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petrichor-han · 1 year

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twenty-three suns; kang taehyun (nsfw version)

PAIRING | taehyun x afab!reader

CAST | kang taehyun, choi beomgyu, hueningkai, mentions of shin ryujin

WC | 18.0k

GENRE | fluff, angst, summer love, summer fling, no strings attached relationship, strangers to lovers, non-idol!au

WARNINGS | explicit language, explicit sexual content, hookup culture, bad communication, casual marijuana use, alcohol consumption, casual drug use and drinking, heated makeouts, groping, crying, arguing, mentions of not eating [bad coping mechanisms], both of mc’s parents are in the picture

SYNOPSIS | there is just about one month until you move out of your childhood home for good and fly to south korea to finally pursue your dream career, and you’ve done nothing but laze around all summer, infuriating both you and your parents to no end. and then you meet him—kang taehyun, who’s just moved to town to pursue his dream. and it just so happens that he’s from korea. startled yet intrigued by the almost too-perfect coincidence, the two of you strike up a summer “relationship” knowing that it’ll end in exactly twenty-three days—under the assumption that twenty-three days is too short a time to fall in love.

A/N | another repost of an nsfw version of a sfw fic! again, this was originally posted on my now-deactivated nsfw side blog, @/elysianjinnie. the original sfw version is linked below if you prefer that :)

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MASTERLIST | SFW VERSION

TWENTY-THREE DAYS LEFT

Summer was a difficult time for you. You’d look forward to it all winter, longing for the snow to melt away and the only cold in your life to come from creamy vanilla soft-serve ice cream and icy-cold lemonade that made your sensitive teeth tingle with delightful pain. But once it arrived in all of its blazing-hot heat and seemingly endless sunny days, you began to look forward to autumn, the chill of a crunchy-leaf filled breeze and glowing yellow lights inside vibrant orange jack-o-lanterns.

This year was no exception. You felt as if you were melting into the thatched weave of your mother’s patio furniture, the sun-warmed material almost too hot for the bare skin of your legs to rest upon comfortably. Slipping your large black sunglasses—that your best friend said made you look like an oversized housefly—over your eyes, you willed the heat to go away, leave you alone until next year, when you’d be far, far away from your hometown.

Because you—yes, you, had managed to snag a fancy job at a snazzy company, one that would take you to a new country where you could stay for as long as you wanted, doing much more important work than you did at the sad part-time jobs your resume was filled with. When you’d first told your parents about the job, they’d protested at first, asking why you wanted to work in a foreign country, hundreds of thousands of miles away from your loving family and friends, and everything that you’d known since you were born. But you couldn’t put the feeling into words, that wanderlust, that craving for adventure. Even if the job didn’t work out, you knew that you wanted to travel the world, and what better place to begin than South Korea?

Eventually, your parents accepted it reluctantly, beginning to be more curious than anything about what this new job entailed, and though somewhat awkwardly, you explained your position to your supportive parents, who approved immediately—almost solely because of the annual salary, but approval regardless was relieving to you.

Now you had less than a month to go before you hopped on a plane and left your hometown forever. Though you’d left for college, a lack of work had brought you back right after those four years of freedom, and you’d spent several dismal months moping around the house while searching for a job until you landed the career of your dreams, which brought you to where you were now—sitting on your parents’ old sun-bleached patio furniture in a pair of old jean cut-offs and a faded tank top that you’d found in the back of your closet whilst beginning to slowly pack up your life into a suitcase. You could practically smell the heat radiating off of the concrete of your patio, earthy and almost indescribable other than the idea that it was warm, too hot to lay your fingertips upon for more than a few seconds. The sound of your parents’ old sprinkler chugging along and spitting out cold hose water echoed in your ears, and you could see what was happening without even opening your eyes. That old sprinkler had worked all throughout your childhood, showering your green lawn in droplets and bringing the dead winter grass back to life, and it wasn’t hard to see the little spout spattering water all across the lawn.

Your eyes, though still closed, did not completely block out the sunlight, and you could see hues of red and orange pigments from your eyelids shining through instead of the welcome blindness that you so enjoyed when trying to nap. Your cheap sunglasses that you’d stolen from said friend who insulted your looks with them on were just that—cheap, and you wished you’d just spent more money to get a quality pair. If you’d known how much you’d be sunbathing this summer, you would have done so in a heartbeat, but how could you predict such a mundane month, full of nothing but homemade smoothies and lounging?

You turned over, starting to feel the tops of your thighs getting sensitive from being in the sun for too long, and kicked your feet up in the air, face propped up with your hands, elbows digging into the chair. You lowered your sunglasses to squint at your phone, only half reading the text from Beomgyu, who was demanding to know what you did with said sunglasses, before shutting off your phone with a satisfying click and laying your face down in your slightly sweaty palms, feeling the heat finally getting to you.

The phone rang.

“Hello?” you groaned, not even bothering to prop yourself back up.

“You asshole, give me back my sunglasses. I knew you had them,” Beomgyu seethed, and you opened one eye to look at him on the video call. You could see the background of his apartment, cluttered but bright from all of the opened windows, and him right in the center of your screen, face blown up from the disturbing angle. You could see right up his nostrils, and the crusty orange corners of his lips from what you assumed were cheese puff dust.

“Why do you look so fucking gross?” you asked, finally sitting back up. You pushed the sunglasses up onto your head, pushing back the hair that was beginning to fall back into your face. “What’s that all over your face, cheese dust?”

Beomgyu stared at the lower corner of his phone, finally realizing what he looked like, and wrinkled his nose. He used his thumb to scratch at the orange before examining it, then wrapping his chapped lips around the digit to suck off the residue. “God, that’s disgusting. Can I hang up now?”

“Can you bring me back my sunglasses?” he countered, taking his thumb out of his mouth. You could see him wiping it on the front of his white t-shirt, leaving a long orange stain.

“You can come get them,” you said, “I’m not moving from this spot.”

“My car’s broken,” he whined, “I’m stuck in my apartment all weekend until Kai brings it back.”

“If it’s broken, why does Kai have it?”

“He’s the one that broke it!” Beomgyu threw his free hand up in the air, as if he were mocking you for not knowing such an obvious fact about his stupid car. “He’s paying for it and everything, so I don’t really give a shit, but just come by. I’m bored.”

You hoisted yourself up out of the chair, grimacing at how your thighs stuck to the chair and peeled off of it painfully. Beomgyu made an audible noise of disgust when he heard it. “Bring your skin with you, don’t leave it on that chair,” he gagged, “disgusting.”

“It’s hot and I’m sweaty, leave me alone,” you snapped, “I don’t have to return your glasses.”

“You know I’m joking.”

“Be there in twenty.”

—

As always, you found it much too easy to waste the day away with Beomgyu, doing nothing but roll around in his apartment with no air conditioning, feeling as if you were about to melt into his hardwood floors. You watched as Beomgyu got up every thirty seconds to stick his head into the freezer and make obscene noises, sounding more like a freaky animal in heat than the best friend you knew and loved. By the time you stopped fucking around and picked yourself up off the floor to check the time, you realized it was much later than you thought, and you had to drive yourself back home for dinner, wondering what your mother made.

“I’m back,” you called, swinging open the front door, the brass knob still hot to the touch from the sun, which had not yet set, “did I miss dinner?”

“No, you’re just in time,” your mother said, her voice echoing down the hallway, “come sit down!”

You trotted down the hallway merrily, knowing that you had to enjoy the home-cooked meals while you still could, and rounded the corner with a smile on your face, focused on the fully set table as you slid into your seat—and made eye contact with a strange man sitting across from you. “Who the hell are you?” you asked, so appalled at his shockingly handsome face that an obscenity slipped out from between your lips.

“Taehyun. Kang Taehyun,” he said simply, and he flashed a smile so bright you wished you’d just kept Beomgyu’s stupid cheap sunglasses.

TWENTY-THREE DAYS LEFT—TAEHYUN

Kang Taehyun considered himself a fairly smart person.

He always did above average on his tests in school, and was even an honors student. He took part in many after-school activities that he felt also boosted his IQ and simultaneously helped his social skills improve—not that he kept track of that sort of thing, really. After he graduated he only continued to hone his skills and his pride about his brain that was figuratively larger than the average person’s, and he always knew that he wanted to be a teacher—to stay in an environment that encouraged learning, that encouraged being smart.

However, it seemed that book smarts and street smarts could only get one so far.

Kang Taehyun did not know the difference between a banana and a plantain, and he had been standing in front of the fruit display in his new local grocery store for nearly ten minutes. His sweaty palms dragged against the empty pockets of his jeans for the fifth time—what a day to forget your phone at home—and he felt himself reaching for one bunch of fruit before faltering and considering the other for a moment, before ultimately pulling his hand back and staring at the two displays blankly, back at square one.

“Do you need help?” a kindly voice asked, and he turned to look at the source of it—an older woman, with a shopping cart full of food—surely she was shopping for a family. In the cart he spotted a bunch of bananas, which made his heart leap with hope.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “what’s better? Bananas or plantains?”

The woman put a hand over her mouth to stifle a small laugh, which Taehyun stiffened at. “Well, what do you need them for?” she asked, “both are good, but for different things.”

“Just to eat,” he said quickly, “no cooking or baking.”

“Then I think you’re looking for bananas,” she said kindly, and Taehyun felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment—if he’d been forced to choose with no help at all, he probably would have just chosen the bananas and gone.

“Thank you,” he said awkwardly, picking up a bunch of bananas, already ripe and browning slightly, but the lady stopped him, placing a comforting hand over his own.

“If you want them to last, get a greener bunch. That way you can eat them later on too, and none will go to waste,” she said in a motherly tone, and Taehyun thought that his original assumption must be right, this woman must have a family to take care of, just based on her personality.

“Thank you,” he said again, and he was sure his cheeks were pink with shame as he put the ripe bunch back and placed a greener bunch into his basket.

They both stood there for a moment awkwardly, the older woman looking him up and down with an indiscernible look upon her face, before she spoke up again. “Do you want to come over for dinner?”

“Excuse me?” Taehyun was slightly taken aback by the sudden request; he did not really know this woman, the only thing he knew for sure about her was that she knew the difference between bananas and plantains. Yet, her warm welcome, her comforting tone, and her cart full of food that was sure to be cooked into a delicious meal lulled him into a sense of familiarity. She almost reminded him of his own mother.

“You don’t have to, of course,” she said, “I just get the sense that you’re new here, and you could use some company.”

“Well,” he said, “you’d be right about that. When should I come over?”

She smiled and gave him the address and the time, and he watched her walk away, pleased that he’d already had a pleasant interaction with someone in his new home.

—

Kang Taehyun also considered himself to be a fairly well-restrained person.

He never participated in childish things in school like rating people based on their looks, he never really bothered with any serious dating either—apart from flings and casual hook-ups, he had no experience in the romance department. Not that he hated it either, he just felt he had more important obligations that came before sucking face and touching genitals.

The older lady had mentioned to him that she had a child about his age—something that he also didn’t really pay attention to; he was still more interested in the food. But then he saw a pretty hand wrap around the edge of the doorframe, and a pretty person attached to that hand swing into sight just a moment later—and suddenly Kang Taehyun understood the feeling that his best friend Soobin got when he had a crush on that person back in high school. He felt like a teenage boy again, with how hard and fast his heart was pounding, how he could feel blood rushing north and south at the same time and he hated it. Underneath the table, his hands gripped his thighs tightly, nervous as he looked into your eyes, glittering as the light from the lamp in the corner of the room reflected off of the glassy surface. Your mother never mentioned how gorgeous you were, and Taehyun wished that he’d had some sort of warning. He could almost feel the drool pooling in the corners of his mouth, the fire coursing through his blood.

“Who the hell are you?” you asked, with such a quizzical look plastered across your pretty face that Taehyun had to swallow past a lump in his throat before replying in an equally cocky tone.

“Taehyun. Kang Taehyun.”

And then he ruined it with a lopsided smile that showed too much of his teeth, and he wished he could just sprint back home and die alone in his bed.

—

You felt like your face was on fire as you tapped your toes against the hardwood floor, trying to stare at the flawless man across from you without him realizing. You noticed that he was trying to do something similar, as you both were equally bad at it, and your gazes kept meeting unceremoniously before you both quickly looked away and shoveled food into your mouth.

