#junhui imagines

[hannyoontify]

seventeen '96 line as things that have made my heart flutter

warnings | smidge of jealousy during hoshi's

notes | source? erm possibly my own... experiences from the past..... ;;; not proofread

p.s. i recommend reading these as situationships/pre-relationships

95 line | 96 line | 97 line | maknae line

jun - a kiss on the cheek while taking pictures in a photo booth

“ooh this frame looks cute! do you wanna do this one?”

jun smiled at your energy. “whatever you want, bubs. i’m following your lead.”

he stood back as he watched you take the lead, clicking through the different settings of the photobooth. when you finished, you rushed over to his side with an excited smile. “okay, quick! there’s a timer and we have to finish within that time!”

the big, red number began to count down and the two of you stood against the wall. outstretching two fingers, you made posed for the camera and jun followed your example. the machine made a loud click sound as it took the first photo.

“again! okay, what pose should we do next? ooo! jun, grab the kitty hairbands!”

the next few snapshots were taken of you and jun posing with the kitty hairbands provided by the store. jun made a loud meow for one, making you burst into laughter, which the camera caught perfectly in time. jun, with his handsome face scrunched up mid-meow and you, your mouth wide open and your eyes closed as you laughed.

“eww! i hate that photo, we’re not choosing that one.” you said mid-giggle. 

“why? it’s cute. i think it explains our dynamic perfectly,” jun grabbed you by the shoulder and tugged you closer to him. “okay, last one. cheese!”

the screen began counting down again and you leaned closer into jun’s shoulder, getting ready to pose for the camera again. as the number got closer to zero, jun glanced down at you, frozen still, waiting for the camera to take the last photo.

“4… 3… 2…. ” the robotic voice from the machine counted down.

taking a deep breath, jun closed his eyes shut and dipped his head. it was a quick kiss, so soft and gentle, like cloud resting on the peak of a mountain. brief moment of contact before drifting away. 

jun’s lips felt soft against yours and you let a soft gasp. your jaw dropped in surprise as the camera flashed with another loud click. 

your knees wobbled, as if gravity had suddenly shifted around you. there was tightening feeling in your chest as you looked over at jun. he looked at you with a gentle, apologetic smile.

“sorry, i should’ve asked.”

the world seemed to still, each beat of your heart pounding loudly against your chest. the way jun was looking at you sent a cascade of warmth spiraling through your entire body and you smiled.

“it’s okay… i liked it.”

hoshi - grabbing you by the belt loops of your jeans

you could feel someone’s heavy gaze set on you and you already knew whose set of eyes the stare belonged to. listening to your other friend talk about his chemistry lab with a really hot dude, you glanced over your shoulder and made instantly eye contact with soonyoung.

he was on the other side of the gym, his elbows resting on his legs as he watched you with an unreadable look in his eyes. deciding to be obnoxious, you stuck your tongue out at him and his lips tugged up into a tight grin, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes like they usually did.

“sorry, but i think one of the teachers are looking for me.” you dismissed yourself from the small circle of friends. your friends waved you good bye and turned back to resume their gossiping session where they were trying to decide whether the hot guy from one of their chemistry labs swung both ways.

you jogged across the gym, dodging equipment and other students and staff who were getting ready for the annual homecoming rally. you and soonyoung both applied to asb your sophomore year of high school, desperate for some kind of extracurricular to pad your college application with. although being in your school’s asb came with a lot of responsibilities, it was fun when you did it with your friend(? situationship?).

soonyoung was sitting at the bottom bench of the bleachers, his face resting on his palm and his eyes watching you intently as you approached him. 

“what’s got you pouting? did seungcheol yell at you again?” you stood in front of him with your hands resting on your hips and a small smile. “come on, cheer up soonie. i promised to buy you frozen yogurt after this.”

he pushed himself up to his feet, now towering over you with his height. “you promised to do the banners with me.”

soonyoung’s bottom lip jutted out in an almost adorable way and you physically stopped yourself from cooing at him. 

“is that why you’re upset? because i ditched you and the banners?” you smiled and soonyoung nodded.

“you left me to hang out with those…” his words faltered and you glanced back to see the group of friends still gossiping. the discussion seemed to be getting pretty heated with the way you could hear seungkwan’s voice steadily growing in volume.

“them? we were just–“ you turned back to face soonyoung when you felt a gentle tug on your waist. stumbling forward, you now stood barely inches away from him. “soonyoung, what-”

he tried his best to avoid eye contact, his eyes darting around the gym as he nervously licked his lips.

“wndedootbewsjfhme...” soonyoung mumbled. his grip tightened on your belt loop, pulling you closer to him, your body now grazing his. 

“h-huh? wh… i can’t hear…” it was your turn to avoid eye contact now. your heart hammered against your chest, fast and hot in anticipation.

“i said… i wanted you to be with me…” soonyoung muttered. his ears were flushed, a bright shade of red that brought a small smile to your face.

“w-what, are you jealous or something?” you teased as an attempt to cover up how loud your heart was beating in your ears. 

soonyoung grinned. his shy and timid demeanor from seconds ago was nowhere to be found. in it’s place was the soonyoung you knew, complete with the overly confident and cocky smile accompanied by the mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“what if i am? is that going to change anything?” 

wonwoo - leaving his game to give you attention

“wonwooooooo” you cried out. wonwoo let out a small grunt in response. “i’m boreddddd”

you perched yourself on the edge of his desk, watching his focused eyes stare at the monitor in front of him. his fingers were moving at a lightning fast speed, but his facial expressions demeanor seemed to scream calm and relaxed.

“you’re bored?” wonwoo echoed your last words and you nodded. although his eyes never left his screen, you could tell he was paying you the utmost attention he could currently afford. “hmmm… how can we fix that?”

leaning your head on wonwoo’s shoulder, you pouted. “i want you to play with me, not your games.”

wonwoo laughed. the corners of his eyes had a slight wrinkle and you felt something tugging at your heartstrings. “is that right?”

with a few clicks of his mouse, his monitor turned dark and his pc chirped, alerting him that the system had been shut down.

“wha-? you were in the middle of a game-“

wonwoo took off his headset and ruffled his hair with a hand, trying to fix it after hours of wearing a headset. “doesn’t matter. you’re more important.”

you felt your breath catch in your throat as you felt heat creeping up your skin, reaching your cheeks and the tips of your ears. 

woozi - initiating pda in public first

it was loud. the football stadium was packed with students decked out in school spirit, and you could barely feel your fingertips from the biting cold.

“jihoon…” your fingers tugged on his sleeve and jihoon spared you a glance before leaning closer to you to hear you better in the loud crowd. “i’m cold...”

he looked at you and smiled. “told you to bring a jacket.”

“this is a jacket!” you retorted. 

“this?” jihoon laughed. you could see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he looked over your outfit. “honey, this jacket is basically a cropped top on steroids. you seriously expected this to keep you warm in this weather?”

you felt the tips of your ears burning at the new nickname he called you, but you couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. that wasn’t the response you expected–or wanted.

“you’re being mean!” you whined, but a small laugh escaped your lips at the way jihoon faux-frowned at you. you lightly shoved his shoulder. “i’m being serious, it’s not about the jacket.”

jihoon raised a brow. “what could this possibly be about then?”

“it’s about…” you trailed off and shook your head. “never mind. it’s nothing.” 

you crossed your arms over your chest and turned back to face forward. a wave of embarrassment washed over you, serving as a wake up call. sure, you and jihoon had some thing going on, but you felt silly for expecting him to hold your hand or hug you in front of almost the entire school.

jihoon was a private person. that was a fact that you knew that better than anyone else. he wasn’t one to initiate physical contact when it was just the two of you, let alone in the middle of a busy high school football game.

“[name],” jihoon spoke quietly in your ear, his warm hand grazing against yours. “[name], look at me.”

when you didn’t respond, he let out a small puff, followed by a small laugh. 

“c’mere” jihoon muttered. he wrapped his arm around your waist and tugged you closer to his side. “they say sharing body heat helps.”

 you stared blankly at him. the colony of butterflies in your stomach seemed to migrate to your heart and you swallowed thickly.

“wh- what if someone sees?”

jihoon let out a half snort. “let them see. i don't care”

note: jihoon had extremely red ears during this entire exchange, and no, it wasn’t because of the cold. trust me. 

reblogs and feedback is always appreciated ^-^

[seungcheorry]

"hey, check it out what i got for you", junhui tells you, eyes shining like a little kid.

he gives you a tiny bag with pledis' logo on it. you raise your eyebrow at him, playfully acting as if you're suspicious.

"it better be the new album, carat version."

"oh, you want my face all over the pages?"

"yeah, yours, definitely", you say with a smirk. "not seungkwan's..."

junhui rolls his eyes at you, rushing you to open the bag; and when you do, the smile on your face makes all your teasings worth it.

"no way!", you pull the plushie of jun's animated character, the three cats looking back at you with what you could swear it was junhui's exact eyes. "i thought it was sold out?"

he shrugs. "it was, but i pulled some strings. i know how much you wanted it..."

junhui's words linger in the air as you rip the plastic that evolves your plushie keychan. the fabric is soft on your fingertips, and you just know you're gonna proudly walk with it hanging on your purse now.

"thank you so much, babe", you tell junhui, hugging him tight. "now i have four of you."

"as long as i'm still your favorite", he pokes your side, making you laugh.

[xinganhao]

xinganhao 🌟 shared a moment with you: "junhui x reader"

junhui works on healing a heart he did not break. inspired by jun's 值得 (Worth It) cover.

[fairyhaos]

ও wen junhui as your college boyfriend

gn!reader, wc ~500 tags: requested by anon, college au, fluff, crack, est. rs., this is so cute omg i want a college bf!junhui now

he's honestly so adorable no matter what

so u can bet he's the cutest college bf ever too!!

memorised ur wholeee schedule on day one and sends YOU reminders about ur own classes every day

makes a point to eat lunch with u whenever possible

also whenever Not possible too

like he'll come SPRINTING across campus after his class just to have lunch with u if that's what it takes

sue him, he likes spending time with u :(((

he's also thee best comforter during exam season omg!!!

more than willing to stay up all night studying with you if it makes you feel better

he knows how u spiral into panic if you're left on ur own, so the closer it gets to exams, he starts showering u with even MOREE affection than before

and you know he'll be showering u with kisses once exams r FINALLY out of the way as a congratulations 😙

always leaves snacks in your bag and little post-its with cat faces drawn on them to reminder you to drink water bc he KNOWS that you're so bad at taking care of urself when you're fully locked in

"hey junnie, you know you can just text me, right?" / "are you saying you don't like my cat drawings :((" / "whAT NO I WOULD NEVER—"

also just bc he's a broke college student does nawwt mean you'll ever catch him slacking as ur bf !!

gives you little gifts whenever possible, is always showing up at ur dorm with flowers, buys you books + clothes + stationary + groceries + whatever he can to show he cares

one thing he won't do, though, is catch bugs for you.

nuh uh. that is a no-go.

who cares that he's literally 600000x bigger than the spider? the spider is still WAYY scarier than he'll EVER be so he is NOT touching that no thank you.

the two of you stay glued to one corner of the library till ur friend arrives and scares the spider off

but junhui makes up for his bug-related uselessness by being useful in literally every other area of ur life

hungry? he'll cook for you. sick? he'll take care of you. stuck on an essay? he'll help you, even if he's not studying anything remotely related to ur major

he could be in the throes of finishing his dissertation, bags under his eyes and the world on his shoulders but he'll still drop everything to help you

what can he say? he's in love with u.

and what makes it even better is he knows, he knows that you'd do the exact same thing for him too

you're so full of love, so kind and wonderful that he can't help but do all of this in return, just to try and give an ounce of that same love back

it's the least you deserve, he thinks.

(and don't tell anyone, but right after graduation, he's thinking of getting you a promise ring and taking u to visit china with him b4 u go to ur respective internships.)

(and then, further down the line... he's really hoping to marry you one day. you know. because he really does love you a lot. hopefully you love him just as much too.)

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @kellesvt @eightlightstar @onlyyjeonghan @aaniag @starshuas @raevyng @isabellah29 @hrts4hanniehae @mcu-incorrect @dokyeomkyeom @suraandsugar @tulsa24 @melodicrabbit @dokyeomkyeom @hopeless-foolery @aaa-sia

[hoshifighting]

i love your college fling writings sm aaaa (*≧∀≦*)!! begging on hands and knees for college fling jun 🙏 esp if he’s a bit more on the dom side

college fling!jun

WARNINGS: smut, bio!genius jun, clit stimulation, oral (f. receiving), cock riding, a little dom!jun, non-established relationship.

it’s a thursday afternoon, the sort of day where the mood smells like cheap cafeteria food and half-assed desperation, ‘cause exams are coming and no one knows shit. you’re slouched over your bio notes in the library, chewing the end of your pen like it owes you some kind of lamp genie, and then boom—in struts college fling!jun.

college fling!jun, who hates the college lockers so much he straight-up just carries all his books around like some kind of over-prepared, slightly chaotic mule. deadass, his backpack looks ready to burst, and you’re already side-eyeing it, wondering how many goddamn textbooks one man could possibly need.

“you okay there?” he plops down across from you, hair slightly messy, and there’s this little grin playing at his lips. why’s he gotta look so cute when you’re on the brink of a mental breakdown?

“nah, i’m actually about to file for emotional bankruptcy,” you mutter, flipping through your notes like the answers are gonna manifest themselves through sheer panic. “you done with the bio assignment?”

college fling!jun, shy-but-funny, lowkey-genius college fling!jun, tilts his head and smirks. “you need help?”

you blink. “you know bio?”

“do i know bio?” he scoffs, dragging your notebook closer like you personally insulted him. “sit back, y/n.”

next thing you know, he’s rattling off answers about cell division and DNA replication like he’s reading straight outta the textbook, except better, ‘cause he’s throwing in jokes about mitochondria being the “bad bitch” of the cell world. who even is this man?

college fling!jun, who spent half the semester cracking dumb jokes about your prof’s comb-over, suddenly explaining concepts better than the professor himself? unreal.

“wait, wait,” you interrupt, pointing at a diagram. “so, like, the nucleus is just… chilling in the middle, bossing everyone around?”

he grins, leaning in closer, and damn, his perfume smells too good for a guy who looks like he only owns three hoodies. “exactly. it’s like me at a group project—doesn’t do much, but still gets credit.”

“i hate you,” you snort, but you’re laughing anyway, and somehow your brain is actually clicking with the material.

college fling!jun, who makes studying feel like less of a slow, painful death.

later, as you’re packing up, he scratches the back of his neck, looking all shy again, and it’s such a whiplash from confident bio-genius jun that you almost laugh. “uh, so… you wanna grab coffee or something? you know, as a reward for surviving bio?”

you raise an eyebrow. “this isn’t you trying to weasel into my project group again, is it?”

“what? no,” he says, but he’s grinning, and you already know he’s lying.

college fling!jun, who probably would try to scam his way into your group, but makes it so damn endearing you’d let him anyway.

it’s late—like, stupid late. the kinda late where your brain feels like it’s melting into a puddle of useless mush. you and jun are on the floor of your dorm, the carpet rough under your knees, surrounded by markers, cut-out letters, and one very sad excuse for a poster board. everyone else dipped like two hours ago, muttering something about “early classes” and “not wanting to lose brain cells”—like, rude much? but jun stayed.

college fling!jun, who’s now sitting cross-legged with his sleeves pushed up, forearms all veiny as he’s meticulously lining up the title letters.

“you’re actually kinda good at this,” you say, crawling closer on your knees, one hand pushing your hair back as it flops into your face. you’re half-joking, but also… not? like, his focus is insane.

he glances up, smirking. “you doubted me?”

“uh, yeah?” you deadpan, sitting back on your heels. “you’re the guy who brought a backpack full of biology books to a history lecture. forgive me for not immediately trusting your poster skills.”

he snorts, shaking his head as he smooths down a corner of the title. “at least I came prepared.”

“prepared for what? a different class?”

“y/n,” he says, tone mock-serious as he leans back on his hands, “you’re lucky you’re cute.”

that shuts you up for a second. the compliment—casual, like he didn’t just drop it in the middle of a roast session—has you blinking. you recover quick, though, because if college fling!jun is good at anything, it’s teasing, and you’re not about to let him have the upper hand.

“yeah, yeah,” you say, waving him off as you grab a marker and doodle a little star in the corner of the poster. “you keep saying that, but I haven’t seen you make a move yet. scared?”

his eyes flick to yours, and there’s this little glint in them that makes your stomach flip. “scared? of you?”

“yes, actually.”

he laughs, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at you now—like he’s considering something, weighing it. you’re close—closer than you realized, kneeling in front of him while he’s still sitting, one hand resting casually on his thigh.

“come here,” he says.

you tilt your head. “why?”

he leans forward, just a little, until you’re close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. “because I said so.”

there’s a challenge in his tone, and you’re not one to back down. so, you shuffle closer, knees brushing against his as you sit back on your heels again. “happy now?”

he hums, eyes flicking over your face like he’s trying to memorize every detail. “getting there.”

“jun,” you start joking, half-something-else-entirely, but before you can finish, his hand slides up to cup your jaw, fingers warm against your skin as he leans in and kisses you.

he’s waiting for you to push him away. but you don’t. instead, you kiss him back, your hands finding their way to his shoulders, pulling him closer until there’s no space left between you.

and then… well, the guy’s got skills. his lips move against yours with this easy credit, and when his tongue flicks out to trace the seam of your mouth, you can’t help the little noise that escapes you. he takes that as encouragement, deepening the kiss until you’re dizzy, your fingers digging into his shoulders as you try to keep up.

college fling!jun, who’s apparently really, really good with his mouth.

you pull back just enough to catch your breath, your forehead resting against his as you both try to steady yourselves. “okay,” you say, voice a little breathless, “so you’re not scared.”

he laughs, low and soft, his hand still cradling your jaw. “nope. but you might be.”

before you can ask what he means, he’s kissing you again, harder this time, and then his hands are on your hips, pulling you into his lap like it’s nothing easier than that. you go willingly, settling against him as your hands find their way into his hair, tugging just enough to make him groan against your mouth.

you’re both a little frantic now, hands wandering as the kiss turns messy, desperate. his fingers slide under the hem of your shirt, skimming over your skin and leaving a trail of heat in their wake. you shiver, pressing closer, and he takes the opportunity to mouth at your neck, his teeth grazing just enough to make you gasp.

“jun,” you moan, and it’s enough to make him pause, pulling back just enough to look at you.

“umm... so do you…”

you nod before he can even finish the question, your hands tugging at his shirt in answer. he grins, and then he’s helping you pull it off, tossing it somewhere behind him without a second thought.

college fling!jun, who’s skinny but stupidly cut, all lean muscle and sharp lines that you can’t help but trace with your fingers as he kisses you again.

“your turn,” he murmurs against your mouth, his hands already tugging at the hem of your shirt. you lift your arms, letting him pull it off.

“you’re so…” he starts, but then he shakes his head, like words aren’t enough. instead, he leans in, kissing you again as his hands explore, mapping out your chest, by pinching your nipples

things blur after that—when he finally settles between your thighs, his lips trailing kisses down your stomach, you think you might actually lose your marbles.

college fling!jun, who’s apparently a goddamn expert when it comes to going down on you. his tongue swinging your clit to the sides just to suck it all right after. your fingers are tangled in his hair, and you even feel pity about his scalp. he doesn’t stop until you’re cumming inside his mouth—you last minutes by the way—, your back arching off the floor as you cry out, your other hand holding a highlighter that you've found on the floor and decided that would be your stress ball.

and then he’s kissing his way back up your body, touching your hand to release the poor highlighter before it explodes in your hand. as he presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “still think I’m scared?” he teases and you don’t even have the energy to come up with a clever reply.

college fling!jun, who’s cocky as hell but more than backs it up.

you pull him down for another kiss, your hands fumbling with the waistband of his sweatpants as you shift your hips, sinking down onto his lap. the stretch is dizzying. u hear your blood flow through your ears with the immediate sink, making your head spin as he grips your hips,.

college fling!jun who twitches every time you circle your clit as you ride him. the little gasps he lets out are addictive, this stuttered rhythm of groans and whines that have you clenching around him just to see how he’ll react.

“uhm—hands to yourself.” he chokes out, his head tilting back, exposing the long line of his neck, his adam apple bobbing up and down. you take advantage, leaning forward to press kisses there, feeling the pulse of his heartbeat against your lips. his hands tighten on your waist, his thighs flexing under you as he buck his hips up into you as a warning.

“j-jun,” you stammer, breath hitching as you shift, grinding down, making wet shots reach his ears, his head snaps up, eyes dark and glassy as they lock onto yours.

“you like that?” he rasps, his chest heaving as he fights to keep himself together. “‘cause i… i love watching you like this, pretty.”

college fling!jun, who moans loud enough to embarrass himself but is too lost in the feeling of you to care. his grip on you tightens as you find a rhythm. his noises grow louder, needier, every time you roll your hips, and you can feel the tension in his body, the way his muscles tighten as he gets closer, he always punishing you a little for teasing him, a pinch on your clit, a bite on your neck, a slap on your ass.

“y/n,” he groans, his voice shaking, and you’re right there with him, your own climax building as you reach down between your bodies, your fingers brushing against your clit again. the added sensation has you gasping, and he twitches inside you, his hands pulling you down hard against him as he lets out a broken moan.

