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vroomvro0mferrari · 4 months ago

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LN4 | Happy Anniversary!

Summary: When Lando forgets the date of your anniversary, you can get over it. However, the pressure of his job isn’t a good enough reason to excuse all of his forgetful tendencies and lack of attention for you.

Based on this request!

Lando Norris x fem!Reader, established relationship

WC: 4.8K

Warnings: cursing, angsty, sad fic with happy ending

Masterlist

The soft morning sunlight peeks through the curtains of your bedroom, casting a soft rosy glow over the room. You take a deep breath, a gentle smile settling on your face at the realisation that it’s already been a year – a year of being loved, of sharing every thought and story, of new experiences and memories... One year of being married to the love of your life. It’s hard to believe.

You turn on your side to face your husband, propping your head on your palm as you watch him sleep peacefully. Your hand is softly stroking his chest while you smile with adoration. “Good morning, baby,” you say when you notice the change in his breathing.

Lando merely grumbles, not quite awake yet. Nevertheless, he pulls you closer to his side, letting you cuddle up against his warm body. Pressing your face against his chest, you leave a few kisses along the bare skin.

Lando sighs, stretching out his body. “Good morning, darling,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

You smile excitedly, sitting up to look at the handsome man you get to call your husband.

“Do you know what day it is?” You whisper.

Lando frowns as he wipes his tired eyes, “What day?”

The confusion is evident in his voice. Regardless, you nod excitedly. Your smile falters as you watch the wheels turning in his head, gathering that he doesn’t remember. You move to the bedside table, rumbling through the drawer until you find what you’re searching for.

The expression on Lando’s face changes from confusion to guilt when you proudly show the present you’ve wrapped up so neatly, the realisation settling in. “Fuck. It’s our anniversary today, isn’t it?”

You nod, “I got you a little something, to celebrate,” you clarify. The smile on your face is gentle, comforting, and it nearly makes Lando believe you don’t care that he forgot.

“Oh, baby, I’m really sorry. I can’t believe I forgot our anniversary. God, that’s bad, isn’t it? The first year, and I’ve already screwed it up. I’m so sorry, love. Fuck.” Lando rubs a hand over his face, his expression pained.

“It’s okay, Lan. I know you’ve been busy,” you reassure him, “besides, it’s only the first year, we’ll have many more anniversaries.” You offer your gift again. “Just open the present, please? I want to know what you think of it!” You say enthusiastically.

Lando’s not fully convinced yet, “But I haven’t got anything for you,” he protests.

“Doesn’t matter, I already got this for you. Open, please!”

Lando sighs, but doesn’t resist further. However, the guilt of his forgetfulness settles deeper when he opens the carefully wrapped gift. You had taken the time and effort to make something, rather than buy a present, and he couldn’t even bother to remember your first wedding anniversary. He felt like an asshole.

At his silence, you felt the need to explain, “It’s a jar of notes,” you take the jar from his hands and open it. “It’s got different things: my favourite memories of us, things I love about you, what reminds me of you, just whatever I could think of. Then, when you’re gone for work, you can pull one out whenever you miss me,” you demonstrate, grabbing a note from the full jar, “or you could just call me, or whatever.” You put the piece of paper back, close the jar, and look up to your husband.

“Do you like it?”

Lando smiles lovingly, “I love it! Thank you, baby. I love you,” he says before kissing you softly.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t get you anything. I swear I’ll make it up to you. In fact, I’ll make a reservation for tonight right now, we can go out to dinner together to celebrate, and if you want we can go shopping today too, I’ll buy you anything you want—”

You cut him off with a laugh. “That’s not necessary, Lan. I know you love me. Besides, I’d much prefer to spend today at home with you, while you’re still here,” you say, stroking his face fondly before you pull him in for a kiss.

Regardless of your objections, Lando still manages to make a reservation for tonight at your favourite restaurant. He doesn’t make a single comment when you order the salmon despite his dislike for fish, and for weeks after he anticipates every single need you might have before you can utter even a syllable. He brings you the snacks he knows you love most on his way home, makes homecooked meals for you (however bad at cooking he is – he switched to take away after the first two times), and watches your favourite shows with you even though he hates them. He does anything and everything he can think of to make you feel loved and appreciated.

Unfortunately, his efforts only lasted a few weeks. Now, you knew what you were getting into when you married Lando last year. You had been in a relationship with him for several years before the wedding, so you are well aware of the time he needs to put into his work, even outside of office hours, not to mention the amount of stress and anxiety that come with racing at such a high level. That’s why it doesn’t bother you that much that your husband forgot about your anniversary; you know the pressure he’s under.

However, lately, his work has become even more time-consuming, more stressful and he’s become less attentive. It’s no surprise with how well the last races have been going – Lando’s finishing on the podium every weekend – that pressures have increased. He’s no longer fighting for only the constructor’s championship, but he has an actual chance at the driver’s championship too. The team is excited, and working hard, and the same is expected of Lando. Additionally, the fans have been putting more pressure. You know how much Lando’s affected by the stress of it all; he doesn’t want to disappoint, and now that the car’s performing, the only factor that could cause a loss, is him. The pressure, stress, and anxiety are taking over his body. He’s becoming more forgetful and instead of spending his free time with you, his wife, he’s thinking about the next race’s strategy, working out to improve his performance, or practising the tracks. Formula 1 had taken over the number one spot in his life.

You get where he’s coming from, you really do, but one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, in a relationship is communication and recently, Lando wasn’t communicating with you. He doesn’t tell you about the pressure or anxiety, all you know is from reading the man. After the number of years you’d spent together, you know him well enough to be aware of his struggles without him having to tell you.

You’d address the issue, ask him to talk to you, but you don’t when. Lando’s gone so much that you barely see him. His early mornings and early nights don’t align with your schedule; Lando’s gone before you’re properly up and has already eaten when you get home from work. The both of you have always been busy before, but at least you’d always eat together, and talk about your day. Now that those moments are missing, you feel lonely.

Lando has no clue of the things running through your mind. After all, you never told him. Even during the summer break, you keep quiet about your feelings, not wanting it to affect Lando’s performance during the races when you know how hard he's working to do well. Besides, it does get better during the break; Lando’s home more often and his mind's not as occupied with thoughts about his work. Nevertheless, he’s gone most of the time. You had expected for Lando to spend his time off with you, but instead, he hangs out with his friends.

Although the break has positively affected his behaviour, Lando's forgetfulness remains the same. You had told him about your friend’s birthday party several times during the past weeks, asking him to come along. When he promised you would, you thought things were finally going back to normal. But now, as you are waiting for your husband to come home so you can leave for the party together, you realise nothing has changed.

It’s already quarter past eight. Fifteen minutes later than you had said you would leave. You are ready to go – makeup glowing, favourite dress on, present wrapped and purse checked – when you decide you won’t wait any longer. You had given Lando plenty of chances to show his care for you and to consider you in his plans. You always visited his friends with him when he wanted you to, and he couldn’t show up for one party you asked him to come to? You leave the house, no messages sent and your phone on do-not-disturb: let him worry.

You plaster a fake smile on your face when you arrive to your friend’s house, pulling her into a hug when she opens the door.

“Hey, girl! Happy birthday!” You say in a high-pitched voice. “I can’t believe you’re finally 25!” You continue, squeezing her tight.

“Thanks, babe,” she responds when you let each other go, looking over your shoulder. “Where’s Lando? Parking the car?”

“Uh, no, actually. He couldn’t come.” The awkward smile on your face says enough, she knows not to ask any further.

“Oh, okay. That’s too bad. I would have loved to see him. You know, congratulate him on his podiums, it’s been going well lately, no?” She walks you into the house as she speaks, turning her head to watch your reaction.

“Yeah, the team’s really improved.” Once again, the tight smile on your face is clear.

A frown forms on her face at your reaction and she’s about to ask further, whether everything is okay, when she’s interrupted.

“Hey, Y/N! I haven’t seen you in a while! How are you? You never come to the races anymore,” Carlos tells you with a fake pout.

You look at him in surprise. You always forget that everyone in Monaco knows each other. Carlos and your friend met at the golf club and had somehow become good friends. Usually, you liked seeing him, but tonight you would’ve preferred not to see him. Not because you don’t enjoy his company, but simply because you’d rather not talk about Lando, whom he’ll undoubtedly ask about.

And so, your mask shoots up when he pulls you into a hug. “Hey, Carlos. I’m good. How’ve you been doing?”

“I’ve been doing well. You heard the news? That I’m going to Williams next year?” You nod, saying a quick “Of course, congrats!” Naturally, you heard the news; everyone had. But this conversation was already heading in the wrong direction. “Yes, glad to have found a place that will appreciate me, even if the team’s not doing the best right now. Talking about the best, Lando’s been doing so well. You must be proud of him, hm?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” you say indifferently.

Carlos frowns at your reaction. “Everything good between you two?”

Your smile drops, apparently, you aren’t as good at hiding your feelings as you thought you were. “Yeah, everything is fine. Why do you ask?”

Carlos shrugs, “Just the way you react, is all. You seem kind of tense…”

You sigh, letting a silence fall for a few seconds. You might as well tell him, he’ll figure it out eventually. “You’re right. Things… haven’t been so great lately.”

Carlos frowns at your comment. “Between you and Lando, you mean? He didn’t say anything was up, he seemed fine the last time I spoke to him,” he says confusedly.

You roll your eyes at the suggestion, “I’m not surprised. He seems to be clueless to what’s been going on.”

Carlos takes a sip of his drink, “Have you talked to him about it?”

“That’s the issue. Lando’s never home, we barely speak anymore. He’s been so stressed with work that nearly all his free time is dedicated to racing. He gets up early and goes to bed before I’ve even had dinner. I’ve had no chance to talk to him.”

The frown deepens, and he breathes out a puff of air. “That’s tough.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be putting this on you.”

“No, it’s fine don’t worry about it. Sometimes you need to get it off your chest.”

You look up at Carlos, hesitating to continue your story.

“Has the break not changed anything?” He pokes further.

Another sigh. “No, not really. Lando’s using his time off to catch up with his friends. And his forgetfulness has clearly not improved either.”

“His forgetfulness?”

“Yeah, he forgot about the party, clearly.” You have to resist the urge to roll your eyes again.

“What else did he forget about?” Carlos asks with a frown.

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” you hesitate, “but he forgot our anniversary. I told him it’s not a big deal, which it isn’t, but it’s just that everything is adding up. I feel kind of alone in the relationship at the moment, like he doesn’t really care about me anymore. How can I think otherwise, when we barely see each other, let alone speak?”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. That really sucks.”

You smile sadly, as if to say ‘it is what it is’.

“It’ll work out in the end,” you tell him. You hope. “Maybe tonight he’ll realise he forgot something important, again. Maybe that’ll make a difference.” You offer an awkward smile.

Carlos breathes in deeply, putting an arm around your shoulders. “Let’s get your mind off it, huh?” he says while directing you towards the fridge.

You nod, follow him, and accept the drink he offers you. Tonight is not about Lando, it’s about your best friend and the fact she turned 25. You are not thinking about your husband until you get home.

– – – – –

You slam the front door of your shared apartment louder than necessary when you enter. Nevertheless, there’s no reaction when you enter the dark apartment. You switch the lights on, noticing Lando isn’t in the living room or kitchen. Did he really go to sleep not knowing where you were or who you were with? Whether you were safe or not? Lando obviously didn’t remember the birthday party or he would’ve come, yet he didn’t text you to ask you where you were? Does he truly care so little about you? Does he even love you anymore? It feels like a punch to the gut – like someone had ripped your heart out.

The man had been basically avoiding you for weeks, barely saying a word at the moments you did see him, but at least he was still awake to see if you arrived okay. Now he doesn't even stay up to check if you get home safely anymore? Or text you to ask where you are? To say you are upset is an understatement, you feel angry and neglected at his disregard. You feel lonely instead of beloved. The lump in your throat is a painful reminder of how close you are to crying. But you don’t.

You swallow the lump, blink a few times to get rid of the lingering tears in your eyes and go into the bedroom to take off your makeup. You lean on the counter, sniffling silently, and close your eyes. You breathe in through your nose deeply, before breathing out through your mouth. It’ll be okay. Right?

When you enter the bedroom you stare for a minute at the man sleeping peacefully before you. It feels wrong when you climb into bed next to him, nevertheless, you do it. It’ll probably take you a while to fall asleep tonight.

– – – – –

The situation hasn’t changed a bit when the racing season starts back up again. No matter how strained your relationship has become, you do want to say goodbye to Lando before he leaves for the next race. So, the morning he’s supposed to fly, you make sure to get up extra early. You don’t know how, but he still somehow manages to finish his breakfast before you’re even out of bed, the container already in the trash.

“Good morning,” you mumble, wiping your eyes as they adjust to the bright light in the kitchen.

Lando looks up from his phone in surprise, clearly not expecting to see you awake this early. “Hey, what are you doing up?” He asks in a soft voice.

“Wanted to say goodbye,” you say as you walk closer to the kitchen island at which he’s sitting.

“There’s no need for that, Y/N. I’ll see you again soon enough.” The smile on his face is sickeningly sweet, a clear contrast to the words coming out of his mouth.

You frown, “You’re leaving for a week… What do you mean, there’s no need?”

Lando sighs at your question, “Never mind, it’s kind of you to get up extra early just for me,” he smiles dismissively before getting up from his seat. “It’s time for me to go,” he says looking at his watch before grabbing his backpack and suitcase which are sitting by the door, “I’ll see you in a week.”

You’re left staring in surprise as the door slams closed. He didn’t kiss you goodbye. He always did that, even during the worst of fights. That’s your rule. Formula 1 is a dangerous sport, he could be hurt in a split second, never mind being killed. From the start of your relationship, he always kissed you before he left, just in case. You hated the thought at the start, but learned to think it was sweet; that, in case something happened, at least he kissed his girl goodbye.

You’re watching your marriage crumble before your eyes, and Lando doesn’t seem to have a clue, or pretends not to notice. This is it, you decide. This cannot go any further. As soon as he gets home, you will talk to Lando, no matter how badly it will affect his race. You can’t do this any longer.

However, somebody else is already one step ahead of you. Carlos had noticed the toll your strained marriage with Lando was taking on you, and couldn’t help confronting Lando the first second he saw him. It didn’t help either that Charles was way too curious about the relationship drama. He had been pushing Carlos to find out more to save his gossip-desperate soul after the radio silence during the break.

“Hey, Lando!” Carlos yells, jogging up to Lando and matching his pace.

“Hey, man! How are you doing? Had a nice break?” Lando asks, giving Carlos a quick hug.

“Yeah, yeah, I had fun. What about you?”

“Ah, yes. Of course. It was good to get some time off. I really needed it; finally got to see my friends again,” Lando grins while Carlos raises an eyebrow at the answer.

“What about your wife? Finally got to spend some time with her now that you didn’t have to travel so much?” Carlos asks.

Lando laughs awkwardly at his suggestive question, “You know it!”

Carlos ignores the casual response. “I actually saw Y/N last week, at a friend’s birthday party. Was surprised to see you didn’t come with her…”

A frown etches onto Lando’s face. “What birthday party?”

“I think she’s one of Y/N’s best friends, she turned 25?”

Lando’s eyes widen in realisation. “Fuck, yes, I remember now.”

“She told you about it?” Carlos asks, watching as Lando’s expression shifts from realisation to discomfort.

“Yeah… She mentioned it a couple of times,” he admits. “She didn’t tell me that she went...”

Carlos lets him ponder it for a moment before adding, “Well, she was there. We talked for a bit, actually.”

Lando feels his stomach tighten. He tilts his head slightly. “What did she say?”

Carlos hesitates, glancing around the paddock while he weighs his options. “Uhm, she said you’ve been distant lately. That you haven’t been paying much attention to her, that you missed your anniversary…”

Lando stops walking. “She told you about that?”

“Yeah, man.” Carlos sighs. “Look, she didn’t go into too much detail, but… she sounded upset. Maybe you should make some time for her, take her out on a date or something. It seems like she feels pretty lonely.”

Lando shifts uncomfortably, his heart sinks in his chest. “Lonely?” The word echoes in his mind, unsettling him. He knows the feeling all too well. He’s the reason his wife has been feeling lonely? The guilt settles deep within his soul as he mulls it over. He tries to laugh it off, but it feels hollow. “She knows how demanding the season has been. I’ve been swamped.”

“I’m sure she does, but… it’s more than that. She told me she feels like you don’t really care about her anymore.” The look on his face is serious as he says it.

Lando blinks, the weight of Carlos’ words sinking in. How could he have missed something so crucial? Why hadn’t Y/N said anything? More importantly, why hadn’t he noticed?”

“She thinks I don’t care about her?” He mutters to himself. His gaze is unfocused as he chews his lip, running a hand over his face out of frustration. “Why didn’t she tell me?” He says quietly.

“There was no opportunity to tell you, she said. You're never home.”

Carlos lets out another sigh. “I’m sorry. I know it’s none of my business, but I don’t want your marriage to be ruined. I know you love Y/N to pieces. I would be upset with myself if you guys don’t make it out together knowing I could have done something about it. That being said, I think you should talk to her.”

Lando nods absentmindedly. He didn't even consider that they might not make it out okay. “You’re right. Thanks for telling me, man.”

As Carlos walks away, Lando is left standing there, his mind working overtime. He had been busy, yes, but surely you understood that, right? He’d been working so hard for the both of you, to secure a future for you. But… had he been neglecting you without even realising it?

The conversation with Carlos continues to replay in his head throughout the day. Maybe he hadn’t been as attentive as he thought. Maybe all those nights out with friends, all those early mornings spent focused on racing had a bigger effect than he assumed. He tries to push the thoughts away, to justify it with the pressure of the season, but it doesn’t sit right anymore.

The rest of the weekend Carlos’ words echo through his head, ‘She feels like you don’t really care about her anymore.’ Lando can barely concentrate with the guilt that’s gnawing at his conscious.

– – – – –

By the time Lando leaves his hotel, he has formed a plan. He has rehearsed a dozen different apologies in his head. He’ll explain what happened, that he’s been so busy with work that he didn’t notice, and he’ll say sorry and change his behaviour. And after that, all will be well.

His plan is thrown out the window as soon as he gets home and sees his wife sitting on the couch, your face pale and tired as you watch TV. The state of you makes the practised words dry on his tongue. How could he not have noticed what was happening?

“Why didn’t you tell me you felt lonely?”

You look up in surprise at the abrupt question cutting through the silence. No ‘hello’, no ‘how are you’, no ‘I missed you, baby’, just the sharp edge of confrontation.

“What?”

“Carlos told me you’ve been feeling lonely. Why didn’t you tell me?”

You frown at his directness, “When was I supposed to do that, Lando? You’re always gone.”

“That’s not true—” he tries to protest, but you cut him off.

“There was not one moment I could have told you, Lando! You’re always busy with work and when you’re not, your friends take up all your free time! You haven’t made any time for me in weeks, months even!” You yell.

Tears well up in your eyes at the confrontation. You had kept your frustrations to yourself for weeks and now that he finds out about your feelings he decides to yell at you for it. How else are you expected to react?

Your words hit Lando hard, each one landing like a punch. His eyes flicker with guilt. “I’ve been under so much pressure. The team needs me—this season could be my best chance at a championship, and I—”

You cut him off, your voice soft. “I know, Lando. I know how important your career is and that this is your chance, but that doesn’t mean all your time should be spent on racing. You’ve no time left for me anymore; all your energy is drained when I finally see you at the end of the day.”

“I can’t help that my job is demanding! You know that, Y/N. You’ve always known that. It takes a lot of time to improve, and the team is finally performing. It’s my chance at a championship! I can’t pass that up!”

“I get that Lando, I really do. But I’ve felt alone in this relationship for months now. I never see you, we never talk… The night of the party you didn’t even text me to ask where I was, or who I was with. You were already sleeping before I got home! Weren’t you worried at all? Or even curious to know where I was, whether I was safe? Sometimes… Sometimes, I doubt whether you still care about me – whether you still love me, because it feels like you don’t.” The tears slowly fall down your face while you say it.

That’s when it hits him – truly hits him. Lando swears he could hear his heart break. He looks at you in shock, and you can’t deny you feel a little better because of it. Had he really fucked up that bad? Do you really believe he no longer loves you, or cares about you? You are the most important person in his life. How could this have gone so far without him noticing? How could he have made the love of his life feel like she wasn’t loved? He runs a hand through his hair in distress, trying to wrap his head around your admission.

“I’ve been patient, Lando. I’ve been understanding, but you’re just never present. Not just physically, but mentally, too. I miss you.”

Lando looks at you sadly from across the room, disappointed in himself. He quickly closes the distance, reaching for your hand. His voice is soft when he speaks to you. “I do. I do love you, Y/N,” he says, caressing your face softly, pulling your chin up so your eyes meet, his teary eyes staring into your red ones. “You’re the love of my life. I care about you so much. You’re the most important to me, above anything else, and you always will be. Don’t forget that, okay? Promise me you’ll never forget that, baby.”

You sniffle, wiping away the tears that are slowly making their way down to your chin, while you nod. The sound physically pains him, his heart twisting torturously in his chest. He vows to never make you cry again.

“I’m so sorry I let it come this far, darling. I’ve been so wrapped up in everything, trying to win, trying to be perfect for the team that I didn’t see what I was losing in the process.”

You interrupt him, “I don’t need perfect, Lando. I just need you to be here. With me. Because if it keeps going like this… I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

Her words hang between them, and for the first time in weeks, Lando realises the gravity of what he stands to lose if he doesn’t make a change soon. He nods frantically. “Of course, baby. I’ll do anything to make it up to you. You say the word, and I’ll do it. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t love you, because I do. So much. I can’t lose you, I don’t ever want to come this close to losing you ever again.”

He pulls you into a tight embrace, his arms wrapping around you like he’s afraid to let go; like you’ll walk away from him as soon as he does. You press your face into his chest, missing the feeling of him against you and his comforting scent. The last time he touched you, let alone hugged you feels like ages ago.

“I’ll be better, I’ll make time for you, I promise,” he mumbles, his mouth grazing over your hair, as he tugs you impossibly closer into his tight embrace.

You smile faintly through your tears. “I believe you.”

1K notes · View notes

rockingbytheseaside · 3 months ago

Note

Hii!! I love your writing sm like you’re literally my go to blog when I get bored and I end up rereading your fics 😋. Not sure if you have rules or anything so idk what I can and can’t request (IF YOU DO AND THIS ISN’T IN LINE WITH IT I’M SO SORRY.. 😭).

Could I request the harbingers crushing on reader? Like I can imagine them being slightly more lenient with reader which confuses most of the soldiers. Again feel free to ignore this 💗‼️‼️

(giggling and kicking my feet rn, this is the type of partially-satirical fluff I headcanon. Hope you like it)

✦ When they secretly have a crush on you

Pierro, Capitano, Dottore, Scaramouche, Pantalone, Childe

✧ The ever-cold and impeccable Pierro – a mystery that even his associates and top harbingers cannot decipher. Not many can be considered as his close confidants, so none is certain of his personal life and preferences. A cold, stern man like The Jester probably doesn’t waste a glance on frivolous affairs or pleasantries. Even if many high-status people tried to approach him - aristocrats, business partners, or noble ladies; his cold gaze shuts off any initiation for close relations. No, he sees their greed for power too clearly to be swayed.

Yet Pierro harbors a deep secret. He does fancy a type… and that type is you.

It’s not simply your physical attributes or style, his ‘type’ is literally everything you embody. The shape of your jawline when you lower your face, the delicate shadow your eyelashes cast on your cheeks, how your chest moves when you take a deep sigh. From the minor and inconsequential attributes, he memorized it to his heart until the only thing his gaze is seeking is you across the room. He was always silently enamored, his eyes watching you with reverence. However, he is a mastermind, first and foremost. Concealing his inner sonnets for his love for you came naturally just as he conceals half of his face with a Khaenri’ahn mask.

You, on the other hand, were oblivious. Nervous, even. Facing off the most powerful man, cursed with immortality just as you all those centuries felt intimidating, especially when you couldn’t grasp why his gaze kept lingering so melancholically.

“It is… good to see you again, Pierro,” – that was your initial words when the two of you spoke formally. In truth, your mind was filled with wistful thoughts: he probably settled down with someone after 500 years of immortality.

In the meantime, Pierro’s mind was at comical odds with his cold exterior as he thought: Hmmm… Yes, I’ve already decided on the name of our potential third child.

But of course, he didn’t say that, even if he looked slightly mesmerized. Instead, he just settled with a polite: “A pleasure, indeed”. It's only a matter of time before he accidentally slips and calls you his spouse in front of people.

✧ Il Capitano was avoiding you like the plague, and you couldn't fathom why. Whenever you crossed paths, his oppressive silence would intimidate you further. He would linger behind you, a looming presence so quiet that at times, you’d forget he was even there. Alas, when you finally muster up the courage to approach him directly, he'd respond with the briefest of words, avoiding any attempts of chatter.

It infuriated you. So much so that you started wondering if perhaps you did something wrong. He sparred with you countless times, the taste of a battlefield is nothing foreign when he trained alongside you. You felt like a stranger. Why he was so eerily silent was beyond your comprehension, and alas, his pitch-black expression did not portray any facial clues on what he was thinking.

The truth of the matter is that Capitano has mastered the art of keeping his head impassively still. With a helmet on his face and lack of visage, no one sees his gaze ogling your form whenever you train. Your movements mesmerize him during battles, your legs swift and your stance is powerful. Of course, he would be silent when he is staring directly at your beauty in action. You rendered him speechless, and now the Harbinger is diverting himself by discreetly peeking at you. Thank the archons for his helmet hiding his gaze.

But the Captain scolds himself. No, he mustn’t! It is improper of him to even lay his eyes upon a being so diligent and strong as you, he must respect-… Nope, his head is automatically turning towards you anyway. Lost in his silent battle of self-reprimand, he didn’t notice you suddenly approaching:

“Captain, we need to talk. What is the reason for your cold shoulder towards me? If I have done something improper you must tell me… You always avoid me, even when we’re supposed to cooperate.”

The same characteristic silence followed him, however, seeing you cornering him so sternly, even the Harbinger had to drop his resolve.

“...You must forgive me. Your beauty had overwhelmed me to such an extent that I felt ashamed to admit how you rendered me speechless to approach you.”

✧ A long time ago, before Il Dottore bore the title of a Harbinger, there was a young boy named Zandik. This little Zandik was trainee Dastur, a prodigy of his field and academic year. But he wasn't the only top student of the Akademiya, in fact, this young man was standing in the shadow of a brilliant senior student whom he always looked up to with innocent wonder – you.

You weren't aware of the younger student with short turquoise hair trailing you. He, however, was aware of you because your portrait often graced the accomplishments of the establishment, thesis research, and any academic honors of the top young researchers. Since you were a senior, Zandik couldn’t share lectures with you, yet it didn’t stall him. Every thesis bearing your name, he read; every book you borrowed from the House of Daena, he memorized meticulously. His revenant studies of everything you did mesmerized his young mind, leading him to linger behind the lecture hall doors, drawn to where you so often spent your time.

It was a harmless habit, the boy believed; surely you never noticed him?

One day, Zandik spotted you chatting with your peers in the hallway. Unfortunately for you, you inadvertently left behind your precious notebook, forgotten in the rush to your next class. The young man didn't have it in himself to run after you and directly return it. Instead, it was his chance to study your secrets. His hands hesitated only briefly before he grasped the notebook, feeling the weight of the handwriting he so admired.

When he first opened the notebook, the first page read in massive writing: “I KNOW YOU'RE STEALING MY NOTES – THIEF.”

That was approximately 400 years ago. So much so that the memories of your student self were long forgotten in your mind. When you later on met the 2nd of the Fatui Harbinger, you expected the Fatuus to coerce you for cooperation. To demand you to leverage your expertise in Khaenri'ahn technology, or perhaps blackmail you into his maddening cause. But none of that transpired.

The grown man, now known as Il Dottore, stood blankly in front of you, eerily placid. His once youthful awe had matured into something far more inscrutable, like a long-buried sincerity breaking through his Doctor’s mask. Without a word, he extended a hand, offering you an old, tattered notebook. It was that same old notebook from your Akademiya days.

“... Huh? Where did you get this?”

“Perhaps a young boy was too excited to pilfer what wasn't his. I apologize for borrowing it. That boy never wanted his idol to think of him as a thief. If it wasn't so arduous to seek you out all those centuries, I would've returned it to you earlier.”

✧ With his face perched on his knuckles, Scaramouche sat down listening to your ramblings. You would think a Harbinger with his temper, would long since exhausted his patience, waving you off to scram from his presence. Yet the moment you start talking, he is obediently listening, like a devoted man waiting for his blessing from the Grand Narukami Shrine

“But I never saw you enjoy any snacks or drinks while you’re out,” – you mused with excitement, launching on a tangent about this mysterious Inazuman beside you. “Oh! How about this, I’ll start guessing your favorite pastime food or beverage and you tell me if I am right or wrong.”

Scaramouche raised an eyebrow, but crossed his arms indifferently - “A futile endeavor but suit yourself anyway.”

Undeterred, you accepted the challenge. You listed each and every single delicacy in Teyvat that you could recall, from Inazuman mochi, dango, and sake to even Mondstadt’s Cold Cut Platter and wine. The Balladeer only scoffed, amused at your silly attempts to deduce him, as if he was some mystery you should decipher.

“Ugh, Okay! My last attempt. Is it… green tea?!”

Scaramouche went silent at the sight of your anticipation - “Hm,”

“No way… did I guess correctly, at last! Are you a herbal tea enthusiast? Oh, I knew it, I knew it!”

