but see him as someone you could depend upon.

Known by a lot of people, you love reading. A small space at your home was dedicated to a shelf of all of the novels that you have read all throughout your reading journey. So when your strange new friend mentioned that he saw an antique bookshop on the way to the Cathedral, you did not hesitate to let him take you there.

The beautiful tree-lined pedestrian street of La Rambla was filled with people — tourists and locals. The streets were crowded and you made sure to look over your stuff in case there were any pickpockets. Your new friend decided that he should walk a step behind you to keep you safe.

Taking a short turn, your eyes have finally met with a bookshop that had an antique housing to compliment its aesthetic. You stared up at him to confirm whether this was the place that he was referring to. He nodded and held out his arms which meant that you should go in first.

You opened the doors to the bookstore and you were quickly met with an array of books and novels lined up on wooden shelves with a number of rows. The inside was incredibly quaint and you hoped to the gods that you could find a good book in English without having to spend hours looking through all of them.

You weren't the only one fascinated with what you saw. You looked at the person beside you to see that he had his mouth open and his eyes fixated on the rows of shelves that lined up inside the antique bookshop.

The both of you wasted no time looking through the number of books. Your eyes quickly scan the shelves for a nice read. The titles were filled with different genres and languages. Fiction, travel guides, biographies, classics, history memoirs. It was every bibliophile's dream. You weren't really sure what you were looking for to begin with.

Should I get a Jane Austen novel? Or maybe a memoir on Princess Diana? A dystopian book? A different version of your Percy Jackson books that you have on your shelf? Or maybe just get another law book for one of your legal management classes to get it over with.

You thought to yourself as you looked through the pages of every novel that your hands could pick up. You decided to look through the shop when you finally caught the sight of your companion. He had his back turned as he was looking through a book over at one section of the shop. Arts section. You should've known.

You decided to take a look at this section yourself. As you approached his figure, Jongseong turned around sensing yours. You waited until you approached him before speaking. "Found something you like?"

He nodded his head yes as he showed you what book he wanted to buy. A memoir on Michaelangelo. "How about you?" This time, he asked you. You nodded your head no with a sad smile. "I don't even know what I'm looking for"

"Well, what do you like?" He asked again.

"What inspires you?"

"Uhm....I don't know. Politics? Maybe I could read about the policies around he-" You weren't even able to finish your sentence because you were cut off with his deep voice. Jay knew that tone and expression. That voice didn't show genuine love for what you were talking about.

"What do you honestly like?" Not believing your excuse, he asked again.

You took a few seconds to answer his question. "I like photography".

He raised his eyebrows at you. His body was now facing yours and his eyes were intently looking at your face while listening closely to what you have to say. "I've always liked photography. When my mom bought me my camera, I wouldn't let go of it and just take photos of everything. I've only tried landscapes because that was the only thing I could start with. I've wanted to do portraits but I don't have enough ideas on how to do it. Plus, my major doesn't really give me the time to practice."

Jay saw the twinkle in your eyes as you talked about your love for the art form. "Then it's settled. Let's get you a book on that one"

Without even realizing it, he was soon dragging you all across the bookshop trying to look for the perfect book to take home.

And somehow, someway, after buying yourself a book on the art of photography, you and your companion found yourselves having dinner at one of the restaurants you found down the street. The both of you have decided to try tapas.

You didn't know when, but the awkward atmosphere that the both of you had when you first met was replaced with comfort and a light air.

Despite not knowing each other's names, you talked as if you're old friends that were catching up with one another after not seeing each other for years. While waiting for the order to arrive, the both of you started discussing what other places you plan to go to during your stay.

"There's this place I saw online. I was planning to go there. But it's getting late, I think it'd be better if I go there when the sun is still out" You said to the young man that was sitting across from you. "What's it called?" He asked.

"Uhm it's a park. I think it's called Ciutadella? Ciutadella Park?" You told him not really sure if your pronunciation was correct.

His eyes immediately widened, signalling that he knew what you were talking about. "I was planning to go there too! They have this amazing cascada inside the park. It’s near The Sagrada Familia if you want to check that out too. " He told you with an excited tone. You smiled at his reaction.

Suddenly, you wondered whether the both of you would be going together just like what you did today. You thought about if it was a good thing to ask him that because you didn't want to seem like you have attached yourself already with your travel partner and that you would want to tour the city with him again tomorrow. It was silly to be honest. Why would I want to go sightseeing with this man when the only thing I know about him is his face and his love for art? You realized that you were still in mid conversation and that it was rude to just go quiet all of the sudden.

"I was planning to practice taking pictures once I got there" You said to him. Your fingers were playing with the utensils you had in front of you. While slightly tapping on the wooden table, Jay replied. "That's great then. I guess we should go there early so you have enough natural light."

We? Is he really implying that we should go together?

He looked at your face and saw that your expression was mixed with both confusion and surprise. Your head was slightly tilted like a lost puppy, your mouth was slightly ajar, and your eyebrows were raised. He started questioning whether he said the right words. Did he come off as too adherent?

"You want us to go together?" He was caught off guard when you asked him. Not knowing the right words to say, he stammered. "I mean...if you want to...I'm not forcing you, it's just...I mean, we are going to the same place, so why don't we go together?"

His voice was hanging in the air. The only sounds that you two heard were the cluttering of utensils, other customers talking, and the background music that the restaurant provided. You noticed his eyes shaking trying to avoid your eyes. Then, you let out a giggle.

"Sure" You said.

His eyes finally met with yours the instant you said that word. "Oh God, I thought you would think I'm a creep" With his words you started to laugh. "You kind of are" You joked while telling him with a smile. Jay played along, letting out an exaggerated gasp while his right hand found his chest. "I feel offended"

You were still laughing at his silly expression when you continued talking "To be honest, you wanted to sit with me during the plane ride and now you decide to come up to me at the cathedral. I think that calls for a creep" He smiled at your smug expression as you talked. "I only did it because it was painful to watch. You kept frowning every five minutes" He fired back. Jay gave an equally smug look and now it was your turn to react. "Was it really painful to watch?" He started laughing, showing you his smile.

Soon your laughter started to die down. The air between the two of you was silent again, but in a comforting way.

Epiphany hits you after your discussion on how the both of you met. You never got to say thank you properly. When you turned around to say your gratitude, you went looking for him, only to see that he was gone. Not losing the opportunity again, you decided to tell him now.

"Thank you, by the way" He looked up at you when you said those words.

He was silent and didn't say anything so you decided to explain further. "For what you did on the plane. Switching seats, the tissue — as embarrassing as that was, the chewing gum. You didn't even know me but you decided to help. So....Thank you"

A smile slowly started to form across Jay’s face. He saw your shy demeanor as you said your gratitude towards him which made his heart flutter. "You're welcome," He replied.

"It's strange how we just met and you start treating me like a friend but you did it anyway. I mean, look at us, we don't even know each other's names and-" Your blabbering was cut off with his deep voice.

"Jongseong. Or Jay if you prefer." He replied. "That's my name"

“Y/N. Nice to meet you”

You were pretty satisfied that your day had ended with you putting a name to that stranger's face.

Jay.

Ever since you told each other your names, they pretty much rolled off the tongue. After dinner both of you really had nothing left to do except enjoy the Barcelona night sky. Jay talked to you throughout the evening. He told you how he got into art and why he loves it so much. From his story, you clearly tell that it was something he was passionate about. It basically ran through his entire body.

But just when I thought that nothing could beat his love for painting, Jay couldn't help himself as he told you about his friends back home. He even took the time to pull out a photo of them that he had on his wallet to show you. With the way he smiled while he told you all of his favorite memories of them together, it was clear that he really valued them.

Of course, you had to share stories as well. It would be really unfair on his part if he did all the talking.

So you told him how your major wasn't even your first choice. You've wanted to take up photography or film as your degree. But remembering how you felt like you had to repay your parents for everything that they had done, you decided to take up a pre-law course so you can follow in the footsteps of your father.