“you’re so… gorgeous, fuck!” he mutters, his words slurred, and that’s all it takes for you to cum, your body fluttering as you cry out his name. the sound of it seems to tip him over the edge, his grip on you tightening as he follows, his body shaking beneath you as he spills inside you.

college fling!jun who collapses back onto the carpet, dragging you down with him, his arms wrapping around your ass, letting his hands lazily squeeze the meat there.

it’s like nothing happened when you two go to the college hallways to finish the project. when actually, everything happened all at once. jun’s sitting at the edge of your desk, eating one of your granola bars like he didn’t have you trembling in his lap just hours ago. you’re pretending to focus on your laptop, but your mind’s stuck on how his hair’s still a little messy and his shirt’s on inside out—your fault, obviously.

“what’s with the face?” he asks, mouth half-full, grinning like he knows exactly what’s with the face.

“you didn’t even ask before raiding my snacks,” you say, aiming for annoyed but landing somewhere near flustered.

“c’mon, you owe me,” he teases, leaning closer. “all that… effort? you’re lucky i’m still standing.”

you glare at him, but your face burns. “junhui, shut up.”

college fling!jun, who bites his lip to stop himself from laughing but ends up chuckling anyway, stupidly cute as he swings his legs. you’re about to throw a pen at him when he leans over and kisses your temple.

and that’s how it is now. he’s still jun—still the guy who hoards biology notes and carries all his books like the lockers are his mortal enemy—but there’s this… nerves now, this implicit thing hanging between you. like, when he’s explaining something in class, leaning over your desk, his voice low in your ear, and you’re trying not to think about how those same lips were on your pussy just a few nights ago. or when he slides into the seat next to you during study group, his knee brushing yours, and you glance at him, only to catch him already looking at you with that knowing smirk.

college fling!jun, who’s casual as hell in public but pulls you into empty classrooms when no one’s around, his hands already under your shirt as he kisses you like he’s been dying to all day.

it’s worse at night, though. he texts you at random hours, shit like, “you awake?” and “missed you today” with a dick pic coming right after, hard and dripping for you—like always. like he’s not gonna be in your bed an hour later, his hands sliding over your skin as he whispers your name.

“we’re so bad at this,” you tell him one night, lying tangled in his sheets, his arm thrown over your waist as he presses lazy kisses to your shoulder.

“bad at what?” he murmurs sleepy.

“keeping it casual,” you say, glancing back at him. “you’re always here, jun.”

he shrugs, pulling you closer. “maybe i like being here.”

college fling!jun, who’s starting to feel like more than a fling, but neither of you’s ready to say it out loud just yet. instead, you let it keep happening—the late-night visits, the stolen kisses between classes, the way he looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters.

and maybe you’re not ready to say it, but you’re definitely feeling it. especially when he shows up at your door with takeout and that stupid grin, saying, “figured you’d be hungry,” like he hasn’t already fed you twice today.

college fling!jun, who’s not so casual after all.

[100vern]

how to cancel your faustian bargain | wjh

FAUSTIAN BARGAIN 🔥 a pact whereby a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, such as personal values or the soul, for some worldly or material benefit, such as knowledge, power, or riches. faustian bargains are by their nature tragic or self-defeating for the person who makes them, because what is surrendered is ultimately far more valuable than what is obtained.

pairing: attorney!junhui x devil!reader genre: (very lite) enemies to lovers, lawyer au; crack, fluff, smut summary: as the devil, you’re more than happy to grant favors in exchange for someone’s soul, and you’re known for having the most iron-clad contracts around. which is why wen junhui—the scene’s newest contract attorney hell-bent on returning all those souls you’ve acquired—is really starting to piss you off. rating: explicit. minors do not interact with this or any of my work. warnings: member pov, reader is thee devil so needless to say there is a bunch of religious themes and topics here (as a person whose roman-catholic grandfather temporarily disowned her for stopping ccd classes i am qualified to write this dw), jihan as literal devil's advocates, hoshi as a shit-stirring angel who wears questionable shirts, i am the opposite of jovan and do not know the law (especially hell law), i also blocked out most catholicism so don't take any of this for canon, god is genderless and the devil is a sympathetic character sue me, alcohol use, low self-esteem/self-doubt, open but optimistic ending. smut warnings: kissing, mentions of a handjob (actually a major plot point), an actual handjob, oral sex (both receiving), some scratching/marking and biting, jun kinda likes/yearns for pain but it's not a whole thing, light nipple play, fingering, unprotected penetrative sex, everyone orgasms, jun is down bad. in general it's probably much softer than sex with the devil would usually be? wordcount: 22k credits: jess (@starlightkyeom) and bee (@imnotshua) for reading this along the way, beta'ing, and suggesting stupid hoshi shirts. mj (@kkaetnipjeon) and jade (@eoieopda) for helping me with law stuff. everyone in the c&e server who helped me along the way — i yapped so much about this fic that i cannot remember everyone. i am sorry but i love you. note: this somehow wound up being my longest oneshot to date. i don't know how and i still feel like there are parts not fleshed out enough, but big shoutout to my adderall for getting us here. wen junhui, you are a strange little man; i had a blast writing you. this was written for the don't hate, litigate! collab, hosted by @haologram. thank you so much for letting me participate!

The thing is, Wen Junhui is not really supposed to be here.

Not, like, literally here—sitting across from you, the literal devil, at your desk, ass burning a little because it’s really hot here and he is, admittedly, not used to the heat—but metaphorically. Big picture-ly. This is not how I envisioned my life turning out…ly.

The thing is, Wen Junhui barely made it through law school. Barely passed his licensing exam. Watched his classmates score prestigious internships and receive exclusive offers and network and schmooze and, he thought at the time, all but sell their soul to graduate with jaw-dropping salaries awaiting them and no debt.

And it fucking sucked watching that, because he was about to become a lawyer, sure, but he’d gotten scarlet fever as a kid, swore he was going to die, swore he saw not only the light but Jesus himself (his mother called this a delusion, still insists to this day the prodigal son did not travel all the way to Shenzhen to visit him), and decided if he survived he was going to dedicate his life to the church and become a priest.

(He only decided on law school after he got a little carried away with his high school girlfriend, received an honestly mid handjob that had him crying for three straight days and contemplating confession before he decided to take it to his grave, and he’d announced the next night at dinner, weighed down by an impressive amount of guilt and religious trauma, that he was just going to go to university and major in business or finance instead.)

Anyway. Turns out that whole selling their soul thing wasn’t a joke, and where others would’ve seen a loophole, Wen Junhui had seen an opportunity.

Because he didn’t have the grades. Didn’t have the family name or even the drive, because in another life he’s at least a deacon, so he had to do something. Had to think outside the box, get a little creative, carve out a niche for himself that none of his classmates would also be trying to occupy because he had student loans.

“How did you even get in here?” you ask, doing one of those really cool pen flips Jun has never figured out how to do. “A human hasn’t just strolled into my office in at least a millennia.”

Jun swallows, tries not to let show how nervous he is. “I, uh—I’m not sure? I sort of just… walked in, I guess.”

You blink. Study him for a while, eyes narrowed, before you make a small ah! sound and snap your fingers. What the heck? Jun can’t do that, either. “I know who you are now.”

“You do?”

“Mmhm, sure do. You were pretty famous around here for about thirteen seconds when you got that handjob and changed the trajectory of your own life forever. Some of the lower demons had bet money on you eventually becoming the Pope, so you can imagine their heartbreak… and the amount of coin they lost.” You click your tongue, return your attention to the scroll in front of you. “I kept telling them not to bet on that kind of stuff. Teenagers are wildly unpredictable, especially hormonal teenage boys. One of my finest creations, if I do say so myself.”

Not that he had any expectation of privacy here, but to say he’s mortified would be an understatement.

“Oh. That’s… really embarrassing.”

You nod, distracted as you press a large red button on your desk. “Yeah, I imagine for you it would be.”

Two men immediately materialize on each side of you. One is all cheekbones and sharp, calculating edges. Looks like the personification of mischief or perhaps temptation. After that handjob and the subsequent mourning period, Jun had come to really, really appreciate women, but he’s secure enough in his sexuality to acknowledge that the man in front of him—with his long, dark hair and lithe figure; his nonchalant, blasé attitude—is very attractive.

And the other one is no slouch, either. Has what Jun presumes is meant to be a friendlier disposition, a foil of the other man, good-cop-bad-cop, and they must be quite successful, he figures. Can’t imagine a world in which there’s anything that’d be denied to either of them.

Still, they’re well-acquainted with you, because they barely blink as you say, “Please say hello to our intruder,” with a frightening amount of bite.

The dark-haired one offers up a sleazy grin as he leans back against the wall. “Hello, intruder. Do you have a name?”

It’s a predictable question, and yet Jun still startles. Goes slack-jawed as he fixes his posture, sits straighter in his seat. Has the first syllable of his name sitting on the tip of his tongue when the other man sighs and gestures for Jun to stay quiet. “Don’t tell him your name. Better yet, don’t tell him anything, just pretend he doesn’t exist.”

“That’s rich coming from a person who chose to call themselves Joshua.”

Joshua pouts. “I thought there was something to be said for the irony.” A snort tumbles out of him, and Jun realizes that he is not the foil of the other man: he is, in fact, just as impish and rogue. “God is deliverance.” The dark-haired one does not react. “Aw, c’mon, it’s funny!”

“If you have to convince someone it’s funny, it probably is not so.”

Joshua rolls his eyes. “Alright, Jeonghan. As if you didn’t do the same thing.”

“At least when I strive to be ironic, it actually is humorous—”

With an exasperated sigh, you return your attention to Jun, who has suddenly found a fascinating piece of lint on his trousers. Pointedly does not make eye contact with you, because you had been intimidating and hellacious on your own—and, he’s a little flustered to admit, very attractive—but he’s extremely out of his element sitting across from the literal devil and two demons.

“So, Wen Junhui,” you say, tossing a pair of reading glasses onto your desk, “why are you here?”

(“Wen Junhui?” Joshua whispers to Jeonghan. “As in the Wen Junhui that got the handjob?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Jeonghan whispers back.)

And now it all feels a bit silly, because Jun had walked straight into Hell thinking he’d be able to… what, exactly? Strike up a friendly conversation? Start making demands? Cut a deal that didn’t include handing over his mortal soul?

Maybe the whole becoming a priest thing hadn’t worked out but he’d still learned a thing or two, and he remembers all the words used to describe you, your original purpose. Meant to reflect God’s glory, anointed, given the highest seat at the table. They’d blamed your downfall on pride, on vanity and violence, and Wen Junhui from Shenzhen, China, who once had scarlet fever and got a bad handjob, was a fool to come here and think he could go toe-to-toe with you.

Overcome with nerves, all he can do is laugh as he toys with the hair at the nape of his neck. Considers saying something like you’re gonna think this is so silly before he decides against it. You’ve been accused of having a sense of humor, but Jun can’t imagine this harebrained scheme of his would make the cut.

Still—he wouldn’t be where he is if the bad ideas sitting on his shoulder had kept quiet, and they’re still whispering to him now, reminding him how he wound up here to begin with: less fortunate than his classmates, less connected, looked over for all those internships and opportunities because he wasn’t born with the proper credentials. Those god-forsaken student loans. Desperation forced him to do this, and it’d be a real shame if he got this far only to give up at the last second, wouldn’t it?

So, he does what he did best all those years of law school: he fakes it.

“Let’s say I’m interested in… a partnership, of sorts.”

Jeonghan and Joshua share a look.

“Ah,” you reply, hands folded in front of you. “And what kind of partnership would that be?”

Let no man (or demon) ever accuse Wen Junhui of doing things half-assed, because he’s doing a concerning amount of oversharing and trauma-dumping before he can talk himself out of it. Spills all the highs and lows of his twenty-odd years, including his infamous handjob, much to Joshua and Jeonghan’s delight. They listen with rapt attention, elbowing one another as they gleefully press him for more details, and to their credit they only interrupt him once with lewd gestures before they’re slapping at and falling over one another with laughter.

He gets to his time in law school. Talks about feeling lapped by his classmates and all the advantages they’d been given, the benefits that weren’t on offer for someone like him: the oldest son of a piano teacher and a seamstress. Someone who showed up to class with a worn leather bag (repaired weekly by his mother) and secondhand books yellowing at the edges. Someone who spent his Friday nights and weekends holed up in his dorm room, not invited to parties and mixers.

“I had to do my first internship in personal injury,” he says, arms gesticulating wildly. “No one wanted those internships, and do you know why?” He pauses for dramatic effect. Jeonghan mimics a sound that sounds like game show countdown music. “Those pictures were gross.”

“Tragic,” you deadpan.

“It was,” Jun insists. He’s starting to feel fidgety. Has no idea how his plight is being received. “It wasn’t paid, either, and I had to take out student loans.”

Joshua beams. “Her second best invention.”

“What?” Jeonghan retorts, brows pinching in the middle. “No way, second-best is definitely cocaine—”

From you comes an exaggerated, long-suffering sigh, and Jeonghan and Joshua immediately cease their bickering. You turn your attention to Jun, and if he’d been able to trick himself into thinking a glimmer of patience or good humor or—god forbid—genuine affection had been visible before, no such delusions are available now. Your face is stern, the pupils of your eyes reflecting flames behind him that don’t exist, and the corners of your mouth are tugged severely downward.

He swallows hard.

“Wen Junhui, get to the point. Your human skin is starting to stink up my office.”

Subtly, he tries to sneak a sniff of his armpit. It’s not mountain fresh, but he’s certainly smelled worse, and he thinks he deserves a little leeway as his body acclimates to such extreme temperatures. He then crosses one leg over the other, ankle on thigh, and leans forward on his elbows. Tries to project some—any—amount of authority and confidence as he says, “I need a niche. Something just for me; something none of my classmates are going after.”

“Because you’re unable to compete with them,” you tack on. Unnecessarily and rudely, in Jun’s opinion, but he nods anyway. Behind you, Jeonghan and Joshua are once again elbowing one another, giddy at Jun’s impending failure while desperately trying to keep their expressions neutral. “Let me guess: you want the same deal?” You begin rifling through a drawer in your desk. “I think I still have all those contracts around here somewhere, so I’m sure I can get you something similar, but if we’re being honest you’re worth a good bit more.”

Jun blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“What part are you having trouble with?” you ask, still sorting through files. Only the top of your head is visible over the ledge of your African blackwood desk.

No horns, Jun notes. He was so sure you were going to have horns.

“Er, both, to be honest. What do you mean I’m ‘worth more’?”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes before slamming his palms onto your desk, causing Jun to startle. Just for fun. “Hey, moron, were you not listening when she told you earlier that you were supposed to be the goddamn Pope?”

“You weren’t even here when she said that,” Jun mumbles, every bit the moron Jeonghan accused him of being, because it’s far easier than acknowledging… well, the entirety of that statement.

Does the Pope get a salary? If he does, surely it’s more than Jun’s making now—

“He doesn’t,” Joshua says. Then clarifies, “Get a salary. Just some coins. A woefully underpaid position, if you ask me, considering how many babies he has to kiss.” He shudders. “Disgusting! When you could just eat them instead!”

Aside from the whole eating babies thing, Jun can’t really disagree. Only a handful of coins for being in charge of all of Catholicism and having to know Latin? And having to live in Italy?

“Also,” Joshua continues, “it’s kind of our job to know everything that goes on down here, so we did, in fact, know she told you that you were supposed to be the Pope.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “And yet he became a lawyer. Imagine if Fibonacci had done the same—the eighth circle would be so boring.”

“Boniface,” Jun corrects him, immediately shutting trap at the look the three of you send his way. “He’s really in the eighth circle? I thought Dante just said that because he was upset about the exile.”

Upset is underselling it, Joshua mumbles. Looks like he wants to say more but has enough sense not to. Beside him, Jeonghan is once again rolling his eyes, growing more perturbed and borderline-homicidal in Jun’s proximity by the second.

Does he really smell that bad? Should he wear cologne next time? Is there a particular note those in the Underworld find appealing? Because Jun doesn’t mind tracking it down. He’s here on your turf asking for a favor, after all, so it’d be basic manners to smell nice and not stink up the place.

He’s about to ask when a booming sound of acknowledgement comes from you. A sly grin sits lopsided on your face as you toss a manila folder onto your desk, so thick a yellowing rubber band struggles to fit around it once. “This is you, Wen Junhui,” you say, pushing it closer to Jun.

All he can do is stare. Feels like his heart is going to pound right out of his chest, and he can’t pinpoint why, doesn’t know what’s got him so uneasy. He doesn’t have to look at it to know his entire life is in that file—perhaps even the before and the after. All the possibilities, all the could-have-beens. The consequences of him going right at the fork in the road instead of taking the left. Endless, and he finally realizes the boulder sitting on his chest is dread: existential variety.

“It’s, uh.” He licks at his lips. “It’s really big,” he finally says, feeling stupid and embarrassed at the way his voice trembles.

“Aish, this fucking kid,” Jeonghan grouses at the same time Joshua snickers and wonders aloud, “Do you think that’s what that girl said when he got the handjob?”

You press the red button again and Jeonghan and Joshua disappear without a word.

“Even in the lowest pits of Hell you must still suffer the displeasure of men,” you say, as if you’re imparting ancient wisdom upon Jun. “I must admit I’ve grown quite familiar with your file.”

“Manila,” Jun replies, also as if he’s being extremely wise. “Didn’t expect to see that around here.”

“Yes, well, the cheap ones are great for papercuts.” You pause and your demeanor grows serious, belying the importance of what you’re about to say. “You’re one of a select few, Wen Junhui. Not many files that come across my desk are this size.”

Pride swells in his chest, booting that existential boulder to the curb. “Oh,” he says, trying desperately to tamper down his excitement. “Yay!”

He does a little wiggle. Mortifying.

“Something you said earlier stuck out to me—something about certain things not being on offer for someone like you.” Your eyes meet Jun’s, and it suddenly feels like he’s been catapulted off the edge of the world. “I don’t think you realize just how much is on offer for someone like you.”

Jun swallows hard. Tries to, anyway—finds that his mouth has gone bone dry. His limbs, too, refuse to work, feel both heavy and weightless, and he’s anxious again, hands and feet saturated with sweat, no wonder he smells, and he knows, he knows, he knows who and what you are, knows this is a trick. Knows he’s offered himself up on a silver platter.

Good god, he came here willingly. No wonder Jeonghan kept calling him names.

“So,” you begin, moving your glasses to the top of your head, “what is it you want? You’re in an elite tier; I could give you almost anything you ask for.”

“Um—”

“You mentioned loans; is it money you want? You’re not quite qualified for billionaire level yet, but I think you’d find both the terms and the offered amount to be quite… agreeable.”

Oh, you’re good. Just as he had with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Jun always thought the story of Adam and Eve was simple: don’t do the thing you’re explicitly told not to do. But now, seated across from Temptation itself, he understands it’s not that simple, that those two never stood a chance. Because the longer he’s silent, the more relaxed he starts to feel. That headache he’s been fighting off for three days finally starts to recede. He feels confident and a bit euphoric, but he supposes everyone would feel that way if they were being offered any and everything they could ever want.

“Actually…”

Wen Junhui isn’t very religious anymore, but he used to be. Used to believe in all the teachings; used to sit at the piano in the living room and hum along as his father played processionals; used to beg his mother to read from the Studium Biblicum at bedtime so he could fall asleep and dream of utopia.

Wen Junhui isn’t religious anymore, but he remembers the basics.

Enough to steel his voice and say, “Actually, I didn’t come here to talk about money.”

Jun doesn’t know what time it is.

It’s late enough that the city has gone mostly quiet. The buses have stopped running, the elevator just outside his door hasn’t dinged in a while, and the light that’s refracted onto his bedroom ceiling is a familiar shade of blue-silver. Not long after two a.m. if he had to guess.

He doesn’t know how he got back to his apartment, either, which would’ve been the more pressing issue at any other time.

But he’s had a long day. Took a little trip to Hell, got laughed at, got offered a lot of money, and got laughed at again. Now he’s got the anxiety shakes. Keeps seeing figures in every shadow. Can’t sleep even though every part of his body is bogged down by exhaustion. All he can do is stare at the swirls in the ceiling plaster and be glad he doesn’t have to work for another two days.

At first, he thinks the knocking is on someone else’s door. Then, once it doesn’t cease, he chalks it up to hallucination. It’s only once it goes from hey, I’m here! to OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR RIGHT GODDAMN NOW does he stumble out of bed and through the living room.

Through the peephole, all that stares back at him are the dingy fluorescent lights of the hallway.

“You know, judging by the outside, I thought this place was gonna be a real shithole, but it’s not that bad.” Jun shrieks, collapses to the floor with his hand clawing at his chest. “Oops, sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

There is a man in his apartment.

There is a man in his apartment. At two o’clock in the morning.

“Wh-who are you?” he stammers out, eyes squeezed shut as if it’ll protect him. “I do-don’t have any mo-money.”

The man scoffs. If Jun was looking, he assumes it was accompanied by an eye-roll. “Not to be rude, but I was able to ascertain that, yeah.”

Jun peeks one eye open. Before him stands a man of average height, looks to be early to mid 20s. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a black hoodie that says FEMALE BODY INSPECTOR in large white lettering. His hat, which is so neon pink it seems to glow, simply says SWAG.

He opens his other eye and quirks an eyebrow. “Are you a demon?”

“Ew, no.”

“What are you, then?”

The man pouts. “You can’t tell by my extremely good looks and”—he pauses, clears his throat like he’s trying to remember something—“awesome sauce fashion?”

“I—no, sorry. Also, your what?”