You exclaimed with unattained joy, leaving the Balladeer to silently observe your self-proclaimed victory. The truth of the matter is - that wasn't the correct answer. Scaramouche doesn't care for any teas or snacks, not when his artificial palettes found human indulgences to be redundant. Yet, looking at your jubilant face, glowing with delight as if you’d uncovered some profound world secrets, he couldn’t bring himself to confess. How foolish.

“Hah, fine, you got me. You must be thrilled to guess something so mundane.”

“Well, maybe mundane to you, but I was pretty curious what a living puppet would prefer to drink.”

Your sudden words caused Scaramouche to freeze. He never told you he was a puppet by nature, and most people would never guess what he is. Yet here you were, stating it so simply and obviously. Most ridiculously, you didn’t seem crestfallen by the weight of this truth. “You knew…? I'm not sure if I should compliment your keen observation, or if this is another one of your random guesses. What gave it away?”

“I thought it was obvious.” - you eased a sincere smile, your hand reaching to carefully brush a stray hair on his head. “No regular human would have such a perfectly pristine face like yours. Even if they had the most luxurious face-care routine.”

If puppets had blood flow, there would've been a pink hue dusting his cheeks. It seems he was the fool here after all. Ever since that day, he has found the taste of green tea to be rather soothing.

✧ A popular misconception about Pantalone is that he allowed you to walk into his life and pursue him so easily. Trully wrong. In reality, it was this Harbinger who had been pursuing and courting you from the very beginning - like a lovestruck fool, no less.

At first, Pantalone tried to be the charmer. He’d offer you heavy bags of Mora as if it was pocket change and say in his best alluring voice - “Go spoil yourself with something new, dear. I want you to look your best on our next date.”

The issue was you were dense like a rock. Because you blinked at the mora and said simply: “Why? I already have comfortable clothes, I don’t need any right now.”

He wanted to slap himself. Any attempts at spoiling you with riches or gifts were futile, especially when you humbly rejected his monetary help out of casual practicality. You always stated that others in need would require it more. Very well, he won’t sulk just yet. He decided on his next act of refinement. He’d invite you with him to any luxurious events: galas, opera performances, dinner parties; all carefully orchestrated to impress you, showcasing how he can provide you with any wonder from the world, linking his arm elegantly with yours to flaunt how you’re accompanying the 9th of Fatui Harbingers himself.

That didn’t work as well. Whenever a business meeting occurred with vital connections, your gaze bore no interest in the wealth of the higher class, nor did you beat around the bush to dismiss yourself. Instead of marveling at the company of riches and endless champagne flutes, he’d instead find you marveling at the ducks swimming in the pond of a garden – “Look, duckies!”

Pantalone was in visible distress. All this gold that people die for yet you so naively dismissed him. Was he unworthy of your simple love? Was he too pompous for you and forgot his own origins? His self-doubt gnawed at him at night, so much so that his own subordinate would see him pacing in his office with a tremor of restlessness, thinking how he should open this topic with one he so openly treasures.

“My dear, please tell me what your heart seeks,” – he once opened the discussion with you, his hand clasping yours in an act of pleading. “I do not wish you to be uncomfortable with my actions. Just say the word and I will bring you what you want.”

Once more, you blinked at him in that same sweet innocence, but instead, you spoke with a smile: “Oh, you silly, silly man Pantalone. I never wanted your mora or status. I do not wish to be indebted to you, no. I just wish you to be as you are. If you want to take me to a restaurant, take me there, not because it’s a fancy establishment, but because it has your favorite food. Plain and simple.”

The young Harbinger didn’t know it was possible to fall in love even more. It seems he mistook your humble sincerity with naivety, never once pondering that perhaps you didn’t want a partner for the sake of connection or money. That being his true self was something he could even offer you.

In the upcoming days, Pantalone’s subordinate could clearly see was smitten beyond logic or reason. Like a grinning child, resting his chin on his palm when sitting behind a desk, feet almost kicking with excitement. He really was enamored with you from the start.

✧ If there is one thing Tartaglia’s heart relishes, it’s the rush of a challenge. And you, as a whole, challenged this young man on a daily basis. His bubbling persona and eccentricity to rush into action was an antithesis to your blunt calmness and reason. If he is the one launching into battle, you are the one who is yanking him by the collar while maintaining that unimpressed look.

Thus, as a challenge, Childe took it upon himself to make you break that serene attitude from you. At least once, and his heart will soar with victory. Unbeknownst to him, everything he did fumbled.

He started with cheesy attempts to flirt with you, flipping his ginger hair back while leaning on the wall with a captivating smile to make sure your eyes were on his form alone. It might have made you swoon, if he hadn’t miscalculated and leaned against the door instead, stumbling awkwardly when it swung open.

Another attempt was made when he tried to play the savior. The two of you were strolling when a Hydro Hilichurl Rogue stumbled upon your path in the wild, its makeshift scythe warning you two to get away. For the Harbinger, this was an easy opportunity to dispel such a puny target and save you. Except the Hilichurl Rogue kept throwing hydro slimes, which his vision of the same element was useless against. You managed to drag Tartaglia (almost) unscathed.

Everything was going against Tartaglia’s luck and he felt like an utter failure in front of you. He’s the 11th, for crying out loud, he always fairs well when something challenges him. Yet here he is, getting bandaged by you after fumbling countless times in your presence. Your first impression of him must be beyond salvageable at this point.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought you’re a problematic teen who gets into trouble all the time. Because you sure act like it,” – you stated to him simply. Securing his cuts and bruises on his shoulder.

“If I confess that such accidents rarely happen, would that change your opinion of me, or is it too late to start from zero? Ouch-” he winced when you tightened the bandages, his bruises not alleviating the sensation. The culpability of it all made him sulk, realizing he was probably putting you into trouble with all his shenanigans. “I’d die for you, you know.”

“That is the dumbest thing I've heard.”

Your words were concrete, his gaze averted with guilt and sorrow. But you continued quaintly.

“Why would anyone say something so senseless? I don’t want you to ‘die’ for me or anyone, even. What about ‘keep living’ for someone? For me… for your family, for yourself. Anyone can blindly plunge themselves to their death, but it takes actual courage and strength to keep living for those you care about. So please, do that for me instead of getting into trouble.”

The once serious expression on Tartaglia's softened with each word you spoke. Now he realizes that perhaps you putting up with his impulsivity stemmed not from frustration, but out of sincere worry. Maybe in his attempt to charm you, you were the one charming him all along. Especially when you sit so close to tend to him, it would feel so natural to wrap his arm around and embrace you.

“You’re right… I suppose it is reckless. Living for yourself seems truly priceless if it means seeing you beside me for another day.”

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fleurre · 5 months ago

Text

CRAVING ATTENTION ⊹ ﹒ 엔하이픈

the things they do when they want your attention

ft. enha x f!r genre fluff, est rel, pouty and clingy boys warnings pda, kissing, slight jealousy, mentions of drinking and partying in hee’s one ( 1506 )

suki’s note .. i will be travelling this week so here's a cute fic before i go, feedback is much appreciated >ᴗ<

LEE HEESEUNG

he has been watching you from a distance for the past few minutes, staring in a trance as you talked and laughed with your friends.

maybe it was the alcohol in his system acting up, but he couldn’t stop the flutter in his chest when he saw a smile gracing your lips. he knew it was selfish of him to want to pull you away from your friends, and kiss you until the makeup you spent hours perfecting becomes smudged all over.

but his legs seemed to work on their own accord, and he found himself making his way over to you through the crowd.

he swung an arm around your shoulder when he reached you, making you stumble backwards, straight into his arms. “sorry ladies.” he said to your friends, but the smile on his face was anything but apologetic.

before you could react, he had already turned around, whisking you away from your friends.

“hee?” your brows were furrowed as you tried to decipher his actions. reaching up to hold his hand that was hanging on your shoulder. “what’s wrong?”

he tilted your chin up with his hand, “nothing.” he murmured, leaning down into you. he was so close that even under the dim lighting of the party, you could see the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“i just wanted the attention of the most gorgeous person in the room.”

PARK JONGSEONG

“what are you doing?” jay grumbled, his voice raspy from having just woken up.

it was endearing to see him in this state, his hair slightly tousled from his sleep, with a yawn escaping his lips. “what does it look like?” you looked up with a small smile, before turning your attention back to the stove in front of you. “i’m making us breakfast.”

you had expected a different reaction from your boyfriend, one where he wasn't frowning and sulking at the sight of you cooking, trying to surprise him with a breakfast in bed.

just as you were about to ask him why he seemed to be in such a bad mood, jay made his way over to you. without a single word, his arms wrapped around you from the back, his face resting on your shoulder as he leaned into you.

“don’t do that again.” he mumbled, his arms tightened around your waist.

you turned to him, tilting your head in confusion. “don’t ... make you breakfast?”

“don’t make me wake up to an empty bed.” he said quietly, burying his face into your neck. “you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

SIM JAEYUN

he was leaning his head on your shoulder as you chatted away with your friend on the phone.

one of his hands was intertwined with yours, the other drawing circles on your arm absentmindedly. he didn’t care that his arm was starting to feel numb from how long you had been resting against it, but he was starting to sulk from the lack of attention he was getting.

“babe.” he lifted his head, resting his chin on top of your shoulder in hopes of getting your attention.

you didn’t reply, opting to give his hand a light squeeze before continuing your conversation with your friend.

“babe?” he tried again, and this time, he leaned over you, one hand reaching over to the other side of the couch, trapping you in his arms. his bottom lip stuck out in a feeble complaint, staring straight at you with a frown.

you finally pulled the phone away from your face, smiling a little as you squished his cheeks together. “what’s with the pout?” you asked with an amused laugh.

“it’s nothing.” jake’s shoulders sagged in defeat, burying his face into your shoulder. you’ve been dating him for long enough to know that he was sulking, so you slowly ran your hand through his hair. “give me five more minutes.”

jake looked up at you, a grin now plastered on his face, “promise?”

you nodded, kissing the tip of his nose. “promise.”

PARK SUNGHOON

your online meeting has been extended for an hour, and sunghoon was getting more and more restless by the second.

he initially thought that he could have you all to himself for the rest of the day, only for your stupid meeting to run overtime. not to mention, he had already used up all his valid excuses to bother you in hopes of getting just a fraction of your attention: brewing you a cup of tea, handing you pens and paper that you didn’t even need, and even trying to clean your desk while you worked.

and now he was standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest as he stared daggers into the pixelated video of your boss, who was soaking up all your attention that should have been on him.

making up his mind, he walked back over to you, making sure to stay out of frame. he sat down on the floor beside your chair, resting his head against your thigh.

you looked down in surprise, and you had to suppress a laugh when you saw him huddled up next to you, arms wrapped tightly around your waist. biting your lip to hide your smile, you reached down, intertwining your hand with his.

sunghoon hummed in satisfaction. maybe this wasn’t that bad after all.

KIM SUNOO

sunoo thinks he might be cursed.

the rare day that he has no scheduled events, is the very same day you had a full day of work.

he was already in a grumpy mood when he woke up to an empty apartment, though the cute note you left on the fridge did make him smile a little, he soon became bored out of his mind.

it was as if time was passing by agonisingly slowly, tormenting him.

he texted you so much during the day that you had to mute his notifications so you wouldn’t get distracted during a meeting. and when the front door finally opened, signalling your arrival home, he hugged you so tightly if knocked the air out of your lungs.

“sunoo!” you groaned after he practically collided into you.

“you not allowed to go anywhere.” he huffed out, his voice muffled by your shirt.

you held onto him, needing to waddle like a penguin to get into your house. “sorry, babe.” you whispered, cupping his face and kissing him lightly.

he still stared at you with an unhappy frown, but all it took was another kiss for a smile to return to his face.

“we’re cuddling all night long.”

you hummed in acceptance. “all night long.”

YANG JUNGWON

you had been studying all afternoon for your upcoming exams, and being the supportive boyfriend he is, jungwon had been checking up on you from time to time, cutting up fruits for you and refilling your water bottle.

he didn’t want to distract you when you were focused, and he knew how important the exams were to you. but he felt his self-restraint crumble slowly, wanting nothing more than to pull you into his arms, and to feel the comforting warmth of your touch.

so when you kissed him on the cheek to thank him for refilling your water again, he took the opportunity. his hand reached for your jaw, turning you back to him and pressing his lips against yours.

“wonie!” you laughed as you broke away, hitting him on the chest lightly.

he smiled in satisfaction, his lips still ghosting yours, wanting more.

“you need a break.” he murmured before pulling you in for yet another kiss, smiling against your lips when he felt you give in, your hands reaching up to cup his cheek.

“come on, you deserve a break.” he urged softly, tugging your arm to pull you away from your desk and into his arms. “let’s watch that show you wanted to watch.”

NISHIMURA RIKI

“riki! stop!” you laughed, trying to push your much larger boyfriend away from you to no avail.

“nu-uh.” he shook his head, refusing to move an inch as he laid on top of you. he pried the remote control away from your hand and tossed it to the other side of the couch. “you've been watching that drama all day long.”

you pouted at him. “i'm almost done!”

“why obsess over a drama when you have a real, handsome boyfriend right here?” he asked, hoping you wouldn't notice the slight whine in his voice.

you chuckled, brushing his fringe away from his eyes. “i never said you weren't handsome.”

riki squinted at you, “so, do you think i'm more handsome than them?”

“of course!”

your immediate response and the sincerity in your voice took him by surprise, and the tips of his ears turned a light shade of red as he looked away.

“are you getting shy?” you teased.

“no.” he interjects quickly, though the redness that now spread to his cheeks begged to differ.

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street-smarts00 · 6 months ago

Text

Weirdest Place

Spencer Reid x gen neutral!reader

Summary: The team finds out you and Spencer have been dating during a night out.

WC: 1.1k

A/N: this is yet another fic based on an episode of friends, specifically a scene from the blackout episode but i added a fun twist lol

Tags: conversations about sex but not smut, established relationship between r & reid, consumption of alcohol

After the team was finished at the BAU they all went out to a local bar for drinks. As the night went on JJ and Hotch left to be at home with their kids. With their boss gone and the tipsiness from their drinks, the topic of conversation got more and more inappropriate.

“A boat?” Rossi asked

“Yes,” Derek confirmed

“A boat?” Emily spoke this time.

“Why don’t you believe me?” Derek asked, slightly offended.

Emily raised her hands in defense, “It’s not that we don’t believe you.”

“It just seemed like your weirdest place would be a bit more adventurous based on how you brought it up,” Rossi voiced.

Derek furrowed his eyebrows, “and a boat isn’t adventurous?”

“No it is,” Penelope chuckled before reaching for her drink. Of course, she’d already heard about Derek’s nautical escapades.

Derek directed his attention back to Emily, “And what about you? What’s your weirdest place?”

She leaned back in her seat with a tinge of embarrassment she tried to hide with smugness. “That’s classified,”

Rossi and Derek cringed at Emily’s diversion.

“Oh god,” Rossi chuckled before taking a sip of his drink.

“Do I even wanna know?” Derek asked half joking.

Emily shrugged instead of answering. Derek decided he was better off not pushing Emily to share her story. He then brought his attention to the man across from him.

“What about you, pretty boy?”

Spencer’s head darted to him with raised eyebrows. “Me?”

“You got a weirdest place?”

“I- um.”

His ears started to turn a shade of crimson and he stuttered on his words, or lack thereof since he was caught off guard.

“It’s probably like a library or something,” Rossi jokes, earning a bright laugh from Derek.

Penelope set her drink down, “don’t make him say it if he doesn’t- “

“Actually it was.”

Everyone froze and turned to Spencer.

Emily was the first to speak, “What?”

Spencer shifted in his seat while the courage he had before started to dwindle. His face was now officially turning red.

“Me and um- someone were at the library because I was showing her it’s Edgar Allen Poe collection. Then at some point we ended up in … um the second floor bathroom.”

“Oh my god,” Penelope giggled before placing her hand on her mouth in shock.

“I can’t believe I was right,” Rossi commented.

“I can’t believe Spencer Reid was getting freaky in a library,” Derek said with a humorous grin.

“Shut up,” Spencer squeaked in a high pitched voice.

He hoped the topic of conversation would quickly be dropped so he didn’t have to reveal too much about his love life. But he suspected that wouldn’t happen once you came back to the table.

You and Spencer had started dating a few months prior and wanted to keep things to yourselves. You both intended to figure out the beginning of your relationship without the eyes of your friends.

“The line for the bathroom was so long,” you complained as you approached the table and sat down next to Spencer. “What did I miss?”

“Oh we never heard Y/N’s place,” Penelope excitedly pointed out.

You looked at her confused, “What place?”

“I have no clue how we got here but they all started talking about the weirdest places they’ve had sex,” Emily explained.

“Wow. Well, when I’m done I need to hear all of yours,” you pointed your glass in a motion towards all of them before drinking the last sip.

“I usually don’t venture outside the bedroom but out of the few times I have I think there’s two tied for first place.”

“What’s one of them?”

“Library.”

Silence fell over the group. Spencer’s stomach dropped to the floor at your answer. His face turned cherry red and his eyes remained frozen on the table in front of him.

You on the other hand were baffled at the reaction from your friends.

“What?”

While your eyes scanned the group you were met with relatively neutral expressions that didn’t match the growing tension in the air. All of them looked as if they wanted to say something, but not one of them was ready to speak.

Embarrassment and regret were creeping their way towards you in silence. Your body tensed up and you folded your arms in front of you.

“Come on guys, it's not that weird. It’s not like we were in an aisle, we were in the bathroom,” you tried to defend yourself.

That sentence seemed to spark something in the group. Their body language started to relax but still had a bit of hesitation. They all knew at this point, but they wanted you to confirm it.

“What floor?”

You followed the voice to Emily “Excuse me?”

“What floor was the bathroom on?”

You couldn’t wrap your head around her question.

“Why does that matter?”

“It does, which floor?” Penelope questioned this time.

“Second I think,” you hesitated, still confused.

“Oh my god!” Penelope squealed. “You guys are sleeping together?”

With your eyes wide, face hot, and heart pounding, you stared at her. Trying to figure out how a story like this was one they already heard. You forgot until now that they were already playing this game before you got back.

Turning to the side you playfully smacked Spencer’s arm. “You told them that?”

He gaped at you and grabbed his arm. Face still red of course now accompanied with a crack in his voice. “I didn’t think you were gonna tell them. I thought you would have talked about the other time.”

“Why would I tell them that?” You said in a quieter tone.

“What other time?” Derek interrupted, filled with curiosity.

Rossi pipped in next, “you said two places were tied for weirdest, what’s the other place?”

You and Spencer went quiet. You looked at each other before returning your gaze to the group.

“I think this is a great time to get a refill,” you grabbed your glass and stood up. “Spencer, coming with?”

He quickly scrambled to stand up, “Absolutely.”

The two of you made your way to the bar as your friends all started murmuring.

“So, you didn’t want to tell them you had sex on a plane?” He asked with a slight smirk.

“No, of course not!” You squealed which earned a laugh from him.

“Eventually they would’ve found out we’re dating and I didn’t want them to figure out it was on the jet,” you explained.

“It’s not like any of them were there,” he said before leaning down to kiss your forehead.

“I still don’t wanna get fired.”

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid headcanon #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid x you #criminal minds fanfiction

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incognit0slut · 8 months ago

Note

omg neeeed a spencer fic based off of lunch by billie eilish, i feel like that song definitely suites him 😭

Being cornered in the filing room was the last thing you expected when Spencer asked you out for lunch.

Warnings: (18+) oral (f), semi-public (they’re at work) ~1.6k words

A/n: Ty anon I've been listening to this song nonstop and now I have a reason to use it for munch Spence, ily

“What do you want to eat for lunch?” you asked, striding through the bullpen with Spencer at your side. He had a hand on your lower back, and you couldn't help but wonder why he was being so touchy at work when he was usually the one insisting on professionalism. Not that you were complaining; you’d take any small gesture of his affection.

“How about that new sushi place around the corner?” you suggested, leaning into him slightly. “I could go for a salmon skin roll.”

He remained unusually silent, and as you exited through the glass doors, you frowned when he guided you away from the elevator. “What—” you began, looking up at him as he led you down the hallway. “Where are you taking me?”

His silence was starting to unnerve you. He glanced around to make sure no one was nearby before pulling you into the filing room and shutting the door behind you.

“Spencer,” you hissed, eyes darting around the room. “What are you—”

Before you could finish, his lips were on yours, pressing you against the door. His hands cupped your face, holding you in place as he kissed you with a fervor that left you breathless. You hadn’t realized just how much his kisses could affect you until you started dating him—each one was deep, passionate, and downright knee-weakening.

When he finally pulled away, you clung to his arms for balance, your mind reeling. “What was that for?”

He grinned mischievously. “I’m hungry.”

You blinked, confused. “So you decided to eat my face?”

He chuckled, leaning in to peck your lips again. "That was just the appetizer." His hands trailed down your body, and when you felt him run his palm down your legs, you knew you were doomed.

"Spence," you warned, trying to give him your best glare but already melting into him as his fingers slid under your skirt. "I thought you wanted to have lunch."

"I do," he agreed, slipping inside the waistband of your panties. "And I am. I want to eat you."

You really needed to talk to him about his oral fixation—not that you minded, because honestly, you loved it when he went down on you. The problem was, he didn't always pick the right time or place.

Like that one time on a date when he begged to taste you, leaving your food cold when you returned from the bathroom, with the waiter giving you the stink eye you could feel the judgment in their gaze. And now he wanted to do it at work, with your friends practically in the next room.

"We can't—" you tried to protest, but your voice faltered as he nibbled on your earlobe.

"Shh," he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. "I’ll be quick."

Before you could respond, his hand slipped further down, and you let out a gasp, clutching at his shoulders. His touch was electrifying, and you found it increasingly difficult to remember why this was a bad idea.

"We're going to get caught," you managed to say, though it lacked conviction.

"We won't," he murmured, and when his fingers brushed your arousal, he laughed softly, spreading your slickness up and down your folds. "You’re already so wet."

He grinned when he felt your hips thrusting and bucking upwards. He knew you were inviting him to give you more. The flat tips of his fingers begin to dip in your entrance teasingly. You wanted him. You needed him. He knew he had you right where he wanted.

"Spencer, please," you whispered, half in protest, half in desperation.

"Please what?" he asked, his voice husky. "Please stop? Or please don't stop?"

You could barely form coherent thoughts, let alone words. "Please… just..."

He took that as encouragement, intensifying the pressure and speed of his movements. You clung to him, your knees weakening, your breath hitching in ragged gasps. Just when you felt you couldn't bear it any longer, he knelt before you, deftly sliding your panties down your legs. Any resistance dissolved as he gripped one of your legs, hoisting it up over his shoulder.

“Lift your skirt up.”

With trembling hands, you gathered the fabric and lifted it, exposing yourself fully to him. His eyes couldn’t help but rest on the sight, taking note of your swollen, aroused lips and how wet you already were. His fingers traced over your slick folds, teasingly brushing against your sensitive skin before lowering his head between your thighs.

The moment his tongue made contact, you were already lost in a haze of pleasure. Your head spun as nerves and excitement merged into a blissful frenzy in your mind. He teased up and down your slit, briefly dipping inside your dripping entrance before returning to focus on your swollen, aching clit.

"You taste amazing," he grunted, his voice thick with desire. His hands encircled your thighs firmly, keeping you in place as his tongue circled and flicked over your sensitive bud. He sucked lightly, causing you to hold your breath, before releasing it in a ragged gasp. Your hips bucked uncontrollably as you ran your hands through his hair, tugging on the strands, eliciting a deep, rough yet eager moan from him.

This was why he loved tasting you so much. He was addicted to your reactions, the way you whimpered and moaned, and the eager groans he made between your trembling thighs. He reveled in the sensation of your juices against his tongue, thrilled by the chance to please you and watch your legs quiver around him. He adored the way your voice strained when you called out his name, and how tightly you gripped the strand of his hair between your fingers.

He loved it all, making it clear as his tongue sped up, circling your clit even faster. Looking up at you, he saw you trembling, your gaze locking onto his wide, shining brown eyes as he continued to pleasure you. Each flick of his tongue, every gentle suck, drew you closer to the edge.

"Please," you cried out, fingers gripping his hair as you moved your hips against his mouth. "I'm so close," you gasped, your focus entirely on him, feeling the pressure of his tongue against your throbbing cunt.

He responded with a low, satisfied hum, the vibrations sending shivers through your body. The tension built within you, coiling tighter and tighter until you were teetering on the brink of release. Your breaths came in shallow pants, your entire body alight with anticipation.

He held onto your thighs firmly, keeping you in place as he expertly licked your folds, skillfully massaging your clit with the flat of his tongue. The way he moved, the way he tasted you, it was driving you wild. You could feel yourself spiraling, the tension building inside you, pushing you closer and closer to the edge.

With one final, skillful flick of his tongue, he pushed you over the edge. The orgasm hit you like a tidal wave, your body shuddering, your breath catching in your throat. You cried out, a raw, uninhibited sound of pure ecstasy, as the pleasure washed over you in powerful, crashing waves.

Spencer held you through it, his tongue never slowing, drawing out every last bit of your release until you were spent and trembling in his arms. Only then did he finally pull back, looking up at you with a satisfied, almost smug expression.

"You okay?" he asked softly, his hands gently caressing your trembling thighs.

You nodded, your breath still coming in shallow gasps. He rose to his feet, his eyes still locked on yours as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, his expression one of satisfaction and tenderness. He pulled you into a warm embrace, his hands gently rubbing your back as you steadied yourself, your legs still trembling slightly from the intensity of your release.

You leaned into him, your head resting on his shoulder. "I can't believe we just did that," you said, your voice still shaky. "We could have gotten caught."

"The thrill of almost getting caught makes it even better, doesn't it?"

You groaned and swatted his chest. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” He chuckled softly, his fingers brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. "Let's get you cleaned up before someone wonders where we are."

Nodding, you straightened your skirt and tried to compose yourself, though the lingering heat between your thighs was a constant reminder of what had just transpired. Spencer handed you your panties with a playful smirk, and you quickly slipped them back on, feeling a mix of embarrassment and exhilaration.

As you both stepped out of the room, the hallway was thankfully empty. He kept a protective arm around your waist as he guided you back towards the bullpen.

"Where did you two go?" JJ asked the moment she saw you. "We just ordered takeout."

Spencer stepped slightly aside from you, but his arm remained reassuringly around your waist. "It's fine, I already had my lunch, anyway," he replied smoothly.

You cleared your throat, trying to regain your composure, and returned to your desk as you ignored JJ’s stare. The slight blush on your face threatened to give you away, and you shot him a discreet but pointed glare.

"Yeah? What did you eat?" JJ asked, her curiosity clearly piqued.

"Oh, just something... incredibly satisfying," he said, his voice dripping with innuendo. “Something I've been craving for a while."

You bit your lip, hoping the warmth in your cheeks wasn't too obvious as you met his eyes briefly, noting the smug look on his face.

You were going to kill him.

1K notes · View notes

hadesrise · 8 days ago

Text

## one true love !!

summary──── ben feels true love with you, his enemy, and finds himself able to break from the toxic masculinity he surrounded himself with.

pairings──── soldier boy / benjamin x anti-hero!male reader

warnings──── nsfw content, porn with too much feelings, fluff, slight angst, foul language, probably (very definitely) ooc soldier boy, top!reader, sub!bottom!ben, gentle love, praise kink, hair pulling, creampie, fingering, unprotected sex, overstimulation, vibrator, pet names ( love, baby, pup, etc. ), short oral ( r. receiving ), love-making, mating press, missionary, riding, aftercare, light D/S dynamics, pillow talk, a lot of vulnerability, ben proposes to reader unexpectedly, enemies in forbidden love, internalised homophobia, morally grey!reader, possessiveness, homophobic slurs, canon typical misogyny, reader’s anti-hero name is lucifer, reader has magical powers

author’s note──── i might’ve made him too soft and vulnerable, so forewarning that he doesn’t show much of his asshole side in this fic. the ooc warning already says much, i guess?

MINORS DNI !!

Peaceful jazz music and well dressed crowd fills the grand hall decorated in gold curtains, men and women from different wealthy families flaunting around their riches with drinks in hand. Adorned in nothing but expensive attires that feeds off of the poor were most guests that have been invited to celebrate another success of Vought-American with a superhero movie that starred its own team, Payback, while the heroes themselves remained in their pretty little costumes for the publicity and fame.

Cameras, photographers, and journalists lurked in the corner section of the hall, where they’ve been assigned to fulfil their destiny of capturing significant moments that are interesting enough to be written on headlines or shown on television.

Nights like this were when Soldier Boy wanted to beat the shit out of Vought employees for their incapability in making celebrations entertaining. The lack of excitement and chaos infuse Ben with excessive boredom that just gives him the urge to shoot himself in the head, all of its professionalism becoming nothing but a burden and straight up pain in the ass. He’s been hardly enjoying the night, having to put up with Crimson Countess attached to his hip at all times to keep appearances, which he admits is worse than fucking a loose cunt. It didn’t make him feel better that Stan fucking Edgar was watching, making sure things are under control.

The jazz music suddenly stops short with a loud screeching sound that has everyone covering their ears in pain, startled murmurs filling the air as all eyes turned to the stage where a famous band stood, confusion also plastered across their faces. One of them repeatedly presses down on the piano’s key, frowning when it does nothing as if it lost its function all of a sudden. Sensing the panic slowly rise among guests, Stan opens his mouth to speak, only for his words to die in his throat when the lights begin to flicker.

