#werewolf!jaemin | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

loudstan · 2 years ago

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The Moon Makes no Mistakes

Summary: It had to be some type of sick joke. There was no way Jeno had imprinted on his best friend's mate.

Pairing: Werewolf! Jeno x Female reader x Werewolf! Jaemin

Warnings: smut, A LOT OF angst, Jaemin has baby fever but what's new, this fic is VERY LONG SORRY. Also, there is some JenoxJaemin action so if that makes you uncomfortable, do not read this! OKAY LET'S GO

“So…,” Renjun spoke casually from he kitchen, without looking away from the sandwich he was making. “Do you wanna talk about it or…?”

“Huh?” Jeno asked absentmindedly, too occupied munching on his own sandwich and finishing the movie he and Jaemin had started earlier, before the later had gone out. “About what?”

Renjun hesitated, wondering if it was the right time or if it was even worth mentioning. Right now most of the pack was out working, in class or hanging out with friends. Only Jeno, Chenle (who was wearing earbuds and laughing at videos on his phone) and Renjun were in the living room, and he knew they wouldn’t get more privacy than this. It was now or never.

“Well,” Renjun sighed, making his way to the sofa and sitting down next to Jeno. “You were smelling Jaemin’s hair… again.”

Jeno choked on his food and coughed loudly. Renjun quickly gave him a glass of water and slapped his back until Jeno pushed his hand away and cleared his throat. With wide eyes, Jeno turned to look at Chenle, and sighed in relief when he saw that he was still laughing at whatever dumb tiktok he had found, meaning he hadn’t heard Renjun’s ridiculous accusations.

“What are you talking about?” He hissed in panic.

“Okay, we don’t have to talk about it yet-“ Renjun tried to calm him down.

“Talk about what? I never did that?!”

“You so did,” Chenle’s voice said from the corner of the room, his eyes were now on Jeno and he had put his phone down on his lap. “You’ve done it a lot in the last couple of months. You keep scenting him too.”

“You-,” Jeno wanted to accuse Chenle of eavesdropping, but in the end he decided denying the allegation was more urgent. “I didn’t smell his fucking hair!”

Renjun and Chenle looked at each other.

“Fine,” Renjun said. “But I just want you to remember that we’re a family. No one’s going to judge you for who you like-”

“But it’s our duty to tell you that it’s stupid to have a crush on a mated wolf,” Chenle said.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jeno groaned. “I don’t have a crush on Jaemin!”

“Who has a crush on Jaemin?” Yuta asked, entering the room. He had just woken up from a nap.

“No one,” Renjun said.

“Jeno,” Chenle said at the same time.

“Oh,” Yuta simply said and made a dismissive gesture with his hand, like it was old news.

Jeno was almost offended by it. “What do you mean ‘oh’?!”

“Weren’t you two a thing some years ago?” Yuta asked, making his way to the kitchen.

“No?” Jeno replied, very confused at this new accusation to add to the list.

“Mark accidentally walked into you,” Chenle said as Yuta came back to the living room with an apple. “You two were watching porn and jerking each other off-“

Jeno gasped. “We were not jerking each other off. We were jerking off next to each other!”

“Shame,” Yuta shrugged and took a big bite off the apple. “Somebody else’s hand always feels better than your own.”

“We didn’t touch each other,” Jeno insisted. “We just watched porn together. Friends do that!”

“I don’t do that,” Renjun disagreed.

“Jisung and Chenle have done it!” Jeno insisted, pointing at Chenle.

“I ended up watching alone,” Chenle said. “As soon as Jisung got hard, he stood up and ran away.”

“What if he had stayed?”Yuta asked. “Would that have stopped you from getting off?”

“…No,” Chenle admitted.

“There you go!” Yuta said. “Nothing wrong with two best friends touching themselves in the same room. Case dismissed!” He declares, walking towards his room.

“But I don’t smell my best friend’s hair,” Chenle muttered.

Yuta stopped on his track and turned around. “That’s different,” he said, now giving Jeno a worried look. Jeno hated it.

“Okay, enough! I admit it, I really like the way he smells lately,” he confessed. “I don’t know if it’s a new shampoo or perfume or… I don’t know but his scent changed…”

“Really?” Chenle paused to think. “I haven’t noticed anything different.”

“Maybe it’s his mate’s scent mixed with his,” Renjun said.

“That makes sense!” Yuta agreed, nodding. “And I guess Jeno perceives it because he’s always been the closest to Jaemin.”

“It’s just the scent,” Jeno insisted. “I don’t like Jaemin like that. I don’t even like men.”

“…Jaemin is a pretty man, though,” Yuta gave the apple another bite. Everyone laughed and Jeno silently agreed. He had seen girls and boys alike fall head over heels for Jaemin since… forever. If he were into men, then Jaemin would have been his first love. Instead, his first love was his highschool homeroom teacher; a woman with an hourglass figure, long eyelashes and a sweet voice, who didn’t even look in Jeno’s direction no matter how hard he tried. When she got married to her fiancé, Jeno cried for hours, with Jaemin next to him trying to comfort him but also telling him that he was an idiot for thinking he stood a chance. Jaemin had always been there for him, and he for Jaemin. They were best friends and pack brothers. Nothing else. He just happened to smell really fucking good lately.

It was a couple of days later that he confirmed the source of this new scent. Jaemin, who had finally decided to go back to med school to become a healer, called Jeno and begged him to go to the apothecary where he and his mate worked.

“I’ve been so busy studying that I completely forgot the products we ordered would arrive today,” Jaemin whined on the other side of the line. Lack of sleep and excess of caffeine were evident in his voice. “I don’t want Y/N to carry those boxes by herself! She pretends to be tough but she’s my baby,” she rambled on and Jeno cringed at the pet name. “Please, Jeno! I have an exam in 7 minutes and 38 seconds, I really can’t-“

“I know, I know,” Jeno interrupted him, speaking in a calming manner. “I’m already putting my shoes on. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Jaemin breathed. “I owe you.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s really nothing. Now go ace that test!” Jeno hung up and put his phone in his pocket, walking faster towards the bus stop. He started thinking about how no one in the pack knew Jaemin’s mate yet. They had met Jisung’s mate years ago, before they even got together , Doyoung took his time but ended up briefly introducing his mate to the pack, Haechan dragged his mate to a family dinner and Mark’s mate ended up being introduced to them against Mark’s will because everyone kept visiting her store out of curiosity. But Jaemin’s mate was a complicated case; she had had a bad experience with a werewolf in the past, which made her reject Jaemin at first. It took him months to get together with his mate and he was very protective of her, so Jeno felt honored Jaemin trusted him enough to let him be with his mate alone.

When he entered the apothecary he was immediately surrounded by the scent that had been haunting him for the last couple of months. It was floral and calming, like having a cup of tea by the window on a Sunday morning, and it came from a woman carrying a huge box. ‘Shit,’ Jeno thought. Jaemin would kill him if he found out his mate had to lift a finger.

“Hi, I’m Jeno, Jaemin’s pack brother,” he quickly introduced himself and easily took the box away from you, putting it on his shoulder and holding it with one arm. “And he says you can’t be carrying these.”

“Oh, hi! I’m Y/N,” You said, offering your hand to shake his but taking it back awkwardly when you saw that he was now holding another box, having both hands occupied. “Jaemin told me you would come, but I can do this myself, really!” You smiled at Jeno and he almost tripped. You had the prettiest smile he had ever seen and he had to physically shake his head to wake himself up.

“Nope, sorry, you know how he is,” Jeno said, leaving the boxes next to the shelves and walking back to get more, a bit surprised by how natural it felt to talk to you. “And this really is nothing for me- Hey! What did I say? Put that down!” He groaned when he saw you struggling to pick up a box.

“I won’t let you do everything by yourself!” You argued, walking slowly not to drop the box. “This is my job, anyways. There was no need to call anyone…”

Jeno snatched the box from your hands and gave you a pointed look. “I’m already here, so sit down and let me take care of this.”

You huffed and went to grab another box, making Jeno lose his patience. He grabbed your shoulders firmly and guided you towards a chair, making you sit down.

“Please, stay still,” Jeno pleaded. Your scent was starting to feel suffocating and he just wanted to finish the job and go get some fresh air. “For Jaemin?”

You sighed. “Then at least let me make you some coffee,” you bargained, standing up anyways and making your way to the little room at the back of the store where you and Jaemin often took breaks and ate.

Jeno nodded reluctantly. He was fine with it as long as it kept you occupied for long enough for him to carry the remaining boxes inside. He took his hoodie off because it was ridiculously hot in there and got the job done as quickly as he could with the way his body was acting up. He felt weak and warm like he was about to catch the flu, and the strong floral scent, which he now recognised as yours and Jaemin’s signature essence, was making him short circuit. He was this close to sprinting out of the apothecary and escaping when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Without unlocking it he read the messages that kept popping up.

Jaemin: is y/n ok??

Jaemin: sheisn ot replyi

Jaemin: ng

Jaemin: not replying***

Jaemin: did she get hurt??

Jeno unlocked the phone to type that you were just fine when another message came in.

Jaemin: can u send me a pic

Jaemin: of her?

Jaemin: can’t call bc I’m in class but

Jaemin: I need to see her

Jeno groaned. If there was one word to describe pre-rut Jaemin it was clingy. He typed a short ‘ok’ and followed you into the small resting area where you had just finished preparing two cups of coffee.

“Hey, Y/N, Jaemin wants me to send him a picture of you to prove you’re safe,” Jeno said, right as you turned around to offer him his coffee.

“Of course he does,” you rolled your eyes playfully. “Go ahead!”

Jeno pointed his phone at you and stared in awe; you looked gorgeous standing in front of him and holding a cup of coffee you had made especially for him, smiling at him, smelling so good for him-

Huh?

Jeno shook his head for the second time that day. What are you thinking? She’s Jaemin’s. She’s smiling for a picture for Jaemin, not at you!

He snapped a picture of you and quickly sent it to his best friend without even looking at it, and ignoring Jaemin’s complaint about it being too blurry.

“Your coffee-,” you offered but then you paid attention to how much Jeno was sweating. “Oh… hold on, I’ll make it iced!” You said, walking back towards the fridge to get some ice and fixing his drink. “You should have let me help you if they were that heavy!”

“They were not heavy,” Jeno huffed. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want you to think he was weak. “It’s just hot in here.”

“Hot?!” You repeated incredulously, handing him the cold drink and studying him. The AC was on so there was no reason for his shirt to stick to his body like that. And what a body he had; as good as Jaemin. His face was also pretty; but unlike Jaemin’s soft and beautiful features, Jeno’s strong jawline made him look almost hypermasculine. Not that one was more good looking than the other. Both were just different. And it didn’t matter anyways, because you only had eyes for your mate-

The sound of Jeno’s teeth pulverizing the ice after he gulped down the drink interrupted your train of thought. You looked Jeno in the eyes and noticed a familiar reddish tone on them.

“Jeno! That’s why you’re feeling so hot!” You exclaimed, placing a hand on his forehead. “Your rut is soon, right?”

“What?” No, it isn’t-“ Jeno started saying, but then his eyes widened in realization and his face became very pale. All the symptoms of pre-rut were there but the idea didn’t even cross his mind because 1. He had had a rut no more than a month ago and 2. There was no stimulus that could have triggered his rut except…

…You.

You and that damn scent.

“I… I think it’s my rut,yeah,” Jeno said awkwardly. “I should go. I can still make it home before it hits…”

“Wait!” You called after him, going through the shelves until you found a little jar with a sparkling blue potion and offered it to him. “This will calm your pain.”

Jeno grabbed the jar hesitantly and turned it around to see the price.

“Don’t worry about it,” you hurried to say and started pushing him towards the door. “It’s the least I can do after what you did for me today!”

“Y/n,” Jeno sighed and silently reprimanded himself because of how much he was starting to like the way your name sounded when it came from his lips. “This shit’s expensive.”

“I told you not to worry about it,” You giggled. “Just don’t tell Jaemin,” you added playfully.

Jeno let out a shaky breath, his eyes were shining bright red and he was fighting his brain from coming up with different scenarios of things he shouldn’t tell Jaemin.

Before he could stop himself his arms surrounded you and he lifted your body, rubbing his cheek and nose against your collarbone and murmuring weak ‘thank you’s.

It took you by surprise at first, but you knew wolves were not particularly rational during their cycle and this was probably just him being grateful for the potion. Ignoring the shiver that ran up your spine, you laughed and patted his back in a friendly manner before replying. “No problem! Now go before your actual rut hits.”

Jeno slowly let go of you and gave you a small smile and a polite nod, before rushing out of the apothecary. He was lucky to catch the bus right in time to get home in less than twenty minutes, and even luckier to find the house almost empty, saving him from the awkward questions about his hair sticking to his sweaty forehead and his obvious boner. As soon as he swallowed some suppressants, he quickly locked himself in his room, and desperately fought the button and zipper of his jeans with his sweaty hands. He sighed in relief once he freed himself from his jeans and boxers and was met with his reddened cock begging for attention.

‘It’s okay. It’s fine. It must be a mock rut. I’ll just rub one off real quick and it’ll be over,’ he thought, quickly laying in bed and unlocking his phone to find some short porn video on twitter. Instead, the first thing he saw was the picture he took of you, making his cock twitch with interest.

“No, no, no, fuck-” Jeno quickly circled the base of his cock and squeezed it hard as punishment for the precum that was already leaking. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he warned himself. What was even turning him on about that picture? It was blurry and not aesthetic at all, but it was clear enough to distinguish your features. Your smile was as bright as he remembered it and even though he hadn’t taken a full body picture, he could see you from head to your breasts…and you were wearing a v-neck shirt. Not low enough to be scandalous but if you had bent forward just a little, and considering that Jeno’s height gave him an even better perspective, he would have been able to see…

“No-Stop!” he hissed, squeezing harder, genuinely feeling betrayed by his own body. Jaemin was his best friend, and you were Jaemin’s mate. Period. He was not getting off to your picture. He quickly opened twitter and went to his favorite nsfw account, mindlessly scrolling down to find something, anything, that would make him cum fast. He clicked on a video he had seen before; it was a blowjob pov in which a woman would suck on the viewer while he was gaming. One of his to go videos, honestly. So he let go of the death grip he had on his base and started stroking himself slowly, letting out a shaky breath. But the relief didn’t last long; he soon noticed that the woman’s hair was similar to yours in length and color, her eyes looking up to the viewer innocently reminding him of the look you had given him when he had sat you down and asked you to stop moving the boxes yourself. Not that you and the actress had the same face, but for some reason she was reminding him of you…in the worst possible moment.

“Fuuck!”He pressed his thumb on the tip, trying to stop more precum from coming out, disgusted at himself and deciding to try a different video.

This time, he tried watching a video of straight up raw fucking on a sofa, the guy on the video going so fast and hard the woman could only scream and beg. That was hot. Jeno could definitely work with this. So he jerked off fast, grunting at the orgasm that was already so close. He imagined he was the dude in the video fucking her so good she was losing her mind.

“O-oh…,” he tilted his head back and the veins on his neck became visible as he sped up the movements of his hand. “Shit, you like that, Y/N?”

As soon as your name left his mouth he almost came. ‘Jeno, you disgusting piece of shit. Stop it! There are thousands of hot women in the world, pick another one. Literally anyone but her,’ he told himself, focusing back on the video and hyper fixating on the details that made the actress different from you as he once again tried to get off as fast as possible before he even had the chance to think of you. Everything from her hair, to her skin and her voice faking the moans were not like yours at all, but he still found himself imagining you under him on the sofa at the little room in the back of the apothecary, letting him fill you to the brim.

“No, p-please-” he begged himself at this point. He really didn’t want to do this. He felt sick just thinking about his best friend’s mate in such a way but he just couldn’t stop. “Please, please, I c-can’t-,” he mumbled incoherently but his dick paid him no mind, leaking more at the thought of being inside of you as Jeno fell deeper into temptation. One thing was for sure: this wasn’t a mock rut, but a real one. A disastrous very real rut.

Without a clue of what you had just triggered, you walked home and took a warm shower after a long day of work. You knew Jaemin would arrive soon, like he often did after class, and maybe stay the night, so you ordered his favorite food (no way you would cook after working all day) and patiently waited for him.

The moment he walked through the door, you knew his rut was going to consume him anytime soon. His red eyes were glossy, he was breathing heavily and his warm hands were almost burning your skin as he pulled your body close to his and kissed you fervently.

“Safe,” he mumbled between kisses. “You’re safe.”

You knew how protective Jaemin was, but during his rut it was a whole new level.

“Of course I’m safe,” you giggled, pressing your forehead against his. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Boxes are too heavy for a pregnant woman,” he replied as if it was obvious.

“I’m not pregnant, Jaemin,” you deadpanned.

“Shh… I’m manifesting,” he whined, his eyes closed as if he was praying to the Moon.

“Jaemin,” you sighed. You had had the baby talk before and you had finally convinced him you both didn’t have the means to provide for another human being.

“I know,” he said, opening his eyes to look at you pleadingly. “But I start my internship next week and with my curriculum I’ll get a good job in no time after graduating. I’m just saying that if we made a baby right about now,” he trailed off and his eyes landed on your stomach, biting his lip. “I would be able to provide for both of you by the time they are born.”

“What about healthcare while I’m pregnant?” You questioned. “Honestly, Jaemin, let’s just wait until you graduate and then we can have this conversation again.”

Jaemin didn’t reply, he gently caressed your stomach and let out a soft moan instead.

“Jaemin!”

“Sorry,” he said, slightly dragging his words like he was drunk. “Logically speaking I know you’re right, but…”

You knew. Jaemin’s baby fever was ridiculous whenever he was in rut. Denying him right now was pointless and straight up painful for him, so you could just let him live his little fantasy since you had started taking birth control once you both got together anyways.

“You should eat something before you can’t think straight anymore,” you suggested, trying to guide him to the kitchen.

“Too late,” he said, pulling you in the opposite direction, towards your bedroom. He pushed you on the bed and climbed on top of you. “Need you,” he whispered before he connected your lips again, this time more desperately than before.

You kissed him back and let him rut his hips against yours, his half hard cock already twitching in his pants. Tentatively, you lifted your pelvis and pressed it against his, eliciting a groan out of him.

“Y/N,” he moaned against your lips, then kissed your jaw. “Y/N, my baby, my-,” when his lips reached your chest his body suddenly tensed. He then pulled away and stared at you intently. “…Jeno?” He whispered to no one in particular, sounding confused.

“What?” You asked back, noticing the way the mood changed. “What’s wrong?”

Thankfully, Jaemin had some self control left and managed to pull a diplomatic smile. “You met Jeno today. How was it?”

His tone was calm enough, but you could tell something was bothering him.

“It was fine!” You quickly assured him, remembering how hesitant he was about you meeting his pack, wanting you to feel comfortable and safe. “He helped me a lot. He’s very nice.”

“He’s very nice,” Jaemin repeated automatically, nodding slowly. “Did he…” he gulped, not quite sure of how to ask and maybe not wanting to ask at all. “Did he t-touch you?”

You frowned and tilted your head. That was an odd question. But then it clicked that you probably smelled like Jeno, and Jaemin’s nose was very sensitive during his rut.

“Well, he took the boxes from me so yeah, a little,” you replied honestly. “And then he gave me a goodbye hug before he left. That 's all.”

“A goodbye hug?” Jaemin asked skeptically. “He’s not a hugger…”

“It’s probably just his cycle,” you assured him, trying to ease whatever worry he had. “You also get more clingy when it happens.”

“His cycle?”

You nodded. “His rut also started today. You told me you two were close, but I didn’t know even your cycles were synced!”

Jaemin remained silent for a few seconds. His cycle and Jeno’s were synced in the past. Then Jaemin met you, which triggered an unscheduled rut and they were not in sync anymore. Jeno’s rut was not due today, he was sure of that. But then, like you said, maybe they just synced again because of how close they were. Maybe hugging you was just a friendly gesture. Maybe scenting you was accidental. He had always trusted Jeno and he wanted to continue trusting him.

However, he couldn’t stop his possessive side from diving back into your neck and scenting you, trying to cover up Jeno’s scent.

“Jae- Jaemin,” you breathed out while he bit and sucked on your neck. “Is everything-…Are-ah!… are you o-kay?”

“Mmhm,” he simply replied, too focused on his task of getting you both undressed as quickly as possible.

“You sure?” You asked, shivering at the contrast of the cold air caressing your naked body and his hot skin against yours. “Y-you don’t wanna talk about it…?”

“Not right now,” he said shortly, pressing his member against your pussy lips and moving back and forward to create pleasurable friction for both of you. “Mmh… Oh!”

“Fuck, Jaemin,” you breathed out when the head of his cock rubbed your clit. “More, baby- ah!”

“Mmyeah?” He panted, rutting against you hard and making you sink deeper into the mattress. “My baby loves it right here?”

“Fucking love it- Aaah! Jaem- oh!” you moaned when he rotated his hips, and one of his hands pinched your nipple playfully. “Fucking love you.”

Jaemin hissed and decided he couldn’t wait any longer. Lining up against your entrance and sliding in as slowly as he could in his frenzied state of mind (which was not slow at all). After months of being mates to Jaemin, you had learned to take his size, but the stretch was always a bit uncomfortable if he didn’t open you up first. Thankfully you thought ahead, and knowing his rut was coming, you had prepared yourself in the shower before he got home.

“Y/N,” Jaemin called for you when his cock was completely engulfed by you. “Say it again , baby.”

“I love you,” you said firmly although you could barely think with the way the head of his cock was kissing the right spot before he even started moving.

“How much do you love me?” He asked darkly, staring into your eyes and sliding in and out of you slowly.

“S-so much,” you babbled , somehow not breaking eye contact. “I love y-you so much…Ngh!”

“Enough to let me give you a baby?” He asked, thrusting into you hard and pulling your hips against his. “Mmh?”

You knew the rut was feeding Jaemin’s baby fantasy and that he would actually wait until you were ready. But right now? You felt like you would give him anything.

“F-uh… fuck yeah, give it to m-me,” you hissed, still maintaining eye contact with your mate, whose jaw went slack and let out the loudest moan yet.

He started fucking you faster fighting his eyes from rolling back in favor of the intimacy of looking into your eyes as you fell apart for him. “Gonna make you the p-prettiest mommy,” he promised and his hands looked for yours to intertwine your fingers and pin you against the mattress. “Fuck! Knock you up for g-good n’ take care of you f-ooh… forever.”

Leave it to Jaemin to be romantic and domestic while dirty talking.

“Oh my g-god,” you whined, feeling your eyes roll back. “Jaem—Aah… Hah, oh!”

“Look at me,” Jaemin demanded, but made it very hard on you by snapping his hips harder and faster than before. “Don’t you d-dare look away from me,” he warned, resting his forehead against yours.

Somehow you forced yourself to look back into his eyes, although yours were full of tears of pleasure now.

“Love it when y-you … Hah ah, mmm- love it when my cock m-akes you cry, baby,” he admitted, panting against your open mouth. “Fucking love it w-when you feel s- suh… so good all you c-an do is cry and cum over, and over,” he groaned, stressing his words with sharp thrusts. “I fucking love you, Y/N.”

“J-jaemin,” you moaned, wrapping your legs around his waist. “L-love you s-so muh uh! Oooh, fuck! Fuck, Jaemin, baby-,” your eyes finally rolled back and you came with a silent scream. Jaemin didn’t seem to mind that you broke eye contact. He still got to relish on the way your face twisted in pleasure and your walls contracted around him.

“That’s it, baby,” he licked his lips and continued to look at your post orgasmic face. Nothing could get him off faster. “Gonna cum, fuck, gonn-aaah! Fuck, Y/N!” He panted like a dog in heat while his knot expanded enough to confine his cock inside of you, the bulbous head kissing your cervix and prolonging your pleasure. Jaemin had lost all capacity to think. “Baby, gonna cum, I’m g-…aaah shit, Y/N I’m gonna- ooh, baby, fuck yeah! Make me a daddy, baby, c’mon, be a g-good girl and- Ah! Ooh, hah… ah, fuuuuck t-take it baby, take it all- Oooohhh…”

Jaemin’s body trembled on top of yours, and his brows furrowed in pleasure as he emptied himself inside of you, his red eyes eating up the way your eyes unfocused as more tears fell down your cheeks.

Once you both came down from your highs, Jaemin kissed you sweetly and caressed your face as you enjoyed the warmth of your bodies against each other.

“…That’s the fastest you’ve popped a knot,” you commented, making Jaemin laugh breathlessly. “Was it because I told you to give me a baby?”

Jaemin’s dick jerked excitedly inside of you and he let out a pleased hum, letting one of his hands travel down to your belly with gentle touches. He seemed very pleased with the idea.

“What is it about pregnancy that gets you like this?” You genuinely asked. Not that you were complaining. It was hot, but you had never been with a guy who was so excited about it before.

“Mmh… many things,” Jaemin shrugged,kissing your cheek as his fingers drew patterns on your stomach. “I want to be a dad, and I think you would be the most beautiful mom. I also like the idea of others knowing I did that to you?I know this is very primal, but I want people to know I fucked you so full you are carrying my baby. Other guys would know you’re taken and wouldn’t dare make a move.”

You snorted. Normally Jaemin wouldn’t say things like that, because he wanted to respect your autonomy. Boyfriend Jaemin knew he didn’t own you, but wolf Jaemin hadn’t yet agreed to that.

“Don’t worry, Jaemin. No one even looks at me,” you assured him and yawned, ready to sleep for a bit before the next round.

“No other guy should hug you either,” he said under his breath, barely perceptible.

“That was just Jeno,” you mumbled, slowly losing consciousness.

“Yeah,” Jaemin said, tightening his arms around you. “Just Jeno…”

Somewhere else, at the very same time, Jeno had come all over his phone, white drops of cum tainting your picture zoomed in on the screen. Jeno was panting heavily, with his hand still holding his hard cock and his eyes were full of tears of guilt and regret. He looked out the window to see a full moon shining brightly, like it was mocking him. Because this had to be a sick joke. There was no way he had imprinted on his best friend’s mate.

The words you had casually said to him when giving him a painkiller potion echoed in his head with a totally different meaning now.

‘Don’t tell Jaemin.’

He wouldn’t. He could never tell him.

Once his rut was over he deleted your picture and swore he wouldn’t see you ever again, because Jeno was no homewrecker and he was a loyal friend. He couldn’t help thinking about you, but he would be damned if he did something about it. One of the biggest obstacles was the guilt he felt whenever Jaemin was around, but he tried his best to act normal.

Jeno was sure if he just ignored his feelings for you, the problem would go away.Plus, he had heard of wolves surviving without mating the person they had imprinted on. Sure, they lived a miserable life, incapable of loving and slowly isolating from everybody else, but they didn’t die.

Jeno’s plan went great for a couple of weeks. All he had to do was take a cold shower whenever he thought of you, not go anywhere near the apothecary and not reply to the message Jaemin had just sent- oh god…

Jaemin: Jeno

Jaemin: I need a flavor

Jaemin: favor**

Jaemin: Can you please drop by the apothecary?

Nope. No way. If he just pretended he didn’t see the message then maybe Jaemin would ask somebody else.

Jaemin: Someone broke into the store

What?!

Jeno: wtf?

Jaemin: it happened during the night

Jaemin: when she got there everything was a mess and there was a dude sleeping on the floor

Jeno: fuck is she alone?

Jaemin: yeah I can’t leave until my shift is over

Jaemin: if I go I’ll fail this stupid interview

Jaemin: internship*

Classic Jaemin. He tended to make typos when he was nervous. But now Jeno was nervous too. Someone broke in? And you had to face it alone? No, it didn’t matter, it wasn’t Jeno’s problem because he had nothing to do with you.

…But it was Jaemin’s problem. And Jaemin’s problems were Jeno’s too. He was going but only as a favor for Jaemin, and not because he was dying to see you.

Jeno: Omw

Jaemin: Thanksgiving

Jaemin: Thanks** stupid autocorrect

Jeno didn’t see the last message because he was sprinting to the bus stop. He got on the bus and sat down, his leg bouncing anxiously all the way until the closest stop to the apothecary, where Jeno got off and ran for a couple of blocks until he reached his destination and pushed the door open. There you were, casually cleaning the store like nothing had happened.

“Oh, Jeno! Hi!” you smiled at him. “Jaemin called you, didn’t he? I’m sorry he made you come all the way here.”

“He didn’t make me do anything,” Jeno assured you, walking in and inspecting the place. Besides being a little messy, there wasn’t much damage. You also seemed to be fine. Almost too calm to be normal. “...Are you okay?”

You nodded and laughed. “I’m good. It was just surprising.”

“What happened exactly?”

“A guy broke in last night and thought this would be a good place to sleep. He didn’t even steal anything? I mean, he did open a couple of potions and drank a bit of each, but that’s about it. I think he was high on mushrooms or something,” you laughed but your laugh grew quiet when you saw Jeno scowling at you. “Anyways, he woke up when I arrived and he looked like he had no idea where he was. He just stood up and left.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yeah, they left a while ago. I’m sure it wasn’t half as bad as whatever Jaemin told you.”

“It’s not— Ugh, Y/N, what if that man had done something to you?”

You stopped to think about it for a second and then went back to organizing the shelves. “But he didn’t.”

“But what if?” Jeno insisted. “You know this isn’t the safest neighborhood, right?”

“Well, what was I supposed to do then? Not coming to work? How was I gonna know there was a dude spending the night here?”

Jeno bit his lip. You had a point. It wasn’t your fault, and you hadn’t done anything unreasonable. You came to work, saw a stranger inside and called the police. But he was so angry at the possibility of you being in danger, even if it was no one's fault, that he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he finally asked.

“...Mmh, not really,” you again gave him that killer smile. The smile he hadn’t stopped thinking about for a second in the last few weeks. The smile he had popped a knot to. “I’m sure you have stuff to do, so you can go. Thanks for checking on the store!”

Jeno grimaced. He wasn’t checking on the store. He didn’t give a fuck about the store. He was checking on you. “I don’t have anything else to do. I’ll stay until Jaemin finishes his shift.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Did you eat anything?” Jeno asked abruptly.

“Uh…,” you trailed off when your stomach growled. “I was about to make coffee.”

Jeno scoffed. “No, not that. I mean actually eating. I saw a bakery down the street. I’ll be right back!” and Jeno was gone before you could complain, coming back a few minutes later with a paper bag.

“I don’t know what you like, so I bought…everything,” he said, walking towards the kitchenette and placing the bag on the table. You quickly hung a sign to indicate that the store was closed and followed him. You were planning on closing the store early today after what happened, and Jaemin was about to pick you up after his shift anyways. You could use a little break and eat something before heading home.

“Thank you! Anything would have been fine, honestly,” you giggled, looking at the wide variety of bread and pastries Jeno had bought. “I’ll make some coffee then, okay?”

“You know,” Jeno said as he looked for some plates to put the food on. “Too much coffee is not good for you. Jaemin’s a bad influence for you,” he half-joked.

“You’d be surprised. Actually, Jaemin doesn’t want me drinking much coffee,” you hummed, boiling the water. “I used to drink way more, but he’s made me cut it down to one cup a day.”

Jeno was indeed surprised. That didn’t sound like Jaemin at all. “Why?”

You shrug as you finish preparing the coffee and pour it in the mugs. “Something about too much caffeine being bad for pregnancy.”

Jeno choked on his saliva, staring at your tummy with wide eyes. “Preg–...a-re, are you…?”

“No!” you replied and you couldn’t help but laugh at his comical reaction, taking the mugs and walking towards the table where the food was waiting. “He just thinks it’s better to cut caffeine down in advance, just in case.”

“O-oh,” Jeno replied dumbly, following you and sitting down in front of you to eat together. “Are you two t-trying to…?” he asked awkwardly. He didn’t mean to intrude, but he was dying to know.

“Mmh…Jaem really wants to, but we’re not ready,” you said, using your fork to stab a piece of strawberry cake. “He needs to graduate first and then we can plan it properly.”

Jeno nodded absentmindedly. He knew Jaemin wanted to be a dad, and now that he was mated it was only natural for his wolf to want to start a family as soon as possible. After all, a wolf’s animal side was driven by their purest desires. “Jaemin will be a great dad. And an even better mate. He’ll take care of you.”

“What if he falls out of love when he sees me gaining weight during pregnancy?” you joked. “I’ll probably look like a mess.”

“You’ll look good,” Jeno whispered, his eyes glued to your body like he was in a haze. “Very good,” he added.

You blushed. The room suddenly was feeling very hot. If you didn’t know better, you would think Jeno was checking you, his best friend’s mate, out. You let out a nervous chuckle. “I don’t know about that, but we’ll see when the time comes.”

The awkward conversation was interrupted by the door bursting open and showing a panting, sweaty Jaemin, still wearing the hospital lab coat. His terrified eyes landed on you and he ran towards you, lifting you from the chair and hugging you tight.

“J-jaemin! Calm down, I’m fine, I promise! I’m okay!” you stuttered, as he inhaled your scent and pulled you impossibly closer.

“I can’t do this Y/N,” Jaemin’s voice cracked as he tried not to cry. “I can’t do the internship when you’re in danger.”

“I am not in danger!” you argued, putting some distance between you.

“I’m not too sure about that. I know you hide stuff from me because you don’t want me to worry. You told me about today’s incident hours after you called the police, and only because I called you.”

Jeno, who had been trying to make himself small on his chair, feeling like an intruder in this conversation, gasped and glared at you. Now he too was annoyed at you, because if you had told Jaemin sooner, then Jaemin would have contacted Jeno sooner, and he would have come to make sure you were safe sooner. “Hours?! You should have told him immediately!”

Jaemin, who had completely forgotten about Jeno, turned around in surprise but quickly recovered to team up with him. “Right?! How can I do the internship if I know she won't tell me immediately when something bad happens?”

“I would be freaking out if my mate did that, the fuck?!” Jeno agreed.

“I just can’t trust her to be alone at night when closing the store.”

“Absolutely not.”

You looked at the two men incredulously. “I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”

“I’m not calling you a child, Y/N. I just want you to stop trying to solve everything by yourself. This is not the first time. Why won’t you just…ask me for help?” Jaemin’s broken voice asked, holding one of your hands between his.

“You’re busy,Jaem. And you’re already stressed.”

“I can handle it,” he quickly assured you.

“But I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to deal with stuff that I can fix myself. I don’t want anyone to have to deal with my problems. Everyone is already busy enough.”

“I’m not,” Jeno suddenly said, catching everyone’s attention. You tilted your head in confusion, but Jaemin’s eyes bore into Jeno’s as if he was reading his mind, with a glint of hope in them. “I graduated last semester and I’m taking a break before applying for a job. I’m not busy at all,” Jeno repeated, his voice getting quieter as if he regretted what he was saying half way through the sentence. He knew he was definitely crossing the line with what he was offering, but the indirect suggestion escaped his mouth before he could stop himself.

“Jeno…,” Jaemin called his name softly and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

Jeno sighed and nodded before looking away. Jaemin nodded too, as you gave them both a confused look.

“What’s going on?” you finally asked.

Jaemin slowly teared his eyes away from Jeno and gave you a gentle smile. He seemed incredibly relieved compared to when he entered the room. “I’ll tell you after Jeno and I talk for a bit. But first let’s get you home; you had a long day,” he said, kissing your forehead and looking for your coat.

You let Jaemin help you put your coat on, as Jeno packed the remaining pieces of cake for you to take home. After closing the store, both walked you home. Jaemin held your hand as he told you all about his internship and how he was surrounded by idiots, but at least he had good chances of getting a good job later on. Jeno walked a few steps behind you, in complete silence.

“You’re not staying the night?” you asked when you reached your apartment and Jaemin kissed you goodbye.

Jaemin shook his head. “Not tonight, baby. I’m going home with Jeno.”

“Okay,” you said, giving him another kiss and then looking at Jeno, who was staring at his own feet awkwardly. “Bye, Jeno!”

Jeno gave you a smile and waved his hand and you walked into your place, leaving the two men outside. They started walking by the seaside, towards their house in silence until Jaemin spoke up.

“Jeno,” he said and stopped walking.

Jeno stopped walking too and looked at Jaemin. Jaemin’s voice was stern, and for a moment he feared he knew something. “Yeah?”

“What you said earlier… Does it mean what I think it means?”

Jeno’s attention was on a little pebble on the floor, which he kicked weakly just to keep himself occupied. He nodded.

“So you are offering to take care of my mate when I can’t be around,” Jaemin stated. It wasn’t a question.

Again, Jeno nodded.

Jaemin didn’t say anything for a few seconds. They could only hear the sound of the ocean waves, the street empty of cars and people due to the late hour. And then Jeno heard Jaemin sob.

Jeno quickly looked up and saw his best friend desperately wiping away his tears with the lab coat sleeves.

“Why– what’s wrong?!” Jeno asked, alarmed.

“I’m not a good mate,” Jaemin sobbed louder.

“W-what?! What are you talking about?!”

“I can’t take c-care of her and I ended up dragging you into this and I–...” Jaemin cried and it broke Jeno’s heart. “I need to g-graduate so I can offer her a b-better future but I worry something will happen t-to her while I’m away and–”

Jeno pulled Jaemin into a firm hug and patted his back in a comforting manner. “You’re a good mate, Jaemin,” he said.

Jaemin scoffed and cried on Jeno’s shoulder.

“I mean it. You’re good to Y/N. You’ll take good care of her and your family,” Jeno said, trying not to show the sadness in his voice. He always knew one day he and Jaemin would imprint on someone and go separate ways. What he was not expecting was that both would imprint on the same woman and that Jaemin would be the one to have her. The reality was that his best friend was going to start a family with the woman of Jeno’s dreams. And Jeno was not in the picture.