“I’m an angel,” the angel says quickly before he starts digging through his pockets. “Do people not say awesome sauce anymore?” Jun shakes his head. The angel pulls a pen out of nowhere and strikes out something in a notebook. “What year is it?”

“Er, 2024. Almost 2025.”

“What year did people stop saying awesome sauce?”

“I don’t know,” Jun says. “Do you have a name?”

The angel sighs, the pen and notebook both blink out of existence. “Hoshi,” the angel replies. “It means star, which I am. By the way.”

“Okay. May I ask why you’re in my apartment?”

“You ask a lot of questions. You got anything to drink?”

“I don’t remember any angels named Hoshi in the Bible.”

“It’s my Earth name.” Hoshi flutters his eyelashes. “Suits me, right?”

Jun’s eyes narrow. “You also aren’t biblically-accurate.”

Hoshi scoffs, hands immediately finding the waistband of his sweatpants. “I am where it counts.” He starts to pull them down, much to Jun’s horror, and all he can think is, oh my god I’m about to see an angel’s penis, what’s the protocol for this, do I have to look at it, would it be rude not to, this is the weirdest day of my life, I must be in a medically-induced coma—

“I’m getting the impression you don’t really want to see my dick.”

Jun covers his eyes again. “I don’t!”

“Bummer. I’m gonna summon a Baja Blast, do you want one?”

“I—no, no thank you. I think I just—I really need to sleep? But I’m not tired? It’s been a long day and I’m still not one-hundred percent sure I’m not hallucinating all of this.”

Hoshi snaps his fingers and a garishly blue bottle of soda appears in his hand. He beams. “Trade offer: I help you sleep and you take me out for breakfast when you wake up. We have a lot to talk about.”

“You’re just gonna… hang out here? In my apartment?”

“Yes,” Hoshi confirms. “I’m going to look through all your stuff.”

Jun wants to say no. He should say no. Has half a mind to consider Hoshi is lying about being an angel and is instead another demon sent by you from Hell to keep tabs on him, but his aura is different—less… oppressive—so he gives in and nods.

He’s asleep within seconds.

It’s only a few hours later when he stirs awake. Sunlight streams in through the curtains, and the sounds of the city are drowned out by birdsong. Jun feels more rested and weightless than he has in years, and it allows him to wake slowly, recount the events of the past 24 hours and take stock of his body, how he’s feeling. Do some breathing exercises. Briefly contemplate if he has now twice altered the trajectory of his life for the worst.

“Get up!” someone yells from his living room. Right, the angel guy. “I want waffles and the diner stops serving breakfast in thirty minutes!”

Jun stares blankly at the ceiling. There’s no diner anywhere near him that serves American breakfast, but he assumes that isn’t going to stop Hoshi, who has no concept or time or space and no constraints on either.

Thirty minutes later, they’re sitting across from one another in a retro American-style diner.

“Where are we?” Jun asks, peering outside the large window to his right. All the cars are American makes; the walls look like they're made out of silver; all the signs are in English. He doesn’t have to ask why he can understand them. “Besides America. I’m gathering as much.”

Hoshi pours an entire sugar packet in his mouth and grins. “New Jersey. They have more diners than any other state in America, and some are even open 24 hours! It’s my favorite place on Earth.”

“Okay,” Jun acquiesces. What else is he going to do? He’s never been to America before, let alone New Jersey. “What do I order? I don’t know what any of this stuff is.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll order for you.”

Famous last words.

Whatever Hoshi had ordered for him has more sugar in one bite than Jun usually eats in an entire week, but it’s so good he can’t help himself. Half of his meal is devoured before they can get to the heart of the meeting even though Hoshi yaps the whole time—talks animatedly about things Jun doesn’t understand but thinks sound important, like his dog and his favorite music. Hoshi also talks about his love for dancing, and when Jun cocks his head to the side and asks, like Saint Vitus?, all he gets in return is a small smile.

“Okay,” Hoshi says, pushing his plate towards the middle of the table, “now that I’m ready to throw up, it’s time to talk business.” Jun swallows, no longer hungry. “I saw your entire pitch. It was embarrassing.”

Jun groans and face-plants onto the table. “Yeah.” Syrup sticks to his forehead.

“However, it was a convincing story. That’s why They sent me here.”

“They?”

Hoshi waves him off. “Whatever you know Them as: God, the Lord, The Big Boss. They also heard everything.”

Jun slowly picks his head up and studies the angel across from him. Hoshi is weird, no doubt about that, but he’s also endearingly earnest. “And They… what? Want to help me?”

“Precisely,” Hoshi confirms. “And before you ask why, I think that part is quite obvious, but it’s two-fold: yes, it’s partly out of spite, but also—some of those souls were supposed to be ours.”

Jun blinks. Feels like his brain is filled with primordial goo and is about to split at the seams. “Explain this to me like I’m an idiot.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Hoshi replies, tone measured and slightly confused. “We’re all-knowing up there, as I’m sure you know. We know who’s meant to be ours at the moment of their birth and we keep an eye on them throughout their lives. We’re not allowed to intervene, though, which the Devil knows. Free will and all that.” Hoshi rolls his eyes. “With free will comes temptation, and temptation is a powerful thing. Most people are not immune to it, which is why They took notice of you.”

“Wasn’t I—”

“Supposed to be the Pope? Yeah. They weren’t, like, super thrilled about the outcome of that, but contrary to popular belief, it’s not against Their Word to get a handjob.”

“But I spilled seed.”

The look on Hoshi’s face almost looks like a grimace. “And you’ve spilled a lot more since then. Look, all I’m saying is if the worst thing you do in your life is have sex, you’re not disqualified. We look at the entire itemized receipt, not a single purchase, if you catch my drift.”

“Yeah,” Jun replies, a little dazed. He still could’ve been the Pope. “I became a lawyer for nothing?”

“Not nothing,” Hoshi insists, shaking his head. “You’ve actually put yourself in a very unique position, which is what I’m trying to get to. Some of those souls were meant to be ours, but they fell into temptation and made deals with those fuc—” He coughs. “Those… beings… down there.”

Hoshi reaches across the table and places a warm hand over Jun’s. “They want you to help return their souls to where they belong.”

“And how am I supposed to do that? You saw it: she laughed at me, not to mention she now knows what I’m up to. And how am I meant to advertise? If these souls are already in Hell, it’s not like I can put up a billboard!”

Hoshi’s eyes narrow. “She?” he asks. “That’s how the Devil appeared to you?”

“I—yeah. Is that not how she appears to everyone?”

“What did she look like?”

Jun trudges through the slime in his brain. Tries to remember anything besides—“Pretty,” he answers. “I don’t really—that’s all I can remember. I just remember she was really, really pretty.”

“Like the kind of woman you’d be attracted to on Earth, right?” Jun nods. “You need to be careful. She’ll appear to you again in similar forms, especially now that I’ve been here and told you Their intention.”

“So you’re telling me I have to be suspicious of any beautiful woman that finds me attractive?” Hoshi nods, soliciting a tortured groan from Jun. “This just keeps getting worse and worse.”

“You won’t be able to avoid her, nor are you expected to. It’s to your advantage she entertained you at all, and she certainly wasn’t lying when she said you are of a higher status to her and everyone in Hell. If we want you, it’s only natural they would as well.”

Jun mulls all of this over. Stares into his mostly-empty mug of coffee and tries to make sense of it. “I can’t even remember how I got there. I just had the idea, and then it was like I woke up in Hell. I didn’t mean to—what if I don’t even want to do this anymore? Can’t I just go back to my regular, boring life? This is—this is too much.”

“Unfortunately it’s too late for that. You have been chosen, Wen Junhui, and not just for this.”

Jun scoffs. “You’re making me sound like Harry Potter.”

“Thankfully that lady does not belong to us. Now, would you like to go back to your apartment before we get into specifics? It may take a while.”

“...Can we take another order of these things to go?”

Hoshi grins and flags down the waitress to order another massive stack of sugar-dusted waffles. “I think I’m going to enjoy my time on earth with you, Wen Junhui.”

The specifics are thus:

Hoshi is in charge of what earth-bound lawyers would call advertising. Jun isn’t privy to the specifics; he doesn’t know how Hoshi is even capable of it, if he’s just going to waltz into Hell and hand out business cards or what, but it’s more than he’s able to do so he doesn’t ask. (Well, that’s not entirely true. He did ask, and all Hoshi said in return was, “You know Metatron?” and left it at that.)

Hoshi is also in charge of The List: the souls Heaven wants freed from their contracts and returned upstairs. He allows Jun a brief glimpse of it, who is none too surprised to find a few law school colleagues but still overwhelmed at its length. It’s long—so long it had taken Hoshi quite some time to unfurl the scroll—and it isn’t static. Anyone destined for Heaven that makes a deal with the devil while Jun’s at work will simply be added to the bottom of the list. On and on it’ll go, ad nauseam, until Jun either dies or retires.

Which, speaking of retirement—

In a shocking turn of events, the job comes with benefits. Hoshi had been reluctant to call it a salary. For all intents and purposes Jun will be self-employed: he will be provided with a small office space in a nice area of downtown with no signage, although he’s also welcome to work remotely or wherever he feels most comfortable. Money will appear in his account, though he can opt for other forms of payment if he so wishes. (He’d been offered enough to live off of for a year for even accepting the job but chose to have his student loans paid off instead.)

They will keep him healthy. They will keep his sleep schedule regular and his refrigerator stocked with nutritious food. They will ensure people leave him alone and that no suspicions are cast upon him. They will ensure Jun has every tool at his disposal to be successful.

(It was a lot. Felt like making an inverse deal with the devil—he knew he was playing for the right side, but it was non-negotiable and non-refundable. Wen Junhui had been chosen, and in a moment of self-doubt and self-deprecation, he’d joked, “Can They make me smarter?”

Hoshi’s brows had furrowed. “The list of benefits makes no mention of increased intelligence.” Jun pouted; let out a whiny little oh. Hoshi grabbed another sheet of paper. “Your intelligence stats are nearly maxed, dude.”

“I barely passed law school!” he protested.

“I don’t know what to tell you. If we made you any smarter your brain would explode. Literally.”)

After that, there wasn’t much left to discuss. Hoshi had a lot of planning to do; needed to talk to someone in the marketing department but promised he’d be back as soon as possible. Left a tome in Jun’s possession and told him to study.

Theological Contract Law: A Very Comprehensive Introduction: Cases and Materials - 2326th Edition, it says, and Jun stares down at it full of foreboding. It’s bound in black leather, giltstamped in red. Nothing good comes bound in black leather with shiny red letters.

Still, he does what’s asked of him, lest his student loan pay-off gets reversed. He spends hours hunched over his small dining room table with a legal pad to his right, taking notes on any and everything that may prove important—what he can make sense of, at least, because it doesn’t resemble any legal or governmental structure he’s ever seen.

He groans. Tosses his pen onto the table and leans back in the stiff wooden chair, lets his head loll off the back as the wood digs into his neck. Says, “What the heck am I supposed to do with this?” to the empty space of his apartment, and before he’s even opened his eyes another book appears on the table.

Theological Law For Mortals: An Introduction (Sorry!!!! - Hoshi)

He swears.

The days bleed together. Hoshi pops in briefly to officially assign him his first case: one Kim Mingyu from Anyang-si, South Korea. Apparently sold his soul to be “tall and hot” and Heaven desperately needs him back. “This one’s important to the big boss,” Hoshi says, dropping off a stack of papers with a picture paperclipped to the front with the most attractive, symmetrical man Jun has ever seen. “He was meant to work in recruiting,” Hoshi explains.

Jun whistles low. “Understandable. Look at his face.”

“Exactly, so you get the need for a little urgency.” He tries to stamp it down, but Jun feels the panic start to rise. Has to dig his fingernails into the palm of his hand. “Hey, just do your best. Call me if you need anything.”

Hoshi turns to leave, ugly pair of brand new sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor of the kitchen, but Jun’s able to stammer out, “What—what if I can’t do it?”

The angel turns, face marred by genuine confusion. “Why would you think you can’t?”

And then he’s gone.

Fueled by Hoshi’s unwavering—and frankly incomprehensible—confidence in him, Jun finds what he needs just after four o’clock Sunday morning. There, on page 4,837 of Theological Contract Law: A Very Comprehensive Introduction: Cases and Materials - 2326th Edition, in subsection 69 of section 567, it clearly states that souls handed over in exchange for vanity-related reasons must adhere to strict guidelines, limited to but not including:

General facial appearance

Eye and/or hair color

Penis, breast, and/or butt size

Height and/or weight

Others TBD

Pushed beyond the threshold of exhaustion, eyes going in and out of focus, he’s not sure the text following the sub-bullet point is real, but there it is: In regards to height, men must be made at least 6’2” or 188 centimeters for the contract to be considered legally binding.

“Hoshi!”

At once, the angel appears across from him. He’s decked out in another stupid t-shirt (Don’t Bully Me, I’ll Cum, this one says) and is drinking a 7-Eleven slushy through a bendy straw. His lips and tongue are stained blue when he smiles and asks, “Good news?”

Jun shakes his head. Tries to erase the scene in front of him. “Maybe,” he answers. “I need you to get an accurate height on Kim Mingyu. And I mean really accurate. Shave him bald if you have to.”

Hoshi’s smile fades as he grows serious. “You really think you’ve got something?”

“I think so.” Jun pushes the book across the table. “Take a look at that part I highlighted. I know his file says he’s 188 centimeters tall, but imagine if whoever measured him just rounded up? If he’s even a millimeter under that, the contract is void.”

Before he can comprehend what’s happening, Hoshi climbs halfway across the table, grabs Jun by the cheeks, and plants a wet, noisy kiss in the middle of Jun’s forehead. “Wen Junhui, you sneaky little minx, I may be a little in love with you.”

Jun’s face flushes hot and red.

“Just—just look into it, okay? I’ve been over the rest of this and I can’t see any other way out of it.” With a sarcastic salute, Hoshi disappears. Feels like he’s only gone a few minutes before he pops back up in the living room wearing a somber expression. “What?” Jun asks, panicked, feeling his stomach drop out of his ass. “What’s wrong?”

“Bad news,” Hoshi replies, heaving a sigh. Won’t look up from the floor. Does an impeccable job at selling it, before he looks up at Jun with a shit-eating grin, barely able to contain his excitement. “For the Devil! Ha ha ha!”

Whiplash. All Jun can feel is whiplash, and he stumbles out of the chair, can barely feel the ache in his bones. Trips over a rogue object on his way to the living room. “What? You mean—”

“You did it! Kim Mingyu officially measured in at a glorious six-foot-one-point-nine repeating.”

Jun grabs onto the back of the couch so he doesn’t pass out. Oxygen is not reaching his brain right now, nor is coherent thought. All those agonizing days in law school during which he resigned himself to being a failure. All those back-breaking nights he had to run to the bus stop to get home from his internship, only a handful of hours before he had to be awake again for class. All the meals he upchucked from anxiety before critical exams. All his classmates that’d ignored and belittled him. And now—

“I did it…” he says, voice colored with pure disbelief.

Hoshi starts doing some kind of concerning, robotic-looking dance. “Yeah, bitch!” A bolt of lightning strikes right in front of him and Hoshi startles. Rubs at the back of his neck and has the good sense to look sheepish. “I forgot I’m not supposed to swear.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Sorry, Boss!”

He turns his attention to Jun. “Go take a shower and get dressed. Wear something nice; we’re going out to celebrate.”

Whatever club Hoshi has brought him to is humid and sticky.

With what, Jun can’t be sure, but every time he presses his fingertips together it takes a concerning amount of time for them to peel apart.

Hoshi leads him to the bar. Hops onto a stool and kicks his feet as he waves over the bartender. She’s cute, Jun thinks; a bright, open smile splits her face as she pulls away from Hoshi, clearly endeared by whatever it was he had said. She moves around the bar with an easy confidence, does a little twirl to avoid her coworker, and Jun doesn’t realize he’s hypnotized until Hoshi digs an elbow into his ribs.

“Take it easy, killer. I ordered us some shots.”

Jun snaps out of his reverie. “Can you even drink?”

“Of course I can, I just can’t get drunk. Not here, anyway. Big Boss made the real good stuff exclusive to you-know-where after a few, uh… mishaps. Down here.” He coughs. “Let’s find somewhere to sit. I’ll come back for the drinks.”

There’s an empty booth tucked away in a corner. Jun takes the side that gives him an eyeline shot of the bar even though it feels a little creepy, and if Hoshi knows what he’s doing he doesn’t mention it. He’s back to yapping about one thing or another, gets distracted by all the commotion in the club—the group playing darts, the packed dance floor, a couple making out near the restrooms. Quite enthusiastically, Jun might add.

True to his word, Hoshi disappears for a second to retrieve the drinks. Jun watches as the bartender hands over a tray of rainbow-colored shots and also as Hoshi pats the pockets of his skin-tight pleather plants. Watches as he panics and frantically waves Jun over. Once he’s in his personal space, Hoshi leans in and whispers, “They say they need a card for the tab. I don’t know what that is so I’m assuming I don’t have one.”

Jun sighs. Explains, “It’s a credit card. How do you survive down here with no money?” Nevertheless, he digs out his wallet and hands his card over. “I can’t believe you invited me out and I’m getting stuck with the bill.”

Hoshi tuts. Hands Jun’s credit card to the bartender without an ounce of remorse. “Relax, I’ll have Matt reimburse you.”

“Who the heck is Matt—” Jun begins to say, but he’s interrupted by the most annoying angel God ever created placing the tray of drinks in Jun’s hands, then asking, “Can you take this back to the table? I’ll be right there.”

Hoshi is not going to be right there. Hoshi is going to hover around the bar because the cute bartender was making eyes at him, and Jun is going to return to their formerly-shared table to drink alone. There aren’t many things more depressing than going out with a friend to celebrate a personal achievement only to end up downing six shots on his own.

…Which are not to Jun’s taste at all.

He’s a habitual Tsingtao drinker. Never bothers to order anything else because he knows what he likes and it has never steered him wrong. Never had his head stuck in a toilet bowl, either, which is territory he’ll rapidly be approaching if he actually goes through with this.

“Is this seat taken?”

Jun knows it’s you without having to look up. Your aura is tangible—something thick and syrupy like molasses and just as dark; something suffocating, something that would drown him—and it follows you like a shadow. Slides into the booth before Jun can answer, just a nanosecond before your physical form does the same, and when you’re at eye level he has to swallow his gasp.

You look completely different.

Still beautiful, he thinks, because it’s hard to think of anything else. Jun knows who and what you are, of course; remembers the warning Hoshi had given him. Knows that this is just another one of your tricks, another layer of temptation, but it’s a beauty like quicksand. It’s a beauty like the misunderstood creatures at the heart of every fairy tale—those haunting kinds of myths meant to both make you wary and suck you in. It’s a beauty accentuated by darkness.

Worst of all, it’s a beauty that’s making his pants a little tight in the dick area.

“What does that imbecile have you drinking?” you ask, reaching for one of the remaining shot glasses. You grimace as you hold it up to the light. “You know, I once watched a man throw back twelve of these things before he stripped down to nothing but a diaper and attempted to rob a convenience store across the street.”

“Oh. What happened?”

You sigh. Place the glass back on the tray. “A comedy of errors, of course. He somehow managed to make it into the store unnoticed, but he had neither a weapon nor something to store the money in. He tried climbing across the counter to get to the cash register, but the clerk hit him in the head with a metal step stool and knocked him unconscious before calling the police.”

“I’m assuming he got arrested?”

“Oh, no.” You laugh, and Jun’s taken aback by how normal it sounds. “He came to before the police got there. I guess the sirens freaked him out because he ran out of the store and got hit by a bus.” Jun must be wearing a particular look, because you follow that up with, “He was always meant to be one of ours, so don’t worry, you won’t have to meet him.”

Right.

Jun had expected this. Not that he’d had a whole lot of time to expect it, considering Kim Mingyu had been freed from his contract for a whopping fifteen minutes before Hoshi was shoving Jun into the bathroom to shower, but it had been a passing thought on at least four separate occasions.

You’re not going to apologize, he tells himself. Wonders if you can hear his thoughts and desperately hopes you can’t, considering he’d thought about getting a semi from how pretty you are. It wasn’t even a semi, really, if he’s being honest. What’s half of a semi? One-fourth of a boner? That’s what he’d gotten, and if you can read his thoughts it’s very important that you know that.

“I’m not Joshua.”

Jun startles. Feels all the normalcy leak out of his body and form a gloopy puddle on the floor. “Um,” he replies stupidly. “Then how did you—”

“I can feel you thinking. Always feels like chickenpox when humans overthink around me.”

He wrings his sweaty hands together. Rubs them on his jeans when that doesn’t work. “Sorry,” he says instinctually. “It’s just—I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say.”

“Why?” you challenge. “Is there something you want to say?”

“I don’t think so. But I can’t imagine you’re very happy with me, and I get this sort of, um. When I know someone’s upset with me it feels like chickenpox, too. And even though I know, logically, that I did a good thing, I still feel like I’m going to throw up?”

Tense silence hangs between the two of you. Jun’s on the verge of word-vomiting another apology when you snap your fingers and turn the remaining shots into something resembling watery honey. You hold one out to him. “Drink this,” you instruct, and Jun makes a point not to let your fingers touch when he takes it.

“Is it poison?”

