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yuzukult · 3 years ago

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i can't run away (m) || kmg & reader

title: i can’t run away pairing: kim mingyu x reader genre: angst, fluff, smut, pining!mingyu, tsundere!oc, opposites!au, sort-of-slowburn (?) wc: 15.7k summary: everyone expresses love in different ways. that doesn’t exclude you. warnings: profanity, adult themes, unprotected sex, oral (m. receiving), uh they do the dirty deed idk what else to say a/n: this is going to be part of my attacca series! :D hope you guys enjoy! (p.s. if there's typos in the smut, i refuse to go back and proofread that one section bc i'm shy.) also, note that this fic takes place in present, then past, then present again! :) hopefully it’s not confusing lol

The air feels different.

It’s gotten colder these past few weeks, but tonight especially, the winds are brisker and the whistling fills the silence along with the rustling leaves that twirl in the direction of the breeze. If he didn’t make the decision to grab that grey hoodie hung over the back of the brown leather couch, he’d be freezing.

Oh, right. How could he forget you?

He hates when it gets like this—resulting in him taking a stroll in the midst of the late hours of the night, jaw tense, fists clenched by his side, and heart heavy. The sky is missing the twinkle of the stars, full of nothing but bleakness, hollow as his chest, bare from the absence of you. But this space is an obligation; it's the only way for him to cool down, for you to cool down, and give the two of you enough distance before blurting things you don’t really mean.

Although, he thinks it might be a little too late for that.

Mingyu is left pondering, head swarming of the thoughts of you and the words that spilled from those pretty lips of yours. How sharp they were, cutting him like the blade of a knife, the aching and stinging in semblance to the physical kind. When you said for him to leave, he’d done just that—grabbed his keys, wallet, that hoodie, and slipped into his sneakers before heading out into the darkness.

His friends warned him. But obviously, he didn’t listen—how could he with those tempting lips, that canorous laugh, and charming smile of yours, in spite of how infrequently he got to see it. His heart was always a priority to him, and despite the possible agony it could bring with the consequences of loving you, of being yours, he still chased after what he longed for. Surely enough, he had you within his grasp.

Yet, you’re so slippery. You slip through the cracks of the foundation he’s built for your relationship, but he’s slowly beginning to understand that he needs you there to help him, and he couldn’t do it alone. Relationships don’t work like that. It’s a team effort.

The bright lights from the convenience store just a few blocks from your apartment illuminate the route he walks. He doesn’t know where he’ll go, or what he’ll do, but the tearing, worn out poster ad of ramen that mirrors the sluggish, melancholic version of him is alluring enough. Maybe he’ll think more rationally on a full stomach. Maybe a bowl of instant ramen will give him the answers he needs.

The aisles are empty, but the shelves are full. He’s artistic in comparison to you, and believes that the lanes of the convenience store are like your relationship. Paths are vacant, but the racks are stacked with supplies—your heart a void, and his very own filled to the brim with nothing but adoration. Why did you even agree to be with him if you weren’t going to put your all into it? Did you even reciprocate those feelings for him? Or was this all just something you wanted to do for fun, and none of it was serious to you?

When he rips open the seasoning packet, the crimson powder trickles into the bowl of uncooked curly noodles before he discards the bag into the trash bin nearby. It feels weird eating ramen alone. Before meeting you, this was something normal he’d do himself, but since his encounter with you… it's always been with you. It doesn’t feel right without you. ‘Midnight snack?’ he recalled you asking, lifting up the two packs of instant goodness in your hands. Ramen tasted good before you. But it’s even better after you.

Blowing on the lump of noodles held by his chopsticks, he shoves it into his mouth. How could something invariably delicious to him suddenly not hit with that same euphoria when it meets the tip of his tongue again? Cheeks full, his heart juxtaposes, remaining hefty yet empty, and it’s incomplete with your attendance.

Is it even worth chasing you? He’s been doing it for years, and it feels like you never change. Not that he wants you to—he loves who you are, who you’ve become, and who you’ll be in the future.

But part of him wishes that you’d show some interest—an ounce of evidence of your feelings for him, something for him to hold onto. Some type of clue that this was worth fighting for.

Yet, it seems like you never give him anything at all.

Rosy pink nose, milky smooth skin, and fluttering long lashes that brushed against the highs of her cheekbones—everyone knew how gorgeous this girl was. Her lips were tinted cherry red, plump and silky, and whenever her tongue came out to swipe across it, you could almost hear the men and women sigh in content at the sight. Hair bouncy, shiny, and full with luscious waves, it stretched down to her mid back in an onyx waterfall and checked off the last box of almost every guy’s list of qualities that they wished their future girlfriend would have. She was a walking billboard advertisement, for God’s sake. Of course she was on every guy’s wishlist.

When Mingyu first met this girl, he kind of had the same idea as the rest of his group of guy friends. It was almost impossible not to see himself with that girl. She had every positive quality anyone could ever ask for. And someone like Mingyu, who was also the ideal man for those attracted to that gender, she was flawless.

Keyword: almost.

She was pretty, kind, and outgoing, not to mention rich. She had daddy’s money going for her which helped with her appearance, and her extroverted personality was a bonus to help attract people in her direction. She never seemed to run into any obstacles in her path, endlessly drowned in wealth and adoration, she lived her life in bliss and just that.

And when Mingyu’s friends encountered this girl, the person that popped up in their minds instinctively was Kim Mingyu. She checked all the so-called ‘boxes’ on this imaginary list, and she was effortlessly gorgeous—so why would she not be the standard for him? Imagine a girl like that hugging his arm by his side—she was the epitome of perfection for him, eye candy to the strangers that walked by, and the person you’d take home to your mother for approval. They would be the ‘it’ couple, that was for sure. The tall, handsome, unreserved, and overall happy guy with the beautiful, outgoing, loving, and sweet girl only seemed right.

But Mingyu didn’t have that so-called ‘checklist.’

In fact, his eyes had been set on you, one of Wonwoo’s and Joshua’s old friends from college, someone who came to their friendly outings once in a blue moon because—to be honest, Mingyu didn’t know why, but he speculated it was because you just weren’t ever really interested. You were an introvert, after all.

The guys pushed and shoved, in hopes that he’d make the first move on that perfect girl named Jiwoo, but Mingyu couldn’t get his focus off of you. It was like he had tunnel vision; even when Jiwoo flaunted her new hip bone tattoo excessively, one where she had to pull the waistband of her jeans down a bit and expose some more of her smooth skin, Mingyu only saw you on the phone in the corner of the room with furrowed brows, fingers raking through your hair frustratedly while arguing with whomever it was on the other end of the line.

He wouldn’t deny that Jiwoo was never on his radar, but that was old news. Mingyu was into you now, and desperately wanted to get your attention without looking needy.

“Jiwoo is amazing,” Seokmin said, red solo cup in hand filled with a mixture of alcohol and fruit drinks that definitely would be the cause of him hovering over the toilet seat by the end of the night. “She’s hot, nice and racking with cash. You’re telling me she’s not your type?” It didn’t matter how much Mingyu appreciated his friendship with Seokmin, that never stopped his friend from making unwarranted comments about him not wanting a girl he was supposed to like.

With a click of his tongue, Mingyu waved his friend off dismissively. “You know that it’s not about type, but more about their personality and how well we get along. What makes you think that Jiwoo and I would be good together?”

As much as Mingyu loved his friends, in moments like these, it felt like they didn’t understand his perspective. He didn’t want any girl, he wanted to be with someone he fell for, not someone who was brought to him by obligation. Mingyu wished for something more organic than that.

Joshua scoffed, bringing his lips to his own cup. “You’re talking about it like you’ve got someone else in mind. Who’s got Kim Mingyu’s heartstrings in knots?”

Raised brows and childish ‘ooo’s, Wonwoo even nudged Mingyu’s arm in amusement. “So, who’s the girl?”

And when your name fell off the tip of Mingyu’s tongue, the group of guys went silent.

It was the first time Mingyu ever brought up the idea of you, of possibly being more with you, and already, his friends seem to have a different position on that. It wasn’t that they didn’t like you, and if it was, Joshua and Wonwoo would’ve kept you away from all the outings from the beginning—it was the fact that you with someone like Mingyu just didn’t quite fit. You two were on opposite sides of the personality spectrum, and just the thought of potentially putting the both of you together wasn’t realistic. You weren’t suitable for each other. It didn’t make sense. You both weren’t meant to be.

If they were to handpick the most ideal couple in the group, needless to say, it would not be you and Mingyu.

But their discouraging words never pulled him down enough to quit you.

What did, however, was this unspoken and unaddressed relationship you had with Wonwoo. Were the two of you friends? Perhaps more? It was difficult to determine just based off of the across-the-room speculation, but he so badly hoped the answer ‘yes’ was for the last question.

Did… you like Wonwoo? The subtle stolen glances in his direction might have seemed like evidence of it, but your other actions said otherwise. Mingyu struggled to get a read on you, but you and Wonwoo had been friends since your early years of college, so truthfully, Wonwoo knew you better than he did. Only he could decipher your label, other than Joshua, but Mingyu couldn’t confront either of them. They’d only tell him to move on and try pursuing someone like Jiwoo once more.