“You know, I’m quite displeased to not have received an invitation.” Deep, resonant, husky voice littered with confidence and cockiness erupt out of nowhere as the flickering lights return to normal, an utterly familiar figure making themselves known.

Gasps, of either excitement or fear, falls from everyone’s lips to your powerful presence that almost immediately caused a shift in atmosphere. Soldier Boy’s breath hitched, feeling his throat dry as he cleared his throat and swallowed.

You don’t miss the quick look of surprise and panic flashing across Stan’s face before they were hidden behind his casual mask of greedy businessman, making the corner of your lips twitch up.

“You’re simply not welcome here, Lucifer.” The man uttered with barely contained irritation despite his best efforts to remain calm, spitting your antihero name — given by, not Vought, but the public themselves — in distaste.

Amusement emerge on your expression, completely unbothered by the antagonistic perspective Stan sees you with.

There’s an underlying overconfidence and arrogance to the way you hold yourself, a man who clearly knows how influential and threatening your own existence is and isn’t even apologetic for it. It wasn’t just for a show — you knew you mattered, knew exactly your worth, and didn’t hide behind the fake persona of a beloved public figure that pretends they’re enjoying a single bit of what they’re doing. Your ego and pride seemingly rivals that of Soldier Boy’s yet yours come more naturally, like you were born with it without the need to develop them in amidst of your life to trick yourself into feeling more relevant. You held charisma, a charm that seems to pull people closer to you despite the dangerous, deceitful, fucking jackass attitude you had that’s supposed to be driving them away. It makes Ben want to either punch your face or suck your cock like a fag whore.

“Fair enough,” You shrugged. “But I certainly make parties more fun. You could learn a couple or two from me.”

Stan’s eye twitches in annoyance at your arrogance; it’s much worse that he can’t use anything to stomp on it because your ego wasn’t fragile like the others. While most men, supe or not, wrap their self-importance in toxic masculinity in order to feel superior than they actually are, you were fully comfortable with yourself. Your emotional capacity was extremely high that developed you to become invincible against criticism or rejection. He can attempt to hurt your feelings, manipulate you, use your own ego against you all he wants — none of it will force you to surrender or submit no matter what because you, quite simply, loved yourself too much to be under power hungry maniacs.

When Stan can’t seem to muster a snarky remark, you smirk and invite yourself in, walking further into the grand hall as you snap your fingers, the white bright lights turning into colourful disco lights with your magic.

You stared at the band members on stage, eyes glowing red, and forcefully overtake their minds to play an upbeat party worth music instead of the boring jazz they did. It’s not that you dislike jazz music, it’s peculiar and beautiful on its own, you’re just not really fond of formal parties where everyone’s required to be in their good behaviours, barely having the time of their life if not to shove their riches down less wealthy people’s throat, which you don’t particularly find amusing or fun at all.

It seems to excite the guests, some of them even beginning to bop their heads to the catchy rhythm, moving their previously still bodies along with the beats. Energy surges through them, life revealing itself within their eyes that was filled with misery before you barged in.

“Let go of the fucking formality, ladies and gentlemen.” You grinned wide with your arms spread open to your sides. “It’s time for a true fun party!”

Ben was in awe when all cheered at your declaration, how quick you were able to turn this entire place into your own playground despite the hosts — authorities — being present, how much of a natural you were at gaining people’s faith and attention without doing more than show up and be yourself.

It should be making him envious; he’s doing all these heroism, model, actor bullshit and hiding behind a perfect macho-man façade to be loved and paid attention to for fuck’s sake, and yet it’s so easy for you to bend people at your own will just by being yourself. He should be pissed as he always did when others get the spotlight more than him, but Ben couldn’t find it in himself to.

How the fuck is he going to be pissed when you look so disgustingly hot doing all of it?

“He’s fucking doing it again,” Countess seethes through gritted teeth, glaring at you. Her little tug on his arm snaps him out of daze as he shifts his gaze to her. “Taking all the attention away from you. With the rate he’s going, I wouldn’t be surprised if he interrupts everything you’re in.”

Ben had to pretend to irritably clench his jaw, and smiled with sarcasm. “As if I’d let him. Fucking asshole needs to be put in his place.”

He knew you heard him when the corner of your lips pulled up in a smirk, one of your brows raising to shoot him a challenging look. It sends a thrill down Ben’s spine as he scowled, giving you a death glare that everyone sees for it is; rage, hatred, despise.

“Pleasure to see you here, Soldier Boy. Crimson Countess.” You greet in a feigned enthusiasm, swiftly taking a cocktail from the waiter that just passed, and approach them in all your glory.

“Fuck you,” Soldier Boy quickly snarled as Countess spits, “Get the fuck away from us.”

Amusement instantly cross your face, nearly making both of them want to punch you. “So much for greeting lovebirds in clown costumes,” You dejectedly say with a hand over your chest for dramatic effect, in contrast to the mocking way in which you spoke. “C’mon, I just made this boring, useless party worth your precious little time. At least now you can stop being a pussy hiding behind an awfully constructed television personality.”

That strikes a nerve in Soldier Boy as his face hardened and a cold look appeared, stepping forward warningly, “I’d choose my next fucking words wisely if I were you.” Countess tugs his arm in a nervous manner while scanning their surroundings, taking notice of people watching your interaction.

You meet his glare with a calm yet daring look and leaned closer, “I wouldn’t. I know I can beat you.” Your eyes glowed in red once again as you grinned confidently.

Ben’s hand twitched, but before he could make a move, a woman approached you from behind and tugged on your elbow, interrupting the little rivalry you had going on. “I’m sorry, do you mind if we dance and have fun for a bit?” She shyly but bravely asked you, not even sparing Soldier Boy a glance.

An unimpressed look flashes in your eyes that only Ben took notice of, the subtle annoyance to the woman for cutting into your rather hostile conversation. You, however, plastered on an emotionless smile within a split second, not giving anyone the chance to see through you. “I’ll lead the way,” You barely looked at him before walking off with her to the centre of the hall where bodies swayed to the beat.

It takes everything in Ben not to square up and make a mess of this party when you started dancing with her, your body dangerously close to hers as she stares at you with a look that made him want to strangle her slim neck. As if you’re a divine sculpture created by Gods, like you’re the entire universe, most precious being to ever exist in this planet, like she knew everything about you when she, in fact, absolutely did not. But he does.

And Ben knows he’ll be screaming your name, holding you impossibly close to him, digging his nails onto your back as you grind into him — everything she wished you’ll do to her — when all of this shit show is over.

At the end of the day, no slut or pussy fucker would come home to you but him; you’ve chosen him despite the countless amount of people throwing themselves pathetically at you, and Ben will make sure he’ll forever be the only one who does.

Lewd squelching, sucking sounds fill the dimly lit bedroom of your home as the stench of sex and arousal surround the air, more prominent due to your and Ben’s enhanced senses. You sat comfortably against the headboard of your shared bed with Ben in between your legs as he sucks and slurps your cock, taking it as far as he can in his mouth and gagging. Tiny muffled moans or groans escape him occasionally, hips grinding against the mattress to stimulate his own aching dick while the vibrator you bought for him nestled deep inside his prepped hole.

“You love my fuckin’ cock so much, don’t you?” You chuckled hoarsely, almost degrading, and Ben shudders. “It’s alright, love. m’not goin’ anywhere.” Your fingers tread through his hair, gently scraping your nails against his scalp, making him groan as his hips stutter.

Maintaining eye contact with you, Ben inhales a deep breath through his nose before taking your cock further down his throat, tears gathering in his eyes when he nearly gagged. A genuine smile adorns your face when he looks at you expectantly, the most beautiful green eyes you’d ever seen holding desperation and self-doubt. Pleading expression that he shows only to you.

“You want me to praise you, pup? Call you good boy?” He whines in response — God, that fucking sound you know he’d rather die than let anyone else hear. Ben doesn’t have any idea how much it affects you, the fact that you’re the only one whom he allows a vulnerable side of him show.

Realising he has to earn what he yearns for, Ben gently wraps his hand around the base of your cock where it didn’t fit and starts to bob his head. You moaned softly, throwing your head back; the sight being such a blessing to Ben’s eyes that makes his own cock throb and needy. He swirls his tongue on the underside of your shaft, his free hand gripping your thigh for support.

“Doin’ so good, love. You’ve gotten better at this,” You cooed, petting his hair and gently thrusting up into his throat. Ben closed his eyes, a blissful look appearing on his face as he relaxed and allowed you to move instead.

The trust and faith Ben has in you makes something explode within your chest, heart swelling in love and adoration at your troubled yet adorable partner.

Building a healthy and trustful relationship with him was more difficult than anything you’ve ever done before, considering the absolute bigotry his father forcefully fed into him and all the unresolved issues he had with himself. Despite the tough and harsh exterior he constantly put on, you had seen right through him when you first met — those broken spirit that yearned to be loved or needed by people hiding behind his douche, Soldier Boy persona, a man that his imbecile of a father always wanted him to be. It amused you as much as it squeezed your chest; one of the first strongest superhero being a fucking attention starved bastard was undeniably funny, but pitiful. It’s also why you fell in love with him.

You’ve accepted that Ben was always going to have a deep rooted homophobia in him, that there won’t be a day where you’ll be seen in the public with him holding hands like star-fucking-crossed lovers, that he’ll always be too much of a pussy to be fully himself — but you never expected him to be so open, comfortable, with you like this to the extent of willingly trusting you with a needy and desperate version of himself.

Benjamin is laying his heart out bare for you to take, and you didn’t know whether you wanted to make love to him or fuck his brains out. You decided with the former.

Confusion settles on Ben’s expression when you gently pushed his shoulders to make him pull away, a sudden worry if he’s done something wrong, but all thoughts flies out the window after you passionately smashed your lips against his and guided him on your lap. Ben gasps when you pulled the vibrator out of his hole and replaced it with your thick fingers, hooking his arms on the back of your neck.

“So good, love. Lookin’ all pretty for me.” He moans at your praise, the compliment making his heart flutter rather than boost his ego.

“s’for you…” They come out in whisper from his lips, littered with slight reluctance around the edge, but you hear it loud and clear. “All for you. I— fuck… just for you,” He grinds on your fingers, crying out when you curled them just right to stimulate his prostate.

You almost feel dizzy for his words that he’s never uttered before.

The utmost pride he upholds made it difficult for Ben to completely submit to you, often being a disobedient brat that needs to be put in his place or a quiet, reserved man that’s embarrassed to be loved by another man which causes him to be tense for the first half of this activity — so seeing him like this, hesitantly yet openly letting you in to his comfort zone, spilling the thoughts he’s always been fearful of admitting, holding you tight to him as if you’d slip from his grasp if he let you go, was pleasantly surprising. Your heart flutters, butterflies filling your stomach as the urge to protect and gently take him apart piece by piece runs like electricity through your veins, fuelling your desire for Ben.

You thrust your digits with gentle pace, Ben’s hips moving on its own to chase the pleasure. “That’s right, baby. All f’me, yeah? My pretty darling?”

The gentleness of your whispered voice and your eyes staring at him with pure love sends shivers down his spine; Ben holds your face and nods, pulling you in for a kiss. You can feel his suppressed fear through his desperate lips, the doubts that lingers in his mind that you might see him differently for being so vulnerable like this, and you quickly silence his thoughts by slipping your tongue inside his mouth.

Ben mewled when you add another digit in him, now having three fingers penetrating his hole, as he breaks the kiss to breathe for air. There’s a hazy look in his tearful eyes when he meets your gaze, “Take care of me, please.”

You groan at the plea, immediately pulling your fingers out to instead align your cock with his entrance. Ben must’ve been waiting for so long because he doesn’t hesitate to sink down on it almost in an instant, a loud collective moan escaping the two of you. Your hands gripped his hips while he rested both hands on your shoulders, and fuck he felt so fucking good. The way his warm, tight velvety walls deliciously clamp around you as if swallowing your cock whole, the way his divinely beautiful body perfectly fit against yours like he was made for you.

“fuck… you’re so fuckin’ perfect,” You praised, kissing up his throat as he threw his head back in pleasure. “Completely mine, so is Soldier Boy. Everythin’ about you, Ben. It’s all mine.”

Ben nods vigorously, gripping the back of your neck and starting to ride you at a perfect pace, tiny sounds escaping his mouth. Slipping his fingers through your hair, he gently tugged on them just enough that had you groaning, and laid his forehead to rest against yours. “Y-yours- ah… Yours as… as much as you’re fucking mine,” He grunts out, possessiveness hanging onto his every word that shot excitement through your body. “No one gets to f-fucking have you… oh fuck—!” He cuts himself off with a strangled moan when you snapped your hips up.

“Yeah? Not even that slut that danced with me on the dance floor?” You teased, smirking.

His bright green eyes seem to darken as he sinks even further down on your cock, forcefully stretching himself out, hissing at the delicious pain. You moaned, wrapping an arm around him to pull him to your chest. “Fuck, especially her.” Ben almost growls, one hand coming up to wrap around your throat, feeling you throb and seemingly get bigger inside him due to it. “You… belong to me, o-only me.”

You hum, moaning softly when he squeezed your jugular just right. “Always, my love.”

Relief washes over his entire body as he begins to roll his hips and move again, leaning down to suck and kiss on your exposed collarbone. “Oh fuck… It’s— a-agh…! Tell me- tell me, please…” He whined desperately.

Ben needed to hear you say it, have the promises of you completely belonging to him nailed into his brain so he’ll never feel insecure or doubtful again. He’ll never admit it, but you always know every little thing that goes on inside his head, those haunting words of his father that seems to have a tight grip over him. You’re the only one that could see right through his soul; someone exactly opposite from his father, someone who fearlessly challenges the normality or ancient traditions, someone who actually have their shit together that enabled you to be mature, wise, unapologetically yourself.

You were extraordinary in every way possible, and Ben knew his inner vulnerable — not quite the man his father wanted him to be — self was safe with you. Always secured. Never judged nor ridiculed, instead embraced perfectly by your strong and warm arms that shields him away from the mental, emotional harm.

He knew you would catch him when he falls. You would keep him and his treasured thoughts safe. You weren’t afraid to love him loudly, wholeheartedly, and Ben allows himself to be brave just this once without thinking about his fears.

Trailing one of your hands up his nape, you pull him back to a searing kiss, pouring all the desire and love into it. Ben melted, his hand on your throat loosening as you gently twist your bodies around to lay him down on the bed without pulling out. He whimpers and chases you when you detached your lips from his, which nearly made your heart explode.

“I belong to you, my love.” You whispered, kissing down his neck and chest, thrusting your cock sensually slow inside him. Nothing quite like the animalistic sex you two usually have due to your powers, but it was more right than ever. “My heart, my body, my soul, my spirit. All for you, belong with you.”

Ben feels as if his heart would hammer right out of his ribcage from how rapid it was beating.

Your soothing yet powerful presence all over the place, hovering over him and embracing every bit of the damaged part of himself that he refused to acknowledge. There’s resistance gnawing on his skin, the unhealthy urge to push you away and guard himself again with a thick wall despite being the one who willingly showed vulnerability, but Ben uses all of his ability to shove it down. He wanted to listen to your overwhelmingly romantic and gentle words that he’s been taught men should never utter, he wanted to be held with so much care like he was your most prized possession, he wanted to be actually loved. For once, he wanted to allow himself to not be drowned in the toxicity his father had force-fed him with.

It doesn’t take you a second to notice him relaxing even further underneath your body, practically leaning onto your existence as the pretty noises escaping his mouth seems to gradually get louder, like he stopped holding himself back.

An awe surrounds your expression, genuinely taken aback by him letting everything go, and a soft sigh of pleasure falls from your lips. “That’s it, baby. You make the most prettiest sound. Don’t hold back,” Cooing gently, you adjust your hips and rolled into him, brushing his prostate at a perfect angle.

Ben keened, arching his back. “Fuuuck… oh, please. Deeper.”

You obliged, keeping the same slow and sensual pace but pushing further inside. “You’re made for me, aren’t you? Just as I’m made for you,” You sharply snap your hips once to emphasise, and he cries out. “We’re one, my love. No one can have me, I come home to you and only to you no matter what.”

His breath hitched, the pleasure and your words sending explosions of euphoria into his brain, nodding mindlessly at your promises. “Y-yes, fuck… I’m- I’m yours, too— ah, hng…” Tears spill from his beautiful green eyes as he spread his legs more wide, one hand grabbing your wrist that was propped beside his head to stabilise your body, almost clinging onto you while the other scratched against the mattress. “F-fucking Christ, always- always yours.”

“I know,” You softly acknowledged. “Always mine, no matter how much some part of you can’t accept it. I can see right through you, love. I understand everything about you.”

“I- oh yes! There, fuck!” Ben sobs when you start picking up your pace, hips bucking against you. “Y-you do… God, you a-always fucking do.”

That causes a grin to spread across your lips before you leaned down to devour him again.

Truth be told, Ben was afraid of how much you saw everything he’s been trying to hide all his life. It takes a bit of his soul every-time he learns to be indifferent, more sick and twisted. The innocence in him had died out long ago, but the desperation of a child never vanquished — the pathetic, ruined and heavily deprived of any love someone that he always forced himself to forget or get rid of, was seen entirely by you without much effort. He didn’t need to say anything, you always understood all the hidden insecurity, longing, pain, and fear nested deep in his mind. You also understood why he was the way he was, why he does what he does, who he had to become.

To be loved is to be seen and understood, he guesses.

A love he’s never thought he’ll ever experience from anyone, let alone his supposed enemy. You gave it to him, though. All so willingly, happily, like he was meant for it, like he was always meant for you.

Strangled, loud moan was forced out of him when your hand wrapped around his achingly hard dick, making him feel dizzy from all the overwhelming desire and pleasure. Every bit of love that emits from your touch sends a frying electricity through his veins, fulfilling his inner thirst that was supposed to be unquenchable.

“Fuck, fuckfuckfuck—!” Ben wails, arching his back and digging his nails on your forearm as your thumb rubbed his sensitive slit and smeared precum all over. “C-close… oh, Christ! Cummin’, cummin’, please—”

“It’s alright, Ben. I got you,” You purred, slamming your hips down on him. “Let go, cum for me.”

As if that’s all the permission he needed, Ben instantly tumbles over the edge with a loud breathy whine as his eyes rolled to the back of his head, sticky loads shooting out from his cock to his stomach. Body spasming and head thrown back, letting his mind-blowing orgasm wave right off of him, still clinging onto you. You gritted your teeth when his hole tightened impossibly around you, feeling yourself throb and ache to release.

Ben — in spite of his cloudy, mushed state of mind as well as hazy and cock-drunk look in his eyes — suddenly wraps both strong legs around your hips to keep you in place, which forces you forward to bury yourself deeper inside him, eliciting a growl of curses from you.

His mouth splits into a dumb, shit-eating grin. “Inside, baby. Fill me up… give me all you got. I need you.” He moves his hips and squeezes down like a fucking expert prostitute, and it’s enough to have you let out a guttural groan as you spilled inside his tight hole.

Ben released a shattered breath, moaning delightfully at your warm cum that taints his insides, his hand that was gripping your forearm moving down to caress his belly where he could feel you finishing.

It makes your breath hitch; the action sparking a deep hidden desire and possessiveness within you that you’ve had shackled for so long in order to not be too greedy.

But Ben, oh your precious Benjamin, pressed down on his perfect belly and whined so brokenly that tugged the strings of your heart, as if he wanted something so unreachable. He attempts to bury his face on the pillow in what you recognised as shame and you quickly hold his face to keep him from hiding from you, subtle concern glimmering in your gentle eyes.

“What’s bothering your mind, love?” You whispered with such carefulness, afraid speaking too loud would break the bubble of sensitivity that surrounded the two of you as you pressed a light kiss on his temple. “You can tell me, Benji. It’s not embarrassing nor shameful.”

Ben’s heart swells at the way you cage him in your protective arms and words, the back of his eyes stinging from the tears that threatened to come out. He doesn’t deserve you; he never did, but you’re so good to him and he doesn’t think he can live without you. No, he knows he can’t live without you.

What would he do without your captivating eyes looking at him with so much passion no one ever gave him before, your gentle voice uttering such carefully crafted words that embraces rather than cut through him, your big and muscular yet warmly protective arms holding him like he was a treasure to behold, your soul healing and rebuilding every damaged bit of his spirit like it was your purpose? What would he do without you?

And fuck, everything would be so much easier if he wasn’t a fucking man. If he wasn’t such a pussy who’s afraid of risking everything.

You gently roll your hips against his, slow and steady, as if to comfort his nerves and overthinking thoughts with a soft pleasure.

Letting out a quiet, breathy sigh, Ben holds your face close and internally fights back against the restraints that wanted to keep him from opening his soul up to you. “We’d be… We’d be so much happier if I wasn’t a fucking man,” His whispered voice breaks at the end.

His heart ached and so did yours, a realisation dwelling on you of how serious Ben actually was with your relationship. It comes off as an unexpected admittance. While you knew he did love you like you love him, you didn’t think it was to this extent of imagining the countless possibilities if either of you was a woman instead, much less he’d think of himself to be the woman. It was odd and so unlike him — true love brings out something within people, you suppose.

Tears glimmered in his green eyes that’s filled by storm of emotions.

Ben hated this, hated you for making him such a crybaby and a pussy, but he’s so in love with you it fucking hurts. He doesn’t know what triggered him to be an annoying, pathetic, insecure loser the moment you held him. God, he’s Soldier Boy for fuck’s sake!

Then, you look at him with so much tenderness like he hung the moon and was the only thing that grounds you down to earth, and Ben realises it’s this.

“You’re such a fucking fool,” You affectionately cursed with a tone barely above whisper before pressing a lingering kiss on his lips. “I wouldn’t have spared you a glance if you weren’t. Women never captivated me, love. Only you.”

Wrapping his arms around your back and burying his face on the crook of your neck, Ben inhales your scent as you gently rock your bodies together. “Love me more,” He almost demands, voice low and trembling.

You smiled, “Of course, Benji.”

Pressing a sweet kiss on his head, you grab the back of his thighs and push them to his muscular chest, Ben’s flexibility despite his well defined physique making it easier for you to fold him. In a swift motion, you slam down on him, beginning to pound away the loud thoughts that made home in his mind. Angelic, high pitched sounds escape Ben’s mouth with each rough thrusts, bordering on pornographic. The blissful look across his face enhance his already ethereal features, and you can’t help but stare intently at him.

“You look so beautiful like this, love. Taking me in so well, letting me cherish you.” You praised, earning a needy whimper from the love of your life. “My Benjamin… my brave soldier.”

At the unexpected pet name, Ben’s body jolts and a choked sob erupted from his throat, suddenly pushed over the edge as he cums undone on his stomach. “F-fuck!”

“G-god, baby…” You groaned, shuddering in pleasure at the way his gummy walls spasms around your girth. “Drivin’ me insane, y’know that? Cummin’ with just my words alone? Shit, wanna fuck you hard and love you at the same time.”

Digging his nails on your back, Ben attached his lips on your collarbone with an intent to leave several possessive marks, making you jut your hips forward. “D-do it, fuck me.” He mumbled breathlessly.

That’s the only permission you needed to let go of your own self-control and just rut into him like an animal, thrusting your cock with more vigour and roughness that forced the headboard to repeatedly bang against the wall. Feeling the way your shaft practically drill into and rearrange his guts that brought immeasurable ecstasy, Ben finds himself finally unable to make out a coherent thought as drools drip down his chin. The two orgasms you milked out of him already left him sensitive enough, his thighs quivering under your grasps.

Lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin and wet squelches filled the room, accompanied by feral noises of both of your moans and grunts.

It’s nearly incomprehensible how you’re able to quickly switch between loving him and treating him like a slut next, a perfect balance to Ben’s constant yearning for admiration or appreciation and his tendency to always be an inconsolable brat that needs to be put back in his place.

He feels so complete and whole, so loved. And so so fucking dumb for your cock. He could stay like this forever without heavy expectations weighing over his head all the time, just taking you whole and letting you ruin his body, looking all pretty and beautiful for you. Yeah, he can do that. Being pretty and sexy has always been a talent of his, after all. He can even learn to cook for you like a fucking perfect, pretty housewife, maybe you’ll stuff him full of your cum again while at it and tell him to keep them in. Fuck, he can do that too. He wants to do that.

“Oh fuck, Ben…” An almost pornographic, low growl rumbles from your chest when he squeezed down on you, his warm walls fluttering against your girth from the imagination. The coil in your stomach tightens as you twitched inside him, too close to your high.

“I- ah—! Please, pleaseplease—!” He babbles, one hand shifting to press your ass and push you in deeper, syllables slightly slurred from how cockdrunk he was.

Understanding his wordless signal, you increase your pace with an angle that drives your instincts wild, a chill running through your spine from the overwhelming pleasure. Seeing Ben completely fall apart and surrender underneath you gives your ego an infinite boost, the powerful man such a sobbing, wrecked, pretty little mess just because of your cock. Drunk in every little euphoria and precious love you feed him. Oh, how fucking adorable and gorgeous he was.

Before long, Ben feels you throb inside him and pulls you in with what little willpower he had left, clumsily slipping his tongue in your mouth, overwhelming you with different sensations of his body against yours. It’s enough to have you harshly ram your hips down in one swift motion and empty yourself inside him, a loud wail of your name leaving Ben’s lips as he finishes as well. You feel his body tremble violently due to overstimulation, breath stuttering.

“You look so fucked out,” You laugh breathlessly, hips softly grinding to ride out your climax. “Still fuckin’ hot when you’re all dumb n’ mindless.”

Petting his disheveled hair, a soft contented hum leaves Ben as he closed his eyes and nuzzled to your touch. The entire erotic sight of his hair sticking to his forehead from the sweat, tears staining his cheeks, hazy look across his eyes, and swollen lips sends amusement and satisfaction through your veins — you definitely fucked whatever self-loathing thoughts he’s had out of his head.

Having completely spilled inside him, you moved to pull out only for Ben to groan in protest. “Stay the fuck in,” He grumbled, panting to catch his breath.

“I need to clean us up, love.” You gently say, but kept yourself sheathed inside him as your lips attach to his neck. “Wanna take care of you properly.”

Ben quietly sighs in content, “You already do.” Before he tilts his head to capture you in a passionate kiss. You slowly pull out of him in amidst of the moment, holding his face and reciprocating with equal passion.

He breathes low and heavy when you start to wipe him up with a wet towel you magically conjured up, running it across his body gently as your other hand massaged his sore hip with such tenderness. Your eyes taking in every part of his physique feels much more innocent now compared to before, deep appreciation and subtle awe flashing across your irises the more you stare, which causes his cheeks to tint slightly. You find it adorable how shy or embarrassed he gets whenever you look at him like he’s something born out of the stars in contrast to the overinflated cockiness he displays when others compliment him; it just proves he feels different, more special with you.

You shoot him a gentle smile that makes his brain shut down and his heart jump.

Christ on a cross, just what did you fucking reduce him into?

“Will you marry me?” The words had left his mouth before he could even process.

You froze, eyes wide as you snapped your gaze to him at the same time his own widened in shock. Fuck, did he just say what he thinks he did? After you fucked him ‘til he couldn’t even speak properly? God, his legs feel wobbly after all that delicious pounding of your dick in his tight little—

His distracting thoughts were interrupted by your hands cupping his cheeks and forcing him to look at you. There’s a bit of doubt lingered across your expression, worried that you mistakenly heard him, and Ben’s gaze softened. “Will you marry me?” He repeats quietly this time with genuine emotion, wiping away your worry.

Excitement and happiness seem to explode within you as you beam; “Yes! Fuck, yes, I’ll marry you.” However, your smile slowly deflates and a foreign look of insecurity replaces the joy surrounding you. “Are you… are you sure? You’re not pushing yourself?”

Confusion spreads across his face, “Why would you think I am?”

“It’s just not that easy to break away from all the homophobia, love.” You softly remind him. “You’re still having a hard time accepting it, could barely even call yourself the right term. You’re afraid, and that’s fine. We can continue on like this. You don’t have to marry me because you feel obligated to.”

Ben frowns, his hand pulling you down to the mattress at his side as he props up on his elbow and stares at you incredulously. “You think I wanna fucking marry you just ‘cause I’m guilty about hiding this? Did it ever occur to you that I actually fuckin’ love you?”

You smile to yourself; what a long way it took for him to just be able to admit that. At least he’s letting himself know he can be vulnerable with you now, compared to when he was convinced you’ll despise his inner self — a big fucking pussy, he says — and completely shut himself off in the beginning.

“Hey,” He grabs your chin to make you pay attention. “I know I still don’t do enough to show you, but I do. I really fucking do, baby.”

You look into his captivating green eyes for a second before releasing a deep breath, “I know. Trust me, you don’t have to do enough to show it, I can already tell. And I love you too.”

Ben nods and kisses your lips, lying down beside you. Your hand instinctually attaches to his waist, caressing his soft skin and shooting warmth throughout his body.

He can’t help but stare at your features, the way you look different now from how you looked at the party you crashed earlier. A certain amount of coldness, hostility and displeasure usually lurked your expression in a daily manner — hidden behind the undeniable charisma and obnoxious arrogance — directed at others that told exactly what their worth to you was; nothing. Ben hasn’t seen a day you were even remotely pleased by someone in the long years of knowing you, the people who attempted to get in your good graces often ended up screwing everything up instead and irritating you enough to kill them off.

But with him, you wouldn’t even spare him a cold glance. Your gaze twinkling with a pleasant spark, always warm, always comforting, always proud. God forbid you look at him with hatred like you’re supposed to. So affectionate for a man who’s been named after the Devil by the idiotic public that only sees what you let them see.