You had to admit that you didn't enjoy it at first but you grew to love it. The idea of switching majors still pops up once in a while but you've always told yourself that you could still do photography even with a PhD.

His words still rang in your head after you told him your story.

"You shouldn't do things to make other people proud. You have to make yourself proud"

Jay finally understood all those sad smiles everytime that topic was brought about. Sure, he felt sorry for her and wanted to tell her to switch if photography was what made her truly happy but he decided that he shouldn't. He wanted to respect your decision, knowing that he didn't have control over her life.

He walked you back to your hotel which was only a few blocks away from his. Before saying good night and "see you again", he promised to wait for you outside of your hotel tomorrow at 8:00 AM so the both of you could go to the Ciutadella Park and the Basilica together.

It was silly how quickly you had trusted this man to join you while you toured around the city but that was nearly impossible not to do with his charming personality.

Jay couldn't believe it himself that he was able to build a friendship (if that's what you called it) through this trip. It's usually just him traveling alone or traveling with friends but never with a woman he just found out the name of.

And so the night goes. Neither of them could sleep properly because of jetlag. You also had to remind yourself to update your parents because they might be going crazy at this point. Of course, you didn't tell them about Jay. They would flip. You thought that it'd be better if you kept this to the both of you.

The alarm that you've set the previous night rang to tell you that it was time to get ready for day 2 of your formerly called solo trip in Barcelona.

To say that you felt giddy to finally have to spend the whole entire day traveling the city was an understatement. You want to believe that it was because yesterday's flight tired you out that you haven't comprehended the thought that you are strolling the city but if you were trying to be honest enough, it was probably because your thoughts were filled with the art-loving and soft hearted boy that accompanied you.

Now, after getting ready to go out, you decided to go down to the hotel lobby as Jay said he will be meeting you there. Waiting for the elevator doors to open, you made sure that you looked presentable enough. When the ground floor came into your sight, you got out of the golden walled elevator and walked down to the lobby.

The place was huge and crowded. Dozens of people were walking around or seated on the sofas but within those numbers of people, your eyes still found him sitting on one of the sofas near, with his eyes on the floor.

Jay has been sitting on the same couch for the past 25 minutes, waiting for you to come down. He came early just in case you finished before him, not wanting you to wait too long. A few of the hotel staff have approached him already asking if he wanted anything. He didn't want to be paranoid but at one point he even thought that you ditched him and went ahead earlier. That was until he saw your figure walking towards him.

Jay was beautiful. You've noticed it from the first time you saw him. His eyes pulled you in and his boxy smile captivated you. It was like seeing a star up close. But just like him, you wouldn't admit it out loud.

When he first saw you, he didn't deny the fact that he thought that you were attractive. That obviously wasn't something he would say so suddenly but it was still something he would have to admit for himself. Today was just like yesterday. The same thoughts came running through his head when he saw you smile at him as you approached him.

He immediately stood up to greet you and to return the smile you gave him. "Ready for today?" He asked with a welcoming look. Returning the kindness, you answered him. "Of course!" You held out your camera and smiled.

"Well let's get going then"

It surprisingly just took the both of you a few minutes from your hotel room to your destination. Somehow, to the extent of your knowledge, the small map that Jay had prepared for his trip came in handy in time of traveling the city. With your broken Spanish, you thanked a few people that helped you get to where you are now — Ciutadella Park.

You were welcomed with a wide steel fence, wedged in between two statues. The inside was like a forest that housed itself with many trees and a peaceful ambiance. When the both of you finally got inside, you were more than pleased to see such beauty. The garden was gorgeous. It was surrounded by hundreds of plants, and the air was as fresh as it looked. The fountain at the center was enormous and breath-taking. Upon entering, you couldn't contain the excitement and started capturing everything you could see. From the flowerscape to the cascade, you knew that you would be able to fill your camera with so many pictures.

But pictures will only be pictures until you turn them into memories.

Jay suddenly asked you if you wanted to get your picture taken. Quickly hesitating, he kept on persisting, saying that it won't be forever that you would get to see this place, and not having your photo taken there could make you regret it in a few years.

"If you let me take your picture, I'd let you practice your portraits on me"

A tempting offer since that is what you told him that you wanted to do. Honestly, you just felt shy to stand in front of the camera with him taking the photo. Silently giving him a look that said "I kind of want to, but I'm not sure", he extended his hand which meant to give him your camera. After a few more seconds of deciding, you finally caved in. He instructed you to stand near the fountain and smile, in which you did.

Jay really had no excuse other than to build up conversation again. He didn't even intend to say that you would model for him but seeing there really isn't any other person there with her, he had no choice. Not that he complained, he saw a few of your photos, some through the camera he took from you, and some through what you showed him over dinner last night. He trusted what you could do — something an artist like him would know. He saw you stand in front of the scenery ready to smile for the camera.

He had to admit that you look just as gorgeous compared to the garden. You were breath-taking. After taking more than a dozen pictures, Jay handed you back your camera. While actually judging yourself through the screen, your companion took some pictures of his own. A few of the scenery, and some, of you.

You had to admit, he did make you look decent in the photo. He captured your smile without it looking too cheesy. There were a few candid shots here and there but you were pretty pleased with it. It made you glad that you agreed to Jay’s random request. You looked back up and saw him taking some photos on his own camera.

You approached with a smirk. "So how about that deal?", already knowing what you meant, he hid his camera and smiled at you.

The whole practice shoot with Jay took a lot of shots, laughing, whining, and begging. He was an amazing model, you were sure of it. If he didn't major in arts, you would most probably see him on a billboard or a magazine. His looks alone could get those companies big money. Jay was also a goof. He liked to play a lot. Like a cat. He has a habit of charming people. He doesn't do it intentionally, it just sort of comes naturally to him.

They just find him too irresistible. He isn't aware that he has such a contagious smile and laugh that even when he does the bare minimum, people laugh along with him. It didn't surprise you that despite not having many still shots where he wasn't laughing, Jay looked exceptionally good. To say that he was impressed with your skills was an understatement, he saw your passion so whatever you had put out, he knew that he would like it. I mean, art built from passion is always better than aesthetically pleasing art right?

The day passed by like lightning. After taking your photos of your companion, you both strolled around the park, even going to the lake to take a short boat ride.

Now, the both of you were on your way to the Picasso museum for Jay. It took both of you at least another several minutes of travel. He started to become giddy. He didn't show it but through the small time of knowing him, you knew that he was ready to see the exhibit.

When the two of you entered the museum, you could see that he was gleaming with excitement. The once talkative boy became quiet as he took his time to admire the art pieces. He carefully read each description and he would tell you his own analysis of each work.

"I'm sorry if I talk about this stuff too much" He started to apologize. Something he shouldn't do. No one should really apologize for something that makes them genuinely happy.

"You have nothing to be sorry about. I like hearing you talk about these things" You assured him. He looked from the painting on the wall to you. "You do?" You nodded in response. "Of course. It tells me something I never knew" Jay gave you a small and genuine smile. He really appreciated it when people listened to his explanations and stories. It makes him want to tell more.

"Well I hope you wouldn't mind if I asked you to go to one more right?"

"Today? I thought we were going to the night market?" You asked back. "We can always go tomorrow or the next day, I mean we have-"

"Jay" You cut him off. He hummed in response and looked at you. "Tomorrow is my last day. My flight leaves at 11PM" You quickly told him before he starts making plans for the future. You completely forgot to tell him that your stay here was limited and that you have to go back home immediately.

"So soon?" You nodded in response.

"I still have like a few days left, traveling wouldn't be fun without you" He said with a pout on his face. You couldn't help but awe at him. If only you could stay for a few more days but booking another plane ticket would cost you more and you didn't have money for that now.