The question still stood: did he have a chance with you like Wonwoo did?

When Joshua hosted his first housewarming party, he knew you’d be there. And if you didn’t RSVP the invite, you could expect Joshua to be at the threshold of your apartment, the fronts of his brows dipped and his tongue poking his cheek as he tapped his shoe onto the wooden floor. In simple words, you’d be dead meat.

But it was Mingyu’s chance to fully observe your demeanor around Wonwoo, to attempt to decipher how you felt about Wonwoo so he could determine his probability of entering that opening into your heart.

But the way you brushed against Wonwoo’s hand when you reached over for an empty cup on the fold out table was enough to slightly demoralize Mingyu. A meager smile pulled on either side of your mouth, and how your irises melted when they met with Wonwoo’s only caused a twinge in Mingyu’s heart.

Was this an act of something more? Did you have a crush? Were you pining over Jeon Wonwoo while he was pining over you? This fictional love triangle that Mingyu formulated in his head was only hurting himself, and none of this information had even been confirmed. He needed a break from his own mind, what he needed was a breather, but what he thought he needed more were answers to his questions.

But Mingyu knew better than to probe.

The more he asked, the further he’d draw you away and that definitely was not the intention. Although he hoped you’d eventually avert your attention from Wonwoo to him instead, he knew it was something that had to come naturally.

So? How was he to swoon you?

Admittedly enough, all he had to do was express interest.

When your mutual friends organized dinner, Mingyu chose the seat beside you. Sure, Wonwoo gave a look that screamed wariness and bewilderment, but he eventually brushed it off and found somewhere else to sit; the goal was to steal all of your attention away from Wonwoo. Make Mingyu be someone you considered, not him. Wonwoo was a great guy, but for you, Mingyu found himself to be a better candidate. So with that, he went out of his way to get you to recognize him, even if it meant he grabbed the meat that finished cooking on the grill during KBBQ to place it on your plate first, always before himself, no matter how hungry he was.

There were times where the outings involved teams—bowling, for example. His friends were always competitive, so teams were formed. Needless to say, you were very unenthusiastic in making this into a whole game, and although Mingyu did have the competitive spirit in contradiction, he still chose you as his partner. He’d holler and scream, mock the rivals, and when you’d strike out or bowled a spare, he never hesitated to clasp your hands together to cheer. Sure, you weren’t the type to get all giddy about this stuff, but something inside you stirred when you saw that eye smile of his.

He didn’t realize that he didn’t even have to try that hard. Mingyu was already the one who had your heart, he was just too blinded by his own infatuation to see.

Albeit he did notice things between the two of you were changing. Instead of him going out of his way to be next to you, you made it easier on him. Dinners meant that the spot beside you was designated to him, and the seat next to him was consistently yours. You never verbally expressed that you had any feelings, but the fact you never told him to go away was a good sign.

What did, however, surprise him is when he decided to not head to the apple picking event with your group of friends because he’d come down with something, and he found you standing in his apartment hallway. Your friends had organized this for some time now, and he was desperately hoping to see you again there, and possibly lead this acquaintance-relationship to a sort-of-friendship level, but after his stomach started burning and rumbling, plans changed.

Yet when he saw you here again, plans were rearranged once more.

“I, uh, I got you this.” It was like you were being held at gunpoint with how abrupt you were when you extended your arm. In your hand, there was a baby pink box with the word ‘TUMS’ written across. Were you really here or was this stomachache beginning to play tricks on him? “Eat it.”

Mingyu stared at the Tums for a moment before looking at you. “You… What’s this for?”

Clearing your throat, you moved your gaze from his. It made your heart do flips in your chest whenever his chocolate irises twinkled underneath the shitty florescent lights of his apartment complex hallways. He never really understood the impact he had on your heart, the way he had the pits of your stomach churning just like before a test that you weren’t fully prepared for. You never were prepared to be alone with Mingyu. “Wonwoo mentioned that you weren’t feeling well today. I thought I’d stop by to uh… give you… this.”

For a moment, time stilled. He found it cute when you did that thing with your eyes, finding anything to look at except him, and the way he could almost feel the heat radiating from your face erupted a laugh from his chest wholeheartedly. How your hair cascaded over the rounds of your cheeks, how you tightened and untightened your jaw when you were nervous, and when you rolled your lips—he knew that for some reason, he made you feel uncomfortable. Although the gesture was sweet, he wished that you’d be as familiar with him as you were with Wonwoo. Was he ever going to be what Wonwoo was to you?

“He told you I was sick?” Mingyu queried, arms crossing against the firmness of his chest. He’d been working out, but you had to mentally shake your head of the thoughts that would’ve formed in the midst of your conversation. “Did you… ask him about me?”

He was teasing, and you wished he wouldn’t ask questions like this. Mingyu always tested you, like those teachers in grade school that would find anything to give you a pop quiz on. A smirk never failed to tug on the edges of his lips, content with the sight of you going rigid from his question.

“Uh,” you began, briefly at a loss for words, but you regained them quickly because Kim Mingyu could never know you liked him in this way. “I wondered why I didn’t see you pestering me today.”

“You were concerned for me,” he said, paraphrasing your sentence ‘incorrectly’ back to you. “And you missed me bugging you, so you wanted to check in on me. Did I catch that right?”

You blinked. “… No, where’d you even come up with that conclusion?”

“From you, obviously,” Mingyu gestured to your frame standing in the hallway before the expression on his face softened. “But… forget that. You came. You got me meds. Thanks, really.”

“I, uh, got you more than just meds.”

Mingyu had never really seen you in this setting—hair tied up in a high ponytail, sleeves rolled up to your elbows, and the frantic movements between each task in the middle of his kitchen. You had your back to him, and his stare was glued directly on you and nothing else. How was even your backside so pretty?

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t watch me.”

“Why?” He had his chin resting on his palm. “You’re pretty like this.”

When you had reached his doorsteps, his eyes were set on the box of Tums and didn’t realize that in your other hand, you had a brown paper bag of ingredients to cook him dinner. Were you like this to all your friends? Specifically, Wonwoo? Everything you did is done without an explanation, without a story in contrast to what Mingyu did. You were an open book with seemingly blank pages but if you looked closer, the writing was invisible. He just had to figure out how to read it.

You grabbed the ginger you’d shaved the skin off of prior, the blade sliced through with ease despite the difficulties Mingyu had been having with that particular knife.

You were… strangely so skilled with a knife, or at least, you’d always been but Mingyu never suspected it. You rarely talked about your personal life; what your hobbies were, what movies you liked, what your favorite flavor of ice cream was—he just knew you were a generally cold person, but having seen you open up just a little was enough to draw him in closer. You cooked, and yeah, he hasn’t tried your food yet, but already, just from observing the fluidity of your actions, he knew you meant business.

“What are you making?”

With a turn on the heels of your feet, you wiped your hands off on the baby blue apron that usually hung on the hook of his pantry door and now adorned your waist. It was too big for you, he thought to himself, and he was left wondering what it’d be like to have a spare one that matched his, just for when you come over. If you’d ever come over again like this.

“My dad used to do two things when I was sick: buy me Pho from a local Vietnamese restaurant or boiled chicken congee with ginger.”

Mingyu quirked a brow, and almost like you read his mind, you looked back while pointing at him with your chopsticks. “No, it’s not Pho. It’s the latter.”

He let out a laugh, so melodious and catchy like the top billboard hits. In spite of the elation that seeped into his voice, his sunken, dark eyes exhibited his tiredness. Wonwoo briefly mentioned that Mingyu was sick—but not this sick. It didn’t matter how buff someone was, even the strongest have their weakest days.

“Maybe… you should head to bed,” you advised calmly, disparate to the nonchalant tones you normally expressed. “I’ll finish this up here and I can bring this to you.”

It didn’t take long for you to recognize a tiny ball of fur that ran across his apartment, paws clacking against the wooden floors. Bending over, you grabbed the little chain that hung from her collar where it read: Kim Bobpul, Please return to Kim Mingyu if found. She had her tongue sticking out, panting heavily and excitedly but before you could react any further to the approaching feeling that came from your nose, Mingyu rushed out of his bedroom in a wash of panic.

“Fuck, shit, sorry, she was supposed to stay in my room,” he said as he rubbed his neck with an awkward chuckle. “I’ll just, uh, if you wanna stay with her here, that’s fine, but if not—”

“I’m allergic to dogs,” you responded bluntly, and Mingyu’s eyes widened in unison with his fallen heart. The girl of his dreams couldn’t be with his best friend. “But, uh, it’s fine. I should be fine, maybe if she’s away from me.”

“...Right.” He nodded, reaching down to lift Bobpul up in his arms. There was disappointment that bled through his tone, and your heart clenched at the sound; did he want you to like her? Maybe. But it wasn’t your fault—who had control of their own allergies? “I’ll take her to my room for now, uh. I’ll just… wait for you there.”