“...Really?” Jaemin asked in a tiny voice, sniffling.

“Really,” Jeno assured him. “You’re just stressed. But I’ll help you, okay? I’ll keep an eye on her until your internship is over if that makes you feel more at ease.”

Jaemin nodded, still hiding his face on Jeno’s shoulder and they both stayed in silence once again.

“Jeno…,” Jaemin whispered when he calmed down. “You’re scenting me again.”

Jeno tensed, but didn’t move. He knew if Jaemin was uncomfortable he would have pushed him away already.

“You’ve been doing it a lot whenever I’m stressed or tired,” Jaemin continued. His tone wasn’t accusatory. “Thank you, it does help. You’re a good friend.”

Jeno gulped. He certainly didn’t feel like a good friend with the thoughts he had of you. “It’s nothing,” he said softly. “Now let’s go home.”

You woke up to a call from Jaemin reminding you of how much he loved you, thanking you for supporting him in his career and letting you know that Jeno would be working at the apothecary with you for a few months. You tried to argue that he didn’t need to bother Jeno, but he had to hang up because his shift was starting, so you had no choice but to accept that you had a new coworker.

Or maybe you could reason with Jeno.

“Nope,” he would simply reply whenever you tried to convince him to go home. “I’m staying right here. I’ll be around whenever Jaemin can’t.”

You groaned when he snatched yet another box from your hands and carried it inside himself. “I don’t remember mating both of you,” you mumbled, and then bumped into his back when he abruptly stopped walking. “What?”

Jeno sighed and pushed the thought away. “Don’t say stuff like that,” he said, putting the box down and opening it to take the products out. “It’s…weird.”

“And you being my babysitter isn’t?” you argued.

“That’s not what this is.”

“You’re right. Your best friend simply asked you to hang out with his girlfriend when he’s busy. Not weird at all.”

“Listen,” Jeno groaned, finally turning around to look at you. “When a wolf has mated, they need to spend more time with their partner to feel at ease. Jaemin can’t do that now because he’s trying to graduate to take better care of you in the future. The stress of studying and knowing his mate is on her own and possibly in danger is killing him. I’ve never seen him this distressed before,” he confessed, his tone going soft. “He will feel better if he knows someone he trusts is with you. Can you just do this for him?”

You bit your lip. It was a bit suffocating to have someone watching over you all the time. But if it was just for a few months, you could compromise. For Jaemin.

“Fine, but you let me carry boxes too.”

“No.”

So Jeno and you spend most days together at the apothecary, working, eating and talking. At first he tried to keep the conversation minimum, wanting to control his growing feelings for you, but the way you talked and smiled to him had him falling harder than he would ever want to admit, and he naturally started speaking more, laughing at your jokes and listening to you go on and on about some cringe show you were obsessed with. Sometimes his eyes would linger on your body for a bit too long, and sometimes you would catch him staring. And he knew you knew he was staring, but both of you would pretend it never happened. It was like a silent agreement between you.

Jeno was crazy about you, as any imprinted wolf would be, but he already considered himself lucky enough by spending this much time with you so he would never act on his feelings.

You, on the other hand, thought staring was just a thing that men did, and that it didn’t mean that he was attracted to you, but simply that he was a man. You felt safe with him, not only because Jaemin trusted him, but also because there was something about him. You couldn’t quite tell if it was a wolf thing (although you never felt that way with your ex), but whenever Jeno was around, you would feel at ease, just like when Jaemin first hugged you months ago.

In Jeno’s opinion, you felt too comfortable around him; and that’s how one afternoon he found you napping on the sofa, unguarded, in such a position that your skirt had rolled up and was barely covering your ass. Part of Jeno was glad you felt safe with him, but the other part kind of wished you were more aware of the fact that he was still a man. A man who was very attracted to you and could now see your panties as you stirred in your sleep. A man with needs, who quickly locked himself in the restroom and tried to solve his problem before you woke up.

When you opened your eyes, you noticed that it was getting dark already. It was probably time to close the store and you felt bad that Jeno had done most of the work and let you sleep. You went towards the front desk and saw that he indeed had finished everything and closed, but his coat and backpack were still there, so he hadn’t left. You walked through the shelves, looking for him to thank him when you heard a muffled sound coming from the restroom.

The sounds grew louder as you got closer and you could distinguish what sounded like Jeno’s voice groaning. But before you could call his name you heard him speak.

“Oh god, o-oh fuck,” he cried, sounding pained like he was trying his best to be quiet and failing miresably. “J-just like that, yeeess.”

Oh, he was doing that…

Feeling your face get really hot, you decided to leave and give him some privacy, but then he called your name.

“Y/N,” he whispered and you took a deep breath in, ready to tell him you didn't mean to listen. “Ah…Mmh, Y/N… such pretty legs…”

You opened your mouth in shock. What?

“Y-yeah…pretty legs, pretty smile uuh- fuuuck,” he hissed, panting faster and mumbling nonsense. “Bet you have a p-pretty pussy too, yeah?”

‘Oh, my god,’ you thought, getting a little wet at such dirty words coming from him.

“Oooh wanna– oh, fuck wanna taste you,” he whimpered, sounding desperate and close to his climax. “S-shit Y/N...should’ve… should’ve buried my face between y-your legs right there, fuck– Aah! Y/N,Y/N!”

You couldn’t take it anymore. You walked away quickly and grabbed your stuff, almost running to your apartment and taking a cold shower as soon as you got in because you would not allow yourself to get horny because of Jeno, even if he had shamelessly touched himself thinking of you (unless he knew another Y/N). You tried to find a logical explanation to what had just happened, but there was none.

Your boyfriend’s best friend moaned your name while touching his cock. He said you were pretty. He said he wanted to taste you.

You weren’t blind, you had seen the way he looked at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention, but you didn’t think much of it because you knew how loyal he was to Jaemin.

You were loyal to Jaemin too. You were madly in love with him. No matter how hot (again, you weren’t blind) Jeno was, or how warm your chest felt with each of his sweet gestures, Jaemin was the only one for you.

So when Jeno texted you asking you where you had gone, you tried to keep your cool. You told him you thought he had already gone home so you left too.

Jeno: Why would I go home??

Jeno: You know I always walk you to yours first if Jaemin isn’t done with his stuff

There he went again, reminding you of how both he and Jaemin basically took turns to be with you. No wonder Jeno had mixed things up if he had to spend so much time with you. He was just confused. Yeah, that must be it.

Y/N: Sorry, I didn’t think of that

Jeno: Just don’t do it again

Y/N: Ok

And with that, you went to bed, deciding to pretend today never happened.

“You’re acting a bit…weird lately,” Jeno said one day.

“Weird how?” you asked monotonously, pretending to be too busy checking the tags on a random product.

Instead of answering, Jeno stood right behind you and reached for a product on the top shelf, making you jump and move away faster than he could blink. “This. This is literally what I’m talking about. Why are you so nervous?”

“I’m not!” you defended yourself and walked towards another shelf, standing on your toes to reach for a specific jar with dried herbs.

“Let me help you,” Jeno offered, trying to do it for you, but once again you scurried away, this time so fast and clumsy that you lost your balance, accidentally pulling Jeno to the floor with you. You landed on your back, and Jeno on top of you, caging you with his arms on each side of your head to avoid crushing you with his body. “See? You’re being jumpy and weird! Why?!” Jeno scolded you.

You let out a shaky breath. Jeno looked so big and intimidating and the position you were in was dangerous. “I…I’m not–”

“You are!” He groaned. “There’s no need to be so tense. It’s just me!”

“Exactly,” you mumbled to yourself, trying to move from the awkward position you both were in.

“What was that?” Jeno asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, Y/N. You said ‘exactly’. What does that mean?” he insisted, not letting you go.

You sighed. “Jeno, let’s just forget about it, okay?”

“About what? Seriously, what even is your problem? You’ve been distant ever since…,” Jeno trailed off, suddenly remembering the last time you had been your normal self around him had been right before he got a boner because of you flashing him in your sleep. “Y/N, when you went home without me on Tuesday,” he gulped and spoke nervously. “Why did you really leave?”

“I told you. I thought you had left already,” you lied.

“Lies. You saw, didn’t you?”

You tried to avoid making eye contact. “I didn’t see a-anything.”

“Did you hear, then?”

When you took a little too long to reply, he knew he was screwed. You knew his secret. ”You did. Fuck. Listen,” he sighed, pushing himself a bit further away from you. “You were not supposed to hear that. I thought you were sleeping.”

“Yeah, obviously,” you spit. “Look, I know it was just a moment of weakness. Boys will be boys, right?”

Jeno glared at you. He wished it had been a moment of weakness instead of the months of unreciprocated devotion. “Right,” he grumbled.

That’s where the conversation should have ended. You didn’t need to dig deeper. But you did. “I get it. It’s just because you see me often. Otherwise any other woman would do.”

Jeno’s jaw tensed and he clenched his fist next to your head. He knew the best option was to agree with you and let you believe whatever you wanted. But it made his blood boil that you thought you were just like any woman for him. Hold it, Jeno. Don’t say it-

“That’s not true,” he said through gritted teeth, ignoring the voice of reason yelling at him to stop speaking. “I couldn’t control myself because it was you.”

You forced yourself to laugh. “What, you got a crush on me or something?”

“I imprinted on you,” Jeno growled.

You weren’t laughing anymore. Your boyfriend’s best friend was hovering over you, while you were still lying down on the floor, and he had just confessed to the worst possible crime.

“That’s not funny,” you hissed.

“Damn right it isn’t. It sucks,” he said seriously. “I imprinted on my best friend’s girlfriend. I think about you day and night, and I can’t do shit about it, even when we spend almost everyday together. So yeah, it isn’t funny. It fucking hurts.”

You breathed shakily and squirmed under Jeno’s intense gaze, which was turning red. “J-jeno, you’re just confused-”

“I wish I was,” Jeno scoffed. “I’ve been sensitive to Jaemin’s scent ever since he mated you, you triggered my rut when we met, I can only cum when I think of you and it kills me to know I’m not the one mated to you, but what’s even worse is that by feeling like this I’m betraying my pack brother.”

“Jeno I…,” you gulped. “I don’t know what to say…”

“Don’t you feel anything for me at all?”

“I’m in love with Jaemin.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said, looking at your eyes pleadingly. “Do you not feel the pull?”

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t. There had always been a weird feeling of comfort whenever Jeno was with you. You found yourself missing him when you didn’t see him and you couldn’t deny a small part of you was attracted to him. But all those sensations were often overpowered by your love for Jaemin.

“It doesn’t compare to what I feel with Jaemin,” you said honestly.

“Ah, but there is something then,” Jeno confirmed his suspicions, licking his lips. He knew if a wolf had really imprinted on someone, that person would feel desire for them too. It was never completely one sided. Of course what you felt for Jaemin was stronger because you were mated to him, but it didn’t mean that you were indifferent to Jeno.

“Nothing worth thinking about,” you said proudly. “Now get off, and let’s never talk about this again,” you said, trying to push him away but he didn’t budge.

How Jeno had managed to control himself around you all this time was a mystery. But he was reaching his limit, and having you in such a compromising position was making him lose his mind.

“Since the cat’s out of the bag anyways,” Jeno murmured, leaning closer to your face. “I want to test something.”

Afraid of how close he was to your lips, you turned your head to the side, but Jeno aimed for your neck instead, gently rubbing his lips against it until you got goosebumps.

“J-jeno what are y-you…”

“You really don’t feel anything?” he asked hopefully, placing a single chaste kiss where Jaemin’s mark was.

“N-nothing.”

“Then why are you shaking?” Jeno asked innocently, tracing your neck with his tongue, now too lost in his fantasy to control his instinct. “Why can I smell your arousal?”

Embarrassed, you tried to close your thighs but one of Jeno’s knees was between them, so you ended up accidentally brushing against it and gasping. “Jeno...”

Yes, Jeno wanted you to say his name just like that. But louder.

“You’re so pretty, Y/N,” Jeno said, pressing his knee harder against your center. “I could bite you right now and overwrite this mark,” he panted against your neck, bearing his teeth and growling. “You’d be mine–”

“No!” you yelled, pulling at his hair. “JAEMIN!”

Like you had said the magic words to break a spell, Jeno pulled away from you abruptly, his eyes shining a golden hue now and his face pale. Now he had done it, he had been this close to claiming somebody else’s mate and losing his best friend forever. Fuck what the fuck is wrong with you.

You crawled away from him and both of you stared at each other.

“Fuck… I’m sorry,” Jeno said, visibly shaking. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me…”

“...When’s your rut?” you asked nervously.

Jeno swallowed, trying to do the math in his head. “ Uh, by the end of next week…probably…” he whispered.

You nodded. Just in time for the end of Jaemin’s internship AND his own rut too. “That must be why you’re behaving like this,” you tried to reason, still in denial. “I think you’ve helped me enough. I’ll work on my own next week, okay?” you said standing up.

Jeno knew you weren’t telling him that for him to rest. You were trying to push him away. “No,” he said quickly. “Jaemin said to take care of you,” he reasoned.

“It’s just one more week. I will be fine.”

“Exactly, just one more week!” Jeno tried to bargain, quite desperately if he was being honest. He hadn’t noticed how fast time had gone by and he wasn’t ready to stop seeing you just yet. “One week and I’ll be out of your life. But just for one more week, let me–...”

You didn’t answer. One more week with him, would mean you would be together right before his rut started. Judging by what had just happened, he probably wouldn’t be able to control himself. You were not too sure if you would stop him a second time either. “I wanna go home,” you simply said.

“I’ll walk with you,” Jeno said.

“No,” you quickly replied. “I want to be alone.”

Jeno let out a small whimper, but he nodded, knowing he had fucked up badly and you needed space. “I’ll close the store.”

“Thanks,” you said, grabbing your bag and walking through the door, sparing Jeno one last glance. “Goodbye,Jeno.”

The way you said it made Jeno anxious. He knew it meant he wouldn’t see you again and he felt a sharp pain in his chest that had him bending over as he saw you leave. All those testimonies from wolves who survived without mating their real love must have been lying. He felt like he could die right now. He needed you.

You also felt heartbroken when you left teary-eyed Jeno in the apothecary alone, but you wouldn’t risk your relationship with Jaemin. You walked home fast, wiping your tears away.

Why were you even crying?

When you opened your apartment’s door you were greeted with a smiling Jaemin, wearing an apron.

“Surprise!” he exclaimed. “I finished a little earlier today and I thought I should make dinner for my beautiful, hard-working… were you crying?”

You shook your head quickly. “Well, a little,” you admitted when he furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief. “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Jaemin cooed, kissing your forehead. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. But after next week I’m all yours, baby.”

You nodded and let him guide you to the table, where he had prepared a warm meal for the both of you, with a bottle of wine and some candles. Since tomorrow was Sunday, none of you had to worry about work or studying, so you had plenty of time to catch up. You talked about silly little things, and he smiled brightly when you complimented his cooking skills. Then he asked you how you felt about meeting the rest of the pack after he graduated, to which you gladly agreed, and it led to Jaemin telling you funny stories about his life as a wolf with the rest of them. Most of his stories were about Jeno.

“How did you meet Jeno?” you asked, when you both were cuddling on the sofa as he played with your hair.

“Mmh…we were the only wolf pups in the village where we grew up. They were not too accepting of… our type in that place, so we often were bullied by other kids…and adults,” he huffed. “We were each other’s only friend for a while and we decided to move to a bigger city for high school and look for more wolves together.That’s when we met Taeyong and Doyoung hyung.”

“...You’ve been together for a while, then,” you murmured.

“We’ve always been there for each other,” Jaemin confirmed. “He’s an amazing friend. Even now he’s helping me so much.”

“Y-yeah, about that,” you mumbled, sitting up straight and pulling away from his grasp. “I think he’s done enough already, so I told him not to come to the apothecary next week.”

“Oh… Yeah, he has been working really hard but,” he scratched the back of his head in deep thought. “Why not let him stay until I finish my internship by the end of next week?”

“No!” you quickly yelled, making Jaemin give you a surprised look. “I mean, it’s only a few days. I’ll be fine on my o-own, just… just tell him to stay home.”

Jaemin stared at you gravely. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I’m n-not lying.”

“I didn’t say you’re lying. But you’re not telling me all the truth;” Jaemin said, turning his body in your direction to sit face to face with you. “What’s going on?”

You bit your lip and tried to stop the tears from escaping your eyes. “I think it’s better to keep some distance from Jeno…”

“Why?” your boyfriend asked, confused but slowly growing more anxious.

“It c-could be that– maybe he’s confused…”

“Confused about what?”

You looked at Jaemin and then at your lap, wondering if it was really worth saying. You didn’t want to ruin years of friendship for what could be a misunderstanding.

“The truth, Y/N,” he commanded. “Now.”

You took a deep breath in. “He said he imprinted on me.”

Jaemin frowned in confusion, catching himself before he could ask you if you were sure of what you were saying. He knew you enough to know that you would always avoid telling him about things that could upset him unless it was absolutely necessary. If anything, the situation was probably way more serious than you wanted to admit, and you were playing it down right now.

Everything started making sense for Jaemin as he remembered that Jeno had scented you when he first met you. The reason Jeno’s rut had synced with his again, had to be you. Jeno didn’t offer to help out in the store just because he was a good friend, but because he wanted to be around you…Fuck. He felt betrayed, but mostly he felt dumb. How did he not notice the way Jeno looked at you? How could he

trust him with you while he was away? The fact that you were now asking him to tell Jeno to back off meant that Jeno had crossed the line…and you had had to take care of it on your own.

Jaemin had basically offered his mate on a silver plate.

Jaemin palmed his face and cursed under his breath. “What else?” he growled. “What else did he say? What did he do?”

“Jaemin, please consider that Jeno’s rut is just around the corner,” you tried to defend Jeno, for the sake of his friendship with Jaemin. You knew losing him would be devastating for your mate. “He c-can’t control himself–”

“What the fuck did he do?!” Jaemin shouted, pulling his hair. “What the fuck happened to finally make you tell me about this?!”

“I…I wasn’t hiding anything from you,” you breathed out. “I just found out today…”

“You would have dismissed it as a joke if he had simply said something like that out of the blue, Y/N. Something else happened. What did he do?” he snarled, hovering over you and trapping you on the sofa.

You blinked away your tears, deciding to show him instead of telling him, and tilted your head to the side, offering him your neck. Jaemin gave you a confused look, until he picked up on a scent he was familiar with.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Jaemin hissed, getting closer to your neck and inhaling deeply before letting out a possessive snarl. Jeno’s scent was all over Jaemin’s mark. That had to be the most disrespectful shit a wolf could ever do. “That son of a bitch,” he breathed out, completely forgetting about years of friendship for a moment.

“H-he couldn’t c-control it,” you hiccupped in between sobs.

“Don’t you fucking defend him. The only reason a wolf would get this close to someone’s mark is to overwrite it,” he said severely. He then cupped your face with his hands. “Do you understand what this means, Y/N? I almost lost you today. Another wolf almost claimed you while I was buying ingredients for dinner. You almost became his mate. I’m such an idiot. I should have never trusted him,”

“He’s your best friend,” you whispered sadly.

“I don’t care, Y/N. He’s still a man and I left him alone with you all this time. It’s almost like I invited him into our relationship.”

“Because you trust him,” you reminded him. “He controlled himself the entire time until now. He didn’t want to betray you…”

“But he did. And he’s the reason you were crying today, right?”

You looked away.

“Do you still love me?” Jaemin asked you seriously. He had never doubted your feelings before, but he needed to confirm if you wanted to continue this relationship with what was happening.

You glared at him. “Of course I do. I’m crazy in love with you.”

Jaemin smiled at you and kissed you gently. “Then Jeno has to go,” he whispered, before deepening the kiss.

The next day Jeno felt like he had got hit by a train. He couldn’t sleep all night, crying and overthinking everything instead. He knew it was your right to not want to see him, but it pained him that your last encounter had been such a mess. If only he hadn’t confessed he could still be around as a friend. If only he hadn’t lost his temper, he wouldn’t have scared you. And now he couldn’t even be alone to drown in self-pity because absolutely every single member of the pack was home, making a lot of noise while preparing everything for a full moon family dinner.

“No, you can’t skip dinner,” Doyoung told him, passing him more plates to set on the table. “Kun finally came back from his business trip and I want everyone here because I have to make an announcement. If you’re really not feeling well, just stay for a bit and then you can go to bed– Chenle, put that down!” he yelled at the younger wolf who was practicing levitating plates with magic instead of carrying them with his hands.

Jeno was about to argue when he heard Haechan’s voice yelling. “Our future healer is here!”

“Dude, you look…tired,” Mark told Jaemin, who was making his entrance.

“Didn’t sleep,” Jaemin mumbled.

“Didn’t shower either,” Haechan said. “You reek of sex.”

Jaemin chuckled. “I took a shower…but we did it again after.”

Mark whistled, impressed. “Things going well, then?”

“Better than ever,” Jaemin forced a smile, walking past them to greet the rest of the pack. When he saw Jeno, he tensed. There were many things he wanted to say to him, but the moment he made eye contact, he still saw the pup he grew up with. His best friend. “Jeno…”

Jeno gave him a weak smile and wrinkled his nose at his scent. “How’s school?”

“It’s fine…” Jaemin said vaguely. Why wasn’t he angrier at Jeno? He had made a move on his mate. He couldn’t go soft on him now. “Listen, I gotta talk to you–”

“Jaemin, you’re here!” Doyoung interrupted the conversation and pushed Jaemin to the table. “Take a seat, food is ready– Jaehyun, no! Wait until everyone is sitting.”

Jaemin sighed. Maybe he could talk to Jeno after eating. He didn’t want to make things awkward with everyone there anyways.

When everyone took their seats by a long table in the backyard, Taeyong stood up to ask for everyone’s attention. “Thank you for coming, brothers! I know everyone is busy, so I’m very grateful that you still found the time to share a meal with your pack. Although we don’t need a reason to call everyone here, one of our members has an important announcement to make,” the leader said, sitting down and looking at Doyoung.

“Okay, here we go uh…,” Doyoung mumbled as he stood up.

“LOUDER!” Yuta yelled.

“IF YOU WANT TO HEAR WHY DON’T YOU SIT CLOSER,” Doyoung yelled back, taking a deep breath to collect himself. “As I was saying… I uh…I’m getting married.”

Immediately everyone started cheering and clapping, except for Haechan, who let out a shocked ‘WHAT?’

“I proposed last week,” Doyoung continued, now a bit more relaxed and smiling shyly. “And she said yes.”

Louder cheering exploded around the table, mixed with Haechan’s ‘NO WAY!’

“I wanted to be the first,” Haechan whined when everyone calmed down. “I bought the ring and everything…No, Jisung, don’t even think about it!” he warned when he caught the youngest daydreaming at the mention of a ring.

“I didn’t say anything!” Jisung defended himself, blushing.

Jeno laughed at Jisung. “Take it easy, pup. You’ll scare her away if you go too fast.”

“I wasn’t going to!” Jisung insisted.

“Hyung,” Jaemin suddenly asked Doyoung. “Have you found a good place to live yet? Y/N and I are looking for a house to move in together too.”

Everyone’s attention was on Jaemin now, yelling their approval. Jeno tensed on his seat in front of him.

“What about Y/N’s apartment?” Doyoung asked.

“It’s okay if it’s just the two of us, but we’re planning on starting a family,” Jaemin confessed, making everyone scream in delight and surprise.

“WHAT?!” Haechan shouted again, frustrated that he wouldn’t be the first to do anything.

“Isn’t it too soon?” Jeno asked before he could stop himself, his serious tone making everyone stop cheering.

Jaemin glared at him from across the table, remembering that Jeno wasn’t just his pack brother anymore, but a wolf who wanted Jaemin’s mate for himself. Of course he didn’t want Jaemin to start a family with you. “No,” he replied superbly. “As a matter of fact, I do not think it’s too soon.”

Everyone remained silent around them. This was not an atmosphere that they had ever felt between Jeno and Jaemin.

“Last time I checked, Y/N thought you two weren’t ready,” Jeno said, mentally reprimanding himself because what was he even trying to accomplish by delaying the inevitable.

“Ah, you must have checked a long time ago,” Jaemin replied, faking a smile. “Because when I checked last night she really wanted it. In fact, I double checked today and she really, really wanted it.”

“Maybe she just agreed because you want it,” Jeno said pettily, shrugging.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jeno shrugged again. “I’m just saying.”

Jaemin nodded. He was smiling, but he seemed far from happy. “You are just saying.” He repeated slowly. He had planned to have a proper private conversation with Jeno, but if he was going to disrespect him and his relationship in front of the entire pack, then Jaemin wouldn’t hold back either.

By now everyone was alert. These two had never talked to each other like that before. The youngest members, especially Jisung, were getting nervous because of the excess of alpha pheromones being released. The more experienced wolves could see that this was a territorial battle and were getting ready to intervene if things escalated, but why?! Why would Jeno and Jaemin fight?

“That’s an awful thing to just say,” Jaemin said. “But you seem to be saying weird things a lot lately,” he purred maliciously. “For example, yesterday you told my mate you had imprinted on her.”

Immediately all eyes were on Jeno. A few members let out audible gasps, while others straight out cursed in disbelief, slowly putting two and two together. This wouldn’t end well.

“Did you also just say that? Or did you mean it?” Jaemin asked.

Jeno gulped but he couldn’t continue lying. He looked Jaemin in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Jaemin’s eyes were clouded with tears that he fought as much as he could. “Fuck you, Jeno. You said you would keep an eye on her so I wouldn’t worry, but you were trying to steal her away? You deceived me for months!”

“That wasn’t my intention! I really wanted to help—“

“Then why the fuck did you try to overwrite my mark yesterday?!” Jaemin shouted, standing up and causing several other members to stand up too, ready to stop whatever was happening. “All these years of friendship mean nothing to you?! How could you look me in the eyes and think of fucking my mate?!” Jaemin asked with a pained tone.

Jeno felt a couple of tears slide down his cheek. He had screwed up. He had hurt his best friend and he had no idea what to do to make it better.

“Stay away from us,” Jaemin tried to sound intimidating, but he just sounded tired and sad. He turned around and left, not being able to handle seeing Jeno for another minute.

Everyone was quiet, staring at Jeno who was sitting still on his chair.

“What are you all looking at?” Jeno asked, annoyed. “You think I wanted this to happen? We can’t choose who we imprint on. And it’s not like any of you had an ideal courting stage anyways,” he added, laughing bitterly and turning his attention to Doyoung. “Hyung, you’re getting married now, but your mate drank a potion to break the bond before,” he accused.

Doyoung gave Jeno a sad look, but he didn’t reply.

Jeno’s next victim was Haechan. “You pursued a woman who was already in a relationship. So you and I aren’t too different,” he said, laughing, but Haechan didn’t find it funny. No one did.

“You,” Jeno continued, this time staring at Mark. “Only approached your mate because you were afraid she would suck Yangyang’s cock if you didn’t.”

Mark clenched his jaw and looked away.

Jeno pointed at Jisung. “And your mate…”

“Jeno,” Taeyong said in a warning tone, but Jeno was too blinded by anger and sadness to listen.

“Your mate got dicked down by Jaehyun hyung,” Jeno spat, his eyes boring into Jisung’s.

“JENO!” Taeyong roared. “That’s enough!”

Jeno didn’t think it was enough. He had plenty he wanted to say, but the way Jisung had whimpered brought him back to reality. He knew how sensitive the youngest was to his mate’s past with Jaehyun and that he was trying his best not to let his insecurities affect the pack dynamic. When Chenle scented Jisung in a comforting manner and glared at Jeno, he took it as his cue to leave, locking himself in his room and hoping no one would bother him.

But of course it was impossible to be completely alone in a house with more than 20 men.

“May I come in?” Doyoung’s voice asked from the other side of the door, knocking gently.

Without a word, Jeno got up and unlocked the door, sitting back on the bed. Doyoung entered the room and closed the door behind him and walked cautiously towards the bed and sat next to Jeno.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno finally said. “...For what I said.”

“I didn’t come here looking for an apology,” Doyoung said. “What you said wasn’t a lie. We all have made mistakes when it comes to our mates.”

“No mistake is worse than mine,” Jeno mumbled sadly.

“You didn’t choose to imprint on her,” Doyoung argued. “It was the Moon’s choice.”

“The Moon fucked up,” Jeno said.

“The Moon makes no mistakes.”

Jeno looked at Doyoung through mournful eyes. “Hyung,” his voice cracked and he started sobbing quietly. “I don’t know what to do…”

“Oh, Jeno,” Doyoung cooed, hugging the younger. “You kept this to yourself all this time. Suffering on your own…”

Jeno cried louder, allowing himself to be taken care of for once after months.

“You’re not a bad person,” Doyoung insisted. “This isn’t your fault.”

“W-what do I d-do?” Jeno asked between sobs.

“First, let’s give Jaemin some space,” Doyoung suggested. “It will be alright…”

You were surprised when Jaemin came back to you not even an hour after he left. “You’re back! What happened to the family dinner?”

Instead of replying, Jaemin kissed you desperately, pushing you against the wall. You kissed him back hesitantly, wondering what got him so worked up. “Jaem– hold on…” you mumbled, breaking away from the kiss, which he took as a chance to kiss down your neck until he found the mating mark, and he finally broke down crying.

“Jaemin? W-what happened?”

“He w-wont bother you again,” Jaemin replied, sniffling.

You hugged him tight and patted his head. “Did you two have a fight?” you asked fearfully.

Jaemin kissed the mark on your neck and remained silent, the only sound coming from him being his weak sobs. He had lost a friend and a brother, but he had to protect his mate. If Jeno had said the truth about being imprinted on you, then Jaemin really resented the Moon right now. What a twisted sense of humor She had.

That night, Jaemin cried himself to sleep with your body curled against his, and the next day he went to the internship like nothing had happened. He decided to just stay with you that week, not wanting to see Jeno, but also feeling incredibly clingy due to the proximity of his rut. He was glad the internship would be over by Friday, right before his rut hit, so he could spend it with you in peace.

It was Wednesday night when you heard a knock on your door and your door and you were greeted by an unfamiliar face.

“Hi, is Jaemin here?” the handsome man with doe eyes asked.

“Uh…Sorry, but who are you?” you asked suspiciously.

“I’m Taeyong. I’m the leader of Jaemin’s pack,” he introduced himself politely. “And you must be Y/N,” he said, scanning your face.

“Hyung!” Jaemin’s voice called out from behind you before you had the chance to speak. He rushed to the door and positioned himself in front of you protectively. “What are you doing here?”

“Just checking on you,” Taeyong said casually. “You haven’t answered your phone nor dropped by in a few days.”

“Sorry,” Jaemin whispered. “I’ve been busy…”

Taeyong smiled. “Are you too busy now too? I was hoping we could go for a little walk…”

“He would love to!” you replied before Jaemin had the chance to come up with an excuse not to. Jaemin gave you a look that made it clear he was not in the mood for a walk, but you ignored it. “He needs to exercise,” you insisted, pushing him out the door. He had been looking depressed since Sunday and you hoped his pack leader could cheer him up.

“I’ll bring him back by 10!” Taeyong smiled at you, resting his arm on Jaemin’s shoulders, who let himself be dragged along hesitantly.

“This is a nice area,” Taeyong sighed, sitting on a bench where he could see the sea. “If you two move in together around here, you’ll be able to listen to the ocean waves all the time.”

Jaemin sat down in silence next to him.

“Or do you prefer a house closer to the forest? I saw this little house for rent the other day–”

“Just spit it out,” Jaemin said, tired of the small talk. “What did you come here to say?”

Taeyong bit his lip nervously. “Talk to Jeno.”

Jaemin rolled his eyes and stood up, ready to leave.

“You know we don’t choose who we imprint on.Do you think he would purposely fall for the mate of the person he cares for the most?” Taeyong said, making Jaemin halt. “From what he told Doyoung, he tried to avoid Y/N at first but you asked for his help. And then he thought it would be fine to stick around just until you finished your internship. He really tried his best to control his feelings.”

Jaemin frowned, sitting down again slowly. “So? What do you expect me to do?” he hissed. “I won’t give him my mate.”

“Just don’t cut him off,” Taeyong pleaded. “He’s willing to live as an unmated wolf, but not without you.”

“That’s dumb,” Jaemin replied. “He’ll be in pain whenever he smells Y/N on me. It would be a pathetic excuse of a life.”

“But he would rather do that than losing you,”

“That’s dumb. He’s dumb,” Jaemin repeated, wiping away a rebel tear. “… How is he?”

“Well… he’s not eating,” Taeyong disclosed.

“That idiot,” Jaemin groaned. “Force him to!”

Taeyong chuckled. “You know how stubborn he is…but I think hearing from you would make him feel a bit better…”

“I’ll…text him, or something,” Jeamin mumbled.

“Thank you,” Taeyong smiled at him. “That would mean a lot to the pack,” he said, standing up, ready to go back.

“Hyung,” Jaemin called out abruptly. “Is it true that an imprinted wolf can’t fall in love with another person?” He asked anxiously. He had been dying to ask that for days. “Jeno won’t love again?”

Taeyong had met wolves who hadn’t mated their person before and in all cases they lived empty lives. They usually started by avoiding eating and spending time with others due to sadness (which Jeno was doing right now), and after a while they would leave their pack to avoid the pity looks that others gave them and live alone in an isolated hut in the mountains. But Taeyong couldn’t tell Jaemin that when he looked like he was about to have a breakdown.

“Maybe he’ll be the exception,” Taeyong offered instead.

“What are the odds of that happening?” Jaemin insisted.

Taeyong shook his head sadly. Even if Jaemin forgave Jeno and they remained friends, chances were Jeno would not imprint on someone else, and once everyone in the pack had found their destined partner, Jeno would be alone.

Jaemin was thinking the same thing.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Jaemin asked.

“We can only be there for him,” Taeyong replied. “There’s nothing else we can do if there’s no destined partner for him.”

“There is a destined partner for him,” Jaemin groaned. “But she’s mine.”

“Only because you met her first,” Taeyong shrugged. “If Jeno had been the one to find her, then you would have imprinted on her later on and the problem of one of you two ending up alone would still be there.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“She’s your destined mate as much as she’s Jeno’s. But he decided to take a step back and live alone instead of challenging you. Because you’re the most important person to him.”

Jaemin stared at his own feet for a minute, processing everything he was hearing. “What if…what if there’s another way?”

Taeyong raised his eyebrows in interest, waiting for Jaemin to continue.

“What if the Moon gave us the same mate for a reason?” Jaemin whispered.

Taeyong smiled. This was exactly where he wanted the conversation to go. “The Moon makes no mistakes, Jaemin.”

Jaemin came back exactly at 10PM. He looked a bit more energetic, restless. He walked around the apartment, and looked at you nervously from time to time, opening his mouth to say something but changing his mind and walking away. You knew something was in his mind.

“Did you enjoy the walk?” you asked him when you were both lying down in bed about to fall asleep.

“It was…interesting,” Jaemin croaked, lying down on his side and looking directly into your eyes.

“Mmh? Interesting how?”

“We talked about Jeno,” Jaemin admitted.

You nodded. You had guessed that much would happen when the man on your door introduced himself as the leader of the pack.

“...And?” you asked, hoping to hear good news. Jaemin didn’t seem as blue as before, so whatever Taeyong had talked to him about had to be good.

Jaemin licked his lips and scooted closer. “What if…I mean,” he gulped and inhaled deeply. “Do you like Jeno?”

You sighed. “I’m in love with you, not Jeno,” you whispered, a bit hurt at what you thought was an accusation.

“I know, baby, I know,” he assured you, placing his palm on your cheek. “I’m not testing you. This is an honest question.”

You frowned at him and he sensed your uncertainty so he decided to explain a bit further. “Do you remember when we first met?” he asked you.

You nodded, kissing his palm softly.

“Do you remember feeling something pulling you towards me even though you fought it?”

You nodded again. “You called it the pull,” you replied.

“Exactly,” he murmured. “When we imprint on someone, the pull makes it hard for that person to resist us.”

“I know,” you chuckled. “You didn’t make it easy for me.”

Jaemin laughed too, caressing your cheekbone with his thumb, before getting serious again. “If Jeno imprinted on you, you must feel something.”

Your smile dropped, feeling judged again. “I would never–”

“I know,” Jaemin repeated, kissing your lips gently. “I’m not mad, baby, I promise. I just need you to be very honest with me on this, okay? Do you feel the pull with Jeno?”

You looked at Jaemin. His eyes were sincere. He really wasn’t angry at you, nor was he sad. If anything, he looked excited. So you nodded in defeat. “I’m sorry,” you sobbed, feeling your eyes getting teary. “But I wouldn’t cheat–”

Jaemin interrupted you by connecting his lips to yours, kissing you passionately and pulling your body against his. “Shh…It’s okay, baby,” he uttered. “We’ll be alright, I promise.”

“I won’t even look in his direction,” you pledged desperately. “I want to be with you. P-please, don’t break up with me,” you cried incoherently.

“Wolves don’t just break up with their mate, Y/N. Especially not after all I went through for you to be mine,” he whispered, pushing you on your back and kissing your neck and chest. “No, you’re staying with me…”

“Thank you, thank you,” you mumbled, tangling your fingers into his hair and pulling him closer as he pulled your shirt up and positioned himself a bit lower, biting and sucking on every bit of skin he found.

“...But maybe there’s space for one more?” he asked, looking up at you innocently.

You lifted your head to look at him. “W-what do you mean?”