It is then had Ben realised; to him, true love is you.

True love is when you embrace a part of him that he deems undesirable, mend his broken soul, and melt the ice of deep rooted trauma surrounding his heart — it is when Soldier Boy doesn’t drive you away from seeing Benjamin, an ordinary boy from South Philadelphia who desperately wanted to make his father proud. You see them as one, as equally significant parts of him.

Good fucking Lord, he was a gigantic imbecile if he didn’t want to marry you, even if the idea still makes him feel quite… odd. Fuck’s sake, he really needs to learn how to deal with this homophobia bullshit, doesn’t he?

Ben licks his lips anxiously, reluctance plastered on his face. “I… I actually got the rings,” He hesitantly admitted.

Your eyes widened. “You did?”

“I- Jesus Christ, of course I did! I know I don’t fucking do shit like that, okay?” He snapped before quietly muttering, “Just wanted you to believe me when I propose.”

“I do,” You don’t miss to give him comfort, grabbing his hand. Ben’s nerves soothes at your touch. “I just thought we still have a long way to go and you need more time to figure yourself out.”

He shakes his head, “Gotta claim you before some fucker decides you’re free for them.”

“Yeah?” You smirked, raising one eyebrow. “Could’ve gone with a collar, y’know. It would get your point straight across. Plus, it’s more visible.” Tapping your neck to emphasise, which made Ben swallow.

Yeah, you’ll look good with a collar in his colour. You can even wear both. That’ll definitely get his point across to anyone that even looks at you. Maybe next time, he decides.

A mischievous smirk spreads across his lips, “That’ll fucking work best. Think I could put a leash on you too?” He teased, letting out a chuckle and sliding his hand up to your neck and hold you there.

“Mhm, fuck yes,” You almost purred from how pleased you were at the idea.

Ben laughs, lightly squeezing your neck in affection before turning around to rummage through the cabinet on the side of your bed, pulling out a velvet box that’s in the shade of his green. You could tell he was enthusiastic and overwhelmed with emotions from the way his hands slightly trembled, though you made no mention of it to avoid bursting his adorable bubble.

His grin was as bright as the sun on a sunny day when the ring perfectly fits around your finger, already snuggling comfortably on your skin and bringing a weight of new purpose in life. You slip the other ring on his as well, feeling the entanglement of your destiny with one another, the red strings of fate on both of your pinky fingers thickening. It’s a sacred oath that ties you to each other forever.

Warmth spreads around your chest at the fact it’s his first time giving you a gift and it’s something so unexpectedly intimate. A silver engagement ring with a ruby in his shade of green and his name engraved on the inner side; practically a part of his soul, settling itself home around your finger. You shift your gaze to the one he wears — the same silver ring but with a dark red ruby instead, your signature colour, and you assume also have your name engraved on the inner side as well.

A big, significant step for a man who’s constantly afraid of what others think about him, and you couldn’t be more prouder.

Lying back down on the bed together, Ben turns his back on you and scoots closer to your chest, making you smile when he grabbed your wrist to pull your arm over his torso. He always loved being hugged by you from behind despite the fact he’ll never admit it out loud; as much as it sounds pathetic and unmanly, he doesn’t argue with himself of how it gives him safety and protection from the harsh judgmental world. Being in your arms always dissipated the cruel words of his father carved in his mind.

You gently pulled him closer to your body and pressed a kiss on his shoulder blade. “Don’t have to rush about coming out, love. It’ll take more than a simple courage to be open about something considered taboo by our society. You’re still dealing with personal issues, we’ll focus on that for now.”

Ben’s heart warms at your consideration, unable to resist the urge to stick to you like a glue as he leans back on your chest. “How the fuck did you do it? This feels like a pain in the fucking ass,” He muttered disdainfully, though there was a hint of willingness in his tone, like he’s willing to make an effort just for you.

You shrugged, “m’not exactly shaped by my childhood trauma, Benji, and I didn’t like my parents that much. Never really gave a fuck about somethin’ that has no benefit to my life whatsoever.”

“Entitled asshole,” He laughs.

“So are you,” You teased, making you both erupt in loud laughter.

I could get used to this, Ben thinks as genuine happiness glows bright in his heart, your love anchoring him and providing a solid land for him to stand on. Dealing with his own problems doesn’t sound so bad when you’re there for him every step of the way. With your protective arms around his body, both Soldier Boy and Benjamin knew their heart will always be safe with you.

For once, Ben believes he can finally learn to create a family of his own.

Until disaster struck and life suddenly decides to not be fair on someone as fucked up as him — ripping his world apart into shreds in the form of coward, betraying bastards known as his fucking teammates.

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lidiasloca · 11 days ago

Note

hello!! I was wondering if you could write an azriel x reader fic where they've been best friends for centuries and one day the bond snapped for her. And she starts to avoid him because she thinks he doesn't love her so she doesn't show up to things they usually do together and whatnot (or however you want to put it!) but meanwhile Azriel is going crazy because he misses her and has been in love with her for years and then he confronts her and the bond snaps for him as well!! sorry if it's too long hahah but thanks

is it chill that you are in my head?

azriel x reader

friends to lovers

It was curious to think that no matter the strength you applied, no hit you made would ever hurt Azriel.

Yet, the Illyrian seemed intensely determined not to let you get to even touch him.

“Where’s your mind?” he asked as he dodged yet another hit. You took, at least, a bit of pride in his breathless voice.

You also took pride in how much you had made him sweat already, but you didn’t let your thoughts linger there too much—your eyes, neither.

“In trying to hit you.”

“Well, isn’t it frustrating you won’t satisfy your mind?”

“You get cocky—I’ll hit you down there,” you threatened, taking in his amused grin.

“There you can get?” he questioned as he circled you.

You held your fists up, following his eyes as he eyed you like a vulture. “You don’t want to find out.”

“I don’t,” he replied, just as you went to hit him.

He dodged it effortlessly.

And even had time, as you retracted your arm, to take it and pull you toward him, unbalancing you until you fell onto his torso.

As he prevented you from the fall he himself had caused, you found yourself close enough to his body to make out the intention written on his face.

A threat for a threat, you realized as you stared at those deep hazel eyes.

His face lacked any sympathy as he spoke, his voice death and sensuality all in the same honeyed spoon. “Don’t make threats you cannot back up, love.”

Your breath caught at the darkness that surrounded you. The darkness that you faced when you had his lips so close to yours, his eyes so focused on you.

Azriel was that: darkness. Both the dark that scared you as a child and the dark that now let you dream of him without guilt in the depths of the night.

“You’re right. No more threats,” you breathed as you drove your knee upward—

His hand was steel against the futile force of your movement. And a mocking grin on his lips was all you could think about due to the roaring in your ears.

Bastard.

The knee you were going to use to teach him a lesson was held in place with his right hand, which now moved down, and down until it found a place on the back of your thigh. He urged you nearer him.

Close enough. Until your surroundings vanished and you could only see his face, his never-faltering smirk when you made it so easy for him to mock you.

This was the Azriel you had only for yourself.

Not polite shyness, or quiet kindness.

But darkness.

All of it—all of him. Darkness.

Everything, but his eyes.

While you liked to have this flirtatious, dangerous Azriel—which you both called friendship—you still found yourself fantasizing about the light in his eyes and how soft they were, how romantic and intimate, and everything that he shouldn’t feel like.

Where all of him was dark, his eyes were golden.

Lightness.

Like a thread that led you through deeper parts of him, of his soul.

Too intimate.

You let out a long exhale. “I’m not in the mood,” you mumbled.

And it broke your heart the way he immediately released you. How gently he let go of you as a flash of… pain painted his eyes.

Then it was gone in a blink. And that smirk found its way to his face again. “I make you exhausted quite fast.”

“Mhmm,” was all you could mutter as you watched him—those eyes.

That thread.

What was that?

He held your stare with a bit of confused amusement. “What do you find so interesting?” he smiled.

You took all your bravery… and a step, and another, until you were back where you started: looking deep into his eyes, close enough to feel his breath on your face.

He didn’t dodge this time. And neither did he smirk as you placed both of your hands on his face to make him meet your eyes.

Those golden eyes.

There was something in them.

That lightness that guided you through the darkness—his darkness.

As a thread.

A gasp broke through you at the realization, at the feeling in your heart—your soul.

You took a step back, your hands sliding away from his face as gently as a wind’s whisper.

He eyed you worriedly, taking a step toward you as you kept walking away.

“What?” he asked, finally that mask off his face.

But you couldn’t bear the sight of his eyes again. The feel of that thread.

M-

“What is it?” he asked, desperation lacing his words.

Ma…

“Y/N?” he pleaded.

Mate.

You winnowed away before he could pronounce another word.

…

You knew hiding was not the solution. You knew you would have to face him eventually—he was one of your closest friends after all, yet…

“I cannot do it. I cannot see him.”

Another of your closest friends was there to make you think logically.

“Y/N,” Nesta said, taking a seat on the couch in your bedroom. “You’ve been hiding here for almost a month. You can’t hide from him forever. He’s your—”

“Don’t say it,” you cut in, despite how stupidly childish it made you sound.

Nesta exhaled as if indeed, you were acting stupidly childish. “Mate? You cannot hear the word mate?”

There was a tinge of mocking in her tone that made you meet her eyes with fury in yours. “It’s very easy to look at me and judge me when you don’t know what this feels like.”

“What? Having an Illyrian as my mate?” she asked with a soft smile on her lips, and you knew your friend well—you knew it wasn’t mocking anymore.

Nesta, as if to prove you right, walked toward where you sat on the bed and made herself a place next to you, moving her hand to caress yours like a mother would.

She didn’t say anything, though, so you replied, emotion running your words slowly—unsteady. “You don’t know what it’s like to know your mate… doesn’t want you back.”

“You don’t know if Azriel doesn’t want you back.”

“Yes, I do. I know Azriel.”

“Well, I know him as well. And I know—actually—all the house, and probably all Velaris, knows he likes you. A lot.”

You shook your head.

Nesta went on, “He flirts with you all the time, Y/N. In all honesty, it was about damned time that bond snapped for one of you. It was clear you had something.”

“Exactly: something,” you rectified. “That something, Nesta, is flirting. Flir-ting. Nothing more, nothing else. That’s all he wants from me. Taunting and touching and provoking and friendship. But not love. And most certainly, not a damn mating bond.” You took a staggered breath, not able to meet her eyes anymore. “Not with me.”

Nesta watched you silently, then said, “You don’t know that.”

You shook your head, wiping a tear that slid down your face. “You don’t know either.”

“That’s true,” she replied, handing you a tissue with her free hand as the other drew circles on your wrist. “We won’t know until you ask him.”

You let out a humorless laugh. “So, I just ask him if he wants the mating bond with me? That simple? Thanks, Nesta.”

Her eyes narrowed at you in warning to watch your tone, yet her faint smirk provoked one to bloom on your face. “Yes. It’s that simple.”

“And when he says no?”

She shook her head. “What if he says no,” she corrected you.

Your smile grew just a bit. “What if he says no?” you echoed.

“Then I’ll beat his ass on the training ground. And have Cassian beat him afterward.”

You chuckled lightly, imagining the scene.

But the question appeared in your mind, and you took the courage to ask her.

“And what if he says yes?”

By the warm look in her eyes, you knew she had understood. “It’s a long way to go. But one finally learns to let herself be loved, Y/N.”

And by one, you knew who she meant.

You were grateful that afterward, Nesta and you had a more lighthearted conversation. And when it turned dark outside, Nesta gave you a hug and left your bedroom.

You knew you had to also leave your bedroom at some point and face what awaited outside that comfort.

But love seemed to find you just where you thought you were safe.

“Can I come in?”

It certainly wasn’t Nesta’s voice.

Your hand trembled as you went for the knob and opened the door.

“Can I come in?” Azriel repeated, and you realized long seconds had passed of just you staring, unmoving.

“Yes,” you whispered, letting him through and closing the door.

You had prayed he stayed like that—backward to you, staring outside your window. Anything but have his eyes meet yours.

But he turned to you.

He was even more beautiful than ever, even if you couldn’t help but notice the dark circles around his eyes, his pale lips, or his eyes… almost lifeless.

Like the light had deserted him.

Like the bond had abandoned him… because he didn’t want it.

“It’s been weeks,” he eventually said, and his voice carried enough emotion you had to lean on the door, afraid to crumble to the ground. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“I’ve been busy.”

He took a step closer to you, making you meet his eyes again. “With what?” he demanded.

You weren’t fast enough to make up a lie before he said, “You’ve been avoiding me.” It wasn’t quite a question. “You are mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” he muttered, taking another step.

“I’m not, Azriel.”

He stopped his following step at the sound of his name. He looked like he had been slapped, and his face morphed into something unreadable.

“I’m sorry," he murmured.

“What?” you asked, walking towards him when he looked down.

You had to see his face, you had to understand him.

“Whatever I have done. I’m sorry. Forgive me and… be my friend again.”

You stopped in your tracks, not having quite reached him. Friends.

His words both broke and healed your heart. The desperation in them, the vulnerability.

You stared at the selfless male who cherished your friendship in front of you. Maybe you could take that and give up dreaming. Maybe you could convince yourself that friendship was better than nothing, even if it killed you.

“I miss you,” he said, and you decided that was the final blow.

A sob broke through you, raw and desperate, and his expression shifted instantly. He closed the distanced and his hands found your face, those scarred palms trembling as they cupped your cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “Don’t cry, please. I’m sorry.”

Friends.

Mates.

“What are you even sorry for?” you mumbled, shaking your head faintly.

“The last time I saw you - when you got… mad at me, we were doing what we always do. Well, what I always do. That stupid flirting, that… you know. And I know that bothered you. And I’m sorry. I never knew it made you uncomfortable before and… I’m sorry,” he said again.

You quietly stared at him, at the sadness and guilt in his eyes. “It’s not that it bothers me...” you said because it never had, but maybe now—maybe now it hurt your feelings - but that was because of you. It was not his fault.

Yet you couldn’t speak your thoughts before he went on. “It does. I saw it in your eyes… like you were disgusted.” His voice cracked. “And it broke my heart, because… I don’t want it either.”

There it was.

The truth you’d been bracing yourself for.

Friends.

That’s all he wanted you to be—a friend.

He took a deep breath, his hands falling away from your face as he stepped back, as if retreating from his own vulnerability. “It’s all a lie, Y/N.”

Your breath hitched.

“I thought that’s what you wanted—the only thing you wanted from me—and I tried to convince myself that I could settle with that. That it would be enough. But…” His gaze locked on yours, piercing and raw. “I can’t.”

“What?” you breathed, your voice barely audible.

“I love you, Y/N.”

The world stopped turning.

“I love you,” he repeated. “And I don’t want to keep pretending I’m okay with only being your friend. I don’t want to keep pretending. I just… I just want you to know that I’ve loved you for so long, I can’t remember what life was before you.”

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think.

Mate.

“You love me?” you whispered.

He nodded as a tear ran down his face.

Another sob tore from you and his hands were on your face again in an instant, pulling you close. “I love you, too,” you murmured, the words spilling out.

And at last, the color returned to his eyes again, hazel-golden shining in the dark room.

And that was it; the light that you needed, the strength that guided you—that encouraged you to tell him.

“I am… I am your mate.”

A beat later you realized you weren’t the one who had spoken.

-Charcaters by Sarah J Maas

azriel masterlist

a/n: thanks for requesting, i hope the fic is of your liking, though i took some liberties in the writing. thanks for your request, love!!

#azriel x reader #azriel angst #azriel #azriel x female!reader #azriel x you #azriel acotar #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x y/n #acotar fic #azriel fanfic #azriel fic #az imagine #azriel imagine #azriel fluff #azriel spymaster

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leclarifies · 3 months ago

Text

birthday boy

✰ max verstappen x !bestfriend reader ✰

summary: max doesn't like it when it's race week and you're not there. he's been trying to convince you to quit your job and just come to his races full-time, offering to pay for the expenses but you've refused every single time. you end up surprising him in the singapore gp for his surprise birthday party the grid had arranged for him.

wc: 3.5k

a/n: hi there! this is my FIRST ever published fic and i'm super nervous about posting hjawdhbawjhbdbhawd i've had this idea since maxie's birthday in september but kept it in the drafts and re-edited some things around just to make it cohesive. i have requests open and my masterlist is currently an ongoing wip. thank you for reading!

edit: hello, here's my complete masterlist for anyone who wants to view my other work. thank you for 350 notes btw! i really appreciate it <3

a ding rings through your phone and at first, you ignore it.

it’s usually a work text which is why you’re not more alert. it’s a weekend and you genuinely just want to enjoy yourself while watching the race that your best friend is participating in and starting from pole position.

then another ding, two more follow after that.

your furrow your brows confused, if it was a work text then they wouldn’t be spamming unless it was an emergency.

you open your phone and you’ve realized you’ve been added to a group chat.

lily m: hi guys! i’ve created this gc bc some of the boys wanted to surprise max for his birthday!!!!! so i’ve invited most of the drivers and their wags here in case you guys wanted in as well charles: Yes, hello everyone :) kika: yes! we’re so excited <33 all of the wags and respective drivers should be in this groupchat :D

seeing this groupchat made you confused, yes you were max’s best friend but you were certainly not a wag and very certain that you weren’t a driver. so, you sent a text.

you: hi guys, i appreciate the gesture but i am not a wag and certainly not a driver HAHA

lily m: oh yeah! alex told me to add you bc we thought that you would want to surprise max considering you guys are best friends HAHAHAH my bad i should’ve clarified

alexandra: welcome y/n! it’s great to have u here :]

you: no worries guys, but max’s birthday isn’t until almost two weeks from now were you guys planning a big party?

charles: I’m not sure what we want to do but considering it’s Autumn break when it’s his actual birthday, we wanted to start early.

lily z: we *could* plan a big party, but what do u think y/n? u know him best

you: i think a big party could suit him best lots of gin & tonic must i add

carlos: HAHA Of course.

the chats continued to flow in as all of the wags and some of their drivers tried to plan what felt best for max’s birthday party. it was a few hours before the race and you had assumed not all of the drivers had their phones on them which explained the lack of texts coming from them, it wasn’t abnormal. they were usually busy with their last minute content for their social media platforms or doing pre-race interviews.

then your phone rang, it was an incoming call.

“hello?” you spoke softly into the phone after picking up, knowing exactly who called.

“hi,” max breathed out softly, you could hear the hustle and bustle of the paddock in the background. max always made it a habit to call you a few hours before the race start, and it warmed your heart to think that he always thought of you before the races.

you didn’t know when the feelings started, was it his seventeenth birthday where he kissed you before his race? was it the promise that he would always be by your side and support you when you got your first job? was it when he convinced you to move to monaco and helped you move in with your sister? was it the soft glances he would shoot your way when you were at the paddock? or was it the small touches he would give when you guys were watching a movie? you didn’t know. all you knew that he was your best friend and you didn’t want to fuck this friendship up.

“hey, how are you?” you replied, “the pre-race nerves getting to you maxie?”

“never. how’s it in monaco? how are jimmy and sassy?” max had asked, he had asked you to babysit his cats for you and you accepted. you loved nothing more than to watch over his cats while tending to your work.

“s’good. the cats are well-behaved, and i’m lounging in your sim racing gear about to turn it on and experience the race myself,” you joked, knowing that you were nowhere near the sim racing setup that he had for himself.

“i told you not to touch that,” max warned, you could tell he was walking around just by the sound of him talking and being slightly out of breath, “i miss you being here on the weekends, when are you off work?”

“i’m kidding,” you laughed as you got into a more comfortable position on his couch, “i dunno when i’m scheduled for time off again. i also do not have the money to continue to travel around the world to watch your races, max. i am comfortable with watching your races from monaco.” “how many times do i have to tell you that you can fly with me and stay with me while you’re out?” max reprimanded you for even thinking about the expenses, “you could even quit your job and do nothing and i could still have money leftover.”

you hated when he brought that up, he had always brought up the idea of you quitting your job and him helping you through your family’s struggles. you didn’t want to feel like a leech, you knew that his job was stressful enough, you didn’t want to be a stress on him and affect his job. “i am not a leech–”

“you are not leeching if i’m telling you to quit your job and come accompany me through my race schedule. it’s nice to have a support system around…” max’s voice trailed off, “seeing the other drivers with their girlfriends– friends makes me jealous.”

you were quiet for a bit, you’ve had this conversation one too many times with him before. he had told you to just live life and be with him, to stop thinking about the expenses and just be there for him but something about having your entire life being paid for by an extremely rich dutchman just didn’t sit right with you.

“i told you i’d think about it, plus you can invite all of the friends you want. it doesn’t have to be specifically me,” you sighed, rubbing your temples, “it’s not a nice feeling having to rely on someone 24/7 you know. you should understand how i feel as well.”

“i understand,” max sighed as well through the line, then you could hear him a bit farther away talking to one of the staff walking with him, you were assuming that they were on the way to the motorhome, “anyways, i’m on my way to film some content and i just wanted to see how you’re holding up at home."

you hummed back a response, listening intently to what he had to say, knowing that he would want to talk to you more before having to begrudgingly film content for the red bull racing’s social media platforms, “can you at least promise me that you will give me an answer after autumn break?”

you knew that autumn break was after the race he was at right now, which was in singapore.

“max…” your voice trailed off, you didn’t know if you could make that decision in less than a month, “look, i said i’d think about it–” “but you’ve been thinking about it for three months, isn’t three months enough to make up your mind?” max cut you off, he hated it when you were stalling even though he knew that deep in your heart you would never come and just live off his expenses.

“we’re not having this conversation now,” you huffed, almost feeling frustrated now from max’s persistence, “how about you focus on the race and we can talk about this when you’re back?” “you always shut me out when it comes to hard decisions,” max replied back with the same attitude, “it’s such a bad habit, it pisses me off and it’s not like i’m asking you for a hard thing–” “just focus on the race. it’s your job. let me focus and enjoy mine, please. we can talk about this later when you’re back and you’ll have your answer then,” you almost begged him, you heard him say his goodbyes before shutting off the line. it was too early in the morning for him to be bargaining with you about your job– it wasn’t even bargaining anymore. he was practically begging you to quit your job to come to races with him full-time.

you didn’t necessarily have a hard job, sometimes you would attend the grand prix because you were working under a marketing firm in monaco and that would enable you to come to the races but it wasn’t all the time. your marketing firm worked closely with formula 1, but they had their main focuses and it didn’t allow you to attend and take time off work all of the time.

you estimated that it would be around 3 pm at singapore, which meant it was 5 hours to go before the main race.

rubbing on your temples was a habit you had when you got stressed and it made you stressed even thinking about quitting your job. you liked your job and your co-workers and the pay wasn’t bad.

you had basically promised him that you would give him an answer after he got home in monaco which made you make a decision under pressure. a ding from your phone distracted you from the problem at hand.

lily z: @/you how long would it take you to come to singapore? you: woah so suddenly?

kika: we thought we would just celebrate his birthday after the race, since we all can’t be in monaco at his exact birthday date what do u think y/n?

you: i dunno… okay kinda tmi but max has been bugging me about quitting my job to come and accompany him to the races fulltime but i told him i would give him a decision after the race i don’t think i’m ready to make a decision that quickly

alex: damn… we thought that it would be easier to celebrate in singapore instead of planning the party in monaco

you: it would certainly be easier all around but idk if i can face him so soon

lily m: i mean… is quitting ur job to hang out with us 24/7 rlly a bad idea HAHAH

you: honestly i would love to just hang out with u guys and just make it my job but i don’t wanna make it seem like i’m leeching off of max yk…

carmen: hi! i just caught up w everything but honestly, do what u feel comfortable with doing x if u don’t feel comfortable w cmg to singapore, then we’ll make ourselves available at an agreed date in monaco <3

alexandra: yeah, i agree ^^

lily z: honestly it all comes down to u y/n we all want everyone to b comfortable!

you: i don’t wanna be a nuisance, so i’ll take u guys up on that offer

alexandra: yay! so… book ur flight now..?

carmen: u better be ready bbg HAHAHAH

rebecca: wait what’s happening i just checked my phone

you stifled a laugh at rebecca’s late response but sighed, you guessed it was now or never.

you booked the first earliest flight from monaco to singapore, not forgetting about max’s cats and leaving them to your sister who lived together with you a few doors down.

but being on a flight to singapore meant that you had to miss watching the singapore gp altogether, only arriving in singapore at 8 am the next day.

you yawned and stretched as you got off the airplane, not forgetting to turn your phone back on to see a barrage of texts from max and from the group chat.

maxie <3: P2 Y/n :) Were u watching? Wish u were here :(

maxie <3: Hello? Is ur phone off? Why are my texts green?

maxie <3: I’m starting to get worried I texted your sister and she said she had no idea where u are

maxie <3: Can u please answer me, I’m really worried.

you giggled a bit from max’s flood of texts, but you and the girls had discussed that it would be a good idea to surprise him with your arrival in singapore. you told your boss that you were taking paid time off for the week as you knew that you would be traveling with the wags and drivers for the week to celebrate the autumn break.

alexandra and rebecca were the ones to pick you up from the airport, all three of you catching up and gossiping about what happened at the track while you were in the air.

“honestly, it was crazy to see mclaren finally starting to dominate the track this time of the year. usually we would see ferrari and red bull fighting but i guess they had the better car,” alexandra mumbled as you all sat together in the car.

“i expected max to win, but that’s a bit biased isn’t it?” you laughed, “he complained about the car a couple of times throughout the free practices but i wouldn’t know shit about the car. i’ve never driven one.” “yeah, carlos does it to me all the time and i’m sitting there pretending i know everything about the cars,” rebecca added onto that thought, “like yes babe, i know exactly what you’re talking about because being an f1 wag dictates that you know everything about the car you’re driving.” the three of you laughed.

it wasn’t long before you guys reached the club that you guys planned to have the big surprise party, lily z and m were there with kika and carmen. the boys were keeping max busy for the day.

it wasn’t long before the club was decorated and fit for the surprise party, you had booked out the entire club for the night to celebrate. it was nearing the time that max would arrive with the party of drivers.

“okay, so lando told max that they were celebrating his win again tonight so max shouldn’t be suspicious about what’s going on. considering lando’s quite the party animal,” lily z had told the group as they were sitting around the booth, you nodded and listened along well while guests from the teams were shuffling into the club.

honestly, you were a bit nervous facing max. you didn’t know if you were ready to completely quit your job, but you told yourself that you would talk about it later once the time comes. there wasn’t a point to stress about it now when max was nowhere in sight.

maxie <3: Y/n? Are my texts going through? Where are you?? I’m gonna call your phone flashed to see max was calling you. you picked it up and the first thing you hear was max panicking, “hello? where the hell have you been the past day? why haven’t you returned any of my calls or texts?” “well hello to you too,” you laughed, “i’m sorry about not responding to you, i’ve been busy with work. i’m currently at a work event. congrats on p2 by the way, i couldn’t watch the race because i was at the office.” “don’t ever do that again, you scared the shit out of me,” max breathed out, you could faintly hear the chatter of the drivers behind him.

“what are you doing right now?” you asked, feigning innocence, acting as if you didn’t know exactly where he was and what he was doing right now.

“lando wanted to celebrate his win again tonight so we’re going to a club to party,” max explained, “we’re arriving now, i’ll talk to you again later but you better respond straight away or i’m flying straight home.” “okay, okay. stay safe max,” you clicked the phone off before you signaled everyone to turn off the lights and get into positions to surprise max.

the doors of the club opened to reveal the drivers of the grid.

“why are the lights off–” “surprise!” everyone had shouted as max was front and center, the lights switched on to reveal the birthday balloons and you were there in front of the boys with the wags behind you. his face was priceless, the shock and the realization all hitting him at once. the realization that you were there and you weren’t at a work event but here, in the flesh, in front of him. it made him ecstatic.

you flashed a bright smile to max as he ran and hugged you almost instantly.

“you’re so sneaky,” max breathed out, you could feel his hot breath next to your ear, making goosebumps rise in its wake, “you made me so worried to only show up here…” you could only laugh and hugged him back tightly, his hug, his touch, it made you feel alive. his touch was electrifying– in a good way. his touches, whether light or full blown hand holding or his arm around your shoulder always lit you up like a lightbulb.

“i wanted to surprise you– well, everyone did. they thought it would be more convenient for me to come here and surprise you,” you laughed, “so, are you surprised?”

“hell yeah, let’s get this fucking party started!”

“so, about you quitting your job,” max tried to sneak the conversation in as the both of you were walking to his hotel, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. they just had a really good fucking party and both of you were quite tipsy but sober enough to navigate your way through the streets of singapore (with the help of google maps).

“you’re a very persistent man,” you laughed as you walked alongside max, shoulders brushing against each other. it was almost 4 am, but you didn’t feel unsafe or scared at all. spending the night with max was what you really enjoyed. he made you feel things that you were scared of addressing, so for now you were going to enjoy the moment.

“seriously, you told me after the race and this is definitely after the race. so tell me, did you decide what you’re going to do?” max grabbed your wrist to stop the both of you from walking, you guys could see the hotel from this distance but he wanted to sincerely talk to you, “are you going to slave your life away, working from paycheck to paycheck and only coming to my races when you have the time? or are you going to agree with me and just ‘leech’ off of me?”

you sighed and turned to look at max, you couldn’t lie that the life he offered was enticing. not having to work a day in your life and still coming to these flashy grand prix and partying almost every week was a dream for most people and you were most people. “i dunno max, i told you i would give it a thought but you know how i feel about me living off of your money,” you locked eyes with max’s bright blue ones and he stepped closer to you, landing a hand on your cheek endearingly. the way he looked at you full of unconditional love, you couldn’t tell whether it was romantic or platonic anymore. you knew max and you knew that max would do anything for the people you loved and you were included in that list.