"We could still go in the morning or the afternoon though, I wouldn't mind" You smiled at him. Unintentionally and unknowingly, you lightly grabbed his arm, something which startled him a bit, but in a good way. "Well then miss Y/N, let's make your last day memorable. I'm taking you to Madrid"

Tomorrow came back so soon. After yesterday, Jay said he would pick you up again for your last day tour around the city. Madrid wasn't really in your plan of things to do but he said to be spontaneous. He wanted you to make the most out of it. You want to see more of the country and its culture and what better way to do that than to hop from one city to another.

Just like yesterday, Jay arrived at your hotel lobby before you. He sat again in the same seat with the same look. Madrid was at least a two hour trip so the both of you quickly headed out, not wanting to waste time.

"So how long is your stay here?" You asked him while taking the long bus ride. "A week. My flight leaves on Saturday" he said. Just like you, Jay didn't plan to go to Madrid. He was supposed to go later into his trip but some things have changed and he just decided to just go ahead with it.

He didn't really understand why he would go all the way and mix up all his plans and tire himself out for this girl he just met, but he was glad that he did. He loved your company, and to think that he would then have to spend the rest of his trip without someone he could tell jokes and stories with didn't seem as exciting as he first hopped on the plane to Barcelona.

"You've said that this wasn't your first trip right?" You began to ask him to start a conversation. He hummed and nodded in response. "Out of all of them? What was your favorite?" He gave it short thought, slightly tilting his head to think of an answer. "I'm not sure. They were all special"

"Come on you have to have one favorite"

"Not really, they're all different in their own way I guess, so I can't really choose"

"Alright, I’ll let you sit that one out"

Jay began a new conversation. "My turn. Tell me something about you."

"Well...I like watching dramas," You said in an obvious tone. "Except that. I knew that already. Tell me something I don't know " He was sitting beside you. You had the window seat and he had the altar. He was staring down at you while you took your time to think of something while looking out the window.

"I've never had a relationship" You answered him. He gave you a questionable smirk but replied quickly. "I won't judge. Why, though? Too busy with school?"

You shook your head to say no. "It's not that. I just haven't really gotten the timing of it" You saw that he was confused, he tilted his head slightly to show it.

"I was never one for a relationship. They come around but they don't stay for a while before something even happens. I don't know. I just start pushing them away because of this irrational fear I have of commitment."

"So you're afraid?"

"You could call it that"

It was silent for a while. You thought that you had brought the mood down until he started talking again. "I used to be afraid." You looked up at him as he began his story.

"Before I had my first partner, I wouldn't know how to act around everyone if I was in a relationship and that scared me. When I got into my first relationship, I immediately thought, 'what was I so afraid of?'. Everything just felt so nice that I never even realized that I was afraid in the first place"

"Then what happened?" Curiously you asked.

"We had our differences. I found out that they have been seeing my roommate behind my back. Got to my dorm to fetch something and I got the biggest shock of my life"

"If you're saying this so I won't be scared anymore then you're not helping"

"I'm saying this, to tell you that being afraid is totally understandable. But you gotta let go of your fear sometimes and just go with it. It could be some of the best years of your life. If worse comes to show then better people will come along the way. Yeah it sucked that I got cheated on, but I realized that I probably saved myself from that one and gave myself a chance to meet someone else. You just have to let fate bring the both of you together"

___

Time flew by too quickly, much to your dismay. Madrid was lovely. You got the chance to stroll around Retiro Park and Royal Palace and you had to thank Jay a couple of times to thank him for making you come.

Sadly, time really wasn't your best friend as it was time to go back to Barcelona to pack your bags so you could go to the airport and get back home. Jay was the sweetest, you told him that he didn't have to take you to the airport but he insisted despite it taking the both of you another two hours to get to your hotel room.

He decided to wait outside your hotel room while you finished gathering your things out of respect for your personal space. When you were done, he didn't hesitate to grab your luggage to help you.

It was 9PM and you had two hours to spare before your flight leaves. The taxi ride was quiet as Jay sat sat next to you. There was a small space in the middle and no one dared say a word. It wasn't an awkward silence though, more of a comforting but sad silence. It was deafening even when they had the radio turned on.

Deciding to break the unfathomable silence, you decided to speak.

"Thank you. Again. I know I've said it already but it wouldn't be enough after everything you've done"

"Don't worry. Anyone else would've done the same"

They wouldn't.

"And thank you too," He said. His eyes saw that your hand was lying on your lap.

After hesitating he softly gave them a squeeze. It surprised you but it didn't freak you out. You were even glad that he did that.

"This whole trip wouldn't be the same now that you're going to go" He said with a point. His left hand was softly playing with the fingers on your right hand. You gave him a sad smile.

"We could do it again soon" you replied quietly, not making eye contact, implying that you would like to see him again once you both got home.

"Are you asking me out once I get back home?" He said with an evident smug on his face. "I mean....that isn't what I meant, but if you wanted to" you replied back."I just wish I had your contact number so we could arrange something " His weak attempt of asking for your number made you laugh but it worked nonetheless. Soon you found yourself typing in your phone number on his cell.

Finally arriving at the airport, he took a hold of your luggage for you.

You honestly didn't want to do it. For just 3 days, his presence became a constant reminder to you that you wished to have him by your side when you got inside the plane..

He made you feel less scared.

"I guess you have to go, your plane is waiting for you" He gave your hand one final squeeze before handing you your luggage and letting your hand go. Your fingers felt cold and you'd want to grab a hold of him again but you thought that you shouldn't. You thought that it would be too much. "Yeah. Who's going to switch seats with the old guy beside me now?" You lightly joke.

You probably should walk away now but you weren't. You were still there standing in front of him. "It was nice to meet you Jay, you made this trip extra special" You smiled at him. Without saying anything back, he just nodded. It was your chance to turn around, walk away from him, and to leave Barcelona.

But you guess he had other ideas. To your surprise, you felt a hand grasp your wrist. It was a firm hold but not tight enough for it to hurt. It was firm enough to tell you to not go just yet.

"I've never said it before when you asked but this one was my favorite trip out of all of them."

Jay was bold when he grabbed her closer to him. You felt his lips meet your cheek. It was sudden and out of the blue and it left you frozen for a few seconds. As he slowly stepped back, you turned your head and connected your lips with his. It took a few seconds to realize what was happening but soon he slowly traveled his hand from her wrist to the tips of your face. His hand was resting on your jaw while every square inch of your body dissolved into his. You suddenly felt a sensation you never knew you were feeling. Jay’s soft hold on you made you cling on to him and made you want him closer than he already was. It wasn't intense, but it wasn't just a goodbye either. It was desperate but soft. It was quick but enough.

The both of you had to let go to catch your breath. With a sad look you had to let go. "I'll see you when you get home."

___

Your mom had bombarded you with dozens of questions after she picked you up from the airport.

She wanted to know everything, the plane ride, she wanted to know how food tastes, if I talked to any Spanish men while I was there, or if I made a friend. You were too tired and too out of focus to even answer her.

Jay was still on your mind and you couldn't find the right time to tell her that you did meet someone while you were there and that you both shared a moment before leaving. You wondered how he was doing, or where he was right now, but you couldn't ask him. Your idiocy forgot to tell you to get his phone number so you had to resort into waiting for him to get him which would still be in a few more days.

When you were transferring your photos from your camera to your laptop, your mom immediately wanted to check them out. Just when you thought you've hidden all your photos you had of your companion in a separate folder. One picture was left unknown to you.

“He’s cute” As your mom, she quickly asked who the stranger was. As if you could've hid it for that long you decided to tell her. Not that she was mad that you had spent your whole trip traveling with a man you just met surprised her but the fact that your stories made it seem like you've known him for so long. “Uhm…I met him on the plane. He happened to be traveling alone too so we just…decided to keep each other company.”

Suddenly, you remembered everything he made you feel. For 3 days, he made you feel like you could trust him. He gave you so many encouraging words and charming lines which immediately attracted you to his loving personality. For 3 days, Jay made you feel like the world. He gave you something you could never forget.