Jaemin shrugged, kissing right between your boobs. “Jeno’s not that bad…,” he said, moving to your left breast and licking your nipple slowly, while maintaining eye contact. “He took care of you all these months,” he continued, sucking it into his mouth lewdly. “I mean, it’s kind of like you had two boyfriends the entire time…”

You arched your back and gasped, confused at the situation you were in. Why was he talking about another man while touching you like this?

“I’m not following…” you panted.

“No?” Jaemin pouted, releasing your nipple and kissing down your stomach. “Don’t you think Jeno deserves a little reward after everything he’s done?” he asked playfully, licking your navel and making you shiver.

You bit your lip and shook your head. “Jaemin, what are you t-talking about?”

Jaemin sighed. “I guess I need to be more explicit,” he agreed, positioning himself even lower so his face was hovering over your shorts. “What do you think about having two tongues licking your pussy?” He breathed out.

You let out a scandalized gasp and tried to close your legs, but Jaemin pinned them firmly to the bed and licked your core over the fabric lazily. “What do you say, baby?” he moaned, pushing your tiny shorts to the side and cursing under his breath when he found out you were not wearing any panties. He dove in, licking all over your cunt messily. “Mmmh…why don’t we let Jeno have a little taste?”

“J-jaem,” you moaned, your thighs shaking against his firm hands. “Fuck, baby, are you–aah! o-oh… are you serious?”

“Mhmm,” Jaemin hummed around your clit, vibrations making you scream. He detached himself from it and started circling his tongue around the bundle of nerves just the way you liked it, as if he was trying to convince you. “Imagine both of us doing this to you…” he coerced, giving your clit another harsh suck before kissing it gently. “Bet you would cum real good, yeah?”

You tried hard not to imagine that scenario. Jaemin had to be messing with you.

“Don’t fight it, baby,” Jaemin cooed in between sucking and licking. “I told you this isn’t a test. I’m being serious,” he said like he could read your mind. “Wouldn’t you like that?”

“I j-just–nngh… oh g-god,” you panted, close to reaching your climax. “I d-dont know– aah, fuck, Jaemin!”

“No?” he tilted his head. “You don’t know if you want to feel two tongues all over your body?” he asked, feigning innocence. He trailed two of his fingers between your pussy lips, getting them nice and wet before placing them against your entrance. “How about two cocks?” he proposed, as he slid the fingers into you with a slick movement.

“F-fuuuck–” you groaned, rolling your eyes to the back of your head and squirming under Jaemin’s skilled hands. “Oh…m-my god, fuck, fuck…” you moaned when he fucked you with his fingers and flattened his tongue against your clit, letting you fuck yourself on his face. “Jaem–...Jaemin I’m g-gonn–ah! Aah, oh…Oh my god!” you moaned, tilting your head back when toe-curling orgasm finally hit. Jaemin kept pressing his fingers inside of you, giving your clit little kisses until you weakly pushed his head away.

“W-what the hell was that?” you croaked, still panting and shaking.

“A proposal,” Jaemin replied simply, resting his head on your thigh and caressing your belly.

“You’re proposing we let Jeno in?”

“...When I found out about Jeno’s feelings I was furious,” Jaemin said. “And wolves are possessive by nature, so I wanted him away from you but…” he sighed, looking up to meet your eyes. “I adore Jeno,” he confessed. “And I love you. I don’t want to lose any of you.”

“And you think all three of us being together is the solution?”

“Yes,” he replied simply. “All three of us have a bond. Jeno and I bonded as kids. You and I bonded when I imprinted. And then the same happened when Jeno met you. All three of us love and care for each other, so why wouldn’t it work?”

“...And will you be okay with him touching me?”

Jaemin tensed and squeezed your thigh possessively. “I will be after we set some rules…”

You stared into the ceiling in deep thought. To be fair, it was true that all of you were already connected. You didn’t want Jaemin to lose his best friend for something none of them had control over and to be honest, you also didn’t want to stop seeing Jeno completely; after spending months with him, you had grown used to his comforting presence. And Jaemin was right; you could feel the pull.

“...So?” Jaemin asked hopefully. “Can we give it a try?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Jaemin let out a relieved sigh and kissed your thigh. “Thank you.”

On Friday morning (more like midday), Jeno woke up to a text from Jaemin. His heart beat fast in anxiety as he opened the message, ready to read everything about Jaemin not wanting to see him ever again.But he found none of that.

Jaemin: Jupiter’s 8th Moon Restaurant 6PM

Jaemin: See you

Jeno re-read the message a couple of times.

Jaemin wanted to meet him. Fuck, that could be really good news or really bad. But just thinking about seeing his best friend again gave him the energy he lacked for the last few days. He quickly got up from bed and looked around.

His room was a mess.

He was a mess. He hadn’t showered in days.

He picked up the clothes from the floor, opened the curtains and window, seeing the light for the first time in a while. He adjusted his eyes to the light, made his bed and grabbed a towel to go take a shower.

After finding a decent outfit, and overthinking every possible scenario in his head, he left the house and found his way to the restaurant. He was so nervous, he ended up arriving half an hour early. To his surprise, Jaemin was already there.

“You’re early,” Jaemin blurted out in surprise, looking up from the menu.

“...Y-you too,” Jeno stuttered.

“Yeah…I was too anxious to wait at home,” Jaemin admitted. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Jeno dried the sweat off his hands with his shirt and sat down across Jaemin.

“What do you want to eat?” Jaemin asked calmly, making Jeno even more uneasy.

“I’m good,” he replied quickly. “I’m not hungry.”

Jaemin closed the menu and stared right into Jeno’s soul, making him squirm in his seat.

“That shirt didn’t look this loose on you before,” he spoke through gritted teeth. “You can’t continue like this. You’ll eat a proper meal and then we’ll talk,” he declared sternly before calling the waitress to place an order for both of them, ordering enough food to feed an army.

Jeno couldn’t protest when large plates of food were served to him under Jaemin’s severe eyes. Only when he grabbed a fork and started eating, Jaemin turned to his own food and ate too. They had been eating in silence for what seemed like an eternity and Jeno couldn’t take it anymore.

“The internship,” he mumbled awkwardly. “D-did you finish?”

Jaemin nodded. “Had my last shift this morning.”

“Oh, c-congratulations...”

“Thanks,” Jaemin said, putting his fork down. “Now let’s talk about what really matters.”

Jeno sighed and sat up straight, ready for what was going to come.

“I’m not mad at you for imprinting on Y/N,” Jaemin said.

“I know…,” Jeno sulked, looking down. Then he frowned and looked back up. “Wait, did you say ‘not’?”

“That’s what I said. It’s not your fault,” Jaemin confirmed.

“...Aren’t you taking it too well?” Jeno asked suspiciously.

Jaemin sighed. “ Fine, I admit I was mad when I found out, but I’ve been thinking about it and… it really wasn't something you could control.”

“I guess I’m the Moon’s least favorite wolf,” Jeno half-joked.

“What do you mean?” Jaemin asked, sipping from his glass of wine. “She chose the prettiest mate for you.”

Jeno rolled his eyes. Of course Jaemin would rub it on his face. “But she gave her to my best friend.”

“So? We’ve always shared everything since we were kids.”

Jeno tensed and glared at Jaemin incredulously. “It’s not the same.”

“Why not?” Jaemin asked, cutting a piece of steak from his food and putting it on Jeno's plate. Jeno blinked twice. Jaemin couldn’t be serious.

“Jaemin, I’m sorry I didn’t control myself that time, but it won’t happen again,” Jeno said, pushing the piece of steak to the side. “I don’t need a mate.”

“The hell you don’t,” Jaemin hissed. “You weren’t even going to tell me you imprinted on her. I bet your dumb plan was to keep it a secret, cry at night and then die alone in the woods, while I married the woman you love.”

Jeno blushed. He didn’t plan to cry at night, it just happened naturally.

“I’m your best friend, Jeno,” Jaemin said softly. “You should have told me sooner.”

“You would have been mad anyways.”

“Yes,” Jaemin agreed. “But we would have solved this sooner too.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeno whispered.

“I forgive you,” Jaemin said. “Y/N isn’t angry either.”

Jeno’s eyes sparkled at the mention of your name and Jaemin chuckled.

“Is she okay?”

“Mhmm…She wants to talk to you,” Jaemin beamed. “Right after dinner.”

“...I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Jeno argued. “My rut is due–”

“I know. I’ll be there the entire time, you won’t hurt her. It will be okay. ” Jaemin purred, stabbing the piece of steak he had put on Jeno’s plate and offering it to him. “Now eat,” he persuaded Jeno by swinging the piece of meat close to his mouth.

Hesitantly, Jeno ate what Jaemin was feeding him and Jaemin smiled slyly.

“Would you like anything for dessert?” a waitress who had approached the table asked politely.

“No, thank you,” Jaemin replied merrily. “We’re having dessert at home.”

Jeno soon recognised the path Jaemin was taking in through was the way to your apartment. He thought about protesting, insisting that it wasn’t a good idea, but Jaemin had said he was forgiven and that you wanted to talk to him. This could be his only chance to make things right, so he tried to calm his racing heart and keep up with Jaemin’s cheerful conversation.

Jaemin opened the door to your apartment and turned to look at Jeno, who was pale and squirmy. “It’s okay,” Jaemin whispered, grabbing Jeno’s hand and pulling him into your place gently. “Come in.”

Jeno had walked you to your place many times, but he had never been inside. As soon as he entered, your scent surrounded him and made him stumble back towards the door.

“It’s okay,” Jaemin repeated, now holding both of Jeno’s hands in his. “C’mon, Y/N is waiting.”

Jeno nodded and let Jaemin guide him to a room at the end of the corridor, trembling as he smelt more and more of you. When they were both facing a door, Jaemin took a deep breath in and opened it, showing Jeno something he hadn’t seen even in his darkest fantasies:

What seemed to be your bedroom was illuminated by tons of candles, and there, on the bed, were you, wearing a white set of lingerie and…oh fuck, are those stockings?

“Hi, Jeno,” you said shyly and Jeno cursed under his breath, ready to turn around and leave, but Jaemin pushed him in, locking the door behind them.

“Baby,” Jaemin purred. “Isn’t that right we’re not mad at Jeno?”

You nodded, standing up from the bed and allowing them to appreciate your outfit (or lack of it).

Jeno was breathing heavily. “What’s going on?” he asked, thinking that maybe Jaemin hadn’t forgiven him, and this was some sick way of punishing him. Pure torture.

“Isn’t it obvious, Jeno?” Jaemin spoke softly, approaching Jeno from behind.

“No?” Jeno replied.

“I said it before,” Jaemin whispered next to Jeno’s ears, making him shiver with desire. “We’ve always shared everything, haven’t we?”

“Jaemin, if this is a joke…,” Jeno hissed in annoyance, but hope was growing inside of him.

“Is this a joke, baby?” Jaemin asked you.

You shook your head. “This isn’t a joke, Jeno,” you assured him, playing with the strap of your bra and pulling it down your shoulder. “Jaemin and I were talking and…We would like you to be part of this. Of us…unless you don’t want to…”

Jeno was taken aback. Was this what Jaemin had tried to imply earlier at the restaurant? Did you dress like that for him? Was he really allowed to touch you? Apprehensively, he lifted his hands and reached out for you, but as soon as his fingertips made contact with your skin, Jaemin’s hands were on his, pushing them away from your body and pinning them to Jeno’s sides. Jeno cursed out loud. So this had been a test after all.

“Not so fast,” Jaemin warned him. “I agreed to this, but my wolf won’t like it. Especially during our rut.”

“Then what the fuck do you want from me?!” Jeno was losing his patience. You were basically naked in front of him and they wouldn’t let him touch you. He was pissed.

“We need to trick my wolf,” Jaemin said as if it was simple. “He won’t like another alpha touching my mate…unless he doesn’t perceive you as a threat.”

Jeno nodded slowly, still looking at your body covered in lace. “How?”

“We make him believe you’re my mate too,” Jaemin declared, nuzzling Jeno’s neck with his lips. “You know what that means…”

Jeno gulped, getting goosebumps at the attention his neck was receiving. “But…an alpha biting another alpha…,” he didn’t finish the sentence. Both of them knew it would mean the bitten alpha was submitting to the other. Was Jeno willing to give up his pride?

Jaemin sensed his hesitation and exchanged a worried look with you, releasing Jeno’s hands. Maybe it had been too much for Jeno. Maybe he would really rather die alone than whatever this was. Jaemin was about to call it off when Jeno took off his shirt swiftly and threw it somewhere on the floor.

“Bite as hard as you want,” Jeno growled, looking at Jaemin over his shoulder.

Jaemin stared back at him with wide eyes. “Are you sure?”

Jeno nodded. “I have nothing to lose,” he said, allowing his eyes to land on your body again. “And plenty to gain.”

Jaemin looked at you, giving you one last chance to change your mind. When you gave him a reassuring smile, he moved closer to Jeno’s neck again. Now he was getting nervous. What if Jeno’s wolf rejected the bond? Then it would really be over for their friendship. But he had to give it a try. Without wasting another second, he sank his teeth into Jeno’s skin, right into the crook of his neck. Jeno groaned and squirmed, his instinct trying to set him free from the supposed threat, but Jaemin quickly put a hand around his neck as a warning and hugged his waist with his other arm to keep him in place..

You took a step back, seeing how the defiance in Jeno’s eyes soon softened and became pure want. Jeno panted heavily, and finally tilted his head back to rest it on Jaemin’s shoulder, letting out a weak moan.

Jaemin hummed appreciatively and licked the wound, allowing his hands to caress Jeno’s body comfortingly. He then nodded, letting you know it was safe to step forward.

You got closer to the wolves and placed both your hands on Jeno’s pecs, making Jeno jump slightly and look at you in anticipation.

“Is this okay?” You asked.

Jeno nodded quickly and let out a shaky breath when you ran your nails over his skin.

“What about you, Jaemin?” You asked your mate.

“My wolf doesn’t seem to mind you touching Jeno,” Jaemin breathed out, still holding Jeno in place and nuzzling his neck. “Holy shit, it worked…,” he let out a chuckle. “How do you feel, Jeno?”

“Dizzy as fuck,” Jeno mumbled, letting out little whimpers as Jaemin and you continued feeling him up. “Can’t believe this is happening…”

“Baby, I think Jeno needs some reassurance,” your boyfriend told you, giving you a sweet smile when you hesitated. “Go ahead. I’m okay.”

You bit your lip and moved closer to Jeno, whose dilated pupils were set on your mouth. He seemed to know exactly what you wanted to do, and didn’t hesitate to kiss you back when you gently pressed your lips against his. He sighed into the kiss, finally relishing on the feeling he had denied himself for months, and placed his hands on your cheeks, pulling you even closer. The kiss remained sweet and slow, because you didn’t want to overwhelm Jeno and he wanted to savor the moment for as long as he could. But as much as he wanted to take things slow, your scent, your lips and Jaemin’s mouth on his neck were driving him crazy.

When you felt something hard rubbing against your lower abdomen, you looked down and gasped at the obvious tent forming on Jeno’s pants. “Can I?” You asked as your hands landed on Jeno’s belt and the way both he and Jaemin nodded in sync was almost funny.

You unbuckled his belt and pulled his jeans down roughly, kneeling down until you were face to face with his impressive erection trapped in his boxers. You licked Jeno’s bulge through his boxers, starting at the base and slowly making your way to the tip, tasting the salty precum.

“Oh god, oh f-fuck,” Jeno whined, trembling in his best friend’s arms. “This is a d-dream… I have to be dream—aaah! Mm shit, Y/N…”

“Do it properly, baby,” Jaemin instructed,placing his hands on Jeno’s hips to prevent him from moving. “Show him how lucky he is to have imprinted on you…”

Looking up through your lashes, you pulled down Jeno’s boxers torturously slow, letting out a pleased mewl when his cock was freed and bounced against his lower abdomen, the reddened tip oozing precum. Jeno’s wide eyes were focused on you, his hands holding onto Jaemin’s arms for support because of how much his legs were shaking.

Without breaking eye contact, you gave the tip a teasing lick and relished in the way Jeno’s whole body convulsed, as he kept repeating ‘I must be dreaming, this is a dream’ over and over.

You sucked on the head gently and Jeno’s knees buckled. He would have fallen hard on the floor if it wasn’t for Jaemin’s strong hold on him.

“Oh fuck, o-oh please, more. M-more—aah! Ah! Oh!” Jeno cried out as you swallowed more of him. “Oh my f-fucking god…”

You bobbed your head up and down his length, hollowing your cheeks once in a while and seeing Jeno slowly lose his mind. His trembling fingers dig into your hair.

“I’m not gonna last,” he warned you, out of breath. “Y/N… Ah, s-shiiiit Y/N, gonna c-cum, gonna fucking cum—“ his slurred words were interrupted by a high pitched moan when you circled his tip with your tongue and Jaemin used his hands to pinch his nipples hard. “F-fuck! Jaemin—aah! Ha… Oh m-my god— Y/N-“

Unexpectedly for all three of you, Jaemin pulled Jeno’s hair and kissed him hard, wasting no time to slide his tongue into Jeno’s mouth and making him moan into the kiss. Right then, you deepthroated Jeno and swallowed around him, making his dick twitch desperately as thick cum slid down your throat. Jaemin swallowed Jeno’s broken sobs, with his hands still playing with Jeno’s nipples.

You released Jeno’s cock and sat down on the floor. Soon Jeno and Jaemin fell on their knees in front of you too, both a blushing mess, with a string of saliva connecting their mouths.

“Do you still think you’re the Moon’s least favorite wolf?” Jaemin asked Jeno, giving the mark on his neck a languid lick.

Jeno shook his head tiredly.

“That’s right, look at our pretty mate,” Jaemin purred and his eyes and Jeno’s focused on you, making a shiver run up your spine. “Only we can have her like this, nobody else. Isn’t she lovely?”

Jeno nodded like he was in a haze, his eyes starting to turn red.

“Wanna know something?” Jaemin whispered in Jeno’s ear, massaging his arms and shoulders. “She tastes just like she smells.”

Something snapped in Jeno at that moment. You yelped when he pounced on you, grabbing your legs and manhandling you so you were on your back with him between your legs. Immediately he buried his face between your legs, inhaling as much of you as he could and letting out muffled moans. He was shuddering in bliss, finally being able to be as close to you as he wanted. He was getting hard again just by smelling your arousal.

You were mortified, shrieking and covering your face.

Jaemin chuckled at the view. “Why don’t we get her on the bed first?” he suggested, gently grabbing Jeno’s shoulder to push him away from you, but Jeno replied with a feral snarl, like he was a starving animal protecting the only source of food he was able to find.

Jaemin appreciated the enthusiasm, but not so much the challenge. One of his brows lifted in disapproval and he requested for cooperation once more. “Let her go, Jeno.”

Jeno’s fingers dug into your thighs and he shook his head stubbornly, brushing your clit with his nose in the process and making you mewl. Not only was he entering his rut, but he had been dying to do this for months. There was no way he was just going to let you go when he was this close to tasting you.

Jaemin inhaled sharply, his own eyes starting to turn red too. In the blink of an eye he grabbed Jeno by his hair, pulling his head back and making him hiss. “Don’t be ungrateful, pup,” Jaemin warned.

Jeno shivered. Normally we would fight back, but just the thought of defying Jaemin made his fresh mating mark hurt. He wanted to be good for him. So he whimpered and lowered his eyes.

“Patience,” Jaemin cooed, massaging Jeno’s scalp. “You’ll get what you want, but we have to make sure our baby is comfortable. You don’t want her to hurt, right?”

Jeno shook his head quickly and looked at you with sorry, watery eyes. He feared you were now scared of him and he had ruined his chance with you. Plus his rut and Jaemin’s mark were making him unreasonably sensitive. “Sorry.”

“I’m okay,” you quickly assured him, trying to close your legs in embarrassment. You knew what you had gotten yourself into, but having this much attention on you was something else.

“Still okay, baby?” Jaemin asked you.

“Yeah,” you said confidently. “Just a bit nervous…”

“Mmh…,” Jaemin kissed you tenderly, before curling his arms around your body and carrying you to the bed, lying you down carefully, with your legs hanging out the edge of the bed. “We’ll help you relax,” he assured you, kneeling in between your legs and kissing your thighs lovingly. “Won’t we?” he asked, turning to the other wolf.

“We?” Jeno asked hopefully, looking for the other alpha’s approval.

“We,” Jaemin confirmed with a cheeky smile, forcing your legs to open wider and making you gasp.

Jeno didn’t need to be told twice. He stepped out of his wrinkled pants and boxers and crawled towards you, situating himself beside Jaemin and waiting for further instructions.

“These are very nice,” Jaemin commented absentmindedly as he ran his fingers over your stockings. “I haven’t seen them before…”

“I-I bought them yesterday,” you said, tense at the view of two wolves slowly being consumed by their rut staring at your legs.

“Oh? For our special guest?” your boyfriend asked.

You nodded, and then yelped when he grabbed the elastic of one of the stockings and snapped it on your thigh.

“You hear that, Jeno? She bought these for you. What do we say?”

“T-thank you,” Jeno stuttered, ready to pass out. His hands hovered over your legs cautiously. “Can I?” he asked no one in particular. Or to anyone who was willing to give him permission.

Jaemin looked at you, silently asking for confirmation.

“Y-yeah…if you want…” you said shyly.

Jeno placed his hands gently on your legs, drawing delicate patterns with his fingertips which soon turned into rough grabbing and kneading. He placed a daring kiss on an area of your inner thigh that was not covered by fabric and then turned to look at Jaemin, hoping he hadn’t gone too far. But his best friend just gave him a lazy smirk, resting his head on your other thigh.

So Jeno became braver and gave your thigh an open, wet kiss, making you moan out loud and shiver. He groaned, sucking on your skin candidly. “Taste so good, s-so sweet…” he breathed out.

“You have no idea,” Jaemin alluded, lifting Jeno’s chin with his hand to divert his attention somewhere else.

“Oh, fuck…Oh, god,” Jeno weeped when he saw a dark stain on your panties. “Please, I need to…”

Smirking, Jaemin took the lead and licked the border of your underwear, right where your thigh and your core met.

“Ah!..haa… Jaem–,” you mewled, tilting your head back when he slid only the tip of his tongue under the fabric.

Hesitantly, Jeno joined him, kissing the visible wet patch before giving it kitten licks, groaning at the taste.

“Shit…” you cursed. They had barely touched you and you were dripping.

Jaemin pushed his tongue deeper under your panties, and Jeno followed, both licking blindly and collecting as much of your wetness as they could. But soon it wasn’t enough, and Jeno started pulling your panties down, and although Jaemin would have loved to tease you more, he was losing himself to his rut too, so he assisted Jeno in taking your underwear off and exposing your wet pussy.

You didn’t have time to get shy at the sudden exposure, because immediately both mouths were on you, Jaemin attaching himself to your clit while Jeno penetrated you with his tongue. Jeno couldn’t believe his luck; he had you where he always wanted, but he couldn’t help thinking that it was unfair that he couldn’t have you sooner. He had to make up for all the wasted time. He had to devour you.

He licked and sucked everything on his way, until he reached your clit and joined Jaemin in licking it.

“FUCK! F-fuck o-ooh…w-wait ahh–AH!” you moaned brokenly and lied back on the bed when you felt both tongues on each side of your clit, licking up and down, slow and then fast, occasionally colliding with each other and moaning at the wet mess they were making. “Jaem, b-baby this is…,” you had no words to describe it. “J-jeno…”

Jeno groaned, and gave your clit an open kiss, right at the same time Jaemin was toying with it with his tongue, which ended up with them messily making out with your clit trapped between two mouths.

“Haa…ah, shit,shit,shit.. oh my f-fucking…,” you panted heavily, squirming and pulling the bedsheets desperately. “T-this is insan–Aah! Ah, ah–oh–Fuh–!” you arched your back when you felt someone’s finger slide inside of you, making you cum harder than ever before in your life. Jeno hummed and Jaemin chuckled, the vibrations making you feel like the climax would never end.

Jaemin was the first to pull away and got undressed, while Jeno was still drinking your release and making you whimper in oversensitivity. Once Jaemin got rid of his clothes, he got on the bed and pulled your helpless body towards him, ignoring Jeno’s protests.

“I wasn’t done!” Jeno growled.

“You can have more later,” Jaemin said.

“…Promise?”

“Promise. But now I need to breed her,” your boyfriend explained, positioning you on your belly with a pillow under your hips for a better angle.

Jeno choked on his saliva and climbed on the bed. He had walked into your place without knowing what to expect and now they were talking about breeding? Like, being inside of you? He stared at Jaemin with pleading eyes.

“What? You want to fill her up too?” Jaemin asked casually. “Hmm… I guess the more cum the better if we want pups. But you have to wait for your turn.”

Jeno nodded dumbly. He would agree to anything if that meant he could cum inside you.

You tried to rock your ass against Jaemin’s hips, letting him know you were growing impatient and he let out a breathless laugh.

“Yeah? You want to be full of cum? Hmm?”

“P-please…” you hiccupped.

And who was Jaemin to say no? At first he slid only the tip in, enjoying seeing you squirming for more. He was going to tease you by making some mean comment, but just when he opened his mouth, Jeno (who had positioned himself behind him) grabbed your hips and pushed you towards Jaemin harshly, making him enter you all the way and all three of you moan.

“J-jeno!” Jaemin yelped in surprise and pleasure. He was trapped between Jeno and you, feeling his best friend’s erection on his ass cheek and your warmth around his cock. “Jeno I told you to… w-wait for your t—oohh!” He moaned, his body bending over yours as Jeno thrusted against him and pulled you closer rhythmically.

“I’ll wait b-but… wanna— wanna feel good too…” Jeno slurred, sliding his cock between Jaemin’s ass cheeks and rutting against him harder without letting you go.

“If…if you p-put it in I’ll kill you, I swea—aah!” Jaemin moaned, inevitably letting the pace be decided by Jeno.

“I won’t,” Jeno promised, going faster. “Juh-just like this, I’ll d-oooh! Do it just like this, fuuuck…”

Letting out broken moans, you looked over your shoulder and saw Jaemin lost in pleasure, for the first time letting somebody else be in charge and god his facial expressions were so hot you felt yourself close to your release in record time.

“F-faster… Jeno, harder—Mmmh fuck, yes! Yeah…aah,” Jaemin pleaded, the volume of his moans escalating. “Need to…need to g-give her pups, need t-to fill her…”

Jeno groaned and pressed his whole body against Jaemin’s, using his weight to give forceful, animalistic thrusts that had your clit chafing the pillow and seeing stars.

“Jeno! I’m s-so close— too close gonna… ah! Ah! Oh, Jaemin’s too… too deep, gonna—“ as if wanting to show you it could get deeper, Jeno pushed hard, forcing Jaemin’s knot inside of you and making you come undone. You screamed as loud as your lungs allowed you and shook violently while Jeno and Jaemin kept fucking into you.

“Oh shit…,” Jaemin panted, feeling himself losing all control. “Gonna give you my pups, one after the other, you won’t… haaa fuuck yes, you won’t remember what it’s like n-not to be pregnant, baby, gonn—aaah! Ah! Uuuhh…” Jaemin babbled incoherently until his release, emptying himself inside of you and groaning.

Jeno sighed, continuing to rut against Jaemin very lightly for a bit, before he removed himself from top of both of you to let you rest.

But Jaemin had a different idea: holding your shaking body against his, he sat up, pulling you with him, so he was now sitting with you on his lap, cock still buried inside of you.

“J-Jeno, get in front of her,” Jaemin requested. “Let’s make her cum again.”

You shook your head weakly and whined and Jeno seemed unsure you could take it.

“She has to cum again,” Jaemin mumbled incoherently, all rational thoughts gone, just his primal desires left. “Help her suck my seed deeper inside… secure a baby…”

Jeno groaned in approval. He hadn’t thought of pups until today, but Jaemin made it sound so right… and you would look so good…

Carefully, Jeno sat in front of you and kissed your lips softly, before moving to your cheek and neck, this time avoiding Jaemin’s mark as a sign of respect. Gently, he lowered the straps of your bra and exposed your boobs, taking turns to kiss and touch them equally and listening to your sighs… and then he remembered, Jaemin had promised Jeno he could taste you again.

So Jeno wasted no time in positioning himself on his belly in between your and Jaemin’s legs.

“Jeno…w-what are you…?” You whispered tiredly.

Jaemin caught on faster, his eyes glinting maliciously and reaching for your thighs to force them to remain open. “Shh… you’re gonna love this,baby…”

“Wha—FUCK!” You screamed when you felt Jeno’s tongue on your pussy again, moving his head up and down enthusiastically. “J-jeno I…I can’t…”

“She can,” Jaemin contradicted you. “Suck on her clit, hard,” he instructed the other wolf.

Jeno did just that. His mouth surrounded your clit and he suctioned it like it was the sweetest candy.

“Oh…hoo,fuck, please, I can’t—“ you cried, trembling in Jaemin’s strong arms.

Jeno looked up and let go of you falteringly.

“No! She was so close,” Jaemin lamented. “Why did you stop?!”

“She's crying…”

“Already?” Jaemin turned your head towards him to check on you. “Oh, baby… are you loving it that much?”

“Is she okay?” Jeno asked

“Yeah… she gets like this when she’s too cock drunk,” Jaemin chuckled, kissing your tear stained face.“Keep going,” he commanded Jeno.

“You sure?”

“She has a safe word, don’t you, baby?”

You nodded weakly.

“Do you need to use it?”

This time you shook your head.

“See? She’s fine…” Jaemin purred, kissing your neck comfortingly.

Jeno got back to lapping at your pussy, but very delicately compared to before. Jaemin rolled his eyes and grabbed the back of Jeno’s head, pushing him as close to your core as possible. Jeno groaned and you screamed, throwing your head back and fidgeting, your hands scratching Jaemin’s arms in desperation.

Jaemin kept Jeno’s head in place and started rutting into you messily until you finally let out a silent scream and your walls contracted around his cock, squeezing some more cum out of him.

“O-ooh yeah… That’s right, baby—take it…Nngh…” Jaemin grinned. “That’s a good girl…”

You sobbed, trying to push Jeno away, but he didn’t move even after Jaemin set him free. He was just lapping at your core happily.

“Don’t be selfish, Y/N,” Jaemin scolded you playfully. “Jeno has been taking such good care of you these months. Let him have some fun.”

“I k-know but I…it hurts,” you complained faintly.

“Fine,” Jaemin said, successfully pushing away a pouting Jeno and lying you down on your belly again. “Ah, shame…my knot is deflating,” he grunted as he started to pull out of you and his cum leaked out. “What a waste…”

Jeno, now sitting next to Jaemin, was mesmerized by the view of your release mixed with Jaemin’s dripping out of you. Jaemin glanced at his friend and smirked.

“...You wanna help me push it back in?” Jaemin suggested casually.

Jeno nodded, using his fingers to push some sticky cum into your hole as you whimpered and squirmed.

“Not like that,” Jaemin laughed. Jeno gave him a confused look and Jaemin sighed, frustrated. He really had to do everything himself around here. “Don’t you think she could use something bigger?”

Jeno, feverish and dumbed out because of his rut, stared down at his hands, never before considering he had small hands…until what Jaemin said clicked, and he looked down at his hard cock, and then at your wet pussy, and then at Jaemin.

“R-really?”

Jaemin shrugged. “I’m getting her pregnant today, with or without your help. You might as well help, since you’re here.”

“Oh shit…” Jeno mumbled. This was really happening.

“If you don’t want to, I’ll just go again–”Jaemin warned him, already positioning himself in your entrance again.

“NO!” Jeno blurted out. “Please, I’ll…I’ll help.”

Jaemin bit back a smile and got off the bed, giving Jeno as much space as he needed.

“C’mon, don’t be shy,” he encouraged Jeno.

Jeno nodded nervously, kneading your ass cheeks and staring at your presenting body. But something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he wanted to have you, so he placed his hands on your hips and turned you around, making you face him.

You blinked in surprise at the man on top of you and he gave you a shy smile.

“Hi,” he said.

“H-hi…”

“I want to see you. Is that okay?” he asked quietly, like he was afraid it would be too intimate for you. Because he wasn’t the one mated to you, after all. He wasn’t Jaemin.

You lifted your upper body and kissed his lips sweetly, trying to relieve his nerves. “I’m okay with that. Now fuck me…”

Jeno groaned and slid into you in one smooth movement. You arched your back and moaned, while Jeno bent over you, his abs contracting in pleasure.

“Fuck, I can’t b-believe this is happening,” Jeno’s lips trembled with each word, slowly pulling out and in again. “Wanted this for so long, Y/N…”

“Nngh…ah…”

“So wet for me…” Jeno purred, giving a harsh thrust and hitting a spot that made you shake and scream. “There?”

“Y-yes…the-AH! You yelled when he aimed at the same spot repeatedly, accelerating his movements.

“Yeah? Is t-that where you like it, baby?” Jeno hissed, the nickname slipping after hearing it so many times. He avoided it before because he thought it was something Jaemin could call you. But now that he had you impaled on his cock it was hard to see where the boundaries were.

Jaemin was enjoying the show next to the bed, palming himself slowly. “Give it to her harder, Jeno. Like you mean it.”

Jeno’s eyes met Jaemin’s and he saw a challenge. So he grunted and snapped his hips harder and faster, pulling your legs around his waist.

“Aahh… O-oh my g–ooh…” you moaned, fat tears sliding down your cheeks and staining the bedsheets.

Jaemin kneeled next to you on the bed and caressed your face. “Is Jeno doing a good job, baby?” he whispered.

You nodded and sobbed.

“Should we keep him?” your boyfriend asked.

You nodded faster and Jeno fucked you even harder.

Jaemin chuckled. “Jeno,” he called out. When Jeno managed to focus his eyes on him, Jaemin pushed your hair away from your face and neck and he pointed at a spot on your neck on the opposite side of where Jaemin’s mark was. “Here,” he instructed.

Jeno’s movements halted and he stared from your neck to Jaemin with wide eyes. But when Jaemin gave your forehead a kiss and stared back at Jeno, expectantly, Jeno knew exactly what to do. Not wanting to give Jaemin time to take it back, he dove in and bit your neck, holding your fidgety body firmly against his while Jaemin whispered comforting words in your ear. When Jeno let go of your neck, and looked at you, your dazed face was enough to almost make him cum in the spot.

“F-fuh…fuck she looks so pretty…”

Jaemin nodded dreamily. “She’s definitely meant to carry two marks on her skin…,” he agreed, but then he looked at your stomach. “But there’s something else I want her to carry right now…”

“Leave it to me,” Jeno said, grabbing your hips and pulling you harshly towards him.

“Aahh! Too much…J-jeno…too-ah! much…”

Jeno groaned and bounced you on his dick harder while Jaemin cooed, massaging your boobs and kissing you here and there. But your boyfriend couldn’t continue ignoring his painful erection, so he positioned himself next to your face and turned your head to the side, rubbing his tip against your lips. You opened your mouth wider eagerly, allowing him to fuck your mouth lazily.

“Your tiny mouth’s so good baby,” he panted, throwing his head back and pushing his hips closer to your face. “Normally I would think it’s a waste not to cum inside of you…but I think once is okay, since Jeno will make sure you’re well bred, right Jeno?”

Jeno nodded automatically, watching his cock disappear inside of you over and over. His thrusts became more desperate when his knot started to grow and you tried to squirm away unconsciously, but Jeno’s strong hands on your hips and Jaemin’s hold on your head had you trapped.

“You’re getting s-so tight, Y/N…,” Jeno grunted, fucking into you sloppily and rolling his head back. “Born for this, for me, for us…Maybe one day this pussy will take both our knots, hmm?”

You choked and moaned around Jaemin’s cock and he fucked your face faster, sighing and panting. “Fuuuck, we’ll breed you s-suh…so good,” Jaemin mumbled deliriously. “Day and night, baby–oooh!”

“And you’re gonna t-take it all, yeah?” Jeno groaned in pain, finally pushing his knot inside of you and rutting into you hastily. “Take all our cum? Carry our pups, y-yeah? O-oh…oh shit, Y/N I’m… oh fuck, fuck, fuck I’m gonna…Ah! Aaaah fuck, Y/N FUCK!” he moaned loudly, finally releasing his cum inside of you and rubbing your clit fast until you tightened around him and spasmed, swallowing your moans along with Jaemin’s cock. “Ooooohh fuck, yeah…”

Jaemin let go of your head and took his cock out of your mouth, jerking himself off furiously until he released all over your face and chest, panting heavily. Once he was content with how he painted your skin, he sighed and laid down on the bed next to you, caressing your hair until you started dozing off.

Once Jeno calmed his ragged breath, he hovered over your body and started licking Jaemin’s cum off your skin. Jaemin looked at him tiredly, raising an eyebrow.

“I know I asked this years ago but are you sure you’re not… bisexual or something?” Jaemin asked.

Jeno snorted, giving your fresh mark a kiss. “Says the one who kissed me first.”

“Oh please, like you weren’t humping my ass,” Jaemin scoffed.

Jeno laughed. “To answer your question, I’ve never liked men. But I guess I’m okay with you…”

“I guess I’m okay with you too…” Jaemin conceded, starting to feel sleepy too.

“Jaemin…” Jeno whispered.

“...Hmm?”

“Can I really…be with you two? Is this really okay?”

Jaemin sat up and glared at him like he was the most stupid creature on Earth. “Jeno, I marked you. And you marked Y/N. Where else would you be if not with us?”

Jeno shrugged. “Just asking.”

“You ask the dumbest shit. If we imprinted on the same person, it was because we’re meant to stick together one way or another.”