You heave another sigh. “Wen Junhui, there are some things you need to understand about me. First of all, this is an inherited job. Being The Anointed One comes with a lot of work and responsibility so we get burned out, okay? So there’s only ever been one devil as far as humans are concerned, but in a weird avatar-y kind of way that’s hard to explain and not worth my time to explain to you, specifically, considering you’re the enemy now. Second, I am capable of killing you in ways your human brain cannot even begin to conceive of. I do not need to poison you with ginger tea to take you out.”

Jun looks down at the glass. Raises it to his noise and takes a hesitant sniff.

Oh. Yeah, that’s ginger tea.

That you conjured him… because he said he felt nauseous?

“The last thing you need to understand is that the loophole you found was… unfortunate, to say the least, but Kim Mingyu’s contract was not one of mine. The next contract that idiotic angel is going to ask you to work on was also not my work. If you free him, too, it will be regrettable, but it will pale in comparison to what will happen to you if you even think about touching one of mine.”

You’re gone before the fear can even set in.

Jun blinks, staring at the empty seat across from him. No indication at all that you’d been there, no lingering shadow, just the taste of ginger on his tongue and one of those cartoon scribbles in a thought bubble hovering metaphorically above his head.

He doesn’t—

He can’t—

No, he decides, he is not going to have a mental break in this club. Not while “Friday” by Rebecca Black plays on a loop. Not while he can hear someone to his left vomiting all over the floor. Not while he watches Hoshi skip back to the table and he notices, for the first time all night, what he’s wearing.

“Did you change?”

Because he swears the angel wasn’t wearing that when they left the apartment. The pleather pants, yes, but not the baby pink cropped tank with a decal of a creepy child in the middle that says BOYS ARE STUPID, THROW ROCKS AT THEM.

“What? No,” Hoshi answers, sliding into the seat you’d occupied only moments earlier. “Why does it smell weird over here?”

Jun plays stupid. “One of the dartboard girls puked on the floor.” He’s not very good at it.

Hoshi shakes his head. “Not that.” An exaggerated sniff, not unlike a bloodhound. “It smells like… it definitely smells familiar. I know this smell. It’s like—you know how it feels when it’s about to snow? How the cold and the air burn your nose, but it doesn’t actually smell like anything? As if it used to have a smell, once, a long time ago, and all it is now is just an imprinted memory?”

Jun lies, “No. Nope, no idea.”

Hoshi visibly deflates. “Well, it’s kind of like that. Also a little bit like you used wet moss to put out a wildfire. It fills me with—” Hoshi pauses. Narrows his gaze as he studies Jun intently. Being stared at like this by a guy in that particular shirt is a bit disorienting, he must admit. “She was here, wasn’t she?”

He’ll know he’s lying, but Jun says no again because it’s a lot easier than explaining that being threatened within an inch of his mortal life made him cum in his pants a little.

After the club, Jun gets a few days of reprieve.

He doesn’t hear from Hoshi at all, nor does he materialize unexpectedly in his apartment. No mysterious books show up, either, which is a relief. He’d stored both Theological Contract Law: A Very Comprehensive Introduction: Cases and Materials - 2326th Edition and Theological Law For Mortals: An Introduction on a seldom-used bookshelf in his living room and now the shelf is starting to bow in the middle. One more tome of that size and the whole thing is going to come tumbling down and earn him a noise complaint.

Another one.

Because Hoshi has already racked up three in Jun’s name.

So he tries to go back to life as usual until he’s needed again. Does his grocery shopping in the middle of the week in the middle of the day when it’s not so busy and he can navigate the aisles without crippling anxiety. Goes to a check-up and has to lie about turning over a new leaf and taking his health seriously when his cholesterol levels are back within perfect range. He plays video games, picks a nice willow tree in the park to sit beneath and read (normal books this time), takes some of the Mingyu money to buy a decent watch and a few tailored suits.

For the first time in a while, he’s able to sleep through the night.

But he can’t shake the feeling that it’s all… strange. Ever since you’d shown up at the bar, he swears he sees you everywhere: in line a few registers over at the supermarket, in the waiting room of the hospital, coming out of a fitting room in the mall. It’s that aura again. Stalks him like prey. Has paranoia pricking at his skin, and it’s not healthy, the way it has him looking over his shoulder at every turn, scurrying away from every attractive woman with a frown and mumbled apologies.

Surely this cannot be the rest of his life.

Hoshi swings by on a Tuesday. Just like you said he would, he asks Jun to work on an assignment for one Lee Chan who tried to sell his friend to the devil but accidentally sold himself instead. “Wouldn’t have really mattered,” Hoshi explains. Today, his shirt says BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN. “It’s sort of against the rules to try and sell other people.”

Jun spits toothpaste into the sink and prays the towel stays snug around his waist. Hoshi had cornered him in the bathroom. “So why do you want him back, then?” Rifles through the medicine cabinet for his nice hair serum. “Seems pretty open and shut to me.”

“Why do They want him back,” Hoshi corrects, “and I don’t know why They want this one.”

Jun thinks about what you said: how Mingyu and Lee Chan hadn’t been your contracts, were basically freebies; the… avatar-ness; the not-subtle-at-all threats on his life. Says, “Can I ask you something?” as he rolls on antiperspirant.

Hoshi, who’s sitting in the tub making animals out of shaving cream, simply nods.

“She said something interesting to me—”

“Before or after being mean to you made you ejaculate in your pants like a teenager?”

Jun blinks. “Before,” he answers slowly. When Hoshi makes no move to interrupt him again, he continues, “She said the Kim Mingyu and Lee Chan contracts weren’t hers. That the role is… inherited? Something about an avatar? How does that work?”

The angel hums. Adds what appear to be bunny ears to an amorphous blob that does not look rabbit-shaped at all, and Jun tries to tamper down his excitement at the impending explanation. Everything he’s dealt with so far will have been worth it because he’s going to be in the know. The powers that be will reward him with their trust. He’ll finally get some answers to all those questions he fell asleep pondering as a child.

And then Hoshi waves him away dismissively and says, “You know I can’t tell you any of that,” and everything comes collapsing down like a house of cards.

Fair enough, Jun thinks—he’s only successfully completed one assignment. It’s still early days. “But you will eventually,” he says, and whoever’s listening in must think the optimism in his voice is so pathetic, “right?”

Hoshi is not cruel. They haven’t known each other long, but Jun knows that much. He wasn’t created from some Old Testament mold, when cruelty was the point of it all—intended to impress fear and strict adherence to Their Word. So when Hoshi laughs it isn’t meant the way Jun takes it. When Hoshi laughs it isn’t meant to make Jun feel disregarded and unimportant, small and irrelevant, but that’s where it strikes him all the same.

When Hoshi laughs and has no reassurances to offer, Jun is seventeen again, reckoning with his loss of faith. Now he’s a decade older and is constantly confronted by all those old names and characters, and when you’re trapped in the middle of their bidding, where can you go when you need to hide?

Jun has the Lee Chan assignment completed by Thursday night.

A significant amount of money appears in his bank account. He wakes up on Friday to an enthusiastic message from his landlord, thanking him for paying his rental contract through the end of his lease. His parents thank him for the grocery delivery. On the side, away from the proud ears of his father, his mother is especially thankful. She’s choking back tears as she thanks him profusely, says business has been slow, tells him he’s a good son and he’s made them proud, always, even if he traveled a different path than the one he originally planned to take.

None of it takes away the ache in his chest.

None of it makes him feel any less empty. It’s hard to feel fulfilled when you know you’re just a pawn, stuck in the middle of a holy war that existed long before him and will persist long after he’s gone. Wen Junhui will always be on the outskirts, because everyone needs him, but he’s not important enough to trust. He is someone and no one all at once. He is Purgatory.

He needs to feel human—needs to make human mistakes, destroy himself the way humans do. Needs to commit a few cardinal sins and scold himself, wonder what the fuck he’s doing as he rattles ice around his third glass of baijiu. Needs to wake up with a splitting headache and a fractured memory. Needs a hoarse voice beside him to ask what time it is as he stares at their naked back and wonders how to get out of it.

There’s a bar not far from his apartment. A dive, by every definition of the word: broken, flickering neon sign out front, cheap linoleum floors peeling at the corners, 70s paneling on the walls, the stench of cigarette smoke outlasting all the old regulars. It’s the kind of place ghosts gather; the kind of place Jun was always too scared to go, knew the questioning, distrustful stares that’d be there to greet him as soon as he stepped through the door.

Tonight, though, it’ll do just fine.

He sits on a stool at the bar and orders a beer to start. Intends to stay a while. Watches a trio of old men play dou dizhu at a table near the back, empty bottles at their feet, fat cigars stuck between their teeth, insults and accusations shouted around them. To his left, a middle-aged man tries bartering for another drink. Needs it, he says, because he lost his job and his wife in the same week. Fourth job this month, the bartender replies, no pity to be found. It’s only the twenty-second.

Across the bar sits a kid that reminds Jun a lot of his brother. Can’t be much older than eighteen. Might not be old enough to drink legally at all, but that’s none of his business. There’s dirt beneath his fingernails and a large chip taken out of a front tooth. Not a clean break, all jagged edges—the kind that probably hurts to run his tongue over.

Jun feels guilty for a moment, surrounded by all these people with real problems. He’s got money and a respectable career. Has a roof over his head that’s been paid for by someone else. He’s good-looking, has his health and his youth. Has enough to take care of his family.

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” You sit beside him with a humored smile that shines through a truly pinched expression.

Jun snorts as he empties his drink. “Thessalonians. Gotta be honest, not one of my favorites.” Spares a glance at you: you’re different again, appearance-wise, but the scent you wear like a signature perfume is the same. Heady, like it was bottled at the center of the earth. “Is this your way of telling me that comparison is the thief of joy or whatever?”

Your turn to laugh. The bartender sets a drink in front of you that Jun hadn’t heard you order. “No,” you reply simply. “I’m not all that concerned with human joy. Just thought it was ironic. Come sit with me.”

“This is starting to sound familiar,” he snarks, but he follows anyway.

A rickety table by the window. Winter air seeps through, frosts the glass; has Jun wishing he’d worn a thicker coat. It was warmer by the bar. The two chairs you occupy are upholstered in peeling vinyl, one ripped with the stuffing peeking through. Jun takes that one, figuring you’ll laugh at his human chivalry, but you take the seat opposite him without a word. That old flickering sign outside reflects on your face.

He didn’t come here for a therapy session—he came to get drunk on questionable liquor surrounded by people who don’t know him. You do, of course, which throws a wrench in his plan. You seem to know everything about him, including that he’d be here brooding. “Why’d you follow me here?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t for your jubilant demeanor and fantastic conversation.” You put your drink to the side. Fold your hands in front of you. “Congratulations on Lee Chan. The outfit upstairs must be very pleased with the work you’ve done thus far.”

There’s no bite. No sardonic tone.

Jun realizes then how differently you treat him. How honest you are. You don’t lie or stretch the truth; you don’t brush off his questions. Hoshi is truthful at an arm’s length. Makes his stomach feel sour.

“I’m just a pawn, aren’t I? It doesn’t really matter if they’re pleased so long as I get the work done.”

You hum an acknowledgment. “People forget what They used to be like. The atrocities They committed and had others commit in Their name—humans, just like you, who were so desperate to appease their God they would’ve done whatever was asked of them.” Jun’s drink refills. He empties it in one go. “They killed their sons, waged war on their neighbors, have done unspeakable evils in Their name. It’s not only you, Wen Junhui, that has been a pawn to Them.”

He doesn’t react. A glass shatters at the bar. “And you?” he questions. “What are you, then, if those are the things They demand?”

“I’m a foil, of course. Would you still believe in good if there was no evil? Would you believe in the promise of eternal life if there was no threat of eternal damnation? Would you still be moral if there was no corruption?” Rhetorical questions. “Although you’re no stranger to crises of faith, are you?”

He isn’t. The handjob had rattled him, sure, but it hadn’t been the catalyst. Not really. Jun had still gone to church that Sunday. Still kneeled and received Communion and allowed himself to be blessed and prayed over. Still bowed his head before each meal and mouthed along as his mother said grace.

No, his loss of faith had been gradual: a question he couldn’t find an answer to, suffering he could no longer brush off with blind faith, words he used to treat as gospel that began tasting acrid in his mouth as he also lost his conviction. Everything started feeling like bullshit, and once everything started feeling like bullshit, he had to wonder what he’d spent eighteen years of his life chasing. What he spent eighteen years of his life believing in.

Until he found he didn’t believe in all that much anymore.

He has to ask: “Was it your doing?”

You shake your head. “People forget who I am, too. They call me the original liar. They say I am the source of all evil. They attribute every sin and misdeed to me, say it must’ve been my will, and yet it says right there in their holy book, in Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” You focus all your attention on Jun—he feels the weight of it like a millstone. “I was the anointed one until I was overcome by sin and became the tempter, right? That’s what they say; how they wrote my story. And yet, by Their own word, it was They who created evil. It was God who created darkness.” A hefty pause. “Some may look at me and say I, too, was a pawn.”

“Do you feel like you were?”

You don’t respond. Instead, Jun watches as his view of the bar crumbles once you snap your fingers: block by block replaced with the interior of his apartment. His dining table instead of the off-balance one in front of the window. The ambient noise of his building instead of the bar. A mug of coffee in place of the baijiu.

“What the he—”

It’s within the four dull walls of Jun’s apartment building that you answer: “Even if I was, why should I feel like a victim? Did I not get the better end of the deal?” Jun feels like he’s standing atop a trap door. Like any second it’ll swing open and down, down, down he’ll go. “I rule over my kingdom and make no demands of anyone. I am a consequence of free will and not an inhibitor of it. I dole out punishment only for those deserving of it.”

The coffee is strong. Bitter. Just for a second before it melts away into something sweet. “You are temptation, are you not? Do the demons not do your bidding? Sow chaos in your name? Are you not the originator of all these contracts I’ve been tasked with destroying? If They are to be believed, those people were not meant to be yours, and yet you wound up with them anyway.”

“I like you, Wen Junhui,” you say. “You have an insatiable curiosity that is both admirable and ill-advised.”

He feels his face flush. “Sorry. Got carried away, I think.”

“It’s of little consequence to me. I must admit I have smited men for asking questions, but they were of a more crude variety. More coffee?” Jun nods. “I am who I am. It is who I’ve always been—I was created to walk this path and so I know no different.”

“Predestination.”

“Precisely, just as those dreadful fucking Puritans believed. God needed a foil, a betrayer, and so They created me. I know no other role.”

“You were an angel,” Jun argues. “They say you were beautiful, powerful, and intelligent; they say you were full of light. You don’t remember any of that?”

Sorrow etches across your face. Only for a second—blink and you’ll miss it. It is not in the same realm of pain Jun is experiencing. Yours is an ancient grief. It is something palpable and overwhelming, something liable to consume and destroy everything within its reach if left uncontrolled. Jun wonders if it has been; if you’ve let it unfurl before reigning it back in. If those are the plagues they speak of. Catastrophic disasters and genocides and everything on earth he cannot conceive of.

And then your face shutters. That grief is now nowhere to be found, borrowed features rearranged neatly once again. “Of course I remember,” is all you say.

Companionable silence. Jun sips slowly at his coffee and enjoys it. Wonders, briefly, how he wound up here, with the CEO and overseer of Hell sitting at his dining room table, before he lets those thoughts get chased away by a more pressing fact: there is an extremely beautiful and kind of terrifying woman sitting at his dining room table, and she hasn’t murdered him—yet.

He’s not above noticing it. Isn’t going to pretend he hasn’t thought about the night in the club roughly every twenty minutes since it happened; isn’t going to pretend he didn’t get a little hard in the shower that same night and that he didn’t relieve himself. Isn’t going to pretend that this isn’t doing something for him—the different disguises, each one just as enticing as the last, all of them conjured from deep within his psyche, checking off all his boxes.

Jun also isn’t going to pretend he has very much game. He hadn’t left university a virgin (although it’d been close) and nowadays women aren’t really falling over themselves to date a newly-licensed lawyer with little money and thrifted suits that feel like they’re playing at adulthood. However, if nothing else, this… partnership he has going on has served him well in the confidence department. He has disposable income and no debt. His clothes fit. He upgraded his cheap Casio watch to something that doesn’t turn his skin green.

“You didn’t really answer my question earlier.” You roll your head to the side, cock an eyebrow. His bravado falters slightly at the line of your throat. “Are you stalking me?”

What he aims for: cheeky, a little saucy; the kind of question that’s delivered with a shit-eating grin and earns him a coy laugh in response as you tuck your hair behind your ear. Oh, knock it off, you’d say as you playfully swatted at him. Of course I’m not. He’d catch your hand and press his lips to your knuckles before trailing them up your arm. The first kiss to the side of your neck would be gentle, a little hesitant, and then the heat would take over.

How it lands: an accusation completely lacking in charm and sass. Jun’s eyes widen in panic as soon as the question leaves his mouth, has him wondering how he’s still alive if the glare you send him is any indication of how you’re feeling. He should’ve known better. Jun is not the sort of person who can pull off a comment like that. Doesn’t have the charisma or the confidence. Isn’t sleazy enough. Jun is the kind of guy who lurks your social media after a one night stand to figure out your favorite breakfast so he can have it waiting the morning after; the kind who takes note of where you work so he can have flowers delivered to your desk and not for any other nefarious purpose.

Which, now that he’s thinking about it—

Every accusation is a confession, or whatever it is they say.

“That’s not—”

“What you meant,” you finish for him. Thankful for the lifeline, he nods, not trusting himself to not dig a deeper hole. “You want to know why it is I’ve shown up twice now, during both of your nights out.” He nods again. “You wanted to be suave when you said it, maybe even a little seductive, but you forgot your claim to fame is crying for three days over a handjob and how excruciatingly awkward you are.”

He waits for you to continue. When you don’t, he nods again, wishing he’d spent more time as a teenager on the degenerate parts of the internet rather than at Bible study.

“Are you an idiot?”

Not that it’s undeserved, but the question leaves him stunned. Has his mouth gaping open and shut like a goldfish. This is a trap, right? There’s a correct answer here that he’s expected to give. “...No?” he tries, and when your eyes narrow he quickly changes course. “Yes,” he says definitively. “Yes, I am an idiot. Sorry for my… idiocy.”

It looks like it’s being dragged out of you by force, but the clouds part, birds start chirping in perfect harmony, Jun feels the warmth of the sun—you laugh. You laugh, and it’s reluctant but it’s real, and Jun’s smile is so wide his face feels heavy under the weight of it. It’s so wide you say, “Wow, even your mouth is heart-shaped,” and, if Wen Junhui knows nothing else, he knows he’s in real big trouble.

“You know what else is heart-shaped?” You gesture for him to continue, except he’d just been yapping. Didn’t have a plan. There’s no punchline. And he can’t set it up as a dick joke because that doesn’t make sense. My dick is heart-shaped? What does that even mean? Unless it’s in a cute way? My dick is heart-shaped… for you. It could work, he reasons. Worse things have worked for other men. “My di—”

“No.”

He pretends to pout. “You didn’t let me finish.”

“Because you were going to make a dick joke.”

“No I wasn’t.” You roll your eyes. “I was going to say my… digantic heart.”

A pause. Another beat of silence.

“I’m not going to laugh at you twice.”

A shit-eating grin on Jun’s face. “But you would, is what you’re saying? If you didn’t already meet your one-laugh quota?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

I want to kiss you, he wants to say. Feels the words biting at the back of his teeth, begging him to open his mouth so they can escape and be real. I want to kiss you but I don’t know if it’d be real. Because it can’t be, can it? All the ways you’ve been described throughout human history, not once has anyone said you’re capable of love. Which—that’s not what Jun is looking for here, right? That’d be ridiculous. He has a crush.

A crush on a beautiful woman who looks like all of his wet dreams combined. Who’s terrifying and smart and maybe misunderstood in all the same ways he is. Who is halfway responsible for his current employment. Who conjures ginger tea for him when he feels sick and hasn’t snapped her fingers to turn him into dust… yet. It’s natural, especially for a late bloomer such as himself.

But that doesn’t mean anything.

You look like all of his wet dreams combined but it’s still just a costume. The same way Jun was playing at adulthood in his ill-fitting suits, you’re playing at being human. Take it off and you’re still the devil. Still primordial. Still not bound by the constraints and constructs of time. Not bound by mortality, which is probably the second-most pressing issue behind the whole fallen angel, prime ruler of Hell, purveyor of iron-clad contracts that are really, really pissing off Heaven thing.

“Congratulations,” you say, ripping Jun out of his spiral, “your overthinking has bypassed chickenpox completely and went straight to shingles.”

“They have a vaccine for that now.” Wow, he is really not nailing this.

“I know. Pestilence was devastated. Moped around for ages. Imagine all your hard work gone, just like that, because of science? That’s why I created Jenny McCarthy.” You sigh. “Anyway, out with it.”

Jun chews at the inside of his cheek. “I’m trying to figure out how to ask in a non-offensive way.”

You blink. “I am literally the devil.”

“Who can kill me,” he says slowly, trying to buy time. So are you, it seems, because you’re content to stretch the silence. Wait until it settles in Jun’s bones as anxiety. One of those old tricks he learned during law school that’s now being turned on him. He coughs. “Anyway, I—” He deflates. “It’s stupid, I don’t know why I even thought—”

“Out with it,” you repeat.

“Right.” He sucks in a breath. “Does this mean anything to you? Not in, like, an affectionate, I’m in love with you kind of way, but in a… human… way? Is it offensive to phrase it like that?”