But why does it feel like it doesn't go the same for him?

Now, it's been weeks since your Barcelona trip and you haven't received one text or phone call from him. You had to triple check whether your cell was still on airplane mode and it wasn't. You started overthinking whether you gave him the wrong number or not and he would think that you didn't want to talk to him anymore. Worse, you started overthinking whether he really wanted to see you again.

You've thought of every possible scenario from him accidentally deleting your number or him getting his phone stolen, but none had soothed your thoughts.

Maybe you were thinking too irrationally and you were getting attached too quickly that you feel disappointed that he has not contacted you yet. It was only 3 days right? You shouldn't be so bummed about him not reaching out after weeks? But why were you? Why are you over thinking about him? Was that kiss just a spur of the moment? Were you just a matter of convenience and spontaneity?

Time flew by, much to your dismay.

A new semester has started and you haven't heard from Jay after your vacation. You've slowly started to let it go thinking that it wouldn't make a difference if you mopped around.

To say that you didn't want to go back was an understatement but you had no other choice. You were early by 5 minutes for your first class, much to your surprise. Your friends Karina and Wonyoung, were already there sitting together. They even saved you a seat as they gestured for you to come over.

"Do any of you want to go with me to the Art departments exhibit tonight? I gotta go support Sunghoon but I don't want to go alone, he'd be too busy with the gallery" Wonyoung asked as you sat down. "Isn't he a sports major?" Karina asked back.

"Yes but he had to take extra units in Art. Do you want to come?"

"Sorry Won, I promised my mom and dad to dinner later"

"Y/N?"

"Yeah sure, I guess it'd be fun"

To be honest, you've never appreciated art as much as you did before Barcelona. Jay changed your mind on it. And now every painting you see, you couldn't stop thinking about him.

By 6 in the evening you found yourself standing with Wonyoung inside the Art departments gallery. You've never realized that the students from your university were crazy talented. The paintings and sculptures were made with fine hands. All of them had their own color and technique.

When Wonyoung said that Sunghoon would be too busy with the gallery to pay attention to her, you believed her.

You shouldn't have.

Her and her boyfriend were now having the time of their lives while you were left around to wonder and see the art. The place was huge and was packed with people but you managed to weave yourself to the last part of the exhibit.

You took your time reading each description and looking at the different strokes on each painting when you've come across one painting in particular.

It was a girl that had her back facing the canvas. She was surrounded by a familiar scene. The towering buildings made the girl look small, the sun shone in the oil canvas, and the trees seemed like they were swaying even if they were made to look still. The gothic painting was a place she knew well.

Barcelona.

It's been months since her last visit but the moments you have spent there were still clear. Of course, it would be. Everything was too memorable to forget — everything and someone. Memories of the charismatic but playful man played in your head and you couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic and regretful. You've thought that after your trip to the historic and romantic city in Europe, you'd finally met someone you were willing to have a romance with. But, maybe you spoke too soon, and too ambitious even.

By this time, it would have been best if you forgot everything and just moved on. I mean, you've only known the man for less than a week, how is it so possible that he could have this much of an impact on you? You've grown too attached to him and it didn't help that he wasn't there to actually have someone attached to. Maybe it was time to finally come to terms with your expectations of you and Jay. Maybe you shouldn't be so down that he didn't text you and just be glad that you met him; even if it was only temporary.

Detaching your gaze from the painting, you've led yourself outside to gather some fresh air. You'd hate to leave Wonyoung but she seems preoccupied as you texted her that you'd be heading out and she replied that she had Sunghoon with her. After pushing away the glass doors of the gallery, you were quickly met with a gust of wind blowing in your face. It was quiet and lonely unlike inside where it was jam-packed with people. You were just slowly getting used to the serene atmosphere when you heard the gallery doors behind you open once again.

As you looked to check who it was, you started to feel that the amount of wind blowing in your face was useless. Your breath was stuck on your throat. The man who exited the halls had your mouth left hanging. You want to think you were hallucinating but you've been blinking enough to know that this was real.

Park Jongseong.

Just like you, he stood completely still; he was huffing his chest, probably catching his breath from a quick run outside. Jay saw you from the gallery balcony looking at the oil canvas that he presented for his midterms. He didn't want to believe it at first but after a few seconds, he was sure. It was you. The girl he grew fond of after his trip last summer.

"Y/N...."

You didn't know how to act. You didn't know what to say. What were you supposed to do? Run up to him? Give him a hug? Tell him you missed him? Or were you supposed to walk away? Show him how embarrassed you felt after being left hanging?

All of these questions were running through your head but one thing was clear in Jay’s head.

He had to explain.

"I didn't expect to see you here" Jaycontinued to say as he slowly walked over to the girl. His voice was hushed and gentle, but it was still enough to have your heart racing. "Same here" You managed to reply.

He was finally standing in front of you. The distance felt awkward yet so familiar. "I-uh...." Jay began to stutter. "Uhm... What are you doing here?"

"A friend asked me to come with her" He nodded in reply. "Where is she?"

"With her boyfriend"

"So you're all alone now?"

"Wouldn't be the first time"

You saw his mouth shut tight.

It was quiet. No one spoke. You've gotten used to silence whenever you were with Jay during your time in Barcelona, but somehow this felt different. It wasn't a comfortable silence; it felt like someone wanted to fill the void with words.

"I'm sorry" You heard him say. You never prepared yourself to have this talk; nonetheless right at this moment. "I had no other excuse for not calling you other than I was afraid"

"Jay..."

"I ignored you when you must have waited for my text and I will forever regret being so scared to do it because I wasn't sure whether whatever happened between us was real or just a spur in the moment of loneliness"

You tried to avoid his deep gaze but they reeled you no matter what. "But after weeks, the feelings were still there and I didn't know how I was going to explain how it took so long to call you so I just left it at that..."

"And when I saw you, It's like someone inside of me told me that maybe leaving it all in Barcelona wasn't our last chance.That maybe, just maybe, I could make this right; stop being so afraid of what I feel."

"Where are you going with this Jay?"

He stepped closer.

"I made a mistake. I didn't call because I was afraid and thinking that all of it was just because I felt lonely. But I don't want to be that Jay anymore. I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I want to be the Jay that would be there for you, even outside of Barcelona. I don't know if our meeting was just a coincidence or a twist of fate, but I'll take them any day because I had the greatest opportunity of meeting you again."

And it was like, at that moment, you forgot all the words and have lost the ability to speak because right after he said that you couldn't help but stare at him.

"That is...if you want to of course...I don't want to force you or-"

"Jay.."

He stopped talking and looked at you.

“What you did really hurt me, you know that right?” You started off. “I know. And I don’t want to make any excuses. I would do anything for your forgiveness.”

You took a deep breath.

“Everything is just so sudden. One minute you disappear from the face of the earth and now you’re in front of me, asking me for a chance…Do you know how insane this sounds?”

He gulped and looked down on his feet.

“But I would be a fool to let you get away another time.”

“So what you’re saying is-”

“Coincidence. Fate. Whatever it is, I wouldn’t be so afraid to try things with you.”

152 notes · View notes

yuta-nakamots · 20 days ago

Text

Fools - H.Renjun

Pairing - Boyband Member!Renjun x Makeup Artist!Female Reader

Genre(s) - Fluff, Angst, Hairspray!AU, The Outsiders!AU, Soc!Renjun, Greaser!Reader, 60s!AU

Warning(s) - social group rivalry/discrimination (Greasers vs. Socs), mild physical violence

Summary - You’re a Greaser makeup artist and he’s the Soc golden-boy idol with a perfect smile and a secret streak of rebellion. Every Tuesday, Renjun trades polish for something real, and he kisses you like it’s worth losing everything he has.