“Yeah…,” Jeno sighed remembering what Doyoung had told him. “The Moon makes–”

“...No mistakes…” Jaemin completed his thought. “Who told you that cringe inspirational quote?”

“Doyoung hyung. Who told you?”

“Taeyong hyung.”

“...”

“They set us up, didn’t they?”

#nct imagines #nct smut #nct scenarios #nct drabbles #nct jaemin #nct jeno #nct dream smut #nct jeno smut #nct jaemin smut #na jaemin x reader #lee jeno x reader

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neowonderland · 6 months ago

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Jeno, Jaemin, and Renjun as dark fairytales

Pairings: Werewolf Jeno x reader, Prince Renjun x reader, Prince Jaemin x reader Warnings: dark content

Dark Content, Minor please DNI

Disclaimer: this is a work of pure fiction. I do not condone the actions of any characters in this story and the actions do not reflect the idols in any way.

Jeno- Little Red Riding Hood

The villagers always warned against you taking the trail in the woods to your grandmother’s house.

They said it was dangerous for a young one to go alone, to beware of the fairies, the witches, the wolves that might lure you astray. They would try to scare you out of taking the trail by telling you stories, describing in detail people who had gone missing only to turn up mutilated beyond recognition. They told you stories of the people who had gone missing that were never found, never heard of again.

You never listened, ignoring the warnings, always putting your responsibility to take care of your grandmother first. Your grandmother was already isolated enough in the woods, not having many visitors due to the path taken to her home. It didn’t help that she was getting older and older and you never knew when your visit would be the last.

But, in hindsight, you should’ve listened. If you had listened, you wouldn’t have ended up in the scenario you were in now, heart pounding, head dizzy from the adrenaline, sprinting through the woods, a werewolf hot on your trail.

You tried your best to lose the werewolf, Jeno, taking turns you thought you knew down the dark, winding path in the woods. You realized it was a mistake as the surroundings became more and more unfamiliar until you were completely lost, caught cornered in a dead end covered with brambles.

“Little Red, are you done running from me?” Jeno asked, taking confident strides towards you. You cowered, avoiding Jeno’s gaze.

Renjun- Cinderella

“You look so scared. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. I'm just going to make you mine."

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way

It was supposed to be your night out. It was supposed to be your break from the nightmare you called your home-life.

Instead, you were trapped in the center of the ball, trying to free yourself from Prince Renjun’s grip on your wrist. You were surrounded by hundreds of people, gazes burning into you as they all watched your beautiful dress turn back to rags as the clock struck 12.

You can feel your knees grow weak and the tears fall as you heard the gasps of shock and disgust ripple throughout the audience, whispers starting to arise. You tug against Prince Renjun’s grip again, trying to free yourself from his grip again. Everything became too much, the bright chandeliers overstimulating instead of welcoming, the whispers growing louder, the room spinning as you try time and time again to free yourself from Renjun, collapsing onto the floor as your begin to sob.

Renjun watches you as you fall, still gripping your wrist tightly, a soft lovesick smile on his face.

“I’ve found you, my Cinderella. I’ll never let you go.”

Jaemin- The Little Mermaid

You’re trapped, fully dependent on Prince Jaemin

You bang against Jaemin’s chest as Jaemin embraces you.

It’s your wedding day with Jaemin and you want to go home, you want to go back to the ocean and be with your family. Coming to the land and chasing after Prince Jaemin was a mistake. You never should have step foot in the land of the living.

Now you’re stuck on land, unable to communicate with others that you’ve been held captive by Prince Jaemin. You can’t even walk back to the sea, your legs being broken by Jaemin for trying to run away.

You want to shout at Jaemin, scream at him to let you go, tell him that he can’t keep you here and that meeting him was a mistake. You try to scream, you try to yell, but nothing comes out. Jaemin smiles.

“My love, are you throwing another one of your tantrums again? Do you want me to break your arms too like how I’ve broken your legs?”

#nct dream #nct x reader #dark nct #na jaemin #na jaemin x reader #nct dream x reader #huang renjun #huang renjun x reader #lee jeno #lee jeno x reader

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neocitybooty · 1 year ago

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Say Yes. [M]

Genre: ABO, SMUT, ROMANCE, READER X MEMBER

Warning: Unprotected sex, SMUT, oral, dirty talk, profanity, some horror (?)

Summary: You are offered a choice that would change your life as you know it.

Word count: 5.2k

Currently playing: Lips- NCT 127

A/N: Jaemin brainrot has led me here. Can you believe??!? He is working so hard to climb higher on my bias list and it's working!! fhjdgjkdshgkja Please enjoy and interact. I will now retreat and continue working on my ongoing stories.

“He’s been staring for the past 20 minutes. What a creep.”

“They always get like this around this time of year. God, I hate this so much.”

“This is supposed to be our busiest day. I won’t make rent if we get our hours cut again”

“Customers keep leaving. We are about to be in some deep shit. It will be a dog’s fault, once again. I like them better when their muzzles are shut. Fucking mongrels.”

“Shhh, he can hear us!”

You stared back at the very obvious Alpha seated in the booth near the entrance of your family’s restaurant.

He finally stood and started to walk to you. He was incredibly handsome. He couldn't be older than 25. He stood at about 5’10 with silver hair. He wore the widest smile you’d ever seen on any male. Human or werewolf. You took a step back, flashbacks of what an Alpha’s fangs could do….started to play in your head.

“Hello.” He said. His voice was nothing like what you were expecting. And his eyes.... They lit up once he noticed that he had all of your attention, the wide smile never leaving his face.

“I didn’t mean to scare you or your coworkers.” He looked past you, to the concerned women behind you with worried expressions on their faces. “I come in peace.” He looked back at you and raised both arms.

You shook your head and took another step back.

“Please leave.” You said in a quiet voice and nodded towards the door. “You’ve scared all of the customers away.”

His smile drained from his face but he made no attempt to leave. He frowned and stepped closer. You, along with the rest of the staff, gasped in unison.

He chose to ignore them and kept his focus on you. “I can pay everyone for the week.” Your eyes widen. “But only on one condition..”

The smile returned as his eyes turned a fiery red. “You come with me.”

“Do not go with him!” Your younger brother said from behind the counter. Nobody dared to come any closer but your brother was always the bravest out of the bunch.

The young alpha looked at your younger brother and tilted his head.

“There’s no need to worry. I promise to bring her back. Alive.” He said as his gaze shifted back to you, his jaw now clenching. You couldn’t see any other reason for that other than him gradually losing patience.

“You guys. It’s okay. I’ll go.” You said as the Alpha put his hands in his pockets and flashed a smile at you.

“Payday is this Friday.” You told him in a low voice.

“Just give me the bank information and I’ll have one of the Betas take care of it.” He said with a smirk. “Now. I think it’s time for us to leave. Don’t you agree?” He nodded towards the door.

You nodded in response and walked around to the back to grab your things. You came back to the front and left the front door keys on the counter.

“Please close up and go home. I will be fine.” You said as you walked to the door where the Alpha held the door open for you. He watched your every move and bit his lip as you passed him and went into the bright, spring day. He followed you outside and let the door close behind him as the chimes collided into each other.

You turned around to look at him, but said nothing.

“Yes?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Who are you and what do you want with me?” You asked him.

He stared at you and began to laugh.

You looked at him with a look of confusion. Did he think you were joking?

“I don’t know if you know this, but you’re supposed to get the guy’s name before you leave with him.”

You wanted to slap that ridiculous smile off his face. Of course he found humor in your panicked choices. Alphas never have to worry about their safety. The perks of being at the top of the food chain. You had six employees that would’ve ended up dead in an instant had you made one wrong choice. Finding out the Alpha’s name was last on your list of priorities.

“I am sorry but there were more important things for me to worry about…” You said as you folded your arms.

The Alpha reached out and gently unfolded your arms with both hands. Your jaw dropped as he placed both arms at your sides. He let his hands linger on your wrists before fully letting go..

“You really shouldn’t do that. It makes you look very unwelcoming.” He then said, his eyebrows meeting together in the middle of his forehead, paired with a crease. “My name…My name is Jaemin.”

He then slightly nudged you to the brick wall to your right as a sudden influx of people started making their way onto the sidewalk. The daily lunch rush.

“Okay, Jaemin. I’m assuming you already know my name.” You started.

“Yes, I do.” Jaemin responded. He was towering over you and simply observing your features but you felt as if the air was being pushed out of your lungs.

“O-Okay, so what do you want from me..” You finally got out. You had a very strong feeling deep in your gut about what he was possibly after. Coming to a human infested city when he could be enjoying his time with his pack somewhere deep in the woods..

Jaemin didn’t respond. Instead he grabbed your hand and led you to his car. You scoffed underneath your breath as he opened the passenger door to the very expensive sports car. But you got in and waited quietly as Jaemin entered through the driver’s side and started the car.

You said nothing for the entire drive and Jaemin allowed it. You watched in the rearview as the skyscrapers became smaller by the minute. You could pinpoint the exact spot in which the land turned into werewolves territory. The trees were healthy, the houses were huge, and the roads were lonely. You said nothing as Jaemin pulled into the driveway of the biggest mansion you’d ever seen. Made of…wood.

Jaemin stopped the car and the two of you looked at each other in silence. He smiled as he unbuckled your seatbelt. You then opened your door and he exited the vehicle, as well. You shut the door just as Jaemin appeared by your side. He grabbed your hand and led you to the front door. He opened it without unlocking it and brought you inside. You gasped and quickly put a hand over your mouth.

There were so many of them. Were they all Alphas? No way. They all looked at you as soon as the door opened but said nothing. There had to have been at least twenty of them. You involuntarily squeezed Jaemin’s hand, out of fear.

“Easy. Your heart is going to stop beating at this rate.” Jaemin pressed his ear as he spoke to you.

“A human?” A voice said from your left side. You quickly turned to see a very tall male walking towards you. “This is what we have been smelling?”

The look on his face was complete bewilderment. He ran fingers through his hair and chuckled to himself. “Do you know how much danger you’d be in, if it were any other Alpha that got to you first?

“Alright, Johnny. That’s enough.” Jaemin motioned for the taller male to cool it down. “I haven’t told her anything.”

Johnny mouthed “O” and stepped away slowly. The others in the house made no attempt to speak with you. Instead they returned to their previous conversations. Jaemin shook his head as he brought you to a spacious and beautifully decorated room. He closed the french doors and looked back to face you.

“Spill.” You said without missing a beat.

“I chose you as my mate.” He looked at you with a straight face.

“Come again?” You asked him, unsure of what you’ve just heard.

“You heard me right the first time. I really don’t like repeating myself.” Jaemin replied with an eyeroll.

“And how exactly are we supposed to mate?” You asked him.

“Oh….. I don’t actually know. Maybe you can tell me how babies are made.” He shot you a mocking smirk with a raised eyebrow.

You nodded as a subtle smile formed. Just for a brief second, you’d forgotten Jaemin was an Alpha, but he reminded you quickly.

“I see..” You turned your back to Jaemin and walked towards the regal bed in the middle of the room and sat down at the edge. “What does this mean for me?”

“It means you are receiving an opportunity that many humans can only dream of.” Jaemin slowly walked over to you, his boot heels thumping against the wooden floor.

You watched Jaemin as he slowly made his way to you. He was calm and alluring, but above all, he was a mystery.

“Do I even have a choice here?” You asked Jaemin as he sat next to you.

He bit his lip and tilted his head but you could still see the smile form on the side of his face. He truly had never experienced a single worry.

“Oh humans…” Jaemin began. “Of course you have a choice. I can’t mate you without your consent. But I know you will choose me. You see….There are some factors that are in my favor.”

“Oh?” You could feel yourself falling deeper as he continued to talk. There was something about the way he enunciated his words and the tone he used to speak to you. It was much different than when he spoke to the Johnny character downstairs.

“Tell me. How much success have you actually had with human males? Can’t be too much, because I know you haven’t been touched in months. Your scent is all female. Not a single trace of male.” He stopped and sighed deeply. “I would never neglect you. I would never leave you. And I would make sure you never lacked anything you truly wanted. Now….does that sound so bad?”

You gulped at his words and he finally looked over to face you.

“You should also understand something about how we Alphas operate. Usually….among werewolves…The Alpha picks up the scent of an Omega and that Omega eventually becomes his mate. But things are a bit different with humans. If one Alpha has picked up on your scent, well that means so have many others…”

“Excuse me?!” You blurt out. “What do you mean by that?”

“It means exactly what I said. It was only going to be a matter of time before you found yourself with quite the werewolf problem.” Jaemin laid on the bed with an elbow propped to keep him on his side.

“So basically it’s you or whatever the fuck is out there looking for me right now.” You said, beginning to bite your nails.

“Hey.” Jaemin shook his head and pulled your hand away from your mouth. “There is no need for the nerves. Let’s just be grateful that it was me that found you.”

“I am never going back to my family, huh?” You ask quietly.

“Being an Alpha’s mate isn’t a prison sentence. My goodness.” Jaemin rolled his eyes. “You’ll be able to see your family as much as you please.”

“Oh.” You said, a bit embarrassed. Maybe you’d read one too many books about Alphas.

“I am getting really tired of being patient with you.” Jaemin muttered underneath his breath.

“Excuse me?!” You responded to his sass, unsure how anyone else dealt with him.

Jaemin said nothing but instead, began to lightly stroke your arm. His fingers were hot. They weren’t that hot when he touched you a few minutes prior. His eyes were focused on your skin and you could see him bite his lips in admiration.

“Jaemin?!” You said as he started to trail kisses up your arm.

“So pretty…” He finally reached your neck and began to suck as he pulled you closer to him by your waist.

You froze as you felt your panties become soaked. Jaemin hiked your skirt up over your hips and let it bunch on your waist before lifting you up and placing you on top of him.

“I need to be inside you.” He half groaned. “I need it.”

He then grabbed the back of your neck and kissed you deeply. Tongues fought for dominance as you began to leak through your panties. A deep growl grumbled in Jaemin’s chest once the scent reached his nose. He finally broke the kiss and looked at you with lust crazed eyes.

Jaemin was now breathing heavily. His hold only grew tighter around you as he started thrusting up.

“You’re so wet. I can feel it on my thigh.” He said reaching into your shirt. “You’re just as much of a cock slut as Omegas, aren’t you?” He said into your ear as he massaged a nipple between two fingers.

“Oh my…” You breathed as you felt a hard bulge at your core.

Jaemin kissed your neck and hummed. You felt him smile as he inhaled your scent once more. “Gonna fuck you so deep.” He started to rip your blouse open, the buttons flying in every direction.

You squealed as he shoved his entire face into your cleavage.

“God, you feel so fucking good.” Jaemin’s eyes fluttered and closed as he took a bud into his mouth and started to suck on it gently. You moaned softly and finally gained enough courage to touch him.

Sharp ridges could be felt underneath the silk button up he wore. You let your hands roam to the smooth skin on his collarbones and to his chest until you reached to the point where his shirt held together with three buttons.

You hesitated for a second but started to undo his shirt. Jaemin noticed and let the nipple slip out of his mouth with an obscene slurp. He looked up at you with red eyes again and gave a toothy grin.

“You’ve been nothing but skeptical since the moment we’ve met but now look at you.” He let you continue to undress him and pulled his arms out of the sleeves once you were finished unbuttoning his shirt.

“My Alpha is calling out to you. He’s very excited. Gonna fuck you until you’re begging me to mate you.” Jaemin rubbed your thigh as he hummed. He smiled when you slightly trembled at his touch. “Are you scared?” He said with a smile as he lifted you and placed you on your back, letting you melt into the soft pillows.

You shook your head no, afraid you’d only confirm Jaemin’s theories. “So it’s not fear that I’m hearing.” Jaemin said as unbuttoned your skirt and pulled it off of you.

Before you could respond, he took both of your legs and spread them and pushed them towards your shoulders. He lowered himself until he was facing your core.

“Jaemin, no!” You screamed.

He paused and sat up with a confused look on his face.

“You said you couldn’t do this without my consent. Well..you don’t have it.” You sat up and grabbed the blanket to cover yourself.

Jaemin placed both hands on his thighs and sighed. “You are truly something.”

“I’m not- I’m not ready.” You stutter.

“For sex..” Jaemin raised an eyebrow. “Or for sex….with me.”

You threw him a look of indifference and he moved off the bed. You didn’t know why but you felt a pang of disappointment as he put on his silk button up and started to button it up.

“Here.” He opens a door and you can see that it is a walk in closet. “Change into something. Dinner should be ready soon.”

“At 3pm?” You ask him.

“We are werewolves. We eat once a day.” Jaemin said before walking out the door and shutting it behind him.

You sat in silence as you tried to gather your thoughts. Was he angry? He sure didn’t seem like it, if he was. Your stomach started to growl, so you quickly got up and half ran to the closet.

“No way.” You gulped and walked deeper into the closet. The closet seemed to have belonged to a woman. A woman that wore your size. A woman that had your same exact style. You pulled a maxi dress off a hanger and pulled some underwear from a built-in drawer.

Within minutes, you emerged from the closet feeling brand new. You had on a pair of dry underwear and you were out of your work clothes.

The aroma of a feast filled the entire hallway as you made your way to the circular staircase. The entire house was booming with bass filled laughter from Alphas and it only grew louder as you descended down the stairs. Once you reach the bottom, you hear someone clear their throat. Jaemin is waiting for you at the side of the staircase and he’s wearing the warmest smile.

He reached out his hand and for the first time that day, comfort led you to take it. “I thought you’d be mad at me.” You said softly, a bit intimidated by the amount of eyes on you.

Jaemin wrapped an arm around your shoulder and squeezed. “I can’t be mad at a human for experiencing human emotions, now can I?” He said into your ear before giving you a peck on your cheek.

Truth was, you were terrified of going all the way with Jaemin. How much of your life would change once you fully immersed yourself into a community full of werewolves? How likely were you to be accepted? What would truly become of your family?

“Still can’t believe you really turned out to be a human.” A deep voice said from behind you. You turned and saw a new alpha eyeing you and Jaemin. You froze, afraid this meeting would take a turn for the worse.

The Alpha looked at Jaemin and then looked at you. “Nevertheless, you are beautiful. Jaemin has always had a tendency to follow beautiful things.” He took a swig of his beer and stepped closer. “Just so you know, we all know just how scared you are. You don’t have any reason to be. You’ll find out soon enough.” He tapped Jaemin on the shoulder before leaving.

“That was Jaehyun.” Jaemin said as soon as the Alpha disappeared. “He’s very friendly. As are the rest of us. Here, let me show you around.”

You felt your mood change as Jaemin held your hand and led you through the numerous lively bodies in the mansion.

When you arrived earlier, you only saw males but now there were also females as well as young ones. One of them ran to you and sniffed your hand without warning.

“Oh!” You exclaimed, completely surprised.

“Jisung, we talked about that!” An older Alpha came running after the young child.

“Sorry, dad! I just wanted to say hi.” The child said. He looked very apologetic and reached out both hands and lowered his head.

You looked at Jaemin and the Alpha with a confused look on your face.

“Grab both of his hands, if you forgive him.” Jaemin said into your ear.

You instantly grabbed the child’s hand and told him it was okay. He jolted up with the most adorable smile you had ever seen. Was he? Was he already an alpha? He looked like nothing more than a young boy.

“In case you were wondering, he is just a regular boy. The only difference between him and a human child right now is that he has more strength and a stronger sense of smell.” The Alpha, who you assumed was the father, said while seemingly reading your thoughts.

“Oh. I-uh.” You started to say.

“My name is Doyoung.” The Alpha smiled and extended his hand. You quickly shook his hand and told him your name.

“So nice to finally meet you. I hope you enjoy the dinner.” He gave you a warm smile and rubbed Jaemin’s shoulder before walking away with his child.

You immediately searched for Jaemin’s hand and he laughed. “Relax. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jaemin had only shown you the first floor of the mansion when you told him you were hungry.

“I guess I should feed you, huh?” He said, leading you to the kitchen. You weren’t sure how you even lasted so long.

You reached the dining room and felt your nerves go haywire. All eyes turned to you once you entered the room.

Some of the werewolves smiled and waved and it calmed your nerves a bit. Jaemin pulled out a chair and you sat down quietly. You were moved by his gesture but you tried your best to not let it show.

“Everyone seems so much nicer now.” You whisper to Jaemin.

“They weren’t sure who you were before, but they are now.” Jaemin said calmly.

“Oh…” It dawned on you that you were the only stranger in the entire mansion. You hadn’t taken into account how the others viewed you.

“Well how do they know so much now?” You asked him as the serving dishes began to get passed around.

“Oh, I told them while you were changing.” Jaemin said as he poured some wine into his glass.

“What did you tell them exactly?” You looked at him with widened eyes.

“I told them that you were the human I chose as my mate.” Jaemin responded nonchalantly.

“Oh wow.” You said. “And they just accepted it?”

“Of course.” He looked at you with a confused look. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“I mean….I’m not one of you.” You said in a soft voice.

Jaemin sighed. “That doesn’t matter. We are more alike than you think.”

“Well I am seeing that now…” You trailed off.

“Eat up. You said you were hungry. I don’t want you to starve.” Jaemin said, now digging into his food.

Thirty minutes later, you were finished with dinner and people were leaving the house.

“I thought everyone lived here?” You looked at Jaemin.

He looked at you and laughed. “Now, what would make you think that?” He asked.

“Everyone was here when we came earlier. And this place has like ten thousand rooms!” You said in a hushed whisper.

“That is true. But they only come to keep me company. It'll only be me and you most nights…” Jaemin said with a smile.

“Oh… I didn’t realize. You actually live alone.” You said, feeling a bit embarrassed. It all started to make sense.

Jaemin lived alone in a community where being alone wasn’t the norm. Word spread that he had found a potential mate and everyone decided to show up and see who it was. Your introduction as well as your presence was important to them. Jaemin wasn’t the enemy that you made him out to be. He was just trying his best to not make this any more nerve wracking for you then it already was.

“Can we go upstairs?” You asked Jaemin.

“Are you okay?” He said, his voice laced with concern.

“Yeah, I just want to be alone with you.” You tell him as you wrap an arm around his neck.

Jaemin stood up and waved to the few guests that were still sitting at the table. You did the same and they smiled back. On the way to the stairs, you saw Doyoung holding a sleeping Jisung in his arms, while talking to a few other Alphas.

Once in the room, you walk a few steps and then turn to face Jaemin.

“I’m sorry.” You blurt out. “I passed so much judgment. I don’t know anything. You have such a beautiful community standing behind you. Your home is amazing. There is nothing that you lack. What I am trying to say is…. let’s do it. Jaemin, let’s be together.”

Jaemin looked at you in awe. The smile slowly formed and by the time it reached his eyes, he was directly in front of you and you reached out to caress a cheek.

“I was sure you’d choose me.” He covered your hand with his own and bit his lip as he looked down at your own.

You felt your breath hitch as he lowered his face and pressed his lips onto yours.

“Do you want to try again?” Jaemin asked once he pulled away.

You nodded a few times and Jaemin kissed you again. This time he removed the straps from your shoulders and let your dress fall to the floor. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he lifted you up and wrapped your legs around his waist as he walked you both to the bed.

He laid you down and started to unbutton his shirt. He practically ripped off his shirt and threw it across the room. You wrapped your arms around him as he lowered down to kiss you again. He pushed his clothed boner into your core and you gasped.

“I know it feels really big but I can make it fit, I promise.” Jaemin said seductively in your ear. He rose again and this time he started to undo his belt.

“Jaemin, wait.” You stopped him again.

He froze and looked at you. But he didn’t say anything.

“Let me.” You sat up and went for Jaemin’s belt. He let you undo his belt as he softly rubbed your neck.

“I love how eager you are. We are going to have so much fun together.” You smile at him before you pull his hard cock out from his jeans. It was huge. Your mouth watered simply by the sight of it and you quickly became mesmerized by the birthmark on the side of his shaft. Determined to show that you were cut out for the job, you kissed him deeply.

“Shit...” Jaemin said, but then whimpered softly as you swiped your thumb across the tip, spreading his precum around. You hadn’t a clue how you were going to manage his entire length but you started with the tip and gradually worked your way down, opening your mouth wider so your teeth wouldn’t get in the way. You felt him successfully slide down your tongue as his abs flexed from his sudden intake of breath.

You opened your eyes to meet Jaemin’s, only to find him already gazing at you. He smiled widely and bit his lip once your eyes met. “Deep-throating on the first night…hmmm. What am I going to do with you?” He then held your head in place as he thrusted further down into your mouth, making you take his entire length. You gagged as tears formed in your eyes and spit spilled from your mouth.

“You look even prettier with tears in your eyes.”Jaemin chuckled. “Now keep that mouth open wide. I wanna fuck your throat so more.” You obeyed and he thrust in deeper with an elongated grunt. You continued to gag as you felt tears stream down your cheeks, his hardened, thick cock repeatedly hitting the back of your throat. You gasped loudly once he finally pulled out his entire length.

“Awww, you poor thing.” Jaemin tsked as you wiped your mouth in a frenzy of heavy breaths. “Let me make it a little easier for you.” He got off the bed and stepped out of his pants and briefs, before coming back to you and laying you on your back. He traced a finger along the outside of your soaked panties and mouthed a slow “Wow.”

You tried to close your legs, too consumed by the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment. Jaemin stopped you from closing your legs with his hand and smiled at you as he laid on the bed and rested between your legs. His face was right at your core and he draped one of your legs over a muscular shoulder. “You can’t hide that mouth watering scent away from me, pretty.” He said before kissing the inside of your thigh.

He slowly peeled the panties off of you and threw them across the room.

Jaemin looked at you and smiled once your eyes met his. He held eye contact with you as he dragged his tongue from the bottom of your wet folds to your already throbbing clit. You covered your mouth with both hands before any sound escaped as Jaemin began to suck on your bud. He removed your hands from your mouth as soon as he noticed what you were doing. “I want to hear.” He said before bringing his attention back to your glistening core. Within moments, you were a screaming, withering mess as Jaemin started to make out with the most sensitive spot. A familiar sensation started to boil in the pit of your stomach and you grabbed a fistful of the Alpha’s hair.

“I’m close! I’m so close!.”Jaemin immediately stopped and pulled himself away. You groaned in disappointment but instantly stopped once you felt Jaemin line himself up, readying himself to enter. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he pushed himself in. A half lidded smile appeared on his face as he went in deeper. It wasn’t long before tears formed in your eyes again.

“They say pain is pleasure, baby.” He said, wiping a tear from your cheek. “You must love this cock.”

You nod rapidly while gasping as you struggle to accommodate his entire shaft. “Yes, Alpha! I love it so much.”

Jaemin’s smile grows wider as he finally finds his rhythm. He lowers himself to your ear and licks the outer shell. “Rub your clit while I fuck your tight hole.” He mutters in your ear. You follow his order and start to rub on your bundle of nerves while Jaemin continues to plunge into you. He quietly chuckles to himself as he watches your eyes flutter close, leaving only the white showing, as you moaned loudly.

Jaemin watched as your face scrunched together and admired the soft breaths you let out before taking a breast into his mouth and gently sucking again.

“Alpha!” You screamed, the overstimulation becoming painfully unbearable.

“My princess, you are just so sensitive…” Jaemin groaned in your ear. He took both of your hands and locked them above your head in one hand, his thrusts going deeper than before. You felt your legs begin to shake as he slowly but surely began to near your spot.

“Do you like the way my cock stretches that pussy?” Jaemin asked, looking deep in your eyes once you opened them.

“Yes!” You blurt out.

“Can I mark you as my mate?” He asked, his eyes now glowing red.

You gasp but only mutter a strained “yes” as Jaemin finally hits your spot.

Your heart stops for a split second as you see fangs appear in the place of Jaemin’s human-like teeth. Before you can say anything, there is a splitting pain in the side of your neck. A blood curdling scream can be heard through the entire mansion as Jaemin sinks his fangs inside of your skin.

“That took much longer than expected.” Johnny said to Jaehyun as they finished up the last of the dishes.

“And they say humans aren’t a challenge.” Jaehyun chuckled and opened the front door for him and Johnny.

They locked the door from the inside and went home to their mates, leaving you and Jaemin to enjoy the mansion alone on your first night as official mates.

#na jaemin au #jaemin smut #jaemin x reader #member x member #nct dream #nct dream imagines #nct au #nct smut #nct dream smut #jaemin au #kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop au #abo smut #nct abo #nct dream abo #omegaverse

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starlightkun · 1 year ago

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❧ word count: 22.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, inaccurate descriptions of constellations bc this is a fantasy world ❧ genre: fluff, mild angst, slow burn, blind date, strangers to idiots friends to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, werewolf sungchan, human reader, ft. siren shotaro & various magical neos (and another extra special guest appearance!), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: so this is technically the spiritual threequel to my two werewolf jeno fics (pupsick + abh) but you still don’t have to read those to understand this one at all! this is absolutely meant to be read by itself! and this one is also very self-indulgent, from the a.c.e song title to werewolf sungchan, i had a very great time on this one, hence the word count. if you guys have even half the fun reading this as i did writing it, you’ll have a blast. enjoy! ❧ sequel

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

baby i’m your changer, changer, love is not a danger

Reclined on the plush, soft grass of the front lawn of your college with your hands behind your head, you basked in a particularly lovely patch of sunlight. It was January, the very beginning of the year and the semester, meaning that this would normally be a very chilly and unpleasant endeavor. Except you were sandwiched between two dryads. Dryads weren’t in and of themselves extra warm like dragons or werewolves, nor could one dryad on their own change the weather—and would most likely be influenced by it rather than the other way other—but if you got two together, and they were in a good enough mood, they could generate a little bubble of springtime around them. And for some reason, Jaemin and Donghyuck were in exceptionally high spirits today.

You knew the two dryads from Magical Botany Club, which you had joined your freshman year after you’d managed to kill the small cactus that your parents gave you as a housewarming present for your dorm. They were the only ones who didn’t immediately label you a lost cause, and instead saw you as a challenge. Now, your junior year, your apartment was a jungle to rival that of a dryad’s home, and you were even Vice President of the club this year.

After a long, refreshing inhale followed by an even longer exhale, you finally asked, “So what’s got you in such a good mood? It certainly can’t just be finalizing the calendar of club activities this semester.”

Jaemin was club President, and Donghyuck the Secretary/Treasurer, so this little sunbathing session before the start of the semester on Monday was really supposed to be an Executive Board meeting.

“Who, us?” Jaemin replied innocently.

“No, I was talking to the cardinal on Donghyuck’s leg,” you retorted sarcastically, gesturing to said bird that had also settled in to enjoy the cozy rays.

“We’re not planning anything,” Donghyuck said in the same tone as Jaemin.

You propped yourself up on one elbow to look down at your friend properly, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “I just wanted you to share whatever good news you had, I didn’t think you two were planning anything, but now I definitely do. What’s going on?”

“Donghyuck, you idiot!” The other dryad hissed at him.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you and that fairy are going to try to convince your human friend that aliens are real again. Leave that poor guy alone, he’s got enough on his plate just dealing with all of you being real and jerks to him.” You scoffed disapprovingly, remembering when they recounted that story to you at club a couple years ago. You had been tempted to check on Renjun yourself when you spotted him at the library the next day, but you didn’t know him personally, and didn’t think he’d appreciate it in the moment. Especially not since he looked like he was really focused on his work at the time, so you just let him be.

“It’s nothing like that, I swear,” Jaemin promised. “It’s nothing bad at all.”

You sat up all the way to be able to look at both of them at once. “Okay, what is it then?”

Donghyuck sat up too, the cardinal hopping up to his shoulder. “Long story short, we have a friend that we want to set you up with.”

“No thanks, guys.” You shook your head.

“You won’t even let us tell you about him?”

“I’m not really looking for anything right now. Not after my ex—”

Jaemin pushed his phone screen in front of your face then, a picture of a guy on it. It was presumably the friend they wanted to set you up with. He was around your age, tall—if where his head was in comparison to the doorway of this building was to be believed, wearing a black leather jacket. It looked well-worn, though, as if it might not have been his originally, handed down or thrifted at least. And yeah, he was cute, you weren’t blind. But you also knew not to just eat with your eyes, or else you’d get a tummyache.

“Seriously, Jaemin?” You looked at your friend over the phone screen. “You think I’m that shallow? One picture and I’m going to throw everything away?”

“Dude, show her the—” Donghyuck flapped his hand at the other dryad insistently.

“Oh, right, right.” Jaemin nodded as he began swiping and tapping on his phone fervently.

Donghyuck kept talking to you, “Of course we don’t think you’re shallow. We always meant to tell you about him, too. His name’s Jung Sungchan, he goes here, too, he’s a werewolf, he’s really nice, uh… Jaemin? Some help?”

You let out a sound that was a mix between a snort and a scoff. “Yeah, he sounds great.”

“Okay, he’s really more Jaemin’s friend than mine, sorry,” Donghyuck admitted. “Jaemin? What’s taking so long dude?”

“I don’t know! I can’t find it for some reason, I think he deleted it!” Jaemin muttered, his voice panicked. “I’m checking Jeno’s Instagram right now.”

“So Jeno knows him?” You asked. You didn’t know Jaemin’s werewolf roommate as well as you knew the two dryads, but you did know that they were all friends. “Are they in the same pack?”

“No, they actually know each other through Jeno’s… Ha! Found it!” Jaemin yelled out in celebration, flipping his phone around for you to see.

It was another picture, this time of Jeno standing next to the person you now knew to be named Sungchan. They were at what looked like a u-pick strawberry patch, each proudly holding up a large bucket filled to the brim with strawberries. Sungchan was in a white tank top—a brave choice for a strawberry farm—and shorts. Despite the outfit showing off a lot more of him than the last picture, it was his bright, happy grin that caught your eye, and you had to consciously make sure your gaze didn’t linger too long on the picture.

Turning your attention back to your friends, you prompted Jaemin, “Well? Do you know any more about him than he goes to our college and is a nice werewolf that knows Jeno?”

“Right! Yes!” Jaemin sat up straight at attention as you saw Donghyuck do a little fist pump of victory out of the corner of your eye. “He’s tall—”

“I can see that, he’s like almost two heads taller than Jeno; I meant his personality. This isn’t me saying yes, by the way.” You pointed to yourself and Jaemin talking. “This is me gathering data. I wanted to take time for myself after what happened with my ex, remember? I think it might be enough time, but I need a bit more than ‘he’s nice’ to get me out there.”

“Of course, of course. I really appreciate you even considering this for us,” he squeezed your arm for a moment before letting it go. “He’s really smart, Dean’s List every semester, uh, it might take a minute for him to warm up at first, but once he does, he’s funny, and insightful. And he doesn’t have that constant go-go-go energy that werewolves usually do, he’s so much chiller, so if you were worried about that, don’t be.”

“And, sorry, I know he’s your friend, but I have to ask…” You winced. “He’s not one of those werewolf guys that only dates human girls as like… you know… an ego thing?”

Donghyuck snorted, “Oh he’s not, promise.”

Tension you didn’t know you’d been carrying in your shoulders relaxed at that. “Good.”

“We do have to tell you one thing though,” Jaemin grimaced.

“What?”

“This isn’t just a random set-up because we think you guys would be cute—”

“Oh God, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He rushed to reassure you. “Like, that part is true, we do think you’d be a good match.”

“Let me guess: the ‘but’ that follows that sentence is related to the ‘long story’ that Donghyuck mentioned earlier?”

Jaemin nodded reluctantly. “Yeah… long story long, Sungchan made a deal, and his end of it was letting us set him up with anybody of our choosing.”

“You’re using a date with me to punish him?” You stood up, brushing the grass off your back. “Yeah, hard fucking pass. Thanks, guys, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“No, not a punishment!” Jaemin scrambled to get to his feet as well. As you walked off, the air around you turned cold again, marking when you left their bubble of spring. He called after you, “Y/N! I’m sorry! Please!”

You didn’t want to go back to your empty apartment yet though, so you found yourself meandering into a familiar storefront. Jasmine & Pearls, a boba tea shop just around the corner from your college campus. There was only one customer ahead of you in line, and you stared blankly at the menu just to look at something. You weren’t feeling very adventurous today, so you’d probably get your regular go-to order. After the customer before you had been helped, you shuffled up to the counter, messing with your phone case to pull your punch card out of the back of it.

“Hey, Y/N!” Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter today, greeted you cheerily.

The iridescent pink scales under the tip of his button nose and apples of his cheeks shimmered in the fluorescent lights, making him look like he had a perpetual hint of rosy blush across his skin. That, and his cherubic smile could almost make you forget what those scales and his flashing silvery eyes really meant—he was a siren, could lure you to your death if he so wanted to. Obviously, he didn’t want to, had no reason to, and that would literally be a murder charge nowadays, but you nevertheless found it fascinating that such a being was just here serving you boba tea.

A few months ago, you realized that you came here probably too often once all the workers knew your name, but by then it was too late. It was just too convenient, delicious, and pleasant of an atmosphere for you to feel ashamed enough to stop coming.

“Hi, Shotaro.” You smiled back at him. “Just a regular honey milk tea with boba, please. No charms today.”

“On it!” He accepted both your punch card and credit card from you. After handing them back, he spun around to make your drink, and you went to go wait for it at the bartop at the other end.

Curious, and with nothing better to do in that moment, you pulled up Jeno’s Instagram on your phone. From the main grid on his account, all you could see was pictures either with or of his partner. Cute. Then you finally saw one of them at a strawberry patch, Jeno in the same outfit as the picture Jaemin had shown you before. You clicked on that one, and sure enough it was a whole set of photos. You swiped through to find the one of him and Sungchan holding the buckets of strawberries. And Sungchan was tagged.