“I think you’ll find not much offends me—except for you and your fucking lawyer thing ruining my contracts.” There are those flames behind your eyes again. The temperature in the room increases tenfold. “So no, it’s not offensive to wonder how human I am or am not, but I don’t know if the answer will be to your satisfaction or understanding.”

“Try me.”

You huff a laugh. Mumble something about the hubris of man. “You’ve read Their book, so you know how and why the angels were created. Ministering spirits, I think it says. Spirits without bodies. I have never known what it means to be human because I never was. I appear as one to you out of necessity.”

“Because my brain would melt if I saw your true form?”

“What? No. Because it’s terrifying. Would you rather hand over your mortal soul to someone who looked like an eldritch horror or someone who looked like one of those women you’ve jerked off to in porn magazines?” Jun swallows audibly. “Exactly.”

“But what does it feel like when you’re like this? When you’re here?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “It feels different, but I can’t say it feels human because I do not know what that feels like. You’ve interacted with me and have been to Hell—if I asked you how it felt to be the devil, how would you answer?”

Jun doesn’t have to think. He says the first word that comes to mind, which is, “Lonely. I think it’s lonely, because They have worshippers, Their followers are devout and love and trust without proof, and you were created to be hated and feared.” You move to interject, but Jun continues. “Maybe you have those things too, but they’re not the same. They gave you everything and then They ripped it away. Their followers heed every word of the Bible, name their children after its characters, but where’s your book? Why wasn’t anyone allowed to tell your story?”

“Maybe you should write it.”

What you aim for: cheeky, a little saucy; the kind of suggestion spoken around a sly smile that’s also a little self-conscious at someone taking you into consideration—at someone seeing you.

How it lands: fractured; words spoken slowly and intentionally so nothing is given away. How ironic that it’s the most human Jun has heard you sound.

But your bravery is inspiring, even if you’re unaware of it. Even if you aren’t making a conscious choice to be so, Jun can watch you be vulnerable and think he can do the same. He can finally say what he’s been dancing around this entire time, which is, “If I kiss you, what will it feel like for you?”

“The same as any other kiss, I imagine.”

“You’ve done this before, then? As a… human?”

Seems your patience with him has run out. You stand, make your way to Jun’s side of the table slowly. Drag a finger along the back of each chair, nails cherry red and sharpened to a point. He wants to feel them. Wants the sting as they dig into his thighs; as they scratch down the length of his back and mark him up. He wants to feel the phantom bite for days, long after you’re gone and he’s come to his senses. When he stands beneath the spray of the shower and his skin feels raw, he wants to know it was you that had done it.

He understands, now, why people make those deals and shake your hand.

As you loom above him, slowly encroaching upon his space—as the heady scent of you overwhelms him and makes him dizzy, has his eyes fluttering closed and rolling back in his head—he thinks he’d give you anything you asked for.

You lean in close. One hand on the arm of the chair, one wrapped around the meat of his thigh, just on the edge of sharp. Closer, closer, until he can feel the warmth of your breath against his cheek, the line of his jaw, the lobe of his ear. “Tell me: does this feel human?”

It does. Drives him a little crazy how he can feel each word punctuated against his skin; how he can feel your body heat seep through the fabric of his pants—heat he didn’t expect to find. And it isn’t like it matters, because he’d want you no matter how you felt, but it helps to ground him. Keep him in the moment. So he says, “Ye-yeah,” and knows you’re smiling at the need in his tone.

Need that starts in his toes and settles in his belly. Need that grows as your hand trails up his thigh and settles over his zipper, over the bulge you find there. Jun’s breath catches in his throat. He knows the mechanics—in, out; in, out; in, out—but can’t convince his lungs to work. Feels lightheaded and a little embarrassed because you’re not even touching him properly and he already feels untethered.

All you do is pull away, back out of his space, and for all he knows his world’s been turned upside down. Doubly so when he cracks one eye open and sees you on your knees, looking up at him with a half-lidded gaze, lashes impossibly dark. He can’t help it. He reaches out, places his thumbs in the contours of your cheek, cups your jaw, and presses his lips to yours.

Immediate searing heat.

Jun is engulfed in it. You taste like a storm—taste like the first deafening crack of thunder and the lightning that follows. And he knows he’s coming across too eager with the way he licks into your mouth, but you don’t seem to mind. You match his pace, groan into his mouth, palm at his cock with more intention. Jun’s hips roll, seeking the friction; wants more of the stinging pleasure. Wants to haul you into his lap and fit his hands in the curve of your waist, leave bruises on your hips with his thumbs. He wants to trace every inch of your skin and commit it to memory.

But you’ve got plans of your own.

You plant your hands against his chest and push. Jun goes willingly, chest heaving, missing your mouth already. There’s a crooked grin sitting on your face that sends a spark of excitement up his spine, has alarms sounding in his head, but he can’t look away. Everything you do mesmerizes him: the way you run your tongue along your bottom lip, the slow drag of his zipper, how your voice is husky and deeper than he’s ever heard it when you ask him, what do you want, and your smile when he answers, whatever you do.

And what you seem to want is to destroy him in record time. Pants at his knees, hard cock straining against his briefs, he feels like he’s back in high school. Has that same sense of adolescent urgency, like everything’s happening both in slow-motion and not fast enough, because he knows what’s coming. Watches with a lip tugged between his teeth as you free his cock. Whimpers when you wrap your hand around him, reminds himself to breathe; grips white-knuckled at the arms of the chair when you begin to move.

Your pace is torturously slow to start. You seem to delight in tormenting him; in hearing all those breathy moans that escape him and spur you on. You lean forward and spit and everything is slick. Jun feels like he’s going to come out of his skin. He grips at the chair tighter. Digs his nails into his thighs when that doesn’t work and lets his head roll back, neck on full display. Maybe it’s to tempt you. Maybe he wants you to sink your teeth into him and mark him up. Maybe he has a million fantasies, and not a single one compares to—

Your mouth. The sound that comes out of him is unholy. It takes every ounce of restraint he has not to roll his hips and fuck his cock deeper into your mouth, down your throat. All he wants to do is chase the bliss of that wet heat and give in to it.

But he needs this to last. If this is the only time he’ll have you like this, he needs to make it worthwhile.

He needs to tell you, needs you to slow it down before he embarrasses himself by coming in your mouth, except he can’t find the words. Doesn’t want to deny himself even a second of pleasure. Five minutes is all it’s taken to make a hedonist out of him. And that’s… well, it’s not a philosophy he ever thought he’d adopt, but who could blame him when you feel like velvet? When he starts babbling nonsense and you hum in response and everything feels electric?

“I’m gonna—” A sharp nip at the inside of his thigh has his declaration dead on arrival. His body shivers, trembles, tries to collapse in on itself. “Shit, don’t do that, I’m gonna—”

He feels your smile against his skin. Whimpers as you mouth at his balls. Wonders if he’s going to die like this; if someone will come to check on him and find his pitiful, half-naked body right here in this chair, and that is not a sight he wants anyone to walk in on, so he reaches for you, finds your hair and tugs at you gently. Seals his lips over yours before you can come up with any more ideas.

He hauls you into his lap, just like he’d wanted, and dips his hands beneath your top. Skims his hands over the warm skin he finds. Digs his nails in when you bite at the column of his throat and groans as his cock—so hard he can barely think straight; can’t think of anything except burying himself inside of you—brushes against the harsh fabric of your pants.

“God, c’mere.” You oblige. Kiss him with such intensity he no longer cares where he dies, so long as this is how he goes out. Watches as stars explode behind his eyelids when he realizes he can taste himself on your tongue, that you taste like him. Moves his hands to your chest, traces lightly over your hard nipples, delights in the way you react, that it’s him making you feel good. That it’s him you let pull your top over your head. That it’s him that presses praise into your skin like scripture.

He mouths at you indiscriminately: your collar bones, the space between your breasts, the swell of skin there. Whines as you grab at his hair and tell him how to please you. Thinks he’s learning a lot about himself when he does as you say, when he sucks and bites at your nipples, and grows impossibly harder.

You sigh, blissed out; tell him you want his mouth elsewhere, fill his mind with thoughts that have him rolling his hips uselessly, thrusting at nothing, but fuck, he wants it all. Wants to taste every part of you. Wants to drag you to the edge and watch as your body writhes in satisfaction. Wants to know how beautiful you look when you come on his tongue, head thrown back, your nails digging into his scalp.

Wants to bury his cock inside of you before you can come down and watch as your eyes roll back and know, with every thrust of his hips, that he’s leaving his mark just the same as you are.

So that’s what he does. He stands, lifting you with ease, tells you to wrap your legs around him as he carries you to his bedroom. Lays you in the middle of the bed and helps strip you bare. Tells you, in every way he can think of, how much he loves seeing you like this, how stunning you are, how lucky he is. Kisses his way down your body until he’s level with your cunt. He breathes in your scent, desperate for all of you, before he circles a thumb over your clit and follows it with his mouth.

Ironic, he thinks, that you taste like heaven.

He gives as good as he got—flattens his tongue and works you over with long licks. Laps and sucks and doesn’t let up when your legs start to shake. Places one over his shoulder and dives back in. Swears fall from your lips in fractured syllables, breathless cries in between commands to keep going. He’s a man possessed. Doesn’t want to waste a second. Doesn’t want the taste of anyone else on his tongue.

You come with a sob, his name the only thing you seem capable of saying. Jun, Jun, Jun, like a chant.

…Like something he’d hear in church.

No reprieve. He stretches you on his fingers, almost delirious as he presses against your g-spot and feels how much wetter you get. Ruts against the mattress at all the crude sounds he’s pulling from you, unable to help himself. Says, “Can I…?” and slicks himself up with what he’s gathered from you when you nod.

He buries his face in the crook of your neck. Kisses the spot just below your ear as he runs his hands up and down your thighs. “How do you want me?” he asks. “Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

He expects you to want it from behind. Maybe on top so you’re in control, turned away. He doesn’t expect you to say, “Just like this,” as you hitch a leg around his hip and pull him as close as possible. He doesn’t expect you to say, “I want you to look at me,” in that tone, like it’s imperative. Like you need it. He doesn’t expect you to grab the back of his neck and kiss the air from his lungs as he pushes inside.

Heat. Everything is white, blinding heat.

Jun whines into your mouth. Rolls his hips slowly as you swallow it. Your hands move to his shoulders and down his spine, settle in the small of his back, press into the dimples there. He pulls back only so he can tell you to mark him up, that he wants to feel you days from now, and you indulge him. Shallow at first—your nails ghost across his skin, more ticklish than painful, before they dig in a little deeper. Jun feels the bite as the welts begin to form and he thinks his smile must look crazed.

He keeps his pace steady. Fucks in as deep as he can and rocks back slowly, trying to hold on to the way your cunt squeezes him, but you need more. You tell him as much and don’t say please, and when Jun tries to be a little cocky, when he thinks he has a modicum of control and says, “You’re okay, baby, you can take it,” you send him such a nasty glare he immediately gives it to you harder and faster.

But he can’t help but laugh. “What, I can’t call you baby?” he jokes. There’s a rebuttal on the tip of your tongue that Jun does away with with a sharp thrust of his hips. He knows he’s playing with fire, that he’ll pay for this one way or another, but the thought thrills him more than anything else.

“I’m the—fuck,” you swear. Jun doesn’t have to ask why. Everything’s starting to feel tighter, wetter. Both of you are hurtling toward the inevitable, and Jun needs to feel you come on his cock, needs to watch you unravel beneath him.

He grabs your hand. Sucks two of your fingers into his mouth. “Touch yourself,” he says. “Make yourself feel good, I wanna see you come.” He moans, loud and unabashed, when you do as he says.

Each pass of your fingers over your clit makes you jerk, has electricity licking at your heels. Jun feels each one. Feels the way you clench and tremble. A bead of sweat runs down the column of your throat and he traces it with his tongue. Keeps fucking harder, deeper; grinds his pelvis against your clit and falls in love with the way you sound in the throes of lust. Wants to bottle it and keep it forever.

“Jun, I’m gonna—”

Another roll of his hips. Deep, deep, deep. “I know.” Two words he’s barely able to choke out. Feels like he’s being suffocated as his vision starts to go hazy at the edges. All he knows in this moment is your pleasure, your satisfaction, you.

Your orgasm hits with a shattering cry. Jun follows right after, unable to put up a fight against the vice grip of your cunt. It feels pathetic, the way his body shakes with the force of it, but when it passes, when he comes back into his body, all he feels is bone-deep euphoria.

He collapses onto your chest. Presses another kiss there. Sighs contentedly when your nails scratch lightly at his scalp. “Okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” comes your easy answer.

Minutes pass in blissful quiet. Neither of you speak, letting your heavy breathing do the talking, and for once Jun enjoys the sounds of the city outside when there’s someone beside him to hear it, too. “I’m gonna pull out,” he tells you, even though it feels a bit silly.

He feels the loss immediately.

Unsure of the protocol for something like this, Jun does what he always does: pretends there’s absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening at all.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, punctuating his words with a kiss to your temple. He grabs a clean pair of underwear from a drawer, pulls them on, pads down the hall to the bathroom. He pointedly does not look at his reflection as he turns the tap on and waits for the water to warm. Knows his face is blotchy and flushed and his hair’s a mess and that you’re spread out on his bed looking like the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, so he doesn’t want to look at his reflection and feel bad about himself. Doesn’t want to taint this moment by feeling unworthy of it.

But a bit of that self-doubt still manages to creep in, because he returns to his room and is surprised to find you haven’t left. That, above all else, you look content: laying on your front, one of Jun’s pillows tucked beneath your head, sheets barely covering your ass. You smile when Jun puts a knee on the mattress and you feel it dip. Smile wider when he kisses the length of your spine and tells you, in a voice unrecognizable even to his own ears, to roll onto your back so he can clean you up.

If it’s too intimate, you make no mention of it. If there’s no room in this moment for this kind of care and affection, if all of this is for Jun’s sake and you’re just letting him go through the motions, you don’t mention that, either.

He works slowly and with care. Apologizes when you hiss at the first swipe of the washcloth, the water warm but still colder than your skin. Cracks a joke about taking you out for breakfast in the morning even though both of you know you’ll be long gone by then, and he waits for that knowledge to sting but it never does, but he’s relieved when you laugh anyway.

It’s when you stop laughing, when your smile slowly disappears from your face, that it all starts to sink in. Because you ask, “Did it feel real to you?” and he’s not sure how to interpret that. If it’s a masked plea for reassurance or if you want to make sure he got his money’s worth.

Maybe it’s both. Or maybe it’s neither.

“I know it can’t be for you what it is for me,” he answers, “but if you’re asking if I had a good time, then my answer is yes. And I know what this is, so you don’t need to look like that, okay? I’m not about to confess my love for you and start crying.”

(That’s not entirely true. He really might start crying, but he’ll at least have enough sense to wait until you’re gone.)

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, so I…” You sigh, avert your gaze, tangle your fingers in the sheets. “It’s just—you’re doing all this nice stuff for me, so I didn’t… I wanted to make sure.”

“‘Nice stuff’? You mean helping you clean up and offering you a glass of water?”

You laugh again, but there’s no humor in it. “You’re treating me like I’m human, Wen Junhui. Like I’m the same as any other woman you’d sleep with.”

He cocks his head. “Why wouldn’t I?” he asks, and that’s the end of that.

Jun doesn’t use his downtown office much, but since his apartment still smells like you, he figures he can use a change of scenery. Hoshi will know where to find him if he’s needed.

He ducks into a recently-opened coffee shop and orders an expensive latte with ingredients he’s never heard of. When he pops the lid, he’s both horrified and intrigued by the purple-blue coffee that greets him. Back outside, he breathes in the musk of the city: the exhaust fumes, cigarette smoke, the sweat from people rushing to work.

A jianbing vendor is set up at the corner, fills him with nostalgia—smells just like the ones he ate nearly every morning during law school. He smiles as he orders and asks for extra lajiao, foolishly ignoring the questioning glance he receives in return, and he’s happy as he walks the remaining two blocks to his office with it warm in his hand. Sticks it in his mouth to hold between his teeth as he digs in his pockets for the key. Jiggles it in the lock as he accidentally bites down, and it takes a second, maybe five, but then—

He should not have asked for the extra chili sauce.

All 182 of his centimeters crash through the door and carelessly toss aside his briefcase. Water. He needs water desperately, even though it’s just going to make it worse, which he knows, but his mouth all the way down to his esophagus feels like it’s been set ablaze. Feels like he’s breathing magma. Feels like if someone stood in front of him right now and caught wind of his breath, they’d turn to ash.

Which explains how he misses the person sitting at his desk, their feet kicked up and face hidden behind a newspaper from six months ago.

He finally notices them some ten minutes later, after he locks himself in the bathroom and douses his face in cold water and can be sure he’s not about to die from excessive heat intake. Not that this is any less embarrassing for him: he shrieks, clearly not expecting anyone to be there, and the stranger shrieks in turn. The shriek-off lasts approximately thirty seconds and is cut off by an elderly woman sticking her head through the door and asking if everything is alright, to which Jun sheepishly nods and bows in apology as he thanks her for her concern.

Once she’s back on the street, he whirls around to face his intruder.

“Good morning,” Hoshi says, seemingly nonplussed by the entire sequence of events that have transpired. “Had a little mishap with the chili sauce, huh?” Jun ignores him. Snatches the newspaper out of his hands and shoos him out of his chair and into one intended for guests. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

Jun glares. “Why are you—”

“Or should I say the only side of the bed, considering you had erotic entanglements with the devil.”

Annoyance flares within him. Has that lajiao heat rushing back to his skin. Hoshi’s got a lot of nerve—the same guy who refused to tell him much of anything, who just takes and takes and takes, is now criticizing him for exercising his free will. Well, Jun’s not going to accept that, he decides. Adopts a snotty little tone and says, “So you were spying on me? Wow, okay, you pervert.”

Hoshi balks. Trips over his words as he tries to mount a useless defense. “I didn’t—that’s not—no,” is the best he can come up with.

“Did you like the show?”

“Wen Junhui—”

“Very convenient that’s the thing you watched. Missed my whole crisis of faith, huh? Both of them? Didn’t think I’d maybe need some support during those times?” He shakes his head. Tries to hold on to the anger, because it’s less humiliating than crying after acting like a hard-ass. “At least she’s been honest. At least she’s always been upfront about who and what she is. You guys—you guys have all these demands, all these requirements, but at the end of the day none of it matters. We’re all just pawns, and that’s all you’ll ever see us as.”

The angel stays quiet. Can’t quite discern if Jun’s tirade is over. He narrows his gaze, opens his mouth as if he’s going to speak just to see if Jun will interrupt him. (He doesn’t.) He clears his throat and tries to remember the correct pitch for his Comforting Voice: this will prove to be a pivotal moment in Wen Junhui’s partnership with Upstairs, and he’s going to need it.

“Wen Junhui,” he attempts again. No, the tone isn’t right—needs to be a little lower. “Wen Junhui, I am… holding space for everything you’ve just told me.” That’s better. Sounds convincing enough. “Is it fair to say you feel abandoned and unimportant?”

Jun’s cheeks warm to a mortifying shade of red. “I guess,” he mumbles.

“Great!” Hoshi beams. “Thank you so much for trusting me with this sensitive information.” He snaps his fingers and another manila folder appears in front of Jun. “Since you’re feeling better, this is your next assignment! If you open to the first page, you’ll see the contractee’s name is Choi Seungcheol and that he is of the utmost import—”

“No.”

“—ance.” Hoshi, unused to being caught unawares not once but twice in the same conversation, simply blinks, limbs frozen mid-air. “Pardon?”

“I said no.”

“Right, right… See, I heard that, but I’m not following. What do you mean no?”

Jun stands and starts clearing off the desk. Not that there’s much on it besides a framed picture of himself sandwiched between his parents at his graduation and an unused candle. Peach bellini. Hoshi had procured it from who-knows-where, said it was “an important part of Internet history” (that Jun must’ve missed) and called it a “belated graduation gift,” except the smell was so sickly-sweet it immediately gave him a migraine as soon as the lid came off.

All of this is besides the point, which is this: Jun doesn’t need this office. He doesn’t need this weird job where he reports to these weird people.

He says as much.

“Hey!” Hoshi objects, to which Jun responds, “You’re wearing a shirt with a cartoon wolf on it that says Fighting the Gay Allegations Again. I mean come on, dude, where do you even find these things?”

“You don’t like my shirts?”

“No! And I also don’t like that you just pretended to care about my feelings so I’d get back to work like a good little corporate soldier!” He’s able to fit the picture frame in his briefcase, but the candle doesn’t fit. Even if they’re arguing, it seems rude to give it back to Hoshi when he’d gone out of his way to get him a gift to begin with, so he lets out a frustrated screech and decides to carry it back to his apartment. “Find some other would-be Pope to help you.”

Although his face is blotchy and wet, Hoshi seems undeterred. There are, of course, no other would-be Popes available on such short notice—especially not one that’s earned the favor of the devil—so he needs to think up a plan quickly. If he fumbles Wen Junhui, he’ll either never hear the end of it from the lower-ranking angels or he’ll be stoned, and neither sounds very favorable right now.

So he does the only thing he can think to do: he snaps his fingers.

Kim Mingyu looks exactly like his picture.

He’s just as tall and symmetrically good-looking as Jun thought he would be, dressed in an impeccably-fitting white suit that elongates his legs and makes him look far taller than the six-foot-one-point-nine-repeating he’d measured in at. Dark, slightly wavy hair frames a perfect set of cheekbones, and whatever cologne he’s wearing nearly has Jun drooling.