When his bedroom door clicked shut, reality sunk in.

His apartment looked like a tornado hit.

From clothes that draped over the back of his couch to the half-drunken cups of coffee scattered across the room and the sink filled with unwashed dishes—Kim Mingyu, normally a clean freak, was really sick.

A thought washed over you like a lightbulb turned on above your head. Maybe you would do something nice for once and help the poor guy out.

It took an hour, just enough time for the congee to finish cooking, for you to spruce up his neglected apartment. Clothes were in a basket, the tables were wiped spotlessly clean, and the dirty dishes were scrubbed to the point you could see your reflection in them.

He was dozing off, you noted, because his head kept falling off to the side despite attempting to keep himself distracted so he could be awake when you entered. When he heard the door of his bedroom creak open wider after a knock, Mingyu straightened his position while he cleared his throat and pressed himself against the headboard of his bed as if he hadn’t just been knocked out.

The girl he had been in love with was about to come into his room.

Sure, it hadn’t been for what people would expect it to be when they hear that someone they liked went into their room. They’d think of something more—legs tangled in the sheets, naked bodies pressed against each other, and stolen kisses were what their minds led to. But the view of you here, dressed so comfortably in your sweats and hoodie while you delivered a tray of food with medicine is something he didn’t complain about. He liked this too, even if it was far from that daydream. It was you, and it was all he needed.

“I made congee,” you announced as you placed it on the bedside table. You glanced over at the fluffy white dog that laid comfortably by Mingyu’s side as she eyed you suspiciously. Was she mad that he had to take her back into the bedroom because of you? “Uh, you should… eat it before it gets cold.”

He grabbed the bowl from the wooden tray with a smile that stretched from cheek to cheek that resembled a kid finally getting that lollipop he’d been asking for. Mingyu loved this version of you—despite the way you struggled to find the right words to say, the fact you made this congee just for him was enough.

But he took notice of how your nose seemed to twitch with each minute you stayed by his side.

“I can get her to go out if you want,” he said, breaking the silence. “I know her fur isn’t hypoallergenic—”

“It’s fine,” you quickly interjected as you abruptly slipped out of the apron and wiped your nose with the back of your hand. “I should be getting home anyway. Thanks for uh… the experience, I guess.”

Experience? Mingyu really didn’t get you sometimes.

He fell asleep when he heard his front door close and lock.

But when he woke up several hours later, he made his way back into the kitchen and spotted a cute setup with a baby pink note that read congee is left in the fridge, and don’t forget to take your meds, with a jar of VaporRub, and a bottle of Pepto Bismol seated right next to it.

Mingyu was an obvious guy. Big gestures had been his thing, but he knew with you, he had to tone it down just a smidge if he didn’t want to scare you away.

And honestly, at first, he thought that you would’ve been taken aback at him sending flowers to your apartment.

Instead, you snapped a photo of it in a glass vase, an assortment of white lilies with purple caspias sat prettily on the counter with a text that read, ‘it's lovely. thank you.’ You never said much, but he knew the weight of appreciation that message held.

Maybe he was getting closer to your heart, he predicted, but it was always hard to read you. More often than not, the expression you displayed never really matched what emotions you inhabited. You weren’t good at sharing your feelings, and he couldn’t blame you for it, but the slight effort you gave back to him had these butterflies fluttering in his stomach. You were trying, at least, and he gave you some credit for that.

“We’ll go grab her from her apartment down the hall,” Seokmin said, snatching his jacket off the coat rack. The perk of Seokmin living by you was that whenever Joshua or Wonwoo wanted to pressure you into coming out, all they had to do was stop by Seokmin’s first and your place after. Hit two birds with one stone.

Mingyu sort of had the same idea.

He wanted to know if those flowers were still on your kitchen island, pointed to where the sun shined through the curtains, and if you had water in the vase. Mingyu desperately needed to know if you genuinely welcomed the flowers—or in his mind, welcomed him.

Seokmin was the first to knock on your door, greeting you with a smile that stretched across his face as he watched confusion smear on yours. The wrinkle between your brows accosted them, along with your slightly pink eyes. Had you been crying? “Uh, hello?”

“Come. We’re ready to head out.”

“Uh, okay,” you responded uneasily, as if Seokmin at your apartment was unexpected, although Mingyu confirmed that he texted the group chat prior that he’d swing by. Your hands patted your pockets as your eyes skimmed the room; purse, jacket and keys in hand, and just as you’re ready to shut the door behind you, that’s when Mingyu spotted what he’d been looking for.

Those flowers.

On your countertop.

Alive and well, water in the vase just as the picture showed.

When your eyes met with Mingyu’s, he swallowed. He wasn’t normally this nervous around girls, and he’d known you for some time now, yet the gesture of keeping the bouquet instead of tossing it into your trash bin was completely out of character for you and meant in some way, you reciprocated some type of feelings. Platonic or romantic, that was still the challenge for Mingyu to determine the answer of.

“Aren’t you allergic to flowers?” Joshua asked, watching you suspiciously. You hated these stupid events where Joshua would go all out—the whole hayride around cornfields and going into mazes with pumpkin spiced lattes or apple cider donuts with plaid button ups and a target of love interest in mind wasn’t really your ‘thing.’ Why were Ugg boots a minimum requirement for an autumn picture?

You decided on your second hand Doc Martens in lieu of those fluffy, insulated Ugg boots since you came here solely because Joshua was a good friend.

You started to reconsider that label with him though because it began to feel like he was using these moments to interrogate you about your fictional love life.

With a twitch of your nose, you tilted your head to the side and it only earned a glare from your friend. “You are. Why’d you keep flowers in your apartment knowing that it makes you like that?”

“They were… pretty.”

“So, you decided that you’d make yourself feel like shit because they’re what? Pretty? What are you hiding here?”

What were you supposed to say? That you kept the flowers back at your place because Mingyu bought them and it killed you to throw them away? That you’d rather suffer with minor allergy symptoms if it meant you got to look at those white and purple daisies that lightened up your apartment just like he brightened up your life? That doing something as easy as keeping them would have his face flooded with nothing but delight, and if it meant that you were the cause of it, you’d like to continue seeing it?

No. You’d never tell Joshua that. And it could’ve stayed like that too, but Seokmin walked his way over to the two of you with the cheesiest grin on his stupid face. “So, what are you guys chit chatting about? That bouquet that Mingyu got ‘cha?”

Joshua’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek as his eyes widened and diverted onto you fully. “Ah, I see. Kim Mingyu bought you flowers? Is that what I heard? Please, correct me if I’m in the wrong here.”

You narrowed your gaze at your friend. “Possibly. That doesn’t have to do with anything, though.”

“Hm,” he hummed, glancing over at Seokmin. “Are you sure that Mingyu got her flowers? Our Kim Mingyu?”

Seokmin waved his hand in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Dude wouldn’t stop talking about it. Mentioned how long it took him to pick which one he liked best or what she’d find prettiest, and having it delivered to her front steps—he said he was debating even sending it because he was afraid she’d think it was creepy.”

Your bottom lip jutted out. Had he been really that insecure about sending flowers over? Something as simple as that? Someone like Mingyu normally did things as he pleased, only because he didn’t have to care about other people’s opinion since they always thought of him positively. You made him feel like that?

“Oh, did he?” You let out an uncomfortable laugh and rubbed the side of your neck. “I didn’t know he felt that way.”

The fronts of Seokmin’s brows dipped in puzzlement. “You really don’t see what we see, do you?”

It was Joshua’s turn to look at Seokmin. “I don’t think you see what we see either. She’s allergic to flowers.”

Several feet away, Mingyu’s ears perked at the words.

You were allergic to flowers. And you still kept them out in your apartment, with the windows opened for fresh air, and dealt with the repercussions of it. The sniffly nose, constant sneezing, and the stuffy, congested head feeling—you still kept those fucking lilies and caspias. You kept them.

The next time, Mingyu decided not to get you flowers. He learned it the hard way, but he’d continue to figure things out along the way because it was you. So when he got you a Devil’s Ivy, he made sure that it required little to no effort to accommodate your laziness, and didn’t bug any of your allergies.

Night clubs had never been your thing.

So who the fuck was able to convince to be there that night? In that tight, black dress that hugged your curves so prettily, made your ass and tits so plump and—

Mingyu shook his head. You were alluring that night, not that you weren’t before, but this was a different side of you. He never saw you in clothes that exposed so much skin (not that he was complaining), but this wasn’t like you. Just like your personality, your attire had always been reserved.

But underneath the flickering strobe lights, a light layer of makeup on your face to only enhance your features, he felt his heart skip a beat.

Drink in hand, in what he assumed was an original mojito, it barely had a dent in it and the condensation had formed on the glass. It meant you hadn’t been drinking, despite what it looked like to an outsider, but the way the cup was brought to your lips and the line for where the alcohol began didn't drop, Mingyu could tell you didn’t want to be here.