You looked up at Shotaro. The customer ahead of you still hadn’t gotten their drink. You checked the notifications on your phone. Nothing new to reply to. Well, here it goes. You clicked on his account.

And he was private. Well, good for him. Internet privacy.

You went back to Jeno’s Instagram to check if Sungchan had maybe appeared in any more posts. You just wanted to see if you could glean anything more about him.

You finally found him again in what looked like a big group trip to Cape Solaria at the end of last summer. There were probably fifteen people here at least. He popped up in a few different shots, playing beach sports with Jeno and some other guys that you didn’t recognize; joining in on throwing some poor small guy—who you presumed to be a witch, judging by the ritual tattoos he was covered in from neck to ankle—into the ocean; and sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with Jaemin and Renjun. And in every single one, Sungchan had such a genuine, pure, joyful smile. Like he was fully enjoying the moment and the people with him. Yeah, maybe you were projecting, but... surely it wouldn’t hurt to give it at least one chance?

“Y/N? Hello?” Shotaro was calling for you from the counter, shaking a drink that was presumably yours.

You snapped your head up, sheepishly turning your phone off and stuffing it away in your pocket. The other customer was nowhere to be seen; it was just you and the siren.

“Sorry, sorry.” You rushed up to accept the cup.

“It’s alright, you seemed like you were in the zone.”

You grabbed a straw, punching it out from the plastic wrapping. “In the zone of a little cyberstalking, as much as I hate to admit.”

“No shame here, we all do it. Who was it? Can I see?” He grinned mischievously.

“No,” you said flatly, stabbing your straw through the top of the drink. “My friends want to set me up.”

“Want to? Sounds like you haven’t said yes.”

“Perceptive.” You took your first sip.

“But you were cyberstalking them... So, you’re considering?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why not? Human lives are short.”

“Right. Thanks for that reminder.”

The bell above the front door rang then, announcing the entrance of another customer.

“Always here to help,” Shotaro patted your forearm before walking back to the register to greet the newcomer.

Two weeks later and you were nervously double-checking the name of the restaurant and the time that Jeno had sent you. Yep, this was it, and you weren’t weirdly early. You couldn’t believe how strange this felt, going on a date again. Comparing your outfit to the casual café as you walked in, you felt only a little better that you weren’t overdressed or underdressed either.

Your eyes scanned the building for Sungchan. You’d done enough cyberstalking on your own time in addition to the photos that your friends kept showing you to hype you up that you were certain you’d recognize him easily. It looked like you’d gotten here first. It was seat-yourself, so you might as well grab a table for the two of you.

You’d just come to a stop in front of a little two-seater and took your purse off to hang off the back of your chair.

“Y/N?” A voice came from behind you, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder.

You spun around, immediately face-to-chest with someone. Looking up, you did, in fact, recognize the face of Jung Sungchan. He was admittedly cuter in real life than in the multitude of pictures that Jaemin and Donghyuck had continued to show you in preparation for the date. You didn’t want to know what they’d been doing to prepare Sungchan.

“Hi, Sungchan?” You still phrased it like a question, watching as the man’s features relaxed into an easy smile of recognition.

“Yes, hello.” He raised his arms up slightly at the same time that you did, and you realized that the both of you were now presumably having the same internal debate about if you were supposed to hug your blind first date hello as a greeting.

Ultimately, the two of you did go in for an awkward short hug, and you let out a nervous chuckle, feeling the warmth radiating off of him in the brief contact. You immediately looked down at the table, “Uhm, should we sit?”

“Of course, yeah.”

And as the two of you sat down on opposite sides, you looked up from your fidgeting fingers to your date’s face, not expecting his brow to be furrowed as if he were troubled by something, his gaze affixed on you.

You shifted in your seat uncomfortably. “Is everything okay?”

“You’re not wearing any perfume...” He commented, and you let out a minuscule sigh of relief. That’s all it was, he was just a bit put off that you hadn’t put on a perfume like one might’ve normally done for a date. A detail that he would’ve of course picked up as a werewolf.

“Not that I expect any brownie points for this, but I uh, I didn’t want to overwhelm your nose, in case there were any smells you’re particularly sensitive to,” you explained, picking up the menu that was already sitting on the table.

“You did your research.”

“Oh, I’ve dated a couple werewolves before, actually.”

“Really? You got a type or something?” As soon as the word were out of Sungchan’s mouth, he went to take them back, seeming surprised even at himself, “Sorry, that was—”

“No, no, I get it,” you cut off his apology, your tone reassuring. You knew that there were people who had a disturbing preference for werewolves, so you could understand why you dating now three werewolves might initially look a little suspicious. “Uh, I went to a kind of small high school. Private school. There were a couple of packs in my area that sent like all of their kids there, so my graduating class ended up being like 75% werewolves. It was just kind of statistics, I guess.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry about that, again,” Sungchan apologized once more, relaxing in his seat a bit more as he actually started to peruse his own menu.

“Anyway, that’s not a great first date topic.” You forced out a light-hearted chuckle.

“What’s not?”

“Past relationships? I think that’s third or fourth at least, don’t you?”

“Mm, yeah, of course. Sorry.”

Desperate to redirect the conversation to a much lighter, neutral one, you asked, “So what’s your major, Sungchan?”

“Earth Sciences.”

“Geology or Climatology track?”

He perked up at this. “Meteorology and Climatology.”

“And what made you want to study that?”

“Well, at first I thought I wanted to study astrophysics, but it was too much math and too little actual space. But I really liked my Intro to Weather class I took my first semester to cover a random credit so I switched to that and it stuck.”

“Wait, was it a morning Monday-Wednesday-Friday with Professor- Professor...” Suddenly, the memory struck you. “Oh! Hwang? Fall semester three years ago?”

“Yes, I believe so...” He answered, head tilting with intrigue.

“I think I had it too!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I took it to get that Science credit as well.”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember you at all.”

“It’s okay, I don’t remember you either,” you laughed, just amazed at the coincidence. “It was a big auditorium.”

Sungchan must have figured out what he wanted, as he set down his menu and leaned his elbows on the table to give you his full attention. “So what are you studying?”

“I’m an Interdisciplinary Major,” you told him happily, thrilled that the conversation was going much more smoothly now. “I was a bit indecisive, too. Except I couldn’t find one thing that stuck like you did. So I chose two: Sociology and Magical Creatures Studies.”

His eyes dropped from yours as he scoffed under his breath, sitting back in his seat.

And there went your pleasant conversation again.

“What was that?” You asked tersely.

“I didn’t say anything.” He shook his head like he was trying to clear the unpleasant tone from the conversation, but you weren’t going to let him go that easily.

“No, but clearly you have an opinion. So go ahead.”

“Not really, I was just wondering if you’ve even dated anyone that wasn’t a werewolf.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “You think my major is just me cruising for a new boyfriend or something? Very expensive and essay-intensive compared to dating apps.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Y/N,” Sungchan held his hands up, looking back up at you again. His features turned apologetic. “I just… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“So were you going to actually ask me that if I didn’t confront you, or were you just going to make assumptions?”

“That really was rude of me,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, I mean… how do you ask someone something like that without coming off as a bit rude?”

“I suggest phrasing it like a genuine question instead of an accusation.”

“Right.” He took a second as if to compose himself, then asked, his tone much more conservational, “So, you said you dated a couple werewolves in high school. Uh, have you dated anyone else since coming to college, then? Before this?”

You did your best to return your own voice and manner to civility as well. “Dates here and there, but as for serious relationships, just one, I dated a human guy briefly.”

“And why did you break up? If you don’t mind telling me. I get it if it’s too personal.”

“It’s fine. He cheated on me.”

“So you’re of course looking for loyalty. Like, you know, a dog.” Sungchan fired back spitefully.

“Okay, I think we’re done here, Sungchan,” you declared, putting both your hands on the table to prepare yourself to stand.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he rushed to try to apologize for the umpteenth time that night, but you’d heard plenty by now.

“No, it’s fine, really,” you assured him, still moving to get up out of your chair and grab your purse. “You’ve obviously had some bad experiences in the past, none of which I’m privy to. It’s not fair to you to constantly be suspicious that your date has ulterior motives for being with you. But it’s also not fair to me to have to constantly defend myself either.”

He was quiet at that.

You continued, “We both deserve to be able to relax and have fun, and that’s clearly just not going to be able to happen. It’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work out. So, I’m going to go, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.”

And with that, you turned around and left the café.

The ringing of the bell above the door of Jasmine & Pearls barely registered in the back of your mind as you lumbered right up to the cash register the next day.

“Good afternoon, Y/N!” Shotaro greeted you cheerily.

“Hi, Shotaro...” You couldn’t muster up anything close to his level of enthusiasm, letting out a sigh. “Same old, same old, please.”

“Uh oh. Sounds like the date didn’t go so well?” He surmised, ringing you up then starting on your order.

“No, it didn’t,” you leaned against the counter to keep talking to him. “Barely lasted ten minutes.”

“That’s rough. You end it or did he?”

“I did. It was for the best but still... I thought I was going to really like this guy.” Based off nothing but social media posts and word of mouth from friends, but you really were hopeful. You’d had a good feeling, and had trusted Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck. And it blew up in your face.

Note to self, never fucking trust those three again.

“Don’t feel too bad, Y/N. Seems like it’s going around.”

“What do you mean?”

“My roommate’s date last night was a bust too.”

“We should make a club,” you chuckled cynically.

“Or I can set you up?” The siren offered hopefully.

“Thanks, but I’m good. I said I was going to take some time to focus on myself after my last relationship, and I meant that. Last night was me testing the waters, and I fucking drowned.”

“That special, huh? Or, I guess not, in the end.”

“Well, at least now I know, you know? No ‘what if’s to mess with.”

Shotaro enthusiastically slammed your drink down in front of you. “Hell yeah, Y/N. A clear head.”

“Exactly.” You pulled the cup over to you.

He put the packaged straw down on top emphatically. “Fuck that guy.”

“Bit extreme, Shotaro, but I appreciate the sentiment,” you grinned, hitting the straw against the counter to pop it out from the plastic wrapping.

“You’re coming to our Valentine’s Day event next month though, right?” Your friend asked, pointing to the poster taped to the wall advertising the event. The evening of February 13th at the boba shop, with a special themed drinks menu and activities to do.

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great!” He beamed at you.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go, and you’ve got more customers. See you.” You took your drink with you towards the exit that a whole gaggle of high schoolers had just come through, waving to the siren over your shoulder.

“Bye, Y/N!”

Pulling open the door of Jasmine & Pearls some weeks later, you were immediately greeted by an array of red, pink, and white. The entire store had been redecorated for the event. A short stage was set up against the far wall of the dining area, a small photobooth in another corner, and a station where you could learn to make an origami heart, if the pictures on the instructions taped to the wall above it were anything to guess off. The shop was already bustling and buzzing with energy, filled with couples and groups of friends. All in all, it looked like it was shaping up to be a successful night for them.

You got into possibly the longest line you could remember having waited in at Jasmine & Pearls in a while—you’d learned the rush times and had become a pro at avoiding them in order to get your boba fix as quick as possible—and continued looking around with a smile on your face.

Unfortunately, you were flying this one solo. Your friends were all either working or studying tonight, and you weren’t going to flake after already promising Shotaro just because you couldn’t find someone to come with you. But you could have plenty of fun by yourself. And, you didn’t make any promise to stay the whole night. You’d stay just to finish your drink and maybe make an origami heart or two, depending on how good you were at them.

Finally, it was your turn to order, and you walked up to the register already with a big smile on your face.

Shotaro was manning the register while another employee fulfilled the orders. Your friend’s face lit up immediately. “Y/N! You made it!”

“I told you I would. Did you doubt me?” You questioned in mock offense.

“Not for a second,” he declared. Pointing to the little standee menu that was on the counter, he asked, “So what’ll you have? I recommend one of our specials for the occasion, obviously.”

You looked over the three new drink options that were advertised as for tonight’s event only. One in particular caught your eye, strawberry milk tea with heart-shaped brown sugar tapioca pearls, and an added feel-good charm. “That Lovebug sounds good.”

“Perfect! I knew you’d get that one! Coming right up!” He rang you up, but only took your credit card from your hand. “Sorry, no regular punch cards tonight. Instead, every purchase of a drink comes with a special event-only punch card.”

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows as he handed you a small pink card with four circles on it, one already punched out with a heart-shaped hole punch.

“Yep! If you complete all the activities we have tonight, you can redeem it for a free drink! You’ve already gotten a punch for purchasing a drink, then we’ve got the photobooth—” he pointed to the large box. “Just bring your photo strips up here, and I’ll punch the card for you. And the origami, same thing. They don’t have to be professional, as long as you tried, just show them to me, and I’ll give you another punch. And then my boss, Baekhyun, is going to be hosting Valentine’s Bingo in like ten, fifteen minutes. He’ll punch everyone’s cards who participates.” He gestured to the stage, where you now saw a man starting to mess with a microphone and small table. “Don’t worry, you can play single.”

“Huh. Sounds good to me.” You tucked the card into your pocket. “Thanks, Shotaro.”

“Your drink will be out in a second!”

When you finally heard your name being called out by the other employee, you walked up and took the cup from him gratefully. It was another siren, who you weren’t nearly as familiar with as Shotaro, but you still offered Yuta a smile as you accepted the drink.

You looked at the heart-shaped boba at the bottom of the cup fondly. “Cute. Thanks, Yuta.”

“Of course! Now enjoy the ambiance.” Yuta shooed you away with a smirk.

You saluted him casually. “Heard.”

Meandering around the store, you took in the kitschy decorations in various heart, Cupid, rose, and arrow shapes all around. Despite your own striking out in the romance department as of late, you couldn’t find yourself wanting to muster up any morosity for the atmosphere. It was too endearing, and you were someone who just loved love. And maybe the feel-good charm in the boba pearls was doing its job pretty well.

Legally, Jasmine & Pearls couldn’t sell any charms that had effects as strong as alcohol, drugs, or hexes, or they’d need special licenses for that, but the little charms and enchantments available in some of their boba options could influence one’s mood for a short amount of time. Feel-good, tranquility, energy, focus, that kind of stuff.

A lot of the tables had been pushed to one side to make room for the stage, so you took your drink to the bar seating that was against a window, keeping your eye on the figure on stage. As he was readjusting the microphone, you caught a flash of scales under his skin, realizing that he too was a siren, and suddenly the employment choices felt a bit more intentional than coincidental.

Red and pink heart-shaped confetti had been sprinkled along the bartop, and you brushed some of it aside to be able to set your cup down. You were humming along to the love song playing over the speakers as you scrolled on your phone when you swore you heard your name. Straightening up a little, you listened carefully for it again.

“Y/N?” Someone gently tapped on your shoulder this time.

You turned around atop the stool you’d been sitting on, not prepared for who was behind you. Jung Sungchan was standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn black leather jacket. Honestly, you hadn’t thought much about him since your date five or six weeks ago. Your focus had been on school— with this being your junior year, you had a lot to get together in order to be ready to apply for grad schools, Botany Club, still going to work, and keeping up with friends around all this somehow. One failed date that wasn’t even in your top five worst dates hadn’t really been keeping you up at night. And yet somehow here he was.

You were sure that the surprise was evident on your face, and you probably left just too long of pause hanging in the air before you finally said something. “Oh, Sungchan, hi.”

“I thought that was you. Hey.” He offered a friendly smile.

“How are you?”

“I’m—” He was cut off by a distant shout of his name that only got closer.

“Hey! Sungchan!” It was Shotaro, the siren approaching with a prepared drink and straw, shoving them in the werewolf’s hand. “Dude, you can’t just walk away from the counter like that while we’re making your drink, then I have to come chase you down when you don’t hear your name.”

Sungchan accepted it from the employee guiltily. “Sorry, Shotaro.”

“Anyway! I’m glad you two have met.” Shotaro beamed at the pair of you, throwing an arm around Sungchan’s neck. “Y/N, this is my roommate I was talking about, Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Y/L/N Y/N, she’s a regular here and goes to our college.”

Your eyes widened minutely in alarm as you suddenly connected way too many dots. Oh god, Shotaro’s roommate had an awful date, Sungchan is Shotaro’s roommate, you and Sungchan had gone on a date that night, the very same date you had also complained to Shotaro about. And who knows what terrible things Sungchan might have told the siren about the date, about you. After all, you had been the one to walk out on him.

You felt like you were going to puke as Shotaro gave Sungchan a sharp slap on the shoulder, winked at you behind his roommate’s back, and walked back to his station behind the counter.

After a heavy, long, awkward pause, Sungchan finally spoke up. “So… what did you get?”

“Oh, uhm… the Lovebug. What about you?”

“Me too, same. Lovebug.”

Another pause as you watched Sungchan open his straw and poke it through the plastic seal covering the top of the drink.

“So are we going to address the elephant in the room?” You decided to just get it over with.

“Which one? I feel like we have a whole herd at this point.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, fair. I meant Shotaro. I’ll be the first to admit that I confided in him after our—I’m sorry to say but—disaster of a date.”

“That’s a generous assessment, actually.” Sungchan agreed. “And I told him about it too. I mean, we live together, it was hard for him not to notice when I came back home less than an hour after I left.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“I didn’t say anything bad about you, by the way. I told him it went horribly, because I ruined it, of course, but you were perfectly lovely. Truly way more level-headed than I deserved.”

“Oh, no, Sungchan,” you tried to reassure him. “Really, like I said before— Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

“I know. But still, I treated you awfully, and I am really, really sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

A crackling came from the speakers up front, snapping your attention back to the man on stage. Baekhyun had gotten the microphone connected, and you saw Shotaro darting from the stage to his spot at the register as his boss called for everyone’s attention. “Hello? Hello? Great, this is working.”

He flashed a dazzling smile to the small crowd. “Hi, if you don’t know me, I’m Byun Baekhyun, I own Jasmine & Pearls here. If you’re in line, don’t panic, we’re not starting quite yet. I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out here tonight, this is honestly a much better turnout than we had expected. I, of course, also want to thank my two incredible employees, Shotaro and Yuta, for working tonight too.”

The two sirens behind the counter both waved as they got a round of applause, then everyone’s eyes were back on Baekhyun.

“We’re going to be starting Valentine’s Bingo in about five minutes or so. I just want everyone to know that you will need a partner for this. So if you came out here by yourself, find another single person out there and you know… get talking.” He grinned, and you swore his gaze lingered on you and Sungchan for a millisecond too long to be coincidental. “Okay, awesome, I’ll be back up here in five to get it started.”

Your eyes flashed over to your friend that was working, remembering exactly when he told you that you could play the game by yourself, and now suddenly you needed a partner. Shotaro was contentedly ringing up a customer’s order, though, seemingly not even paying you nor Sungchan any mind.

“So, uh, want to partner up? For the bingo?” Sungchan asked, then rushed to tack on, “Unless you’re waiting for somebody?”

“I’m not waiting for anybody,” you smiled, gesturing to the stool beside you for him to sit down.

“How have things been with you?”

“Good, they’ve been pretty good. Just a lot of school and Bot Club.”

“Bot Club?”

“Magical Botany Club. I’m the Vice President this year.”

“Oh, cool. So that’s how you know Jaemin, then.”

“Yeah, yeah. Him and Lee Donghyuck, we’re all on the board together.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Because I sucked at gardening,” you admitted with a laugh. “My freshman year, my parents gave me this cactus to have in my dorm, and I killed the thing somehow. They can survive in deserts and the most extreme climates in the world, and it perished in my dorm room. I joined Bot Club hoping for some tips, and everyone just immediately thought I was beyond help. Jaemin and Hyuck were the only ones who actually took the time to help me. And it took a lot of time.”

Sungchan was smiling too, genuinely. “You must have grown to really like it, to stick around after getting your cactus caretaking tips.”

“Yeah, I do.” You nodded. “What about you? How’s school been for you?”

He grimaced a little. “Could be better, honestly.”

“Oh no? Why? What’s wrong?” You frowned.

Before Sungchan could answer, another person had approached the two of you. It was Baekhyun, a stack of square bingo cards in one hand and box of markers in the other. His silver eyes seemed to glitter in the lights as he smiled at you, his opalescent scales refracting a whole rainbow of colors where they sat just under his skin along his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead.

“Hi!” He greeted the two of you cheerfully. “Are you two together?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Sungchan nodded, reaching out to grab your bingo sheet and marker before the store owner flitted off to the next pair of customers.

He set them down on the counter in between the two of you, but your focus was still on your conversation.

“So what’s wrong, Sungchan?” You asked, taking another sip of your drink.

“I mean, it’s just been a bit stressful is all,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “One of my professors asked me to do research with him, and then I took an SI position with another professor too, on top of all my classes. Just kind of got a lot on my plate.”

“Oh, okay. But that sounds like a great opportunity, at least. Your professor asking you to do research with him.”

“It is, it’s some seriously cool stuff.”

“What’s—”

Baekhyun clearing his throat into the microphone from the front cut you off, and you gave the werewolf an apologetic look.

“Sorry. But I do want to hear about it later, Sungchan,” you squeezed his arm before turning around to face the stage.

“Alright, we’re going to be getting started then.”

As Baekhyun kicked off the first round of bingo, you found yourself tapping the marker against the bingo card as you sat there. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sungchan awkwardly leaning over as he tried to look at the sheet too, and you realized you’d been hogging it.

“Oh, sorry, here,” you moved the sheet more into the middle, at the same time that you scooted your stool over towards him to lessen the gap between you. “Is that better?”

Sungchan’s shoulder was just behind yours as he looked over you at both the card and the stage. “Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

“Did you want to mark them off? Sorry, I just grabbed it without thinking.” You offered the permanent marker out to him.

“No, it’s all yours.” He shook his head, then tapped his finger to the middle spot. “But you did forget the Free Space.”

“Oh, shit, thanks.” You crossed it off with an X.

Baekhyun called out number after number, and you and Sungchan worked together to search the small card for them.

You clicked your tongue as you couldn’t find the one the shop owner had just called out, and were about to pick your cup back up to take another sip of your drink, when Sungchan spoke up happily.

“Found it!”

“Oh, where?” You hovered the marker over the card, scanning the little letters and numbers.

“Right there.” He’d pointed, but his hand was gone too fast, and you lost it again.

“Wait, where?”

“Right…” he reached over to wrap his own hand around yours that was holding the marker, and dragged it over to the correct square. You giggled as he guided your hand to draw a messy X like you were a toddler learning to write your letters for the first time. “…There.” He finished, letting go of your hand.

“Ahh, okay,” you nodded slowly. “I see… I’m illiterate.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Hey!”

Sungchan laughed as you gave a half-hearted smack against his chest, and you couldn’t help but smile too. After all, it was your self-deprecating joke first.

He patted your back, apologizing through his chuckles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Apology taken under consideration.”

“Oof, I don’t like the sound of that. Anything I can do to better my chances here?”

“Hmm,” you hummed, pretending to think as you tapped the capped end of the marker against your bottom lip.

Sungchan watched you, his elbow resting on the bartop and his cheek in his hand. The only thing separating you two was the bingo sheet, the game which you weren’t even focused on anymore. Your back was entirely turned to the stage now, gaze set only on the werewolf next to you.

Just as you’d parted your lips to make your proposal, you happened to hear Baekhyun announce the next number.

“O13!” The siren’s voice carried well through the speakers. “O13!”

You let your eyes flick down, immediately catching on that open square on your card. And it completed the row. You marked it off, a giddy grin spreading across your face as you went to elbow Sungchan. “Look!”

“Oh damn! Nice!” He raised his hand, as did you, as he called out. “Bingo! We got bingo!”

Baekhyun’s features lit up as he stopped his progress of reaching for the next bingo ball. He practically purred into the microphone, “Well, well, seems like we’ve got our first bingo. If one of you could read it out so I can double-check it, then we’ll see about getting you two your prizes.”

Sungchan called out your five spaces, and Baekhyun nodded with each one, the room erupting into applause when he declared that you two had won that round.

“Alright, come up here so I can give you your prizes and punch your tickets.” The siren waved you up.

You looked to Sungchan expectantly, and he gestured for you to go up ahead of him. Instead, feeling a bit uneasy with the entire café’s eyes on you, you latched onto his forearm and dragged him up right alongside you.

“So you each are getting a gift card to the shop—” He handed you two small cards, then turned around, where Yuta had appeared with a couple more items. Baekhyun then handed each of you a denim baseball cap that had the logo of the shop on the front in lilac purple thread. “And Jasmine & Pearls embroidered hats. Thank you so much for coming here and playing.”

You accepted both prizes from him, feeling over the embroidery on the cap with your finger.

“And if you’d give me your event punch cards, I’ll go ahead and give you your punches now, since you unfortunately, won’t be allowed to play to win again. Fairness and all that.”

You and Sungchan handed over your punch cards, and the siren gave each of you another heart-shaped punch before giving them back.

“Now, we will be playing two more rounds, so don’t worry if you didn’t win this time,” he announced to the rest of the crowd as you and Sungchan headed back to your seats. “I’ll hand out brand new cards to everybody, and we’ll restart. Y/N and Sungchan, you’re free to play again for fun, if you’d like. You just can’t play for profit.”

Sungchan looked over at you in a silent question, and you shook your head. You were happy to play and win just the one time. After all, with everybody else still occupied, this would be the perfect time to do the other activities with little to no lines or crowding.

“No thank you, we’re bingo-ed out for tonight,” Sungchan called out, and the host nodded graciously.

“Very well. Everybody else hold tight while I come around to distribute new cards.”

As the two of you finally sat back down at your seats and looked over your prizes, you realized that you had never introduced yourself to Baekhyun. Not when he had passed out the cards, nor when he was giving you your prizes. But he knew your names. You snapped your head up towards the counter suspiciously again, but Shotaro was once again minding his business, cleaning out one of the machines.

Sungchan was readjusting the sizing of his hat, then finally pulled it on, offering you a lopsided grin. “What do you think?”

“Looks good on you.” You tapped the brim of it, feeling a familiar airiness in your chest, one that you hadn’t felt in some time. “You wear baseball caps a lot?”

“For sure, so I’ll get good use out of this.”

“Wear them for fashion or do you play a lot of sports?”

“Oh, uh, both, I guess? I like how they look, and I usually wear them when I’m out playing whatever to keep the Sun off my face, yeah.”

The pictures from Jeno’s Instagram of Sungchan on their trip to Cape Solaria suddenly came to mind, and you diverted your eyes down to the gift card in your hand as your skin started getting warmer and warmer. At this rate, he was going to be able to hear your heartbeat picking up the pace and the idea of that in and of itself was embarrassing enough to make it gain even more speed.

“So…” Sungchan inhaled, and you looked up with both your eyebrows raised.

Admittedly, you’d completely forgotten where the two of you were in your previous conversation. “Hm?”

“Do you want to finish the other two punches together?” He asked. “I know they’re not partner things, but we’re both here, and everyone else is busy doing bingo, so it’s probably the best time to do them and—”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” You grinned at him, standing up off your stool. “I’d love to, Sungchan. Besides, you’re still supposed to tell me about your research, remember?”

His features lit up as he followed you over to the origami station. “Right, right! Are you sure you want to hear about it, though? It’s on climate change and how it affects human disease, it’s a little doomsday-ish.”

“Ah, perfect for the holiday.” You pointed to the giant paper cut-out of a cartoon Cupid hanging above your heads, then reached for your first square of red paper. “I’m sure, go for it.”

“Okay, cool,” he beamed at you, grabbing a piece of patterned pink paper.

As Sungchan walked you through all the intricacies and machinations of the topic that his research with his professor was on, you were genuinely happy at how much you understood. He didn’t mind slowing down to answer your questions, or explain concepts that you didn’t know already. And you two could have an actual conversation tangential to the topic, because you had taken a Magical Conservation class just last semester that dealt directly with how climate change was affecting a lot of magical creatures, such as sirens who typically lived in and around glaciers that were now losing much of their native habitats due to the lack of year-round sea ice at the poles. And all the while, you both tried your damndest to make an origami heart.

“Okay, what the fuck?!” Sungchan huffed, cutting himself off in the middle of a thought about disease vectors. He smacked his crumpled piece of paper that looked nothing like a heart onto the table. “I’ve taken engineering classes, how am I getting bested by a primary school arts and crafts project?”

“It’s not a—”

“It literally says ages 8 and up on the instructions.”

You pressed your lips together in a line. “Ah. So it does.”

Yours didn’t look much better. It seemed as though you were both getting bested by a project meant for children.

“Well, Shotaro did say we just had to show him we tried and we’d get the punch,” you reminded him.

“No, no, I can get this,” he shook his head, grabbing a fresh sheet. “I just need to focus, and not talk while I do it. You’re too much of a distraction.”

“My apologies, I’ll be quiet this time,” you chuckled, covering your mouth with your hand as you leaned against the table to watch him try again.

He made every fold with precision, but you found that you weren’t really watching him fold so much as you were watching him. His brow was set in concentration, a small crease emerging in the knit of his brows, his eyes narrowed slightly, and the very tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips. It was cute, adorable, endearing, everything in the thesaurus, and you could’ve sat there and watched him fold origami hearts all night if he wanted to, punch card and free drink be damned.

Sungchan stood up straight, his features relaxing into a proud grin as he held his completed piece up for you to see. It was definitely a heart this time, a simple baby pink color, and you were amazed at how straight the lines were.

“Nice, Sungchan!” You praised him. “That’s what those engineering classes were for, huh?”

“I wasn’t going to let some project for ages 8 and up that Shotaro picked out get the best of me!” He declared, and you could practically see his chest puffing out with pride. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “So that’s what this was? Fragile STEM major ego?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Isn’t sociology a science?”

“I think you’re the first hard science major to ever say that.”

“It ends in -ology.”

“So do phrenology and astrology.”

“Fair. But seriously, is it not?”

“It is. But usually, you engineering and whatnot majors don’t like to consider us ‘soft sciences’ like sociology and anthropology and psychology to be ‘real sciences,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“Ohh, yeah… I’ve got better shit to do than tell a scientist that they’re not a scientist.”

“Like make children’s crafts.”

“Exactly.” He gave you another smile brighter than the Sun.

You nodded firmly. “A much better use of your time. Now, are you ready to take these to Shotaro?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

As the two of you walked up to the counter, you continued your earlier conversation, “And I will remind you that I’m actually an Interdisciplinary major, and also study MCS. Both of which are considered humanities, a label that I wear with pride, even more so than the ‘soft science’ one.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sungchan’s mouth as he looked down at you. “Noted.”

Shotaro was standing at the register, hands folded over each other and a smug smile on his face as he watched the two of you approach together. “Well, hey, guys! Congrats on your win!”

“Thanks, Shotaro.” You smiled back, holding your paper heart out to him. “We did the origami too.”

Sungchan held his up too, and you could see the proud look on his face as he did so.

“His is a lot better than mine,” you admitted as the siren took just a second to appraise them. Seeing the two side-by-side, yours was a bit misshapen, folds across parts that were supposed to be flat from you having to undo and redo parts over and over again.

“That’s okay! You guys just had to try,” Shotaro reminded you, picking up the hole punch. “Punch cards please?”

With just one punch left, you and Sungchan headed over to the photobooth in the corner. It was set up so that you didn’t have to pay for any of the films. Sungchan climbed in first, and you watched nervously where his head almost hit the top of the entrance.

“Goddamn this thing is tiny,” he observed as soon as he had poked his head in past the curtain.

“Is it small or are you a giant?” You asked pointedly.

Sungchan had fully entered the photobooth then, and retorted back, “Get in here and find out.”

As you parted the curtain and put just your first foot in, you immediately realized how cramped the two of you were going to be. “Okay, maybe a bit of both.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sungchan was already sat on the bench, and pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could to give you enough space to sit next to him. Your leg was squished in next to his, and his arm ended up around your shoulders. He was warm, as expected for a werewolf, whose body temperatures all ran naturally higher than humans.

As he shifted his shoulders and arm to settle around you, he double-checked, “Sorry, is this alright? It’s tight in here—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you turned your head to give him a smile, but were instead caught off-guard by just how close his face was to yours. If either one of you shifted forward right now, you would hit noses. Your breath hitched in your throat as you made eye contact with him. Oh, he could definitely hear your heartbeat in the tiny space afforded by the photobooth, surely as clear as you could hear it thudding in your own ears. God, you’d always thought he was cute, but something about being so close, and the lights in here hitting the angles of his face just right, he was striking, handsome. You curled your hands into fists in the material of your pants, not trusting yourself not to grab him and do something too wildly out of pocket.

The screen played a short melody at you, knocking you from your trance, and you turned your focus back to your task.

Pressing a couple buttons on the touchscreen, you looked between the height of the camera and Sungchan, squinting. “Is your head even going to show in frame?”

Sungchan swallowed, then cleared his throat before he spoke, as if his mouth had gone dry. “Guess we’ll find out after.”

“Alright, it’s a four-cut.” You announced after skimming the easy illustrated instructions. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay. 1, 2, 3.” You pressed the start button before sitting back in your seat against him again.

You smiled and held up a peace sign for the first one, and in the split second of the flash going off, you heard the werewolf next to you curse under his breath, “Fuck! That’s bright—” accompanied by the feeling of him flinching back, and immediately followed by a distinct thud.

Turning around as much as the space could allow for, you saw Sungchan curled in on himself, his eyes squinted shut presumably both in pain from the flash and from where he had just smacked the back of his head against the wall of the photobooth, judging by the hand he was cradling it with.

“Ooh! Sungchan, are you alright?” You asked through giggles, unable to get over the comical thunk! sound that his head had made.

Another flash went off, startling him into hitting his head again with another bonk! and this time you couldn’t help but burst out into full-bodied laughter, turning back toward the camera to not laugh directly in the poor guy’s face. You could barely see the third and fourth flashes because your eyes were squeezed shut as you laughed, running out of air and having to prop yourself up with a hand on Sungchan’s knee to not keel over.

Finally, you started sobering up enough to squint your eyes back open, and through your tears, you saw Sungchan smiling down at you as well.

“Alright, I don’t know if it was that funny…” he sighed, still holding his head.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your wheezes. “It was the sound, and the two in a row, it was just too much for me. I’m not laughing at your pain, I promise. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Thanks.” He reassured you, dropping his hand from his head and resting it on the one that you still had on his knee. “I… I really like your laugh.”

Your hand suddenly tingled. “Oh. Thank you…”

After a beat, he shifted his gaze from yours. “So where do the films print out at?”

“Uh, on the outside of the booth. Should be two, one for each of us.” You said quickly, getting up to exit the booth and put some space between the two of you again.

Sungchan followed you out, and you easily found the dispenser, where there were in fact two film strips. He grabbed them for you, looking over them first. A smile spread across his face as he continued holding them, and you started getting antsy the longer that you hadn’t seen them.

“What, are they that bad?” You asked with a light chuckle.

“What?” He snapped his focus up to you.

“You’ve been smiling at them for an awful long time. Did I blink or something?” You joked, knowing very well that you were laughing for half of them.

He sucked in air through his teeth, shaking his head regretfully. “Yeah, I think for your own sake, I should keep both of these. I mean, I look great but—”

“Sungchan, let me see!” You reached for them, but he yanked his hand back from you at the last second.

You lunged for them again, but he once again kept them just out of your reach, a sly grin on his lips. The next time you tried to grab them, he held them above his head, and he most unfortunately had a significant height advantage over you.

You were already in his personal space from grabbing for them before, practically chest-to-chest (well, really chest-to-face), and now had to crane your neck straight up to look at them. With a huff, out of breath, heart racing for more than one reason now, you weakly pulled on his shoulders as you pouted, “Sungchan, please!”

“Here, I warned you.” He said melodramatically, handing you one copy of the film strips.

You eagerly held it in both hands, scanning over the four pictures on it. The first one was normal, it looked like Sungchan had taken your lead and both of you were smiling and throwing up peace signs. The second one was where everything went to chaos. Sungchan was wincing in pain in the corner, holding his head, as you had the back of your head to the camera, one hand reaching uncertainly towards him. In the third, you were turned back towards the camera, a little blurry as you laughed, and Sungchan was squinting one eye open to look at you. And in the last one, you were still laughing, leaning on Sungchan for support as there was nothing but simple joy on your face; and Sungchan’s features had relaxed out of pain as he gazed down at you with a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Not as wide as yours was, but no less dim.

“These are so cute! You liar!” You elbowed Sungchan in the side.

“You didn’t let me finish. I look great, but you look radiant.”

“Good save.” You joked, but couldn’t suppress the smitten grin that wormed its way across your face. “And I’m keeping mine.”

Sungchan reached into the pocket of his jacket then, pulling out his pristine, baby pink origami heart from earlier. He held it out to you. “I-I wanted you to have this, too.”

“Aw, Sungchan…” You accepted the paper heart from him.

“Feel free to throw it out when you get home, I get it.”

“Hey, stop that.” You pinched his forearm where the sleeve of his jacket had fallen down. “Don’t do something sweet and then immediately take all the sincerity away by covering it with a layer of self-deprecation. If you’re going to be a sweetheart, own up to it or don’t do it at all.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, and you could see a flush creeping up from his collar to his cheeks. “You’re right. I wanted to give you that, sans trash can.”

You were beaming, tucking it into the inner pocket of your jacket and patting it. “Thank you, Sungchan. I’d offer you mine, but I think it really should go in the trash.”

“Look who’s not taking her own advice, hm?”

“Alright, if you want it,” you sighed, taking your own lumpy attempt at the origami heart out of your pocket and handing it over to him.

Sungchan plucked it from your fingers smugly. “Thank you.”

“I expect you to be buried with that now, by the way.”

“I’ll be sure to write it in my will.”