He might actually be doing that, he realizes with horror, because Kim Mingyu also looks supremely uncomfortable. Is fluttering from one thing to the next, never staying more than a few seconds in each spot, tidying and organizing the same items over and over, muttering apologies all the while. And the board room really is not that big, so all that anxiety is starting to wear off on Jun, who was in his own office only a few minutes ago arguing with an angel that is currently nowhere to be found.

“So sorry about the mess!” Mingyu chimes. Jun can tell he’s trying (and failing) for unaffected. “I didn’t know we were having visitors, but no matter! My mother always used to say…” He pauses. Straightens his posture. Grabs a bouquet of white hydrangeas from a stunning pearlescent vase just to drop them right back in. “Er, I suddenly don’t remember anything my mother used to say.”

Jun grimaces and hides it behind his hand. “‘Have a wonderful day at school’?” he offers.

Mingyu smiles, makes a little a-ha! sound as he snaps his fingers; seems thankful for the lifeline he’d been thrown. Says, “Yes, yes, of course!” and starts fussing over the state of the table. He squirts a concerning amount of cleaner and wipes at it so aggressively Jun fears he’s going to wear a hole in the wood. “I’ve been told there was a slight security issue, but please rest assured that the rest of our guests should be arriving very soon! Any second now!”

That last bit comes out more like a demand.

Even though he feels far less intelligent than Hoshi claims he is, Jun is still smart enough to deduce he’d been snap-blasted to Heaven, not only because Mingyu is here and there are vaguely ominous security issues, but also because there’s a placard next to the door:

Board Room 17 Pearly Gates Wing

“It’s weird seeing you in real life after staring at the picture in your file for so long,” Jun says, continuing to look around. Everything is stark white, which he expected, with accents of gold that dazzles so brightly it hurts his eyes and pink freshwater pearl, and the flowers are abundant and fragrant. Jun feels at peace here. If it weren’t for Mingyu and his rapidly-fraying nerves, he might even call it tranquil. “I think I have a crush on you.”

Mingyu flushes. Unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth to stammer out a response that’s interrupted by three more figures materializing by the door.

Hoshi stands in the middle of Jeonghan and Joshua, arms slung around both of their shoulders. The two demons, naturally, do not look pleased. Jeonghan especially looks tortured, which is at odds with his new pink hair, and he’s the first to shrug off the angel. He grabs the chair closest to him and makes sure it scrapes against the floor as noisily as possible before slumping into it, arms crossed, scowl so fierce his frown lines nearly touch his jaw.

Joshua does the same, though he looks far more delighted to have a seat at the table.

From an invisible speaker, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor comes blaring. Hoshi and Mingyu startle; the latter goes in search of a tablet, completely frazzled, mumbling oh no oh no oh no as he rummages through drawers. Jeonghan and Joshua side-eye one another and come away wearing matching glares. To his credit, Jun sits ramrod straight and doesn’t flinch. When no one’s looking he sticks his fingers in his ears to dampen the noise and smiles politely at Mingyu when they make awkward eye contact.

The music cuts out, Mingyu heaves a sigh of relief, and once the tense silence settles back into the room, he turns to Hoshi and stage whispers, “Should I put it back on, or…?” to which Hoshi frantically nods.

Opening blaring once again, it’s then that you walk through the door, flanked on all sides by an impressive security detail. (Heaven’s, of course. They’re also dressed in all white and wearing mitre hats with SECURITY embroidered across the front in gold beadwork. Jun wonders, briefly, if this is where Hoshi gets his inspiration from.)

You’re escorted to a seat. There are seven chairs on the side of the table opposite Jun; you’re given the one in the middle, and Jeonghan and Joshua immediately move to sit on each side of you. You carry yourself with an easy confidence, not at all rattled by being here in this setting. It’s almost comical how your body language contrasts with Hoshi and Mingyu: how they’re at home, where they’re meant to be, and their unease is so apparent; and you’re where you’ve been exiled from, antithetical to what you’ve been put in charge of, a place that Jun knows picks at all those old wounds like a buzzard, and your composure is faultless.

Something you have to be, he figures.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, what’s with the long faces?” you ask, brows knit in faux-concern. You look the same as the last time Jun saw you—he’s sure it’s a power play, meant to throw him off, and it works. Heat simmers along his skin as the memories come flooding back. He wonders what you look like to everyone else. “It’s so lovely to see you all again.” You turn to Mingyu, who seems to shrink under your undivided attention. “Especially you, handsome. We’ve all been mourning the loss of our favorite eye candy.”

Mingyu squeaks. “Um!” He scrambles to the head of the table. His hands shake as he tries to unlock the tablet. “There’s, uh—an ag-agenda! For this me-meeting. Very important! Just one moment, please, and I’ll—”

“Very fascinating,” Jeonghan interjects. “Do you anticipate this happening at any point today? I have to oversee a workshop this afternoon about new ways to make men insecure about their penises and I simply cannot miss it. It’s my second-favorite event of the year.”

“What’s the first?” Jun can’t help but ask.

“The social media workshops. Next month’s is about online bullying and new ways to avoid getting banned by safeguarding teams so you can continue trolling in peace without fear of repercussions. The one after that is about sending in anonymous gossip to those Spotted In Such-and-such Facebook pages for places no one cares about.”

Joshua nods. “I think the Stevenage one is my favorite. When’s the workshop about the new Lego shapes to step on?”

Mingyu’s mouth snaps closed. In an attempt to nip the derailment in the bud, Hoshi says, “I think what our Head of HR meant to say was—”

“HR? None of you are human.”

“It stands for Heaven Relations, obviously,” Hoshi snaps, “and we’ve called this emergency meeting because we’ve been made aware of a very troubling development.”

You gasp. Lean forward and widen your eyes like you have no idea what he could possibly be referring to. “No! A troubling development, you say?” You fold your hands on the table. “Tell me all about it.”

Jun, however, cannot possibly play it so cool. Feels dread overtake his body as restless anxiety sets in. The mind reader that he is, Joshua sends him a discreet wink that does very little to settle his nerves. Still feels like he’s drank fifteen cups of light roast coffee and is about to sit for a law school exam he forgot to study for.

“It has come to our attention that…” Mingyu looks down at the tablet. Looks up and over at Hoshi. Grimaces. “Do I really have to say this?”

“Yes.”

He huffs and continues. “It has recently come to our attention that one Wen Junhui, would-be Pope and recently-licensed lawyer accepted into a contracted position at Their approval, has engaged in… sexual relations… with the being known colloquially as the Devil.”

Jeonghan looks sideways at you with the most disgustedly disappointed look Jun has ever seen appear on a face. To the contrary, Joshua leans across the table to high-five him and say, “You dirty dog! I bet it was better than that handjob, huh?” He leans back, whistles low. “Goddamn, why is it every time you get some action it’s like some end of days shit? You ever consider becoming celibate?”

“Not involuntarily,” Jun mumbles.

“Shame,” Jeonghan intones. You laugh at this.

Hoshi, once again fed up with his meeting being derailed, says to Jeonghan and Joshua, “Why are you two even here?” to which they reply, “We’re her advocates. We’re advocating.”

“No advocating has ever taken place while the three of you have been in this room.”

Jeonghan rolls his eyes. “At ease, Megamind.”

“Metatron,” Mingyu quietly corrects.

Jun snorts. Of course. Of course Hoshi is one of the most powerful archangels in Heaven. Speaker of God, permitted to be in Their presence and at Their side; celestial scribe and guide to humanity—the guy who appears earthside wearing crude t-shirts and stupid hats. Of-fucking-course.

All of this is enough to drive him to lunacy. All the things he didn’t and doesn’t know, all the secrets kept locked up tight, all the jokes he continues to be the butt of. Everyone in this room is on equal footing except him, and he’s the one seemingly on trial. Heaven doesn’t care what you do—your role is to sow chaos and they’re powerless to stop you, just as you’re powerless here. No, the only one that will feel the repercussions of this is Jun, not only because he’s the only one capable of being punished, but because he’s human.

He must sense his distress again, because Joshua mouths a watch this before saying, with all the conviction and tenacity of a seasoned prosecutor, “Allow me to advocate, then: we do not accept these accusations as fact without being presented with irrefutable proof, which I’m sure you have, considering you’ve made such a show of gathering us all here.”

Mingyu and Hoshi share a look.

“I—well, you see—”

“Surely you don’t need irrefutable proof to understand what a conflict of interest this is and why we’re concerned.”

“A conflict of interest which surely has already taken place?” Jeonghan tacks on. Joshua nods with grave sincerity. “Or have you called an impromptu, emergency meeting to discuss hypotheticals?” Mingyu and Hoshi share another look. “Gentlemen, need we remind you of the criteria that must be met before an emergency meeting may be called? I cannot imagine two high-ranking employees such as yourselves disregarded such strict protocols simply because of the parties involved?”

“Haaa, of course not!” Hysterical, frenzied laughter ensues. “No, no, we would never—”

Joshua shakes his head. “It sure is looking like that’s what has taken place here today, but I hate to assume the worst, so if you could just show us the permits I’m sure we can get this all cleared up.”

“Per-permits…?”

Jeonghan has all the patience in the world as he replies, “Section 894, subsection 12 of the accords states that in order for an emergency meeting to be called and granted between the constituents of Heaven and Hell, the proper permits must be filed and signed off on by the governing bodies of each at least 72 hours in advance. Now, it’s possible the paperwork was signed on our side, but as you know our boss is very, very busy and it seems to have been misplaced, so we have no way of confirming this.” You nod, sharing Joshua’s very serious look. “Hence the permits. Show them to us, please.”

There’s hope yet that Jun will get out of this. Be on the receiving end of his own strategy. Jeonghan and Joshua start up a show us the per-mits! show us the per-mits! chant that sends Hoshi and Mingyu into a panic. The latter, now soaked through with sweat, does a fruitless search on his tablet, while Hoshi tries to distract everyone with an interpretive dance none of them can make sense of.

“I believe this is a reflection of his current state of mind,” you say solemnly, playing the part of an esteemed art critic. “It’s histrionic on the surface, but once you dig deeper, it’s uncontrolled and frenetic at its roots. A wonderful metaphor for a fractured, disjointed mind, but severely lacking in execution.”

“Amen,” Jeonghan and Joshua say in unison.

Minutes pass. It’s clear the permits don’t exist, but Mingyu keeps up the charade of searching anyway, much to the delight of the Hell delegation. “Have you tried the top drawer of that thing?” Joshua asks right after Jeonghan suggests checking the trash folder on the desktop in his office. You, of course, stay quiet, content to soak up your victory in silence—albeit while looking extremely smug.

“Well!” you say, clapping your hands together with a wicked smile. “This was fun. Thank you both so much for the invite, but I fear we must be going. Duty calls.”

Hoshi is having none of this. Permits be damned, another snap of his fingers finds you bound to your chair, chains wrapped around each of your forearms. You hiss at the contact. “Whoa,” Jun whispers, and if Jeonghan’s and Joshua’s mouths hadn’t been removed by the same finger-snap, he assumes there’d be a crude joke coming his way.

“The three of you would do well to remember who and where you are.” Hoshi speaks with all the authority bestowed upon him. It’s a stark difference from how Jun usually sees him—aloof and unserious, more like a court jester—and it has him straightening in his chair. “None of us will be leaving this room until the matter is resolved.”

You roll your neck. Press your tongue into the fat of your cheek but otherwise don’t move. Pain flashes across your face each time the chains leave fresh wounds in your skin and Jun wants to tell them to cut it out, call this whole thing off, say it doesn’t mean anything, but he’s still so clueless. Still so far out of his depth. These matters concern him but are so far beyond his pay grade it’s all he can do to keep treading water.

And you know this, because you say, “There is no conflict of interest. Everything is business as usual.”

Hoshi doesn’t even make eye contact as he retorts, “Which is useless, coming from you.”

Mingyu offers up a tight-lipped smile. “I think what my colleague is trying to say is that we simply cannot trust word of mouth in a matter as serious as this. As I’m sure you understand, Wen Junhui is a special case. It’s quite rare They enlist the help of humans in such circumstances, and if he is no longer able to perform his duties in an unbiased manner due to your influence—”

Teeth grit, you repeat, “There is no conflict of interest.”

Mingyu sighs. Sets down his tablet and narrows his gaze. He seems to have shaken off the dregs of doubt and uncertainty, because he looks powerful. Looks intimidating, which is not a word Jun would have used to describe him twenty minutes ago. “Need I remind you of your role in this universe? Chaos and temptation; calamity and destruction. You serve no one. You do not speak in truths, nor are you concerned with them. Your ambition and pride were your downfall, and it seems you have learned nothing in the years since.” He turns his attention to Jun. “And if you doubt what I say, remember I witnessed all of this with my own eyes.”

“Scandalous! And what were you doing at the devil’s sacrament, Kim Mingyu?”

Jun nods, earning him an incredulous look from Hoshi. “Well, she has a point,” he defends. “There is that saying about stones and glass houses or whatever. He wouldn’t have seen all of those things if he hadn’t made a deal with her in the first place.”

Hoshi is quiet. Mingyu looks betrayed. “Are you not going to—”

“He, too, has a point,” the angel concedes. “I mean, did you really have to do all that? You were already hot and tall, I just don’t—”

Even with no mouths, it’s obvious Jeonghan and Joshua are snickering.

The bickering continues before eventually devolving into baseless name-calling. Jun’s head snaps back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match, and it’s not that far off. Mingyu hones in on your lack of character, prompting Hoshi to chime in with something equally cruel or just nonsensical in an attempt to back him up, and you handle both of them with ease, laughing off their taunting just to get under their skin. Which works, of course, so on and on it goes, ad nauseam, until Jun puts everyone out of their misery and puts an end to it.

“Isn’t anyone going to ask me how I feel?” At once the room goes silent, all squabbling ceased, and the sudden quiet has his ears ringing. “I know you don’t need me,” he says to you, amazed he can meet your eye when he feels like that admission is going to make him vomit. He turns to Mingyu and Hoshi. “But you two do, and throughout this whole experience I have been left out, lied to, and talked over. Did either of you ever stop to consider that’s why I refused the assignment and it has nothing to do with her? That she’s telling the truth when she says there’s no conflict of interest?”

At least they have the good sense to look embarrassed.

Mingyu is the first to crack. He bows slightly at the waist and says, “On behalf of Heaven, I would like to offer you our deepest and most sincere apologies.”

Hoshi follows suit. “Right. Exactly what he said.”

Jun studies each of them. Mingyu, he knows, is just doing what any human resources officer worth their salt would do: protect the company at all costs. Fortunately this works out in Jun’s favor. He’s important and necessary and, against all odds, has proven his worth and abilities to boot. Heaven can’t negotiate with Hell without him, and it’s this knowledge that spurs him on, has him crossing one leg over the other and folding his arms across his chest. Total power stance. Hoshi gapes a little.

“I think there’s a compromise to be found here.”

The compromise is this: just as there are souls in Hell that were meant to go to Heaven, the reverse is also true. Jun had stumbled across them during his hours of research: souls that had somehow slipped through the cracks and went north when they were meant to go south; souls stuck in an endless purgatory that a lax Judgment Deliverer let in because they didn’t feel like doing paperwork; judgment numbers in which an integer got input incorrectly. What he proposes is a one-for-one trade. Heaven wants Choi Seungcheol, so they’ll have to give up someone in return.

It evens the playing field—

“Which was the original intention, was it not?”

More importantly, and perhaps more selfishly, Jun will no longer be able to be used as a pawn. He’ll uphold his original agreement while doing the same for you—for Hell. He’ll rewrite the terms and conditions of the contracts after each soul has been judged fairly and impartially by both factions, essentially voiding the concept of sides.

“I would be working for you both,” he concludes. “It’s the only way any of this remains fair.”

(He’s also not trying to invoke your wrath and spend eternity getting dipped in hot oil, but he doesn’t feel it’s the right time to admit that.)

After a lengthy silence that Hoshi spends pressing against his ear, the angel eventually says, “Heaven is amenable to these terms if Hell is.”

You heave a long-suffering sigh that has Jun on the edge of his seat. This proposal was certainly better than the last one he’d pitched you, but you’re giving nothing away. Also of little help are Jeonghan and Joshua who have fallen asleep and are snoring loudly. Mingyu leans over to wipe a spot of drool from the corner of Joshua’s mouth. He doesn’t move.

After what feels like a lifetime, you nod. “Fine. Hell is also amenable to these terms.” A chorus of cheers. Jun does an embarrassing little wiggle out of excitement. Hoshi stands on top of the table and pumps his fist. Mingyu, still in HR mode, starts listing off all the potential new job titles for Jun.

(In the end his new name tag reads: Wen Junhui, Special Counsel to Heaven & Hell, Contracts Division.)

Before you leave, and before the celebrations can get too out of hand, Jun clears his throat. “I have a request,” he says, before adding on, “if the whole payment in forms other than money thing is still on the table.”

“It is,” Mingyu confirms.

“Great.” He sucks in a breath. Lets it go all disjointed and shaky. There’s no going back once he says this and they grant it—which they will, considering the way Mingyu’s nearly tripping over himself to give him whatever he wants. But it’s still a massive ask. It will still change the trajectory of his existence, just like that handjob had done. And even though he’s certain it’s what he wants, he still wonders if he’s making a mistake as he says, “I want to be immortal.”

Jeonghan and Joshua jerk awake. “What the fuck did he just say?”

Hoshi, too, looks stunned. “Uh, are you sure?”

No, Jun wants to say, please talk me out of it, but the words die in his throat when he looks at you. There’s not a hint of bewilderment to be found. No shock or awe. There’s just the smallest nod of your head, meant just for him, that says all he needs to hear—that you see him, that you recognize he’d gone through all of this insanity because he needed to find his own path, and that he’s finally found in it the meaning he’d been searching for.

“I’m sure,” he confirms, completely void of hesitation.

Hoshi scratches at the back of his neck. “Well, I—that’s quite a big request. I’ll have to see what we can do.”

Mingyu, however, spoils the inevitable surprise by giving him a thumbs-up.

After that, there isn’t much left to say. Mingyu formally concludes the meeting and thanks Hell for their attendance and participation, to which Jeonghan gives him the finger before disappearing in a plume of smoke that causes everyone to gag. Joshua takes advantage and slips out the door undetected. Mingyu and Hoshi are none the wiser until some of the employees down the hall start screaming. “Please excuse us,” Mingyu chokes out before he, too, disappears in the direction of the shouting. Hoshi hangs back, tries to swallow his amused smile, but then Mingyu returns to drag him away.

Only you and Jun remain. “What did Joshua do?” he asks, less to break the silence and more because he’s nosy.

“Released roughly three dozen of those terrifying tarantulas that eat birds.”

“Oh.”

Silence creeps in anyway—not awkward, but Jun can tell there’s something you want to say. Should he hover? He doesn’t want you to feel obligated (not that you would), but he can’t deny that he’s curious. You, the literal devil, reluctant to say something to him, just a human? It’s too good an opportunity to pass up.

“You’re not gonna get all clingy and weird now that we’ve had sex, are you?” he jokes.

Shockingly, you do not find this funny. “I may have lied about inventing Jenny McCarthy, but I did invent the guillotine. And the electric chair. And the rack—”

“Noted,” Jun replies, giddy all over. Can’t help it as he shoves his hands in the pockets of his slacks and rocks back on his heels. “Should I walk you to the door?”

“Don’t you dare,” comes your response, but Jun does it anyway. Gets away with it by dropping some quip about his mother raising him to be a gentleman, and it’d just destroy her if she knew Jun wasn’t abiding by her teachings.

Your reluctant smile is akin to pulling teeth, but it still shows up.

Whatever havoc had been wreaked by Joshua seems to have been solved. There’s blissful silence as the two of you reach the door, and Jun knows his escort is pomp and circumstance, that you could disappear in the blink of an eye the way Jeonghan had, but he appreciates you going through the motions for his sake, that you’ve allowed him a moment of normalcy.

“Was it hard coming back here?” he asks, leaning against the door frame to stem his desire to reach out for you.

“Well, it’s certainly never easy, but I’ve got plenty of psychologists down there I can talk it over with if need be.” You check an invisible watch. “Do you think Freud is available for lunch tomorrow?”

“If he’s not, I am.”

A bark of shocked laughter has you covering your mouth. “I did not expect that from you.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” you reply instantly. “Have a great weekend, Wen Junhui. I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.”

Jun nods… which is about all he can do, considering he’s stuck here for the time being. Hoshi sent him here, which means Hoshi’s the only one who can send him back—some stupid security rule Jun wasn’t paying attention to when it’d been explained to him. So he sticks the corner of his thumb in his mouth, thinks about how great your ass looked in those pants as you walked away, and pivots back into the conference room to await the angel with the stupid t-shirts.

Except, as soon as he turns around, there you are. Face to face. Close enough that your scent is paralyzing, but it’s different now—softer, he thinks; something that makes him feel less like he’s been ensnared in your web and more like he’s been invited in. Close enough that when you lean in he can feel the warmth of your breath on his skin, that sensitive spot just below his ear.

“You were wrong,” you say, so quiet he’s not sure he isn’t imagining your words, filling in the blanks of what he wants to hear. “What you said earlier, about me not needing you.”

Then you’re gone.

In the blink of an eye, just like he thought you’d be.

He makes a mental note to be available tomorrow around lunchtime.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Sharing and reblogging my work is the best way to say you enjoyed it, but I also accept any and all feedback and screaming in my inbox. <3

[svtswhorehouse]

DATING JUN INCLUDES…. — sfw

• you and seungkwan have beef cause no way in hell you’re coming for his title of biggest huihui.