“It’s delicious,” Taehyun declared sweetly to your mother, and usually you’d roll your eyes at someone so obviously trying to suck up, but for some reason you found it almost endearing this time. The way he flashed his perfect teeth at you made your heart race, and you felt your skin prickling at the idea of being in the same room as him.

“Thank you!” your mother replied, clearly happy with the situation and not realizing just how much you were suffering. “Would you like to stay for dessert as well?”

You almost choked on your water.

“I would love to!” Taehyun responded, “I brought something, too.”

“Oh?”

Taehyun held up a finger, silently asking the two of you to wait a moment as he pulled it out, and he hoisted a box of muffins onto the table. If they had been store-bought you could have scoffed and passed him off as a right douche, but they were obviously homemade, and they smelled so good you could feel your mouth watering—almost as much as it had watered when you first laid eyes on Taehyun.

“I thought you said the bananas weren’t for baking!” your mother gushed, opening the box delicately and looking over the goods.

“I had to bring something to thank you,” he said graciously, before returning his gaze to you momentarily, and you felt your face heat up again. He caught his lower lip on his teeth as he looked you up and down, a smirk making the corners of his lips turn upwards, and making you clench your clammy hands into fists. “I hope you enjoy them.”

You piped up before your mom could say anything, “Oh, I definitely will.”

Taehyun had to shakily excuse himself to the restroom before dessert was served, you realized with a smirk.

“I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten! (Y/N), could you walk Taehyun to the door?” your mother asked, picking up all the plates and cups strewn across the coffee table. “Come back anytime!”

“Thank you so much, for everything,” Taehyun said graciously, though his eyes quickly wandered back to you as you stood up and sweetly handed your plate to your mother. You walked past him quickly, your fingers ghosting over his, and he felt his digits twitch as they closed around nothing but air and the hope that you’d brush up against him again.

“Follow me,” you said, your gait mellow and dainty, a juxtaposing action when paired with the devilish smirk on your face and the wink that followed.

Barely managing to hold it together as he said goodbye to your mother once again, he hurried after you, hardly keeping up as you whisked around the corner, wanting nothing more than for you to lay your hands on him. He felt horrible for acting this way, especially around your mother, who was a kind woman who invited him to dinner, not to sleep with her child who was oh-so conveniently the same age as him, horribly charming, and irresistible all-around. He felt even guiltier as he slowed down to look at all of the pictures hanging on the walls, photographs of you as a child and doing innocent, child-like activities. This was your childhood home, after all, and he had the nerve to be such a pervert he couldn’t even make direct eye contact with you for more than ten seconds before feeling tingly.

He hurried to the front door as you unlocked it and held it open for him, smiling at him as he edged outside, giving you a tight smile as you closed it behind you. Awkwardly, Taehyun shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unsure how to say goodbye, as he hadn’t said anything to you besides a brief introduction when you’d first come home. “I—”

“I think you’re hot,” you said bluntly, and that bluntness made Taehyun nearly trip down your front stairs. He took a single step back, lips slightly parted as his scrambled mind tried to come up with a response. “Is that—is that okay?” you asked, worried that you’d made him uncomfortable. Taehyun watched as your confidence slowly chipped away as he didn’t give you a clear reaction, the way you backed up a little. How considerate. How kind. How sweet.

“I think you’re hot too,” he said breathily, and he winced a little—why did his voice sound like that? But you didn’t seem to mind, relief flooding your face as you cautiously reached for his wrist, and once he gave you a nod of approval, you spun him around—a little unceremoniously—and pressed him up against the door, your face inches away from his. He could feel your breath ghosting over his lips and it was driving him absolutely insane. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered, and you nodded frantically—so frantically he swore he almost heard a whimper escape you—and he brought one large hand up to the back of your neck, pulling you towards him and closing the gap between your faces. He felt like molten lava was traveling through his body and like a bucket of ice-water had been dumped over his head at the same time, and he hated it and loved it. Kissing you felt like jumping off a rocky cliff and into the cold ocean, it felt like skydiving and riding a rollercoaster and flying all at once. He could feel his stomach twisting the way it always did when he was nervous; instead of butterflies it felt like a flock of birds, pecking and flapping and nipping, but he never wanted to forget that feeling. The feeling of your warm lips against his, your perfect body pressed up against him. Your slightly sweaty neck underneath his calloused palm, the way your skin dipped as he squeezed gently, and the feeling of your own hands roaming his body, leaving fingerprints of fire behind as they touched lightly then traveled somewhere else right away, eager to explore, eager to consume.

When you finally parted, you let out a little laugh at how swollen his lips had gotten, before tucking a stray lock of silver hair behind his ear. “I never introduced myself properly, did I?” you asked, and Taehyun let out a shaky breath at your duality; your shy voice compared to your actions just moments before.

“You didn’t,” he confirmed, “but that’s okay, I heard your name.”

“(Y/N),” you said, at the same time he did, making you chuckle. “My mother says you’re new in town.”

“I am. I just moved here last week, and I believe my job starts in a little less than a month—twenty-three, twenty-four days? Something like that.” He didn’t notice the way you tensed up a little at that—of course he wouldn’t pick up on it, he hardly knew you.

“Odd,” you said breathily, looking up at the sky, which was pitch-black now that it was around midnight, “that’s around the same time I leave for my new job.”

“What?” he asked, but when you didn’t reply right away, he looked up too, his big dark eyes filling with the glittering specks that humans called stars, and he understood why you couldn’t find it in you to explain yourself right away.

“I’m only going to be here until the end of summer,” you said finally, and Taehyun felt a pang of disappointment in his chest even though he’d just met you. “I’m moving to Korea in twenty-three days. Or is it twenty-two days now that it’s past midnight?”

“Twenty-two, twenty-three, it’s all pretty much the same,” he lamented, “that’s a bummer. I thought we could be good for each other.”

“Good for each other?”

“In a bedroom sense,” he said quickly, “not in anything serious, of course. We just met.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” you sighed, not without relief, “you’re the first hot person to move here, and of course it’s right as I’m leaving.”

“Well,” Taehyun said, “we can make the most of these twenty-two days, can’t we?”

“Twenty-three days,” you corrected, “your watch says it’s only eleven fifty-eight.”

“We can make the most of twenty-three days,” he said, pressing another heated kiss to your lips, which were beginning to chill from the night air.

His watch beeped as you kissed him, hard and deep. “Twenty-two days.”

“Twenty-two nights, but twenty-three days,” you mumbled, lips still upon his, “it’ll be fun, won’t it?”

He either didn’t hear you or chose to not respond as he shut you up by slipping his tongue into your mouth, prompting you to close your eyes again and pretend like you had all the time in the world to melt into his embrace.

—

He tossed you onto the bare mattress, and you would have exclaimed in disgust if you weren’t so fucking horny. He hardly gave you a moment to catch your breath before capturing your lips with his once again, moaning into your hot mouth and fumbling with the button on your jeans. Once he managed to undo it, he slipped his hand down your pants, large fingers making their way into your soaked panties and finding your sopping hole almost immediately. He parted the kiss once more to groan as he sunk a single finger into your tight cunt. “You’re so tight,” he grunted, “how am I supposed to fit my cock into you, hm?” You whined in response, bucking your hips up as another finger slipped in. “So cute,” he mumbled, curling his fingers inside you once before pulling them out and slipping them into his mouth. “Sweet.”

He then stood up, ridding himself of his shirt and pants quickly, and you did the same, nearly tripping over your own feet as you pulled your jeans down your legs and tossed them aside with your shirt, hoping you’d be able to find them later. It was then that you finally got a good look at Taehyun’s nearly nude form, and your breath caught in your throat as your gaze raked up and down his body, strips of pale moonlight dancing across his pretty skin. “God, you’re so hot,” you muttered, pulling his face to yours once more.

“Take a look at yourself,” he chuckled, and you only smirked into the kiss before shoving him down onto the mattress and climbing on top of him, grinding your throbbing cunt onto his hard dick, the only layers separating the two of you being his boxers and your panties. He threw his head back and groaned, and you took the opportunity to suck a dark hickey onto his pale neck. “Who said you get to be on top?” he asked cockily, before grabbing you and flipping you over so that he was above you, pinning your wrists down to the bed and staring you down.

You pouted playfully. “I was having a good time up there.”

“It’s my turn now,” he chuckled, and you stuck your tongue out at him as you reached behind your back to undo your bra. Once it unclipped, you slid it down your arms and tossed it aside, enjoying the way Taehyun’s eyes darkened at the sight of your bare chest. “So fucking hot,” he repeated, flicking one of your nipples, watching it harden almost immediately. You moaned aloud as he leaned down to suckle on the untouched nipple, swirling his tongue around the bud and enjoying the way you arched off the bed, pushing your chest closer, hoping for more.

He let go of your nipple after teasing it just a little with his teeth, leaving you flushed and panting, rubbing your thighs together in an attempt to ease the pressure. He noticed this and grinned toothily, hooking his fingers onto the elastic sides of your undergarments and pulling them down, leaving you completely bare. Your mind was hazy at this point, as he used his strength to pull your legs apart and stare at your dripping pussy, glistening in the moonlight. “Can I?” he asked, his head already lowered between your legs.

“Please,” you whispered, using a hand to gently push his eager face closer to your cunt. That one word was all he needed to hear as he licked a long stripe up your pussy, and you gasped at the feeling of his hot tongue against your slit. He didn’t hesitate after hearing your reaction, suckling at your clit roughly as he used his large hands to spread your legs apart even further. He moved his mouth down lower, making you keen as his tongue slipped into your cunt. The slick feeling of it attempting to go as deep as it could made you twitch, and he groaned into your cunt, the vibrations only bringing you closer to the edge. He seemed to notice this somehow, and brought his tongue back up to your neglected clit as he slipped the same two fingers back into you. You tightened around them immediately; you’d missed the feeling of his thick digits inside of you. That brief session beforehand hadn’t satisfied you at all. He curled them as he pushed them back in, the combination of penetration and clitoral stimulation finally bringing you to your orgasm, and you let out a high-pitched moan as you came all over his tongue and his fingers.

He lifted his head up, licking his lips and staring at you, head cocked to the side slightly. “Ready for another?” he asked, finally pulling down his boxers. His cock was beautiful, there were no other possible words to describe it. It curved slightly to the left, but the dripping red head and the way it twitched, bouncing up slightly at the feeling of being let out of its confinement made you salivate. You wanted nothing more than to have that dick deep down your throat, but he’d already leaned over and pulled a condom out of his bedside drawer, pinching the tip as he rolled it on.

“I wanted to suck you off,” you said, frowning, “wanted to return the favor.”

“Next time, baby,” he cooed, “and next time you can be on top like you wanted too.”

The thought of a next time with Kang Taehyun made your heart skip a beat, your mouth watering with anticipation.

You flipped over, getting on your hands and knees, and he positioned himself at your entrance, blunt head nudging your swollen pussy. The contact made you swallow hard. The feeling of his fat cock slowly pushing into you was almost odd, since it’d been so long since you’d last gotten laid, and the stretch was just a little painful. He furrowed his brow in concentration as he bottomed out, gasping at the feeling of your hot walls surrounding his length. “Don’t worry about me,” you panted, “go as hard as you want.”

His grip on your hips tightened. “You sure?” he asked, big eyes locking with yours.

“I’ll tell you if I want you to stop.”

He nodded, biting his lower lip as he pulled out slowly, then slammed his hips back into yours, the contact making a loud smacking noise. You moaned loudly at the rough thrust, but he didn’t give you any time to recover, mirroring his actions but angling his lips slightly to the side, hoping to hit your g-spot. It took a few more rough thrusts, but he found it, and he knew it as you cried out and your front collapsed onto the mattress, arms giving out at the sudden wave of pleasure. He smirked to himself and continued angling his hips that way, balls smacking your clit as he pistoned his hips as fast and hard as he could. He let go of your hips with one hand, reaching underneath to find your sensitive nub. He found it quickly and rubbed it in quick, hard circles, chuckling as you began to snap out of it and push your hips back into his thrusts, matching his pace.

“F—fuck, Taehyun!” you cried, as a particularly hard thrust made you cum yet again, pussy tightening around him.