The two of you were still chuckling as you walked up to the counter again, your film strips and punch cards in hand to show them to Shotaro. Your siren friend reviewed the pictures with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You guys are so cute,” he commented so very subtly. “But uh, what happened here, Sungchan? Did you hit your head on something? How did you manage that one?”

As you covered your mouth to hide your giggles at the memory of the double bonk! resurfacing, Sungchan took his film strip back from his roommate. “Alright, are you going to give us the punches or not?”

Shotaro punched the final heart-shaped holes into both your cards. “And with that you’ve completed all the punches! Unfortunately, you can’t redeem the free drink tonight, but by all means, you are more than welcome to stay and hang out some more. We’ve got extended hours tonight, so you can keep doing the activities if you like, or just, you know… stay and chat or something.”

“Right, thanks, Shotaro.” Sungchan led you away with a hand on your back.

You ended up back at your original seat that you had sat at for the bingo game. The game finished while you were in the photobooth, the other patrons now milling around the shop again. Some were sitting, sipping on their drinks and enjoying each other’s company, others at the origami stations, others lining up at the photobooth, and still others back at the register ordering again. You looked down at the film strip in your hands before tucking it away safely with Sungchan’s origami heart. Looking around, you saw that Baekhyun was making rounds now that he was done hosting bingo, greeting customers and having conversations with everyone he stopped to talk to.

You didn’t want to leave yet, to have this night be over, to have your time with Sungchan be done. At least not without knowing if you’d see him again. This had been fun, really fun, and you wanted to see him again. Every bad first impression of him you’d gotten from your date had been wiped away.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You snapped your focus back over to him at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. You offered him a reassuring smile as you replied, “Yeah, Sungchan?”

He had taken his hat off, and was messing with the seam along the bottom band nervously. “I know I already said this, but I really am sorry for everything I said to you before. I was so incredibly wrong about you.”

“And I’ve already said thank you, so I suppose I’ll say I forgive you this time.” You squeezed his forearm. “So would you stop apologizing now?”

“I know we can’t start over completely, but…”

“Yes?” Your voice pitched up hopefully, your heart soaring along with it.

“Friends?”

Splat. Your heart plummeted back down with tremendous velocity.

It took all your willpower to keep your face from showing the disappointment you’d felt, and even then, you were sure it still fell minutely. You slapped on a rehearsed, customer service smile for him, too shocked that you’d apparently misread everything so badly to do much more than go through a script of what you should say. “Yeah, sure. Friends.”

Sungchan beamed at you, another heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest squeeze painfully. “Okay, great! Thank you, seriously!”

You threw open the door to Jasmine & Pearls the next morning so violently that it swung back the other way and rang the bell twice.

“Shotaro.”

The siren perked up to greet you. “Oh, Y/N! Back to redeem that free drink already, huh?”

“Sungchan here?” Your eyes flicked around the shop warily. You couldn’t see him, but now that you knew that the two of them were roommates, you had to be more careful.

“Oh, I see.” Your friend grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, you just missed him, actually, he had class, popped in on his way to campus.”

“Thank god,” you groaned, collapsing into a stool near the pick-up counter, face in your arms.

“Uh, I’m going to make you a drink. Your usual?”

“Sure…” You mumbled, the sound even more muffled by your arms.

As Shotaro prepared the drink, he picked your conversation back up. “Now, what happened? You two looked like you were having a lot of fun last night. Not to pat myself on the back too hard.”

You lifted your head up just enough to rest your cheek on your arms so your friend could hear you when you spoke. “Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Remember that awful date I went on last month?”

“Vaguely.”

“And Sungchan went on a bad date the same night.”

“Yeah. Did he do some kind of ‘all cards on the table’ confessional with you to try to scare you off?” Shotaro sighed, tossing his hand towel over his shoulder and putting his hands on his hips. “Listen, don’t worry, I know he says he ruined his date that night, but really he’s a big puppy—don’t tell him I said that, he’ll tear my throat out.” He paused, as if realizing what he had just said. “And don’t worry about that ‘tear my throat out’ thing either, I swear he’s super sweet. Honestly, something must have been wrong with that girl, he’s not—”

“It was me.” You cut him off bluntly.

“Huh?”

“Sungchan and I were each other’s terrible date that night.”

The siren slapped a hand over his face with a groan. “Oh my god, what did he do?”

“Now you think he did something? Two seconds ago, you swore there was ‘something wrong with that girl.’” You raised your eyebrows.

“Yeah, but I know you, Y/N. Him saying he fucked up and made you walk out? I can believe that.”

“We don’t have time to unpack all of that, but thanks, I guess.” You settled your cheek in your hand instead. “Anyway, it was all a mismatch at the time. He had his reasons, and I had mine, and I left. I didn’t harbor any ill will towards him, nor had I even thought about him until last night.”

Shotaro snorted, placing your finished drink in front of you. “Oh, well, can’t say the same for him.”

“What?”

“Whatever he did, he felt terrible about it. He kept talking about how he wanted to apologize to you, but he didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

You blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“I just thought it was like when you accidentally say ‘you too’ when the waiter tells you to enjoy your food and then you can’t stop thinking about that interaction for the next six months.”

Remembering the gist of your very short conversation from your one and only date with Sungchan, you shook your head. “No, not quite.”

“But it seems like you two made up last night, right?” Shotaro asked, head tilted.

“Yes, last night was so much fun. It’s what our first date should have been. We got to talk, and get to know each other, and joke, and laugh, and maybe flirt a little bit; and he’s funny, and smart, and a lot of fun...” You explained, trailing off pitifully at the end.

“So what’s the catch?”

“Well, I don’t know why I thought that at the end of the night, when he said,” you dropped your voice to mimic Sungchan, “‘I know we can’t start over completely, but—’ I don’t know why I thought that was going to be followed up by him asking me out, but it wasn’t.”

The siren’s jaw dropped. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. Friends...” You said with weak enthusiasm, giving him two thumbs-up and a feigned smile as if you were being held at gunpoint.

“Ooh, Y/N...” Shotaro grimaced.

You dropped your head into your hands in defeat. “And somehow I feel even stupider than I did leaving that date.”

“I’m going to ask him what the hell he’s thinking.”

“No the fuck you’re not!”

“Y/N—”

“I told you this in confidence, Osaki Shotaro, not so you could you blab how pathetic I am right back to him!”

“But I just did that with him to you.” He pointed out innocently. “Seems a bit unfair.”

“Thanks for just agreeing with me on the pathetic part.”

“Well—”

“You’re not helping!”

“I’m trying!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. With a sigh, he came up to lean against the counter, voice turning sympathetic once more. “Look, Sungchan probably just thinks that you would want nothing to do with him romantically after he ruined it so stupendously last time. So he doesn’t even want to put you in the awkward position of rejecting him again— or, he at least thinks you would reject him again.”

“You really think so?” You asked quietly, watching a bead of water run down the side of your cup.

“Best I can come up with.”

And all the hope in your chest puttered out like a limp, half-filled balloon. “So that was a guess.”

“I’m a siren, not a mindreader, sorry.”

“Ugh, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Shotaro. For the boba. You were useless otherwise.”

“Bye!” Your friend waved to you cheerily.

Being friends with Sungchan was pretty easy, actually. You already had a lot of the same friends (it was sort of weird that you hadn’t met before that date, you realized), and as long as somebody else was there, it was easy to ignore the ever-present, ever-growing crushing pain in your chest whenever you were with him. You didn’t like that it was like this, you hated being that person pining over one of their friends who had explicitly said that they just wanted to be friends. You’d tried to get yourself to feel like this about other guys—the cute phoenix in your Criminology class, or the funny gryphon that you were partnered up with for a project in your Introduction to Interdisciplinary class. But it was useless, your thoughts always came back Sungchan. And you weren’t friends with him in hopes that one day it would be different, either; you really didn’t want to be that friend. You were just enjoying Jung Sungchan, in whatever capacity you got him in.

And right now, that was a rather tenacious study buddy. When you’d off-handedly mentioned an upcoming test that you hadn’t studied for yet, he immediately made you compare schedules so that the two of you could do a study session before it. So now you were reviewing flash cards of some key concepts as Sungchan was hunched over a notebook of his own. Working on his research with his professor, you were pretty certain. He switched between his computer and handwritten notes so frequently that you weren’t sure how he kept it all straight, and all the numbers and Greek letters and letter letters made your head swim trying to decipher it. As long as it all made sense to him.

It all mostly made sense to you when he would explain it to you, if you were actually listening to the words he was saying and not just thinking about how nice his voice sounded, or how pretty he looked that day. Your brain was truly rotting from the inside out.

And you two were alone. You didn’t know if he had invited any of your other friends and they couldn’t make it or if this was a “just us” thing. That was something that he did that always made it so hard for you to keep your rule of never hoping for more. Sometimes you two would hang out and invite Shotaro and Jaemin and Jeno and Jeno’s girlfriend and maybe even some more of their friends that you weren’t as familiar with; and sometimes when you’d ask if you should invite anybody, Sungchan would reply with a shoulder shrug and a casual non-explanation that this should be a “just us” thing. You could never delineate what made an activity worthy of a group invite or a “just us” thing.

You stared at your screen with immense focus. Not on what was on the screen, your thoughts had long drifted from dryad folk tales and were now in an endless rumination on what the hell a “just us” thing was. You’d been to group study sessions and study sessions with just Sungchan. Group movie nights and movie nights alone with Sungchan—those were an especially bittersweet kind of awful, as he liked to share blankets. Group dinners and dinners with just the two of you. So what made something a “just us” activity? What was the—

Something in your periphery caught your attention, and snapped you out of your pensive thoughts that you’d been stewing in. It was a small, white, origami heart being pushed up from the bottom corner of your computer screen. You took it, smiling at Sungchan across the table from you, who sat up straight now that he no longer had to reach so far to deliver it to you.

Upon second glance, it looked like the heart was made out of notebook paper from his spiral notebook with notes on it in blue ink. You squinted to make out some of It in his messy scrawl, but gave up after reading just a portion of a complicated, technical word.

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You ran your fingertip along the crisp edge of the paper heart.

This had been one habit he’d picked up since the Valentine’s Day event at Jasmine & Pearls, he now made origami hearts whenever his fingers grew restless and he had access to a suitable piece of paper that could be torn to size if needed. You were usually the target of receiving them and now had a steadily growing collection in a small jar on your coffee table. You didn’t have it in you to throw them away.

“Something wrong, Y/N?” Sungchan asked. He had presumably noted the intense way you’d been staring at your screen the moments prior. “Or is the material just that bad for your test?”

“Ehh…” You sighed, rolling your neck out. “Just tired. Ready for the semester to be over, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is this made of your notes, by the way?” You held up the origami heart.

“Stuff I had to rip out and redo, I messed it up.”

You then stood up to crack your back, groaning at the cathartic cracking sounds that came with it. “God, I think my spine needs to be folded up like that origami, holy shit.”

“Fix your posture,” Sungchan snorted. “You sit like a little shrimp using a computer.”

Your jaw dropped as you put a hand to your chest, unsure of whether to laugh or be offended. Ultimately, you keeled over with laughter, having to plop back down in your desk chair—hunched over—to catch your breath again. Sungchan was watching you with a fond smile, reclined back in his chair with some not very great posture himself.

“A shrimp?”

“A little shrimp,” he corrected you. “A cute little shrimp using her little computer and fucking up her back in the process.”

“Alright, it’s not my fault you’re literally a tree. Anybody is a little shrimp compared to the man who almost broke a photobooth because he was too tall for it,” you teased him back through the fresh squeezing of your chest at him calling you ‘cute,’ even if it was followed by the words ‘little shrimp.’

“You’re never letting me live that one down, huh?”

“Never. I’ll be telling that story at your funeral, where you’ll be buried with my mangled origami heart, remember?”

“You’re banking on the fact that you’re going to outlive me in this scenario.”

“Right, my bad. Werewolves are the hardier species, so obviously you’ll outlive me.”

“Well, statistically—”

“Statistics say nothing about the power of spite, Sungchan. I will outlive you out of spite, so that I can tell that story at your funeral. And if not, I will have a backup recording of me telling that story, and in my will, have orders that it be played at your funeral.”

“You’re going to put it in your will to make sure you have the last word in case I outlive you? Which, statistically, I will.”

“Yes.”

The two of you held your defiant eye contact for another moment before you burst out in coordinated laughter, all tension fizzling out.

“I do expect that fucked-up origami heart to go down with you, though,” you pointed at him through your laughs, still only half-serious.

“Only if one of the hundreds I’ve given you by now makes it down with you,” he nodded, holding his pinky finger out.

You linked yours with it. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

As you walked out of the library together after you’d finally determined that your studying was over, Sungchan checked his watch.

“You doing anything else tonight?” He asked.

“Nothing in particular.” You shrugged. “Eating dinner. Sleeping. Why?”

“Want to come over?”

“Is Shotaro going to be home?”

“He’s closing at the shop today I think.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Apparently sensing your hesitation, Sungchan nudged your side as he teased, “What? Am I not fun enough for you? You need Shotaro there to convince you to come over, too?”

“Yeah, you’re such a snoozefest, Sungchan,” you wrinkled your nose, elbowing him back. “Taro’s the only thing that keeps me from falling asleep every time I’m over at your place.”

“You hurt me, Y/N.”

With a melodramatic sigh, you relented, “I suppose I’ll make an exception. But I will nap where I see fit if you bore me too much.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can get them.”

At Shotaro and Sungchan’s place, you followed Sungchan into his bedroom. Normally, if Shotaro were home, the three of you would all hang out in their living room. But it was just you and Sungchan.

He toed his shoes off and flopped onto his bed face-first, spread-eagle.

“Oh, and who were we worried about taking a nap?” You scoffed, taking his desk chair. He had a gridded whiteboard above his desk that was mostly taken up by a to-do list of upcoming deadlines. But a small area labeled “Notes” by the company who made it was dedicated to pictures instead: the film strip of you two from Valentine’s Day at Jasmine & Pearls hung there by a magnet in the shape of a hurricane, a picture from the group trip to Cape Solaria from last summer under a tornado, and another of a younger Sungchan and Shotaro (early high school if you had to guess) at an arcade pinned by a tsunami.

Your friend rolled over onto his back. “I’m not napping, just basking.”

“Basking? In what?”

“Being done with today.”

“Have a bad day?”

“Just long. Had a long week, long semester, long three years.”

“Mm, felt that,” you agreed, knocking your own shoes off and folding your legs up in the desk chair.

The two of you were quiet for a while, and you would’ve thought that Sungchan had actually fallen asleep, if you couldn’t see that his eyes were open as he apparently just stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling with even breaths. You let the silence remain, content to just rest your arms on the back of the chair with your chin atop them, and look at him.

“Y/N?” He finally spoke, his voice soft.

“Yeah?”

Sungchan’s head lolled so he could look over at you, his warm brown eyes focused on your face. He had an unreadable expression on his features; not one of sadness, or pain, or really much of anything. It was like he didn’t even know what he was feeling. “Have you gone on a date? Since... you know, the one we went on?”

You blinked. You weren’t sure what exactly you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. After a moment, you shook your head. “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

The corner of his lip twitched, but from your positions, you couldn’t tell if it was pulling towards a smile or a frown. “No.”

Another beat of silence. You continued staring at each other.

“Do you want to?” He asked, his voice so unnaturally devoid of intonation that you once again couldn’t glean the purpose of this discussion.

“What?” The word tumbled out of your mouth fast, defensively.

“I-I mean, are you going to? Like, is there anybody...?”

You looked at him, taking a good few seconds before you answered. He at least seemed nervous now, stuttering, his eyes flitting between you and the ceiling fan.

“No.” You answered plainly. No qualifying statements: any attempts at expounding would just land you in trouble. “You?”

“No...” He echoed. “You would tell me, right? If you were?”

This felt like a trap. Not from Sungchan, you knew he wasn’t like that, but from the Universe, somehow. And no matter what you did, you were going to fall into the spike pit.

“Yeah, Sungchan, of course.” You mustered up your well-practiced casual smile. “Always need approval from the counsel of friends for that kind of stuff.”

He did smile at that—not a full one with teeth, and it didn’t reach his eyes—but he smiled and nodded. “Good. Got to make sure they’re not a weirdo. You know there’s all kinds of magical creatures who will just date human women for the ego trip in bed, right?”

“I did know that,” you chuckled. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

“Always am, Y/N. And I always will be.”

Rocking back and forth from your heels to your toes nervously, you kept your eyes trained on the apartment door in front of you. Sungchan knocked on it. Your actions were stopped by your friend grabbing your arm and pulling you back down to flat feet.

“Y/N, I told you it’s going to be fine, seriously. They’re your friends, too,” he reminded you for probably the twelfth time that day.

When he’d randomly texted you earlier that morning asking if you wanted to go to Jeno’s birthday party with him tonight, you were very hesitant to accept. Mostly because you hadn’t received an invite from the birthday wolf himself. But after some more pestering from Sungchan, you gave in. Maybe if you didn’t have such a weak heart, you would’ve been firmer on your no. But instead, here you were, having signed your name under Sungchan’s on the birthday card the two of you bought on your way over, a gift card tucked inside with enough money pre-loaded on it to cover a nice meal for Jeno and his girlfriend.

“Then why didn’t he—” Your whispered question was cut off by the door swinging open, the bright smile of Lee Jeno greeting you.

“Hey guys, come on in!” The werewolf opened the door even wider, not seeming surprised at all to see you there next to Sungchan. He gave the both of you hugs after closing the door behind you.

You patted his back in the hug, offering a sheepish smile, “Hey, Jeno, Happy Birthday. Sorry to just show up. Sungchan insisted it was fine…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Everyone knows if we’re inviting Sungchan that we’re inviting you, too. It’s cool.” He said brightly. “You want something to drink?”

Trying not to get stuck on that little information bomb he’d dropped so casually, you looked around the fairly packed apartment, recognizing most everyone who was there, including a couple people by the drinks table. “You know, I see Jaemin and Donghyuck over by the drinks, I’ll go get it myself. Thank you, though, and Happy Birthday again.”

Jeno perked up in a different direction as if he’d heard his name being called—which he very well could’ve with his superior hearing—and he took off, disappearing into the kitchen. You’d been to Jeno and Jaemin’s place a few times before, mostly to hang out with Jaemin over the time that you’d known the dryad from Bot Club, and more recently, a couple times for group hangouts since Jaemin, Jeno, Jeno’s girlfriend, and Sungchan were all friends.

“I’m going to get some food,” Sungchan nodded towards the same direction Jeno had gone in. “Want anything?”

You stood on your tiptoes, unable to discern any of the options they had available, other than the fact there would be a lot of it to feed the werewolf guests. “Just get extra of whatever you think I’ll like, I’m not very hungry right now.”

“On it.”

While he went to do that, you made your way across the living room to the two dryads you had spotted earlier, both standing by the drinks table.

“Hey…” You said, still feeling awkward despite Jeno’s easy acceptance of you.

“Y/N! Hey!” Donghyuck greeted you cheerily.

“You made it!” Jaemin gave you a one-armed hug.

“Sounds like you were expecting me then?”

“Well, yeah.” Donghyuck said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (which was bewildering to you, considering you didn’t even know you were coming until this afternoon).

The two dryads exchanged a look.

“I mean, Sungchan was coming, so…” Jaemin shrugged.

Donghyuck peered around the party. “Speaking of, where’d your wolfboy go?”

“He went to get some food. And he’s not. my. wolfboy, you little shit.” You glared at him. “And don’t call him a wolfboy either, you know he doesn’t like to be called stuff like that. Call Jeno ‘puppy’ or whatever all you want but leave Sungchan out of it.”

“I thought he didn’t like dog terms, but wolf terms he was fine with, since he is a werewolf.” Jaemin said.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck nodded.

You put your hands on your hips with a frank sigh, “As if wolfboy isn’t also diminutive and meant to—”

“Woah, abort, abort, Y/N’s going into Renjun-mode.”

Jaemin looked over at the other dryad regretfully. “Worse than Renjun-mode, this isn’t just educational.”

“You two are so obnoxious, I’m going to stage a coup in Bot Club one of these days,” you declared with a scoff.

“Hey...” Another voice entered the conversation from over your shoulder, and you looked up to see Sungchan stepping in between you and Donghyuck, a plate loaded up with food in his hand.

“Speak of the wolf and he shall appear.” Donghyuck had a wicked grin on his face. You were amazed sometimes that he wasn’t a fairy.

“What were you guys talking about? Y/N didn’t look happy.”

“It was nothing, Sungchan, don’t worry about it.” You tried to reassure him, sending pointed stares at each of the dryads with you.

Donghyuck was apparently not going to let up, though. “Hey, Sungchan, you down to do a little thought experiment with me?”

“Thought experiment?” The werewolf echoed.

“Yeah, just real quick. I ask you a hypothetical question, you give me a hypothetical answer. Just for fun.”

“A thought experiment with Donghyuck. Sounds thrilling, sure.” Sungchan agreed humorously, popping a piece of food in his mouth.

“So, if someone were to call you dog-like terms—which we know you’re not cool with and would never do—who would you most be okay with doing that?”

The werewolf narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why would anybody do that?”

“It’s a thought experiment, Sungchan, come on. Play in this space with me!” Donghyuck whined, shaking the other man’s shoulder.

“Let’s rephrase then,” Jaemin joined in, a mischievous glint in his eye. You looked around to make sure Chenle wasn’t secretly listening in or something, because this surely had to be the work of your fairy prince acquaintance. You spotted the fairy very engaged in his conversation with his dragon roommate Jisung and a few other people. It seemed like the two dryads really were just deciding to be the absolute worst all on their own.

“Narrower scope. Would you be okay with, for example, Y/N calling you stuff like that?”

“Why would she do that?” Sungchan asked, confused.

“Yeah, why would I do that?” You asked, angry. They were clearly trying to get at something specific, make him admit something.

Jaemin offered an example, “Well, you know, Jeno’s girlfriend calls him ‘pup’ as a term of endearment.”

“And why would I do that?!” You repeated, feeling your stomach drop to the floor at how exactly he stressed those words.

“We’re getting off-topic here, it’s all hypothetical, remember?” It was amazingly Donghyuck who sort of saved you. “We know Y/N would never do it. But like… if she did, for some reason unbeknownst to us, what would you do? Would you be okay with it?”

Sungchan’s brow was furrowed as he seemed to genuinely contemplate this while he ate another bite of food. You, meanwhile, were plotting how best to kill two dryads. You knew enough from Bot Club, maybe a super-strong version of the magical weed spray you used would work... Were dryads more plant or more person?

“Well…” The werewolf finally began his answer, seeming to choose each word carefully. “Since I know Y/N, I know that if she were, in this batshit, hypothetical scenario, to do that, that she wouldn’t mean it in a derogatory way. So I guess I’d be more okay with her doing it than other people. Definitely more than you two weirdos who are posing this thought experiment that isn’t fun at all.”

“Thank you, Sungchan.” Donghyuck grinned at him, then turned to Jaemin. “I thought that was very fun and enlightening. What about you, Jaemin?”

Jaemin nodded thoughtfully. “I had a great time. Y/N?”

“You guys are so fucking annoying.” You groaned, grabbing a piece of food from Sungchan’s plate. “Leave me out of your thought experiments next time, please.”

The spring semester ended not long after Jeno’s birthday party, and you very thankfully didn’t have to take any summer classes, freeing up a lot of spare time for you. Sungchan, on the other hand, had to take a couple courses in order to make sure he would graduate on time. While you jokingly whined and complained when he told you about it, you were secretly relieved to have extra reasons to avoid him. As terrible as that sounded.

This afternoon, while he was in class, you had gone down to the river with Shotaro and Yuta, who miraculously both had a day off work at the same time. You didn’t even realize Jasmine & Pearls had enough employees to let the both of them take the same day off.

You were sat in your pop-up chair on the small beachy area, pulling your phone from your bag to check it while the two sirens continued lazing about in the waist-deep water. There was a text from Sungchan from a few minutes ago, and as you opened it up to read it, you realized that he was just sending you a funny picture he’d found somewhere online.

[you: aren’t you supposed to be focusing on class right now?]

“Sungchan?” Shotaro called out to you knowingly.

“What?” You yelled back, holding a hand up to shadow your face from the sun. Looking around your chair, you grabbed your baseball cap that you’d won in Valentine’s Bingo, pulling that on now that you were out of the water.

“You’ve got this little smile on your face that you only get when Sungchan texts you.”

“No I do not.”

Yuta stood up from where he had been floating on his back, shaking the water out of his hair as he asked you with a smirk, “So you don’t have a text from Sungchan on your phone screen right now?”

Your phone buzzed then, a welcome excuse to not have to answer that.

[sungchan: allegedly]

[you: i don’t want you whining to me when you fail that class]

You clicked your phone off, showing them the blank screen. “Nope, nothing on my screen.”

“You’re such a liar,” Yuta sighed, saying it as if it were as simple of a fact as the sky being blue or the grass being green. He trudged through the water up the shore until he could join you, plopping down in his chair next to yours. They had both kept their legs this afternoon instead of bringing out their tails, and he kicked his apart as he got comfortable.

Shotaro jogged up from the water too, grabbing the cooler and rooting around in it for a second. After securing the other half of his sandwich from the lunch that you all had eaten earlier, he sat down next to Yuta, taking a big bite from it.

You took Yuta’s lead and settled back in your chair, closing your eyes and just enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon Sun.

“He talks about you all the time, by the way.” Shotaro cut into your peace and quiet. If you had something within arm’s reach other than your metal reusable water bottle, you would’ve thrown it at him.

“Shotaro...” You groaned, rolling your eyes. You didn’t even need to ask who he was talking about.

“Seriously! ‘Y/N and I did this today.’ ‘Don’t wait up for me, I’m going to the movies with Y/N.’ ‘Y/N told me this funny story today.’ ‘Did you know such and such about this or that? Y/N’s so smart.’” He admittedly did a pretty good Sungchan impression. You would’ve laughed at it in any other context, but instead you were just annoyed.

“Yeah, well, we’re friends. We hang out, and do things together. He’s going to be talking about me,” you snapped. “He talks about you a bunch too. Because you guys, you know, live together. He also talks about his professors, and Jeno, and—”

“But it’s not the same.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He insisted.

Shotaro clearly wasn’t going to let up, so you momentarily engaged this line of thinking, hoping you could squash it. “What’s so different, then?”

“He’ll find just any reason to bring you up, for one. We’re grocery shopping? ‘Oh, Y/N likes this flavor.’ ‘We should pick this up for when Y/N comes over.’ ‘Shotaro don’t get that, Y/N doesn’t like it.’” His impression turned more high-pitched and whining. “We’re watching TV? ‘This reminds me of when Y/N and I did this...’ ‘I bet Y/N would love this show, we should watch it the next time she comes over.’ ‘Y/N has a shirt just like that character.’ We’re hanging out with other people? ‘Hey Sungchan, what uh, what are you giggling at on your phone over there?’” He first kept his normal tone of voice, then switched into his over-the-top fake-Sungchan. “‘Oh, Y/N just texted me something funny. But it’s an inside joke, so you guys wouldn’t get it, sorry.’ ‘Man, I wish Y/N could’ve come, sucks she had to work.’”

“Are you done?” You asked tersely, unamused.

“I could go on ad nauseum—”

“One could argue you already have.”

Yuta snickered.

“—but let’s call it there.”

“Thank God.”

Shotaro wasn’t done with his spiel yet, though. “I have had multiple friends, when he’ll first bring you around somewhere, quietly ask me if you’re Sungchan’s girlfriend and they like, missed when you two started dating.”

“I get it, I get it.” You said firmly, bringing a hand up to rub your face.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Y/N, you’re an MCS major, I’m sure you’ve heard about what can happen to werewolves if there’s something discordant in their lives that isn’t alleviated?”

“You think he’s going to get pupsick because he’s allegedly got a crush on me?” You sputtered out in disbelief, your voice caught between a chuckle and a scoff at how absurd that sounded to you.

“It happened to Jeno.”

“Yeah, but he’s Jeno. With all due respect and no intention to kinkshame, he probably lets his girlfriend put a collar on him.”

Yuta shot up as he cackled, slapping his knee and coughing. He scrambled to grab his water bottle, taking a couple sips as he struggled to catch his breath.

Shotaro pushed on like you hadn’t said anything, “Now, I don’t want to have to put up with a pupsick Jung Sungchan, do you? That sounds awful. For me, obviously, since I live with him.”

“Shotaro, you are half-right about one thing.”

“And what’s that?” He asked smugly.

“I am kind of an MCS major. So I also know that Sungchan isn’t overly touchy with me, he hasn’t given me anything of his that smells like him, he doesn’t feed me, or do any other pre-mating behaviors that are ingrained in werewolves.” You ticked them each off on your fingers. “Look, I hate stereotyping you guys by your species. But if he’s apparently so down bad that he can’t help but talk about me every waking second of the day, wouldn’t at least one of these things that are literally instinctual to him have happened?”

Shotaro raised an eyebrow. “You do know that he’s half-werewolf, right?”

“What?” You blinked at him.

“Yeah, his mom’s a werewolf, and his dad’s a human.”

You’d had an MCS class on the Effects of Modern Integration, which had a unit specifically on the subject of cross-species offspring. Some species could have offspring together while others couldn’t, it depended both on genetic similarity and compatibility of their magic. With humans having no magic, that left only genetic similarity as a factor, making them a lot more compatible for producing such cross-species offspring. Werewolves and humans were one of the more common pairings to have such offspring, as they had one of the most extensive histories of living together.

Sungchan’s behavior on your first and only date immediately sprung to mind. His hesitance around humans dating werewolves just because they’re werewolves. “Are they...?”

“Happily married. They helped us move into our apartment last year.” Shotaro apparently knew exactly where your question was going. “But yeah, Sungchan’s half-human. As best I can tell, he’s kind of like a super-zen werewolf. Able to control everything a lot better than full werewolves because all of the wolf instincts and stuff aren’t as powerful.”

“He still shifts?” Despite the estimated number of half-werewolves being greater than the confirmed population of sphinxes, unicorns, and phoenixes combined, there was little actually known about them academically. It was all word of mouth, as no large-scale study had been able to be done on them. They were apparently reluctant to come forward and make themselves known to researchers. And their friends.

“Yeah, every full moon. Which I think is why he really just considers himself a werewolf.”

“I didn’t know,” you admitted, biting the inside of your cheek as you were still absorbing this information.

“Anyway, he can probably control whatever pre-mating instincts he does have a lot better than full werewolves!”

“And he’s probably doing that because he knows that you know what pre-mating behaviors look like and thinks you would get weirded out.” Yuta suggested, finally entering the conversation instead of just letting you two go back and forth over him. “Since you’re kind of an MCS major.”

“Exactly!”

You pursed your lips, an uneasiness creeping up on you about the whole situation. “I don’t know guys…”

“You said he doesn’t feed you?” Yuta questioned thoughtfully.

“No, he doesn’t. And you two are around us plenty, have either of you ever seen him try to?” You asked pointedly.

“No, but what Shotaro was saying about grocery shopping. He always buys your favorite foods, flavors he knows you likes, even makes Shotaro put stuff back that he knows you think are unappetizing.”

“I’ve never asked him to do anything like that.”

“And yet he does. Now, overly touchy is subjective. Does he—”

“No, we’re not doing this.” You cut him off, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Doing what?”

“Dissecting mine and Sungchan’s friendship and putting it up on a conspiracy board. I’m not playing. And if that’s all you guys are going to do, then I’m leaving.”

Shotaro jumped in, “Y/N, why can’t you even consider that—”

“Because he already asked to be friends and I said yes,” you said angrily, feeling your blood finally reach its boiling point. “I knew what I was getting myself into, and having you guys trying to convince me that it’s something that he already said it’s not, isn’t fucking helping.”

They were both quiet for a beat, and you clenched your jaw. You couldn’t keep sitting right now, you had to go somewhere, do something. If you stayed here, somebody’s feelings were going to get hurt. You stood up, stuffing all of your things haphazardly back into your bag. “Actually, fuck it, I’m leaving anyway.”

“Y/N, we didn’t mean to—”

“I know, you think you’re trying to help or whatever the fuck. But just drop it, okay?” You shoved your feet back in your shoes and slung your bag over your shoulder. “I need to go or I’m going to end up saying something nasty that I don’t really mean and regret it. I’ll see you guys later.”

And with that, you took off, leaving the chair you had borrowed from Yuta on the shore. You took your baseball cap back off to mess with your damp hair as you speedwalked down the city sidewalks. All the angry energy from wanting to just go off on your friends was still coursing through you, and despite Yuta having to pick you up and drive you the couple miles or so to the river, you figured that you might as well walk the whole way back home to blow off steam.

A little more than halfway home, your phone buzzed in your hand with a call, and you glanced at it intending to just send it to voicemail. But it was Sungchan. You stared down at it as you waited to cross a street, an unsure thumb hovering over your screen.

Glancing between your phone and the crosswalk signal, it changed to walk, and you rushed to cross. The call went to voicemail.

Just a few seconds later, your phone lit up with the missed call, a voicemail, then a text from him. You sighed, clicking on the voicemail first.

“Hey, Y/N,” Sungchan’s voice came through clearly. It sounded like he was outside, probably on campus and fresh out of class, if you had to guess by the time. “It’s Sungchan. Obviously. Uh, anyway, I just got out of class, wanted to see if you maybe wanted to come over? I know you’re supposed to be with Shotaro and Yuta, but Shotaro just texted me and said—well, it’s kind of a long story. Just let me know if you can come over, and I’ll tell you when you get here, okay? I’m headed back to my place right now. Okay, bye.”

Shotaro.

Still fucking meddling after you asked him to drop it. If you were less than halfway back from the river, you’d turn around and throttle him.

You checked the text from Sungchan.

[sungchan: hey! i’m out of class. are you busy?]

[you: i can be over in twenty. is that okay?]

You shifted uncomfortably as you stood in front of the front door to Shotaro and Sungchan’s apartment. Your hair wasn’t as damp thanks to your long walk in the hot Sun, and your skin was dry, but you still held yourself as you stared down the center of the white door. You hadn’t knocked yet. You didn’t want to know what Shotaro had told Sungchan, having already convinced yourself that it was everything. That you were about to walk into Friendzoning 2: Electric Boogaloo, this time with Letting Y/N Down Easy. It made your stomach churn, your chest squeeze like a vice around your heart, and your head feel like it had been cast in lead.

You shifted your weight between your feet on the welcome mat, trying to muster up the strength to just knock on the fucking door, when it swung open.

Sungchan was in a pair of dark sweatpants and a dark red t-shirt from your school’s astronomy club—dated for fall two years ago. He offered you a familiar smile, stepping back from the doorway to make room for you. “Hey, I thought I heard you. Come in.”

“Hey. And thanks.” You nodded, slipping by him into his apartment.

Wordlessly, he started leading the way further back towards his room. You longingly looked at the wide-open space of the living room as you disappeared down the hallway. In his bedroom, you saw his desk taken up by his laptop and a spread of notebooks and papers. His bookbag was in his desk chair.

“Sorry, I know that’s your usual spot, but I was doing some homework.” Sungchan had noticed where your gaze was focused. He patted the foot of his bed as he went to sit down against the headboard. “Come on, you can sit with me for once.”

You swallowed and nodded, stepping back out of your shoes and setting your bag down. Climbing onto the end of his bed, you sat with your legs criss-crossed, fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.

“So why did Shotaro text you?” You decided to just go straight into it. No small talk or pleasantries about his class or what homework he was working on. “What’d he say?”

“He told me that he told you that I’m half-werewolf,” Sungchan said bluntly. “I figured I owed you a bit more of an explanation.”

Oh. Well that wasn’t what you were expecting at all.

“You really don’t owe me anything, Sungchan,” you shook your head, your eyes trained on his comforter. “You don’t have to explain who you are to me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

It was a touching sentiment, but it felt like a hot knife right in your gut. He wanted to because he cared about you as a friend. Not in the same way that you cared about him.

You could only manage a soft, “Okay…”

“It’s not some big secret, really. I’m not ashamed of my dad or anything. I love him, he’s a cool guy.” Sungchan started, and you felt like that first part was more to reassure you that it was okay for you to know. He was pointing to a picture that you’d seen a countless number of times before, hanging next to the mirror above his dresser. It was of him at his high school graduation, flanked on either side by his parents, proud, beaming smiles on all of their faces. You’d always assumed they were both werewolves when you’d looked at that picture, and only ever noticed that Sungchan got his smile from his mom, and his nose from his dad. The height difference between his mom and dad never really registered to you, as Sungchan towered over both of them, but now you did see that his mom was almost a head taller than his dad. Not a trait intrinsic to either species, just more of a trend.

But then, his tone turned a little more pensive, “I just... don’t tell people at first because I get a whole slew of questions, from the mundane stuff like ‘How was it growing up with one werewolf parent and one human parent?’ Which like... I don’t know, it was like growing up with two parents? To the people who think that I’m some oddity and therefore they can just ask me completely unprompted about what my dick looks like. And then at the end of it, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just some dumb mutt to them, no matter how you look at it.”

“Sungchan—” His name came out of your mouth instinctually, pained, as you could only imagine what he had experienced to ever be able to call himself that, even cynically as he was doing now.

“It’s okay. I don’t really care about those kinds of people.” He reassured you, offering a small smile. “That’s why I don’t waste my time on them anymore. I just say I’m a werewolf, and eventually they’ll find out more if they need to.”

“I’m sorry, that Shotaro just—”

“Y/N, it’s fine, seriously. I’m okay with you knowing. I know you’re not going to be weird about it. And Shotaro knew that too; I’m sure however it came up in conversation, it made sense for him to tell you.”