“if you’re thinking about family back at home, you know i can always send over some as well right? i know that’s your biggest concern,” max looked deep into your eyes and you could almost feel like he was looking into your soul, “i know you’re scared of leaving your work behind because you still need to support your family back home and you wanna know something? they’re my family too, i would send them money even if you didn’t ask.” max’s other hand found its way to hold yours, “please… just do this one thing for me. i always see the other drivers with their significant others and it pains me to see that you’re the only one not there and breaking your back to work. i just want you to support me and have fun while doing it…”

“max…”

“i’m serious,” max’s face grew ever so close to your own, you couldn’t tell whether the heat on your cheeks was from the proximity of the both of you or from the lingering alcohol, “you know i’d do anything for you and i don’t do that for a lot of people– you’re not a lot of people.”

“if i say okay, will that make you happy?” “the happiest man in the world.”

“consider this a birthday gift then birthday boy,” you breathed out and as you finished you sentence, you felt his lips on your own.

the kiss was electrifying– he was electrifying. his other hand that was clasping your hand softly was now on your other cheek, deepening the kiss. your hands found their way wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer.

to a rare passerby, the two of you were just a sweet couple sharing a kiss at 4 am and maybe, that’s what you were.

“you don’t know how long i’ve been wanting to do that for.” “ditto.”

#max verstappen fic #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x yn #max verstappen oneshot #max verstappen fanfic #leclarifies fics

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chocosvt · 6 months ago

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HER | part one.

✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo can’t see this going well. at all.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 23.5k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, coke, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s!

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

potentially triggering scenes within the fic are NOT MARKED in advance

the content is already quite mature, so pls heed the warnings!

bolded and italicized text implies characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts

everyone's patience and understanding has been endlessly appreciated! you have no idea ;_; i give you all shining stars 🌟

⇢ part two | part three | part four | part five | part six ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

—MARCH 19TH.

“I have a relatively big favour to ask of you.”

No. Wonwoo didn’t want anything to do with favours.

The fact that Seokmin had actively picked out his presence in the coffee shop like he was some shiny contortion of plastic had actually offended Wonwoo. He came here for two things: to not be bothered, which his friend knew, and to work on the book he was halfway through typing and had been halfway through typing for the past six months. Call it writer’s block, or an inspiration drought, or an absolutely depressing lack of drive—it had been hanging over the writer with an annoying persistence and it seemed that no number of lemony scones or cold coffees were going to make it vanish.

“Uh, Wonwoo?”

“Sorry… what?” He forced his gaze to shift from the blank page on his laptop to Seokmin’s apologetic, softly expressional face, slightly flushed from his time outdoors in the chilled March weather.

“I was just wondering if you’d be up for a favour—a pretty big one—and I know this is your special creativity spot, but she’s been like, breathing down my neck about it and I can’t put it off again.”

“Whose been breathing down your neck?”

At first, Seokmin didn’t say a word, or even make a sound. His lips twitched for a moment, but then he pressed them together and his chest visibly sucked in with a breath. God, Wonwoo hated the suspense and he hated Seokmin for interrupting him when he had been so stupidly close to putting a sentence down that he probably would have back-spaced in frustration a minute later.

“Y’know…” he trailed off, “Her.”

Her.

No, not her, you.

But most people—if not everyone—referred to you by an alias that had seemed to stick so well the majority believed it actually was your name. When people said her they meant Her, and so in a confusing mess of finger-pointing they really meant you. Come to think of it, Wonwoo had no idea where the nickname even came from or who gave it to you or what it even meant.

And he was perfectly fine with never knowing.

“What?” Wonwoo deadpanned. “What on earth could she want to do with me? She doesn’t even know me.” He slid down in his chair, fingers pulling at his circle-lensed glasses so they tilted uncomfortably across his nose bridge. “Or, is this a joke?”

“Oh—no! Absolutely not!” His friend was insistent on proclaiming, vigorously shaking his head. “I’m being serious.”

“Why don’t I believe you then?”

“Okay, well, if you let me explain everything, it’ll all make sense. I said I know someone who writes really well—”

“Meaning me?”

“Yes, meaning you. And the only reason that was even brought up is because she wants to write a book.”

Wonwoo couldn’t help it. He laughed a very short disbelieving laugh that flashed a transient smile to his face as he readjusted his crooked glasses. You were the last person he would ever envision wanting to write a book. He then navigated the trackpad on his laptop, deciding to close the document simply titled, 01, that harboured the fleet of pages to his own current work in progress.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo disregarded, “sounds like bullshit.”

“I’m telling you the truth!” Seokmin exclaimed, gripping onto the metal back of the café chair like he was squeezing someone’s taunt shoulders. “She won’t tell me about what, okay? Just that she’s been thinking the idea for a while now. It’s not like I didn’t try to get details. But she refused—said the only person who can know is whoever’s going to help her. Look, y’have to understand, she was pestering me about it nonstop. And you’re my only writer friend!”

“Well, you’re about to have none.” He answered, reaching for his coffee cup but stopping it just short of his lips. “How serious is she about this, anyway?” Wonwoo sighed. “Do you know how much fucking time you need to dedicate to writing a book?”

He stomached a slow, somewhat grimacing sip as he tasted the coffee’s coldness, meanwhile Seokmin swallowed heavily, and at last pulled out the chair he’d been white-knuckling to take a seat.

“Yes, I’m aware it takes time. I know that. And she is serious or else I wouldn’t be here, bothering you. She takes everything seriously.” The boy began unbuttoning his sleek black jacket. “Really, who knows what’ll happen? Maybe you’ll meet her once and she’ll decide she can’t stand you, and then you’re off the hook for life.”

“Yeah, well have you ever considered what might happen if I can’t stand her? Are my feelings even being considered? Minutely?”

“Minutely, they are being considered.”

“Liar.”

It wasn’t that Wonwoo disliked you.

In actuality, you scared him more than anything. But to be associated with you was to be drawn into your life and caught like a firefly in a glass jelly jar. The proof was right in front of him—to Wonwoo’s eyes, Seokmin was basically your little mailman that scrambled around in hectic nature to do your bidding, because most tasks apparently weren’t worth the time or effort.

“I can’t believe you’re trying to rope me into this. You know I can hardly write my own shit, right?” Wonwoo said bitterly, wishing it was the opposite, “my mind is a desolate, blank canvas of fuck-all and if she thinks I’m writing it then she needs a reality check.”

“No, no—of course you won’t write it!” Seokmin reassured him with his big, opalescent smile. “Really, you’re just giving tips, maybe guiding her process, helping with the planning… you know, this could be facilitated so much easier if you spoke to Her yourself!”

“So, my nightmare?” Wonwoo huffed, shaking his leg.

In an instant, Seokmin had whipped out his phone, tapping around the screen quickly using his thin pointer finger.

“I’m just going to pull up her schedule. It’s always pretty packed, but more into the summer break, it thins out a little. “

Wonwoo exhaled, staring off into the warm, afternoon sunlight that hailed in through the windows, striking all the shimmering flecks and pieces of dust afloat in the café air. When he breathed in again, he could smell the luxurious coffees brewing in their rich and distinctive notes. It was such a beautiful day—still chilly as the snow outdoors began to thaw—but pleasant nonetheless.

“This is such a fucking waste.”

And Wonwoo spent it being miserable.

“No, it’ll be useful. Trust.” Seokmin chirped.

“You’re trying to dip me in your optimism gloss again.”

His friend smiled affectionately, tilting his head.

“This will be good. You’ve been a hermit since I’ve known you.”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo scoffed, “so you think it’s a good idea to shove me with the person I relate to least on the entire planet?”

“Really? The least? So, what you’re saying is, you relate more to serial killers? Or animal abusers? Or like, literal fasc—”

“Stop.”

“You want to do this. I can see it in your eyes. I’ll set you up.”

A part of Wonwoo knew there might be no wriggling out of the situation, especially with Seokmin sitting across from him, characteristically eager and brightly pushy as always, like a goddamn salesman. For now, it could be easier to let himself get cuffed.

“Can I at least have some time to think it over?”

“Uh… well… the thing is… the thing with that is—”

“You’ve cornered me?”

“I wouldn’t word it like that.”

“… Okay.” Wonwoo removed his glasses, shoved his knuckles tender but deep into his eye sockets, massaging through flashes of white as he came to accept a fate he didn’t know even existed in his astrology. “Just, I don’t know—fuck—schedule me in wherever.”

“Ha! It doesn’t exactly work like that.”

“I really don’t give a damn how it works, Seokmin.”

“Right,” his friend laughed nervously, “I promise that I’ll get back to you pronto. Sorry for the disturbance. And, uh, good luck.”

“With what part?” Wonwoo grumbled, fixing his spectacles back on to clarify Seokmin’s sympathetic face, the light bouncing off his head of brassy hair like a disco ball. “My incapability to write a goddamn thing or the fact I have to help your perfectionist friend who’s probably going to chew me up and spit me out?”

“Both parts.” Seokmin grinned. “It can only go up from here.”

Wonwoo had one very distinct memory of you: creative writing with Mr. T. It had been an elective class he took amongst all his compulsory maths, and at the time it was a much appreciated break when Wonwoo grew apathetically bored from looking at matrices and confidence intervals and equations that engulfed the length of his notebook. Professor T was late one day in the fall.

And that’s when Wonwoo remembered you walking in.

There was a sort of sharpness about your presence that pulled everyone’s spines straight. People tended to angle themselves away from you, though they did it subtly, feigning an adjustment in their seat or a plunge into their bookbag for something that wasn’t even there. Wonwoo lacked the words to describe you. To be honest, he most likely could if he put that infinitely expanding lexicon of his to work, but even then, he feared that everything would fall flat.

Some scruffy looking guy had made the mistake of sitting in your seat—someone who probably skipped most lectures and only happened to find himself near Gildan Hall purely by chance.

It was the seat squat in the middle of the small auditorium.

He remembered the hand propped on your hip as you sashayed up to him—you always sashayed places. Wonwoo found it funny, like there were paparazzi stuffed behind potted plants and vending machines waiting to spring out with their blinding flares, just to capture you picking up a half-empty bag of flavourless popcorn.

“Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no.”

“Hm?”

“Excuse me? Yes, hello. You—can you get up please?”

“Up...? Why?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m sorry… what’s this about?”

“Are you a first-year or something? Never bothered going to class until now? All the moshing and beer pong and ending up in some random basement of a friend of a friend of a friend is done so you’re deciding to actually get your money’s worth? Well, let me tell you this—I’ve been showing up to class punctually, and this is my seat. I always sit here. It’s my unofficially-assigned-assigned seat, which seems to be a known fact to everyone in this room except for you. Everyone has one. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to sit in other people’s seats. I don't care who you are. You could be my own mother. You could be my best friend, even. President of the universe. That doesn't make it okay, 'cause it’s a respect thing. It's one of those assumed societal rules and you just fucking kicked dirt all over it.”

Whoever he was, he never came back to another lecture.

Since then, Wonwoo had dually made it his mission to never cross paths with you, look at you, or even so much as huff one single carbon-dioxide filled breath in your general direction, just in case that was some degree of unbeknownst personal law he might violate.

Seokmin had royally screwed it up for him.

What could you possibly want to write a book about, anyway?

—MARCH 26TH.

Wonwoo didn’t know how he was expected to find you in this gigantic mall. As he brushed through the streamlines of people, bumping their shoulders and mumbling the driest, most insincere apologies, he couldn’t stop looking at his phone. Seokmin had given him your number with the instruction that he could find you, here, on a busy Saturday afternoon. So far, Wonwoo had sent you four texts, none prompting a response or the grey-dotted bubble, even. Fuck, why did he agree to this? He couldn’t stop thinking it.

Why did he agree to help you, whom he was beginning to not even like, or want to be aquatinted with, write a book, when he’d been struggling to fill the same page of his own story for months?

Squeezing the phone tighter in his fingers, Wonwoo’s broad shoulder then smacked into someone else while he was busy steeping in his misfortune. It earned him a wildly disgusted look.

“Maybe watch where you’re going," the stranger grumbled, some man with an engrained scowl and big, bewildered eyes.

But Wonwoo ignored him.

He didn’t fucking care, and he was sick of wandering through this mall. It made him feel overstimulated, like his clothes were sticking to his skin differently, like the back of his head was swelling, and like all the smells in his nose were somehow making him warmer.

The stranger just stared at Wonwoo as he walked away.

Ding!

A text, but not from you—Seokmin, instead. Apparently, you were in some clothing store on the second floor. Wonwoo stepped onto the escalator, pressing himself into the barrier to make room for the especially speedy people who couldn’t simply stand and wait. He felt a random touch on the back of his head. Scrunching up the glasses on his nose and turning around, Wonwoo stared at the downward escalator, locking eyes with a pretty dark-haired girl he’d never seen before. She wiggled her fingers at him with a flirtatious smile, the scent of her perfume still lingering. Fresh roses, he thought.

He blinked at her once, twice, then turned back around.

Never in a million years.

It was funny, though.

Once Wonwoo stopped outside the clothing store you were supposedly inside, he felt the myriad of distractions and scents and noises dampen behind him. The irritability he couldn’t shake was slowly transforming into nerves. He’d never met you before, unless half-glances controlled by fear from across the small, basement auditorium that hosted creative writing counted.

Focusing on one breath, and then another, followed by a deep, self-soothing inhale, Wonwoo attempted to convince himself that he was in control, not the emotions quivering at his fingertips.

He cracked his neck and walked in.

After a minute or two of confused isle-pacing, Wonwoo rounded a corner, his eyes immediately fixating on a girl who was picking through a neatly assorted dress rack, her head tilted elegantly and her lipstick glimmering under the sterileness of the lights—you.

He gulped. Just suck it up.

She can’t be that bad. You can’t be that bad.

“Uh, sorry to bother you. I’m Wonwoo. I know we have a mutual friend in Seokmin. Lee Seokmin. He’s in one of your seminar classes or something, and, uh…. anyway. I believe I’m supposed to help you with a book you’re interested in writing… that’s what I was told, at the very least. And… I know we’ve never met but… um… I guess…” he trailed off upon noting your lack of acknowledgement.

Suddenly, he was taking a step back, letting you progress further along the clothing rack, your fingers hopping between each hanger and your eyes scanning their corresponding fabrics.

Wonwoo jerked on the inside with panic. He hated the situation already, though he somehow found the resounding courage, or perhaps, humility, to address you again, even if he’d rather die.

“So, I’m not sure if you—”

“Can you move, please? Over here or something? I want this dress.”

He kept his mouth shut in order to avoid spilling out any obtuse nonsense, instead watching with a nervous, analyzing gaze as you removed the hanger and shook out the purple, wine-coloured fabric, its sparkles rippling when you stroked your hand along it.

“Woah. This is too pretty.”

Wonwoo cleared his throat, unsure if you were speaking to him directly. You already had a bundle of dresses tossed over your arm. Why would you meet up with him when you were clearly busy?

“Hey, what did you say your name was?”

“Me?” He found himself echoing.

“No, the mannequin wearing that hideous plaid mini skirt. Of course I’m talking to you. Should I get you a q-tip or something?”

“No... I don't need a q-tip. It’s Wonwoo.”

“Wonwoo?” You exercised the name slowly on your tongue.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, just so you’re aware, it’s 11:35. You were supposed to meet me outside the boutique at 11:30. I can see you’re not very punctual, so that’s noted…” for a moment, you stood back, and the searing line of your gaze judgmentally raked him from top to bottom. “Anyway… you’ll have to assist me with some things now, thanks to your big delay. I got all bored waiting for you, so I decided to do a little self-indulgent shopping."

It could have been wiser to continue biting his tongue, but even Wonwoo, who had practically vowed to avoid you for all eternity due to his fear, felt compelled to challenge your unorthodox logic.

“Big delay? I don’t mean to be rude, but I did take the bus to get here, and their timing is never right. I feel like five minutes is a reasonable time to wait. Not that I’m saying you’re impatient.”

“Well, here’s the thing…” your back turned to him as you took a few slow steps down the clothing rack, probing between the different, pricy materials for anything exuberant you might have missed. “That is what you said, isn’t it? That I’m impatient? I mean—jeez—why bother dancing around it when you can just say it?”

He watched you face him again, except he was keeping perfectly silent, clutching his hand into an anxious, balled fist.

“Well, I suspect you lack urgency, making you apathetic, so therefore you have no sense of initiative. I’m sure you’re already aware, anyway. I can be slow, too, with certain things. Like, when I’m icing a cake. Or painting my nails. But I don’t walk slow, ever. That’s for unmotivated, pointless people who will probably go nowhere in life.”

“… Pardon?”

“Hold this, please.”

Suddenly, you draped the wine-coloured dress over Wonwoo’s shoulder. And he left it there for a second, still gobsmacked, chest shuddering from the pressure of his pumping heart, and wondered how you were even a real person. Once you began walking elsewhere in the store, Wonwoo questioned a very understandable escape toward the exit, though, for some reason, he snapped from his stupor and quickly paced after you, now folding the dress more straightly over his arm. He realized he was too afraid to surrender.

“I’m supposed to help you write a book,” he stated, feeling his lungs dig deep for air, “Seokmin said you needed help.”

“Okay, I’m tired of holding these two. Here—” you again blanketed the dresses into his arms, “—please keep this olive one in good shape, no crinkles. I have yet to find this colour anywhere else.”

Swinging back around, you began heading toward the change rooms, your uncomfortably tall looking heels clicking with each step. Wonwoo stuttered, and he couldn’t stop doing it—just, absolutely baffled by you and your consuming sense of worth. He didn’t know what to say, he could only follow, producing bits and pieces of sentences that you were either ignoring or genuinely hadn’t heard in comparison to the monologues in your own head.

“At what point will we discuss why I’m here?”

Finally, he spat out something coherent.

You paused, and for a fleeting moment, flicked your very intense eyes up and down in an examination of Wonwoo, who felt like he was being intrusively picked apart under a microscope.

He swallowed tautly, “I’m just wondering… that’s all.”

You pressed your wallet against the top of his shoulder, guiding him to sit down on the white leather stool placed just outside the fitting rooms. He sat, too, fighting the urge to wipe his clammy palms on his jeans—even worse, the dresses you’d dumped on him.

“Let’s talk after I try these on, ‘kay?”

There was something different about your voice. It fell lower, sweeter, and he shivered with the thought that you had quite possibly just hypnotized him. He looked up at you, nodding his head.

“Good. Everyone calls me Her, by the way.”

“I know.”

He held his breath as you reached out to take a dress, the wine-coloured one, which was more like a dark, nightly amethyst now that Wonwoo was observing the fabric up close. So, what the hell was he supposed to do? Just sit there, twiddling his thumbs and shaking his knee while you busied yourself with fitting into all those wildly sumptuous dresses? There was a plethora of other things he’d rather be doing—too many to name, in fact. But he wasn’t going to bother slithering away now, chiefly because you petrified him too much and he wasn’t in the mood to be further guilt-tripped by Seokmin.

Throwing his head back, he blew out a tired huff and looked at the ceiling. Why the fuck was he doing this? He just couldn’t stop thinking it. What on earth could he possibly gain from being terrorized by your weird authority.

“Hey, I’ve been there, for sure.”

Wonwoo noticed an older man waltzing past him, probably in his early thirties or so, who’d spoken in a sympathetic tone. He seemed very polished and clean-cut, made apparent by his sleek suit, and as a university student who was routinely on the verge of going broke after most rents, Wonwoo knew money when he saw it.

“Pardon?”

The man stopped and smiled.

“Waiting for your girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no. I’m just—”

He was interrupted by the squeak of the change room door.

“Be honest. How does this look?”

You had stepped out to examine your silhouette in the large, full-body mirrors against the wall, taking advantage of the heavier lighting to scrutinize every divot and ruffle that textured the amethyst dress. Wonwoo wasn’t sure what to say in the moment, and the man he was explaining himself to had wandered off into another aisle to answer a phone call. He watched your fingers pick and pull at the material so it could be readjusted in certain places, your bottom lip pursed as you angled your hips and tensed a leg to make a pose.

There were at least three other dresses strewn in his lap, and you were most definitely going to make him sit there and judge each one. Now, he could be honest. The dress was glittery yet sophisticated, something like a gloaming, purple-stained sky and its first emergent stars encapsulated into fabric, though he wasn’t completely sold on it. But he also wanted to leave the mall as quick as time would allow, so rather than being verbose, he shaved it down.

“It’s pretty, not great. I don’t really know.”

“Hmm…” you mumbled, keeping your eyes fixated on the mirror, “not great? What’s not great about it? The frilly parts?”

“Yeah, the frilly parts.”

God, he wanted to go home so bad. Warm tea would be nice right now. There were crinkle-cut fries in his freezer.

“Ugh, but I love the colour. I’m getting conflicted. Maybe I’ll toss it aside and think about it again later. Yeah, I’ll do that... okay, let me get the white one next. It’s a little short but I can make it work.”

Wonwoo carefully pulled out the white outfit from the bottom of the pile and handed it off to you. The skirt was notably cropped.

Again, you strode back into the change room and softly clicked the door shut behind you. Wonwoo pulled out his phone almost immediately, navigating to his texts with Seokmin. His thumbs blasted against the screen, tapping out literary warfare that expanded into a decent sized paragraph Seokmin would most likely respond to with an apologetic smiley face. It might take a day or two for Wonwoo to cool off, but he always forgave him. Mr. Sunshine.

When he heard the door rattle, Wonwoo quickly hid his phone back in his pants pocket; however, he severely regretted that decision because holy fuck—that vinyl white skirt was indeed short and tight and the winding, crossed straps of the top were just maintaining your cleavage. He needed something to help avert his eyes because Wonwoo felt them itch with the urge to stare at your body despite how uncomfortable he was. The floor tiles—count the floor tiles, or count the lights—something, anything to distract his brain.

“Okay, this is like—if I bend over, I’m flashing someone.”

He prayed you wouldn’t ask him his thoughts.

“But like—okay, I can make this work, right? This has potential. If I stand really straight, and proper, and, just… pull this down a bit here—okay, fuck, that was too much. Don’t look for a second… don’t look…. don’t look… m’kay, fixed it.”

Wonwoo wanted to cradle his head in his hands. And, right when he swore that the situation couldn’t sink much lower, the wealthy, black-suit man returned from his phone call. He paused the second he saw you in the mirror, watching intensely as you fiddled with the vinyl and attempted to adjust the x-shaped top a little higher over your cleavage. Except he wasn’t exactly modest about his gaze. It was drinking you in like some sort of insatiable alcohol.

“This is tough,” you huffed, pressing your hands against your chest, “the top is super sexy. I love how open the back is. But it’s such little fabric considering the price. It sucks that I look so hot in it.”

Horrendously, Wonwoo noticed a jewel bracelet slip off your wrist onto the tiled floor. Even more horrendously, he watched in the tensest position possible as you began to bend over and grab it.

No. No, no, no, no way.

The last two dresses spilled in a silk and cotton heap off his lap, nearly tripping him during his rush toward you. He managed to cover your backside in the most heart-hammering nick of time, his hands accidentally brushing in static sparks against yours to help you pull the tight fabric back down your hips. Knowing the man was still watching in the mirror, Wonwoo clasped onto your arm and dragged you back toward the fitting room, his cheeks turned to rubies.

“Fuck, you need to be more careful,” he rasped, “the skirt is too short for you to bending over like that, alright?”

“I’m not leaving a gifted two-hundred-dollar bracelet on the fucking ground. Should I have just kicked it into the change room?”

“Gosh…” Wonwoo rubbed along his neck with tire and lowered his voice. “Bending over in a skirt that short, especially when there’s a fucking weirdo watching you, is not the best procedure.”

“So, it’s my fault he’s a creep?”

“Okay—that wasn’t what I—um—”

“Do you even like this outfit?” You deadpanned.

Wonwoo chuckled in disbelief, “I’m not answering that.”

“This is useless." Your eyes agitatedly rolled. “I’m changing.”

“Great, whatever. Do that.”

He gently pushed you further into the change room and closed the door with a smooth, loud shutter. His heart was still racing.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t let my girlfriend wear that either.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Wonwoo didn’t care that his tone was snappish and clearly tired as he collapsed back onto the stool, making a point to ignore the perverted bastard until he left.

“Wonwoo!” You called his name after a few minutes of silence from the fitting room, “please bring me the green one!”

He wanted to utterly vanish, have the building collapse and crush him in a pile of dust plumes and rubble. Sliding the dress through the small gap in the changeroom door, Wonwoo found himself pausing.

“Why don’t I just hand all these to you?”

“Because, I’m using the hangers in here for my clothes.”

“Why can’t you just pu—”

“Thank you!”

Impatiently, you nabbed the dress and shut the door.

However, that dress was the last one you tried on, and Wonwoo couldn’t have been any more relieved. Talking to you seemed like it might give him heartburn or a hemorrhage.

He thought the shiny colour of olive green suited you best.

The dress was silken and long, slightly form-fitting, with a slit cut far up the right thigh and thin spaghetti straps at the shoulders.

You picked the first three dresses to take home, and left the last shimmery one on the rack.

“We’re leaving now?” Wonwoo asked, cracking his fingers.

“Yes, after I pay. Don’t seem so eager.”

“With all due respect, this place isn't really my scene.”

“Your attitude isn't really my scene.” You swiftly corrected him.

He stood next to you at the counter, observing as you zipped open your small black wallet to pull out a credit card. If you were shopping at a store like this, you must be making bank. But Wonwoo was somewhat nosey, and when you set the card on the countertop, he glanced at its embossed name. It definitely wasn’t your name.

Kim Mingyu.

It was your boyfriend’s.

[ Wonwoo | 1:15 pm ]: Goddammit Seokmin answer me

[ Wonwoo | 1:15 pm]: I’ve sent you at least ten texts

[ Wonwoo | 1:16 pm ]: Truly how do you do anything with this girl? I feel like she’s somewhat psychotic and you just fucking had to flash your sad mopey eyes at me in that café so I would break and help her write her book. I’m sitting here with dresses in my lap, pretty much acting as her unpaid personal assistant. Why the fuck is she asking me about dresses, anyway? Did you help her orchestrate this bullshit? I’m actually pissed at you. I want an entire paid lunch.

He wasn’t all that surprised you made him carry the matte silver shopping bag (with these twine handles that he absolutely hated because of how they suffocated around his fingers), and by a certain point, Wonwoo just didn’t give a damn any more. What little social battery he’d maintained since leaving his apartment had officially depleted, for he could feel it weighing in the plaza air around him like an imperceptible mist. Unfortunately, you weren’t lying about being a fast walker. He’d never seen someone stalk with such vigor.

It was nearly an endurance test to keep at your swaying hip, and the few times he fell behind, you would pause and beckon for him.

But Wonwoo discovered that even you needed to stop, to eat and drink like a normal human rather than the disguised cyborg he fleetingly speculated you were. Your touch was so abrupt—a hand had curled around his bicep and suddenly Wonwoo found himself being jerked into a café on the bottom floor of the mall. Of course, you had to pick the most expensive place to buy food in the entire fucking vicinity, and since Wonwoo was penny pinching at the moment, he opted to stand back and let you order.

But then he saw you flick open your wallet, waving Mingyu’s sleek yet flashy credit card between your fingers with blatant enticement.

“I can pay for you.”

He shook his head, muttering a careless, “no thanks.”

“Don't BS me. What do you want to eat?”

Wonwoo couldn’t stop staring at the credit card.

“What’s the limit on that thing?”

“Enough.”

“You haven’t burned through it already?”

“These openly snide comments you’re making aren’t appreciated, you know. Now, please give me an answer before I break off the temples to your glasses so I can use them to stir my drink.”

“… What?” Wonwoo mumbled, completely lost.

“Pick something!”

“Okay, fuck. I’ll just get a coffee, then.”

He took a step forward to examine the menu boards that the employees were wildly scuttling around underneath, browsing down their chalk-written cold brews until he picked one at random.

That was all Wonwoo asked for.

You bought a lemonade and some sandwich he didn’t catch the name of, toasted on panini bread. It felt amazing to sit down. Wonwoo let the silver bag slide completely off his arm and hit the floor, to which he could sense your gaze stinging over him in disapproval. He should have gotten a sandwich himself, but Wonwoo still wasn’t sure how he felt about using the money on your boyfriend’s credit card.

Wonwoo relaxed in his chair, angling a glance down at his phone that he kept below the table, checking for any Seokmin texts.

None. He was supposed to be Wonwoo’s stupid life preserver in this situation with you, and so far, he’d been left for dead. Taking a lengthy sip from his drink was the only way he could stomach it.

“You should put your phone on the table. Screen down.”

“For what reason?” Wonwoo responded in a dull tone, quickly checking his social media with impatient swipes of his thumb.

“So we can have a conversation.”

At that, he almost gagged, slapping down the coffee cup he’d just picked up.

“Now?” Wonwoo laughed, his deep voice reverberating louder than he intended around the café, “you want to talk now?”

“Uh, yes,” you answered, picking up one half of your sandwich and readying it before your mouth, “why is that shocking?”

“Because—you—ah, whatever.”

“You seem crabby. Is that your normal shtick or are you just hangry? Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

He was in a worse mood than usual, but that could be blamed entirely on the mall and how exhausted it made him feel—everything about its environment sucked out his soul. It was most likely the reason he was even daring to act so impatient. You took another bite as you waited for him to answer, and the delicious crackling sound of the toasted bread managed to fissure something inside him.