“So good for me,” he whispered, sloppy thrusts finally stilling as he reached his high, releasing his sticky fluids into the condom.

He pulled out as soon as he finished riding out his orgasm, then left the room as he removed the condom, tossing it in the trash as he came back with towels. He threw one to you as you groaned and stood up on shaky legs.

“It was fun, princess,” he said, pulling his clothes back on. “It was fun.”

TWENTY-TWO DAYS LEFT

You don’t remember what time you got home, but you do know that it was in the early hours of the morning, and you were almost caught under the shower of the sprinklers that your mother timed to go off every morning before the sun rose. You’d slipped through your bedroom window, shoes in hand just as you heard the choking noises of the little spigots beginning to spout water, and closed your window behind you just as you heard the noises of your parents shifting around in the room down the hall.

You also don’t remember the last time you’d had such a good fuck. Taehyun was everything you’d been craving all summer, and you cursed at whatever higher being there was that prevented him from coming sooner and ending your dry spell that had been going on ever since you came back home. Sore yet satisfied, you crawled into bed with an alarm set to go off in just a few hours when you promised to take Taehyun to the best brunch place in town—more like the only decent brunch place in town, but the point still stood.

When you awoke to your blaring alarm, the noisy beeps etching their sounds into your eardrums, you blinked blearily at the late morning light that was strewn across your wrinkled sheets, an effect of your failure to close your curtains early in the morning when you got home. You felt sweaty and not very well-rested, but you’d made a promise, and a text from the one you’d made that promise to made you jump out of bed, excited for some odd reason even though you were just going to the brunch place you’d been frequenting since high school.

Hopping around your bedroom after your shower, holding your towel up with one hand as you tried to find something decent to wear, made you feel like a teenager straight out of a bad, cheesy rom-com, and you felt embarrassed even though no one was around to see you trip over your own foot and nearly face-plant into a pile of dirty laundry. You got ready with one hand as you held your phone in the other, trying to reply to a bunch of texts from Beomgyu that you’d ignored all night and all morning. You groaned as your phone started buzzing with a video call request from him. “I’m kind of busy,” you said stoutly, peering into your mirror as you tried to yank a pair of too-small shorts off.

“With what? You never have shit going on,” Beomgyu said, making you shoot a glare at your phone. “Are you coming over again today? Kai bought me a fuck-ton of ice cream because he still feels bad for breaking my car.”

“I’m going to brunch with someone,” you said, finally settling on a decent outfit that wasn’t from your high school days nor too casual. You sighed happily, smoothing your hair back with one hand, feeling much more refreshed than you had just an hour ago, and especially compared to how you felt after climbing through your window after the best sex of your life.

“What? Who? Don’t tell me you’re going with Ryujin—god that bitch is annoying.”

“I like Ryujin,” you snapped, “don’t talk shit. But no, I’m going with some guy that just moved here. It’s a long story.”

“Am I going to have to come save you if he tries something funny?” Beomgyu set his phone down on his kitchen counter, and you heard him open his freezer, presumably to get some of the ice cream he had previously mentioned. He popped back into frame with a spoon and a pint of brownie batter flavored ice cream.

“No, I trust him,” you said, “I have to go now.”

“Tell me what happens!” he yelled, before you ended the call and stuffed your phone into your pocket, already dreading having to explain the entire thing to Beomgyu, who was sure to make fun of you for sneaking through your window like a disobedient teenager.

The brunch place wasn’t crowded, but then again, it never was. You got out of your car, fanning your face with your hand, shocked and disturbed by the sheer heat that was radiating off of the asphalt. “(Y/N)!” Taehyun’s voice called, and it took you less than a second to match the voice to the person. Taehyun was leaning against the outside of the building, clad in a casual outfit that fit his body so well it should be illegal. His dark jeans were loose and baggy, yet he made them seem chic, and he had an oversized blazer on top of his t-shirt, upscaling the entire look. A few pieces of well-chosen jewelry topped it off, making you want to rip everything off of him right then and there—though you were obviously able to hold back.

“You look… good,” you said, looking him up and down, and he chuckled at your reaction.

“So do you,” he marveled, and he opened the door for you kindly, making your face flush as you walked past him, into the restaurant that was luckily a much lower temperature.

The restaurant was more than familiar; you’d had a booth with your name on it for years and years now. But as you slid into the seat and felt underneath the sticky table for where you’d carved your name way back when, you realized with a bittersweet smile that this was probably one of the last times you’d come here before you left. You didn’t move your fingers away from your name after that realization, tracing the letters over and over while continuously glancing over at Taehyun, watching him look over the menu, something you didn’t need to do since you had it all practically memorized. “What’re you getting?” you asked, pursing your pretty lips.

“Not sure yet,” he mused, “what’s good?”

“The waffles are pretty good,” you said without looking down at the greasy laminated selection, “especially if you order them with fruit preserves. They’re made by the owners in the autumn and used year-round.”

Taehyun hummed in delight, drumming his deliciously long fingers across the tabletop, unconsciously following the rhythm of the old air conditioning unit in the back of the building—it was so loud that you could hear it over the chatter of all the customers. “I think… I’ll get an Americano, too?”

“I hear that Americanos are pretty popular in Korea,” you said, placing your chin atop your laced fingers, looking up at Taehyun through fluttered lashes, “is that right?”

“It is,” he replied, finally putting down his menu, “you better get used to it. A lot of foreigners think it’s way too bitter.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what I think of it too.” Taehyun wrinkled his nose at you; he very much liked Americanos, and once the waitress came around he ordered two of them, claiming that once you got used to the bitterness it was actually quite good.

It was quite odd to sit there in your booth, knowing that you were probably never coming back. You even told the owner, who’d come out to see you especially; he’d known you since you were a kid, and he let out a low whistle, propping up his elbow on the top of your booth, saying that he sure would miss you, and that if you ever did come back the booth would always be reserved for you. Taehyun froze up during these situations, you realized; that was one of his few flaws. Or maybe it couldn’t really count as a flaw, because after all, he was still very new to town and felt awkward with people for a reason, but for some reason you found yourself wanting this to count as a flaw. You wanted reasons to not like him as much as you did, which had never really happened before—usually, there were always valid reasons to dislike someone, especially someone that you were romantically involved with in some way.

And then you wondered, did his obsession with Americanos count as a flaw? As you watched him sip his iced coffee through a paper straw, frowning as it quite literally disintegrated in his mouth, you thought that perhaps it wasn’t—and you took another tongue-spasm filled sip from your own Americano.

EIGHTEEN DAYS LEFT

“For some reason, hanging out with you like this really makes me feel like I’m in high school again,” you mused, hanging upside down on your swing. You felt the very top of your head graze the wood-chip-filled box of the playground, and you swung yourself back upwards, feeling the blood that had pooled in your head begin to flow back down, making you feel dizzy. You held on extra tight to the sun-warmed chains that attached the flat black seat to the sturdy poles, cemented deep in the ground.

“I make you feel young again? Something like that?” he asked, and you turned to look at him once your head stopped spinning. He was mirroring your actions and hanging upside-down, lanky lower limbs sticking up straight in the air, his long feet clad in dirty Converse dangling, a stark contrast from the cloudless, blue sky they were up against. You watched as his silver hair brushed against the wood chips, just as your hair had. “Come back down here, I feel stupid doing this by myself.”

Wordlessly, you let yourself fall, catching yourself at the last second, until your gaze was met with your own shoes in the air, right next to Taehyun’s, against the periwinkle canvas. “No, not really,” you said, dragging out the last syllable. He knocked his shoe against yours, making you swing from side to side. “I think… maybe it’s just being back in my hometown for so long, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I feel like I’m a kid again.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said bluntly, “once you move it’ll never be like this again.”

“So sentimental,” you said sarcastically, bumping your own shoe against him to make him rock sideways too, “just let me be nostalgic for a minute without reminding me of my rapidly approaching future.”

Taehyun didn’t reply, and for a moment you worry that you offended him somehow, but when you look over at him you realize that it’s because he’s too busy feeling around his messy hair to pick stray wood chips out from his snarled locks. “Need help?” you ask, and he nods. You swing yourself back up, almost enjoying the rush as your body righted itself, and stand behind Taehyun as he digs the toes of his shoes into the dirt, making sure he doesn’t swing back and hit you as you comb through his tangled hair with your fingers, plucking out small pieces of wood and other debris that had managed to find a home in his pretty silver locks. It feels almost natural, almost domestic, and you catch yourself wondering what it would be like to actually date Taehyun, before you suck your bottom lip into your mouth and bite down hard, punishing yourself for even having that thought. He was just some hot guy that you were hooking up with, and that’s it.

“Do you think you’ll ever come back here?” Taehyun asks you, the question surprising you due to how out of the blue it was.

“To live? Or to visit?” You’ve now picked all of the wood chips out of his hair, but you don’t want to stop playing with the soft tendrils just yet, so you pretend that there’s more as your fingertips gently graze against his scalp, making a shiver run down his spine at the contact.

“Either.”

“To visit? Definitely. I can’t just forget about my parents,” you scolded, yanking on a piece of his hair, and he groans, trying to swat your hands away. “But to live here again…? I don’t think so. I’ve had my fill of this place, and I want to travel.”

Taehyun doesn’t reply again, but he stands up, long, lithe fingers slowly dropping from the chain that was attached to his swing as he looks you up and down. “You have wood chips in your hair too,” he said, and you bring a self-conscious hand up to your head, patting various places as you try to locate the whereabouts of said wood chips. “Want me to get them?”

You hesitate for a moment, and he realizes this, wide eyes softening at your moment of panic. “Okay,” you say after a pregnant pause, and you take his seat on his swing. Taehyun notes with admiration how you carefully wedge your way onto the plastic seat one side at a time, wiggling backwards only once you know it’s sturdy and safe. Your hands grip the chains tightly, and he wonders if you’re afraid of falling, even though it’s not high up in the slightest, and your feet touch the ground just as his do. Carefully, he does the same thing you did to him, combing through your hair with gentle fingers and plucking out every wood chip, every pebble, every piece of dry grass that had nested there. “What about you?” you asked, “how long will you stay here?”

Taehyun exhaled deeply, feeling his lungs expand and contract with the deep breaths. “Honestly, I’m not sure,” he said, pausing his careful movements for a moment to look up at the sky again. “I wanted to stay here for a year first and see how things went, to see if I even liked the area. So I’ll probably stick to that for now. Ask me again in a year.”

“I won’t be here in a year,” you reminded him gently.

“I’ll have your parents ask me,” he corrected, “then they’ll relay the information to you.”

Indignantly, you turn around while he still has a piece of your hair held tightly in his left hand, and you wince as it pulls. “What, you can’t tell me yourself?”

Taehyun feels horrible for some reason, though he knows you’re just joking. “We’ll be in different countries. Can’t text without wasting massive amounts of data,” he says knowingly, and his voice is so calm, his tone so even, that you wonder if he even cares at all. “But… the information will find its way to you, one way or another.”

“Will we write letters to each other?” you wondered aloud.

“Wouldn’t that be even more expensive than just texting?” he asks, letting go of your final lock of clean hair. “Done.”

“Maybe we should practice,” you said, “because I leave tomorrow to go on vacation with my family.”

Taehyun swallows hard—why didn’t you tell him earlier? He’d wanted to ask you the best place to get Korean food in town; he was feeling homesick and wanted food that reminded him of home. “For how long?” he asks, tamping down that feeling of entitlement; you didn’t have to tell him everything—after all, all you were doing was hooking up and showing him around town before you left.

“Five days.”

“Will I see you when you get back?”

“Of course you will.” You reassure Taehyun, but wish that he’d seemed more upset that you had five less days together. That nagging feeling of wanting him to care about you and the future of your relationship was beginning to return, even though you’d pushed it so far down you’d forgotten about it for a few days. You hated that feeling.

“Then maybe we should practice,” he agreed, nodding slowly.

And you both made a promise that you knew you had no intentions of keeping, because neither of you wrote nor received a single letter for those five days.

THIRTEEN DAYS LEFT

The five days away from Taehyun should have been blissful, filled with endless fruity drinks and the salty tang of the ocean water kissing your sun-warmed skin, but instead you found endless grains of sand wedging their way into unsavory places and a crowded beach full of crying children—evidently, not a good time.