Word Count - 6.5k

Author’s Note - I wrote this to be similar to Hairspray, where Renjun and the reader work for a weekly recurring show except without the racism. Hairspray was one of the first Broadway musicals I was introduced to and I remember it so clearly as a part of my childhood so I really tried to include things like the childhood crush I had on Link and the hurdle of social unrest regarding the difference in groupings of the characters

Taglist - @k-vanity @cosyhomenet @neocity-net @k-films @cinneorolls @dinonuguaegi @tinyzen @fancypeacepersona (join my taglist!)

Written for The Outsiders Collab hosted by @fruityutas. Also part of my NCT Dream: Seven Days Collection.

Now playing: Fools - Troye Sivan, Without Love - Motion Picture Cast of Hairspray, Just Wanna Be With You - High School Musical Cast

The scent of hairspray lingered like smoke in the backstage areas, curling through rows of vanity bulbs and cracked linoleum floors. It was a Tuesday–always a Tuesday–when the studio lights buzzed hotter than usual, and the city’s golden kids rolled in with smiles lacquered like records. On camera, everything gleamed, but off camera, it was all duct tape, sweat, and powdered noses.

There were two kinds of people in this town, the ones who owned the spotlight and the ones who held it up on their shoulders.

The Socials, otherwise known as the Socs, cruised around in candy-colored convertibles, wallets fat with daddy’s money, and grins cleaned up to perfection. They wore clean, pressed clothes and carried names that opened doors. Their lives were picture-perfect, lacquered in fame and privilege.

The Greasers? You guys clawed your way through life with dirt under your nails and oil in your veins. Your world was diner counters, cigarette breaks in the studio parking lot, and leather jackets that doubled as armor. You painted on your eyeliner like war paint and didn’t flinch when someone called you ‘rough around the edges’. Let them be scared.

Recently, you had taken up work in the shadows behind the scenes of a weekly music show, touching up the kinds of people who never looked at you unless their powder ran dry. You weren’t one of them. Not even close. But still, every Tuesday, at noon sharp, you stood behind the same cracked vanity lit by buzzing bulbs and the flicker of dreams that weren’t yours.

You wiped your makeup-stained hands with a stained rag before tugging a stool toward the large vanity in front of you. Another Tuesday meant another round of perfecting faces that never saw a hard day’s work. You adjusted your cat-eye liner with the edge of your thumbnail, checking your reflection. Smudged, tired, yet still standing.

“Dreamboys live in ten minutes,” barked the stage manager’s voice, a sharp call throughout the studio.

In came your last task for the day, Renjun. A golden boy of the Soc scene. Perfect blazer, white teeth, hair so neat it could’ve been painted. The suit he wore likely cost more than your entire paycheck. His voice sent girls into shrieking frenzies as it was broadcast into homes all over the country. You’d seen the posters of him and his boy band, the Dreamboys. A bunch of clean-cut Socs with harmonies tight enough to sell innocence and fake rebellion all in one song.

He slid into your makeup chair without asking, his presence filling the room like he belonged there. His cologne was sharp but expensive with notes of citrus and power. His eyes flicked up to meet yours through the mirror. Cool and curious.

“You always look this serious when you touch up the stars?” He asked, voice smooth like velvet.

You grabbed a powder puff and tapped it sharply against his cheek. “Only when they act like they burn brighter than the rest of us.”

He chucked. “Fair enough.” He looked at you with a hint of amusement. Something dangerous, something real. “You don’t belong back here,” he said quietly, like a confession. “You’ve got eyes like someone meant to be on stage.”

You rolled your eyes, but your hands fell to the collar of his jacket, straightening it out. “And you’ve got the face of someone who’s never been told no.”

He laughed, light and airy. Something changed in the air between you. Perhaps it was just the heat of the lights or the static of the studio.

“Dreamboys on standby in five,” the director's voice called. The hallways buzzed with movement. Staff scurried past while the producer was yelling something about lighting cues. Yet Renjun didn’t move.

He lingered in your makeup station, perched in the seat with his legs splayed, watching you as you lined up your brushes with practiced precision. You dusted his cheeks with a final touch of blush, pulling back to assess your work before straightening his tie. With a nod of approval, you grabbed your puff to blot the shine off the tip of his nose, your free hand coming to his chin to hold him steady.

You felt the way his breath hitched just slightly as his face sat in your hold, your hand brushing against his jaw. His gaze dropped to your mouth, lips pulled tight in concentration, before flicking back up to meet your eyes.

“You always this gentle?” He mused.

You clicked the powder compact shut. “You always this nosy?”

Before he could answer, someone shouted again from behind the camera. “Dreamboys, now! We’re rolling in two!”

Renjun slid off the chair with a reluctant sigh. He glanced back once, a smirk tugging at his lips. “You’re good at this,” he stated plainly.

“What? My job? I kinda have to be.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I mean, hiding how much you like me.”

You nearly threw your puff at him. “Break a leg, Dreamboy.”

He winked. “Only if you’re the one patching me up later.”

With that, he disappeared in the hustle of the studio, his polished shoes tapping against the floor and echoing in your ears long after he was gone.

The next Tuesday, he was back. Same velvet voice, same blinding smile. But this time, when the producer called for touch-ups, Renjun asked for you by name.

You had barely clocked in, still shrugging off your jacket and slipping your makeup brushes out of your bag, when the stage manager tapped your shoulder. “One of the Dreamboys asked for you.”

You rolled your eyes. Of course he did. “I’ll bring him in.”

You found him lounging in the Dreamboys’ dressing room, sleeves rolled up, legs splayed out and crossed at the ankles like he had nothing better to do. He was halfway into costume–slim-fit slacks, pastel button-down tucked somewhat into his waistband, and a tie hanging around his shoulders as if he had all the time in the world.

“Greaser girl’s here,” he announced when you walked in, drawing glances from the other boys. “I was starting to think I scared you off after last week.”

“You wish,” you responded coolly. “You’re not that special.”

He grinned. “Tell that to the hundreds of fan letters I got this morning.”

You scoffed. “Can’t decide whether to give you a touch-up or an ego check.”

“Can I get both?” He asked coyly.

“Sure, golden boy. Need you in my chair first,” you quipped, leaving the dressing room and heading back to the hair and makeup room with Renjun in tow.

Once he was seated, he watched you through the mirror as you leaned in close, dabbing a tissue at the smudge of lipstick from the corner of his mouth. His gaze was equally as playful as it was sharp and studying, like he was trying to figure out the story behind the chipped polish on your nails.

“You always this serious?” He asked, quieter than usual.

“Only when I’m working,” you replied.

“And what about when you’re not?”

You set the tissue down and rolled your eyes, feigning annoyance. “How about you find that out for yourself?”

Later that night, the crew packed up fast, the stage lights dimming to an orange glow. Rain tapped gently on the rooftop, the kind of soft weather that made the neon signs outside glow like fireflies.

You were halfway to the exit when you saw Renjun again, waiting by the loading dock, tucked into the shadows where a random passerby wouldn’t think to look. Gone was the pastel shirt and blazer. In its place was a leather jacket two sizes too big and slung around his narrow frame. His hair wasn’t slicked back like it always was, but instead it was a little windblown, as if he’d run through the streets without worry for his appearance. His loafers were scuffed, yet his eyes were bright.

“Hey,” he said with his voice low as you walked past.

You paused mid-step, turning to him and raising a brow at his reckless visual. “Did you rob a Greaser on your way out?”

“No,” Renjun chuckled, tugging at the collar lightly. “Just wanted to try something new...Feel something different.”

“You wanted to feel what it’s like to be poor?”

“To be real,” he countered.

You folded your arms across your chest. “You’re gonna get yourself in trouble.”

He stepped closer, cocking his head. “You gonna tell on me, Greaser girl?”

You bite back a smile, heat crawling from your neck to your cheeks. “Only if you keep calling me that.”

Behind you, the lights of the studio flickered off, signaling the end of the day, but something else was just beginning. Renjun reached out and slotted his arm into the nook of your elbow. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you home.” Your heart skipped once at the sudden physical contact, yet you didn’t pull away.