“Not your scene?” He asked, finally approaching you after standing on the sidelines for the longest time. For someone with a lot of confidence, around you, he needed to gather enough courage in and in the four shots he took in order to talk to you. “We could always go outside for fresh air.”

With a sigh, you waved off his offer. “It’s fine, I’ll stay here. If I left, they’d come looking for me anyway.”

Mingyu chuckled. “Well, I don’t want you standing here alone.”

“I’m not. I have you now.”

God, you were so fucking pretty.

He didn’t know what to do with himself, but he knew he wanted to stay right here beside you. Admittedly so, he’d been hit on a couple times throughout the night, even in front of you, regardless of the fact he had obvious heart eyes for you.

Fuck, he just wanted you. Couldn’t people see that? Could you see that?

You weren’t a party-goer, nor were you a heavy drinker. But Joshua was your worst enemy at times like these, because he was your best friend and you never failed to fall into his peer pressure.

So when Joshua screamed out, “shots!” everyone could expect you to join in on it.

That included Mingyu.

Mind hazy, and vision blurry, Mingyu groaned as he struggled up from his strangely soft bed. Was he still drunk and the bed got softer, or… or was he even in his own bed?

Thoughts still jumbled, he decided to get up, push the covers off the lower half of his body, all while rubbing his eyes tiredly. The only thing he recalled were the couple shots that started last night off, but other than that, his memories were foggy.

He even managed to get his shirt off, kept his boxers on, and his phone, wallet, and keys were sitting nicely by the bedside table when he got home.

Wait.

This wasn’t the same raggedy bedside table he owned. His had been missing a leg, so the moment he accidentally bumped his knee, it should’ve wobbled. These weren’t his bedsheets either—his comforter was a dark grey and these were beige. There was a desk by the window, the kitchen was in view, and the couch was placed strategically in front of a TV—Mingyu didn’t live in a studio apartment, he had three other bedrooms and shared it with two other guys.

Fuck. All he could think about was you, and even though you definitely weren’t his girlfriend, he made it clear that he was pining for you yet here he was in some chick’s apartment—in her bed for fuck’s sake. There was no way he didn’t have sex with her because her panties were at the front door! Black dress discarded on the way to the bed, shoes thrown by the coffee table, and—was that her bra on the kitchen counter?

Disappointment and panic rushed through his veins. He didn’t want to lie to you—that wasn’t a great start to a nonexistent relationship. What would you say? What would you do? Did this ruin any bit of chance he had left to pursue you?

The body next to him moaned.

Fuck. He had to deal with this, too.

But—it took him a moment to realize that the piercings that aligned on her ear were familiar. It was a strange observation he made, he admits, but he remembered complimenting that earring before…

A lot of girls wear the same earring… right?

He swallowed. There were so many girls at the club last night, Mingyu wasn’t sure who the drunken version of himself considered the ‘next target.’ This could’ve been Jiwoo for fuck’s sake, and that meant that the unconscious adaptation of Kim Mingyu went for the girl that his friends expected him to.

He turned his focus elsewhere. As much as he wanted to tell himself to calm down, he couldn’t. That nonexistent relationship between you and him was on the line, and he knew that the moment you found out, you’d be reluctant to let him in any further.

That’s when he spotted that Devil’s Ivy plant on the window sill. It was similar to the one you had, that one he bought you, but this one had grown so long, it cascaded from the tops of the bookcase down to the ground and over the desk. It looked pretty, giving the apartment some green to combat the dullness, and he hoped yours would look like that one day. Well, he hoped to see it one day. Or, well, if he even got the chance to be in your apartment—which, at this rate, seemed like never.

The girl shifted in her position.

Mingyu ran his fingers through his disheveled locks in distraught. He hated himself for putting himself in this situation, and his head wasn’t concerned about the unidentified events of last night, it was clouded with the possible outcomes of what you’d say if this got out. And there was no way the guys wouldn’t expose him. He got his dick wet. Of course they would brag for him, he didn’t even come home last night. They probably even saw him walk out with her, too.

Before he could overthink even more, the girl finally sat up. In a hoodie already, she tucked her hair back with her head down in embarrassment, Mingyu yet again rubbed his face with his hands.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing she said, and his heart dropped.

It was you.

Flustered, your head is in your hands. “I vaguely remember last night, but I definitely had too much to drink—I think I just got all that liquid courage in me and acted out of character—”

Relief washed through him like a clean shower. He let out a laugh, so hearty and filled with delight because his fears disappeared with the storm. It was you. And although he couldn’t replay the events of last night, he knew that because it was with you, he didn’t mind any of it.

“It’s okay,” he interjected, a smile tugging on either side of his mouth. Sure, he couldn’t remember what the sex was like, but none of that mattered to him. “It’s… it’s fine. I don’t remember much either.”

Plagued, you puffed your cheeks. “This isn’t like me. I don’t do any of this.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you rather it be me instead of someone else?”

In reality, you would. But you weren’t going to tell him that. Part of you knew that if you expressed that you even considered Mingyu, it meant chaos to his friends because you’d heard what they said about you.

You two didn’t click. And who knew him better than his own friends?

“I uh, do you want coffee or something?” You offered, turning to dangle your legs off the bed before jumping up. Pulling the hem of your hoodie down to pass the curve of your ass, Mingyu swallowed.

Now he was starting to regret forgetting what happened last night.

You were the way that you were, remaining calm, cool, and collected. Sliding your feet into the slippers that resided on the side of your bed, you were on route to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee and Mingyu wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Should he have stayed or gone? Did you want him here? Did you think it was a mistake? Did you find him repulsive? Should he have grabbed his stuff and left?

But he spent so much of his time in bed, contemplating whether or not he should have left that he didn’t realize you shuffled in the kitchen to prepare breakfast for him. The sizzling sound of whatever it was that hit the pan, the coffee maker beeping to let you know it was ready were the start of it until the aroma filled his senses.

Now he really didn’t want to leave.

Especially if he got to see you in this light once more; the sun peered through the sheer white curtains you had, your backside faced him as you fried bacon on the skillet while mixing eggs in a bowl on the side.

Being here felt like home, but a different kind of home. It didn’t give off that same atmosphere his apartment had, but something in him was warm, nostalgic even, and you reminded him of all those rushing feelings he’d get back in grade school.

What was he going to do with you?

For two people who accidentally drunkenly slept with each other, the two of you were rather comfortable. Oddly enough, you, specifically, had been more at ease around him.

“I’m coming!” He hollered out, shuffling to stuff his disgusting gym shorts and t-shirt into the coat closet. Yes, he was excited that you were coming to visit him at his apartment but at the same time, could you give a guy a warning? Mingyu had been so busy lately that he hadn’t had the time to do his laundry or even clean up his place a bit, which said a lot because he was usually always on the ball.

Waiting patiently outside the metal door, your hands found home in the deep front pockets of your leather jacket. Rumor had it, Mingyu was disappointed in the fact that he couldn’t introduce his dog to you, so the best thing you could do was pop some Claritin for some of that allergy relief people advertised, and you hoped it worked.

It sort of bummed you out knowing he wanted to formally introduce you to his best buddy but you couldn’t stay for long because her fur irritated your senses.

Breathlessly, he swung the door open and greeted you with his pearly white teeth once again. “H-Hey, you’re uh, here.”

You blinked. “Yes, we made plans.”

“Right, uh, how about you gimme a second and I’ll grab my jacket so we can head out?”

“Can I come in?”

Mingyu paused. He took a second to let your words sink in, but the questions still popped up in his head. “Aren’t… Aren’t you allergic to Bobpul?”

“I am.”

“I can put her in the spare room then—”

You raised your hand to stop him mid-sentence. “No need. Where is she?”

After you pushed him aside, confusion smeared across Mingyu’s face. You looked unwell the last encounter you had with her, and he was left wondering why you chose to put yourself in that situation for a second time. “You—Why?”

Bobpul stuck out her tongue, eagerly rushing toward your feet. “You wanted me to meet Bobpul.”

“Of course I did, she's my best friend. But she makes you sick.”

“Don’t worry, I took medicine before I came.”

He felt his heart become lodged in his throat. You weren’t sweet, he knew that from the get go, but who was this person presented in front of him? It was more than just sweet, it was a simple act in the eyes of others yet held so much weight when it came to you.

As you dropped yourself to sit on the floor, Bobpul ardently hopped onto your lap. She rolled over on her back, and with slight hesitation and courage, you reached over to scratch her tummy.

Bobpul liked you.

Mingyu liked you too.

You kept a bottle of allergy medication in your bag from then on.

Things were different.

You had gotten more comfortable with the idea of him around, even going as far as him being your first contact when you didn’t want to be alone. He devoted his weekends to you; from running errands (heading to the grocery stores to stock up for the week, and to the local laundromat to clean those loads of clothes that accumulate in your hamper) to just sitting in your living room with a shared blanket, movie playing on the TV screen and a cup of hot tea you made just for him.

But the two of you weren’t together. Yet you two were… together.

Truthfully, he didn’t know what he could call this. You had never established a label, and it didn’t seem like he was inching anywhere closer to obtaining one.