And perhaps you should have prepared yourself for the disappointment, though you shouldn’t have been disappointed regardless when you realized Taehyun wouldn’t be writing you any letters. That was the sort of thing that you did with your significant other, not some rando you were fucking to pass the time. But you found yourself in your hotel room more often than not, cheap, half-dry pen in hand as you stared down at the pad of paper labeled with the hotel name, wondering if you should write him a little something anyways.

You spent most of those five days doing exactly that, and when you weren’t, you were sunbathing while writing imaginary letters to the handsome man in your head, hoping that he was doing the same for you, even though you knew deep down in your heart he definitely wasn’t.

As it always was, arriving back home after a long vacation felt semi-bittersweet; though you hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as you thought you would, you still missed the warm ocean and the endless drinks, and being home was just so boring in comparison. You decided that if you ever became rich, you would move to a sunny place just like that and live out the rest of your day there, relaxing with no worries, and certainly no concerns about letters from someone who wasn’t supposed to mean anything to you. You found yourself slathering on sunscreen and tip-toeing down the stairs in your backyard to crawl back onto your mother’s patio furniture, ignoring how you now had a lack of cheap plastic sunglasses and a face-full of bright sunlight. You sipped at a smoothie you’d messily put together in hopes that it would mimic the drinks you had on vacation, but it paled in comparison, and you half-wished you hadn’t even bothered making it with how disappointing it was.

“I thought you said we would see each other again when you came back.”

“I’ve only been back for a few hours, clingy much?” You sit up in your chair and look across the backyard to the source of the voice, immediately spotting Taehyun hanging over your fence.

“Five days is a long time,” he said, “how much longer would you make me wait?”

“Get used to it,” you said, “you know why.”

“I’m not being serious,” he countered, climbing up on the lowest rung of the fence. He swung one lanky leg over the top and then brought over the remaining limb, stumbling only a little as he held onto the wooden bars. “But you didn’t text me to tell me you were back.”

“I said five days,” you said, picking up your smoothie just so you’d have something to do with your hands, “I’ve never lied to you yet, have I?”

“I guess not.” Taehyun walked over and sat in the chair next to yours. “How was it? Your vacation?”

“Great,” you said, lying through your teeth, “so much… sun. And hot people. Half-naked hot people.”

“You sound like a really sheltered person who just saw porn for the first time, you know that?” Taehyun picked up your smoothie as soon as you put it down and captured the straw between his lips. “This is good. Did you make it yourself?”

“What do you want me to say, I missed you or something?” you asked, scowling at him.

“At least say that you missed the sex,” he said, “I know I did.”

“What if I hooked up with other people while I was on vacation?” you asked.

“Did you?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t really, but you’re insinuating that you did.”

You felt your chest clench at his callous words. “Yeah, well, I didn’t. I’m on vacation with my parents, you really think I was fucking people left and right?”

“You’re fucking someone now while you’re living with your parents,” he pointed out.

“Alright, whatever,” you mumbled. “Like you said, you don’t care, and it doesn’t matter anyways. I’m home now.”

Taehyun shrugged. “Are you coming over tonight?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Of course,” he said, and your heart swelled for just a moment before he continued, “it’s been five days since we last had sex.” He stood up and put your empty smoothie cup down. “I have to go now, but in that case, I’ll see you tonight.” You watched as he casually walked across your yard, leaving footprints in the freshly watered grass, and hopped your fence again, disappearing from your sight as he turned the corner.

—

Beomgyu’s words rang in your ears as you slowly opened your window and poked your head out to look around, making sure the coast was clear. Sneaking out your window like you’re in high school again?

It melded with the way you’d pointed out how being with Taehyun made you feel like a kid again, and you didn’t really like the feeling. You’d spent your high school years messing with people that hurt your feelings over and over again, and whatever you had going on with Taehyun now, though you’d begun it as something with no strings attached, was beginning to be much too reminiscent of that. The way you were sneaking around only added to that.

Making sure your bedroom door was locked one last time, you scurried across your room to finish opening your window, sticking one foot out and making sure you had a solid footing before swinging your other leg over the ledge as well. Your bedroom window was fairly large, so there was no squeeze, and as you shut your window as gently as possible to minimize noise, you let yourself exhale deeply in relief as you crawled across the roof and jumped off, landing on the oh-so wonderful patio furniture. The night sky was clouded over, something that you appreciated so that no one could see your figure climbing over the fence and rushing to your car, and the temperature was just cool enough that the jacket you’d put on at the last minute was deemed a good choice. With how still and quiet the night was, you felt it was almost a crime as your car started and disturbed the silence.

Soft music played over the radio as you drummed your fingers on the steering wheel. Taehyun didn’t live too far, and you probably could have walked, but you didn’t like walking alone at night, for multiple reasons. But driving meant that you had less time to give yourself a little pep talk before seeing him again, and before you could even really start you were pulling up in front of his apartment and climbing out of your car.

His apartment was clearly still new and badly decorated, though you couldn’t say that you had high expectations for a bachelor. As soon as he opened the door he pulled you into a long kiss, and you felt all of your worries melting away as you lost yourself in the man that was Kang Taehyun. “I really did miss you,” he said breathily, between kisses. He pulled off your jacket and tossed it aside, and you found that you didn’t even care where it landed even though it was new. “I didn’t say it earlier today.”

“I missed you too,” you said, truly meaning it, wrapping your arms around his neck as he picked you up and pressed you against the wall. Your legs wrapped around his slim waist and you locked your ankles as his hands groped your bottom. “Even if I did see someone hot while I was there, I wouldn’t have fucked them,” you gasped, as his mouth moved down to your neck.

“Is that so?” he mumbled against your hot skin.

“Out of respect for you,” you quickly corrected yourself, trying your best to not blurt out anything embarrassing through the haze that was your mind at the moment.

“I appreciate it, doll,” he said, before giving you one last long kiss. “But less talking. Let’s move this to the bed now.”

And of course you agreed, letting him carry you over to his bed, which you hated because it was perfectly made and the sheets were freshly washed. If he’d had nasty sheets like half the people you’d fucked before you could have probably gotten over your weird feelings for him in a heartbeat, but just like the man himself, they were pristine and perfect, only ruined by you.

“Remember,” you laughed, “you said I could be on top this time.” Taehyun pushed his lips out into a pout, clearly wanting to just fuck your brains out, but between your first time and now, he’d never let you really be in control, always flipping you over at some point and just drilling into you, and though you never complained about that, you still wanted to try something different. “Plus,” you said, your voice low and quiet, “you also said that next time, I could blow you.”

“That I won’t complain about,” Taehyun said, eagerly ridding himself of his clothes. He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaking cock on display, as you settled between his legs, clad only in your panties.

His large dick was almost intimidating up close, and you weren’t sure if you’d be able to fit it all down your throat, but you were damn well going to try. You spat onto your hand and slicked his hard cock up with your saliva, squeezing gently and twisting your hand as you got to the tip, making him groan. “You look so good on your knees for me,” he said in a strained voice, one veiny hand gripping your hair, “so fucking good.”

“Hush,” you scolded, but you quieted yourself by taking half of his cock in your mouth at once, making him moan as he felt your hot tongue swirl around his shaft. You tried to take more of him down your throat, gagging in the process, but ultimately you couldn’t fit all of him in your mouth at once, opting to stroke the base with one hand and use the other to fondle his balls.

Taehyun’s mouth hung open with bliss, pretty pink lips parted as he stared down at your head bobbing up and down on his cock, the feeling of his high quickly approaching. No one had ever played with his balls before while simultaneously sucking him off, and he was surprised at how much he liked it, as well as how damn good you were at it. “F—fuck, too much, princess,” he panted, using the hand tangled in your hair to pull you off his dick, “don’t wanna cum yet.” You pulled off his cock with a pop, pouting at the premature end to your enjoyment.

“Already?” you teased, climbing into his lap to kiss him. He didn’t mind as you pushed your tongue into his mouth, the salty-bitter taste of his precum all over.

“You’re just too good at it,” he praised, one warm hand squeezing your breast, and the other holding onto your waist, “you have no one to blame but yourself.”

You giggled at the compliment, then climbed off of him so he could settle himself further up the bed, back cushioned with pillows, cock standing straight-up, now slick with pre-cum and your spit, making it easy for the condom to slip on. Once he was comfortable, he patted his lap to let you know, and you eagerly climbed back on top of him after yanking off your soaked panties. You positioned yourself right above his cock, teasing him as you barely let the tip graze your dripping folds. “Are you gonna show me how much you missed me?” he said playfully, placing his hands on your hips gently, trying to sneakily push you down onto his dick.

“Not if you’re going to be this impatient,” you teased, lifting yourself up ever so slightly so that your cunt no longer touched his tip. His face twitched slightly, showing his annoyance.

“Come on, (Y/N),” he whined, bucking his hips up slightly.

“Beg for it.” You grinned, hands planted firmly on his chest, staring him down.

“I’m not gonna beg,” he scoffed, but his sour expression changed as soon as you lowered your hips slightly to drag along his length, and he let out a choked groan.

“You sure about that?” you asked gleefully, glad that you were making him suffer in a fairly harmless way; revenge for how annoying he’d been acting all day.

“Fine!” he shouted, “please.”

“That’s the best you’ve got?”

Taehyun groaned again, though this time it was out of annoyance, not pleasure. “Please, please fuck me,” he said breathily, big eyes shining in the dim light, and you swallowed hard at the beautiful sight, complying immediately. You sunk down onto his cock, breathing out deeply at the feeling of being so full.

You connected your lips to Taehyun’s as you began moving up and down, thighs already starting to burn, but you ignored it, the pleasure coursing through your veins overpowering your tired muscles.

“You give in quickly,” he mumbled, playing with your tits and looking up at you with a half-smile on his face.

“How could I deny you,” you chuckled breathlessly, “you looked so cute.”

“Cute?” he scoffed, “that’s the word you use to describe me as we’re fucking.”

“It’s true,” you said matter-of-factly, grinding down on him, trying to get some friction on your clit. He noticed and reached up to rub your bud, calloused fingers feeling much different than yours.

“You feel so good,” he whispered, bucking up into you, “gonna cum.”

“Do it,” you whispered back, legs finally starting to give out.

Taehyun squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on the feeling of you squeezing around his cock. He was a little ashamed at how quick he was about to cum, but in his defense it’d been a while since he’d had you, and he didn’t anticipate just how good you’d feel. That, and the blowjob you gave him earlier paired with the sight of your tits bouncing in his face made him wanna nut immediately. Thinking of that again made him spill into the condom, hips jerking messily as you giggled at his expression and climbed off of him.

“I was actually expecting you to fuck other people while you were on vacation,” he said truthfully. The two of you were laying in his bed side-by-side, still slightly breathless and bare, covered by only his sheets. He’d turned on the small lamp on his nightstand, bathing the small room in a comforting, yellow-y glow, which you much appreciated. Every now and then you would look over at him and admire his flawless side profile in the warm light; the slope of his tall nose tapering into his pouty lips and his perfect chin, the shadows that his long eyelashes cast upon his smooth cheekbones, his heavily-lidded eyes that blinked every few seconds and jolted you out of your admiration.

“Why?” you asked. This time you were the blunt one.

“I don’t know,” he said, toying with a loose string on his pillowcase. He turned over to face you, and you felt your body involuntarily heat up at his steady gaze. “I just thought that you might.”

“Can you answer me truthfully?” you asked, mirroring his actions and turning towards him.

“I always do.”

You swallowed hard. “Would you have been upset if I did?”

Taehyun closed his eyes and let out a long, deep breath, so deep you could see his chest deflate a little when he finally finished. “I think… maybe. Yes, I would have been.”

You licked your lips nervously. “Why?”

“It’s not that I want to control you. You can sleep with whomever you want,” he began, and you nodded slowly. “But I like the idea that we’re each other’s, and only each other’s… summer flings. For a lack of a more mature term.”

“I’m sure there’s another way to put it,” you laughed, “that made you sound so corny.”

“And that is why I said ‘for a lack of a more mature term’,” he groaned, turning away from you. Your giggles died down as you stared at the pale, smooth canvas that was his back, and how it moved up and down like the moonlit ocean as he breathed slowly and evenly. For a moment you thought he fell asleep, but then you watched his shoulder twitch. “But… you get my point.”