• you’re one of the most important people in his life and he always lets you know that.

• jun pays SOOOOO much attention to you, sometimes you think he knows you better than you know yourself.

• he’s the cook of the relationship, always making you a bunch of dishes from his hometown.

• you’re his biggest supporter when it comes to his acting career.

• you definitely help pull him out of his comfort zone.

• dating him is like having a new unpredictable adventure every single day.

• he’s very good when it comes to taking care of you — always making sure you’re taking your medicine when you’re sick and not overworking yourself when life gets too hectic.

• you’re always constantly checking in on him and making sure he feels heard and seen.

• he would drop anything and everything for you (even if it’s glass.)

• jun is actually really slick when it comes to flirting, but with that being said, he also gets flustered easily whenever you reciprocate.

• sometimes he struggles with explaining things or getting his point across, but overtime you’ve become a master at decoding his words.

• he’s the first person to call whenever you want to do something stupid — he would never say no to you.

• he’s always on a mission to make you smile and laugh.

• he freaks you out with the way he sleeps, but there’s nothing buying him a sleeping mask won’t fix 😃

• would teach you inappropriate phrases in his first language, but wouldn’t tell you what it means.

• laughing at minghao when you go tell him the phrases and he stands there shocked cause wtf did you just call him ????

• late night walks are a common thing in your relationship.

• he’s always trying to convince you to get a cat.

• you being starstruck when he just randomly brings a kitten home out of nowhere.

• keeping the kitten anyways and referring to it as “your child.”

• he claims it’s practice to prepare yall for an actual kid.

• he’s always kissing your forehead.

• the type of boyfriend who would love for you to put lipstick on and pepper his face with kisses.

• shamelessly posts the selfies of him with your lipstick marks all over social media.

• you constantly get side-eyed by seungkwan cause he still holds a grudge against you for “stealing” jun from him.

• being bad at ball sports together.

• y’all are a hundred percent the type of couple to make a pillow and blanket fort in the living room.

• y’all grocery shop together always, but end up getting junk food instead of what yall originally came for.

• his energy always peaks whenever he sees you.

• jun never really complains about his worries, but you have a talent for coaxing it out of him.

• he’s always offering to give you shoulder rubs.

[seokmn]

DAMN TRIP .ೃ࿔ ✈︎ *:･

pairing: junhui x fem!reader wc: 0.8k words warning: pet names, jun as girl dad (yes, its a warning for my delusional besties out there.)

“let me be over there again”

Junhui dropped his bags on the floor and wrapped his arms around your waist, tightening his grip as if he would never see you again. He let out a defeated sigh. “I can't believe I have to go… what if I tell my boss I got sick? I can tell him I have dengue fever, and he’ll let me stay at home!” You laughed at your husband's comment and shook your head while caressing his hair. “We don't live in a tropical or subtropical country, you can't have dengue fever.”

“You have no idea how good I can be at acting,” he smiled and hid his face in the crook of your neck. “I don't want to leave you and D/N by yourselves. Seven days is too much time away from you."

You placed your hands on his shoulder and pulled him away just enough to make him look at your face. You smiled in a comforting way and kissed his temple. “Junnie, we’ll be fine, and we’ll be always facetiming each other. These seven days will pass in a blink of an eye, okay?”

Junhui still looked upset, but he nodded and gave you a peck on your lips before looking in the direction of your daughter's room, “D/N? Dad is leaving soon, won't you give me a hug?”

In a matter of seconds, you saw your daughter running to him with a frown on her face, arms raised, and one of her hands holding a folded paper. “Daddy, don't go!”

Junhui picked her up and gave her a sweet kiss on her forehead. “I wish I could stay, but I have to go… It's only for seven days, though,” he tried to comfort her, but his heart was absolutely broken. Since you gave birth to your daughter, Junhui and D/N became inseparable. “And I'll facetime you every time to tell a story before you sleep. I promise you.”

He caressed her puffy cheeks as her frown was deepening. D/N used her free hand to rub her eye while giving him the folded paper that was on her other hand, Junhui smiled and looked at her with the kindest expression ever. “Is it for me? Can I open it now?” she nodded, and he shifted her in his arms so he would be able to open the folded paper with his two hands. Once he opened it, he saw a drawing of you, him, and the little girl with a bunch of hearts around the three of you. He couldn't help but tear up as he showed the drawing to you, making you a little bit emotional as well.

“Sweetie… That's so beautiful, I'll take this drawing with me all the time. Thank you for giving it to me,” he kissed her forehead once again and searched for something in his pocket. “I have something for you as well.”

Her eyes lit up in curiosity as he took out two bracelets out of his pocket and showed them to her. "I asked uncle Joshua to help me to make them for us, the pink and yellow one is yours, and the pink and blue one is mine. It has our initials, look!” The little girl grabbed the pink and yellow bracelet and took a look at it, seeing the stars and three letters, being them the initials of your names. She smiled widely, wrapped her little arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.

“Daddy, I loved it!” Junhui chuckled and rubbed her back. “I'm glad you loved it. I hope to see you wearing it!” He turned his gaze to you. “Yours is on my side of the bed. It's pink and white, your favorite colors,” you smiled and wiped your tears away. “Gosh, you're acting like you’re leaving for a whole year,” you placed your arm around his waist, and Junhui took this opportunity to give you and your daughter a family hug.

“I love my girls so much,” he sighed before continuing. “I promise to come back quickly and bring you gifts.”

The three of you stayed like that for a while before you broke the hug. Junhui pampered his daughter with sweet kisses all over her face before putting her back on the ground, then he looked at you, gave you a sad, yet lovely smile, and pecked your lips. “I'll text you when I get to the airport, before the flight, after the flight, and when I get to the hotel,” you chuckled and nodded. “Have a safe trip, love. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he turned to your daughter and crouched down to be on her level. He booped her nose and smiled, “I love you as well, got it?”

“I love you too, daddy! Have a safe trip!”

Junhui sighed before standing up once again and grabbing his bags to leave. He looked at you and D/N and smiled before leaving the house, leaving you and your loved daughter alone for the next seven days with his heart broken in pieces, absolutely hating the thought of not having you around.

[hannieehaee]

sorry to hear you’ve been feeling unwell, I hope you’re starting to feel much better and congrats on the milestone!!

I’d love to request a fic where both junhui and oc are on separate work trips, missing eachother not being able to talk much, arrive home separately on the same day and have the most super intense and passionate fucking EVER bc they missed each other ever so much :’))))

thank you thank you for your beautiful writing!!

18+ / mdi

content: bf!jun, softdom!jun, afab reader, smut, reunion sex, penetrative sex, dry humping, etc.

wc: 1734

a/n: thank u so much for ur concern im feeling way better now c: and thanks for requesting!! i hope u enjoy<3

masterlist

"okay, so you're getting home at 5, right? please tell me there's been no change of plans, fuck, i'll go crazy if-"

"jun! yes! i'm getting home at 5. nothing has changed. i'll see you today at 5, okay, babe? stop overthinking it," you reassured your boyfriend before he could go on yet another rant about how badly he missed you.

throughout the past three weeks, you and your boyfriend had had a bit of trouble aligning your schedules. he had left on a work trip about twenty days ago all while you left on your own trip two weeks after that. having returned home a few days ago, he was bummed to realize that he'd be coming back to an empty home as you finished up your own work.

finally, after far too many days away from one another, your schedules aligned. after three grueling weeks in separation, your return was set for today, with a ride already booked to bring you home at around five in the afternoon. jun had only been home alone for two days, but he had been itching to see you for far too long already.

it was uncommon for the two of you to spend so much time away from each other. work trips were not usual for either of your work schedules, so such a sudden and prolonged separation had thrown you completely off guard.

jun had taken the brunt of it, constantly spamming you with texts and calls detailing how much he missed you – and which parts of you he missed the most.

your boyfriend was not shy to express his desire for you even through the distance. although he missed the softer and less explicit parts of your presence, he was a little extra vocal about the carnal ways in which he yearned for you these past few weeks. calling you for phone sex became a common occurrence only a few days into your separation, as jun would call you every other day with his dick already in hand.

every single one of these calls would be accompanied by hints at all the things he would do to you the moment you were back together, leading you to becoming just as pent up as jun clearly was.

unsure, yet excited for what was to come when you finally arrived home, you prepared yourself the best you could to finally be dicked down by your boyfriend. you were practically vibrating with anticipation by now.

"okay, fuck, sorry," he apologized, "i'm just so excited to see you."

"i know, baby. me too," you reassured.

"don't even knock when you get here. i'll leave the door open. just run to the bedroom. i don't think i'll be able to waste even one second without touching you," he rambled on, completely serious too.

you chuckled, "okay, junnie. i'll be ready for you to tackle me with your dick."

"you think it's a joke, but i will!"

~

"baby? are you in the room? i'm hom- hmph!"

despite the lighthearted discussion you'd had about your return, you assumed jun had been exaggerating a bit. you expected a soft welcome accompanied by a hug and maybe a kiss before being ultimately led to bed to get the dick you'd been thirsting after for weeks. jun had different plans, though.

the moment you walked in, jun jumped you, running out of the room and meeting you as you'd barely crossed the door to your apartment. interrupting your inquiries for his location, he locked your lips in a kiss, forcing your bag off your shoulder with rushed hands and walking back into your room as he held onto your hips for guidance.

there were no thoughts in your head as you followed along, kissing him back just as passionately as he did you, putting everything in the kiss; everything you'd been holding back these past weeks. in a similar fashion, jun moaned and groaned into your lips, gaining pleasure from the mere contact with you.

clearly pent up and with a heightened sense of need for you, he continued to whimper and moan as he felt you up, hands liberal in their touches of your ass and tits.

"missed you so much, fuck. feel so soft ... so pretty and good for me," he breathed out as his lips trailed down your neck.

his hands went straight to your clothing, attempting to rip it off after a mere five minutes of kissing, quickly becoming frustrated by the lack of skin to skin contact.

"need to get this shit off you. been thinking about your body for weeks," he huffed, throwing off your shirt and clipping off your bra, "seeing it through a screen isnt enough."

he was a mess as he took off your clothes, but eventually got the job done, pushing you lightly onto the bee before doing quick work of his own clothes as he stared down at your bare body with a look in his eyes that could only be described as immense desire.

"junnie, hurry the fuck up!", you rushed him despite how accelerated he already was. you couldnt help yourself when he looked so good as he stripped down for you. his eyes only gave you indication of how good you were about to be fucked – how could you resist in riling him up a bit more?

huffing again, he basically toppled you over, making you lay flat against the bed as he climbed over you. immediately reconnecting your lips, he began to aggressively make out with you once more, hands groping at every inch they could reach. both your hips were uncontrollable, messily humping into each other in search of some sort of friction.

"baby, need you so fucking bad," he breathed against your lips, "gonna fuck you so good. been thinking about it every night," he mumbled into your skin as his lips trailed down your neck, leaving a trail of red marks and saliva behind.

"then fuck me already," you whined with grabby hands digging into his back, pulling his hips against your own by your legs.

with a rush, he reached into the bedside table, hands bumping into the table a few times before finally making it to the drawer and pulling out a long line of condoms.

"oh? you have a big night planned?", you snickered at the sight.

"shut up," he rolled his eyes with a laugh, getting up to rip off the condom and put it on.

in the meantime, you flipped yourself over, getting on all fours and arching your back for him with the knowledge of how pent up and desperate he was. the sight was usually able to flip a switch in his mind, making him lose all composure and fuck you senseless. today was no different.

upon realizing your change in position, he groaned deep in his chest, rushing to press himself up against you and grabbing harshly onto your hips to push them up into his cock. with no further warning, he eased his way into you, slow in his entrance but accelerating the moment you nodded back at him to give him the green light to begin moving.

with an inhuman speed, jun fucked into you almost animalistically, completely losing sight of himself and babbling nonsensical praise to your cunt while embedding himself into the pleasure. his fingers dug deep into your hips, surely leaving marks that he'd have to kiss later.

forcing your back into an even deeper arch, jun began dragging your hips back and forth into his cock, coordinating the rhythm of his own rocking of his hips. despite the mindless way in which he harshly fucked into you, he let out the most pathetic whimpers at the feeling of your cunt wrapping around him. faring no better than him, your own cries accompanied his own in filling up the otherwise silent room.

"missed this cunt so badly ... you have no idea how much," he grunted breathlessly, "t-tell me you've missed me too," he practically pleaded afterwards.

"missed you, junhui, so much ..."

"tell me how much," he demanded, hips never ceased in slapping against your ass.

"s-so much. missed you so fucking much, junhui," you cried out when his hips accelerated even more, making your eyes roll back at the aggressive yet finessed manner he fucked into you.

"missed you more," he let out in a huff, "gonna show you all night. gonna make you cum again and again til you're begging me to stop," he reassured in slurred words, clearly almost at the point of losing himself to his high.

"'m gonna cum, junie, please ... cum with me," you begged, needing to make him delirious with pleasure in the same way he did you.

with tears in your eyes, your orgasm reached you, making you hiccup moans and cries of jun's name while he continued to fuck into you.

"so fucking good for me, shit. got so t-tight, oh fuck- g-gonna cum, shit."

his orgasm was not far from yours, catching him off guard due to the pulsing of your cunt during your own high. somehow he managed to become even more desperate in the canting of his hips, making you cry out in sensitivity but prevail throughout it as the impact was too pleasurable for you to actually want to push him away.

almost falling against you, he leaned into you as he caught his breath. meanwhile, you were a shell of your former self, completely spent under him and attempting to regain your own breath.

in just a few moments, jun began silently kissing up and down your back before pulling out and ridding himself of the condom, immediately going back to loving on you with his lips and massaging at your hips tenderly with his hands.

wordlessly, he helped you lay down on your stomach as he wrapped around you, continuing to kiss and rub at your sore form before finally speaking up.

"i really missed you," he began with a murmur, "was that too much?"

"no, junnie. i missed you too much to not let you fuck me like an animal," you chuckled after recovering your ability to speak.

"good, cause i'm planning on using that whole pack of condoms," he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

your body might not make it til the next day, but reuniting with your boyfriend and his endless stamina made it worth it.

[studioeisa]

omg "what? me? jealous? never." with junhui please! 🫶🫶

ⵌ actor!jun x actress!reader. ⵌ word count: 988 ⵌ notes: co-stars, secret relationship, pet names ('pretty girl'), suggestive joke, all my favorite tropes in a drabble. i miss this man sooo bad.

Jun loves award shows.

He loves having an excuse to dress up, loves getting to interact with other groups a little more openly, loves the special stages they get to put on. And if his gorgeous girlfriend happens to be a special emcee, well— that only makes it a much better night.

He's not allowed to be too excited, of course. He's always careful not to blow his cover. At most, the boys just seem to assume that you're his favorite co-star.

If only they knew that Jun's had the privilege of your heart for the past couple of years.

There's a bit of a thrill in sneaking around, in having to pull out his acting chops. Tonight, Jun lies about having to go to the bathroom, fields Minghao's invites for accompaniment, and navigates through all the other tables. Your text had been the only prompting he needed. It's like a waltz; his eyes on your back, the distance he keeps.

You side step in to a corner, behind a curtain, and he follows. The entire venue of idols, of actors, of Korea's biggest stars are none the wiser.

Jun's hands find immediate purchase at your waist. "Hey, pretty girl," he greets smoothly, that bright smile of his already lighting up his face.

You'll probably only have three minutes, but three minutes is all that Jun needs. He doesn't waste time. "Saw you on the red carpet earlier. You were stunning," he hums, his face going to nuzzle the underside of your ear.

"I think you're a little bit biased," you shoot back, unable to resist a jab. Your facade of annoyance is betrayed by the smile that's threatening to fill your own face. "But I think I can let it pass for tonight, 'specially since that suits of yours looks so good on you."

"I'd look even better out of it," he says unrepentantly. His arms tighten around your waist, holding you close when you try to pull back and away.

You let out a groan. Jun laughs softly.

Jun's lips brush against your jaw, then down the line of your throat. His nose skims your skin as he takes a breath. "You smell nice," he mumbles.

Cinnamon, sugar, vanilla. The same scent as his own cologne.

"You got me this at your Japan stop," you answer, your hands resting at his hips. It's not much, but it'll have to do for now.

"I should get you a perfume every time we have a stop abroad," he says.

"Yah, don't do that. You have expensive tastes. And you already get me too many things whenever you're on tour."

"What's the point of being an established artist at my big age if I can't spoil my pretty girl a little?" he grumbles petulantly. He tilts his head to press a kiss over your pulse. "Besides," he adds after a moment, "I like that you smell like me."

Smelling like Jun was just another one of those things. His subtle reminders in the form of innocuous couple items that only the two of you knew about. Cologne and perfume with similar notes, matching silk pajamas, rubber shoes from the same line. A quiet litany of mine, mine, mine in your every day lives.

You give a bright, warm laugh as you mumble into his hair, "I'll wear it more often, then."

You are so bad for him. A walking, talking dopamine rush. Everything about you makes Jun feel a little lightheaded, a little dizzy. Like he's had one too many to drink.

But you're also the one who sobers him up, the one who always says, "We should probably get going."

"Do we have to?" he whines. His arms around you tighten. He knows the answer to his question— yes, yes, you have to go. But he can't help wishing otherwise. "Five more minutes?"

Your nth sigh of the night. Even then— "Five more minutes," you concede.

His hands flatten out against your back, holding you more snugly against him. He could stay like this forever. Just your warmth against him, the scent of you in his nose, the sound of your steady breaths in his ear.

But you say five more minutes. And so he counts down from ten in his head. Ten, nine, eight…

Jun pulls back after the countdown and steals a long, deep kiss from your lips.

This was what it felt like to be alive. The way his blood pumped faster, his heart thumped harder. The way that your very presence made everything else seem dull in comparison.

The feeling only intensifies when you move closer. When you arch against him in that way you know he loves. When your fingers run through his hair.

Jun is all but breathless. He pulls away after long enough, leaning his forehead against yours. "I'm a terrible influence on you," he pants against your lips.

Your hand slides down to his face, your thumb ghosting over his mouth. "You got some on you," you grumble, and it takes him a moment to realize that you're fretting over lip gloss.

"Leave it," he says. "I like smelling like perfume and looking like I got kissed."

You shoot him a glare. He gives you cheeky grin.

When the two of you part, Jun is relegated to watch you from his table. You're radiant up on stage, perfectly composed and charming. You have stellar manufactured chemistry with your more recent co-star, and some of the boys decide to tease Jun about it.

"Looks like you've gotten replaced, Junpi," Jeonghan sing-songs.

Soonyoung nudges Jun in the side. "Jealous that you've lost your favorite co-star to Kim Soohyun?"

Jun barely stops himself from bursting into laughter. Replaced? Co-star? His members don't know the half of it. Jun absentmindedly runs a thumb over his bottom lip, where traces of you still linger.

"What? Me, jealous?" He breaks out into an innocent smile. "Never."

୨ৎ * GAME, SET, PLAY ! ( JEALOUSY ) DRABBLE GAME.

[sungbeam]

𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭

nonidol!wen junhui x f!reader

you don't have to love me; you just have to not hate me.

2.1k words, fluff/minor angst?, historical-adjacent romance (NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE), general!jun, arranged marriage au, mention of wine and food, est. relationship, it's like... kind of soft?, mentions of not consummating the marriage, barely proofread

a/n: this will prob be the last thing you see from me until i finish finals in the coming week or so :') wish me luck, and hope y'all enjoy this low-key self-indulgent drabble

You loathed pretense. It was partly why you dreaded any interaction at court, and why you abhorred your very purpose as a woman born into a world of men. Your purpose was to be sold to the highest seat at the table, and it just so happened to be the General of the North.  

There were plenty of daughters of noble families who looked upon you with envy; this promotion was the next best thing to becoming the consort or concubine to a royal. One of the five high generals of the empire was a score and should never be taken lightly. 

But it was dreadfully lonely. 

You should have been more grateful, you thought as your servants combed through your hair, soaked your body in rose petals ported from far west. You should have been more grateful, you thought as they dressed you in fine silks from the southern shores of the empire, embroidered in the most exquisite gold threading and crystal beads. You should have been more grateful, you thought as the doors to the dining hall slid open and you bowed in greeting to the man seated at the head of the table. 

“Husband,” you murmured politely, head dipped low as your mother ingrained into your spine until your waist hinged like second nature. 

“Wife,” he acknowledged. 

When you raised your head, you were met with General Wen Junhui's unreadable stare. His face and body were carved equally of a godlike form, something wickedly beautiful and cruelly detached. He had his dark hair pulled back with a ribbon, the shorter bangs hanging part way in his eyes. It wasn't terribly long—it barely brushed his shoulders, having been chopped off in a messy shag some point in battle months ago, before you were wed. It was unconventional, but still handsome on him. 

You took his greeting as permission to move to your seat, and you lowered yourself at the table across from him. The table was spread with a decadent array of dishes, seasoned and roasted to perfection in five different techniques. Here was another thing you should have been grateful for. 

You clasped your hands in your lap, waiting. 

General Wen continued looking at you, as if considering something. His lips rubbed back and forth against one another and his finger tapped silently against the table. 

When your name fell from his lips, you nearly jolted. 

“Yes, General?” you replied. 

There was a flicker in his gaze, followed by a sigh. “Nevermind. Please—” he gestured to the food, then picked up his chopsticks in a show of encouragement. 