“Your eyes tell all. Here’s the other half.” You offered.

Finally, he’d experienced his first flares of contentment that day, though he wasn’t expecting it to be from a panini sandwich with what he could taste to be lettuce, mayonnaise, tomato, and different types of melted cheese.

“Thanks.”

“Well, I’ll at least give us time to finish eating.”

[ Seokmin | 2:30pm ]: I can do one paid lunch :)

[ Seokmin | 2:30 pm ]: Her’s not psychotic she’s just uhh

[ Seokmin | 2:31 pm ]: She probs did it to mess with you

[ Wonwoo | 2:37 pm ]: She thinks being 5 mins late warrants putting me through one of the worst experiences in my life.

[ Seokmin | 2:37 pm ]: Awwww

[ Seokmin | 2:37 pm ]: Who doesn’t like a little shopping??

[ Wonwoo | 2:39 pm ]: It wasn’t shopping it was torture. You owe me so much more than a fucking lunch.

—MARCH 29TH.

Unfortunately, Wonwoo never got the opportunity to discuss your book that Saturday. In the middle of eating, your phone buzzed with a brief call that had interrupted your peculiarly passionate rant on the different cup sizes at the movie theatre (Wonwoo had listened without saying anything, mostly because he dreaded the circumstances that may come from peeping a word when you were so fixated on explaining that ‘the medium is too much but the small is too little and they’re both obnoxiously priced’).

He then watched cluelessly as you launched up from the table, collecting every little belonging between your fingers, babbling about some wax appointment that had escaped you.

It was just that simple—you were gone.

In the beginning moments of your absence, Wonwoo had sat there without much inclination of what to do next.

He’d worried it was another test, and that he was supposed to dutifully follow you to said wax appointment and continue bending to your every endeavour with no retaliation throughout the day. He had also found the silence across from him unsettling, in a way.

Nonetheless, if you weren’t there, then Wonwoo figured he didn’t need to be there either. So he left, taking the fifty-six back to his apartment, and you hadn’t contacted him since.

Wonwoo actually knew his landlord quite well.

Her building was comprised of four apartments, which sat above her pottery shop on the ground floor. She wasn’t a very bothersome landlord and it was fairly easy to connect with her whenever something broke or caused problems.

When he first moved in three years ago, Wonwoo had ardently adored living there, constantly studying the shelves of shiny glazed vases in addition to the beautiful water colour paintings that were created by his landlord or her students. It had been an inspiration supernova in terms of his personal literature, and he was able to start writing his book. Though, at the time, Wonwoo hadn’t been living alone in his apartment, and it was an inescapable fact that the only reason he began writing his book was with the hope of eventually presenting it to his old girlfriend-slash-roommate.

Now, it was just him.

And as Wonwoo pushed up from his grave of rumpled bedsheets, feeling lethargic and empty, he tried concerningly hard to pinch those thoughts from his mind. It was nearly lunch. He knew damn well he shouldn’t have allowed himself to rot that long in bed, but the other half of himself, the self-sabotaging kind, just couldn’t be bothered to fucking care. Wonwoo reached for his glasses that lay half-opened on the nightstand, raking them onto his face while brushing the hair from his eyes. The first thing he properly saw was his tall, skinny, orange bottle of venlafaxine. No. He was ignoring it.

Wonwoo had been ignoring it for the past few months.

Whenever he got particularly sick of staring at the bottle, he’d shove it in his drawer, making sure to bury it deep under old, amply-scribbled notepads and inkless pens that he’d worn to the bone. At last getting up from the bed, Wonwoo experienced his entire body sway and he caught the room spinning at the distant edges of his peripheral. But he walked through it without a care in the world, utterly too used to the feeling of imminent nausea even without his medication. He decided on a shower, then dressing himself, one Poptart, a swig of water from the kitchen tap, and almost walked out the apartment door with the minty toothbrush still in his mouth.

After walking three blocks down from his apartment, Wonwoo stepped across the dead, spiky grass and into the lacklustre parking lot behind the bowling alley that always smelled like stale pizza.

He knew the vanilla Camry well enough to identify it—stalled smack and centre amongst the emptiness—the licence plate being chiselled into his head like his old locker combination from high school (16-12-24, because Wonwoo for some reason liked fixating on prehistoric details that were glaringly useless in his present).

Early two-thousands R&B was blasting from inside the outdated-looking car, though it was thankfully turned down once Wonwoo threw the door open and shimmied inside.

The odor permeated Wonwoo’s lungs in a heartbeat.

“I thought you were getting this dry-cleaned,” he sighed to his friend, Vernon, who was busy rifling through a backpack.

“Uh, didn’t happen. Didn’t wanna pay all that. M’gonna find someone else to do it that’s not taxin’ my ass. Air fresheners are all dried n’shit so you’re gonna have to deal. My bad, Glasses.”

Glasses. That nickname had always made Wonwoo huff a little half-chuckle, and almost instinctively, he pushed the glasses a bit higher back up his nose. He was introduced to Vernon at a New Year’s Eve party he was forced to attend back in December, though it had been difficult to speak with him because he was blitzed out of his fucking mind—not to mention the choking pain of ignoring the girl who had been sliding her hands along the divots of his shoulders and chest from behind, kissing at his neck.

But Vernon was branded in tattoos, and had all kinds of metal in his face, and was blessed with concupiscent, honey-burnish eyes magnetized every woman in the vicinity straight to him.

Somehow, Vernon had become Wonwoo’s plug in the mix.

“Now, what are you gettin’, Glasses? The usual quarter ounce, right?” Vernon’s tongue poked between his blistered lips as he dug a heavily-inked hand further into the backpack seated in his lap.

“Yeah, quarter ounce.”

“Oh, fuck yeah. Found it. This one.” Vernon exchanged the plastic-bagged ounces of weed with Wonwoo’s cash. “Gimme, gimme. I know it’s all here, but let me check… “ he flaked out the tinted bills with a satisfied head nod. “Prettier than a princess. You’re golden.”

“Did you just say princess?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said… what?”

“I’ve never heard that.”

“It’s not princess?”

“It’s picture, isn’t it? Prettier than a picture.”

“Really? Oh. That’s not how I remember—why the fuck are we even talkin’ about this? Doesn’t fuckin’ matter. Now, that’s gonna last you if you’re cute,” he said, throwing his notorious bag into the seat behind him, then tapping at his busted radio with a thick strip of tape across it, the next song rasping through the speakers, “don’t go crazy on it with your meds and shit. Do you still got enough papers?”

Wonwoo scoffed dryly at Vernon’s assumption while he hid the plastic bag within an inside pouch on his navy-blue jacket. A second later and his phone buzzed with a text message.

“Fuck the meds, honestly,” Wonwoo grunted, shifting his hips up in the seat to remove the phone from his back pocket.

Vernon itched his dark eyebrow. “Alright. Just askin’.”

Wonwoo opted to say nothing as he checked the text message without much expectation, and he was thankful that Vernon was the type to drop a subject easily. Instead his friend transitioned into a different conversation, something about another tattoo that he’d been debating, but in the kindest way possible, Wonwoo wasn’t listening to a goddamn word. You had texted him. Finally. For the first time. After three days of radio silence. And Wonwoo didn’t know why he’d suddenly exploded into such a fidgety, heart-pounding mess. You wanted to meet up again in order to discuss the book’s details.

“Who the fuck is that? Jesus Christ?”

“No,” Wonwoo laughed, clasping his right hand into an anxious fist, “um, I dunno. Just—Seokmin’s got me doing this thing with a friend of his. She’s trying to write a book and he kinda threw me into helping her. We’re supposed to meet up and talk about it.”

“Oh,” Vernon answered, leaning his elbow against the window and sweeping a hand through his black tresses, “do I know the chick?”

“Maybe?”

“She got any social media? An Instagram?”

“Yeah.”

“Ou, let me see.”

Wonwoo wasn’t following you. Then again, he was hardly following anyone. His Instagram had remained completely empty since his girlfriend left him, which had prompted Wonwoo to archive every single picture and delete all the ones that contained her, even the ones that captured mere traces of her in beaded bracelets and hair ties and white socks left on the carpet.

Wonwoo used Seokmin’s account to find you. Honestly, he hadn’t ever looked at your Instagram before. Without gleaning a single photo, Wonwoo thrust his phone at Vernon.

“Oh, yeah, I do know this chick,” Vernon chuckled, thumbing through your profile with a growing smirk, “Her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Mm, yeah. Know her. Tried to fuck her. Didn’t work at all.”

Snapping his head to look at Vernon, Wonwoo gaped, “what?”

“Yeah, I mean—” Vernon adjusted himself in his seat, pulling up his knee to rest a tattoo-coated arm across it, “—ran into the chick at a party that some rich dude at your university threw. Sweet-talked her for a bit until I realized she had a stupid boyfriend. She told me a million different ways to kill myself. Yeah, she’s somethin’, for sure.”

“You’re lying.”

“Ha—a little. She didn’t tell me to kill myself, just scolded me for about ten minutes. God, she was wired as fuck though. Her boyfriend—fuckin’, Mingyu, or whatever—he gets her coke. I’ve seen her take a line like it’s pixie dust, man. This was like, over a year ago, though. Dunno if she’s still that loopy. I don’t care. She’s pretty hot.”

Vernon then flashed him a picture from your account, a full body picture of you sprawled across sparkling white sand in a bikini, meanwhile Wonwoo could only stare at it with the blankest possible expression as his brain splattered with computing Vernon’s story.

“Is she still with him?” Vernon asked.

Wonwoo cleared his throat and sat with his spine rigid against the leather, nearly forgetting where he was and what he was doing.

“With who?”

“Lady Liberty. Mingyu.”

“Oh… yeah. They’re dating, still.”

“No fuckin’ way,” his friend lamented while he continuously plunged further into your pictures, thumb pressed to his chin, eyes glimmering, “you coulda flipped this book thing on its head and actually got some fuckin’ head, especially with that deep ass voice you got there. I know it’s gotta feel good. I mean, look at her lips—”

“You’re being gross as fuck,” Wonwoo groaned, swiping his phone back and stuffing it away, “get a girlfriend yourself, man.”

“I’m tryin’ to clean up my act a bit before I do that.”

“That’s definitely a work in progress, I’m assuming.”

“Asshole,” Vernon’s voice was gritty as he coughed into a fist, slipping his knee back under the steering wheel and proceeding to crank his stereo until the music was practically suffocating Wonwoo, “now get the fuck out. You’re not my only deal today. Sorry, Glasses.”

“Later.”

Wonwoo pushed open the door and stepped outside into the cold afternoon breeze. He sucked in a long, relieving breath. At times the fresh air disgusted him, especially when he cozied into one of his mental ruts and everything in the world seemed so grey it was soul-crushing, but Vernon’s car smelled like straight fucking cannabis.

Fresh air was heavenly.

“Don’t forget to text your girl!” Vernon laughed just before Wonwoo slammed the door shut to swallow up the melodic lyrics.

He wanted to make a snap comment before the boy drove off to his next endeavour, but he didn’t care enough to think of one.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: hey wonwoo, it’s her. I think we should finally settle a date to talk about this book thing. let me attach a pic of my schedule and you can pick any open slots

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: 145_348.JPG

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:35 pm ]: seokmin isn’t going to be our communicator anymore, so u can stop complaining to him about it

[ Wonwoo | 1:45 pm ]: Okay, thanks.

[ Wonwoo | 1:45 pm]: I’ll take a look soon.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:45 pm ]: I’m excited to see you again

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:50 pm ]: no likewise?!

[ Wonwoo | 1:50 pm ]: Likewise.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 1:50 pm ]: ugh. thx

—APRIL 1ST.

It was around six in the evening and Wonwoo was seated in the SRX building, the sky rolling with lambent, hazy-toned pastures of peach in the windows behind him. He had arrived about an hour ago, taking the staircase up to the third floor. It was much quieter there, making it easier for Wonwoo to endlessly stare with glazed, void eyes at his laptop screen and the cursed document he couldn’t finish. After tapping his fingernails in a bored, repetitious pattern against the shiny white table, he felt the urge to delete each and every paragraph as if he hadn’t poured months of earnest love into them.

You would be meeting him soon.

He could still remember looking at your schedule, pinching into the screen and examining all the different colour-coded blocks: dinner parties, SSA meetings, gym sessions, errands—how the fuck you managed to juggle those things and more left him marvelled yet terrified. You were pretty on point regarding your arrival time, to which Wonwoo could immediately identify you before even seeing your face due to the heel clicking and the sounds of tapping jewelry on your bag.

Emerging onto the floor with a very intense scowl and a notably crushing grip on your drink, you were to say the least, angry. Wonwoo gnawed slightly on his tongue as you sat down.

Your purse clunked like a cinderblock onto the table.

He watched you inhale a slow, shaky breath, raising your hand with the expansion of your chest in order to calm down.

“I’m going to kill myself.”

Wonwoo leaned back in the chair, subtly trying to establish more distance between you. He flicked a glance at his laptop.

“Damn. Why is that?”

“Because of stupid, incompetent people.”

“Yeah?”

“I just—I don’t get it!” You laughed, though it wasn’t a particularly jovial sound and more than anything it seemed like you were going to start smashing glass. “I don’t get how people are unable to understand that we don’t do walk-ins unless one of the stylists are free—” you dug a hand into your purse, pulling out a straw, “—which in the salon’s case, is almost never! I tell them we can’t in my very sweet, established customer service voice: ‘I’m sorry, but the only way to receive a chair is to book online.'”

Wonwoo tilted his head, grinning a little.

“Blah, blah. I tell them the entire story in the kindest way I can, even though I want to grab them by their fucking neck and drag them over the counter to show them our website.” You slipped out your laptop next, accidentally dragging out a lanyard along with it that you agitatedly shoved back into the purse. “And then, they get all uptight and pissy when we can’t wriggle them in! Sorry, our makeup artists are busy! Working with people who made scheduled fucking appointments! The world doesn’t fucking revolve around you!”

You scraped the drink toward you, slamming the straw straight through the plastic film lid with such force that several people ended up turning their heads. After taking a long sip, you gulped and glared until they probably realized it was you and pretended not to care.

For a moment, Wonwoo didn’t know what to say, so he’d folded his arms instead. Considering that Wonwoo worked the late shift stocking shelves at the pharmacy department, your predicament sounded like an entirely new world to him.

“Ugh, I’m sorry to bring all this negativity with me,” you apologized, still exasperated, “I don’t need this fucking tea—I need straight vodka. I’m seriously frazzled.”

“Seriously frazzled?” Wonwoo repeated, finding your choice of words funny as he resumed leaning forward, arms still crossed.

“Very, seriously frazzled.”

“I’m sorry about your day.”

Again, you sighed deeply while removing your long, warm jacket to drape over the chair’s spine—it was a rather elegant reveal of the strapless pearl dress underneath, tinted by the evening light, peach-pink as it rained from the ceiling length windows and framed your body like you were some sort of resurrected angel. Tension at last started escaping your shoulders. Wonwoo quickly realized that he'd been staring, and his fingers curled into a nervous fist.

“You’re actually such a good listener.”

Wonwoo cleared his throat. “Um, thank you.”

“I like that you don’t interrupt me.”

Settling his elbows on the table and ruffling the back of his messy black locks, Wonwoo felt himself panic a little on the inside.

“Well,” he heaved in, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“I know," you chirped, posturing yourself confidently, “anyway, the book. We need to talk about it.”

“Table’s yours.”

Wonwoo’s knuckles pressed softly into his cheek while he waited for you to prepare your laptop. His own document was glowing at him, and he swore the emptiness of the page made the screen brighter (in the absolute worst, most mocking way).

“Okay, I’ve got my ideas and such pulled up.”

He expected you to continue and introduce the concept, but you had suddenly stopped, and Wonwoo thought you appeared almost smitten and somewhat timorous. It was strange, because from what he’d known and gauged so far, you were nothing akin to that.

“Well, promise that you won’t think it’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“That’s why I want you to promise!”

Wonwoo pushed up his glasses and sighed, “I will need to be honest at some points you know, depending on what kind of help you want from me. Not that I’m going to be a straight-up dick.”

You scoured at him from over your laptop.

“Whatever.”

“I’ll promise if it makes you feel better.”

“Just—shut up." You wiggled your hand at him dismissively and proceeded to tug the laptop closer. “I don’t even care anymore.”

Once you spent a moment affirming the document to yourself, you looked up at him and smiled. “I’m going to write a book for Mingyu. Our fifth anniversary is coming up in the winter—it’s actually on Christmas Eve—the day he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. I just want to write him a little memoire thingy that tells our story. I want it to walk through the events of our lives, and how I remember them. First encounter, first date, first kiss, stuff like that. I’ve already collected some good memories to include. I have… somewhat of an outline? But my problem is the writing. I can spew nonsense from my mouth at a million miles an hour, but when I try to actually write? It’s crickets.”

You sat back, a hand poised thoughtfully at your cheek while one leg folded over the other. Wonwoo knew you were granting him the space to speak and at least offer a slice of his thoughts, yet, in that moment, he found himself to be drowning. He didn’t believe in fate or destiny or anything of the delusional like; however, hearing you explain the exact premise of a story that he had been successfully writing until a certain breakup—it had shaken him, and Wonwoo felt like the universe was smearing salt fresh into his unsewn wounds.

“So…” your head cocked to the side. “Can I at least an ‘okay’ or a head nod or some sign of life? Or are you just too disgusted?”

What could he say? What was he supposed to say?

Wonwoo was genuinely clueless on how to help you write a story that he’d been utterly failing at writing himself. And, sure, maybe Wonwoo should just give up completely. His ex-girlfriend had ripped out his heart without a single indication that it would happen, and then exited his life in the blink of an eye, disappearing so fucking abruptly that Wonwoo could have said she was a shadow that he imagined in pure lunacy. But he hadn’t dropped the story because there was this very stubborn, unwilling part of his being that could not move on from her—her, who had been his love, and breath, and bones.

He’d decided to finish the story as a manner of easing into closure. If that closure never came, then so be it.

“Are you seriously fucking ignoring me right now?”

His silence had promptly disturbed your peace, and now you were glaring at him with the beginning licks of fire and hell in your eyes.

“I don’t think I can help you.”

“What?” You pronounced sharply. “Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Wonwoo said while closing his laptop and sliding it back into his shoulder-sling bag, “I just—I’m not the right person to help you. I’m not, and you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“Seokmin told me you could write fucking anything. He made it out like you were some literature God with a golden quill. And—great, you’re just packing up fucking everything. Are you serious? Am I even allowed more of an explanation or are you gonna leave it at that? Wonwoo, you couldn’t have told me this at a worse time.”

“I didn’t plan for it to be like that.” He could hardly push the syllables up his diaphragm. “It can’t be me. I’m sorry.”

You didn’t lift a finger to stop him from leaving, though the wavelength of your incinerating stare was felt like a hot, melting scratch down his neck. This was terrible, he was terrible—Wonwoo already knew that about himself. He wanted to go home. He wanted to shut himself away in his room and sink straight through the sheets until he was swallowed. His anxiety was webbing around him. It was pulling him down into the soil and earth like he belonged there.

He truly hated this part of himself.

More than anything, he truly hated when other people saw it.

Especially people like you.

—APRIL 8TH.

Wonwoo didn’t think you would ever speak to him again, in person or over text message. In retrospect, he was fine with it. You were rather overwhelming and especially tiring for someone like Wonwoo who would be perfectly fine never seeing another human in his lifetime. Not to mention he was freed from helping you with your book, which he learned was a technical love letter to your boyfriend in addition to a romance he wanted a nonexistent part in. Going down that path once was already excruciating enough, and given his anxiety attack that saw him locked in a cold washroom stall last week, it was best you just forget about him. He assumed you already had, anyway.

After he stocked the last red bottle of sinus medicine onto the shelf, Wonwoo used his boxcutter to break down the cardboard package and fold it flat with the others he’d opened. It was time for his break, and then he would only have one more hour until the pharmacy section closed for the night. Once it hit ten o’clock, the store was automatically still and hardly anyone came in—minus the few student couples whom Wonwoo had to point in the direction of pregnancy tests or plan b. But it was a Tuesday night. He was at the bare minimum appeased he didn’t have to console a sobbing, snotty-nosed eighteen-year-old girl imploring for a First Response.

When he collapsed down at his favourite seat in the breakroom, Wonwoo pulled out his phone. He had sent Seokmin a text yesterday evening about going studying at the SRX building for their upcoming math midterm, though Seokmin had yet to respond and Wonwoo couldn’t evade wondering if you were pulling some strings behind the curtain.

He opened his bottle of juice and spent the remainder of his fifteen listening to music and jittering his knee.

Wonwoo took his earbuds with him back onto the floor, sneaking the wires under his shirt to pull out his collar. There were only a few boxes left on his cart that required stocking, and whatever didn’t fit would have to be scanned into storage. That shouldn't take long. Wonwoo could almost taste the crisp atmosphere of the night air and feel the gentle chilliness soon to ghost against his face.

However, halfway into shelving the cough drops there had been a polite tap on his shoulder, and Wonwoo wanted to wither up and lose his head right there on the tiles like a sundried rose.

He didn’t know who to expect when he turned around, pulling out a single earbud while the other continued to blast his music.

“Oh, shit—I didn’t know you worked here.”

Fuck. He wanted to kill himself.

“Yeah, started a couple months ago, actually.”

Mingyu.

It’s not that Wonwoo didn’t like speaking with him, because they had definitely exchanged cordial conversations in the past, particularly when they both took that Probability Poker elective last semester and Wonwoo learned that Mingyu was a pretty decent bluffer. Unfortunately, Mingyu’s belief that he was a great bluffer was actually the one indication that he was indeed bluffing. It showed in his overly confident eyes before a twitch of the lips or a subtly shifted foot, meanwhile Wonwoo was able to sit there the entire time like he was an Easter Island statue incarnate.

Put simply, Wonwoo had always preferred to avoid Mingyu because he was your boyfriend, and per routine, he attempted to slip around most people that were associated with you.

“Cool.” Mingyu smiled and the flashes of his pointed teeth caught the light. “Stuff’s got switched around in here again.”

“New mods came out last week,” Wonwoo answered, placing the last cough drop box onto the shelf and facing it straight.

“Well, don’t know what the fuck that means,” his tone was brassy as he laughed, “I just came to ask where the plan b is now.”

“Two aisles down, check the endcap.”

“Appreciate it, thanks—oh, condoms?”

“Next aisle.”

“Got it.”

“Just come get me when you’re done,” Wonwoo said, grabbing his boxcutter and running the blade along the taped seam of the cardboard to satisfyingly slice it open, “I’m the only one in pharmacy right now, so I have to ring you up.”

As soon as Mingyu disappeared around the corner, Wonwoo tossed the flattened cardboard onto his cart with the loudest, most life-draining sigh that could be harboured. He wasn’t the kind of person to cultivate those racing, panicky thoughts that consumed his brain like a merciless hurricane, rather it was typically one single thought that was an eternal black space to swallow him. But Wonwoo had to admit that seeing Mingyu had triggered something of the latter, and now he was feeling sick with the fact you possibly told Mingyu about his episode at the SRX building last week. To Wonwoo it had been the shackles of his anxiety, though it probably came across as a very ill-mannered, abrupt rejection from your perspective.

Mingyu didn’t take long picking out his items. It was clearly a run of the mill routine for him at this point—a mere grab and go.

At the register, Wonwoo mentally questioned why Mingyu had grabbed such a plethora of condoms. He didn’t mean to be vulgar in his thinking, but how often were you getting fucking railed?

Either that, or Mingyu preferred being well stocked.

Vernon would be bruising his knuckles on his steering wheel right now, considering how devotedly he attempted to seduce you.

As payment, Mingyu pulled out that godforsaken credit card that you had borrowed during the dress shopping. Wonwoo felt nauseous just looking at the damn thing. He swiped all of the items into a small plastic bag which he then handed to Mingyu with a notable impatience, wanting to whisk the boy out as quick as possible.

“G’night, man. Thanks for the help.”

“Night,” he answered in a deep, tired sigh, watching Mingyu’s head of thick and bouncy black hair disappear toward the aglow exit.

Well, clearly you weren’t wasting anytime thinking about him despite the dramatics pertaining to the situation last week, not even in the most marginal fraction. Mingyu must rail it out of you every night—not that Wonwoo would be surprised to learn such a thing considering the tall boy’s physique and your openly lascivious nature.

Well, good luck to you both, he supposed.

At least it was closing time.

Wonwoo had always suspected there was something ever so slightly off kilter about his body, especially in the way it reacted to certain situations and emotions. He knew it probably wasn’t the most mundane, ordinary act—locking himself in his aunt’s washroom the day of his sixteenth birthday, sliding down onto the cold, hard tiles, feeling his heart jolt, punch, and thump again his chest like a battering ram. There had been a pattern of rubber ducks on her eggshell blue shower curtain, and Wonwoo remembered counting them row by row, over and over, until his breath managed to steady.

Twenty-four ducks. He could still recall the number.

A doctor’s visit about three weeks later had granted him the diagnosis and a scribbled venlafaxine prescription. Wonwoo was already collecting his sweater off the tissue sheet bed, ready to leave.

In the beginning, he was strict about his medication. He organized them into pill cartridges and set alarms and always ate them with cooked, warm meals. Understandably, his habits dwindled every now and again, however, Wonwoo was quite pious to the routine for a good couple years. But then he met his most recent girlfriend in university. She was shy and reserved. All about the books.

Cute as buttons.

He fell in love.

And it was all such a rush of rose petals and sweet symphonies that Wonwoo became distracted from his healthy habits.

Of course, everything crashed and burned once she abandoned him. He capitulated in an instant, and the sight of the orange bottle made him paler than winter moonlight. It’s not like he wanted to suffer, or despise the way his body put him through a neural hell beyond his own control. The fact of the matter was that Wonwoo just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take those stupid pills.

It was a mountain. Every. Single. Time.

And for the third time that week, Wonwoo found himself awake at an ungodly hour, rifling through the black lunchbox he kept in his closet with his glasses about to slip off the fine point of his nose.

He pulled out the baggie filled with the quarter-ounce, his silver grinder, and his rolling papers. Moving to his desk, Wonwoo clicked on the small overhead lamp to illuminate his space, in which he tapped some of the weed into his grinder and began twisting the lid until he was satisfied. He liked preparing joints to smoke on the roof. It wasn’t particularly hard to access, anyway. Right outside his bedroom window was a balcony with a short ladder attached to the brick, and once Wonwoo had discovered it, he made a habit of climbing up to spark his joints so that their pungent aroma could be carried away by the fresh winds usually stirred up at gloaming.

Honestly, it was the only thing he enjoyed.

Just before he slipped out the window, Wonwoo grabbed a pair of black jeans he’d worn earlier in the week, discovering the lighter he’d accidentally left in the back pocket.

The ladder shuddered slightly when Wonwoo gripped it, though if he were being candour, he didn’t care whatsoever if all the bolts suddenly loosened and he were to splatter against the sidewalk like an uncooked pancake. In fact, the fall probably wasn’t enough to kill him. Maybe a few broken bones and scrapes, some blood staining the street akin to little patterns of rain, bruises that signatured violets into his skin, but Wonwoo would still be painfully, vividly alive, enough to see the stars if the glasses didn’t snap off his face.

It was a colder night, so Wonwoo made sure to tuck on his beanie and huddle into his thicker-sized coat. He sat with one leg dangling over the building’s edge, feeling the wind whiplash against his back and crawl in these chilly, indecipherable whispers from his shoulders to his neck, almost tickling him, like it had missed him.

An orange flicker popped to life from the butane of his lighter, which he used to lightly singe the joint perched at his lips. Wonwoo then tilted his head back, blowing the cloud and its loose, airy curls straight into the sky’s deepest purples.

He loved being alone.

Even when his ex-girlfriend had moved in with him all those months ago, there was an unyielding part of him that hadn’t been ready to forfeit all his space and privacy.

But, over time, his love surmounted the sacrifice.

He would wake up to her sleeping face, and with thoughtful nudges, clear the hairs off her cheeks. He would spend an hour working on his homework or writing his story while waiting for her to stir so messily in the sheets that it became graceful. He would tease her with his cold hands as she boiled up tea in the kitchen, pinching at her hips with the utmost softness and giggling huskily into her neck when she would twist in the arms that bracketed her body against his chest. He would trap her between the counter, sunshine striking the room aglow in these nearly blinding seas of light, mouthing at her throat and tugging at her shorts and hitching his fingers so deep into her heat because all Wonwoo wanted to do was make her feel good.

Opening his eyes again, Wonwoo saw the stars rather than her face. The high was disseminating past his lungs and mingling with the pain that festered in his heart, concocting something that hurt so wonderfully, in all the right places, in all the right spots.

He was a fucking mess.

It wasn’t sustainable. But he didn’t care enough to fix himself.

—APRIL 15TH.

Why did Wonwoo keep coming back to that café? The number of times he’d sat down with conviction that today would be fruitful—today, the eloquence would flow from his fingertips like perfectly pitched music notes and the symphony would read as beautiful and mellifluous as it sounded in his mind. Today, he was going to write.

Except, he accomplished nothing of the sort.

Repeatedly tapping his index finger against the space bar, he waited for the right adjective or phrase to leap out—to grasp him in a headlock even—whatever it took, Wonwoo was willing to sit there all afternoon until one fucking word conjured in the infinite blankness that was his imagination. He reached for his drink, only to take a sip of dry air that smelled like his earlier cocoa. Wonwoo realized the cup was empty. Had he wasted this much time already?