“Yeah,” you said quietly, “I do.”

SEVEN DAYS LEFT

It was Ryujin that texted you and told you about the party that a few local college students were throwing, and Beomgyu claimed that though he disliked her for the most part, she always knew where the fun was and he could appreciate that about her.

“I don’t know, would it be weird for me to go? Since I already graduated college and everything,” you mumbled, holding your phone to your ear with your shoulder and combing through your closet with both your hands.

“What, are you a pervert or something? Some of these kids are older than us, it’ll be fine,” Ryujin said, “I’ll see you there, okay? Bring that guy you’ve been hooking up with too, I want to meet him.”

“Alright, alright,” you grouched, “I’ll see you in a few.” You hung up the phone and texted Taehyun, sending him the address and telling him to meet you there, which he responded to almost immediately with a simple ‘ok’.

You’d been to the location before, recognizing it as a local frat house as you pulled up further down the street. In fact, you’d been to plenty of parties here before, remembering it fondly as the frat Beomgyu used to belong to when he went to the local college. You spotted the man himself getting out of his own newly fixed-up car as you parked and hopped out, pocketing your keys. “How did Ryujin know about the party, but you, a member of the frat until like, last month, didn’t?” you asked snarkily, walking up to him with crossed arms and a smug look on your face.

“A, I graduated,” he snarked right back, “and B, it’s summer. No other college I know has parties after school gets out for the summer, alright?”

“Does it even count as a frat party then?” you wondered aloud.

“Hardly,” he scoffed, “really, it’s just a bunch of people that go to this school, and then whoever’s home for the summer.” He kicked at the dirt, hands shoved into his pockets. “Where’s that guy you’ve been with lately? Is he coming?”

“Yeah, we came separately though,” you said, turning around and looking down the road to see if you could spot his car.

Beomgyu frowned. “Are you just gonna wait out here for him?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t know anyone, I don’t want to leave him alone,” you said, pulling out your phone to see if you’d gotten any messages from him.

“‘Kay, I’m going in then. Come find me, okay?” he said, after a brief hesitation.

You waved him away, and he disappeared into the crowd of people in front of the house, and you thought you could see the very top of his head bob up and down slightly as he entered through the front door. Returning your attention to your phone and your unanswered messages from Taehyun, you brought your nail up to your mouth to gnaw on it a bit nervously; you really hoped that he hadn’t come earlier. The thought of Taehyun in a room full of people he didn’t know made you uncomfortable, especially when your mind wandered to the idea of him finding new people to hook up with.

“You’re here earlier than you said you’d be,” his familiar voice said, and relief flooded your veins.

Turning to look up at him, you grinned. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here. I gave myself a little extra time in case I got lost.”

“I’ll admit that’s why I’m a little late,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. “It’s surprisingly hard to find this place.”

“It’s all the backroads,” you sympathized, “the first time I came here on my own, I was half an hour late. Be glad that didn’t happen to you.”

Taehyun held out his hand, palm facing upwards, and you placed your own hand in his. You felt his warm fingers enclose around your own digits, and you couldn’t hide the smile that spread across your face as he gently tugged you towards the front entrance that Beomgyu had disappeared into just moments before, silently asking you to come with him. Silently, you followed his lead, and you couldn’t help but admire the way he naturally led you with no hesitations or awkwardness. There was something about the way he was so straightforward with you that made your heart beat a little faster; you liked people that could take care of you like that.

The inside of the frat house was a complete contrast from the outside. Before you’d entered, you’d taken one final deep breath of cool evening air, and looked behind you at the sun that was slowly sinking below the horizon, consequently painting the area in a blue hue as the natural light of the day faded. Once you entered, you were hit with a wall of warm, stale air that stunk of a mixture of sweat, various perfumes and colognes, and alcohol. It immediately brought you back to your college days, which you had mixed feelings about, but ultimately appreciated for the nostalgia. Taehyun didn’t let go of your hand once as you weaved through the influx of people crowding the area near the front door, and you tightened your grip a little as a group of people squeezed by the two of you, almost disconnecting your hold.

Finally, the two of you reached a clearing near the back wall, and you poked your head into the room next to you, realizing with relief that it was the kitchen, which seemed much less crowded. You pulled Taehyun into the next room, and with relief you grabbed two beers out of the mini-fridge, deciding against the large bowl of red punch almost immediately after seeing someone dip their sweaty fingers into it as they tried to grope for the ladle without looking. “It’s hot in here,” you said lamely, fanning yourself with one hand and taking a sip of your cold beer with the other, “really reminds me of all the parties I went to this past year.”

“It feels gross in here,” Taehyun said bluntly. “Honestly, I really don’t do parties, but I wanted to come with you.” He took a sip of his own beer then grimaced and put it down. “I also don’t really like beer.”

You frowned. “We didn’t have to come,” you said, “we could have just gone to your place or something, you know that.”

“I do know that,” he confirmed, sliding closer to you as a messy couple nearly bumped into him, “which is why I came anyway, because like I said, I wanted to come with you.”

“Well, I do know a place that’s better than this,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Better than a nasty frat house kitchen? Do tell,” he teased, and you rolled your eyes but took him by the hand once again, abandoning your beer because Taehyun was right—it was gross. Your hand now felt slightly clammy due to the sheer humidity of the environment—if one could even use that word to describe the inside of a house, but Taehyun didn’t say anything about it if he noticed, and this time he let you guide him to where you wanted to go. You remembered the first time that you’d come to a party at this house and you felt overwhelmed—so overwhelmed that you felt like you couldn’t breathe, and some random frat guy that you didn’t know and never caught the name of brought you upstairs, assuring you that you would be okay. Then a year or so later at another party you brought another guy there to hook up. And now, nearly four years after that first encounter, you were bringing Taehyun there.

The upstairs was much less crowded than the downstairs, and you finally felt like you were able to breathe again as you guided Taehyun to the furthest room down the hall on the left. “Are we really hooking up in some random bedroom at a frat party?” Taehyun asked, squeezing your hand twice. “Not that I’m against having sex with you. But I question the location.”

“Stop thinking about sex for once,” you groaned, opening the door, revealing a normal but bare looking bedroom. On the far right there was a sliding glass door which you began to walk towards, letting go of Taehyun’s hand. The curtains were strewn open messily, making you wonder who was in the room last and had so carelessly opened their room to the world. You fumbled for the handle of the door hidden behind one side of the bunched up, sheer curtains, sighing with relief once you pulled on it gently and it gave way, opening the way for you and Taehyun. Immediately, a wave of fresh night air engulfed you, a relieving breeze caressing and cooling your sweaty skin. “This is what I brought you up here for,” you said, walking outside.

The little balcony was cramped with the two of you out there together, and you could almost feel him breathing down your neck as you turned to the side and gripped the edge of the low roof, planting one foot firmly on the wall as you hoisted yourself up, the other propelling your body upwards as you semi-awkwardly jumped up. “Come on,” you said to Taehyun, “it’s not hard to get up.”

Taehyun copied what you’d just done and gripped the bottom of the overhang tightly, knuckles turning pale from the sheer force of his hold. He didn’t have to place a foot against the wall for support, instead jumping up using both feet and pulling himself up with ease, settling next to you and placing his hand over yours again. The night breeze was slightly chilly, and you’d already cooled down since the time you’d spent inside. His fingers were still warm and comforting. You side-eyed him, and realized that his gaze wasn’t set upon you, but the dark sky. Unlike the time you’d snuck out of your house right after you came back from your vacation, the sky was perfectly clear. There was nothing blocking the stars and the crescent moon, glowing a bright white against the pure black of the sky, and Taehyun stared upwards, unblinking, as your cheeks flushed from how beautiful he looked in the pale light. “You know, there’s only seven days left,” he said, breaking the silence. You didn’t respond, reverting the night back to peaceful and uninterrupted. The only sounds you could hear were the gentle whooshing of the wind, dusting across your exposed skin and making goosebumps arise across the exposed flesh. “(Y/N)?”

“You know…” you started off, mirroring his words, “I know I’m sort of tipsy right now. But I feel completely sober.”

“Is it because of what I said?”

“It definitely helped me sober up.” You didn’t want to look at him for fear of him seeing your expression, especially your eyes, which were beginning to burn with tears, though they did not gather enough to fall.

“It’s the truth,” he said quietly, “it’s not like I’m being intentionally cruel.”

“Maybe that makes it worse,” you replied.

Taehyun snaked an arm around your body. You could feel the weight on your chest as his now-cold fingertips brushed across your windswept cheek. “Please,” he breathed, and you finally turned to look at him, eyes shining with tears that stubbornly stayed gathered in your lash line no matter how hard you tried to blink them away. Please what? you thought, but then he gently pulled you into a kiss, and your heart leapt and fell at the same time. But even as you felt your heart squeezing painfully, so tight you swore it began to crack, you kissed him back, knowing that you didn’t have enough time to think twice about it or be mad. And the way he caressed your face, the way your legs entangled, the juxtaposition of his smooth pants against the top of your leg and the rough roof shingles below, the way his lips molded perfectly to yours… it was something you knew that you would never forget, and that was both a blessing and a curse.

FOUR DAYS LEFT

Taehyun’s apartment was beginning to look more homey.

Every time you went over to his place, there would be less boxes stacked up against the walls, more decorations, more mess—really, proof of life in the previously bare apartment—Taehyun wasn’t messy by any means. He’d even called you once, bright and early in the morning, asking you which mirror to get for his bedroom wall, to which you’d sleepily replied something you don’t particularly remember. Now that you’re in his bedroom again, you can see that he listened to your opinion and chose the mirror with a gold frame. You stared at your reflection in it as you brought his sheets up to cover your chin, feeling oddly more exposed than usual.

“Do you like it?” Taehyun asked, noticing your fixation on the shiny new addition, “Kai wanted me to get the square one with the black frame, but I thought it was sort of ugly.”

“It’s nice,” you said softly, “goes well with the rest of your place.” Taehyun hummed in response, reaching over to his bedside table to pull out a joint, obviously previously rolled. In his other hand he held a lighter, flicking it a few times before the flame kept, and he held it to the end of the joint, holding the other end between his kiss-swollen lips. Even doing such a mundane task, he was beautiful, bathed in the now-familiar yellow light from his small lamp, also on the nightstand. You watched a small plume of smoke billow from his slightly parted lips as he exhaled, coughing a few times before offering it to you silently. He’d done this a few times before, but you’d never accepted. This time, however, you carefully took it pinched between your thumb and pointer finger, and mirroring his actions, putting it between your lips and inhaling deeply. It was bitter and just odd at the same time, very different from the cigarettes you had tried before, and you found an overwhelming urge to cough it up. Quickly, you passed it back to him as you did so, rough coughs wracking your body until you felt drool beginning to drip from your lower lip. Taehyun just chuckled and reached over to thumb at your saliva, wiping it away gently.

“It’s always rough when you smoke for the first time,” he said, “but if it makes you feel any better, you took it much better than Kai did. He almost coughed up his lungs.”

Weakly, you laughed, wiping away tears that had gathered in the corners of your eyes from the force of your coughs. “When will it kick in?” you asked, slightly nervous, as you’d planned to leave quite quickly after you finished your business with Taehyun. Nowadays, staying the night felt too normalized, too domestic for your liking. You knew you needed to start distancing yourself from him a little if you didn’t want your heart to be ripped out when you left. But for some reason, you’d taken a hit, hoping that you’d be too high to drive home, and you’d be forced to stay.

“Maybe ten minutes?” he said, shrugging. “It’s different for everyone.”

You laid back a little as Taehyun turned off the lamp, assuming that you were staying over as usual. He snuggled into your side and pressed soft kisses upon your exposed collarbone. You gnawed on your tongue, only slightly uncomfortable from the plushness of his lips. “Maybe… I should go before it kicks in,” you said, pushing him off gently. You made the mistake of looking at his reaction, your heart aching as his big, round eyes looked up at you, brows furrowed. He looked like a kicked puppy, and you found yourself wanting to cup his small face in your hands and kiss him again, deeply, to convey all the emotions you were feeling.