The following week, after the final applause fades and the crowd’s cheers for the Dreamboys die down, you slip backstage, heart still pounding from adrenaline as you practically had to shove Renjun out of your makeup chair and to his mark on the stage just as the bell sounded, signaling they were airing live. The Dreamboys make their way backstage after the show, eager to get out of their brightly colored suits and sweat-stained makeup. Renjun catches your eye across a dim hallway, his smile quiet but full of words unspoken.

He pulls you aside, voice low and urgent. “We can’t keep meeting where everyone’s watching. I want a place where we can just…be us.”

You nod, understanding the weight behind his words. Somewhere off stage, somewhere away from the expectations of work, somewhere far from the crowd’s fantasies. He settles into your chair in front of the vanity, eyes meeting yours as you speak to him through the reflection of the mirror. “That old diner by the drive-in theater,” you suggest. “It’s closed during the week, and hardly anyone goes there late at night.”

Renjun’s eyes light up for the first time all night. “Tonight. After this is all done.”

Against all odds, you and Renjun managed to meet in secret, away from the flickering lights of the studio and the commotion of the production team.

You slide into the booth just as the neon sign outside sputters to life, its electric glow painting the vinyl seats in shades of blue and pink. Renjun’s already seated across from you, sipping from a coffee that’s long gone cold, his eyes darting to the door every few seconds. You catch his gaze and flash a quick, cautious smile before dropping your purse behind you and giving a wave to the waitress at the counter. She knew your regular order.

“This place hasn’t changed much,” he notes, voice almost a whisper. “Feels like a time capsule back from the good old days.”

“You used to come here often?” You inquired, wondering how you’ve never seen a Soc like him in a diner that was a favorite among the Greasers.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Back when I was just a kid with a dream, I’d come here after class with the other guys.” You nod in understanding. It’s strange how the air feels heaving within the walls of the diner, like the world outside was holding its breath. Renjun leans closer, his expression serious. “You know, back then, it was easier to just be myself. But now…I’m tired of being the guy everyone pins their fantasies on. It’s like they don’t see the real me.”

You glance away, fingers tracing the scratches on the table. “Guess I’m glad I don’t know what that’s like. I never really had the luxury to dream…not like you.”

He studies you, something unreadable flickering in his eyes. “Maybe it’s time you start.”

You continue meeting up with Renjun after the red ‘Now Airing’ signs go out every Tuesday night. The boardwalk on the way to the diner smells of wet leaves and late-night smoke, far from the polished studio lights and manicured stages. The diner’s neon buzzes faintly behind you as you duck into the building, taking a seat next to him at the bar.

“Here,” you say, pulling a comb from your bag and handing it over to Renjun. “Let me show you how to slick your hair back without looking like you’re trying too hard.” He looks at you quizzically, as if you had just spoken in a different language. “I saw the way you were trying to do it in the dressing room earlier. That’s not how you do it.”

Renjun takes the comb from your handles, toying at the bristles like he’s holding a foreign object instead of a simple bit of plastic. He doesn’t move at first, just studies you, the flickering neon lights outside the window catching on his cheekbones.

You scoot a little closer to him, the barstool squeaking beneath you. “It’s all about the angle,” you tell him, wrapping your fingers around his wrist and guiding his hand up. “Don’t push it flat, it’ll make you look like a schoolboy whose mom did their hair on picture day.”

A laugh slips out of him, short and surprised. “She used to,” he said, grinning crookedly. “Back when I was still doing auditions and struggling to book gigs.”

“Figures,” you mutter, but for some reason, you’re smiling too. You dip your fingers into the small tin of pomade you always carry, and you warm the paste between your hands. “Tilt your head.” Renjun obeys without question, and there’s something about the way he lets you touch him, his trust, his curiosity, that settles a strange warmth in your chest. Your hands smooth through his hair, coaxing it back in careful swoops. “It’s gotta look effortless, like you did it without thinking.”

“Is that what you do?” He asks, eyes closing as your fingertips press gently along his scalp.

“No,” you admit. “I think. A lot.”

Renjun opens his eyes again, studying your face from mere inches away. “Well, if it helps, I think you make it look easy.”

You look away first, cheeks warming. “Don't you go getting all soft on me now.”

But his voice deepens, sincere in a way that cuts through the hum of the diner. “You make me feel like I can be someone else. Someone true to myself.”

You pause, your hands lingering near his cheek. “And you make me feel like I can want more than I have.”

He tilts his head, hair now perfectly slicked, a ghost of your touch still in the strands. “Like what?”

You almost said it. Almost. But instead, you shrug, dropping your hands to the counter. “Maybe I’ll tell you next Tuesday.”

Renjun’s smile is quiet. “I’ll be here.” For a moment, it’s just the two of you and the quiet music from the jukebox in the corner, spinning some lovestruck tune you barely know. His fingers brush yours, light and tentative. “It’s different with you, it’s like I can breathe.” His swallow is audible. “When I’m in the studio, it's like I’m wearing a mask. I’m tired of being the guy everyone expects. The perfect Soc boy.”

You bite your lip, heart clenching. “Well, you do what you gotta do to survive. I’ve never had the luxury of dreaming like that. Greasers don’t get that kind of hope.”

Renjun reaches for your hand, for real this time, his thumb brushing over your knuckles in a way that feels like a promise. “But maybe you deserve to want more, to want out. Maybe it’s okay to dream, even if the world doesn’t make it easy.”

You shake your head. “That’s easy for you to say.”

When you return home that night, you’re climbing up the stairs to the front door when a hand rests on your shoulder, stopping you cold.

“Where have you been?” Johnny questions. You’ve always known him as the one who doesn’t talk much unless it matters.

He’s the guy who taught you how to change a tire before you knew how to drive, who patched up your busted knuckles the first time a street fight went sideways. He buys you coffee when he’s got spare change and slips you his extra cigarette when yours gets crushed in your bag. He never asks for anything in return, except maybe your common sense. So when you hear his voice behind you, low, steady, and unmistakably tired, you already know you’re in trouble.

“Where’ve you been?” He asks once more.

You turn slowly, looking upon Johnny’s face that was half illuminated by the street lights. He took his hand back, crossing his arms and staring you down with his brows furrowed. His hair was swept off his forehead, his leather jacket creased at the elbows like he’s been waiting for a while.

“Nowhere,” you blurt all too fast.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Try again.”

You blow out a breath, eyes flicking to the ground. “It’s nothing. Just…went for a walk after work.”

Johnny steps forward, slow and deliberate. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t curse. That’s not him. It’s worse, somehow, his concern dripping from every word. “I saw you,” he states plainly. “Slipping out from the back of the studio. With him.”

You wince. “So?”

“So?” He copies, voice inflecting up at the end in ridicule. Johnny’s jaw tightens, his hands balling into fists under crossed arms. “You think this is a game? That guy’s a Soc, through and through. Silver spoon in his mouth, money in his pockets, the whole nine yards. He gets paid to play pretend. You don’t.”

“He’s not like the others.”

The corner of Johnny’s mouth twitches. “They never are…until they become like the others.”

You want to snap back and say something cruel just to shut him up, but you don’t, simply because it’s Johnny. The guy who once sat in a hospital waiting room for hours when you cracked a rib. The one who pulled you off the train tracks when your anger got bigger than you were. You know he’s not judging you, he’s just scared. For you.

“I know what I’m doing,” you mutter.

“Do you?” He asks gently, and suddenly he’s not the towering, cocky guy everyone follows without question. He’s just your friend. The one who’s seen what heartbreak can do to you. The one who’s tried to shield you from it more than once.

You swallow. “He makes me feel like I deserve to want things.”

Johnny’s expression cracks just a little. “Then I hope to hell he’s worth it.”

You don’t answer. You just open the front door, pretending your hands aren’t trembling. He doesn’t try to stop you, but he stands on your porch well after you slip inside and shut the door.