It pricked similarly to a bee sting. His passions felt impossible. A sigh upheaved from his chest and fingers curled into his hair, musing up the already disarrayed strands and slowly warping himself to look more and more like a mad scientist. Wonwoo removed his glasses and slumped back in the chair, rubbing at the reddish prints left on his nose. Writing had soaked itself in agony and he was going to remain in the storm of it until the bitter, ungratifying end.

‘Till death do us part.

And then, something struck.

Though it wasn’t what Wonwoo had hoped for.

Literally—it was your hand hitting the glass of the café window, which had jerked Wonwoo out from his self-pitying.

He scrambled to fix his glasses back on, your face clarifying in an instant. You smiled at him with your glossed lips, and he didn’t like the nuance of your countenance one bit. Watching you enter the café was jarring and uncomfortable and his fist immediately clenched, his index nail picking at the ruined cuticle of his thumb. Two weeks ago—that was the last time you had spoken. At the SRX building.

“Hey!” You sounded friendly. “Can I sit here?”

“Well, uh—”

“Great, thank you.”

You pulled out the chair across from him, then set your bag delicately on the windowsill. Wonwoo watched with nervous, fluttering eyes as you smoothed out your cropped skirt before sitting down, ensuring it was tucked under yourself appropriately.

“How are you?”

Gulp.

“Fine.”

“Good. That’s really good. I’m glad.” Your nails drummed once against the table. “I actually didn’t plan on coming here, but I saw you as I was crossing the street, and I thought, ‘I should stop by and check in on him’ because, y’know, we haven’t been talking.”

Wonwoo furrowed his brow. “Do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Slap your hand against windows to get people’s attention.”

You swept something off the table with your palm, and this sunshine-like laugh turned your entire face to sweetness, but it wasn’t entirely earnest, and Wonwoo bit into his lip because you fucking terrified him. He caught your sparkling eye and wanted to melt.

“Did I scare you? I’m so sorry.”

“No, you’re good.”

“What are you working on?”

“A paper.”

Obviously, he was going to lie. Whether or not you could pick up on his lie was beyond Wonwoo’s control at that point. He didn’t know what you wanted, or why you were interrupting the flow of your very organized scheduling system to seemingly toy with him.

You didn’t respond to his paper comment. There was a thick silence between you despite the distant clattering of dishes, bubbling coffee machines, and conversations that coalesced into one big buzz.

Wonwoo bit the bullet.

“Something you want from me, yeah?”

“Not… exactly… I mean, after you left me at the SRX building, I wanted to get very angry about the whole situation. My day was terrible, and you responding to my idea with that sickly look on your face didn’t help. But I thought about it. You said no. I can’t ask anything more of you, y’know? I have to respect what you said.”

“Oh.” Wonwoo unclenched his fist, stretched out his long legs a bit more. “Yeah, sure. I get it. Thanks for understanding.”

“I just didn’t think my idea was that bad.”

“Well… no. It’s not bad. It’s not bad at all.”

A twitch to your lip suggested you didn’t believe him. Wanting to clear the air a bit, Wonwoo stopped slouching. He sat straighter and lowered the lid of his laptop, inviting the space between you.

His mouth opened, and then closed.

Fuck, just breathe you idiot—he cursed at himself.

You did that little head tilt thing, half-smiling at him, looking radiant underneath the café sunlight and so oddly patient with his tied-tongue that Wonwoo was miraculously able to find his words.

“There is nothing wrong with your idea. I made it seem like there was. I’m sorry. I just don’t want to help you write a romance story, for personal reasons that would be useless explaining. But you seem very confident in everything you do. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Hm, well, thank you for believing in me. Romance can be a touchy subject—I didn’t think of that, and I get it… I guess I felt more insecure about your reaction because writing is the one thing I can’t ace. I do need help with my story, even if I don’t want it. Well, it’s just the truth, isn’t it? There are some things I can’t do!”

You chuckled at yourself, and Wonwoo thought it to be actually endearing. All your hard edges softened in that moment.

“So, I haven’t made any progress in my story, which sucks because I’m operating by deadline—” reaching into your bag, you unveiled a small, compact mirror, using it to remove something invisible from your eyelash, “—do you have any writer friends that would help me?”

Wonwoo scratched his nose.

“Uh, with the book?”

“Yes.”

“None.”

“What?” The mirror snapped shut as you gagged at him. “How do you have no writer friends? Isn’t that your major? Literature? Do you even have friends that aren’t Seokmin?”

“I’m a math major for fucks sake.”

“You’re fucking joking, Wonwoo. Please, tell me it’s a joke.”

He leaned back, folding his arms and propping an ankle onto his knee. You were still gaping at him, and he wanted to smirk.

“What’s wrong with math?”

“Nothing. Math is… math,” you gritted, shoving the mirror back into your expensive-looking, gold-buckled bag, “but why math? Why straight math? I thought you wanted to be a writer.”

“Man, Seokmin really didn’t tell you fucking anything, did he?” Wonwoo chuckled. Or, maybe you had only heard the things you wanted to hear, which was what Wonwoo assumed.

“Like I have space in my brain to remember the multiverse of information that constantly comes out of his mouth.”

“So what is there space for then?”

“You're toeing a dangerous line.”

“Well, I like math and writing.”

"And what kind of papers would you be required to work on as a math major? Did you stumble across some quintessential theorem that nobody else really cares about except for you and all the other pocket-protector wearers out there? Or is this a Good Will Hunting scenario? Even better—are you waiting for someone to walk by behind you and see all that really complicated mumbo-jumbo on your screen and think to themselves, 'woah, this guy is really smart. He's working on a paper with numbers, and I only work on papers with words. Where did I go wrong in my life?' so you can develop some sort of alternative complex that writing just isn't giving you?"

Wonwoo cocked his head at you, perplexed.

“What the absolute fuck are you talking about?” He felt a laugh in his chest, but he pushed it down. Wonwoo had never met anyone like you before. “You made up everything you just said.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“I go on tangents. It’s just something I do.”

“Damn. I can tell.” Wonwoo rubbed at the corner of his eye and slipped the ankle off his knee, further spreading his legs. “You like hearing the sound of your own voice, yeah?”

He always hated when people bothered him at the café, especially when he was trying to write. Today, it was different.

“Well, that’s true.” You beamed at him so matter-of-factly, like it was obvious. “The most beautiful sound in the world, isn’t it?”

“Mm.”

“Thought so. Ugh, I just can’t believe you have no writer friends to hook me up with.” He watched you slouch forward, slapping your arms across the table. “I’ll have to go wait outside Gildan Hall and start ambushing all the smart-looking literature majors.”

Wonwoo found himself examining your perfect nail polish.

“Good luck with that.”

“Can you at least try to sound more sympathetic?”

“You don’t seem like a person who appreciates sympathy.”

“Pft. According to who? I like being comforted when the time is right, and you’re not being very comforting.” You groaned into the table.

“You like being comforted?” He scoffed.

Your head popped up, and you were pouting. “At certain times, yes. Most times, no. It’s a complicated system. No one’s really cared enough to learn it except for Mingyu, and that was by force, and I think even he hates it. But I’m not asking for the moon. Just a reasonably sized chunk of it. I have to be worth something, right?”

“What’s life without someone catering to your every whim at the drop of a hat, huh?” He couldn’t help but mutter with sarcasm.

“Yes, exactly! See—you read my mind.”

Wonwoo bit his tongue.

“Ugh, now where’s my stupid phone?”

It was in your purse. Immediately, your eyes lit up.

“Jesus Christ. I’m gonna be late to my electrolysis!”

Like a burst of lightning, you shot up from your seat and quickly fixed the cream-white purse back over your shoulder. It reminded him of that time at the mall. One second you were engrained into a tangent, and the next you were scrambling about, attempting to recover the lost time in your meticulous schedule.

“If you think of anyone, please text me!”

Wonwoo nodded his head.

Now, there was a vacant seat before him, left slightly tugged from the table due to your hectic departure. For a moment, he just sighed, feeling the breath emerge from somewhere so deep in his chest that it ached. That was the thing about you—in a confusing turmoil, you managed to fill him up when he felt empty, but then empty him once he felt full.

He didn’t know what kind of person you were.

But there was an odd thrill to it that Wonwoo couldn’t articulate.

—APRIL 18TH.

Sat with Seokmin at the boy’s dining room table, Wonwoo popped a purple grape into his mouth while flipping a pencil between his fingers. The two had been staring plainly at their last problem from the math homework, but the question was horribly long, and his handwriting had morphed from legible penmanship to the most slurred hieroglyphics. Wonwoo wanted to dump a ramen packet into some boiling water and call it a night. He’d devoured a whole stem of grapes. His head was pounding and his stomach growled for a meal.

“Oh! You see—this is what gets me every time!” Seokmin exclaimed, leaned over his scattered papers, shoulders hunched with strain, “I mess up one multiplication in a matrix, and it screws me all up! Now I have to go over—uh! My fucking pencil just snapped.”

“Good,” Wonwoo mumbled, pressing a hand along the groove of his stiff neck, cracking it, “take it as a sign to give up.”

“We’re so close.”

Scooting the chair back to stretch his legs, Wonwoo then snatched his phone off the table. It was nearly ten at night.

“I’m hungry, and I don’t care anymore.”

Seokmin sighed, “are you going to eat now?”

“Yeah. Any ramen left?”

“It’s in the box sitting on top of the fridge. Soup broth is in the cupboard beside the microwave. I think there’s some eggs, too.”

Wonwoo easily grabbed the noodle packet off the fridge. He asked his friend if he wanted a bowl as well, and Seokmin agreed, abandoning their math homework after his defeating pencil-snapping incident. While they waited for the water to start bubbling over the stovetop, Seokmin had joined Wonwoo in the kitchen, though he leaned against the counter, holding his phone six inches or so from his face. Wonwoo had never seen anyone text that fast.

Gosh—he didn’t even need to ask who it was.

Noticing a few smudges on his glasses, Wonwoo lowered them down to the hem of shirt, beginning to massage the marks away.

“Our math final is the twenty-eighth, right?” Seokmin asked.

“Should be, yeah.”

“Thanks. If it’s on the twenty-eighth then I can definitely go.”

Wonwoo slid the glasses back onto his nose.

“Go to what?

Taptaptaptap—Seokmin’s fingers were practically electric.

“Uh, this thing that Her is having… at her parents’ house… like… a big dinner party… I’m helping her plan it… just need to make sure… I’m free those days… there! Okay, all settled.”

At last, Seokmin had clicked off his phone and slid the device back into the pocket on his sweatpants. Wonwoo folded his arms, staring at his friend with a deeply furrowed yet confused brow.

He sucked in a helpless breath.

“I don’t get you, Seokmin.”

“What—why?”

A few hot droplets of water had leapt from the pot, slightly scalding Wonwoo’s arm. He promptly ripped open the ramen packet and submerged the noodle brick, poking at it with chopsticks.

Wonwoo cleared his throat, “are you obsessed with her?”

Seokmin laughed, sounding astounded.

“No, I’m not obsessed. I’m just helping. We’re friends.”

“Right.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Setting the chopsticks beside the stove, Wonwoo turned around again, habitually crossing his arms low along the chest.

“I guess I don’t understand what you get out of that relationship.” He admitted. “Why can’t she do shit herself?”

“Ha!—That’s an interesting question.”

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

“No, it’s not that.” Seokmin lifted himself onto the kitchen counter, his head thumping back against the wooden cupboard. “I just wasn’t expecting you to ask that. And—I meant it’s interesting to see your interpretation of it. Like, my friendship with Her.”

Wonwoo nodded. He wasn’t going to coax anything out of his friend that he wasn’t already willing to say. In fact, Wonwoo had only begun talking to Seokmin back in the early, rainy days of September, since they ended up in the same discrete mathematics course and happened to choose seats right next to each other. Their bond had formed fairly quick, but they never really conversed about topics more intimate than school work and their own interests.

“I’m sorry,” Wonwoo said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, don’t apologize. I mean, I totally get why you’re curious.”

Seokmin glanced down at his knees, scratched his chin.

“Uh—well, what did you say, anyway? Why can’t her do shit herself? I mean, her life is super busy. Her mom’s a writer and editor for that popular fashion and beauty magazine you always see at all those glamour stores—Stunning Monthly—something like that. Her’s dad is this business tycoon guy. He works with my dad, actually. I’ve known Her since high school. Our families are close, so naturally we’ve spent a lot of time together. Her family picked up all their stuff and moved into Hillcrest on account of her dad needing to relocate for work.”

Wonwoo remained silent at the revelation, even though he was urged by curiosity to badger Seokmin with questions.

“But, uh—without all my non-essential rambling—the relationship with her parents is tumultuous. Who doesn't have a shaky relationship with their parents, though? A few lucky souls, probably. But they've set things up for her quite well, in my opinion. Her mom got her a job at the Milestone—that fancy beauty place down Bank Street? She has a makeup chair from time to time and works reception. She’s definitely gonna graduate Cum Laude with some big fancy scholarship. Not to mention the little power couple thing she’s got going on with Mingyu. She just tends to be…” Seokmin winced, massaging his shoulder, “she’s just a bit unpredictable. It would be way too easy for things to start falling all over the place. She’s a busy girl so I figure it’s nice to help her out. Keep things organized.”

Wonwoo bobbed his head, thinking.

“I guess I’m curious about the book thing. I mean, if everything is so perfectly laid out for her, and she’s so busy all the time…. why write a book? That takes months, extreme dedication, planning out the ass… it’s loving everything you’ve written and then hating it so atrociously… I don’t know,” he sighed, shrugging with confusion, “if I were her, writing a book would be the last thing on my mind.”

Folding his arms, Seokmin leaned back against the cupboards and agreed. “I know. But sometimes she just lurches onto random things out of nowhere. One year she practically turned her entire living room into a freakin’ art studio and I slipped on an open tube of paint on the floor—nearly popped out my tail bone. To be fair, her passion projects never last long. She never has the time, as you said… I know you’re not helping her anymore. She’ll probably drop it without help.”

“Really? Just like that?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin answered, smiling, “just like that.”

For some reason, Wonwoo gritted his teeth. He would hate for you to discard the feat so readily, just because he couldn’t pitch in as initially planned. Yes, writing was not always a fruitful cherry blossom tree and sometimes chalking down one sentence was equivalent to a month of effort and squeezing out all the creative fibres in one’s brain, but there was so much worth and occulted beauty to it at the same time. It was the art of expression.

Wonwoo thought it was quite cruel to deprive oneself of the ability to express and articulate things as they coursed through the fragile skin and the warm veins, and chiefly, the heart.

“Anyway, maybe I didn’t really answer your question,” Seokmin laughed, “but, y’know, don’t worry too much about turning down the book. You’re right. She’s got more important things to focus on, as I was telling her over and over, and—oh! Fuck, the ramen’s bubbling!”

Wonwoo quickly twisted around as the water began spilling over the edge and sizzling like fried meat. He lifted the pot off the piping hot, orange element, to which Seokmin joined him, twisting the stove dial to a much lower heat. Blowing at the white froth, Wonwoo waited a precautionary minute before returning the pot.

Once dinner was ready, they gathered back at the dining table, entwining the noodles with their chopsticks and hardly allowing a second for the ramen to cool before they were shovelling in burning mouthful after mouthful. The bite in Wonwoo’s stomach was gradually appeased. He soon felt warm, and full, and less tempered.

“Seokmin.”

“Hm?” His friend glanced up from his phone.

“So…” Wonwoo leaned back in the chair, his fist clenched. “I guess what—from what I understand—if I don’t help Her, or if she doesn’t find someone who can, then the book just won’t happen ”

At his observation, Seokmin nodded, seeming unbothered.

“Uh, yeah. Pretty much.”

“That’s sad.”

“Hey, you two just aren’t destined for each other,” he replied, slurping his noodles, “you were right back at the café.”

Picking up the white and blue patterned bowl, Wonwoo prepared to drink the broth, feeling the delicious heat fan back against his face. Once he finished eating and helping Seokmin with the dishes, he planned to catch a late-night bus back to his apartment above the quaint pottery shop. He didn’t know if he would sleep or not.

Maybe, however, that would give him time to rethink some choices, even if he shouldn’t trust the musings his brain happened to curate past nine at night. Especially any musings concerning you.

[ Wonwoo | 11:45 pm ]: Sorry to message you this late.

[ Wonwoo | 11:45 pm ]: I’ll keep it brief: I’ve given your book idea some thought, and if the offer still stands, I’d like to help you write it. Though, I understand if you want someone else’s help.

[ Wonwoo | 11:50 pm ]: Goodnight.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: AHHHHHHHHHHH

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: good morninggg

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:35 am ]: no that’s so perfect

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:37 am ]: okay. OMG. there’s just so much we have to sort out. I’m trying not to overwhelm myself lol

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 6:37 am ]: thank u for giving it more thought. I’m excited to plan everything and see u again ofc :)

[ Wonwoo | 12:55 pm ]: Likewise.

—APRIL 24TH.

Since last November, Wonwoo hadn’t invited many guests to his apartment—not even his older brother, who had never stepped foot into the building after Wonwoo originally signed the lease. Seokmin visited once or twice, but everything was curt, and while there had been one time that Vernon slept overnight on the couch, it was hardly notable.

Knowing that you were going to be at his apartment in a few hours was a very daunting thought. Consequently, Wonwoo had done something he hadn’t properly completed in months: clean.

It wasn’t like he just threw out the garbage and wiped down the kitchen counter either. He legitimately cleaned, picking over his apartment with a fine-tooth comb, not allowing one coffee cup or coaster to seem even vaguely incongruous. He fluffed out the couch pillows and vacuumed the floors. He went through his entire room, tidying up piles of clothes on the floor and aligning every book on his shelf. For the first time in months, Wonwoo threw open his heavy curtains, pure sunlight engulfing the space in such a bright glare that his eyes stung and he hardly recognized his own bedroom. Most importantly, he remembered to hide the pill bottle in his nightstand.

After all the anxiety-driven cleaning was done, Wonwoo collapsed onto the couch and stared plainly at the ceiling, the reality of what he just accomplished beginning to sink into his pores.

What the fuck?

He doubted you would care even microscopically if his apartment wasn’t perfectly swept and polished and artistic like a photo from an interior design catalogue. But at the same time, it would have been impossible for him to leave it alone. The burst of productivity undoubtedly left Wonwoo rather hot and sweaty, so he opted to take a shower before you arrived. Standing beneath the cool water and taking slow, languid breaths helped ease his nerves.

And, for the first time in what he imaged to be—months, Wonwoo dried himself off with this feeling that everything was okay.

Not good. Definitely not great. But okay.

While he buttoned up a pair of blue jeans, Wonwoo heard his phone ding from his desk. Reaching over, he tapped the screen.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:05 pm ]: hi, I’m almost there

His chest fucking lurched.

Roughly jerking open his drawer, Wonwoo pulled out the first shirt he saw, tugging the white long-sleeve over his head before he wiggled his feet into a fresh pair of socks. Once Wonwoo found his glasses, he sat on the edge of his bed with his phone.

[ Wonwoo | 12:08 pm ]: Okay.

[ Wonwoo | 12:08 pm ]: Would you like me to come down?

God—he felt like his stomach was going to collapse.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:08 pm ]: no that’s okay :)

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:09 pm ]: it’s really pretty down here

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:12 pm]: sorry I was looking at some of the pottery / painting stuff. it’s the staircase down the hall, right?

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:12 pm ]: unit 102?

[ Wonwoo | 12:12 pm ]: Yes.

He reminded himself to breathe. Calm and slow and lifting the pressure that dug so bluntly into his lungs. The webs began to burn away. It had been a narrow escape, but it was successful.

[ xxx-xxx-xxxx | 12:13 pm ]: heyy, I’m outside

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Wonwoo walked to the front door. His fingers brushed the knob in a flash of doubt, though his mind had already committed and now the door was pulled open and you were there, just as you said.

“Well, hello.”

He nodded at you, and then gestured for you to enter.

“Where should I take off my shoes?”

“There’s good,” Wonwoo answered, pointing to a textured mat in the corner that you proceeded to leave your simplistic heels on.

How absurd was this? Never in his life would Wonwoo imagine you at his apartment of all places—the one girl whom he adamantly tried to avoid because you were his gleaming opposite, and everything that you were, certain and in control, scared him. You were gazing around with your hands politely clasped together, ignited in the fulgurant sunlight, a small smile on your mouth.

“Wow, you’re very clean.”

Wonwoo stepped after you, maintaining a shy distance.

“It doesn’t normally look this neat,” he admitted, watching you readjust the strap of your tote bag, “I did clean for you.”

You turned to face him, and your laughter filled the space with a refreshing, long lost tone that made everything brighter. His fist clenched up anxiously and he knew his cheeks were pinkening.

“Um, cleaned or power-washed?”

He merely stared at you. Why couldn’t he fucking speak?

“Jeez, don’t look so afraid. I’m joking. And I obviously appreciate the effort.” You spun back around, continuing to walk past the coffee table and toward the kitchen. “It’s a lovely place, and it’s definitely got your personal touch. Oh—this is a cute mug.”

He breathed out, unfurling his hand and stretching his fingers until the air in his knuckles popped. You began wandering in the natural direction of the bedroom, and so Wonwoo followed, his eyes drifting up the jeans that hugged your legs and your sashaying hips, to back of your delicious-smelling hair. What was that scent, anyway?

Manuka honey?

But it was just a trivial glance, really.

Nothing meaningful.

“Is this your room?” You asked, stopping at the doorframe.

“It is.”

Biting your lip, you peaked inside and started to grin.

“Do you care if I go in?”

“No.”

He tried not to crumble right there on the floor. Wonwoo’s room was his sanctuary, a fortress, something that barred out everyone but himself and granted him the freedom to do whatever he pleased (whether it was self-detrimental or not). The thought of others in his room was a gash in that perfect sanctuary, in which he could see the walls bleed out all their comfort and familiarity. His ex was the last person to be in his room, typically sprawled across the bed with a good novel in her hand.

It was a sour, sour reminder.

“Oh, and there’s the bookshelf,” you pointed out, “how fitting.” That penetrating gaze of yours roamed his desk and his bed and all his knickknacks in between. “Hey, why’s there a balcony outside?” You then asked, settling your hands onto the window frame and leaning out, the wind fluttering minimally through the layered curtains.

“Just a remodelling error,” Wonwoo explained, “it was supposed to be removed, I think. Never happened.”

Allured by curiosity, you leaned further out, examining the ladder that led up to the building’s roof. He looked at you again, specifically the arch in your back and the way your arms were planted so firm at the windowsill. He looked at the sunlight rippling on your cheek and your lips that appeared to sparkle, like you had kissed glitter.

“You definitely go up there, right?”

“Yeah.”

Half-shutting the window as to keep the breeze flowing, you chuckled. “I figured… so, I guess we should stop dawdling and get to the meat and potatoes. Is here a good spot? Or do you want to go back to the living room?”

“We’re in my room anyways,” Wonwoo commented, pulling out his desk chair and promptly sitting down, “so, why not.”

“Cool. Let me get my laptop.”

You slipped the tote bag off your arm and sat on the edge of his freshly made bed, being careful not to rumple the sheets.

“Okay!” Your hands echoed a series of soft claps. “I’m all ready now. I’ll try my best not to ramble—oh, and please, please don’t interrupt me until I’m done. I’m going to be very pissed if I lose my train of thought and I’d like this meeting to remain pleasant.”

Wonwoo nodded. “I know.”

You flashed him a brief smile.

“So, as you know, Mingyu and I’s fifth year anniversary is coming up in December. My gift to him is this so far nonexistent book. We’ve been through a lot as a couple, and as individuals, and I want the book to fully capture this journey we’ve been on and how much I… appreciate him. Also, I’m going to introduce a second, special element—” a hand plunged into your tote bag and suddenly a video camera was revealed, “—I want to record some of our brain sessions, and, like, our voyage of figuring this shit out. I like mementos. I hope that’s okay.”

“… Do I answer?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Then, yeah. I’m okay with it.”

“Secondlyyy—” you lilted while scrolling a little ways down the notepad on your laptop, the video camera stuffed back into your flower-and-honeybee-patterned tote, “—there are a few places we’ll need to visit—not the actual places that Mingyu and I went to since we grew up nowhere near here—but places that more so have a strong resemblance to the ones in my memory. I feel like it will help me with visual aspects of the writing. I’m a very visual person. Y’know, setting up the scene and technical things like that. I like touching and feeling and seeing and breathing everything in. I want all my senses on fire, basically. Like… the way your lips feel after eating insanely hot noodles.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

Wonwoo didn’t really care. He just agreed.

“Lastly, I want to make a schedule for us. So, I’m kindly asking you to set up a schedule of your own—work shifts, doctor’s appointments, tests—the like, so I can incorporate them into my own hectic life and make us one colourful, super writing schedule.”

And then, with a big, winded sigh, you shut your laptop.

“That’s it. Done. Thoughts?”

Honestly, the entire premise didn’t sound all that terrible. He had braced himself for the worst, but you were unsurprisingly organized and had pinpointed all your desires quite clearly. Of course, he knew it was going to be sheer hell—flames up to his knees and desert sun beating on his skin like a hot skillet frying butter. You were structured and dedicated and Wonwoo was none of those things.

No doubt, Wonwoo would have to learn to deal with you.

You would either be his trigger or his pulse.

But, even worse, you would have to learn to deal with him.

“I’m just following your lead on this,” Wonwoo announced, lacklustre of much interest, resting his hands against his stomach while he rotated back and forth in the swivel chair, “whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. How soon do you want the schedule thing?”

“Like, as soon as possible.”

“Okay.”

“Do you really have no questions?”

Wonwoo scratched the side of his head.

“Uh, have you got anything written down yet?”

“Yes,” you propped open your laptop again, “an intro.”

“Oh, really?”

“Don’t question me. It was already difficult enough to write it, and I agonized over it for hours.” You pouted, slumping slightly.

He shifted up straighter in the desk chair.

“I’m sorry. I was just wondering. It’s good you started.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

Wonwoo tilted his head at you. “Do I get to read it?”

Your feet crossed and twirled together. He didn’t think you had any nervous ticks, but that was something easy to pick up on.

“Um, not yet. Not until we officially start.”

“Okay.” He answered with a gentle voice, noticing your swaying feet still again and a bit of rigidity dissipate from your body.

Well, he didn’t really know what to do at this point. Wonwoo suspected you were constrained by more tasks for today and your time with him was limited. It’s not that you were sitting in an awkward, stifling silence, but he would rather occupy himself with something rather than nothing, because nothing left his heart to race.

“Are you hungry?” He asked.

Glancing up from the laptop, you shook your head. “I ate before I came here.”

“Are you going to be leaving soon?”

At that, your face crinkled with laughter. “Sick of me already?”

Wonwoo crossed his arms. “No. Just asking.”

“Well, I have a wax appointment soon. I’ll be leaving in ten minutes or so.” Finally, you looked up, and your eyes clicked with his in a way that made the fine hairs along his neck prickle coolly. “Does that answer your question?” A subtle grin pulled at your soft lips.

“It does, yes.”

“You don’t like having people in your room, do you?”

He huffed at the observation and delved a hand through his black hair, feeling the dampness slide against his fingers. “Not particularly.”

“You should have just said that.” Rising off his bed, you closed the laptop and shoved it back into the tote bag.

Wonwoo’s entire chest jerked. It felt like a ten-story drop.

“Are you leaving?”

“Mm, I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding.”

Why did his throat close up just then? Why did his vocal cords abruptly feel so coarse and tight? Why was his heart hammering? He didn’t mean to project the wrong impression. He didn’t hate you in his room. It just felt misplaced, and new. Like picking up a puzzle piece from the box and attempting to jam it into a different puzzle.

“It’s fine. Seriously. I should be early, anyway.”

Wonwoo stood up, realizing he needed to breathe. “Um… would you like me to walk you down?”

You stopped on your way out, faced him with a pretty smile.

“That’s okay.”

But then you did something rather strange; your hand sank into his firm upper arm and suddenly you were leaning into him, so carelessly close that he could feel the fanning, light warmth of your breath against his neck. Wonwoo’s head started to spin, and he thought a cloud had enveloped the room because his vision fuzzed.

“Sorry,” you took a step back, removing your hand, “you just smell really good. Like an ocean or something. It reminds me of this beach in Puta Cana. But your hair’s all damp and fluffy so that’s probably why. That was weird. I’m sorry.” Again, you laughed.

Why the fuck did you do that? He was almost angry. But not at you. At himself. For reacting in such a giddy, stupid way. Your touch and breath had burned him and there was this sharp, cutting flare inside Wonwoo that didn’t want to let you leave.

“All good…” he mumbled, sounding groggy and slow.

“I’ll see myself out then. Bye!”

And with a final chirp, you left, the front door closing in the distance while he could only stand there, shuddering and strangely hot and beyond confused. Wonwoo moved to swing the heavy curtains shut, the entire room succumbing into its usual shadiness. He sat on the edge of his very neat bed, removed his glasses, and buckled over while rubbing his veiny, pale hands through his hair.

The feeling was so lost and suppressed to his memory.

Wonwoo didn’t even know what it was.

He was relieved you were gone, but he also wished that you were still there, leaning out his open window with the wind and sunshine in your face. It was a sight so sweet and equally intimate.

Who are you?

What are you doing in his meaningless life?

—APRIL 28TH.

Wonwoo had finished his math final with half an hour to generously spare, and now, he was sitting, bored, sketching his pencil against the last page of the thick packet. The professor wouldn’t care.

Hopefully.