“You shouldn’t drive,” he said finally, turning away from you. “I can drive you.”

“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly, but almost as soon as you said that, you felt your head start to spin, and you blinked hard to try and steady yourself.

Taehyun cocked his head to the side, lips pushed into a disapproving pout. “Seriously. Let’s go.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled his shirt back on, and you turned away to do the same. Once you were fully clothed, he offered you his hand, but you pretended not to see it, pushing past him and making a beeline for his front door.

The night was as beautiful as a summer night could be. There was no breeze, and the air was warm enough to be comfortable without being too hot. If you weren’t feeling like such a piece of shit, you would have wholeheartedly enjoyed it.

You pulled open the door to Taehyun’s car, climbing inside and plopping yourself in his passenger seat. You refused to look at the small decoration dangling from his rear view mirror that you’d picked out for him at the same time he’d bought his new mirror. He slid into the driver’s seat soon after, and you watched his pretty hands turn the key and settle on the wheel as the car started up. Then you looked away, choosing to look out the window instead, head swimming, as you think you heard him shift the gear. You didn’t even realize when the car started moving, eyes shiny and unblinking as you stared mindlessly at the passing scenery. “How are you feeling?” he asked, and you had to blink hard to refocus yourself.

“Sleepy,” you answered, mouth feeling fuzzy. You thought you heard Taehyun answer, but you weren’t fully paying attention, and then you realized that the car had stopped again, and your house was in sight. “Thank you,” you said blearily.

“Of course,” he replied, and you climbed out, managing to unlock the front door almost soundlessly and close it behind you, not sparing Taehyun a last look.

The stairs seemed like more of a challenge than usual, and you had to squint to see the fuzzy outline of your feet in the dark. Your room was familiar and comforting as you crawled into bed, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep peacefully. But thoughts of Taehyun swarmed your previously clear mind, and you rubbed your eyes furiously, trying to manually shoo those thoughts away.

It was too painful, you realized, to see him again. A tear leaked out from your eye and slid down your cheek, soaking into your pillowcase. From sadness or from fatigue, you couldn’t tell. But you hoped it was the latter, because you’d promised yourself that you wouldn’t fall in love with Kang Taehyun, over and over again. And you couldn’t break that promise.

TWO DAYS LEFT

The last time you saw Kang Taehyun, he’d dropped you off at your house in the middle of the night, a brazen request from you after you’d fully realized that you had done the one thing you’d agreed not to do—fall in love with him.

Maybe love wasn’t the right word. After all, you’d only known him for three weeks. Twenty-one days. Could you even fall in love with someone if you’d only known them for three weeks? There were so many things that you still didn’t know about him, so many red flags that could be discovered. But there was one thing you knew for sure—the traits you did know about him, you absolutely adored. The way he asked you for your opinion on things—almost shyly, a stark contrast from his usual confident bluntness, the way he took care of you, even though you didn’t need it, you liked it. The way he touched you and knew everything that you liked, going hand in hand with the caring part of him. He knew your favorite drinks and food orders by heart, and he had no problem ordering for you when you went out, something that you always smiled at, but only when he wasn’t looking. The way he cared for animals melted your heart. The way he talked about his friends, teasing yet affectionate—you could tell that he really cared about them. The way he acted around you parents. The way he smiled. The way he cooked. The way he loved—no, he didn’t love you back. The way he cared for you. Yes, that’s the correct word.

Your room looked bare, reminiscent of the way Taehyun’s apartment looked the first time you went over to his place. Almost all of the personalization was gone. The only things that remained were the clothes and trinkets that you used daily, and those would be packed away in your last suitcase, only half-filled, on the morning that you would leave. Other than that, your walls were empty, and so were your drawers and your floor. And that too made you feel uncomfortable. You hadn’t seen your room this desolate since you first moved into the house as a very young child. It began to solidify the idea that you were really leaving, and that was almost too much for you.

Outside, the sun was setting, and you could hear your mother’s voice calling you for dinner—one of the last dinners you would ever have in this house as a resident, and not a visitor. You swallowed past the lump in your throat as you ghosted your fingertips over the tops of your upright suitcases, nails dragging against the material as you walked by. You did the same with the wall and the railing down the stairs as you approached the table, looking down at the familiar plates of food as your mother hurried around, setting down side dishes and utensils. “I made your favorite,” she said hopefully, looking up at you, “you haven’t been eating much these days.”

“I’m just thinking about how soon I’m leaving,” you said, sitting down and picking up your fork, “it feels really… weird, I guess.”

Your mother sat down too, looking at you with a furrowed brow, her concern obvious. “We’re going to miss you a lot,” she said, “but we’re only a phone call away. Just like when you went to college.”

“Yeah, but—but this time I won’t be able to come home on the weekends. I don’t even know if I can come home for holidays,” you said shakily, and your mother placed her hand on top of yours—when did her skin become so wrinkled, speckled with age spots? You felt yourself beginning to tear up. Did you really want to leave your parents like this? Your friends? Taehyun? The last name made a sob threaten to crawl out from the depths of your chest, but you held it in.

“You can always visit,” your mother said firmly, “and we will always be here. You know that.”

Unable to find the right words, you nodded, lips pressed into a tight line as you tried to suppress your emotions. You poked your fork into the food your mother had made—your favorite—and spooned it into your mouth.

As expected, it was perfect.

Well, almost perfect. The saltiness of your tears made the taste just a little bit off.

—

You weren’t sure what the night sky looked like tonight. Usually you liked to keep your curtains wide open, letting the moonlight stream in across your bed in pale stripes. But tonight they were shut tightly; you’d taken the extra care to arrange them so that not a peep of light could make their way into your room. As you awkwardly turned over in bed, trying to ignore the way your bed frame squeaked as you pushed it a certain way, you closed your eyes and imagined what it might look like.

In your mind, it was completely clear, just like the night of the party, when you and Taehyun had laid on the roof of the house, kissing under the stars. But it wasn’t chilly at all, no, it was warm, just like the night that he had driven you home.

You were so engrossed in your fantasy that you didn’t hear the knocks on your window until it slowly began sliding open, and you sat up in bed, wide-eyed and cotton-mouthed. Quickly, you reached for the closest thing that could be used as a weapon, which just so happened to be a novel on your nightstand that had been recommended to you by Taehyun. As quietly as possible, you swung your legs over the edge of your bed, the wood of your floor horribly cold on your bare feet. You could feel the chill traveling up through your soles and wrapping around your ankles, sending a chill up your back. Goosebumps arose on all of your exposed flesh, and you slowly walked towards the window, eyes trained on the small movement behind your curtains. The hardcover book felt slippery in your clammy palms, but you gripped it as tight as possible, making sure that it wouldn’t budge. Gritting your teeth, you raised the book above your head, ready to bring it down upon the figure behind the curtain, but then they whipped it open, and you were so stunned that you hesitated, arms jerking and tensing up as you immediately stopped the harsh movement. “Taehyun!?” you whisper-yelled, arms shaking, “what the fuck?”

The silver-haired man nearly face-planted onto your floor as he wobbled, off-balance on your narrow windowsill. “You weren’t responding to my texts,” he hissed, finally managing to plant his feet firmly onto your floor, “I got worried!”

“Worried about what, exactly?” you asked sourly, finally loading the thick book, “no more sex?”

Taehyun huffed indignantly, turning around to close your window and pull the curtains shut again. “No,” he drawled, “about you.”

Your eye twitched from the unexpected softness, and you shifted, slightly uncomfortable and unsure how to respond. “Oh,” you said finally, lamely.

“Can I?” he asks, motioning towards the bed, and you nod. He sits down on your bed, just a little awkwardly, and reaches over to your lamp, switching it on, bathing your room in a pale light. “Are you gonna come sit too?” he asks, patting the spot next to him.

You still feel weird seeing him in your bedroom. It’s a mixture of your childhood, and he looks almost cut and pasted out of a different image. But you comply and sit down on your bed, though it’s not right next to him. His gaze drifts down to the book in your lap, and he smiles, though it’s only with his mouth and not his eyes. “You actually read it?”

“I haven’t yet. I’m going to though,” you said, hugging it to your chest.

“Will you tell me what you think once you do read it?”

“In a letter I’ll never mail, maybe.” He catches onto your salty tone and pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue, obviously knowing the source of your bitterness.

“Oh,” he said.

“I’m almost ready to go,” you mumbled, changing the subject, and Taehyun finally takes a look around your room. His expression is almost unreadable, though you think you catch a flash of hurt.

“I can see that.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Are you… ready?”

“I’m well prepared, if that’s what you’re asking.” You don’t recognize your cold tone. It’s so unlike you.

“That’s not—that’s not what I meant,” he said defensively. “If you’re going to be like this I’ll just go. It’s obvious you don’t want me here.” He stands up, and you feel the bed lift from the lack of his weight, but you catch his sleeve, refusing to look at his reaction.

“No, please,” you mumbled, “don’t go.”

“Are you gonna stop treating me like shit?” he asks, and you feel your heart squeeze at the ice in his voice.

“I will. I’m sorry.”

He sits back down, right next to you. You can feel the heat from his thigh through his pants, pressed up against your bare leg. “Will you at least tell me why you’re so mad at me?”

“I don’t think I can say it,” you said truthfully, “so I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter, anyways. In two days, you won’t have to ever worry about me again.”

“Can you stop talking like that?” His voice is exasperated.

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t give a shit about you. You know I care about you.”

“Yeah. Right.”

He runs his fingers through his hair and you take a peek at him. You realize that his dark black roots are beginning to resurface, the silver had been slowly growing out all this time. The first time you’d met him, his roots had been freshly bleached and dyed. “That’s what I’m talking about. Shit like that.”

“You can’t blame me for thinking that way. We were never supposed to care for each other,” you snapped.

“We weren’t supposed to fall in love,” he corrected you, “I’ve cared for you, ever since the first day we met.”

“Stop it,” you whispered, “don’t say that.”

“Why?” he challenged, “either way, caring or loving… it doesn’t matter. Because I feel both for you. Either way, I broke the rules.” His voice cracks at the end of the sentence, and your skin prickles at his confession, your breath stops. You don’t believe it for a damn second.

“Didn’t I just say to stop it?” you ask, shocking yourself with how your voice breaks, how you’re so openly crying about him. About the hopeless situation. “You don’t even know me. I don’t know you. It’s been twenty-three days. You can’t love someone if you’ve known them for less than a month. What are we, in high school?”

“Remember at the park,” he challenges, and you shake your head, tears streaming down your cheeks, “when you said—when you said I made you feel like—“

“Stop taking it so seriously,” you mutter, furiously wiping at your eyes, “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did,” he says, and you think you hear desperation oozing into his normally level voice. “You meant it and you know it. Stop lying.”

“Taehyun. It doesn’t fucking matter, okay? I’m leaving in two days. Even if you did love me—even if I did love you—it doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Twenty-one days,” he blurts out, “we’ve only known each other for twenty-one days. We have two days left to tell each other everything.”

You swear you can feel your heart weeping. “Two days means nothing.”

“It can,” he begs, “please, (Y/N). We don’t have to be together. Just don’t tell me that I was the only one that felt this way. Please tell me you loved me too.”

“Fine!” you say, raising your voice just a little too much, and you freeze as you hear your parents shifting around in bed from their room, “I loved you. There. Are you happy? I knew I loved you from the beginning, I just didn’t want to accept it. And I never will, because I’m still going to Korea. And you’re staying here.”

“(Y/N),” he whispers, “I would never hold you back, and I know you do that to me either. That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

“I know,” you say quietly, “and that’s even worse. I wish you were secretly a shitty person, because then I’d have an excuse to hate you. Then I wouldn’t feel so bad about… everything.”

Taehyun is silent for a moment before he opens his arms to you, and you jump into them with no hesitation. He’s warm. And comfortable. And the way he smells is so familiar to you now that he feels like a part of home. You nestle your face into his chest, and he doesn’t complain about your tears soaking his shirt. Instead, he hugs you closer, and you can hear his sniffles, feel the heaving of his shoulders as he tries to hold in his cries. You know him well enough that you know he doesn’t like people to see him cry, so you don’t look at his face, even when you pull away from him. You don’t look as he slowly tugs at your shirt, nor as you take off your clothes and hear him do the same. You close your eyes the entire time, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his bare skin where you know he likes it, and you wonder how you know where to place your lips even though you can’t see.