You thought about the context of when Shotaro revealed Sungchan’s lineage, wincing minutely. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You can ask me questions, I don’t mind since it’s you.” He then added teasingly, “Come on, Miss Magical Creatures Studies, I know you want to…”

“Not because I think you’re some oddity to be studied, but because I care and I want to understand more about you…” You prefaced your question. “Shotaro said that you still shift every full moon. Are your shifts any different than full werewolves?”

“From what I can tell watching other wolves shift, it’s not as painful, for one. So, bonus!” He said the last word with mock excitement. “The shift itself doesn’t last as long. And some wolves, especially younger ones who are going through their first shifts, tend to get kind of moodier in the days leading up to the full moon. I never got that. Just, everything is kind of… less for me.”

“Everything?” You asked, brows furrowed with confusion.

“My senses are more heightened than a human’s but less than the average werewolf, when I’m not shifted.”

“Ah.”

“And I probably wouldn’t fare great in a werewolf arm wrestling championship,” he tacked on lightheartedly.

“Damn, I had you signed up in one for this weekend,” you joked, clicking your tongue in the back of your throat in fake disappointment. “Put money down and everything.”

He played along, “Well, I guess I can still try for you.”

You smiled to yourself, then looked up at him as you took a deep breath. Whether or not you two were here because you cared about each other in different ways, you at least still cared about each other. And you’d be an idiot to throw out that kind of connection. You’d have to suck it up, hunker down, and connect with him on his terms.

“Thanks for being so open about this with me, Sungchan. I know it wasn’t your choice to tell me, and I know you already said it wasn’t a secret either. But still, I feel... very grateful that you would want to share any part of yourself like this with me.” You tried to pick your words carefully, to convey as much genuine emotion as you could without veering too far into romantic territory. You could still easily picture yourself saying something like this to Jaemin, or Shotaro. Maybe not Donghyuck, though.

“Ah, what’s that?” Sungchan squeezed his eyes shut, a bashful smile coming to his face.

“What’s what?” You asked with a breathy chuckle, feigning offense. “Am I not allowed a moment of sincerity?”

“No, you’re not.” He said it in an overly joking tone, so you knew that he wasn’t actually upset with you.

“And why not?” You mimicked his tone.

He sighed, teasing falling from his voice as he fully leaned back against his headboard, seeming to take you in for a few seconds before answering. “Not if you’re going to be looking at me like that when you’re being all sincere.”

“Like what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, no sir. You do not get to start an avenue of conversation like that and not finish it,” you pointed at him accusingly. “What am I looking at you like?”

The werewolf held your gaze steadily as he said, “Like you want something more.”

You felt your stomach drop as you rushed to get up from his bed, putting even more distance between the two of you. “I’m sorry, Sungchan. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He knew, he knew, he knew.

“Y/N, don’t get me wrong, please.” Sungchan stood up after you, grasping your hand before you could run out on instinct. His grip was loose so that you could leave if you wanted, but the presence was enough to let you know that he still wanted you there, to listen to him. His hand was warm as it held yours, but it burned like you’d grabbed red-hot metal. “I-I think you’re one of the most incredible, smart, fantastic people I’ve ever met. And I’m so grateful that you gave me a second chance.”

“But you don’t like me like that. Yeah, I can see where this is going.” You shook him off, searching the floor for your bag and shoes. This was going to be embarrassing, putting sneakers back on after getting rejected like that.

“No, I do.”

Sungchan’s words stopped you in your tracks, and you slowly turned back around to face him again. Your heart was a drum banging in your ears, you couldn’t trust that they weren’t all—your heart and your ears—playing tricks on you.

“You… what?” You were dumbfounded, staring up at him with a mixture of disbelief and thinly-veiled suspicion. You’d spent far too long convincing yourself that he just liked you as a friend to throw it all out over three words.

“I was going to ask you on another date, that night at the boba shop, I really was,” he explained. “But I realized just how lovely and wonderful you were. And I thought that you didn’t deserve... all the hatred that would come with it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love my parents, but growing up I got to see firsthand just the worst sorts of people… The things that my parents would be called, that I would get called, by other humans and other werewolves. It’s gotten a lot better, but I mean, Jeno’s girlfriend got called a knotslut at the park out of nowhere. And you don’t deserve to have that be your life.”

You narrowed your eyes up at him. “You think you’re not worth it?”

It was his turn to be thrown off-guard. “What?”

“You think that you, and being with you, aren’t worth it?” You reiterated.

“I wasn’t really thinking of it like that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“Do you think that? That you’re not worth it?”

“Well now that you say it like that, no, I don’t think that.” He frowned thoughtfully, his brow set with determination.

“And, I know you didn’t mean it like this, Sungchan, but you took the choice away from me. For a very sweet reason, I acknowledge that. But you didn’t give me a say in the matter. Imagine how that makes me feel.” You sighed, watching guilt flicker across his face. “I’m not going to pretend like I know at all what it was like for you growing up. Or what it’s like now. But I can tell you that I want this, that I want you. I want to be there for you, just like I know you’d be there for me if something ever did happen.”

“Of course I would be,” he declared.

Taking a step closer to him, you tentatively let a familiar airiness return to your chest, chasing out the painful squeeze that had been suffocating you since February. “See? We’ll have each other, Sungchan. Someone calling me something won’t matter as long as you’ll be there with me afterwards. You don’t have to prevent everything bad ever from happening, just hold my hand afterwards until it’s all better, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded resolutely. “I can do that.”

“And I’ll do the same for you. Deal?” You held your pinky finger out to him.

He hooked his with yours. “Deal.”

Sungchan lowered your connected hands, and you watched curiously as he unlinked his pinky, only to turn your hand over with both of his and trace gentle circles into the palm of your hand with his pointer finger.

“Y/N?” He murmured.

You snapped your focus back up to his face at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. He was still gazing down at your hands as you replied, “Yes?”

“I know we really can’t start over completely now, but…”

“If you say ‘friends’ right now, even as a joke, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, half-werewolf strength be damned.” You whispered through gritted teeth.

He sputtered out a chuckle, shaking his head fondly and the circles on your palm never slowing. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. That would be a terrible joke.”

“Good.”

“I was going to ask...” He inhaled shakily, finally drawing his eyes up to yours. “If we could try that date again?”

A smile pulled at the corners of your mouth, and you nodded quickly. “Yeah, Sungchan. I’d love that.”

Sungchan beamed at you, a heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest flutter with hope. “Okay! Thank you, thank you!”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm. “You’re welcome.”

Leaping to your feet at the knock that just came from your front door, you ran to answer it. You threw the door open, abuzz with excitement.

It was just about a week later, and you and Sungchan were finally trying that date again. You’d actually seen him once in the intermittent days, at a previously scheduled group movie night at Jeno and Jaemin’s place. The two of you were all knowing smiles and questionably accidental bumps and brushes of skin under the blanket that you shared that night.

But tonight Sungchan was in your hallway, smiling nervously down at you. “Hi.”

“Hi, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your shirt. He had specifically told you to dress casually and comfortable, but you still felt weirdly underdressed, even seeing that he was in a t-shirt and jeans himself.

“These are for you,” he said quietly, bringing out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

As you accepted them from him, you immediately realized that they were made of paper, intricately folded tulips, lilies, and roses of all colors. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp, thinking about how much time it must have taken him. “An origami bouquet. Oh, Sungchan…”

“I figured you had plenty of hearts by now…” He said as he flushed from his neck upwards.

“They’re beautiful.” You got on your tiptoes, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady yourself as you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks were bright pink as you turned around to set them down inside, then looked back to him expectantly. The werewolf led the way out to the parking lot, except you didn’t see his car anywhere around. There was a familiar old blue pickup truck, however, which he was walking towards.

“Your car in the shop or something?” You asked curiously. “Why are you driving Yuta’s truck?”

“Utility.” He answered cryptically, opening the passenger door for you.

“What does that mean?” You questioned with a chuckle, scooting into the middle of the bench seat.

You’d gotten your seatbelt situated by the time Sungchan had walked around and opened the driver’s side. He didn’t seem to have been expecting you to be in the middle, pausing for a second, and looking around flustered as he climbed into the truck too.

“It’s a surprise, like I said,” he muttered, fastening his own seatbelt and starting the truck.

Sungchan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on his leg next to yours. You drummed your fingers on your own knee contemplatively.

“Sungchan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“Wh— Yeah, of course.” He laughed shakily as you laced your fingers with his. “You don’t need to ask me about stuff like that.”

“Well you’re so tense right now that I was afraid that if I just grabbed your hand, you might freak and crash the car.”

He cringed. “So you can tell?”

“Yeah, I can tell.” You patted his arm with your other hand. “What’s got you so wound up? It’s just me.”

“Well, yeah, it’s you,” he repeated. “I’ve already messed up so many times with you. I don’t want to fuck up again.”

You contemplated this for a second, watching the passing streetlights. “Think about it like this: Could you possibly fuck up again worse than our first date?”

“I hope not.”

“Then you’re already off to a great start.”

“Y/N, I think you need higher standards,” he said without an ounce of humor or joking in his tone.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at that. “Sungchan, you made me an entire origami bouquet and organized a whole night out to surprise me. I think my standards are pretty okay.”

“Alright, but you’ve got to promise that this is my last chance. Like, three strikes and I’m out. Seriously, if I was some other guy, I would’ve told you to throw me to the curb a long time ago.”

You looked over at him incredulously. “Are you seriously advocating against yourself right now? Is this some kind of reverse psychology flirting technique that I’ve never heard of?”

“No, I’m just not going to stop being a good friend because you’re on a date with me. I told you I would always look out for you, and I meant it, even if it’s not in my best interest.”

Nodding with a raised eyebrow, you decided to take his advice at face value. “Okay, your input is noted as part of the council of friends’ round table on my new guy.”

You saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “Good.”

“So, did you tell Shotaro what we were doing?” You asked, curious now that the topic of friends had been brought up.

“I told him we were hanging out.”

“Did you tell him it was a date?”

“No. Did you?”

“If I did, do you think you would have gotten out of your apartment unscathed?” You snorted.

“Fair point.”

The car ride passed with mostly idle chitchat, until he made a turn away from the city center, off onto a back road that you were unfamiliar with. The buildings gave way to trees, the streetlights being replaced only with moonlight and the headlights of the truck or any lone car that you would pass occasionally. A while later, the asphalt became a dirt road, the trees around you getting thicker and thicker. You looked around in interest as he slowed the truck to a stop in a clearing.

“We’re here?” You asked, looking over at him. Your eyes had long adjusted to the nighttime, and you could clearly make out his features.

“We’re here,” he confirmed with a nod, turning the vehicle off.

Sungchan climbed out, helping you down with a hand, and you immediately knew why he’d had both of you dress casually. You were in the middle of the woods, being led to the back of the truck by the hand by your date. He opened the tailgate, and let go of your hand to hop up into the empty bed.

“Wait there,” he requested, now well and good towering over you.

You nodded.

He retrieved a large duffel bag from the truck bed, and you looked curiously at everything he brought out of it. Pillow after pillow, blanket after blanket. The truck bed soon looked like a bed bed, and Sungchan came back over to plop down on the tailgate, toeing his shoes off and setting them aside at the end. He gestured to the bedding with little fanfare.

“All done!”

You hopped up next to him, pulling your shoes off as well and putting them away next to his. Looking at him with a knowing smirk, you nodded to the fact that the two of you were still sitting up. “Now what, Sung?”

“Ah, you’re going to make me spell it out?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head awkwardly.

“No,” you laughed. “I’m not.”

He took that as his cue to lay down first, leaving an open space right beside him. You settled into his side with no hesitation, resting your head on his chest as he pulled a final fluffy blanket over the two of you. Being a half-werewolf, Sungchan was pretty warm, but you were grateful for the extra comfort anyway.

Up above you two was a gorgeous expanse of a night sky. A waxing gibbous glowed down at you, stars twinkling and winking in and out at irregular intervals.

“It’s so peaceful…” He murmured quietly, shifting under you, still settling in.

“I don’t know, it’s kind of scary out here…”

Sungchan moved to sit up slightly, looking down at you with concern. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, what if there’s wolves?”

“Oh my god you’re so annoying,” he groaned, even as he readjusted his arms to hold you closer.

You, meanwhile, were giggling maniacally at your incredible joke, hiding your face in his shirt as you tried to recover. “You mean I’m the funniest person you know.”

“In your dreams.”

Looking back up at the sky, you pointed to a random speck of light. “Do you know what star that is?”

“Which one?” Sungchan asked, craning his head to try to get in your line of sight.

“I don’t know, any of them.” You dropped your hand back down to his front. “You’re in astronomy club, tell me about them, you big Earth Science nerd. Which I say with great affection and fondness.”

“Okay, so you see the Moon?”

“That’s not a star. I do know that.”

He chuckled, which you felt underneath your cheek. “I figured as much. So, starting at the Moon, if you go due North—” he pointed, and you tried your best to follow the path of his index finger. “The first and brightest star you can see. See it?”

“Yep!” You nodded, seeing the exact star he was talking about.

“Then go the right, just a little, there’s a pair of twin stars, see them?”

“Mm… mhm! Yes!”

“Okay, down, and over to the right some more, we’re tracing out the top of a head, then we’re going back up, there’s another pair of twin stars, you see?”

You squinted, losing the top of the head he was talking about, but finally found the second set of twin stars he’d mentioned. “Yeah, found them!”

“Cool. Straight down from that pair, we’re going to find one, two, then over to the left to get the chin, over and up to get the other cheek, and up to round out the head.”

You nodded, vaguely able to picture what he was talking about. “Okay… so whose head was that?”

“Oh, I get to teach Miss MCS Major something!” Sungchan teased.

“Interdisciplinary major…” You reminded him under your breath.

“So that was Lykos, the great wolf in the sky. As in, lycanthropy.”

“Back when scientists thought werewolves were humans with an affliction that could be passed on to other humans. The quote ‘condition’ they were diagnosed with was lycanthropy.” You easily pulled a basic definition of it from class. “Of course we know now that’s not true. Like witches, werewolves are an entirely different species, not just a variety of human. And there’s never been any credible account of a werewolf turning a human into a werewolf.”

“Why is it that humans just think everything is also a human, even when it very clearly is not?”

“Well, if I were to give us humans benefit of the doubt? Uh, to relate to it? Empathy? Recognition of yourself in the other? I mean, it’s better than labeling everything a monster and hunting it down. Which, we also did a bit of.”

“Us monsters did plenty hunting of you guys, too.”

“You say as if you’re not also half-human.”

“Hey,” he frowned down at you suspiciously. “Are you recognizing yourself in the other with me right now? I think we should really save that for the second date—”

“Oh, shut up!” You gave his front a smack as you let out an indignant scoff.

Sungchan was kicking his legs under the blanket as he laughed from his stomach, and when you looked up at him, you saw his eyes squeezed shut tight as he cackled. You watched him with a smitten smile, unable to even pretend to be annoyed for any longer as his guffaws petered out to chuckles then to giggles until he eventually sobered up, and settled his gaze with a heart-stopping grin on you.

The two of you were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, then he broke the eye contact, turning his eyes back up to the stars. “Uhm— I didn’t finish telling you about Lykos.”

You settled back into your spot, and with your ear to his chest, you could hear that his heartbeat was faster than it’d been before. You wondered if he was thinking the same thing about yours in that moment.

“So, Lykos,” Sungchan picked up where he’d left off before. “You can easily find him by starting at the moon to find his left ear. According to werewolf stories, Lykos was the very first werewolf that we’re all descended from. Because he was so great and powerful, once he passed, his soul ascended to be in the stars to watch over all of his descendants.”

“Wow…” You looked at the stars harder, willing Lykos’ shape to be a little more visible to you than before.

“In astronomy, though, the two twin stars that make up his left ear are called LK 1C04 and LK 2C04. They’re both red giants.”

“Are they going to explode any time soon?”

“Stars are kind of always exploding,” he explained enthusiastically. “They’re perpetually combusting and performing nuclear fusion. Well, most stars, if they haven’t run out of fuel yet.”

“What about when they run out of fuel then?”

“Depends on how big they are. LK 1C04 and 2C04 are both red giants, so when they run out of fuel, they’ll turn into white dwarves. So instead of being a burning ball of gas, they’ll just be emitting a very faint light from the remaining energy leftover from their previous nuclear fusion reactions that they can no longer perform.”

“So they don’t get to go out with a bang.”

“No, not really.” Sungchan pointed up at the sky again. “Okay, you remember Lykos’ chin?”

“Yes…”

“So that’s actually the end of the tail of a squirrel, according to some dryad traditions, or a gecko in some human ones.”

Sungchan sketched out the next constellation for you, then relayed the accompanying folk tale. Some scientific factoids would be interspersed too, and you loved hearing the enthusiasm in his voice as he told you about something he was very clearly interested in. And at some point, with his legs tangled up in yours, your hand curled around his waist, your cheek pressed against his chest, his hand casually rubbing up and down your back underneath your top as he still spoke so eagerly, you found your attention slipping away from black holes and how legends of ancient wyvern society said this or that about some other constellation. You were suddenly grabbing him by the collar with two hands and yanking him over to look at you.

“Y/N?” He asked, absolute bewilderment in his features.

“Jung Sungchan, I’m going to say this once, and please don’t take this the wrong way,” you murmured, holding eye contact with him very seriously. “You’re very attractive when you talk about things that you’re passionate about, and if you don’t kiss me right now I think I’m going to explode.”

Sungchan didn’t need to be told twice, reaching up to cup your cheek. Despite your rather blunt and unromantic request, he still tenderly guided your lips to his. Your eyes fluttered shut as you melted into the kiss, the grip you had on his collar relaxing. His mouth was soft as he moved it ever so slightly against yours. His thumb stroked over your cheekbone, the hand on your back pulling you even closer to him. One of your hands grabbed his waist to anchor yourself down to something on Earth.

It ended all too soon for your liking, though. You were pretty sure you could kiss Jung Sungchan forever. He pressed one more quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before leaning back to drink you in.

“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured, stroking your cheek again.

“Sung?” You whispered.

“Hm?”

“Do you want to kiss me again?”

He nodded, and you leaned forward to bump your nose against his. A giddy smile spread across your face.

“Good. Me too.”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist

332 notes · View notes

urauntiefaye · 1 year ago

Text

~MasterList~

Emoji Guide: 🔞=NSFW, 🌸=Fluff, 🔪=Yandere, 🖤=Mafia, 🧛=Vampire Au, 🐺=Werewolf Au, 💛=Hybrid Au, 👹=Crack, ❤️‍🩹=Angst

Enhypen

Legal Line

-None Yet-

Heesung

-None Yet-

Jay

-None Yet-

Jake

To Be Kidnapped Teaser🔪

Sunghoon

-None Yet-

Sunoo

-None Yet-

Jungwon

-None Yet-

&Team

Legal Line:

-Legal Line Hard Thought 10:48🔞-

First Time With &Team Legal Line🔞

&Team as Yanderes(Not including Maki)🔞🔪

-Hard Thoughts: 12:26🔞 -

-Hard Thoughts 11:39🔞-

Fuma

-Hard Thoughts: 10:22🔞-

Nicholas

8:16🔞

Those Two Little Lines ❤️‍🩹🌸

Breeding Kink with Nicholas 🔞

-None Yet-

Yuma

-Hard Thoughts: 1:20🔞-

8:48 Jealous FWB Yuma 🔞🌸

You Will Be Mine 🔞👑

1:42 Jo Asakura 🔞

Slow it Down 🔞

Harua

-None Yet-

Taki

-None Yet-

-BoyNextDoor-

Legal Line:

MtoL "Make Eye Contact During It"

First Time With Legal Line 🌸🔞

Boy Next Door When You're Too Shy To Ask 🔞

Boy Next Door When You're Sad🌸❤️‍🩹

Jaehyun

Soft Sex🔞🌸

Sungho

-None Yet-

Riwoo

-None Yet-

Taesan

7:07

Possessive!Taesan 🔞

Rich!Boyfriend Taesan 🔞

8:20 🔞

Leehan

OneShot: Enemies~ NSFW 🔞

2:11

Frat!Boy Leehan 🔞

-P1Harmony-

Legal Line:

First Time With P1harmony🔞

Keeho

-None Yet-

Theo

-None Yet-

Jiung

-None Yet-

Intak

-None Yet-

The Boyz

All Members

-None Yet-

Sangyeon

-None Yet-

Jacob

-None Yet-

Younghoon

-None Yet-

Hyunjae

-None Yet-

Juyeon

-None Yet-

Kevin

-None Yet-

New(Chanhee)

-None Yet-

Q(Changmin)

-None Yet-

Haknyeon

-None Yet-

Sunwoo

-None Yet-

Eric

-None Yet-

NCT 127

All Members

-None Yet-

Taeyong

-None Yet-

Johnny

-None Yet-

Yuta

-None Yet-

Doyoung

-None Yet-

Jaehyun

-None Yet-

Jungwoo

-None Yet-

(Mark and Haechan will be with the Dreamies)

NCT Dream

All Members

-None Yet-

Mark

-None Yet-

Renjun

-None Yet-

Jeno

-None Yet-

Haechan

-None Yet-

Jaemin

-None Yet-

Chenle

-None Yet-

Jisung

-None Yet-

Wayv

All Members

-None Yet-

Kun

-None Yet-

Ten

-None Yet-

WinWin

-None Yet-

Xiaojun

-None Yet-

Hendery

-None Yet-

YangYang

-None Yet-

-WIPS/To Be Uploaded-

-Reactions/Imagines-

Full Fanfictions/Stories

103 notes · View notes

junrenjun · 6 months ago

Text

recommendation masterlist

my fic recs all in one place

key

♡ = fluff ⚐ = smut ▽ = angst ✩ = personal favorite

NCT 127

Jeong Jaehyun

⚐ Dive by @yougotthatbilly (Fratboy!Jaehyun)

♡ ▽ Moon River by @ppangjae4jx (President's Son!Jaehyun)

♡ The Apple of My Eye by @sehunniepotwrites (Teacher AU)

Kim Doyoung

♡ ⚐ ▽ ✩ A Waltz in The Dark by @misted-dream (Dancer AU, series, this is just a link to the interval chapter)

NCT Dream

Huang Renjun

♡ ✩ ▽ Can I Have a Hug? by @cinnajun (I love this fic with all my heart)

♡ ⚐ ▽ Blondes Are Done With Fun by @rrxnjun (College AU)

Lee Haechan

♡ ⚐ ✩ Bound to Your Love by @haechansdoll (Royalty AU)

♡ ▽ Achromatopsia by @neoneversleeps (I could read this fic over and over and over again)

Na Jaemin

♡ ▽ ✩ Smultronstalle by @gohyuck (Doctor AU, I cannot describe how much I want to read this for the first time again, ⚐ for second part)

WayV

...loading

Riize

Jung Sungchan

♡ ▽ Changer by @starlightkun (Werewolf!Sungchan, College AU)

♡ Love Bites by @starlightkun (Part 2 to Changer because I love it so much)

Stray Kids

Multi

⚐ ▽ ✩ Force Quit by @eoieopda (Dystopian AU, series where each episode focuses on a different member and reader)

Bang Chan

♡ ▽ Pieces of You by @astraystayyh (Single Dad!Chan)

Han Jisung

⚐ Catfish by @seungminheart (Rockstar!Jisung)

Lee Minho

♡ ▽ Light Years. by @withleeknow (Childhood Friends to Lovers)

▽ ⚐ Consort by @fizzydrink698 (Royalty AU, series)

Ateez

Park Seonghwa

⚐ ♡ She's A Regular Here by @that-irrelevant-ricecakeaddict (Drug Dealer!Seonghwa)

Seventeen

Choi Seungcheol

♡ ▽ ⚐ Fifteen to Forever by @gyuswhore (Hockey Player!Seungcheol)

Hong Joshua

▽ ✩ ⚐ ♡ Second Chance by @gamerwoo (ABO AU, believe me when I tell you the last line of this fic absolutely broke me, mini series part of one larger universe)

Jeon Wonwoo

♡ For The Books by @trblsvt (Teacher AU)

♡ ▽ Untitled by @97-liners (Royalty AU)

Wen Junhui

♡ ▽ False Pretenses by @papermatisse (Royalty AU)

▽ ✩ Heaven Couldn't Wait for You by @berriesandjunnie (I sobbed, so beautifully written)

40 notes · View notes

softsan · 1 year ago

Text

NCT WEREWOLF AU (AESTHETIC)

A remake of this: X

Taeyong

alpha

seven hundred and one years old

suspicious and dubious of humans

puts his pack above all

can be rash and unforgiving

encounters his mate on a non-routine hunt

mate: councilman's daughter

Taeil

elder

eight hundred and fifty-six years old

oldest member of the pack

works as an adviser to the alpha and the betas

breaks up and resolves pack conflicts

stumbles onto his mate who's wearing a disguise

mate: physician

Johnny

hunter

four hundred and eighty-nine years old

has the best sense of smell in the pack

the pack's number-one tracker.

exceptional at mauling his enemies.