The next day, on the other side of town, the Dreamboys flood into the cramped, shabby dressing room at a magazine shoot. Renjun doesn’t even make it to his seat before they surround him like a storm gathering. Chenle perched on the vanity like it was a throne, Jisung by the door like a guard, and Jaemin leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a lollipop in his mouth. Mark is the only one standing in the middle, blocking the path like he’s hoping this will be a conversation and not a war.

“You had pomade on your collar,” Jaemin says, nodding over to the jacket he wore at the diner last night. “Was she touching you, or were you just playing hairstylist for fun?”

Renjun doesn’t answer. Just grabs the jacket and tosses it to the side.

Mark steps forward. “Look, we get it. She’s cool. Greasers are cool…if you’re into chasing danger and pretending you’re not rich just for the hell of it.”

Renjun folds his arms. “She’s not just a Greaser.”

“Then what is she?” Chenle asks, hopping down from his spot. “A rebel? A middle finger to your family’s perfect image?”

“She’s real,” Renjun states, quiet but firm. “She’s the only person who doesn’t treat me like a porcelain doll or a paycheck.” There’s an ember of surprise, even hesitation, among them.

Jeno, who’s been silent in the corner until now, finally speaks up. “We’re just trying to protect you. You know how this goes. If you cross lines like this, you pay, one way or another.”

“I’m not scared of paying,” Renjun replies, almost bitterly. “I’m scared of being nothing more than what people expect me to be. Some golden Soc boy who’s never lifted a finger.”

A heavy silence settles. Jisung shifts like he wants to speak, but thinks better of it. Jaemin’s lips closed around his lollipop, and his jaw flexed. Mark sighs, exhausted. “Just don’t forget who you are.”

Renjun meets his gaze, steady and unyielding. “Maybe I’m just starting to figure that out.” He pushes past them, jaw tight, and chest burning with something fierce and raw. Hope, fear, defiance, who knows? None of them tried to stop him, but none said goodbye, either. Behind him, the room feels colder, the weight of old expectations pressing down harder than ever.

The backstage chaos swirls around you, the chatter of the crowd beyond the stage, the last-minute checks, the bright and unforgiving lights buzzing overhead. But hidden behind the heavy velvet folds of the curtain that separated the stage from the rest of the studio, everything felt calm.

Renjun sits in the stool in front of you, silent, his eyes closed as you steady his face with one hand and brush foundation over the hollow of his cheek with the other. The world melts away with every gentle stroke, every soft exhale that escapes him. The scent of him surrounds you, a combination of cologne, sweat, the biting sharpness of hairspray, and something distinctly Renjun. Your fingers steady his chin as your brush continues gliding over his skin in practiced strokes.

You’re closer than you should be. You lean closer, your thigh brushing his knee, your breath mingling with his. Every time your hand grazes his cheek, you feel his breath hitch just slightly.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.

You pause in your motions. “So are you.”

A silence settles between you. Not empty, but full of what-ifs and possibilities. Then, slowly, he opens his eyes and looks up at you. Before you can talk yourself out of it, your lips meet his.

It’s not desperate. It’s quiet, reverent. The kind of kiss that makes time hesitate. When you break away, you glance over your shoulder. No one is watching. Or at least, not yet. “Someone might come back here,” you whisper. You mean it as a warning, a line drawn.

“I don’t care,” he mutters. But you do. You both do.

Still, your hands falter as you reach for the powder. His fingers brush yours, ink-stained from notes he scribbled in the margins of his script. The touch lingers, hesitant. “Just for a second,” he pleads softly.

It’s reckless. Stupid, even. Yet you kiss him again anyway. It’s quick, stolen, a breathless thing tucked between shadows and seconds. A kiss meant to disappear the moment it’s over. But it lingers on your lips like a secret you’ll never be able to bury deep enough.

You break apart as footsteps echo nearby. Both of you turn away like nothing happened, like you’re still just a makeup artist and a client. But the heat in his gaze tells a different story.

Later, after the curtain has fallen and the show has ended, the price of that kiss begins to surface. Renjun’s manager pulls him aside backstage, voice sharp and cutting. “You need to be careful. Your image, and ours, cannot afford distractions.” The message is clear, and so is the cost. And just like that, the pressure tightens around you.

The whispers grow louder. You catch your name on the lips of coworkers when they think you’re not listening. Your name gets dragged into meetings and sits under pointed fingers. The warning arrives in your hands like a slap. “Inappropriate fraternization,” the letter reads in thick, bold typeface. One of the other makeup artists snickered over your shoulder, seeing the words stretch across the paper.

The director calls you in after hours. His words are clipped. “We’re putting you under review,” he tells you. “You know why.” You nod, lips tight, throat dry. You knew this was coming. Still, it hurts more than you expected.

The next week, Renjun catches your eye across the studio. His look says everything. ‘I’m sorry. I’m scared. I’m not letting go.’

Later, when you step outside for a breath of fresh air, he’s already there. He doesn’t speak, just slips his hand into yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His fingers squeeze, hesitant at first, then tighter like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go. You don’t. Not yet.

Your hand stays in his, your grip firm. It’s a quiet rebellion, tucked in the shadows of the studio’s back door. It’s defiant and dangerous, but it’s yours. Still, your heart twists because holding his hand doesn’t pay the bills. Affection doesn’t soften the sting of a paycheck withheld or the anxiety of being replaced.

You look down at your shoes, worn and secondhand, then up at him, still glowing in post-show adrenaline. He has everything. Or at least, he’s supposed to. Fame, fans, futures mapped out in contracts. You only have this job, this one shot at a foothold in a world that was never built for people like you.

“I can’t afford to be reckless,” you finally say, breaking the silence. “Not like you can.”

“I’m not trying to be reckless,” Renjun responds, his brows furrowing. “I’m trying to be real. Like you.”

“But real doesn’t put food on the table.” You pull your hand just slightly from his. “And it sure as hell doesn’t get me a second chance when they decide I’m a problem.”

“I’m sorry.” He swallows hard, as if your words are a weight he wasn’t ready to carry. “I hate that I’m part of what makes you choose between this job and me.”

You hesitate. Then say the truth. “You’re not the choice. The choice is between surviving and falling for someone who makes me forget how hard this world is.”

The silence stretches between you but still, his hand lingers at your side. Your fingers brush his, aching to believe in a moment that doesn’t come with consequences.

The rumors spread like wildfire–snippets in the morning papers, hushed conversations in dinner booths, sideways glances on the street. The town’s eyes weren’t kind.

You bury yourself in work, hours stretching into late nights spent under the harsh fluorescent lights. Every brushstroke and contour serves as a desperate plea to prove you’re more than just a disposable cog in the glittering machine of showbiz. But the rules have tightened around you like a noose. You’re forbidden from touching Renjun, from being near him at all in the studio. You’re assigned one of the other Dreamboys instead, Jaemin, the one whose eyes narrow each time he catches your reflection in the vanity mirror, sharp as knives.

One evening after the show, the air thick with exhaustion and stale cigarette smoke, he corners you by the loading dock, where you had promised Renjun you would wait for him. His voice dripped with venom. “You’re just a dirty back-alley fling,” he sneers, eyes gleaming with something meaner than jealousy. Entitlement

You shove Jaemin, knuckles hitting his chest with more force than you thought you had left in you. The hit barely moves him, but it’s not that. It’s about not standing there and taking the words he meant to hurt you with.

His hand shoots out, grabbing your arm with a grip tight enough to bruise. “You think he’s gonna save you?” His eyes narrowed. “You think being pretty and pitiful means you get to climb your way out of grease and grime? You’re nothing but a leech.”

The word lands harder than a bruise. Leech. Like you weren’t down here scraping together a life with your own work before anyone like him ever looked at you. Like you didn’t take this job because you needed it, because the bills don’t wait for dreams and hopes.

He spits on your jacket, the wetness soaking through the fabric, cold and sour. “You don’t belong here,” he snarls.