You followed, your movements slow, but elegant. You allowed your actions to loiter behind him, watching with a sharp eye to ensure he took the first bite. It was what you were taught. 

Only once the piece of roast duck passed his lips did you bring your chosen bite up to your own mouth. 

The dining room descended into silence, filled only by the muffled sounds of chewing and the soft clicks of utensil against plate. It was painfully awkward, but you'd been through worse, such as political dinners with your parents, where they openly presented you like cattle to their counterparts’ sons as if you could not hear them. You were their perfect, little pawn, molded into their perfect, little noble wife. You were their ticket to the high table, but wasn't that the definition of a daughter?

Across the table from you, Junhui cleared his throat and reached for his wine cup. “Would you like to take a turn around the garden with me once we finish dinner?” he asked, and the question came with a quick flash of heat at the back of your neck. This was new. 

“If you would like me to join you, General, then I will—”

His face contorted into a brief grimace. “I am asking if you'd like to,” Junhui said. “I would like you to, but you may not agree, and if so, then you are not required to join me in the garden.”

Oh. 

The image of his home garden flickered in your mind's eye: the lotus pond filled with koi, moonlight glinting off its onyx surface; flora grown and nurtured with great care by the grounds staff. You had walked the path about the garden once or twice before in the evening, and enjoyed making it your reading spot during the day. A small smile flitted to your lips at the thought, a miniscule spark of hope. 

“Yes, I will join you.”

A nod, and perhaps even the ghost of a smile. “Good.”

Dinner resumed in peace. 

Though you had spent plenty of moments alone with the general, very few of them shared the air of walking in the garden at night side by side. On the night of your wedding, you both shared a bed for the sake of it, but did not consummate your marriage. He seemed more determined to get a good night's rest than fulfilling that marital duty. You didn't mind; you weren't sure you wished to bring children into this cruel world, and Junhui was awfully occupied with his own obligations and work as it was. 

The night air was a comfortable temperature, with the humidity sitting delicately on your skin through your silks. You kept your hands tucked into the folds of your sleeves as the two of you strolled side by side upon the cobbled path winding through the garden. The pond sat as still as a painting, reflecting tonight's half moon upon its glassy surface. Small lanterns dotted the garden's perimeter to illuminate the way, as well as to allow you to admire the beautiful arrangements around you. 

The man beside you let out a small exhale. “I hear that you spend most of your days here,” he said, casting you a glance. “I take it you like it?”

“Certainly,” you replied with a nod. You weren't surprised he was informed of your whereabouts; the servants here were more loyal to him than they would ever be to you. Perhaps with time that might change with your own personal maids. “It's beautiful. The gardeners are truly masters of their craft.”

“Agreed.” 

The two of you paused at the apex of the small, wooden bridge that spanned the widest portion of the pond to peer at the garden splayed before you. In the early summer nights, you could hear the grasshoppers chirping their sweet melodies, hidden away somewhere in the plants. 

“I,” Junhui began, “know that you did not choose to be wed to me.”

You fought the urge to whip your head up in surprise. Where was this coming from?

Junhui kept his eyes off in the distance, unable to look at you quite yet. The dim flow of the nearby lanterns casted a pretty shadow across his defined jawline and nose, his dark eyes gleaming like a jewel. “You were likely raised to be married off, I can understand that much,” he continued. “But this doesn't have to be painful for either of us.”

“I don't quite follow,” you said quietly. 

He turned toward you then, and his gaze pierced through your own, hooking you in and preventing you from looking anywhere else. “If you had a lover before we were married, then I apologize. I won't pretend to understand that kind of love, but I've felt love for others before. You don't have to love me—all I'm asking is that you do not hate me.”

Something clutched at your heart. You did not hate the general; he likely married you to get the sharks off his back who were hounding him to wed. The only thing was that you could not force yourself to pretend around him—pretend that you loved him and were in awe of him, like any 'good’ wife would. It was especially difficult when he was away for most of the day and hardly spoke to you. After your wedding night, you both slept in your own chambers, retiring as soon as dinner was cleared. 

But… you couldn't ignore the look in his eyes. You'd never seen them reflect light in such a way, so pleadingly. You would wager the general hardly ever needed to beg, but there was a quality to his expression now that was close to it. 

“I don't hate you,” you murmured, facing him. “I simply—dislike this situation.”

“Being married to me?”

“Being married at all,” you replied frankly. “This was all I was bred for, all that I've been told to look forward to. I wish it weren't.”

Were you drunk? You should not have been speaking so freely to this man, husband or not. To be so outwardly contemptuous about marriage to one's own husband was instinctually forbidden. Were you praying for punishment?

Yet punishment did not come; he only bowed his head. “I see.”

“You will not reprimand me?” you blurted. Perhaps you really were inebriated. 

Junhui's brows creased considerably. “Of course not. You're only speaking the truth, and…” his voice trailed off as his eyes flickered upward. You followed his gaze—a blur of dark blush pink wafted down from the night sky, a plum blossom. The errant bloom drifted down into Junhui's outstretched palm. “This is the longest conversation we've ever had.”

He was right, as pathetic as that was. Even dinner was eaten in silence. If you didn't share that meal with one another, you would likely never see him. 

General Junhui, in this light, became a different man. Though he shared the same features as the man you married, they softened a value in the dim lantern light. For a moment, he looked like a young man who hadn't been burdened by such honor and great responsibility. In this light, he became reachable and someone just as alone as you were. 

His words from earlier echoed in your mind. “About what you said,” you piped up, “about a prior lover—I never had one. It's only ever been you.”

You didn't know why it sounded like that when it left your mouth. Your cheeks warmed beneath his stare. 

“I mean,” you stammered, “I've had no prior partners.”

Junhui nodded. “I understand. Neither have I, really. I've seen what it's like, however.” His voice was gentler at the tail end, wistful almost. 

“Who, if I may ask, General?”

His posture seemed to straighten, and he reached over to take your hand. The velvety petals of the plum blossom tickled your palm as he enclosed your fingers around it.

“I'm Junhui to you,” he said in earnest. “We’re husband and wife. Please don't call me what everyone else does.”

Your heart rattled so violently in your chest, it threatened to catapult into your throat. You were imprisoned by his beautiful eyes, imploring you to heed his words. 

You managed a swallow, your fingers curling around the plum blossom as his hand continued to warm yours. “Alright, Junhui,” you breathed out. The name was so intimate coming from your mouth. 

The tension in his shoulders loosened, and the corners of his mouth seemed to twitch upward. Junhui nodded. “That’s… much better, thank you. And to answer your question, it was the crown prince and his princess.” This time, he did not fight his wistful smile at the thought. 

Could the memory be so lovely as to cause such a beautiful expression to bloom upon his handsome face? Would you one day be able to be the cause of such a smile?

“Crown Prince Minghao?” You recalled the uproar that entire scenario caused. A crown prince, destined for the imperial emperorhood, falling in love with a seamstress was unheard-of. Though high society was predictably scandalized, much of the whispers among the lower classes revered the seamstress princess as proof of class mobility. It was a love story fit for the ages, and legends never died. 

You could be happy for them but understand that theirs was an exceptional case. Not all would be blessed with such circumstances. 

Junhui hummed. “Yes. His partner was a friend of mine whom I grew up with in the northern provinces. When I was relocated here to the capital city, she was a part of my party. I like to believe it was fate.”

You looked on at him in foolish, tender hope, that spark catching oxygen to burn into a flame. 

He gently squeezed your hand with his. “We don't have to have their love,” he whispered, “but we can make the best of this.”

Maybe the little girl inside you who longed for something more was still buried somewhere deep within you. She cupped that flame of hope in your chest, and began to nurture it until it warmed your soul. You nodded at him, covering his hand with your free one in quiet agreement. 

Beneath the evening plum blossoms, you and Junhui made a pact on your own terms, together—you chose to search for the light along this path you were both forced to follow. 

a/n: don't forget to reblog + comment if you enjoyed!

svt m.list

permanent taglist: @flwoie @vatterie @seomisaho @hqrana @ja4hyvn @outrologist @rikizm @luumiinaa @lotties-readings @tinkerbell460 @meosjinnn @hyunjaespresent-deobi @otterly-fey @floatingpluto @ethereal-engene @gyulfriend @jaehunnyy @shakalakaboomboo @eunseok-s @bless-311 @leaz-kpop-life @fluorescentloves @thesunsfullmoon @haechansbbg @kpopjackie @jundundun @http-gyu @mars101 @moonyswolf @honeyrecommends @synthwxve @thecarnivaloflies @p-d1ddy @thatonedemigodfromseoul @foivetimesthecharm

[daisymbin]

30. "is that my shirt you’re wearing?"

reader visits jun at practice and the members tease him about it

so cute!! thank you for requesting 🥰

request your own: full prompt list!

check out my masterlist! // jun's m.list

fluff prompt #30: "is that my shirt you're wearing?"

jun wiped the sweat from his brow, glancing at the mirror as the music faded. practice had been relentless today, but he couldn't help the way his thoughts wandered. he was exhausted, but a small part of him hoped you might visit. it had been a long week, and just seeing you always made him feel lighter.

the studio door creaked open, and jun turned instinctively. there you were, peeking inside with a small smile and a bag in your hand.

"oh, you're here!" minghao announced, a sly grin spreading across his face.

"your girlfriend is here, jun!" jeonghan added, earning a round of chuckles from the others.

jun ignored them, his face lighting up as he jogged over to you. "hey," he said softly, his voice dropping just enough that only you could hear.

"hey you," you replied, handing him the bag. "thought you and the guys might need some snacks."

jun peeked into the bag, his smile growing. "you’re the best."

"leave me some!" seungkwan called from across the room, already making his way over to snatch a snack.

you laughed, and jun felt his chest tighten in that familiar, fluttery way. but as he looked at you, something caught his eye—a shirt he recognized.

his shirt.

"wait," he said, tilting his head. "is that my shirt you’re wearing?"

your eyes widened slightly, but you recovered quickly, a teasing smile playing on your lips. "maybe."

jun blinked, caught off guard. "but... when did you even—"

"last time i stayed over," you interrupted, folding your arms casually. "it was comfy, so i borrowed it."

"borrowed," he repeated, a playful edge to his voice. "you mean stole."

"you weren’t using it," you said with a shrug, clearly enjoying the way his ears were turning pink.

"it’s not fair," he mumbled, more to himself than you.

"what’s not fair?" you asked, leaning closer.

"that you look better in it than i do," jun said, his tone somewhere between genuine and dramatic.

the rest of the members burst out laughing, and you both turned to see them watching like an audience at a live show.

"ew jun is whipped," soonyoung said, shaking his head.

"hmm and proud of it," jun shot back, unbothered by the teasing.

you rolled your eyes but couldn’t hide your smile. "you’re ridiculous."

"ridiculously in love," jeonghan added, earning a collective groan from the group.

jun reached out and tugged gently at the hem of the shirt, his fingers brushing yours in the process. "it suits you," he said, his voice quieter now, just for you.

"thanks," you replied, your smile softening. "but i can give it back if you want—"

"no way," jun cut in quickly, shaking his head. "it’s yours now. but you have to wear it all the time so i can brag that it used to be mine."

"okay," you said, laughing.

the guys groaned in mock disgust, retreating to give you two a moment. jun reached out, brushing a stray hair from your face, his eyes warm.

"thanks for coming," he said softly. "it made my day so much better."

"anytime," you replied, the sincerity in your voice making his heart skip a beat.

and as the teasing continued in the background, jun decided that this was his favorite shirt—not because it was his, but because it looked so good on you.

[seungcheorry]

thinking about junhui coming home to you after a hectic day. he silently walks in, giving you a kiss before going to take a shower.

the night is quite slow, quiet. he doesn't talk much, at least not until you say the four magic words.

"how was your day?"

jun looks up at you from his plate, a soft smile on his lips.

"it was okay", he shrugs. "there was so much happening that i'm pretty sure i dissociated at some point."

you laugh at that, reaching for the kimchi to put some more on his plate.

"i bet it was tiring."

"it was, to be honest. there was actually this staff member that- oh my god, babe, you won't believe it! so, i was getting on the car with minghao and seungkwan, right? and then..."

and then he goes, yapping about his day while eating the food you made. cute, little yapper.

a/n: there's something about junhui, mindlessly yapping and sharing the little things about his day, about his life with you - that is so soft, isn't it? i love him ☹️

[xinganhao]

🎲 junhui x drama fan!reader.

you're just a little bit oblivious to the fact that the internet friend you run a k-drama account with is none other than junhui himself. headcanons & bonus content under the cut. ➤ see also: svt burner accounts series

🎲 season one .ᐟ

episode one: jun always knew that there was a side of the internet where people talked exclusively about dramas. he figured it would be very much like every other fandom space. debates, fangirling, the like. when he started his burner nwjun, it wasn't even with the intention to talk with anybody. he just wanted to be in on the conversation, wanted to know what everybody was watching out for.

you were one of the first people to begin interacting with jun. you tell him, nowadays, that you once thought he was so cross, because he barely responded to any of your replies or dms. the truth of the matter was simple. jun wasn't in the business of getting caught. this burner account was his safe space, his little corner of the internet where he could be just jun. not junhui of seventeen, not junhui the actor. just... jun.

except one day you make a point that he absolutely cannot help but disagree with, and jun can't help but go swinging into your direct messages. his passionate rant about the merits of translating dramas is what kicks start your friendship, for better or for worse.

episode two: it took jun some convincing to join kdrwatch with you. it had been your thing in the first place— your little passion project where you could scream about korean dramas to a thousand-something people. after months of back-and-forths, you invited jun to be an admin. he thought it over for about a month before deciding, fuck it, and signing on with you.

jun is convinced it's one of the best, most stupid decisions of his life. he doesn't quite know why it makes him so happy, to run this semi-popular drama account jointly with you. he doesn't even have to do much! he posts screenshots. his to-watch lists. maybe an update here and there. but, for the most part, he's just shouting to the void about the things that he likes.

and jun loves it. absolutely enjoys every minute of it. it helps that you're there, too, on the other side of the screen, indulging his character analyses and throwing more recommendations his way. here, he feels normal. he feels seen. he feels alive.

episode three: does jun feel bad that you don't know who he really is? ... not quite. it's not like you've really asked, either. he gives out bits and pieces of himself, just enough for him to not feel like a stranger. he reassures you that he's not some fifty-year-old creep. and, well, it's right there. he didn't even try to hide it behind an alias or anything.

maybe that's why jun gets bold sometimes. maybe that's why he'll flirt a little, why he'll slip in a pickup line or two. he teases you about being someone famous, about being an actor, about being a star, and your disbelief at every turn only spurs him on.

you're friends with jun not because he's an idol, but because he's some guy on the internet who likes the same things as you do. somehow, that's enough for you, and that's almost baffling to him. he always thought he had to be this impressive, imposing thing for his words to matter, and yet you're here proving him otherwise. is it a gift? a curse? he hasn't figured it out yet.

episode four: jun feels like this whole thing could almost be the plot of a drama itself. he can see it in his mind's eye.

he just doesn't know if he's the male lead you're looking for.

but god, does he want to be.

BONUS CONTENT .ᐟ

[kozukensgf]

IDK WHY BUT I WAS THINKING ABT READER JUST RANDOMLY TEXTING JUN AND BE LIKE "hey i watched your c-drama with my friends 🧍🏻‍♀️.."

i twist a bit yn is watching his cdrama alone! hope u enjoy this im sorry it took ages 😢

boyfriend text with jun!

charac! moon junhui

genres! smau, crack, fluff, one shot, fake texts, reaction to his cdrama

masterlist

tyy @seventeen2theworld <3

part one | part two

[hoshifighting]

hii would you write something like edging jun or not letting him cum for no nut november?? 🙏

edging jun on NNN [no nut november]

WARNINGS: smut, handjob, edging, orgasm denial, teasing.

it’s no nut november, and jun’s the type of dude who takes shit like that way too seriously. like, you had to watch him solemnly promise to himself: “not even gonna look at her thighs 😤✋.” like you’re just her now?

so, naturally, your mission is to ruin him.

“baby, can you please move over?” his voice comes out tight, like he’s already choking on the effort.

you don’t move. you’re perched on his lap, all warm and smug in your oversized hoodie and, yeah, nothing else. your thighs are spread just enough to make him see, and that stupid pair of grey sweatpants is doing zero to hide how badly he’s losing this challenge.

“what, am i heavy or somethin’?” you blink at him all innocent, dragging your hips juuust slightly like you’re adjusting your seat.

jun practically whimpers. it’s pathetic.

“no! you’re not heavy—fuck—can you just—ugh—” he cuts himself off with a hiss, hands clenching the couch cushion instead of your hips.

you lean closer, letting your lips brush against his ear. “you’re so tense, babe. wanna help you relax.” your voice is dripping with false sugariness, and you swear you feel him tremble under you.

“you’re the opposite of relaxing,” he mutters, glaring up at you with that stupid flushed face of his. you tilt your head, pretending to think about it.

“hmm, okay. maybe this’ll help.”

your hands slide under his hoodie, and his skin is burning. fingers dance along his abs, light and teasing, while you let your nails scrape just enough to make him squirm. you watch his jaw tighten, his breathing get shakier, and it’s the best high you’ve ever felt.

“you’re—fucking—evil,” he grits out, squeezing his eyes shut like not looking at you will help. it doesn’t.

“evil? me?” you giggle, running your hands higher until your thumbs brush his nipples. that gets a reaction—his hips jerk up without control, and you bite back a grin when you feel him twitch against your thigh.

“okay, okay, stop,” he pants as he shakes his head. “i can’t—y/n, seriously—”

but there’s no seriously here, not when you’re having this much fun. your lips find his neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses that are just shy of biting. he’s trying so hard to keep his hands to himself, but when you drag your teeth along his jaw, they shoot up to grab your hips.

“thought you were stronger than this, not even a week in and you’re falling apart?”

“y/n, please.”

“please what?” you ask, feigning confusion while your fingers toy with the waistband of his sweats. “you’re gonna have to be more specific, baby.”

“you—fuck—” he’s so flustered, it’s adorable. “you know exactly what—shit—i hate you.”

you grin, lips brushing against his skin again. “love you too, babe.” your grin stretches wider when you slip a hand under his waistband, fingers curling around him. he gasps as your thumb brushes over the wet tip of his cock.

“oh, babe,” you coo, voice dripping sweett as you tighten your grip just enough to make him buck up into your palm. “look at you. you’re so sensitive.”

“y/n—oh my god—” his voice cracks like he’s on the verge of tears. his hands are gripping your thighs now. you’re too busy watching his face—his furrowed brows, the eyes rolling back,, the way his lips part with every shaky breath.

“why’re you doing this to yourself, hm?” your voice is soft, teasing, like you’re genuinely curious. “you could just—oh, i don’t know—lose.”

“no,” he chokes out immediately, shaking his head. “i’m not—i’m not fucking losing—”

you hum, pretending to consider his words, and your hand starts to move—slow and wet strokes that have him arching off the couch. “really? ‘cause from where i’m sitting, you look real close to giving up.”

his cock twitches in your grip, a bead of precum sliding down to coat your fingers. you look down at it, letting out a soft gasp like it’s the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen.

“oh, babe, you’re dripping,” you murmur, spreading the slickness with your thumb. he follows your gaze, his breath catching as he watches you pump him. “you’re such a mess,” you add. “so wet for me.”

“y/n, please—” his voice is breaking, ragged and desperate. his hips are moving on their own now, thrusting up into your hand like he’s completely lost control.

“shh,” you whisper, leaning down to press a kiss to his temple. “let me help you, yeah?”

you speed up just enough to send him stupid, his moans getting louder. you feel him start to tense under you, and you know he’s close—so, naturally, you stop.

“wha—no—no, no, no—” he’s practically begging, his hips still jerking like he’s trying to chase the feeling. “why did you—fuck—why did you stop?”

you shrug, pulling your hand away completely and licking the slick off your fingers. “thought you didn’t wanna lose, babe. i’m just helping.”

“you’re insane,” he groans, throwing his head back against the couch.

“yeah, probably,” you agree, climbing off his lap like you’re totally unaffected by all of this.

he’s panting, trembling, but he still tries to glare at you. “this is—this is actual torture—”

“relax, babe,” you tease, flopping down next to him and running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “you’ll thank me later.”

but, of course, you’re not done.

not even five minutes later, your hand is back in his sweats, stroking him again like you can’t help yourself. his cock is still so hard, the head flushed and angry-looking, and his body jerks like he’s aching for relief.

“you’re so cute like this,” you whisper honey-sweet. “all desperate and needy. you sure you’re gonna make it through the whole month?”

he tries to answer, but all that comes out is a choked whimper as you tighten your grip and drag your thumb over his slit.

“poor baby,” you coo, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth. “bet you wanna cum so bad, huh?”

“yes,” he breathes, the word falling from his lips before he can stop it. his eyes widen like he’s just betrayed himself, but you’re too busy grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

“aww,” you mock, your strokes slowing again. “but you can’t, can you? gotta stay strong for the boys.”

the boys? yeah, the boys. it all started with an almost common sense between them. you cant help but hate them for a little bit.

he groans, his hands gripping your wrists like he’s trying to make you move faster. but you don’t let him. instead, you pull away again, leaving him trembling and gasping like he’s about to scream.

“you’re so mean!” he whines broken.

“and you’re soooo stubborn.” you shoot back, pressing one last kiss to his cheek before settling back into the couch like nothing happened.