He spent hours on end finding home in the comforts of your leather couch that he swore whenever he’d get up to return back to his apartment, an imprint of his ass dipped into the cushion. You didn’t seem to mind it though because you never stopped letting him through the front door.

However, that wasn’t his favorite activity with you.

It didn’t go as far as sex (although that animalistic part of his mind wished it did), but he found something just as great as it.

Cooking.

With you.

He loved to watch the way your body moved ceaselessly, each task after another blended like the gradients in the watercolors on a canvas. When you’d twirl the ends of your hair into a messy bun unfalteringly, locked in the confines of a low bun, despite the strands that threatened to stray away, he found his breath hitched in his throat at sight of your pretty face.

His treasured moment is when you slap his hand when he tries sneaking a taste of your cooking with the spatula. A mischievous look smeared across his face to mirror your scowl, but he loves nothing more than that very moment. (Not to mention your constant nagging when he cuts things in shapes you do not like).

Mingyu learned the moment he stood, resting his arms against the edge of the countertops of your kitchen, observing the way your nose would crinkle when a loose piece of hair dangled across it, that if he could have the rest of his life just having this view, he’d be okay with it.

Which meant that whatever this unspecified relationship was between you needed to be more than just a “friends with benefits”... except without the friends part since you’d been calling him an acquaintance and lacking the benefits because sex wasn’t on the table.

He needed to confront you.

“Jiwoo likes Mingyu.”

You swore your heart dropped to your fucking ass when Wonwoo says those words.

It had never been a fear before, the possibility of losing Mingyu from your very own hold, but the fact that you hadn’t come to terms with what the two of you were, and that Mingyu never delved into asking what the ‘more’ could entail worried you. Did it mean that he didn’t really care about the stance in your relationship?

“Oh. Does she?” You responded disingenuously, as if you didn’t notice all of those subtle touches between the two of them. “That’s nice. Maybe he likes her back.”

Wonwoo tapped his fingers against the styrofoam cup in his hands, filled halfway with coffee so black, it replicated your heart yet the warmth of the hot liquid was an imitation of you when you were around Mingyu. “Maybe if you told him you like him, you wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.”

“That’s not any of your concern.”

“You’re my friend, so of course I care. I’m not going to watch you get your heart broken when it doesn’t need to be that way.” There was glint in his saccharine chocolate irises, like there had been a hint of hope you would come to your senses and admit this love you inhabited for a boy you claimed to be out of your league. “Tell him. Before it’s too late, just as it was with me.”

You didn’t know what Wonwoo meant by that, but you’d consider his advice anyway.

“Fine,” you answered unwillingly, yet the weight that had rested on your chest seemed to have lessened, and the stress on your heart lightened. “I… I’ll mention something to him.”

Jiwoo was a model. There was no ‘like’ or ‘looked like’ a model, Jiwoo was a model. She had been offered multiple opportunities at a time, sometimes stopped in the midst of her tracks during walks to dinner with her group of friends, and given a business card for her to contact for a ‘chance of a lifetime.’

It wasn’t that you didn’t like her. There wasn’t anything about Jiwoo to resent. She was nice, smelled like lavender, and was considerate of others, making sure that nobody was left behind. Sometimes, you’d feel like you were easily forgotten because you weren’t verbal enough during conversations, but Jiwoo hasn’t failed to look over in your direction with a heartwarming smile while mouthing ‘good?’ to confirm you were alright.

Sort of like Mingyu did.

She was great, even you couldn’t refute that. Jiwoo treated everyone equally—equally and kindly, which made it difficult for you to consider yourself as the opposition in this case. She made you want to give up any possibility of there being an us when it came to Mingyu, but part of you knew that if you never tried, you’d regret not taking initiative in the first place.

When you texted Mingyu to meet, you thought you’d done it without any suspicion.

But when you unlocked the door of your apartment to greet him, it seemed that you opened Pandora’s box instead. The space between his brows crinkled, tips of his ears tinged scarlet, and you could see him grit his teeth despite his mouth being closed.

“Are you… okay?” You blinked. This didn’t go according to plan—well, you hadn’t created one in the first place, but this wasn’t going in the route you’d hoped for.

“We need to talk,” he said with a huff, hand pressed flat against the outside of your door. With a shove, he made his way into your apartment as you stepped aside with a look of query on your face.

“Right, that’s why I texted you.”

“Well, coincidentally, I needed to talk to you too.”

You pulled your lips into a straight line as the door’s lock clicked behind you. “Well, that’s kind of awkward.”

Mingyu could list all the things he loved about you—how driven you could be, how smart you were, how creative you could get—but what he resented about you was how calm and relaxed you seemed, standing before him while he could feel the blood pumping through his veins like he had just ran a marathon.

But, he never quite understood the truth behind the facade.

He had yet to catch you in the midst of your actions, but he had missed all the occasions where you’d clench your fists and tightened your jaw with a silent squeal at something romantic he did. He overlooked the faint smile drawn on your face when his clumsy self did something stupid, and when he finally convinced you to let him take a picture of you, he never got to see that dumb grin that was hard to hold back when he eagerly swiped through his gallery.

Mingyu was so lost in his love for you, he undiscovered the hints you threw his way.

“I’m in love with you,” he stated firmly before releasing a breath of air he’d kept sealed in the depths of his lungs. “I’ve been in love with you for a while. And I’ve been doing my best to give you enough time to consider how you feel about me, but I’m growing impatient. We’re doing couple things without the couple part.”

You pursed your lips. Although you were close to cracking, exposing yourself immediately by letting your body fall into his arms with ease, you had more self respect than to do it so readily. “What about Jiwoo?”

“What about Jiwoo?” Mingyu sounded exasperated, slightly fed up with the audacity you had to question him about another girl. “I’m here, in front of you, asking if I could walk out of this place and answer that I’m yours when someone wonders if I’m taken. I want my name with a pink heart or that corny emoji with a heart kissy next to it. I wanna know how it feels to have your hand in mine, what it’s like to wake up beside you, and have my hoodies doused in your scent. I want you—your grouchiness, your sluggishness, sometimes snarky comments—I want you, but only if you let me have you.”

You were never really one for grand gestures.

But something about him and how he managed to pull you out of your comfort zone always surprised you.

With your hands cupping his cheeks, you hopped onto the tips of your toes to press your lips against his. There weren't any fireworks like they showed in romcoms, and time didn’t stop around the two of you.

But what you did experience was… happiness. A feeling that bursted inside of your chest, like a shaken can of soda that you’d pop open seconds after. It was overwhelming, just like a flowing faucet with the knobs broken, flooding the sink and spilling underneath your feet.

Those things were bad things.

What Mingyu made you feel was good, despite all those comparisons. It was the after moments; when the soda sizzled down, and the water finally stopped—you panic but you laugh. It was chaotic at first, but it was okay now.

Falling back flat onto your feet, you eventually caught your breath once more.

“I love you too.”

So, does he stay or does he go?

Will you be mad if he leaves like you said to? With your brows furrowed, the veins of your neck emphasized, and a tired look on your face? The sunken eyes, dark circles, the blemishes, and how the roots of your hair are greasier than other days, should he leave it at that?

Should he be comfortable leaving all of that behind?

Should he be okay letting those memories of the two of you be just that? Memories? Not something that will blossom into something beautiful?

Should it bother him knowing that he let those times with you dissipate from his fingertips?

He stares at his phone in the palm of his hands.

Lock screen blank of your notifications, the background is still of you with that signature blank expression and a blushing filter he found cute on you before reality sinks in and he notices you haven’t called. You haven’t left a text, and you haven’t even dialed his number into your phone. Do you even think of him? Do you worry about where he is? Are you ever even concerned for his well-being? Is it even worth staying if his significance isn’t enough for you to reach out to him? To chase him?

With a heavy sigh and heart, he pushes himself up from the seat outside of the convenience store and makes his way back in. The only way to heal his broken heart is to fill up his stomach—is that the saying? He doesn’t know, but he figures this is the best option.

But his black hole of a stomach has already consumed so much, and he still feels empty without you. So was it even worth continuing to fill himself up when he’s still hollow inside?

Why couldn’t you just confront him? Tell him that you weren’t ready for the next step in the relationship, admit that it scared you to be something more.

What you have together is different from others—he should’ve acknowledged that sooner. Why was he so concerned about how far along in the relationship the two of you were? He shouldn’t have cared of what others thought; he never did before, why start now? When people told him not to go after you, he still did, so why was the opinions of others bothering him now?

He knew he was wrong, and that when you said for him to leave, it was for self respect. It wasn’t that he didn’t think you should have any—of course you should. It was because he was pressuring you into something more when maybe you just weren’t ready.

Mingyu sighs. It’s his fault. It was harder to see before, but his vision is clear from the fog now. But that doesn’t stray away from the fact that you’ve always been terrible at expressing yourself—so why couldn’t you just tell him you were afraid? That you weren’t ready?