You reach over, hand fumbling across your crowded nightstand as you reach for the switch on your lamp, turning it back off so that your room is nearly completely dark. Taehyun had closed the curtains tightly behind him when he entered, and even as you squint in the darkness you can’t even make out the shapes of his body. All you can see is the dark, and not what hides in it.

You feel Taehyun’s warm lips on your neck as he sucks a hickey into your skin, and for some reason it makes more tears leak down your cheeks; it felt like he was marking you as his, so that anyone who saw you would know you had someone already. Not that it mattered, anyways.

You reach out to pull him into a heated, emotional kiss, and it’s a little wet from both of your tears, but neither of you say anything about it. You want to get this over with, but you want it to last forever at the same time. It seems that Taehyun feels similarly as you feel his cock nudge your entrance. “Do you have a condom?” he asked quietly, and you panic slightly as you realize you don’t.

“No,” you whisper, and he backs up, the lack of contact making you feel lost.

“Should we… not do this, then?”

“No,” you blurt you, groping out blindly in the darkness for him. You find his arm and pull him back to you, wrapping your arms around his neck. “It’s fine. I’m on birth control.”

“So we could have been fucking raw this whole time?” He attempts to joke.

You slap him gently, making the both of you laugh, and you sigh with relief and pleasure once you feel him slip in. He feels different this time. Probably because there’s no condom, but also because you know it’s the last time. He feels warmer, better, closer. You never really enjoyed missionary, because you deemed it boring and stupid, but you let out a little sob at how wonderful it feels to be so close to him. Your chests are almost touching; you can feel his pecs brush against your hard nipples with every thrust, making your skin tingle.

His lips hardly leave yours the whole time, alternating between long, wet kisses and short pecks, and you halfway wish that you didn’t part at all, even when your lungs felt like they were about to burst.

It’s silent save for your soft moans and his quiet grunts, but he breaks the silence a few minutes later. “I’m gonna cum,” he said, voice breaking, “can I…?”

“Cum inside,” you whispered, “please.”

Your pitiful beg sends him over the edge, and it’s odd, feeling his warm seed so deep inside, but you love it because it’s him. He doesn’t pull out as soon as he finishes as he did all those times before, instead letting himself soften inside your warmth, and you thank him silently for that, enjoying feeling close to him in those last few minutes.

The silence doesn’t stop even after he pulls out with a soft groan, and you hear him getting dressed again. Nor does it stop when you hear him walk back over to your window, or when he opens the curtain, leaking silver moonlight back into your room.

You only open your eyes fully once he slips back out your window, and by then the sun is rising. But you manage to catch a single glimpse of the clear, warm, starry sky before the blackness begins to turn lavender, the twenty-second sun you’ve seen since the day you met Taehyun.

ZERO DAYS LEFT

That was the first and last time that Taehyun lied to you. Because after he left your room that night, he didn’t come back. You never got another text from him, nor another call. And you didn’t try to reach out either. You knew where he lived, you’d been there countless times, but for some reason, even when you drove past that familiar road, you wouldn’t dare go down it, feeling your heart drop into your stomach at the very thought of it. Perhaps it was because then you’d know that was the last time you’d see him. Maybe his absence was his last gift to you, because now you wouldn’t have to waste time saying goodbye.

The morning of your last day, you and your parents woke up early. Much earlier than you needed to, probably, because your flight wasn’t until mid-morning, but you found yourself awake before your alarm went off, feeling more well-rested than you’d been in days, and you couldn’t sit still any longer, choosing to pack your last few belongings and sit quietly in your sitting room with all of your bags.

Your parents emerged not much later, dressed and ready to go, and you watched them try to hide their emotions as they looked at you, surrounded by your life packed into various suitcases and bags, and you in turn did the same, looking down at your feet instead of looking them in the eye.

The ride to the airport was almost silent. Soft classical music played from the radio, breaking the quiet, but no one dared speak. Your last few hours alone needed to be cherished, and no one wanted to taint it by saying the wrong thing. In a way, you appreciated it, but you simultaneously sort of hoped that someone would break the awkwardness, say something weird to make you laugh so that you could enjoy this time.

But no one did.

Even though you’d woken up early, you reached the airport on time, and as you gathered your bags yourself, hoisting one over your shoulder and dragging your overstuffed suitcase with your other hand, you bid your parents goodbye. Your mother was the one to finally break the silence, telling you that you’d probably gone over the weight limit for your suitcase, and that made you burst into tears, opening the floodgates with just a single sentence, and then you were all crying and hugging each other, saying words you never thought you could utter aloud to your parents. You couldn’t remember a moment where you felt so close to them, and it was right before you were about to be physically further than you’d ever been.

But as you turn around to finally, finally leave, after many “last hugs” and “last words” from your parents, you see someone that you hated and loved at the same time, and you drop your bags onto the dirty floor and run into Taehyun’s arms, sobbing and screaming obscenities at him. How dare you? I hate you! I love you!

And he understands all your half-crying, mushy words, because he says the same things to you. How dare I? How dare you! I hate you more. I love you too.

And he kisses you there as you’re in his arms, ignoring your parents and the people around you gawking at the likely disturbing display of affection and hatred, but you swear you’ve never had a better kiss. Maybe in theory you have, because his lips are slightly chapped and you taste salt from both your tears, but in that kiss you feel everything he’d been wanting to tell you, and you do your best to make sure he feels the same way. You push your feelings, your last words, everything into that kiss, parting only when you feel like your lungs are about to burst.

“Promise me one thing,” he says breathlessly, cupping your face in his big hands, thumb stroking your cheek.

“Anything,” you say, holding his hand to your face, not wanting him to let go.

“Live,” he whispers, and even though it was only one word, it reminded you so much of that kiss. Because that one word was all you needed. You knew what he meant. And though you couldn’t stop crying long enough to reply, Taehyun knew that you would have said the same thing to him.

He watches you sling your bag over your shoulder again as you depart, and you don’t turn around to look at him again. He knows why, and he’s glad that you don’t, because if he saw your face just one more time, he would have lost his composure and begged you to stay, and he would never forgive himself for that.

When he exits the airport, the sun has fully risen. The sky is a perfect blue, and he can’t seem to spy a single cloud, not one tiny white puff. The twenty-fourth sun that Taehyun sees, you’re no longer by his side, and his heart hurts a million times worse than his eyes as he stares directly into the bright sphere that represents everything and nothing at the same time. But he is happy, despite his clogged-up nose and puffy eyes, still leaking tears, and deep down in his heart he knows that you are too. And that is more than enough for him.

EPILOGUE (FOURTEEN DAYS LATER)

Two weeks after you arrive in Korea, two weeks after you’d last seen Taehyun, and two weeks since you’d cried your heart out on the plane, prompting a concerned questioning from the flight attendant, you receive a letter in the mail—your first letter to your new address in Korea. Only three people know of it, and two of them are your parents.

The third is Beomgyu.

So why the hell does the letter say it’s from Taehyun?

With shaking hands, you pull up a box full of kitchenware to your small table, using it as a seat since you had yet to buy much furniture. You turn the letter over in your hands over and over again, holding it up to the light to see the slip of paper in it.

Finally, you are able to bring yourself to open the envelope. You use a letter opener that you realized you accidentally took from your parents’ house, and it makes you feel like a real adult as you make a clean cut, rather than the jagged way you used to pry open envelopes with your bare hands.

There is a single piece of paper inside, and you unfold it, trying to act like you weren’t curious.

Dear (Y/N),

How is your vacation going?

You choke a little bit as you look at the date in the top corner and the first sentence. It dates back to those few days you went on vacation with your family, and if that wasn’t proof enough, his first words are.

He’d written you a letter after all.

You can’t hold back the tears any more, and you read through the rest of the letter quickly. It wasn’t a good letter by any means, it was awkward and full of stupid questions that he knew the answers to by now, but you held it to your chest as if it were the most precious thing in the world. To you, maybe it was, in that moment.

You look out your window at the thirty-eighth sun you’d seen since you met Taehyun, and you manage to scrap together an envelope, a piece of paper, and a cheap pen that was nearly out of ink. You look out the window at the crisp brown leaves, a sure sign of autumn arriving once again. It takes some time to think back to your vacation filled with almost every summer cliché, and it makes your heart positively ache with nostalgia.

Dear Taehyun, you write.

My vacation was good.

#kflixnet #k-labels #k-vanity #taehyun x reader #taehyun smut #txt x reader #tomorrow x together x reader #txt #tomorrow x together #txt imagines #tomorrow x together imagines #taehyun imagines #tomorrow x together drabbles #txt drabbles #taehyun drabbles #rainratedr

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diningpageantry · 6 years

Text

Don’t @ Me

Archive Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18215168/chapters/43092371

Chapter 1/10 of It’s A Handheld Disaster

Word Count: 3118

Fic Summary: Teenage life is hard enough, but with the added weight of their lives, both Simon and Baz thrive online in a fandom for the British crime show, Gastrell, about the genius Huxley and his "flatmate" Sam. Through Tumblr, they find each other, and sink into something more than just being mutuals.

Chapter Summary: A shitpost is taken a little too personally, and an argument breaks out. In true Baz fashion, he seeks to prove himself right in the most ridiculous way possible.

BAZ

Morning routines are the most menial shit in the realm of existence of arbitrary tasks.

Everyone seems to have them, yet nobody really has a set one. For example, my step-mum has a long, seemingly pointless hour of simply facial cleansers, serums, and hair products. When I’d asked her years ago why she does it all, she shook her head and said “You’ll never be an aging woman, Basilton.”

I couldn’t quite argue with that.

Regardless, it’s a part of life. The routines. Wake up, morning routine, morning activity, eat, afternoon activity, usually afternoon snack, evening activity, dinner, night-time activity, sleep.

A boring, underwhelming cycle of the day.

Although, I suppose it’s shittier for me, since the homeschooling doesn’t give me a chance to do much besides sit and read. Of course, I have my car and I can drive off to whatever. Hell, father even suggested I get a job to occupy myself, but I don’t quite see the point given how much money we have (and the risk factors with moving around so frequently).

So, here I am. Finishing my classes in a matter of months, then having an entire year of pointless bullshit.

Needless to say, my entire day’s routine isn’t the most thrilling. Wake up at 10 on a good day, check social media and emails, then just lay here until I can’t wait to piss. Piss. Go to eat breakfast and get greeted by screaming children and my poor step-mum trying to wrangle them in. Go upstairs, go back online, see whatever’s on my dash, reblog some shit, then try to do something vaguely productive. Check Archive, check email again. Nothing’s on the emails, ever. Text Dev and Niall, who get awfully pissed since they are in school. Get more food. Eat. Bring tea upstairs, despite the disdained look from our maid (who hates collecting my piles of mugs). Write for a couple hours. Take an afternoon nap, if I please. Wake up and sit there (again). Maybe lonely wank. Go back to the bathroom, stare at myself in the mirror for a good few minutes. Sit on the toilet for half an hour for no reason besides the fact that my phone seems more interesting while sitting there as compared to sitting in bed. Sit then on the bathroom floor doing the same thing. Go back to my bed, listen to music on my phone and work on my laptop. Write, maybe scroll. Get dinner brought to me as they tut that I should be more active. Eat. Go downstairs for an evening workout (they’re right, I shouldn’t confine myself to my bed). Come back, do exactly what I do for half the day until I pass out somewhere around 3 am. Repeat.

Dream life for an 17 year old. Social life of a god.

Somewhat.

It’s shit to say (and sort of embarrassing to share) that there’s sort of a social media presence around me. Not quite the Instagram model bullshit, but based around fan life.

Yes, it’s a laughing stock. That’s where my popularity lies--a mixed grab-bag of various ages gathering around various platforms to enthuse about certain topics. And I’m somehow lucky enough to have the slightest bit of popularity here.

As in, a large following. A large, somehow active following.

It isn’t exactly thrilling as one would like to think. Sure, it’s fun to see a scattered group of regulars pop up, and I have my mutuals, but it’s a sad existence to sit around and make various shitposts with nothing better to occupy my mind. Or, at least, that’s what Dev and Niall tell me.

