#i'm fr going to put him through the wash and tumble dry him

[yangjeongin]

20 minutes on delicate cycle. that’s the amount of time it takes to dry hyunjin in the washer and dryer

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Hey there, I'm not sure if you're taking requesting ATM. But if you are, I would love to see something with Ahk x reader. I was thinking, with remnants how you mentioned them just showing up one day at Larry's with Ahk mortal. But instead Ahk shows up at YOUR place in the middle of the day, having kept his becoming moral a secret?! Like the reader opens the door thinking it's girl scouts selling cookies, but there on her door step is Ahky! Hi, Yes I am soft for this man...

This ended up being SO SOFT that it needs a warning—WILL induce sighs and evoke feelings of disgustingly, achingly, so soft, so sweet love. Hope you like it!

A thousand times.

A thousand different ways.

Every day, I imagine what it would be like to walk through these city streets with the man I love by my side, the sunlight warm but the air cold as fall creeps up on us. A particularly chilly gust of wind would blow into our faces, tossing my hair wildly and ruffling his mop of brown curls, so I would press into him and he would wrap his arm around my waist, leaning over to press his cold nose onto my cheek, emphasizing that this weather was not his weather.

I would giggle and nudge him with my shoulder before wrapping my arm around his waist to hold on to him even tighter, like he’d slip through my grasp if I dared to let him go, and he would suddenly stop walking, not caring if the people behind us nearly collided into our backs. He would stop just to turn me to face him, and the sunlight would caress his brown skin as if in remembrance that he was an actual child of Ra, a god-king who once ruled the most powerful nation on earth and who once worshipped the sun properly with a reverence only possessed by the pharaohs of old. The sunlight could not forget his face, would not forget his face.

And how could I blame the sun?

As he would look into my eyes, I would smile because I couldn’t help it either, my eyes caressing his face with a tenderness to rival the sun’s, and his eyes would fill with a joy that flushed over his skin, cementing his face into my mind as the most beautiful thing I would ever behold.

“Heathcliff is an embodiment of the Moor, just like Cathy is. When she wishes to be “a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free,” she’s really only wishing for the release that only Heathcliff can give her.”

I sighed, pulled away from my daydream by classmates’ voices.

It was funny to sit in this class, listening to the conversations going on around me about one of the greatest fictional love stories of all time. If only they knew just how many more layers there were to what we perceived as our reality. If only they knew what it was like to truly love someone who could never be completely yours.

A quick glance at my phone told me my corpse of a boyfriend would be fully reanimated in about eight more hours.

The love story of Heathcliff and Cathy had nothing on us.

“Hey, Y/N. Wanna grab an early lunch?”

I smiled at my friend and shook my head. I was feeling too melancholy for company.

“Sorry—my afternoon class was cancelled, so I’m just going to head home. I need to catch up on my reading for Gamal’s class.”

“Like that’s even possible,” my friend said with an eyeroll and a smile.

I packed my books away and shouldered my backpack, savoring the crisp air of fall as I crunched through the leaves on the sidewalk outside of my university. I soon found myself lost in another hazy fantasy about Ahkmenrah as I navigated the familiar path between my school and my apartment.

I pulled open the door to the tiny lobby of my building, my eyes adjusting to the dim, indoor lights. I pressed for the elevator, glancing again at my phone to countdown the hours left until I could see Ahk again. I was missing him today, my mind seeing him in every brown-haired stranger, hearing him in every chitter of masculine laughter, and feeling him in every graze of sunlight.  

I stepped off the elevator, my head down, my eyes focused on my fingers as they found the key that unlocked my apartment door, and my body came to a halt as a pair of shoes popped into my line of vision.

“Oh, excuse—”

My mouth fell open and my fingers lost all control as my keys tumbled loose and clanged obscenely on the wood of the hallway floor.  

“Hello, Y/N,” Ahk said slowly as if he were trying not to startle a newly captured wild horse.

My eyes grew wide as my lips opened and closed, my mind unable to calm the rapid disconnect between itself and my senses.  

“Ahk—Ahkmenrah?” I said, my voice riddled with uncertainty, rising to an awkward pitch with the inflection of my question.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Ahk began, his hands shoved awkwardly in pockets he wasn’t used to having. “But perhaps this was not the best idea.”

I finally blinked, Ahkmenrah sharpening even further into focus, his stark beauty such a contrast to the faded paint that covered the walls of the hallway. I looked him over, clad in the clothes he wore when we ventured from the museum and into the city.

“How?” I breathed, unable to move.

“Perhaps we should go inside?” Ahkmenrah said, his eyes glancing at the elevator doors before they shifted back to me.

He bent to pick up my dropped keys, and I stepped back from him, shaking my head, blinking again to see if the image before me would dissipate like the figure in my daydreams.