He needs some fresh air. The clogged up ventilation in the convenience store wasn’t much help, and only made him feel more congested than anything. Maybe just sitting outside with the crisp winter winds smacking his cheeks will do him some good. But when he walks to the exit, he notices something familiar. Well, someone.

Through the glass pane doors of the convenience store, Mingyu pauses when he sees the sight before him.

You, with your head in hands, sitting at the curb in your red and black plaid pajama pants with those cute bears Mingyu loves so much. He bought them so that the both of you could match—although you refused to wear it the same times he did, he won’t deny the fact that he planned to trick you a couple times so that you would.

Hood over your head, he knows it’s hard to tell from this angle if it’s really you, but he knows it is. Who wouldn’t know the silhouette of the person they love?

Better question yet—why are you here?

When he finally pushes the metal bar of the door, the bell above him rings and your head jolts up to see him.

Those eyes of yours are glassy, lashes wet, and tears continue to threaten spilling out from the corners, despite your cheeks already damp. He can see the smear marks from you wiping your face with the sleeve of your hoodie, and the dark spot on it as evidence. Seeing you like this hurts him as much as you are, and part of him knows that even without asking, he made you like this.

And he’s the last person who wanted to do that to you.

He hates himself for being the reason for those tears, for those sniffles, and for the uncontrollable sobs that escape your pretty lips. Maybe he should’ve stayed back at your place and waited for you to relax, but he knows you better than he knows himself. Staying back there only would've made it worse. Mingyu’s face would only stir more anger within you.

Yet he wonders if it was worth letting you cry instead.

He can almost see your irises soften when you realize it’s him, but that doesn’t hide the sounds of your heart shattering. Mingyu bends down to your height before dropping himself to sit on the concrete.

“You’re crying,” he says, stating the obvious. The pad of his thumb swipes against the remnants of your tears that streamed down your cheeks, and he feels his heart clench once more.

“No shit, Sherlock,” you respond sharply with a soft sniffle, head dropping at the touch. With the amount of time you’ve been with Mingyu, it’s still appalling how nervous he makes you; it's always like the equivalent of being this close to a high school crush, the first taste of what it’s like to be remotely familiar with how it feels to love. It’s different, experiencing the unknown, and with Mingyu, you’re often left discovering emotions of adoration in the pits of your stomach when you look at him.

He lets out a laugh, grabbing your legs together to lay across his lap. “Even when you’re sad, you still have time to insult me?”

“Yes,” you answer, this time quieter than usual. Except, nothing follows the retort other than a silence, one that fills the air thickly and leaves nothing but open questions in Mingyu’s head. So, why did you come here? Did you come for him?

He nearly flinches at you shifting, instead, he feels his chest tighten because your hand reaches down to interlock with his.

You’re not one to be affectionate outside of the four walls of your apartment. And his place is swarming with other guys, so he doesn’t really expect you to be any different, but this—this is a game changer.

And before he can even get a word out, just to ask why you were like this, and what made you cry, you get to it first.

“Can I talk, and you just let me? Don’t say anything, just… let me talk?”

The fronts of his brows dip. “Uh, sure, yeah.”

You still avoid looking into his eyes, but mostly because it makes it harder to maintain these feelings for him. It’s overwhelming because everything he does reminds you of what it feels to be happy and sad at the same time. Happy because he loves you too, but sad because when you said ‘leave’ in a heated moment, in a time of vulnerability, he did just that.

“I love you,” you cough out, the sentence so minuscule that if he didn’t have good hearing, he would’ve missed it. “And, I think I’ve loved you way longer than you’ve loved me.”

That’s not right.

Mingyu thinks you’re wrong, yet he saves his breath because of his promise. But the expression plastered on his face says it all.

“You’re going to say that it’s false, but hear me out,” inhaling a deep breath, your eyes flutter shut. “You thought the whole time while we were just… acquaintances or friends, whatever,” Mingyu stifles a chuckle, “that I loved Wonwoo.”

Okay, it’s not funny anymore.

“And—honestly, you were sort of right.” Your head drops to the side to rest on his shoulder, and he swears his heart skips a beat. You’re his girlfriend for fucks sake, yet you still make it like this is the first date. “I did love Wonwoo. For a bit after we met, too. But then, I don’t know. You did that thing with Joshua where you offered to lend some money so he could go back home because he missed his family. You never leave any of your friends out of a group, and when someone strays to the side by themselves, you take notice. You don’t miss it, and you don’t forget people.”

You tap your fingers against his. “I mean, yeah. I still rejected you consistently back then. I loved those things about you, but—come on, you and me? We don’t work, Kim Mingyu. We’re opposite sides of the spectrum.”

That doesn’t mean anything, is what he wants to say, but the moment his mouth parts to let his defense out, you’re already covering his lips with your other hand. “No, no, you said I could talk.”

He pouts, and the sides of your lips twitch into a small smile. “But, you’ve evidently shown me that we don’t have to be the same to love someone. Because I fell for you way before you even fell for me.”

Mingyu turns to steal a glimpse at you. Staring up into the moonlight with that sparkle in your eyes, your dried up tears stain the highs of your cheeks, and somehow you shine brighter than the stars in the sky despite the darkness of your personality. You’re often described as someone with a blackened heart, without much care for anything, blunt and blatantly honest about things that people usually don’t want to hear. But to Mingyu, it’s what he loves most about you, and it’s why he fell in love with you in the first place. From the moment you called Wonwoo emotionally unavailable to the time you said Seungcheol was too childish for his age (in his face too for that matter), he knew you were the one for him.

But when he became the one for you, he never really knew if that was even a thing.

“I actually started having feelings the first time I saw you.”

Startled, Mingyu’s shifts his head back, and for some reason, you let him talk. “The… first time?”

“Remember when that guy bumped into Naeun?” Mingyu blinks blankly. “He spilled both his and her coffee, getting it all over them, and instead of asking her if she’s okay after boiling hot liquid hit her—he flipped shit and said she was going to cover the dry cleaning.”

The strange thing is, Mingyu remembers this encounter but he doesn’t remember you there.

“You told him off. Guy got so scared because of your height, he bolted out of there,” sucking in your cheeks for a moment, your gaze drops down to your hot sauce socks paired with some black Nike sandals you quickly put on. “I kinda knew who you were just from word of mouth, but actually seeing you was different. You weren’t just some annoying happy guy—you actually were a decent person. Plus, I guess you’re kind of cute so—”

His lips curl up. “You think I’m cute and you fell in love with me first? Is this a dream? Pinch me—Ouch!”

You roll your lips to hold in your laughter after you twist the skin on his forearm.

“I’m… sorry,” you finally say, fiddling his fingers with your own. “Not for pinching you but for treating you like you’re not loved by me.”

Mingyu doesn’t say much in contrast to how much he babbles on in different instances, but today is different. You’ve always been the one to lend your ear for him, and this time, he’s doing it to you.

“I… I’m not good with words or expressing things,” you admit, but in all honesty, you don’t have to say it for him to know that. “It’s hard for me—and I wish I could give you a reason why, but I can’t. I just know it makes me feel weird and I—I don’t know. It’s not an excuse though, because I told you to go, and it would be stupid for me to expect you to just know what I mean when I say things like that. Of course you’d storm out the apartment. I said leave, and if you stayed, you would’ve done the opposite of what I said.”

Mingyu remains silent.

“And, I’m hoping that this doesn’t mean you’ll actually leave.”

“I… I don’t want to,” he finally says, looking down to where your fingers weave together. “I’m happy with you. But I never understand what’s going through your mind. And yeah, sometimes I can read you like an open book, but there’s times where I can’t see anything on those blank pages and I’m desperately wishing there was some sign to help me. I need you to help me. I can't be us, we have to be us. I need us to be a team. And I’m sorry for the times I wasn’t a good teammate.”

You shuffle with the sound of the gravel scraping against the concrete underneath and he feels your hands tense in his hold. “I wanna try again, if you let me.”

Mingyu sighs, pulling your head close before pressing a gentle kiss on the crown of your head. He missed this, he wanted you, despite it being only a few hours since he last saw you, he yearned for this version of yourself, the one that’s completely candid and frank with him.

“I might not be the best at showing love,” you confess, but Mingyu doesn’t pull away. “I do it in discreet ways, if you uh, haven’t noticed. I didn’t just magically stop being allergic Bobpul, I take Claritin like they sponsor me. You love her, and I didn’t really want you to have to part from her so I just pop Claritin everyday. And uh, you probably didn’t notice, but I replaced that lightbulb in the bathroom of your apartment—”

As you continue on, he can’t help but feel this swelling inside his chest. He’ll never get over whenever you say that you love him, when you share things like this even though it makes you awkward. He knows this is out of your comfort zone, but this is all that he wanted.

For you to just… try.

To try and show any sign of reciprocation for his feelings, and from how long you’ve been talking, he’s starting to realize that he’s missed most of your signals.