You rip yourself from his grip, your breath shallow while your cheeks burn with shame that’s not yours to carry. Rage coils in your gut, but it doesn’t have anywhere to go, so you walk. Fast. Past the studio, past the places where Renjun might have been already looking for you. You press a hand to your knuckles, the ache blooming under your skin.

Everyone saw what they wanted to see. A girl chasing a golden boy for a leg up in the world. A desperate Greaser who got too close to the fire and now deserved to burn. But they didn’t see the long nights, the cracked fingers from mixing color palettes on a budget, the quiet pride you took in your work. They didn’t see that Renjun wasn’t some prize. He was the only person who ever looked at you like you were already someone.

The world outside may see you as nothing more than a stain on the perfect image they want to protect. But deep inside, under the bruises and the smoke, you vow that this isn’t where your story ends. Not by a long shot.

Renjun waited behind the studio like you’d agreed, the silence stretching longer than usual. When you didn’t show up, his chest tightened with worry, but he didn’t want to cause a scene.

So he went looking for you, finding you already seated in a booth at the diner. You were alone in the corner booth, the bruises on your arm hidden beneath the sleeve of your jacket, but the tremble in your hands was impossible to hide.

Renjun’s footsteps are careful as he slides into the seat across from you. The diner is mostly empty, just a waitress wiping down the counter and a song crackling from the jukebox. You don’t look up right away, you can’t. His voice is quiet, but it cuts through the silence like a knife. “I can’t be everything they want me to be,” his words trembling at the edges and his eyes flickering with a vulnerability you rarely see. “But I know I want to be yours.”

You finally lift your gaze, heart twisting in your chest, but you shake your head, pain flashing across your face at all the things he doesn’t understand. “You’re not built for this kind of fight, Renjun. You’re not like me.” Because you grew up learning to keep your head down, how to survive in the gaps of the world. Because you didn’t have the luxury of falling for someone who could burn your whole livelihood down with a kiss in the wrong hallway. And yet he’s here with ink-stained fingers and hopeful eyes, asking you to believe in something so fragile.

Slowly, he leans in, forehead resting against yours in a quiet promise, his breath warm and trembling. “No, I’m not. But I’d rather be a fool with you than polished and empty without you.”

You want to believe him. God, you do. But the ache in your hand reminds you of the cost. Your gaze drops to your hands, and so does his. He sees the bruised knuckles before you can tuck them away. His breath catches, shoulders going stiff. “What happened?”

You don’t answer, not directly. You watch the way his expression shifts, the fury that pulses under his skin. He’s trying to hold it in, trying not to make it about him. “They don’t want me to love anyone real,” he growls. “Only someone they can market. A perfect girl in a dress with the right smile and no opinions.”

You meet his eyes, something fierce and raw pushing past your walls. “Then why are you still here?”

You stayed because you needed the paycheck, because makeup was a skill you earned, because every time you got close to something good, the world reminded you what you weren’t allowed to have. And yet here he is, with everything to lose, still sitting across from you.

For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. Then, softly, “because maybe, just maybe, I know you’re worth the fight…even if I have to learn how to throw punches.”

You almost laugh, almost cry. Instead, you just look at him and think maybe, for once, someone actually saw you. Not as a threat, not as a leech, just as a girl who wanted something more.

You don’t show up to work the following week. No warning, no note, just an absence that was sharp and loud. The other makeup artists avoid saying your name, like it might summon more trouble, like it might make the bruise on your arm appear on their own.

That Tuesday, Renjun goes on stage anyway. Because that’s his job, it’s what he’s supposed to do. The lights feel colder to him now. Harsher. The applause doesn’t hit like it used to, and when he smiles into the camera, it feels fake in a way it never used to bother him. He goes through the motions, but every step feels like walking across thin ice. Thin, brittle, about to crack if he breathes too hard.

He starts showing up to rehearsals with scuffed shoes. His shirt untucked, his hair slightly undone, like he got halfway through styling and couldn't be bothered to sit still any longer before it was finished. His manager glares at him, and the director asks if he’s getting sick. The other Dreamboys don’t speak to him unless they have to.

You’re there too, eventually. Subdued, backgrounded, careful not to cross lines anymore. At least not publicly. Your work remains professional and impeccable. Your hands don’t shake when you apply powder or smooth flyaways. But you don’t laugh anymore, not with the other girls, not with the crew, not even with Renjun. You nod in passing but avoid his gaze.

Sometimes, just sometimes, when the curtains fall and the stage lights dim, the applause is already fading, you catch him watching you. He watches you like you’re the only thing that matters, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

Maybe it won’t last. Maybe the world is too big and cruel and loud for something like this. For the pinky promises and hidden kisses and Tuesday night declarations whispered over chipped diner mugs.

But that night, when the last number ends and the curtain sways in the dust swirling, illuminated by the spotlight, Renjun walks straight past the dressing room. He finds you by the prop racks and doesn’t say a word. He simply cups your face in ink-stained hands and kisses you like the world was about to end.

And for a second, it feels like it already has. Like the mess and noise can’t touch you, like the cameras aren’t rolling, like you’re just a girl in a leather jacket and he’s just a boy with too much to lose, like none of it matters.

You kiss him back, sinking into the moment, into him, until a burst of footsteps and familiar laughter cuts through the silence. You break away, peering over Renjun’s shoulder and seeing the other Dreamboys approaching. Panic sparks in your chest, making you go wide-eyed and breathless. “I can’t,” you gasp, and then you’re bolting down the hallway, pushing through the last door, stumbling out into the cool air, and running under the cover of the alley next to the studio.

You brace yourself against the brick wall, heart racing, eyes stinging. The chill in the night presses hard against your skin, but you don’t care. You just need to breathe and think. To feel like the walls weren’t closing in on you.

You hear the door swing open again. Renjun steps out into the alley, breathing hard, jacket sitting halfway down his shoulders like he didn’t have the time to fix it. His lip is split, and there’s a smudge of makeup across his cheek, like someone grabbed him mid-exit. Maybe one of the boys tried to stop him.

He didn’t care. He looks wild and alive. “Don’t run from me,” he begs, voice raw. “Please, not now.”

You shake your head, tears blurring the corners of your vision. “Renjun–”

But he’s already reaching for you, already kissing you again. Harder this time, desperate. You taste blood and peppermint, and something sharper. Fear, maybe. Perhaps even defiance.

When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against yours. Fingers curled tight into the sleeves of your jacket. “I won’t let you go,” he says resolutely. “Not now. Not ever.”

For the first time, you almost believe him.

The next Tuesday, the cheers from the audience are still echoing through the studio when Renjun steps offstage, but he doesn’t stop to bow. He doesn’t linger for notes or compliments or photo ops like a proper celebrity would.

His shoes are creased, his collar slightly crooked, his hair slipping out of place. He’s not polished, not perfect. He’s not performing anymore. He’s feeling.

Renjun runs past the lights, the dressing rooms, the voices calling his name. He continues down the corridors, through the double doors, out into a thick rain that blurs the edges of the world around him. He keeps going, barely stopping at street lights and crosswalks.

The pavement shimmers under the glow of neon signs. And there you are, exactly where he thought you might be. Leaning against the wall outside the diner, jacket pulled tight, rain clinging to your lashes. You don’t move as he approaches, soaked and breathless. You just look at him, waiting.

“I’m tired,” his voice breaking through the rain. “I’m tired of playing their golden boy. I’m tired of pretending that the stage is enough.”

You stare at him, heart in your throat. “You sure you’re built for this side of town?”

Renju nods, stepping close. “I’m sure that I don’t fit in here, not yet, at least. But I’ll learn if it means I get to see you past just Tuesdays.”

His words catch between you, settling into your skin, soft and brave. Then you’re kissing him again, right there in the rain, under the pink glow of the diner sign.

You don’t know what tomorrow looks like. Maybe the world is still too cruel. But maybe you can write something new. Together. One Tuesday at a time.

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