Ahk straightened and hesitated, his face filled with hurt at the distance I put between us.  

For so long, I had warred with myself over the practicality of having a half-dead, 4,000-year-old boyfriend that my sanity was precariously based on routine—I lived my normal life during the day, and at night, always at night, I stepped into his world.

And now, in the middle of the day when he was supposed to be dead, he was here, very much alive. Or at least alive enough to put my keys in the lock and open my apartment door.

Ahkmenrah pushed the door open from the hallway, waiting for me to go inside.

I willed my body to move, to at least get the hell out of the hallway, and I brushed by him in a rush. He stood in the hall, clearly giving me the option to slam the door in his face and pretend this wasn’t happening, but when I made no such movement, he entered, quietly latching the door behind him.

I shrugged off my backpack, letting it fall to the floor with a thud, an echo of the obscene noise my keys had made in the nearly empty hallway moments ago.

“How?” I repeated as I sank onto my couch and tried to still my trembling hands by shoving them between my knees.

Ahkmenrah moved to sit next to me and his scent washed over me—that same smell of papyrus and the sand at the ocean, warm and comforting. I closed my eyes and my mind shot to the museum.

I fell asleep. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m at the museum.

But when I opened my eyes, I was still in my apartment, sitting on my sofa, Ahkmenrah’s eyes bright and filled with such concern as he watched me; I could see the sunlight of the day still sliding in between the shades in my kitchen, and I watched the dust motes float in the air around Ahk’s head.

I blinked slowly, waiting.

“The tablet, my tablet,” Ahk began, clearing his throat, “is gone.”

“Gone?”

“In exchange for my heart once my mortal life has passed, Khonsu restored me. ‘The heart of a great king,’ he said, ‘is worth such a wait.’”

“Ahk—you can’t do this. You can’t—”

“It is done, Y/N. Please,” Ahkmenrah’s eyes filled with tears as he searched my face. “Please tell me this is what you want. Please tell me you meant all the things you said. Tell me you love me.”

“Please,” Ahk choked out before tears began to fall from his eyes.

I felt my own eyes fill with tears under the assault of his loving gaze, at the desperation in his voice as it broke caused my stupid inability to believe he was really here.

“Yes, I love you,” I breathed, my own tears spilling onto my cheeks.

“I love you,” I repeated as I finally, finally reached out to touch Ahkmenrah, my breath escaping my mouth when I connected with his warm skin, my thumb tracing over the wet marks on his cheeks.

I started to smile, a quick upturn of my lips as a laugh of disbelief escaped.

“You’re really here.”

Ahkmenrah returned my smile and reached up to grasp my hand that was still resting on his cheek. His large hand covered mine and he pulled it away, pressing a kiss to my palm.

“I’m here.”

My smile finally broke free, and I knew by the expression on Ahk’s face that my eyes were lit with happiness.

I wiggled my hand from his grasp and swiped at my cheeks, drying my tears, and he followed my lead, smiling softly at me. I leaned toward him and pressed my forehead to his, my hands resting on his shoulders. He placed his hands on my waist and I could feel a slight tremble as he grasped at me, almost as if it were his turn to make sure I was real.

Ahkmenrah moved first, angling his face so he could capture my lips in a soft kiss that quickly deepened, neither one of us able to keep our feelings at bay.

His lips moved against mine with intensity and I opened for him in a gesture that was beyond an invitation to only deepen a kiss. When I parted my lips for Ahkmenrah, it was to bare my soul, to give myself to him in a way I had never been able to when I knew he would return to dust with the first dawn of morning light.

Ahkmenrah’s body pressed into mine, his mouth dominating mine and it was clear he knew that despite all the times we had kissed before, this was truly our first kiss.

Our lips closed together again, reluctantly sliding apart as we breathed, neither of us daring to let the other get too far from our grasp.

“What do we do now?” Ahkmenrah asked, pulling back just far enough to watch my eyes slide open and refocus on his.

My mind swirled with possibilities, anything, everything, running through in a blurry mess of images.

I smiled and bit my lip as I ran a shaky hand through his soft hair.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

Ahkmenrah smiled so dazzlingly that I knew, even though his fate was now tied to Khonsu, he would always be favored by Ra, his smile a remnant from the sun-god himself.

“That sounds perfect,” he said, standing and proffering his hand.

I took Ahk’s hand and let him pull me to my feet, then I let him continue to pull me into a tight hug, his nose pressed into my hair, his chest expanding as he breathed me in.

* * * * *

The leaves crunched under our feet as the wind continuously swirled them onto our path, our bodies nestled tightly against one another as we walked, the sunlight wrapping its loving arms around us, blessing us with a gift I could scarcely believe was real.