From when he accidentally tore a hole in the armpit of his favorite shirt and you sewed it back together (you disclose that you never knew how to sew, you just watched a Youtube video), to when you magically appeared at the front steps of his apartment with dinner after he rummaged through his fridge and cabinets and found nothing. Even on his birthday, while his friends celebrated and gave knick knacks for presents, you found a watch that he’d been talking about nonstop for the past four months and gifted it to him right at the end of the night—these were things you did for him without speaking the words ‘I love you,’ and sometimes, even he forgets that people don’t express love the same way he does.

On the walk back to your apartment, he can’t help but think about everything the two of you have been through. How, despite it all, he is still beside you, full of that same love that he learns you mirror.

Those rom-coms he used to obsess over don’t portray love realistically, he soon learns the hard way. They don’t tell you about the crazy obstacles of being in love rather only showing what it’s like falling into it.

And being in love with you is quite the hurdle.

But you’re worth it.

He just wanted to know you were in this as much as he was, how invested you were in this relationship because he didn’t want to continue chasing something that wasn’t there. He fears reaching out to touch you, hand going through like a hologram, and this whole thing was a figment of his imagination.

Then, seeing your hand in his, and the way you wiped your nose with the sleeve of your hoodie as the remaining tears fell, made him feel better. You cried. For him. Because you were scared you’d lose him.

You love him.

Mingyu likes to believe he sees life differently now. Before, he’d only looked at everything through rose colored glasses, then afterwards, through a fog of grey. But now, he’s got that happy medium of blue. Blue like the clear sky, but also blue like those sad days. He sees things realistically now, and he’s come to appreciate aspects of life a lot more.

By that, he means you.

For one, he takes note of how you’re definitely not a people person (he sort of already knew that) but when his friends want to hang out and he asks you to tag along, despite the twitch of your nose in slight displeasure, you go anyway because you know how much he loves your company.

But the moment he valued the most was on a dark, gloomy day where the clouds cast over what used to be the pretty sky. The blues have become greys, and the breeze was a reminder that sunny days were behind him for quite some time. And for someone like who favored the Summer days and nights, the heat hitting atop his skin, and the aroma of the salty waters infiltrating his senses, you’d expect that he hates a day like this.

Yet, on even a rough day, where things don’t seem to go as planned—he forgot his umbrella in the bucket by the front door, his coffee spilled on his favorite shoes, and his lunch fell on the street—when he turns the knob that enters past the threshold of his apartment, the view of your backside with a makeshift knot around your waist to fit his apron was all he needs.

Your workplace and apartment was on the other side of the city.

You came all the way here to make him dinner.

It’s like you knew he needed this pick-me-up, and when you turned around, spatula in hand and said the words, “oh, you’re home?”… he knew this is what he wanted forever.

This feels right. He’s always felt like he was right with you, but something about this felt… certain.

Everyone has a signature scent, no one is a replica of another, each with their own unique fragrance that can’t be synthetically manufactured. And yours seem to fill his apartment now, weaving in with his, finding home in his… well, home.

You’ve left an imprint not just here, not just in the cabinets with that one mug designated for you, not just on the right side of the loveseat couch, and not just on the right side of the bed by the window.

You’ve left one in his heart, too.

You’d call him sappy if he said the words straight out, but he knows that he doesn’t have to verbally express it for you to understand it. You’re his dream girl with only reality, and despite the difficulties that come with dating someone as reserved as you—it’s worth it. You’re worth it, and you’ll always be.

When his nose bumps into yours, and a hearty laugh escapes from your chest, melodious and harmonic with his own, he repeatedly tells himself that this is where he wants to be. An intimate moment like this was always taught by his group of friends to be sexy, to be attracting the other with alluring eyes but yet when he’s here with you, he learns that all that needs to be established is comfort.

No pressure to be sexy all the time. (But he still thinks you are).

Your hair is in a loose bun, strands falling on with each movement, and your mascara smears on the outside corner of your eyes, but you still turn him on. In an oversized shirt (he thinks it’s his) and a thong he knew you only had on because your load of laundry was getting full, and this was the last pair in the drawer—Mingyu still couldn’t get his hands off you.

His strawberry pink lips gingerly ghosts over the expanse of your neck, the aroma of your lavender shampoo inebriates him more than a couple glasses of whiskey can. Mouth parted, and breaths heavy, he watches smugly as your chest heaves up and down because you’re overwhelmed from him, and how easily he gets your knees weak from being this close. One of his hands roams up your legs mischievously to lift up the hem of your shirt as the tips of his fingers danced across your skin along the way, tracing and drawing shapes of adoration on all your marks and creases, despite your self shaming comments in the mirror that he always denies. You’re always beautiful in his eyes.

He finds it cute how shy you still get when the two of you are this intimate; you don’t wear pants around the house anymore, oftentimes wearing a baggy top with underwear, and him in a t-shirt and boxers, but something about being beneath him, under that hooded, sultry gaze has your stomach in knots and words lodged in your throat. You’re comfortable around Kim Mingyu, but being with him like this kept that feeling of having a crush. It seems to never go away.

He knows your sweet spots by now, sucking and licking behind your ear, scattering tender kisses against your skin with his hands groping any place he can—from your chest to your thighs to your ass—and once he gets that pleasing gasp to escape from your pretty lips, he’s quick to pull your leg to wrap around his waist and press his crotch against yours.

“Something wrong?” He asks with a feign look of concern on his face. He knows you, a little too well for your own liking because despite his friends constantly bullying him on top of your coldness, cockiness is a trait he’ll never throw away. Mingyu leans over to swipe his tongue over your jawline before kissing it once more. “Should I stop here?”

He’s sure you’ll say ‘no,’ especially with how you’re slowly losing yourself in him. You could feel him through his boxers, the tip of his cock hitting your clit with each thrust as his lips moved closer to your ear. “What was that, baby? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I didn’t say anything,” you retorted sharply through your gritted teeth, slightly irritated with his game. If he wanted to fuck, he should just fuck you, but Mingyu loves the teasing. It’s the only time where he has the upperhand because outside of these bedroom walls, he’s the one weak for you. “You must be hearing things.”

“Mmm, I did hear a little moan leave your cute mouth. Can you do that again, for me?”

You click your tongue. “No.”

It always starts like this—you’re not afraid to snap back at the guy, but he’s got a tough exterior and takes your shots well. He probes and probes, constantly testing your limits until you can’t take it anymore, but tonight is different.

Tonight’s the first time you’ve had sex together since… that fight.

You want to show him that this time is different from the last, that the very night he agreed to stay meant that everything about your relationship was going to change—for the better, of course, but that only proves that things need to change, the sex was going to change, and Mingyu wasn’t going to be taking all the authority in the sheets anymore.

Although you admit that this made you slightly awkward, you know he’ll appreciate you going out of your comfort zone for him.

“No?” He imitates you with a quirk of his brow, surprised, but not entirely. “Come on, baby. You sound so pretty. I love when you sing to me.”

“Sing or moan?”

“Same thing, right?”

He never fails to be annoying, it’s a characteristic that comes along with him everywhere in life. But he’s so attractive like this, with the moonlight and the lights of the city buildings shining through the window, illuminating his chocolate irises and glistening his supple lips. He’s been working out lately, much to your dismay (you’re lying, but you won’t tell him that), and his arms have gotten thicker, and shoulders broader, tempting your hands to feel him up.

It’s like he reads your mind because he leans up on his forearms directly above you, flexing those said muscles for all your viewing pleasure. “Don’t act like we’re strangers here. Hold on, yeah?”

You swallow.

It takes a bit of time, but Mingyu is always patient when it comes to you. With that, your arms wrap around his shoulders, and he pulls you closer, palming your ass before tugging your panties aside from behind. A groan leaves his chest, along with his other hand slipping in front with a thumb pressed against your clit. “You know,” he begins, face nuzzling into the crook of your neck. “Whenever you walk around the house in those little tight thongs, I get so hard watching you bend over to look for the remote. Sometimes, I’ll put it somewhere far and low on purpose just to see your ass.”

Heat rises up to your cheeks. “You do that on purpose? I was wondering why they were always in weird spots.”

He brings his fingers up to your lips. “Suck?” Parting your lips, you let him insert them in and soak his fingers with your saliva. It’s his turn to swallow, because this view of you has his cock stirring in the confines of his boxers. He’s got a lot of self-restraint at this moment, reminding himself like a chant inside of his head that he needs to stretch you out first before he fucks you dumb into the mattress.

Pretty girl deserves to be treated right, no matter how hard he is right now.

His fingers slip in with ease, coating him with your slick as he grunts into your neck. “Fuck, you’re already so wet?”

You don’t respond, only because it would satisfy him too much, but the way your head falls back into the pillow with your eyes closed shut, he doesn’t need to hear you say anything, he could see it with his own eyes.

Your skin is hot underneath him as he pulls his fingers in and out of your core, your face contorting in pleasure despite your struggling efforts to hide it.

But wait—you’re supposed to be different. It’s supposed to be different now.

With that, you abruptly wrap your fingers around his wrist, halting his movements. A raised brow of confusion on his face, Mingyu abides by your unspoken instruction and his gaze narrows onto you. Hands flat against the stiffness of his chest, you shove him with all your strength, but he reacts like it’s a touch, shifting back to give you some space. “Are you alright? Was I going too hard?”