All in all, I blame Fiona. She’s the one who got me into the show, saying she thought the character was a bit like me. After I saw it, I found the three connections she’d grasped at.

Gay, dark-haired, and violinist.

As if that’s a rarity.

Yet, surely enough, I did love it. The cinematography, the characters, the storyline. It was intriguing--captivating.

It doesn’t hurt that the online community was still on the smaller side when I first got there. The show was only a season in when I made my blog, and I’ve stuck through all this bullshit to get me here. One of the regulars. Reposted everywhere, uncredited usually. Big fics, large interactions. Shitposts with thousands upon thousands of notes. I’m recognizable; a suggested name.

Don’t get me wrong, the attention is spectacular. I love interacting with people beyond this depressing household, and they’re usually fairly nice (usually) (except those ravenous for an argument). It’s just awkward to share at times when people ask why your mobile’s got 99+ symbols next to the apps and you just shrug and say “I’m shit at checking it” to avoid the conversation because most people see it as childish.

It’s a shame, really. Especially since I feel emotionally attached to these goddamn fictional fuckers.

I suppose that’s what makes it all the more personal, then. Even the shitposts mean something to me.

Which is what makes this is a long, winded way of saying fuck whoever’s arguing with me about whether or not Huxley is a fucking Ravenclaw. (He is. Hands down.) How’d I get here, staring at my mobile in disbelief at a brief back and forth post turned fight? Because it feels like a reasonable question to wonder.

I got here because, as almost all mornings, I woke up, opened my phone, read my notifs, then sat here, thinking of something. Anything. Then, in a tired haze, typed out a single text post on tumblr.

huxley gastrell is a ravenclaw send tweet

Following so, I went about my typical morning. Of course. Then--then--I check my phone as I’m going downstairs and I see it. I see the “@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!” notif, then read the God-forsaken reblog.

@gaystrell op do you take criticism on your posts?

I frowned at my phone, typing out a quick response before tucking it back into my pocket.

@bi-sammy no.

What I hadn’t anticipated, though, was the reply I’d open up to soon after I’d started poking at my morning meal.

@gaystrell well too bad bc ur WRONG and ur opinions are UGLY

#he’s clearly a slytherin this is slytherin oppression #don’t tell me he and bryonie aren’t from a slytherin family

Now I sit, staring and completely awestruck at such a post. Now, I won’t deny Bryonie Gastrell is definitely, in all possible ways, a Slytherin. Cunning and ambitious as fuck, as any political spy may be, but fuck anyone who tries to dismiss Huxley’s clear Ravenclaw leanings.

It takes me a moment to fully process, mouth robotically chewing my eggs as I contemplate my answer.

@bi-sammy there is absolutely no proof of huxley being a slytherin and more than enough support towards him being a ravenclaw. get your clueless negativity off my blog, you utter tit.

With that, I settle my phone face down onto my table and try to enjoy my lovely plate of scrambled eggs, barely ignoring the boiling of my blood.

SIMON

My phone lights up with the new notification, dragging my attention away from my laptop as the words slide down onto the screen. “@gaystrell mentioned you in a post!” I hate to admit that I get a little pattering in my heart, urging my hand out to grasp the mobile as I pause the Youtube video currently playing. As I read his words, I slowly blink out of my excitement.

Tit. He called me a bloody tit.

Of course this fucking wanker called me a tit.

He must think that since he’s this big bad blogger, he can call me a tit right out in the open. (Although, he is talking to me, so that’s a plus) (No! No no no, bad validation, Simon. Bad). What, with his thousands of followers and fans of his own, he thinks he can try to say shit out in the open?

Fuck it. He’s either getting a DM or a bloody fist fight from me. I’ll take a train to wherever the fuck he lives (which is somewhere in England, since that’s what his bio says) (and his aunt lives in London, since he’s posted about visiting her) (I really do wonder where he’s from and how close he might be--what if I run into him one day?) (No wait fuck I don’t want that anymore).

Clicking on his blog, the little person drop down gives me the option of a message. I barely think as I type it out, vision going spotty from the adrenaline of the twinging anger.

bi-sammy: i swear to god there was no point to the battle of hogwarts if you’re just going to go around and absolutely slander the slytherin name and dare say that huxley is not one of them and, rather, is a ravenclaw

At first, I grin at it, watching my lone message appear into the empty chat. It’s so freeing--so powerful to send it. I pride myself, in the moment, for this solid move of communication. Of course I’m fucking proud. I messaged the arse myself and gave him a space to fight.

Maybe Penny’s right, I should dial down the confrontation, but it’s just the internet. Nothing important happens through a stupid little argument over Huxley’s true Hogwarts house (although, I’m sure I know I’m right in my heart), but it is a bit of fun to fuck around with someone. It’s a distraction. And that’s why I’m here, afterall. To have a distraction.

Penny thinks it’s a bit silly, but she doesn’t really complain. All she’s ever said was “I thought we left fandom stuff behind us when we were 14.” She said it over lunch, watching me scroll through my at-the-time new tumblr.

It’s funny, I thought I did leave it behind when I was younger. It seemed unneeded as life shifted. I’d just found a stable foster home, with someone who was going to keep me for a while. I found Penny a couple months before I deactivated my old account. I was happy; we were free. I didn’t need a venting place.

Shits been sort of hitting the fan recently, though. No uni plans, David’s been getting more controlling, and of course, Agatha dumping me. It all crashed on top of me a few months ago, and somehow, the only place that I could find healthy coping was online. So, I started fresh. Made a blog and settled in. It’s not big, but I’ve had a few posts get noticed. I have a good few hundred followers, and one nice anon who asks me how I am every few weeks. It’s not a lot, but it’s comforting.

I feel at home here, even with a little discourse.

Well, only when the discourse is answered. Which, in this situation, I don’t know if it will be, given it’s been over an hour now and Baz hasn’t answered.

If that’s even his name.

It’s what his bio says, at least.

baz. 17. cisguy (he/him). gay. don’t interact if you think huxley is remotely straight.

I’ve wondered for a while what Baz stands for. He refuses to answer it in asks; he always says it’s too personal. He’s sort of odd like that--never posts pictures of anything that could be linked back. Seems sort of creepy, but then again, a lot of people follow him. It’s reasonable to want space.

Maybe that’s why he’s not answering. He probably wants space of some sort, but it’d be at least decent to answer someone who tried to have a discussion (that’s at least what I’m calling that message I sent--a discussion starter).

I frown at my phone, keeping it on silent as I slide it into my front pocket and settle into my seat in maths. I’ll say it--I sulk in class, a little bitter that I don’t have his attention (despite the fact that he seems like he’s always active online, which seems odd). Eventually, I exhale and try to let it slip away. There went my one interaction with him. My few seconds of the weirdest fucking bliss online, gone.

Then, it happens. As the class is ending, I pull out my screen just enough to see and there it is. A clear notification telling me he’d answered. Oddly enough, it’s just him sending me a link to a Google Doc.

Weird.

I ignore it for the moment being, letting myself ride the wave of relaxation that I actually got a reply. It passes my mind until I’m sitting in the back of Agatha’s car, listening to Penny and Aggie in the front talking about whatever’s on their mind. The rides are sort of awkward as of recently. At least Agatha agreed to drive me home (it’s a good 45 minute walk, if not) after some convincing from Penny, but her and I don’t really chat. It’s just the two of them.

Given that time, I have a chance to pull out my mobile and thumb through what was sent.

gaystrell: https://docs.google.com/document/d/175qFASmqD7hey8lE0eoE-6VhhFYE9DP6bpnI32Aay98/edit?usp=sharing

I click on it, not expecting that much (or, really, not expecting anything at all). Yet, the second it pops up and loads, my jaw drops.

“Jesus fuck,” I say aloud, scrolling through it. Penny turns her head, frowning as I stay locked on my screen.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“No--no nothing,” I say, waving a hand. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s got to be something for that reaction,” she says, keeping turned in her seat as she eyes me up. “Just tell us, Si.”

“I mean it when I say it’s nothing.” My voice gets quieter as I shift, reading the title. “It’s just fandom stuff. It’s really nothing.”

I hear her disgruntled huff as she turns back, mumbling something about me reacting too dramatically to this. “It isn’t even real.” It’s said under her breath, yet it still rings clear in my ears.

It isn’t really fake, either.

Hell, this is six pages of real. “Why Huxley Gastrell is, Without a Doubt, a Ravenclaw”. Shared by Basilton Pitch (is that his actual name?!). Fucking hell, it’s detailed to no ends. You’d think, with this much writing, there’d be pages of pointless filler where he’d just type “im gay hi huxley is also a gay we’re all gay here aren’t we”, but no. It’s full, grammatically correct sentences detailing his points.

It’s a bit much to read in the car, so I settle my mobile face down onto the seat as I’m left reeling. That… was a bit more than I’d expected.

Shit, did he write that for me?

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

BAZ

Whoever says that having a flair for the dramatics is pointless has clearly never met me, because I wouldn’t quite call this masterpiece of an essay “pointless”. In fact, I should send it to academics. Rename it “A Study In Multi-Dimensional Characters and their Associated Generalized Personality Traits”. I’ll be hailed as a genius, as I deserve to be.

I crack my knuckles, and see the little person pop up.

Surely enough, it’s @bi-sammy’s name that he has listed online, Simon. It’s curious, he has his last name listed as “Snow”. Although, the smallest part of me believes it’s a pseudonym. Given our interactions, I doubt he’s clever enough to think of a solid pseudonym. And, even at that, why pick Snow?

Either way, it’s surprisingly endearing. Simon Snow. Sounds sweet. Sounds innocent.

I watch his cursor turn on, then his icon goes grey after a few moments. My heart starts to trip, making my cheeks begin to flush. Is… he ignoring this?

No. He can’t be. I put in hard work and dedication into this work, and I deserve the respect I’d sent into it. Fucking hell, three fully developed points (his devotion to intellectual work, his effort to step out of public light for Sam’s sake, and his overall lack of ambition for moving forward). I clearly set it out, and ended it properly; I’d proven that Huxley is a Ravenclaw. Case and point, opinion made, the end.

And, here I sit, watching him have the audacity to open it up then close it back. That was my hard work put in there, and he closes it? Who in the name of all that is sacred thinks he’s that above other people to the point where he just ignores--

Oh. He’s back on. Nevermind.

He’s… probably a school student. It’s roughly the time that most classes end, I suppose.

I make a mental apology to him, despite having never ranted directly to him in the first place.

He stays active for a good bit; long enough to show he’s reading. I assume that he’d just close off and message me, but after minutes, I notice a little highlighted comment pop up on the last sentence.

Simon Snow i………. owe you every single possible apology

Each word makes me grin like I haven’t in a while. A wide, cheek-creasing grin. There’s something so sweet to that--so personal. It feels like a note passed to me in a classroom under the tables. Like a cute “Blink if you like me”, although I doubt he has quite an intention.

Nevertheless, it warms my chest, sending my head back as I smile. I’m not sure whether or not it’s the satisfaction of winning, or his words, but I laugh outwardly into the room. It stays with me, reverberating onto my skin and my throat.

I look back at the comment, then leave it untouched. If he won’t remove it, then I won’t either.

With a glance at our personal messages tab, I figure that’s that. Even field, no more argument. No more interaction. It’s a bit of a shame, given the effort I’d just extorted for his sake, that he hasn’t answered in our chat.

While I’m disappointed to close off the document, I smile at it one last time. Sometimes I have to move on from random people, especially when they come on a bit strong.

Except, I find, moments later that I’m wrong about one thing--the moving on. He didn’t just stop his interaction, but instead made a public post.

“@bi-sammy mentioned you in a post!”

This time, I really laugh. A full bellied, hand-covering-mouth laugh.

i guess i have to suck @gayhuxell’s cock now because i was wrong and the bloody arse was right. huxley is a ravenclaw.

#fuck me i guess

I take a minute, rereading over his words a few times before typing a simple answer with my reblog.

i’m available anytime behind a mcdonald’s parking lot

#fanfiction #fanfic #carry on #fic #mine #it's a handheld disaster #snowbaz #simon snow #tyrannus basilton grimm-pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #baz pitch #simon #baz #hhehehehe #this is like the longest chapter just a heads up #it's a short fic it's under 20k

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