On one hand, Wonwoo knew he should really just stand up and hand the damn thing in, but on the other hand, he hated—no, abhorred being the first person to return a test, especially an exam at that. Wonwoo was pretty smart. He knew that about himself and he never bothered to maintain the guise he wasn’t. Still, Wonwoo wasn’t pretentious. If he had to wait until the final fucking minute to hand the packet in, solely to avoid being the first student up, then so be it.

Besides, there wasn’t anything too pressing that required his immediate attention—minus the pertinent schedule he was supposed to make and have sent to you approximately three days ago. You had called him last night, to which the phone crackled with a loud, static bark of his name as you admonished him for his lateness.

“I told you three days ago I wanted the schedule! Three days! I can’t believe this. What’s so hard about making a schedule? Beep boop, you press some buttons on your laptop and it’s done. It would take ten minutes tops! Ugh, I’m so done with you, Wonwoo. In fact, don’t call me back—don’t even text me until you have the schedule!”

And then the line had collapsed, leaving Wonwoo to stare rather expressionlessly at his phone screen, the boy huffing out a breath of tendrilled smoke while he relaxed on the apartment roof. That had been his first experience sat on the receiving end of your seasoned quips, and it left him with this very profound emptiness, like his insides had been scooped out and the shell of his body was nothing but a wooden nesting doll. It had been such a long time since he genuinely cared about disappointing someone. Wonwoo had grown far too complacent with the feeling of disappointing himself.

That would never motivate him to do anything.

But you were different. In the sense that Wonwoo mostly remained proactive out of fear you might bite his head off.

From somewhere near the back of the room, Wonwoo heard chair legs scraping, and he eagerly flexed his fingers while observing a girl with the slickest ponytail he’d ever seen march past him to the professor’s desk. She set her packet down. He thanked her. She left.

Jesus Christ. Finally.

“All finished, Wonwoo?” His professor mumbled in a tone that hardly escaped his own lips, glancing up at the boy expectantly.

Pushing up his glasses, Wonwoo nodded.

“I suppose it’s harder for you to sit there and wait than it is to write the actual exam, isn’t it?” The professor noted with an almost undetectable smirk as he slid the test packet inside a tan-coloured folder, to which Wonwoo turned January cold.

“I don’t know.” Wonwoo shrugged, pretending to feel unbothered when in reality his skin was slithering like a snake pit at the thought of being even marginally perceived. “Maybe.”

“You have a good summer, alright?”

“Thanks. You too.”

Wonwoo swept a quick glance over the classroom right before he left, noticing that Seokmin was sat beside the wall, one hand tangled tight into his black, ruffled tresses as his pencil scribbled all over the paper like he was writing pure nonsense. He probably was.

And Wonwoo meant that in a nice-this isn’t really your sweet spot, but you’ll manage nonetheless-way. After leaving the classroom, Wonwoo thought he might go home and plunge head first into his oasis of bedsheets and flat, foam pillows that he loved so much, and permit himself to decay until it was physically impossible to lie down any longer. But he decided against it at the last minute, turning up at the café instead with his shoulder-strung book bag and the timely urge for a scone. He then sat down at his favourite table.

Pulled out his laptop.

Opened the document he was at incessant war with.

The last scene he’d written was breakfast.

“Uh, okay. Orange juice… or orange juice?”

“Did you say orange juice?”

“I did.”

“So… chocolate milk?”

“Ha! Funny... is there any sort of correlation between being a complete nerd and making such well-woven jokes?”

“Not sure. But I’ll get back to you when I find out… thanks. Your tea is sitting on the island, by the way.”

“Thank you, Won. Oh—you even put it in my Woodstock mug!”

“Yes, why are you so surprised that I remember?”

“Because it’s always hidden at the back of our cupboard, behind ten other mugs that we certainly don’t need and all our plates. I mean, I guess it’s my fault. Half of them are from my mom.”

“It’s sweet.”

“It takes up too much space. But I can’t tell her no.”

“That, you’ve got to work on.”

“The Christmas thing isn’t happening anymore, if that helps. I think the thought of having to cram all my family into our living room for a night was what motivated me the most. My mom said she’ll send us poinsettias instead. I think that’s way easier.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. Believe it or not, I can assert myself. Sometimes.”

“No, no. I do believe you. I’m proud. Okay—bottoms up.”

“How’s the combination of venlafaxine and orange juice?”

“I don’t know. Juicy?”

“Better juicy than anxious?”

“You could say that.”

Right, back when Wonwoo actually had the willpower to make himself breakfast rather than slapping a mixed berry Poptart into the toaster or worse, nothing at all. Back when he could wake up before noon without feeling nauseous enough to curl into a ball and drape the sheets over his aching head. Back when he actually took his medicine. Her face beaming at him from across their table had always been like a glass of sunlight and citrus. She had been his own vitamin.

Wonwoo knew he wasn’t going to write. He was just going to stare and mope and ensnare himself in the pinwheel of memories that blew over him whenever he had the gall to reread his past literature.

The Woodstock mug. She’d taken that with her.

He decided it was strange and sometimes irritating how love, broken or not, could suture itself into even the most mundane things. Orange juice was just that—juice—the carton he used to pick up and impetuously drop into his grocery cart every so often. Now, it wasn’t juice at all, but slow mornings, steaming tea kettles, and reading together on the couch with legs all tangled up until lunch time.

Now, Wonwoo couldn’t drink it at all.

Breaking the lemon raspberry scone in half, Wonwoo dropped a flaky piece into his mouth before it got too cold, and then proceeded to close the document. There was no way in hell he would write, and while he loved drowning in his own misery in order to snuff any glimpse of productivity more than the average individual, he thought it might be worthwhile to finally start that schedule.

[ Wonwoo | 8:20 pm ]: schedule.pdf

[ Her | 8:56 pm ]: thanks

[ Her | 8:56 pm ]: don’t piss me off again

—APRIL 30TH.

For an April morning, it was surprisingly bright. The sun was out in full and glistering warmth by the time Wonwoo stepped onto the sidewalk and began pacing down to the park, practically needing to squint the entire way. He almost hated it. Early mornings were not his friend, nor were the blades of light cutting across his glasses. But today was his first writing session with you and Wonwoo knew it was more than crucial that he was the furthest thing from tardy—it would be akin to willingly setting his hands inside a burning fire if not.

You agreed to meet at the park since it was roughly equal distance between Wonwoo’s apartment and some breakfast place you wanted to stop at. He thought it was uncharacteristically thoughtful of you to shoot him a text asking if he wanted anything, though Wonwoo declined nonetheless. It was damn near impossible for him to eat a bite of food until lunch time, hence his expression softening in confusion when he at last climbed into the passenger seat of your sleek silver car and was greeted by you passing him a cold tea.

“Am I… holding this for you?” He wondered, sitting still.

You shook your head. “No. It’s yours.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

“Yes, I realize that. I can read, thank you.”

Wonwoo wasn’t going to argue. He simply shut his mouth, clicked on his seatbelt, and set the tea into the cup holder. He then began looking around at your car’s interior. Everything was exceptionally clean and smelled sugary, like iced gingerbread.

The thing was, Wonwoo still wasn’t very sure how to talk to you, and most often there was the stiffest frog in his throat whenever he sat around you in silence for too long. Your thumbs were tapping against your phone at light speed. It reminded him of how Seokmin was texting you back at the boy’s apartment when they were studying for finals. Wonwoo couldn’t help but wonder if Seokmin was naturally more inclined to respond to you out of friendship or fear. Maybe even a pinch of both if that was possible. Another quiet minute passed by.

“Okay, fuck, sorry,” you suddenly spluttered at random, quickly slotting your phone into the GPS holder, “just some shit with my mom. Um, okay. Yeah. We can get going.”

“All good," Wonwoo answered.

“You know where we’re off to?”

“Vaguely. The track by Caldwell High School.”

He watched you flit him a smile. “That’s the place. I’ll explain more once we get there. And, by the way, I am expecting you to drink that tea. It’s not anything crazy. It’s oolong. Only a bit of caffeine.”

“I drink coffee, you know.”

“Yes, and it probably makes you jittery and insufferable.”

Wonwoo preferred not to comment.

The car ride wasn’t too long. Actually, Wonwoo did love a good car ride. He remembered the long trips he used to take with his family to the water park when he was a child, the sensation of the breeze blowing into his face and how different shades of green would scatter in through the windows as the sun hit the tree leaves like emeralds. There was something so limerent and sadly distant about the memory that Wonwoo felt his chest hurt. Even if he were to take that same road, and smell the same breeze, and see his skin glow with the same hues of the forest, he doubted it would feel the same.

His mouth had gone awfully dry. Wonwoo then reached for the cold tea sitting in the cup holder and took a sip, suddenly very appreciative that you had thought to get him something, anyway.

And while he couldn’t be too certain, Wonwoo wanted to think that maybe this would be a good memory, too.

After the half-hour long car ride, Wonwoo made sure to stretch when he stepped out into the empty parking lot. It was cloudier now, a bit more of a breeze to help counteract the warmth that remained in the air. You came around to join him, twisting out a cramp in your leg while adjusting the purse over your shoulder.

The walk to the track field wasn’t long, no more than a few minutes, and Wonwoo obediently trailed at your side until he witnessed the bleachers slowly coming into view. It resurfaced memories from his own high school days in PE, which Wonwoo had actually been quite successful at despite his distaste for sports and their atmosphere in general. He remembered liking kickball the best.

You sighed in a wistful tone while staring across the marked asphalt and fresh April grass. “All high school tracks look the same, don’t they?” Then, you carefully set your purse onto the bleachers.

Wonwoo rolled his shoulders, taking a more observant look around. It wasn’t strikingly different from the track at his high school.

“Sure. I guess.”

“I mean, there are some differences. We had ditches by our track. Come to think of it, I honestly believe they put them there for kids to hurl in from heat stroke or over-exertion… that’s what I did, anyway. It was right before I had to do triple jump. I hated it because you had to really build up speed. I didn’t want to run. So, even if I hadn’t thrown up from heat stroke, I probably would’ve made myself throw up some other way. Straight to the nurse. She gave me a popsicle.”

He glanced at you sideways. “Seriously?”

“Mmhm.”

“You’d rather throw up than hop, like, three times?”

“I said it was the running part I didn’t like.”

Wonwoo couldn’t imagine purposefully making himself upchuck in order to get out of something. If his anxiety was terrible enough, then he wouldn’t even have to worry about it, really.

That was its own mechanism of disaster.

“Running is eighty-percent of Activity Days," Wonwoo said.

You clicked your tongue at him. “Exactly. And I’d do anything to never run. I tried to sit in one time with the seventh graders. They were in their art block and they were doing painting under the trees; birdhouses or something. But their teacher kicked me out. And she didn’t even let me take the fucking birdhouse that I was painting.”

“The nerve,” Wonwoo answered, scratching his temple.

He proceeded to take a seat on the metal bench, rubbing his hands together. He still didn’t know how Mingyu fit into everything.

“So… what’s your plan, here?”

You sat next to him, folding one leg over your thigh and proceeding to reveal a journal that you had stuffed inside your expensive bag. The tips of your fingers skimmed through a few fluttering pages, until you stopped on one in particular that was ink-abused with cursive scribbles. Wonwoo assumed you did most of your planning on a laptop, hence his surprise to learn that you actually used a journal. He had a journal himself, though it hadn’t been touched in months. It mostly contained small poetic excerpts.

Next, you pulled out a pen.

“This is how I first ran into Mingyu. At my school’s track field. He was new and good at all the activities. I swear, his name spread like wildfire. Anyways, I haven’t figured out all the bits and bobs. I want to really soak in the feeling of—oh!” Suddenly, you grasped the journal back onto your lap, the pen hitting the paper in a cursive ribbon that Wonwoo could hardly read. “I just thought of a great line. His eyes, I wanted to soak in them, like an oasis.”

You stabbed the paper again to make a period.

“Not bad,” Wonwoo commented.

“Okay, here it is!” A black case was pulled from your purse, and once you unzipped it, Wonwoo realized it was the video camera that you had initially shown him at his apartment. “Okay, I want you to film some stuff. The field, obviously. I need it from different perspectives. It will help me with setting the scene later on.”

“Why do I have to film it?”

“Because, Seokmin told me you’re quite handy with film equipment stuff, and I don’t want to drop it. So just do it, please?”

Accepting the video camera from your hand, Wonwoo sighed in agreement. Flipping open the side-screen of the camera, Wonwoo began clicking some buttons and adjusting the focus. Luckily, he was familiar with the particular camcorder thanks to a film education course he’d taken outside of school.

While you busied yourself at the bleachers with starting up your laptop, Wonwoo began collecting footage, slowly panning the camera across the vast length of the gravel track and the grassy soccer fields situated beyond. He kept a concentrated eye on the side-screen to ensure the lighting wouldn’t change too drastically. A wind had picked up from over the forest, and he could see how the clouds were consequently being pushed along like herded sheep in the sky.

Once he brushed back the floppy, black hair that kept tickling his face, Wonwoo lowered the camera and turned to you.

“So, where else should I film?”

You were typing something, and didn’t bother looking up.

“Go across the field. Film from the other side.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“I have to go all the way over there?”

“Yes. Walk, crawl. Skip, hop. I don’t care. Just do it, please.”

“Jesus Christ,” he huffed out, feeling tired and yearning to go home, “I hate how seriously you’re taking this, y’know that?”

Your fingers continued blitzing against the keyboard.

“Nobody likes a complainer.”

Ironic, he thought, but obviously kept to himself.

There wasn’t a point in expecting any sympathy from you—that, he already knew—which engendered Wonwoo’s long, trudging walk from one side of the track to the other, the wind irritably blowing his grown-out locks over his glasses every time he attempted sweeping them back. Hoisting the camera back up, Wonwoo adjusted the side-screen and began his same ritual of steadily panning the camera along the landscape.

You appeared in the view, still sat on the bleachers, though nothing about your face or figure was too discernible. It felt like you were a background character in a painting, just a little glob of acrylic.

“All done?”

Finally, you had glanced up at him with a smile.

Wonwoo nodded. “Unless you need anything else filmed?”

“No, that should be enough. The track is most important.”

“Right.”

He tried giving back the camera.

“Actually, do you mind keeping it?”

“Um, okay. But how will you look at the footage?

“Dropbox. We’ll share one. Upload the clips there.”

Wonwoo plopped himself back down on the bench, fitting the camcorder into its black case. He pulled the zipper along the seam.

“How much longer do we need to be here?”

“Not that much. Just let me finish this paragraph.”

There was a dull pain throbbing at the front of his skull, edging down to his temples—across his nose bridge where his glasses pressed in more tightly than usual. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled a deep breath, trying to escape the feeling, the nausea, the chills that were beginning to seep up his neck as the wind blew turbulently against him. It would be embarrassing if this happened here, right in front of you. The hard lump had suddenly lurched forward in Wonwoo’s throat but he leaned his head down last minute and swallowed it despite the roughness. No, everything was okay.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Wonwoo opened his eyes, staring down at the trembling hands buried in his lap. Subtly, he pulled the sleeves of his cardigan over them. He assumed his face was reflecting a sheer, sickly opacity.

“Nothing.”

“Uh, sure. Now look me in the eyes and say that.”

Again, Wonwoo swallowed, but he managed nonetheless.

“Nothing’s wrong. I get headaches sometimes. That’s all.”

“… Oh. Well, I’m basically done here. I was gonna ask if you wanted to walk a lap around the track with me, but maybe we should just go home. I mean, how bad is it? Your headache?”

Yes, yes. Home. Wonwoo wanted to go home. He had only been away from his apartment for a solid two hours, and yet all his mind and body’s energy had completely drained. He felt dried out, withered, fragile as tempered glass. Going home sounded cosmic.

“It’s getting better. I wouldn’t mind walking with you.”

“Oh! Cool. If it gets really bad, just tell me.” You then spent a minute collecting your belongings back into the cream purse.

Wonwoo immediately looked the other way, dragging a frustrated hand through his hair, mouthing a string of guttural curse words directed at his discombobulated head. Because what the hell was he doing? All his relief and peace had just suckled itself down an invisible drain. Why on earth did he agree? Why?

“I think this will help me, too," you said, having left the shiny bleachers behind, instead kicking the pebbles at your feet, “if we walk the entire track, then it’s like we did the four-hundred meter.”

“You’re supposed to run the four-hundred meter.”

“Well, I know that.”

“I’m surprised you hate running. I mean, you walk so fucking quickly sometimes.”

He heard you snort, clearly amused by his observation.

“It’s because I’ve mastered the art of sashaying. To have a perfect sashay, you can’t walk too slow, but you also can’t walk too fast. It’s like a strut. You need to have confidence while you do it. It lets people know that you’re serious and professional. I’m not dragging my feet, but I’m also not in a rush. It’s the perfect pace.”

Wonwoo sniffled and scrunched the glasses up his nose, continuing alongside you at a pace that was rather aimless.

“I didn’t realize there was a science behind sashaying.”

“Now you know,” you declared.

Wonwoo’s upper lip quirked slightly, and a small grin appeared on his face, which was starting to dapple with colour.

“I don’t sashay, do I?”

At that, you laughed, “no, you amble.”

“Yeah, I’m an ambler… which basically means I’m an unmotivated, pointless person who will probably go nowhere in life.”

For a moment, you stopped walking, and you merely furrowed your brow at him while your forehead creased with thought. Wonwoo stopped as well. He raked back his fluttering, windswept hair and smirked, flashing his teeth. The behaviour was uncharacteristically snide and a bit of a dig at your bluntness, but he couldn’t help it.

“Don’t remember, huh?”

“No… but it sounds familiar.”

“You told me that, the day I met you—that people who walk slowly are unmotivated and pointless. Their life is a waste, basically.”

He noticed your eyes shift up toward the right, as though you were pulling the memory forward from the intricate files of your brain. And then you started to smile, and it made Wonwoo smile, too.

“Oh, I do believe I said that.” You started walking again, and he followed. “Ha! Wow, you’re right. I said that. I’m so funny. I mean, I was right. You only walk slow when you have nowhere to be.”

“I did have somewhere to be. I was going to meet you.”

“Well, then you just didn’t care.” He felt your elbow press shallowly into his rib. “See what I mean? Unmotivated and pointless. And, honestly, I would have taken your apathy as more of an insult if it wasn’t for the fact that you seem to treat most things like that.”

“So, I’m just supposed to accept that you’re calling me a loser? How do people normally react when you say things like that?”

“Things like what? They’re just my observations about the world. You are a person in this world. I was making an observation about you. Albeit, it came across strongly. But I don’t know. No one ever cared about being gentle or sugar-coating with me. Gives you tough skin, y’know? Metaphorically, of course! I always moisturize.”

Wonwoo scoffed, smiling at your nonchalance. “The way you word things is honestly fascinating.”

“Psh. How do you even remember that?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t seem that hard to remember. It was a pretty memorable, somewhat awful experience, to be fair.”

“Awful?” You retaliated in unprecedented disbelief, pushing into his arm until he allowed his tall frame to stumble. “Try again.”

“Interesting?” Wonwoo substituted, his heart thumping.

Your eyes were narrowed at him, glimmering with a sharpness that made his fingers clench into anxious fists.

“… That’s a little better.”

He exhaled a soft breath of relief.

As you began nearing the full circle, Wonwoo realized his head had eased from its horrible aching and the chills dampening down his neck were gone. Everything didn’t feel as awful compared to before. He was still tired, and his energy was sputtering in tiny, dying sparks, but at least his desire to crawl under the earth and degrade to his bare bones had subsided into something less morose.

“I heard you were having a get together next week,” Wonwoo decided to ask, rounding the last bend in the track.

“Oh, the dinner party?”

“Yeah. Seokmin’s helping you plan it, right?”

“He is. Which I appreciate. My mom is usually the one in charge of everything, and she loathes it. But, I mean, when we try to help her, she just ends up fretting even more—says we’re basically getting in the way and ruining it. I don’t know. She’s such a snappy perfectionist. Seokmin can have fun dealing with that.”

Wonwoo almost made a thoughtless comment in response to your story—he’s probably had eons of practice with you—though the pieces connected just in time and his mouth sealed shut.

“Your dad can’t help either?” He questioned instead.

“Ha! No way. My dad helping is a recipe for fucking disaster if I’ve ever seen it. He’s painfully bad at decorating, can hardly be trusted to cook or invite anyone from the guest list. The most my mom allows him to do is set the table.” You then scoffed, shooting a pebble forward with the tip of your shoe. “I swear, he knows exactly how to push my mom’s buttons. The faster he does it, the quicker she kicks him out and he’s absolved of all chores. What a cheat, huh?”

“Hm, yeah… is Mingyu going?”

“Of course.” You smiled. “He always goes.”

At that point, you had circled back to the bleachers. Adjusting the bag strewn over your shoulder, you heaved out a longing sigh.

“Well, that’s four-hundred meters in the books.”

“Is it everything you hoped and dreamed it would be?”

You cackled, “not even close. I think I was right to avoid it.”

—MAY 3RD.

Wonwoo slid his pharmacy badge through the time-machine until he heard the beep. After an eight-hour shift, he was hungry and tired, but Wonwoo also knew the second that he got home, his urge to eat and desire to sleep would be gone. Instead, he would spend his midnight staring up at the ceiling, thinking. About anything and everything, and nothing at all. When the first cracks of dawn light would spill in from under his curtain, then he would close his eyes.

It was all very typical.

He stood outside the store, phone in hand, waiting for Vernon to pick him up because Wonwoo hadn’t felt like walking home despite the softness of the nighttime wind and the alabaster moon’s shining ambiance. The mirage was pretty and he enjoyed it, but his feet were too sore to inch him another step. Luckily, Vernon didn’t take long.

Luckily, he was the only one of Wonwoo’s few friends with a sleep schedule just as horridly fucked up as his. It was eleven at night, but on a weekday? The dead, empty street testified for him.

“Heyy, Glasses,” Vernon sang in his throaty voice as Wonwoo climbed into the passenger seat, “you look like a prostitute standin’ there, waitin’ for me to come get your ass. But a sophisticated one.”

The interior didn’t smell heavily of weed, he noted. Thank fucking god, Vernon had finally paid someone to dry clean it. Either that, or he took the initiative into his own hands.

“I highly doubt you have ever seen a prostitute in your entire life. And the fact you think they’d be standing outside a pharmacy at one of the quietest parts on this block attests to that.”

“God, I hate when you get all technical n’ shit. Such a stiff.”

“I’m tired.”

“Yeah, well. You’re always tired. N’ for the record, I have seen a prostitute, outside Room 319. It was a week before Christmas; she had this huge coat on, walkin’ up to people in her pink heels and this crazy eyeshadow that made her eyes pop. I bet she’s a nice girl.”

“Mhm. I bet she was.”

“Oh, you’re a cunt, yeah? You don’t believe me.”

“Does it matter?”

“I’ll take you one day. Room 319’s got a table with your name on it. They’ve got this one shot, the Stabilizer— it’ll put you down like a fuckin’ sick dog but it gets you the best drunk of your life. Maybe we’ll even run into Pink Heels lady. She’s our Halley’s Comet.”

“Halley’s Comet only comes once every seventy-five years. “

“You know what the fuck I meant.”

“Not interested.”

Vernon blinked at him for a moment in the dull light, and then he sighed, forfeiting. He placed the tip of the key in the ignition, but he quickly removed it as though he remembered something.

“Wait, I’ve gotta ask—how’s it going with Her?”

Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Wonwoo reached for the seatbelt and pulled it slowly across his chest, debating how intelligent of an idea it would be to entertain Vernon’s curiosity. But he could also understand the allure. You were like this enigmatic myth that people craved to know about, even if it frightened them.

Wonwoo’s head collapsed back against the seat.

“It’s going well.”

Vernon spat out a boisterous laugh, a hand slapping down on his knee. “Jesus Christ. You’re so dry, man. That’s it?”

“I mean, it’s true. We’ve started the book. Or, she has.”

“Okay, and?” Vernon attempted to engage him further.

“And, what?”

“What’s she like, obviously? Is she actually a fuckin’ psychopath? Is she normal? Can she walk on her hands? I dunno!”

Wonwoo rubbed underneath his glasses. He didn’t really want to talk about you when you weren’t there. It felt like a Bloody Mary situation, where you’d magically conjure in the backseat to sinch your cold hands around his neck and wrangle him limp and lifeless. But then there were Vernon’s shimmeringly prying eyes that just wouldn’t stop burning Wonwoo no matter how hard he bit his tongue.

“I have nothing to say. She’s cool.”

“Oh my fuckin’ God.” Vernon slacked back into his seat, clutching at his steering wheel. “You just don’t wanna talk about it… oh! Shit. I just remembered. She’s having a dinner party tonight, isn’t she? In Hill Crest. Or as I like to call it, Rich People Neighbourhood.”

“Yeah, that’s where her parents live… how do you know that?”

“Shit!” Vernon immediately shuffled up in his seat and delivered a hard smack into Wonwoo’s shoulder. “We should drive down and check it out! Right fuckin’ now!” He was lit up with excitement, even though Wonwoo considered it a terrible idea.

“No. Absolutely not. And answer my question.”

“Was sittin’ behind Seokmin at Solar Pop, he talks really loud, happened to overhear some things—doesn’t matter. I think we should go! C’mon, allow some spontaneity into your life! Why not?”

“What the fuck do you mean, why? It’s a family party. With some close friends, which—in case you haven’t noticed—neither of us are. You can’t fucking crash a family dinner party. Who does that? Not to mention the fact that it's eleven at night. They're probably washing up. Sending people home. By the time we get there, it's lights out."

“Aren’t you her friend?”

“No. I’m just someone who’s doing her a favour.”

“Favours are from friends.”

“We’re. Not. Friends.”

“Okay—fuck, Glasses. Fine. We won’t crash the stupid dinner party. But don’t you wanna go for a drive or something? I’m tellin’ you, the houses are insane. Last time I went down there, it was for a big fuckin’ party some dude at your university threw. I think I ran this by you already, when I talked about tryin’ to chat up Her. I stopped by with my old friend—y’know, Dots, the guy that died from the overdose and everything. That party was crazy. It was in a mansion.”

“Vernon,” Wonwoo had just finished massaging the throbs at his warm temples, “we are not going to Hill Crest.”

His friend swung his head in disapproval, making a tsking sound with his teeth. “Such a fuckin’ stiff.” He started the car. “It’s the fact I know you have jack shit to do tonight, or tomorrow.”

“I’m not gonna do some stalker drive-by on her house.”

“You don’t wanna do Room 319. You don’t wanna judge a bunch of richies sittin’ up in their ivory towers. I mean, it’s not like we’re eggin’ them or spray painting fuckin’ curse words on their eight-door garages. What do you wanna do?”

Wonwoo rolled down the window and leaned his face toward the moonlight, to which he could feel the wind brush up against his skin in feathery strokes, as though it were caressing him. He knew that Vernon meant in a general sense rather than in the heat of the moment. But in a general sense, Wonwoo would rather not be anywhere at all. He would rather do nothing, or even exist.

“Can you just take me home? Please?”

Vernon exhaled a defeated gust of breath and began to angle his tires away from the curb, the pharmacy lights pulled behind them.

“Yeah, ‘course. Mr. Boring.”

—01:49

Wonwoo hadn’t been able to fall asleep since Vernon dropped him off a couple hours ago. He’d anticipated that. Usually, Wonwoo wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t toss or turn, or pace circles around his bedroom, or count down from one-hundred, because even if he did, none of it would work. His mind would still be wide awake.

Hence Wonwoo’s decision to grab his phone. Staring at a lurid screen definitely wasn’t going to help, though he wasn’t trying to sleep, anyway. That conversation with Vernon was repeating in his head like a chattering bird, pushing him, pushing him, pushing him to find your Instagram and dig into your pictures because now Wonwoo was thinking of your dinner party and how vehemently you seemed to hate it. He saw that you had posted something quite recently, around the same time Wonwoo had left the pharmacy.

For a moment, his thumb hovered over the post.

He didn’t want to press it because he didn’t care.

Or, maybe he did.

There were multiple pictures in the set, and Wonwoo flicked through all of them. Some were of food, close-ups of your jewelry—you even included a picture with Seokmin. But then Wonwoo had settled on the last photo and something in his stomach convulsed.

He recognized the dress like a flash of light—the sapphire one with the glimmering detail that you had modelled for him at the expensive boutique in the mall. Of course, that arm hanging cheekily low around your hip belonged to your boyfriend, Mingyu. He had a champagne glass pressed to his lips, fitted in his black suit with his hair neatly combed and styled into place. The smugness in his face was stifling. Wonwoo rolled onto his stomach, his eyes refusing to drift from the picture for even an instant. He just kept staring.

Staring and thinking. Staring and thinking.

One minute spent staring at your smile.

The next minute at the low placement of Mingyu’s hand.

Another minute staring at your sparkling dress.

The next minute at Mingyu’s brutally cocky expression.

He would switch back and forth.

But Wonwoo didn’t really care. He was just bored.

And alone with his thoughts.

—END OF PART PART ONE.

NOTE! while i truly cherish & adore all comments, pls refrain from remarks such as "pls post part x" "i need part x" "when are you posting part x" while i do understand the sentiment, i find these comments very dismissive & kinda disrespectful! i don't prefer to post series fics and so i don't receive these often, but pls note that if you comment this i will delete the comment!

the fic itself is completely done, so all i have to do is get the parts ready for posting. however, bc this is the first part, i don't have a set posting schedule just yet. i think it will depend on roughly how long those who read the fic take to finish it! but i will be sure to make a post about it or include the schedule in part two once i figure it out!

again, thank u so much your ur patience :3

much luv!! 💕

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