“No,” you assure him comfortingly, rubbing his cheek lovingly with your thumb. “But… I’m going to need you to sit against the headboard.”

Mingyu is so obedient, always doing what you ask, and respecting your wishes without argument. He loves you with his whole heart, never doing anything half-assed when it comes to you, and if you asked him to run across the world to get to you, as gross as you’d call him, he’d do it.

Back flat on the headboard, he still has so many questions. But the moment you pull of his boxers and your own panties, it’s his turn to be at a loss for words, yet at the same time he could feel the excitement run through his veins as he watches you on your knees, pulling your hair back into a cleaner, slicker lower bun, he sneaks a peek into the opening of your shirt as you lean down, just barely above his raging hard dick.

“Baby,” he calls out, the term of endearment sugary to your ears. “You don’t have to, you know. I’m okay with just making you feel good.”

“I wanna make you feel good,” you clarify, eyes glimmering when they meet with him. “Can I make you feel good?”

He doesn’t like to argue, especially since after the last big fight, but he genuinely felt that way. But before his thoughts could go any deeper, they go the opposite direction because the lips of the prettiest girl he’s ever met is so close to his dick that it makes his head go light and foggy. Your mouth waters, from both the anxiety and the sight, because in your very own thoughts, you contemplate if you could even fit all of him.

Deciding to overcome your fears, you internally tell yourself, ‘fuck it,’ and your mouth is wrapped around him, tongue pressed flat against the underside and Mingyu’s head drops back. You weren’t often this bold during sex—or well, ever, really, but seeing this new version of yourself has him restless. You’re already sexy as is, but when you’re like this? He swears he’s done for.

Lowering your head, you do your best to get the tip of his cock to hit the back of your throat, and at the impact, Mingyu groans. His thick fingers weave into your locks of hair, grabbing your head to push himself in deeper and saliva falls out the corner of your mouth, tears spilling on the corners of your eyes but you bear with it because it doesn’t take long for him to pull out, and for you to shove him back in again.

“Fuck, shit,” he curses, the words leaving his mouth getting dirtier with each gasp. Observing the way he’s fucked out from you sucking him off makes you damp in between your legs, but he’s been treating you as a priority for so long, it’s your turn to make him feel loved. He never lets you pamper him, make him feel like he’s your everything, but it’s your goal to shift things in your relationship, and you’ll do whatever it takes to show him you mean what you say.

Hand gliding up his bare thighs, they roam up to his lower abdomen and he sighs in content when they finally wrap around the base of his dick, hot and heavy, and when you pull your mouth away, a string of saliva connects to the head.

His cock glistens with your spit, and the lewd sounds of you jerking him off only turns him on more, and causes you to clench around nothing. He’s so handsome like this, out of control, in complete bliss because of you, and you’re starting to understand why Mingyu gets cocky. It’s this feeling, making your loved one reach their highs because of you and nobody else. You continue to fist him, listening attentively as his gorgeous tiny gasps and grunts fill the bedroom, music to your ears. He’s clutching onto the pillows, finding purchase in anything he can grasp onto because he’s afraid he’ll lose control again when he has his hands in your hair.

The head of his cock angry and swollen, it’s his turn to stop you suddenly with a whine and out of breath. “Fuck, baby, that was good—too good though, I almost came.”

You blink blankly. “Isn’t that the point?”

“Yeah, but I kinda wanna do it in you, with you.”

He’s so corny, but you’re too busy to think of an insult because he straightens out his legs and gestures to you onto lap. “Ride me?”

There’s no denying that when Mingyu looks at you from below with those swirling cups of sweet hot chocolate as eyes, it clenches your heart. He manages to look cute, handsome, and sexy, all at the same time, but when he’s got his calloused hands on your hips, watching as you grab his cock to line up to entrance, it’s enticing. He can’t decide if he wants to see your expression twist, or your warm walls enveloping around his dick.

He does neither because as you sink down and finally are pressed to the hilt, his head lulls back. He goes in with ease, only because you’ve already been soaked from sucking him off, and just the thought has him dizzy. When he eventually regains himself, Mingyu’s head jolts up, eyes still hooded and mouth agape, he licks his lips. “Show me what you got, baby.”

He underestimates you.

Palms on his cheek, you grind your hips against his and Mingyu is completely fucked out. He thought that the only person that could get you to this point is him, not you doing this to him. You’ve never taken the full reins in the bedroom before, and the confidence that floods through your veins is a new sight for him, and truthfully, he has no complaints. He never thought it would get to this, but he’s loving every minute of it.

When you’re not moving fast enough for him, he slides himself back down to the mattresses with a plop, strong arms wrapping around your frame and flattening yourself against him before he pistons his hips up into you.

Skin slapping, and squelching with each thrust, your mouth hangs open and you lose control of withholding back those moans that he’s been desperately waiting to hear. They fill the room, bouncing off the walls and probably heard by the neighbors, (he’ll be lying if he said he didn’t wish they would make a noise complaint tomorrow), and encourages him to go harder.

“Fuck,” it’s you that’s spitting profanities this time around, gripping onto the firmness of his shoulders. “I’m—”

“Cum for me, pretty,” he rasps, planting a sloppy kiss on your cheek. “Cum around my cock for me, pretty, you’re doing so well.”

It doesn’t take long for you to clench around him, body stiffening as you unravel, head falling to bump foreheads into his shoulder bone. Mingyu doesn’t slow down, his pace sharp and hard, and seconds after you cum, he releases a long and loud moan, shivering as he unloads into you.

Even after he’s got that post-nut-clarity, Mingyu will always float back into reality but he never strays away from you. He quickly jumps back on his feet, even with his dick hanging out, to head to the bathroom and come back with a damp towel to wipe you.

He shuffles around the room when you’re all cleaned up for your undergarments before dressing the two of you up and laying another soft kiss against the crown of your head as he comes to claim his side of the bed once more.

“I… have something to say,” you say with the release of a deep breath, fingers tapping against the firmness of his bare chest as you cuddle. He has his arms snaked around your frame but loosens the hold a bit at your words, a furrowed brow drawn across his face along with the look of concern. “And it’s not a bad thing.”

His expression softens. “What is it then?”

“Remember when I told you to leave?” How could he forget? It was the reason for the brink of your relationship. “That I told you I wasn’t ready, and that if you couldn’t respect it, you should go?”

He clicks his tongue in response. “Of course I do. We almost lost each other.”

“Well, I’d like to bring up that topic again.”

Inside, Mingyu felt his stomach beginning to churn.

“But—not like that. I’m…” with a pause, you inhale a sharp breath of courage. “… I’m ready. To get married. I wanna marry you.”

He chokes—words caught in his throat, he’s startled by your abrupt confession. The subject of marriage was what spurred the argument in the first place—you weren’t ready, but Mingyu saw other couples light years ahead when the two of you have been together longer. You weren’t ready back then, but now… you are? Was he hearing that right? “W-What? You said you weren’t ready before—I don’t want you to pressure yourself into something so quickly if you’re not. I can wait, you know. Even if you don’t want this.”

You roll your lips, lashes fluttering up so delicately that when they expose your irises to meet with his, his heart skips a beat. You’re always so breathtakingly gorgeous. “I want this. I want you. I wasn’t ready that night, but I’m ready now. I wanna marry you, Kim Mingyu, as gross as it sounds leaving my mouth—” he lets out a chuckle at your comment, “—I know that I want to be yours forever. I know it’s sappy to say, but I wanna grow with you. Maybe have kids, if you’re interested—”

“—That’s a yes—”

“—No if you’re not, and I wanna run through obstacles in life that seem daunting but with you by my side, and me by yours, it’s less scary. Maybe go to those company events that we’ll have to attend in the future, mock your coworkers on the sidelines, or even go to Joshua’s parties and make fun of his decor. And I wanna go places, far and wide, but those places don’t feel anything like home unless it’s with you. Maybe one day, when we’re old and wrinkly, I’d have a shed you’ve built for me in the backyard, and I’d flip old furniture into something refreshing and new, then come inside the house with you sitting at the dining table, cup of hot coffee in hand with another across from you, waiting for me to join in too.”

He feels like putty under your words, at a loss for anything to say back, but the way your jaw tenses and your gaze falls, you don’t expect him to say anything immediately.

“And—I totally understand if that’s not what you want. I’ve always been concerned with how I look and how I portray myself that sometimes I overlook how you feel. You lack love from me, and I wanted to show you in more ways that I’m in this for the long run. I’m invested.”

The silence grows big after your big confession, but it swells just like his heart. He’s bursting on the inside, despite his exterior being a great facade, because this is everything he’s ever wanted.

“I… I have one condition.”

Your eyes instantly shoot up.

“Will you still let me do a grand big gesture to officially propose?”

And with a smile that tugs up from the corners of your mouth, your arms slide up to his shoulders as you brush your nose against his. “Would it be Kim Mingyu without all that fancy stuff? Of course. I don’t expect anything less.”

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