left heartbroken by his mate's rejection

mate: rival pack member

Yuta

hunter

four hundred and sixty-seven years old

incredibly quick and stealthy

is labeled the 'ambusher' for his cut-throat hunting tactics

despises the prospect of a mate

believes fate is cruel and callous

mate: city guardian

Kun

beta

six hundred and eighteen years old

second in command

rules in taeyong's absence

known to be morally strict and stern

goes against his beliefs by stealing his mate away

mate: stolen bride

Doyoung

delta

five hundred and thirty-two years old

is the support unit of the pack

on standby to fulfill the duties of ill or injured packmates

finds himself in a hopeless situation

accidentally marks his mate in a poisoned haze

mate: north's princess

Ten

head scout

five hundred and sixteen years old

has an unparalleled control of his inner wolf

works as the pack's eyes and ears in the city

warns the pack of dangers outside their territory

overcomes his heartbreak by meeting a nifty pickpocket

mate: thief

Jaehyun

delta

four hundred and forty-nine years old

strongest member of the pack

formidable opponent in battle

responsible for guarding the pack's territory

comes across his mate in the scorching sands

mate: she-wolf

Winwin

sentinel

four hundred and three years old

routinely patrols the pack's territory

greats new visitors and learns their intentions

will harshly punish aggressive and disrespectful intruders

accidentally kidnaps his mate instead of his actual target

mate: royal governess

Jungwoo

scout

three hundred and twenty-one years old

has great command of his inner wolf

can avoid shifting on a full moon

gathers and shares information for the pack

blown away by his sweet mate

mate: royal maidservant

Mark

delta

three hundred and twelve years old

known to be sunny but stubborn

incredibly fast learner

teaches hunting skills to younger pack members

saved by his mysterious and magical mate

mate: thread coven witch

Renjun

salutary

two hundred and sixty-three years old

is the pack's herbalist

makes tonics and concoctions for his fellow wolves

plagued by dreams of the past

gives the cold shoulder to his mate

mate: old soul

Jeno

hunter

two hundred forty-eight years old

a distinguished pack fighter

often organizes hunts

is the first to volunteer to go on nightly patrols

captured by his formidable mate

mate: general's daughter

Haechan

omega

two hundred and twenty-four years old

rash and impulsive

has poor control over his inner wolf

frustrated by his low status within the pack

taken in by his beloved mate

mate: baker

Jaemin

hunter

two hundred and twenty-two years old

very talented tracker

is the most versed with their territory's terrain

lovestruck by the idea of love and fate

has his memory wiped by his elusive mate

mate: siren

Xiaojun

scout

one hundred and eleven years old

has mastered controlling his inner beast

recently elevated to the position of scout

is eager to prove himself within the pack

rescues his mate from the cruelty of humans

mate: seer

Hendery

hunter

eighty-three years old

loves running under the moon's light

known for his great speed and stealth

recently elevated to the position of hunter

taken down by his fearless mate

mate: assassin

YangYang

omega

twenty-three years old

only recently had his first transformation

is the pack's forager

searches for plants and provisions to help feed the pack

is reunited with his childhood friend and mate

mate: greenskeeper

Chenle

pup

twenty-two years old

is eager for his first transformation

spent his early years on the run with his aunt

thankful to be accepted into a pack

ambushed by his wicked mate

mate: star coven witch

Jisung

pup

twenty-one years old

is nervous about his first transformation

last to join the pack

spent years hiding underground from humans

shyly taken by his doting mate

mate: seamstress

147 notes · View notes

bee-the-loser-recs · 4 months ago

Text

~~~~☼ My Mark One-shot Fic Recs ☼~~~~

𖤓 Send in the clowns By @smileysuh 10.6k, Haechan|Mark|Jaehyun x reader, college au, frat boys NCT, best friend Jungwoo, friends to lovers, karaoke friends, smut, polyamory, slight fluff, Halloween parties, dressing up

𖤓 Roommates By @smileysuh 8.3k, Mark x reader x Haechan, college au, frat house NCT, best friend Jungwoo, polyamory, smut, stoners, getting high together, slight fluff, mentions of Jeno having a crush on reader

𖤓 Sunday kind of love By @smileysuh 35.8k, college au, frat boys NCT, slightly dorky and loveable Mark, study partner Jungwoo, long term crush, mentions of Halloween parties, smut, fluff, soft/inexperienced reader, extreme pining

𖤓 Operation: First Kiss By @ncityrave 4.4k, non-specified au, established relationship, first kiss between the couple, fluff, slight angst, getting advice from other members

𖤓 No one but you By @loserlvrss 1k, established relationship, slice of life, drunk moments, taking reader home, mentions of alcohol, fluff

𖤓 Perfect little toy By @loudstan 13k, magical & supernatural au, werewolf Mark, witch reader, sex shop owner reader, smut, imprinting, slight fluff, shop partner Svt Jeonghan, some angst

𖤓 Jealousy By @yutaholic 22k, non-idol au, reader & Mark's parents are dating, Mark & reader are in love, angst, trying to break up their parents, slight fluff, almost being step siblings, messy, smut

𖤓 Come back to me By @bloodmoonmuses Established relationship, retelling their first meeting to Jonny & Haechan, cute, fluff, meet cutes, enamoured with one another

𖤓 This is (not) easy By @mrkis 13.2k, college au, friends to fwb to lovers, slight miscommunication, smut, fluff, angst, mentions of reader hooking up with Jaemin, crack humour

𖤓 Just between us [part 1] & [part 2] By @mrkis 9.2k & 14.4k, established relationship between Yuta & reader, inviting Mark to join them, smut, mentions of Winwin being included in their dynamic, slight fluff, teasing, discussions of the rest of NCT having crushes on reader

𖤓 Gelato By @hazyhae 14.4k, unspecified au, non-idol au, plug Mark, friends to strangers to lovers, angst, fluff, smut, weed use, friend Renjun, reconnecting after years

𖤓 Roomie high By @hazyhae 3.8k, stoner!roommate!Mark, roommates to ??, weed use, looking for a weed friendly roommate, friend Haechan, pet names

𖤓 Baby fangs By @starlightkun 26.7k, fantasy au, modern magical creatures au, sphinx reader, basilisk Mark, older women/younger man, teaching him how to use his powers, fluff, teasing, age/MILF comments, very suggestive comments

𖤓 Elevator pitch By @luvhaos 9.1k, college au, frat au, frat house NCT, friends hyping up Mark, fluff, slight miscommunication trope, angst, alcohol use/underage drinking

𖤓 Triple Lee; naughtier the better By @p4p1l0nn 9.1k, Mark | Haechan | Jeno x reader, non-idol au, stoner au, plug Haechan & Mark, stoner Jeno & reader, roommates, smut, slight fluff

𖤓 Keep talking to me By @starillusion13 7.1k, non-specified au, polyamory, slight angst, fluff, smut, reader is ditched by a friend socially, a night in together, romance

𖤓 Trust me not By @starillusion13 9.1k, Boss unit x reader, mafia au, angst, slight fluff, keeping secrets, anniversary surprises, themes of betrayal, getting shot, open ending

𖤓 Foreign swaggers By @starillusion13 8k, Jonny | Jaehyun | Mark x reader, brother's best friend au, Taeyong is reader's brother, shared vacation, smut, fluff, polyamory, enemies to friends to lovers, drinking

𖤓 Salted caramel By @lucyandthepen 20.3k, college au, barista!Mark, both reader & Mark are down bad for each other, teasing from friend group, jealousy, constant teasing from Haechan, smut, fluff, other Dreamies mentioned

𖤓 What's mine is yours By @smileyerim 4.9k, non-specified au, long term pining, drunk confessions, admittance of feelings, fluff, slight smut, getting drunk together

𖤓 Temporary flag girl [part 1] & Back again [part 2] By @babbymochiiii 1.2k & 1.2k, street racer au, street racer Mark, comedy, reader subs in as a flag girl, slight fluff, fun dynamics, comedy

𖤓 Midas touch By @martiniblues Short drabble, spiderman!Mark, established relationship, teasing your partner, fluff, mentions reader's attraction to a fictional character, down bad Mark

𖤓 Spidey boy By @martiniblues 2.9k, spiderman!Mark, established relationship, trying to get Mark to confess his identity, slight fighting, reader needs saving, cat-calling, creepy dude, pet names, fluff

𖤓 Quarantine Chronicles 1, part 2, part 3 By @domjaehyun 28.5k & 55.3k & 43k, Quarantine au, Jaemin | Jaehyun | Jungwoo | Johnny | Mark | (Jeno | Haechan in part 3 only) x reader, roommates (except Mark), friends with benefits situation, lots of tension & flirting, smut, slight fluff, crack, Jaehyun & Mark have actual feelings for reader

𖤓 Surviving no nut November By @domjaehyun 28.8k, Haechan x reader x Mark, college au, friends to lovers, no nut November challenges, smut, trying to trip them up, teasing, slight fluff, weed consumption, pet names

𖤓 Kiss you right now By @domjaehyun 6.9k, college au, best friends to lovers, pining, Mark really wants to kiss reader, smut, fluff, really cute

𖤓 Play with me By @domjaehyun 4.6k, college au, best friends to lovers, weed use, stoners Mark & reader, late night drives, high sex, smut, fluff

𖤓 Teach me By @domjaehyun 3.3k, Mark x reader (ft. Yuta), non-specified au, established relationship, Mark asks Yuta for help in being rougher, smut, switching up the dynamics a bit

𖤓 10:12pm By @daydreamingyuta 200, drabble, established relationship, fluff, borrowing clothes, just really soft and adorable

𖤓 Baseball (& Other disasters) By @tqmies 10k, college au, friends to lovers, idiots in love, mutual pining, baseball player Mark, assistant manager reader, fluff

𖤓 Fever pitch By @nctsworld 8.4k, pro baseball player Mark, meet cutes, small accident, getting hit by a ball, fluff, smut, relationship development, best friend Chenle

483 notes · View notes

sluttyten · 4 months ago

Text

UNHOLY - Chapter Eighteen

full masterlist || UNHOLY chapter index

summary: you've been anxiously waiting the reunion with Ten and Yuta. But first, you have to break them out of their imprisonment in Hell. And, who knows, maybe while you're there, you'll learn some new stuff about yourself, too

length: 19,907 words

tags: supernatural, demons, happy stuff, stressful and nervous stuff, scared and angry stuff

<-previous || next–>

You wish you could say the first day of planning went splendidly and you were ready to go marching into Hell the next day.

That wasn’t the case.

Each day, your planning meetings end with nothing truly decided. Each night, you dream again of Hell, of the Queen of the Night, of the torture that Yuta and Ten are enduring. Each morning you wake feeling more stressed than you had been the day before, more afraid of what is happening to them, and how different you might find them – they’ve been imprisoned in two separate prisons, possibly tortured, who knows what sort of effect that’s had on them since you last saw them.

You cover lots of things in the meetings that should reassure you of the success of this mission, but they don’t necessarily reassure you of anything.

Jeno and Jaemin tell you about the layout of Hell, of secret entrances and passages and exits while they also regale you with amusing stories of their time at Hell’s boarding school. Johnny tells each of you how shadows work – not the obvious way, but the magical way that lets him twine them around his fingers and send them away to do his bidding. There are skills lessons – Ira instructing you more in the ways of the Watchers, Jaemin and Jeno giving you more information about demons that they’d learned in their demonic boarding school, combat lessons from Jaehyun the werewolf (which Haechan seems only too eager to go head-to-head with some of your new companions). Ira and the sirens discuss various plans to leave the island and to return, revealing the secrets you’ve been wondering about since Renjun brought you here.

You keep your distance from the sirens, still a little wary of them after the dream you had a week ago in which they’d drowned you. It doesn’t help that all three of them have a mildly terrifying aura anyway, and it only gets worse every time that you see Seulgi watching all of you like you’re her prey during Jaehyun’s combat lessons. But you know that the sirens are actually rather sweet. Sunmi is kind and truly nurturing with her sisters. Seulgi actually is quite adorable and soft-hearted when it comes down to it — one day after Johnny’s shadow-talks, you see Seulgi playing with his shadow tendrils like they’re kittens while Johnny watches on with amusement.

Minnie, though, shows such affection for Renjun. She acts cute and flirty and clingy, constantly trying to steal his attention away from Haechan who, in turn, tries to steal Renjun’s attention back.

You try hard not to find the dynamic between the elf, the vampire, and the siren very amusing and familiar.

Finally on the morning of the seventh day, you wake in the darkness of your bedroom to find that Mark’s side of the bed is empty.

It’s late. Or early. The sky outside the window of your bedroom is still a deep, dark shade of blue with stars just barely visible, tiny pinpricks of silver light in the sky. You can see the ink of the sea in the distance, whitecap waves reflecting moonlight.

The night is truly silent tonight. Your view out the window could be nothing more than just a pretty picture in the frame for all the sound you catch – no wind blowing, you can’t hear the waves rushing against the shoreline. No one whispers in the halls or other rooms of Ira’s house. The only sound is the thundering of your own heart in your ears and the dull sizzling sound of your handprints you’ve burnt into the sheets where you’ve been clutching them.

A nightmare is what woke you.

It’s similar to the one you had a week ago, centered on Hell. Every part of it was confusing and disappointing as each element of your plot to rescue Ten and Yuta fell through completely. You woke when the dream couldn’t possibly have gotten any worse.

You saw them burning.

Everyone.

Everyone burned. Yuta and Ten, although that should have been impossible. Mark and WinWin, Ira, the sirens, the others that Ira has drawn here to his island to help you with this mission.

They were all burning in your dream. The dream was so vivid that you could smell burning hair and flesh; you could see the terror in their eyes; you could hear their cries and screams. You had heard the vile laughter of the Queen of the Night, cackling with wicked delight while they burned and she made you watch.

Now, as you lie here in the waking aftermath of your nightmare, you try to focus on your surroundings to ground you in the present.

Behind you, WinWin is unmoving, an arm pitched above his head, the sheets twisted around his hips, one exposed leg visible and covered in white scars like lightning bolts originating from the silvery bite mark left behind by the Fell Beasts. Tonight he’s unbothered, deep in dreams so he doesn’t budge even as you leave the bed, as you quietly dress yourself.

Soft snores sound from the bedrooms you pass. There’s no sign of anyone being awake, no sounds of the unsleeping vampires being aware of you moving through the house. You creep down the spiral stairs, taking careful steps to keep quiet as you make your way out through the front door.

Dawn is just beginning to touch the perfect blue darkness of night. Peach colored sunrise swirls through the navy clouds and the steel gray of the choppy sea. Deep shadows remain over much of the island, and you stick to them, remembering Johnny’s advice of bending shadows to help hide you, which you apply skillfully as you leave the eaves of the house towards the cliff’s edge.

As you walk forward, you glance backwards, attempting to look up at the lighthouse tower’s peak, trying to see if maybe Mark is up there. You know he’s got a tendency to climb up the tower so he can sit there and stare at the stars. If he’s up there right now, you can’t distinguish him from the dark. And if he is up there, he must not notice you because he doesn’t descend to join you or stop you either way.

You don’t want him to join you.

The nightmares that have been plaguing you all week have been bad enough, but the one you just awoke from truly has put you in a state of panic. No one else can come with you, you saw the argument for that in your dream. Everyone here on the island has been helpful in these planning stages, but if they come with you, they’re just weaknesses for you, they’ll hold you back and make you much more noticeable than if you just go by yourself.

You know how to get off the island now, and you have a plan for exactly how you’re going to get into Hell, how you’re going to locate Ten and Yuta, and how you’re going to escape. You’ve even got a Plan B tucked away in the back of your mind in case your original plan goes awry.

The beach looks nearly the same as it had the day that you arrived. Foamy white waves crash against the shore, rushing through the pebbles as you near the water’s edge.

Since your arrival to Ira’s island, you’d wondered several times how the portal magic worked for the island. Ira and Renjun had made it clear that it was only possible to enter the island via portal, and that made sense. Up until a few days ago when one rescue strategy had been discussed, you hadn’t known how to leave the island. At what point did the sea become a portal back to the rest of the world?

Ira had led all of the group out onto the porch outside the front door. With his arm outstretched, he pointed out at the sea visible beyond the cliff’s edge. “See the water, where it turns from a shallow turquoise to a darker blue? Do you see the circle of turquoise out a little further? It’s straight out from the inlet where you all came in.”

The sea faded from turquoise closer to the shore to a deeper blue as the sea floor dropped off, but then there was in fact a pocket of lighter color out in the deep.

“This portal works a bit different from other portals. To exit the secure space I’ve placed this island in, you have to have a specific mental picture of your destination, you have to focus on it and push through.”

“Push through? It’s in the middle of the water. How will we know when we’ve reached the portal to push through and to focus?” Jeno had turned to your father in confusion.

Mark, standing beside you in the shadow of the house’s doorway, grimaced. “Trust me, you’ll know. Coming through is easy enough, but when we left to find you guys, I thought like you. It was in the middle of the water, so how would we know? But it’s like hitting an invisible wall. You have to focus on holding your destination in mind while you also push through what feels like a solid wall of water.”

Ira nods. “I didn’t make it easy to come and go.”

And now, in the present moment as you stand on the shore and face the morning gray of the sea, you hope you’ll be able to find the portal. From down here at the water level, you can’t see a difference in the water like you’d been able to from up above. It’s impossible to tell how far out you’re going to have to swim.

You stare out at the water.

If you don’t go now, you’re going to lose your nerve.

Images of your dream last night flash through your mind.

Ten screaming as hungry flames consumed him. Yuta’s body stretched out on the floor as veins of poisoned fire wrapped around his throat, crawling over his cheeks and mouth.

It had all seemed so real, so terrifying. You can’t take another night of not knowing that they’re safe, of not having them in your arms again.

The seawater is cool where it touches your bare ankle.

Ira had said the portal is just a straight swim out from the shore. You can do this.

You take a few steps more out into the water, shivering as the cool water rises up your body, as the waves splash it even higher.

You pull in a deep, full breath and with one last glimpse back at the cliffs behind you – halfway hoping to see a familiar face, halfway checking to make sure that there isn’t anyone watching. There isn’t anyone. You face the horizon again, and you dive beneath the surface.

Below the water, the world is dark and still. You’re still close to the shore, in only a few feet of water, but as you begin swimming forward, the bottom falls away beneath you. Darkness grows around you when you reach the open water of the sea. There’s a different feeling to the water, a hollowness and a pull of gravity as the forever black maw opens beneath you.

High above you, the sunrise bursts in prismatic colors over the surface. Your lungs begin to ache and your heart longs for you to rise to the surface again, to feel the heat of the sunrise on your face and a fresh breath of air filling your lungs, but instead you keep swimming forward into the endless, deep dark.

The pressure grows stronger in your chest, in your head, in your throat, and you feel like you’re being squeezed to death and frozen as the sea around you becomes entirely black. Momentarily, the thought crosses your mind that you’ve slipped right through the portal without being aware, that you’ve been somehow sucked into that Abyss that Yuta and Ten once told you about – the place where soulless supernaturals go when they die.

And then, you feel it.

A wall of pressure.

You pull an image of your destination into your mind, focusing on it with every part of you that’s not worrying about being able to breathe, and you push forward.

You feel as if you’re making absolutely no progress no matter how hard you push against it, and for a moment you’re right back trapped in that mirror at the House of the Watchers – again, you can’t breathe, you’re trapped against a barrier with everything you want on the other side. You push and you push, trying to keep a river a million miles away held in your mind, pushing, pushing, feeling your lungs seizing in your chest and dots of blackness and sparks of impossible light spark across your vision.

The world breaks around you, shattering and transforming into a world of bright sound and heat and so much air.

Each breath sears your lungs, your chest burning in an entirely unpleasant manner, but you can’t help gasping for more and more air. Your hair drips into your eyes, making them sting. There’s so much noise, and after the suffocation of the deep sea, all of this everything is very disorienting.

It takes a moment or two of treading water before you realize that your escape from the island actually worked.

River water stains your skin with tiny granules of silt, a twig has tangled itself in your hair as well as a slimy piece of plant life that has twisted through your fingers. You shake it off, pluck the twig from your hair, and you look back up to the banks of the river you’re in, at the high city buildings reaching up into the orange haze of the sky.

You’ve come back to Hell City.

Something silvery flickers by you in the water, and it takes a moment too long for you to realize what it is. Another pale streak rushes by you, and this time you recognize it for what it is. A memory rises to the surface of your mind.

In your early days here, as Ten and Yuta showed you around the city, they’d brought you here to the riverwalk along this river that marks the border of Hell City. Right now, you’re a bit upriver from that spot where the river splits in two, but you still remember clearly leaning against the railing with Yuta beside you, his arm wound around your waist to keep you from tipping into the dangerous water.

It’s the memory of that day that has inspired your rescue plan.

“What do you see when you look at the water?” Yuta had asked you that day. And that morning, just as right now, you’d seen a whitish silver ribbon twisting through the water. With his hands on you, keeping you safely planted on solid ground, Yuta had explained to you, “Those are spirits of the damned. This river leads straight to Hell. Proper Hell, not just this city. Water is a transmitter, or conductor, carrying the spirits down where they belong. A little way down the way, the river vanishes underground, and it never resurfaces.”

It’s funny, thinking back on that now. You’ve definitely learned that water works as a pathway – it’s taken you to Purgatory and to Ira’s little special corner of the universe, and it’s brought you back here.

And if your plan works, this river is going to take you straight to Hell.

This is something that has come up in your week of planning. Jaemin’s voice echoes from the back of your mind. “Once you’re in that river, it’s a certainty as to where you’re going. Because the river is a one-way ticket to Hell. Spirit Express, no stops, no clear return.”

In the present moment, you can already feel the current of the river sucking at you, pulling you downstream. A cold wave slaps into the side of your head, and you swear you hear a voice whispering a death song in your ear, and you keep your mouth closed tightly, trying to keep your face above water, even as the current pulls you along, threatening to drag you under even as you fight to stay afloat.

And then you see it just up ahead. The river forks.

One branch of the river continues on through the regular, mortal, unmagical world towards the ocean. The other branch grows darker and darker until eventually it delves underground, passing briefly through Hell City’s underground, and then surging even deeper below to the realm of the demons; this branch of the river is the one that has you in its gravity.

And suddenly it really has a grip on you. You’re being propelled forward in the water, carried along faster than you had been just a moment before, racing towards the place where the river disappears underground.

The moment is obvious when the power of the great river of the damned finally overpowers the simple current of the natural river. One moment, you’re still able to fight to keep your head above water, and the next you can feel the force of the water pulling you downward.

You keep getting pulled under, managing one final gasp for breath in the instant before it’s impossible, sucking in a little of the river water despite all of your previous attempts. It tastes like poison as it trickles over your tongue, and the moment you resurface, you cough and gag, trying to expel the toxic water. Repeat.

Occasionally, you feel something else in the water, hitting against you, bumping and slithering and slimy. Mostly it feels incorporeal, as if you’re just feeling passing souls. Until you feel the tug at your ankles, the gravity pushing you down further from the surface.

You wish you had something to hold onto, some easier way to get to Hell than this, but Jaemin and Jeno had assured you that this was going to be the easiest way for all of you to get there, and even though you’re going this alone now, you don’t know any other way to get to Hell.

You’re being sucked downward, and you flail around, trying to claw your way back to the surface for one last breath, one last glimpse of the sunlight –

Free-fall.

You’re in free-fall, no longer controlled by the river’s current but by gravity.

Lights flicker to life – far away and below you, growing rapidly bigger and closer.

You recognize where you are, but you’ve never seen it from this perspective.

You’re tumbling in the waterfall you’ve seen before, racing through Hell City’s underground, and within seconds you’ll be crashing into the next layer of the underworld. Streams of silvery light surround you, and if you could really force your eyes to focus on anything, you feel certain that you might be able to make out features of faces or limbs. These are souls, after all.

The air is full of voices – whispers of the souls, your own screams.

You feel the impact as your body crashes into the pool of water at the base of Hell City’s underground waterfall. It doesn’t hurt necessarily, but you can feel the water passing like a heavy wave beating against you when you stand unprepared in the surf. And then everything is dark and cool again. The air is filled with the rushing sound of water and passing air and all the whispers of the souls around you. And you’re spinning.

It takes a moment to really realize that, but soon you come to understand that you’re spiraling downwards in tighter and tighter curls, moving faster and faster, you and all of these souls are funneled to a point.

You’re spinning in the darkness, and then suddenly you’re not.

In a great cold splash and a burst of warm light, you’re standing dripping wet on a stone floor.

“What the fuck?” You hiss, blinking and looking around.

Directly in front of you is the broad back of a very tall, large man. He doesn't turn to look at you, only shuffling forward a step.

A cold wave of water rushes over your feet as a considerable splash sounds from behind you.

You glance over your shoulder and find an elderly woman standing there with round glasses sliding toward the tip of her nose, her hair curling loose down to her shoulders. She doesn’t seem to take too much notice of you. Momentarily, there’s another big splash, a second wave assaulting your feet as a spout of water shoots down from the distant blackness of the ceiling, the jet of water deposits another soul in what appears to be a line growing behind you.

You twist around to the front, leaning around the broad man in front of you to get a look at what you’re in line for.

“What the fuck?” You repeat, looking at the line that stretches into the impenetrable distance. It winds forward, twisting around rocky structures that jut up from the floor. A deep reddish-orange glow semi-illuminates this vast space, but the end of the line in either direction – as the spout of water continues to deposit an endless string of souls behind you in line – is swallowed by the same darkness that resides above your head.

But do you really have to wait in line?

None of the others around you pay any attention to you or anyone else. They all wear bored, resigned expressions, content to shuffle forward step by step as the line slowly shifts forward with some unknown signal.

It is eerily silent. Your brain can’t comprehend the absolute lack of sound when you can see so many people. You should be able to hear breathing or some slight shifting, fabric brushing together, feet moving on the floor, an exasperated sigh or grumbling under the breath. You even half expect to hear a distant echo, water droplets trickling down from somewhere or even dripping from clothes, but as the Hell Delivery System waterfall moves ever farther down the line, you can’t even hear its roar of delivery anymore.

And you’re soaking wet. Uncomfortably so.

You know that you could easily call your demon fire and make quick work of drying yourself off, but some instinctive feeling in your belly is telling you not to do that. It might just draw attention to you.

Not that there seems to be anyone overseeing this line, enforcing behavior. If you just stand here waiting in line for some unknown end, you’ll just be wasting time. There probably isn’t anyone who will even notice if you cut the line a little.

You’ve moved only a dozen paces since your arrival.

You take a step out of line, pause, waiting for something to happen.

After a few beats, nothing has happened.

You begin to move, passing up the column of this endless queue. No one moves or spares you a glance, speaks or breathes or anything. So you walk, and you walk and walk and walk, searching for the front of the line.

Is this Hell? Just this, waiting in line forever? Moving forward inch by inch for all of eternity. Because you’ve been walking for at least half an hour, and the front of the line doesn’t seem anywhere in sight. Although, the scenery has slightly changed. There seem to be more outcroppings of rock here, and there are large torches mounted to the walls, providing a stronger orange light than the previous ambient red-orange glow.

Another fifteen minutes pass by in unchanging silence. You look behind you to see the line vanishing back into dim light some distance back, twisting out of sight around a big boulder. Ahead of you looks pretty much the same.

But then you hear something.

It sounds like footsteps, so you freeze. Sharp clicking footsteps pass over the stone floor. Heavy breathing and the acrid scent of brimstone.

A demon.

You don’t dare to move even a little bit. Wherever this demon is, it must be ahead of you, around the next curve of the line, but you’re sure even a slight move would draw its attention to exactly where you are as it prowls along the line.

Sure enough, around the curve ahead, you see a puff of black smoke, a shadow painted on the wall of a beast. It’s coming towards you.

You clench your hands into fists, and you feel your nails bite against your palms hard enough to break skin.

The demon’s shadow on the wall twitches, head tilting curiously to the side, and you glance down to see a trickle of your blood as it drips from your hand.

A sharp whistle cuts through the never-ending space, echoing off the rock walls and the invisible ceiling. The demon twists around, a growl rumbling from it. A second whistle, and the beast sets off in the opposite direction. You hear a grinding sound of stone against stone, a third whistle and another growl from the demon.

You take a step forward, conscious of the coarse sand that dusts the stone floor, aware that even a slightly wrong move could cause sound. If only there was some way to silence your footsteps so you could sneak forward, hopefully catching a glimpse around the next curve of the line, maybe to see what is happening ahead. Have you finally found the front of the line?

You take a tentative step forward, and there’s a soft crunch of a pebble beneath your foot.

Your heart leaps in your throat, but then you remember.

During the weeks of Ira’s lack of availability and assistance with this plan, you’d dug into any and all of the books he had in his home. There were boring books about gardening and maintenance, cookbooks, and even self-help books, but there had also been histories of the Watchers, but these were ancient texts that you felt must be from the early days of the Watchers because they were just histories, they held information pertaining to the instruction of young Watchers.

Those texts you had devoured, pouring over them for long hours until Mark or WinWin had dragged you away, providing you with ample distraction.

But you had learned some things from those texts about the powers of the Watchers, the abilities that you possess. You’d practiced a few things, but you are fully aware that you’re a long way from being adept at the skills.

Although, one of the magical skills you’d read about, and that you’d once attempted semi-successfully, had been the power to become undetectable – invisible and silent – for up to an hour. You’d used that experiment to sneak up on WinWin and scare him, for which you’d had to apologize and make it up to him when you returned to detectability about ten minutes later.

But isn’t that what you need right now? To be undetectable?

Luckily, the process had been rather simple, and you’d made certain to memorize it before even attempting it that first time.

The powers of the Watchers were magic like you’d not quite seen it before. Sure, some of it involved fancy words and waving your hands around, but there was a simplicity to it all that almost seems deceptive, like you feel like it should be much more difficult than it is, and by finding it easy, you must be doing it wrong. But that’s not the case at all. Maybe it seems that way because you’re so new to this power that you were actually born with; it’s a part of you, so natural that it just flows without having to work too hard at it.

Either way, the effort to become undetectable right now is simple.

The sandy soil underfoot is actually much more fine than you’d believed. It’s a soft, reddish-brown powder that clings to your fingertips as you crouch and gather a handful. Disturbingly, it reminds you of dried blood.

You spit into the small pile of soil in your hand, mixing it into a paste that you try not to think too much about as you dip your paste-coated fingers and paint them around your face.

It’s more difficult without a mirror to know if you’re getting the runes correct, but you hope that you don’t fuck it up too much.

You can tell it’s taking effect, and you begin to hurry before you lose the ability of physical touch. This spell truly makes you undetectable – invisible, silent, and intangible.

Just as you put the finishing touches on yourself, you see your fingertips fading away.

You lift your hand to your face, and you can feel your breath on your fingertips, and you think that maybe there’s the barest imprint on the air in front of you, but you can’t actually see anything there. Beneath you – where your feet should be – there’s no sign of your footprints, not even when you take a step forward.

As you walk around the curve, you don’t find the front of the line. You’re certainly closer to the front, but now the line straightens out instead of curving, moving forward into the far distance where you can see looming high in the shadows, the faintly lit arch of a massive doorway. But right here beside the line, just on this side of that curve in the rocks, is a hidden doorway. You can still see a glowing outline of it as you reach it, but your intangible fingers can’t find any purchase to pry the door open.

Again, this is where you’re grateful to be part Watcher. There’s a magical phrase for this, and a moment later the hidden doorway is grinding open again, revealing a narrow hallway roughly carved through the rock, winding away and downward. To a certain degree, it reminds you of the passages Yuta and Ten had led you through to take you from the surface of Hell City down into its underground, although these tunnels of Hell are much better illuminated.

Once you’re through the entrance, you close the door again with a simple wave of your hand.

The rocky ridges in the walls of the tunnel are a warmer reddish brown than where the evenly spaced torches along the walls illuminate. You get a vague impression that you’re staring down a great beast’s throat, looking at the insides of its ribcage. As you pass silently down the tunnel – footsteps leaving no mark in the sandy floor nor even a scuff or sound of your footfalls – you grow even more aware of how you’re sinking further and further into Hell.

The flickering light of the torches on the ribbed walls of the tunnel truly gives the sense of being slowly swallowed by a beast, and you’re terrified and exhilarated to learn what awaits you.

And then you see it.

A small archway up ahead, open and unguarded.

Slipping through the archway into Hell Proper is easy, but what you find immediately on the other side is less so.

The hidden tunnel didn’t just bypass the rest of Hell’s eternal waiting line to the Great Gates. You managed to bypass a lot of the structure of Hell, and the tunnel has spat you out into the one place that you’ve feared and yet dreamed about for too long now.

You’re in the throne room of the Queen of the Night.

You’re in the very belly of the beast.

And you’re not alone.

You melt into the shadows at the edge of the throne room, pressing your back to the wall, your shoulders blend into an enormous woven tapestry as you make an attempt to conceal yourself even more against its pattern. There are too many people – or demons, you suppose – for you to feel safe even with your Watcher spell making you undetectable. Your heart pounds as you look around, observing the space.

The ceiling vanishes above you into darkness just as it had in Hell’s lobby, but here there’s at least a hint of architecture. Something sort of Gothic, sort of Art Nouveau which adds an odd bit of whimsy to the otherwise imposing aura. Columns span the length of the room, leading your eye toward the apse – a semicircular space at the far end of the room, the ceiling ribbed and vaulted. The back curved wall of the apse is more window than wall, and it reminds you of something you might have seen in a Church before, although it’s much more dark and whimsical than the structured beauty of a Church’s stained glass window. It has an organic feel to it, like the wall is covered in vines that have grown around irregularly shaped black windows.

You try not to imagine those windows as eyes, but it’s difficult to do. You feel as if you’re being observed.

Seated there above it all, doing nothing to help the feeling of being watched, is the Queen’s throne. The high seat is housed in the apse, and you’ve seen it before.

Her throne is exactly as you’d pictured it in your dreams. Massive. An unscalable monolith, carved of black stone that reflects torchlight from the walls, thin trails of liquid darkness seep from unknown pores in the throne, and although you can’t see the base of the throne at the moment due to the throng of of demons in the way, you know that black liquid is dripping down into the black pool the throne rises from. You’d dreamed it exactly like this.

And also like your dreams, seated atop the throne is the Queen herself, veiled in shadow.

All you can see of her are her hands, which are clawed and deformed. Her twisted long fingers are pale as bone until they taper at the tips into black points which she taps against the arms of her throne. Her voice is a rasp, reminiscent of dry leaves rattling against each other, like bare branches snapping in a strong breeze, and an underlying tone of train wheels screeching on the track. Whatever language she’s speaking in, you can’t understand it, although the demons around you certainly seem to.

They cheer at whatever it is that she’s rasping in her unholy voice.

A demon rises up above the crowd on stilt-like legs, pronouncing something that you still can’t understand. A few others respond, and the Queen laughs – her voice echoes sharply around the room, bounced back at you by all the hard stone.

And then you hear the rattle of chains. An eerie clinking.

You need to get closer.

Even sticking to the edges of the throne room, skirting the gathered court, you narrowly avoid detection. There are guards stationed along the walls, as well as court members whose presences overflow even beyond their physical forms – similar to Johnny back on Ira’s island, with his shadows that reach beyond himself.

At one point, you swear one of the demons turns its head to look in your direction, but it can’t see through your Watcher magic, so it turns back to face the Queen.

You keep moving until you reach the front of the crowd, until you can see the black pool beneath the throne. Heavy chains in the dark water, just like your dreams. But unlike your dreams, the chains aren’t looped around the limbs of your boyfriends. Now the chains lie limp in the water, empty.

You’re not sure if you feel relief or some other unnamed combination of fear and horror and frustration.

If they’re not here, like they had been in your dream, then where are they?

Are they hiding on the other side of the throne? Perhaps they’re just not visible from your vantage point here, and if you could just squeeze through the crowd….

It’s easier said than done.

More than once, one of the demons bumps into you, which shouldn’t be possible unless your undetectability is wearing off. Luckily, those that bump into you seem to think they’ve just bumped into another demon in the crowd with them, and they brush it off, but each time it happens you curl in a little tighter on yourself, pushing onward.

And then someone steps directly into your path, and you pull up short.

Another demon stands slightly behind the first, reaching up to adjust the collar of the first demon’s jacket, to brush nonexistent lint from the demon’s shoulders.

“Stop,” the demon hisses.

The second demon drops his hands from the other’s shoulders, murmuring a quiet, “Yes, my Prince.”

A Prince of Hell.

Ten and Yuta had once briefly mentioned the Princes to you in passing. The five Princes of Hell mostly kept to themselves, although both of your boyfriends had met them a few times.

The Prince standing before you is very handsome. Dark reddish brown hair curls around his ears. His eyes glow a deep red as he turns to look over his shoulder at what must surely be a servant.

Suddenly, another demon shoulders his way forward through the crowd. He’s taller than the first Prince, his hair a smooth ebony encircled by a crown of obsidian.

“Kun,” he says, “We missed you.”

Prince Kun — the first Prince — turns to his brother. “Mother had me handling some business.” He faces the Queen, listening intently as she continues speaking her demonic tongue. “Hendery, don’t you ever wonder why she tries to keep us separate from our people? It’s only times like these she allows us among them, and even then she wants us to be kept apart. To be just simply out on display.”

Hendery’s head turns slightly, and you follow his gaze to a small dais off to the side. Three other Princes sit there on thrones carved of dark stone, looking bored.

“You know why,” Hendery answers. “It’s to keep us safe.”

When Kun looks at his younger brother, his eyes seem to flare a shade brighter. “If we’re never among our people, how can they ever hope to know us? How are we to ever understand them? And if they don’t know us and we don’t know them, what hope do any of us ever have of ruling them?”

His jaw clenches, hands curling into fists at his sides. Hendery only gives his brother a look of mild confusion.

“Sometimes, Hendery, I think that Mother never plans to pass the throne on.” Kun’s voice has lowered to the point that you need to strain to hear it, meant only for his brother’s ears. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have to steal it from her so I can fulfill my destiny as King.”

“Don’t say that.” There’s now a tick in Hendery’s jaw.

“I’ve made it clear how I feel in the past about Mother’s rule, the changes and improvements I will make when I’m King. Don’t act like this is anything new.” Kun turns to face his brother, and you spot other demons in the crowd casting sideways glances at their two Princes.

A third Prince, this one with silver hair and a light and bright expression, appears and throws his arms around the shoulders of his brothers. “Come, brothers. Let’s go sit. Mom says there’s a feast after her speech.”

Unwilling to continue their argument in front of their younger brother, both Kun and Hendery drop it. They carve a path through the crowd on the way back to the dais. You take the opportunity created in their wake, and you make your way clear through the crowd, following them although you don’t plan to reach their thrones with them.

Instead, once you reach the edge of the Queen of the Night's audience, you turn your attention again to the pool at the base of her throne and the chains rusting in the liquid.

On this side of the throne room, you can see that the pool of water trails away toward the sides of the room, trickling through a grated section at the back of the apse. There are more chains scattered throughout the water, all of them empty. Well, mostly empty. You try not to look too closely as you catch a pearly gleam of bones tangled in one of the lengths of chain.

There’s a narrow strip of raised stone along the edge of the room just below where some of the chains are bolted into the walls. The dark water swirls, a light current keeping it moving on the way toward those grates in the back.

High above you on the throne, the Queen’s voice still echoes out over her people. As you’re still invisible and unable to understand what the Queen of the Night is saying, you decide to take the opportunity to explore the apse.

The narrow pathway is just wide enough for you to fit without touching the water. Every few feet as you shuffle along it, you glance backwards.

All of the demons are still gazing upwards at their Queen. The dais of Princes are the only ones who aren’t devoting all of their attention to her. Kun is sitting on his throne, his left ankle resting on his knee as he disinterestedly picks at his nails. The dark-haired Hendery keeps casting glances at his elder brother. The young silver-haired prince is distractedly stroking the backs of the phantom shadow cats that twine around his ankles and stand on his shoulders and rest on the arms of his throne; as you watch, one stretches up to place its paws on his chest and rub its shadowy head beneath his chin.

There are two other Princes sitting there, both of them with their heads bowed together in quiet conversation, although they appear to be joking around, judging by the barely suppressed laughter. One of them looks as if he’s part-bat – large membranous wings are tucked behind him. His wings are dark and angular, although the webbing is thin and paler in color. He’s very handsome, despite the bat wings and the vicious blood red color of his eyes. His hair is a deep, dark brown color, parted precisely down the middle, and two sections of his bangs fall down to perfectly frame his face.

The last Prince is round-faced, pale, and very relaxed. He’s handsome as well, although at this point you’re half-certain that being extremely handsome is a demonic condition. His jaw is so strong, his eyes gleam with mirth as he whispers with his brother. He exudes a sense of casualness, a very go-with-the-flow vibe that immediately puts you at ease even as you’re sneaking around behind his mother’s throne.

Perhaps it puts you a little too at ease.

Upon your next step, your foot slips.

Your toes dip into the water, and to your surprise, a few shallow ripples spread out over the surface of the dark liquid.

You dart a glance toward the high throne, toward the crowd, and to the Princes.

Prince Kun has turned to look in your direction, his eyebrows furrowed together as he scans the shadows where you hide. You hope that your spell of undetectability, which is clearly beginning to wear off, stands up beneath the Prince’s scrutiny. His eyes narrow, focusing on the back section of the apse, but after another moment, he blinks and returns to his nails.

Moving forward, you go more carefully.

You’re not sure exactly what you expect to find back here. Maybe it’s something about those dark eye-like windows staring down at you, but you feel drawn into the shadows at the back of the apse, to the place where you can hear the dark water trickling and tink tink tinking down through the grate.

When you reach the end of the stone edging, you’re right there upon the grating.

There’s an odd swoop in your belly as you take the first step onto the drain. Maybe it’s because it’s not a solid surface, and you halfway expect the thin bars to give way beneath your weight. But they hold and you take another step and another, making your way to the very back of the apse.

There’s a doorway.

The door is recessed, half hidden in the shadows between intricate carvings, a leering gargoyle with wings like the Prince back on the dais.

Of course, the strange pull you’re feeling is guiding you towards that doorway.

You take a step towards the doorway, and as you do, the gargoyle moves.

A flutter of its wings. A shake of its head.

It turns away from you, its ears tilting like dog ears do when they’re listening for something. You hold your breath, pleading with the universe to let your undetectability hold for just a little longer. You walk lightly, quietly, without breathing, and you slip right by the gargoyle, into the recessed doorway.

A yawning mouth opens before you.

Almost literally.

The doorway has stalactites hanging from the top like jagged teeth. A cool draft plays with your hair as it breathes by you from the dark maw beyond the doorway. The air is damp, carrying with it the smell of mildew and sulfur.

The knot in your belly tightens, rising in your throat as you whisper another helpful spell Ira’s books had taught you. Nightvision.

Although the path had been pitch black a moment before, the way before you suddenly blooms in color. The night vision provided by the spell isn’t quite like what you thought counted as night vision in your old life. It’s not all green and black, like you’d seen in movies and on TV. Everything is just… glowy. Like there is an ambient faint light source providing just enough light that you can see the cracks in the stones on the floor and the walls. You can see where a few feet ahead of you the path becomes stairs diving down into the unknown.

You take those stairs carefully, trying not to slip on the damp, slick stone where it’s been worn smooth by use over the eons.

Down and down and down deeper you wind, until at last you reach the bottom, only to find a barred door padlocked shut. You’re surprised that you can see a little bit better through the barred window of the door, and as you peer into the dark, you think the increased visibility is due to a faint light source from high above; you can hear a soft trickle, and you realize that the light and the water sound is likely coming from the drain grate high overhead.

You can see little else than some rough rocks – large boulder-like monoliths that glisten wetly. You think for a moment that you hear the rattle of a chain, but then there’s nothing. No movement, no sound. What if you’ve come all the way down here, and this is just the chamber where the Queen of the Night keeps some horrid, monstrous pet?

But still, there’s a weight in your belly, a magnetic pull that swoops as you step right up to the bars of the door, as you curl your hands around the bar and press your face between the gap, trying to get a better look around even as the rusty texture of the bars scrapes against your cheeks.

High above you, there’s a distant roar. It takes a moment for you to realize it’s the clamor of the crowd gathered before the Queen. They’re cheering about something. Thunder rumbles overhead, and you swear a few pebbles dislodge from the faraway ceiling, shaken loose by the drumbeats of footsteps in celebration as the demons continue their rallying.

Again, you hear movement. A chain’s rattle. The quiet echo of a single footstep followed by a quiet incomprehensible murmur.

Your heart thuds a beat harder.

You reach for the padlock, and without waiting, without thinking about if this is a terrible idea that you’ll come to regret, you reach below your surface for the fire that’s always there.

Demon fire bursts to life in your hand, glowing white-hot and then flaring blue at the core of your hand, wrapped around the padlock until the metal softens and then melts, dripping to the floor like small drops of starlight.

The cell door groans slightly as your luminous hand pushes at it, melting the metal even as it swings open on rusty hinges.

In the light given off by your skin, you can see what you hadn’t been able to before.

At first you think it is a statue, as still as it is with its face upturned to the light and sound above. Then, you realize it’s another gargoyle.

Ram’s horns curl from the sides of his head, clawed feet and fingers of abnormal length. He stands nude with his back to you, and where you would imagine wings would jut from his shoulders, there are instead cracked lines in the shape of wings stretching from the nape of his neck down to his tailbone. At his feet another gargoyle kneels, also nude with wings etched into his back, a tail curls over his thigh, shaggy hair reaches almost to his shoulders, and two sharp horns rise from the top of his head, curving slightly forward.

It’s only when the one standing turns his head that you gasp.

The eyes are sunken in shadow. The face is gaunt and pale.

But you would recognize those eyes anywhere.

“Yuta,” you choke out, tears rising to your eyes as you stumble forward.

The kneeling one lifts his head at the sound of your voice, his eyes striking against your soul.

“Ten?” You collapse on your knees in front of them both.

Now that you’re closer you can see the manacles on their ankles, the chains stretching back towards the wall. You reach for Ten’s face first, your palms gentle as you touch his sharp, unfamiliar bone structure. “What happened to you?”

Ten turns his head, unable to meet your gaze.

“Are you really here?” Yuta rasps, his voice dry and rattling in his chest. “How are you here? Did she find you?”

You tug on Ten’s chin, turning his face back towards yours. He meets your eyes once briefly before looking at the floor again – they’re the yellow cat eyes that he used to flash at you on occasion. You stroke his cheek tenderly; he might not look how he did the last time you saw him, but that doesn’t change anything.

“No, she didn’t find me,” You answer Yuta, “Renjun got us out of the House of the Watchers; he got us safely to my father,” you tell them.

Ten lifts his head, his eyes bright. “He did?”

Your heart warms in your chest when he looks into your eyes. “Yes. And the first thing I made my father promise was that we would come rescue you. Now here I am, and I’m getting you out of here, bringing you to safety under my father’s protection.” You rise to your feet again.

Yuta shifts towards you, and when you reach for him, he stops you with his fingers light on your wrist. “My love, you can’t.”

You jerk your hand away from his hold. “What do you mean ‘I can’t?’ What can’t I do?”

With a clanking sound, Ten stands as well.

“You can’t break us out of here,” Ten explains softly. “We’re bound here by the Queen’s law. And if she finds you here, she’s going to destroy you.” Now he lays his hand on your cheek, just as gentle as you’d been with him.

“Fuck that. I can save you both. I didn’t come all of this way, sneaking out of my father’s place, finding my way to Hell’s entrance, and sneaking in here all alone just to find you and not save you. Why would I give up so easily?” You take a half step back, looking between your boyfriends. You haven’t even properly had the time to rejoice in finding them, and they’re trying to drown your mood with this dark pessimism?

Yuta shakes his head. “For the moment, we’re going to ignore that you just said you’re here alone, which is insane. You don't understand. You can’t break us out. We’re chained in here. We’ve never seen a key, and these chains are impervious to everything we’ve tried, which isn’t too much honestly because all that’s down here is rocks. We can’t even really use magic because demon magic doesn’t work well within the walls of this chamber; trust me, we’ve tried.

“For weeks, each of us has tried time and again to get a message out to you, to contact you in some way or see you through a veil. We tried to build a binding connection between ourselves and you so maybe we could pass a message along, show you how to find us. A few weeks ago, Ten thought he was almost successful at opening a tiny window, but all we saw was starlit darkness and a tall light blazing in the distance.”

You remember that night on the island when you and WinWin and Renjun sat on the porch. You thought you’d seen something in the distance. A blip of something. A light, maybe. Could that have been them?

“Trying to reach you has taken all of what natural energy remained; it’s why we look like this. Our true forms.” Yuta holds his arms out so you can see all of him bared in the light from above. “How can you still want us when we look like this?”

You scoff. “Seriously? You think I’m so shallow that I care what you look like right now? I love you both. I have fought my way through Hell and high water – literally – to get here. And I’m not going to pretend, but I’m honestly a little distracted and turned on by the sight of Ten’s dick right now. So yeah, I still want you now.” You cast a small glance between Ten’s legs where there’s an actual goddamned forked penis. “Which I was right about your dick, Ten, and you lied, I’d just like to point out.”

For the first time in too long, you see a ghost of Ten’s smile. Before you first had sex, he’d told you that he definitely didn’t have a forked penis or a tail or horns; but now you’re seeing the real him, and it turns out he’s actually got all three.

“And as for the chains, I’m sure I can find a way to break them.” You take a step back, looking down at the chains and manacles keeping them prisoner down here. “I just need to think.”

Overhead, the sound of the Queen and the crowd pours down through the grate.

“What’s going on up there, anyway?” You ask, crouching to get a closer look at the manacle on Yuta’s ankle.

Silence is the only answer you receive until you look up.

Both of your boyfriends look down at you. You ask, “What?”

Ten looks at Yuta. “Just tell her.”

Yuta sighs. “A trial. The Queen and the Princes and all of the court are up there, right? She only does that for a big trial.” He pauses, lifting a hand up to touch one of his ram’s horns. “Specifically, this is our trial. Although, it’s as much a trial as the one the Watcher’s were going to give us. Our Queen seeks the death penalty for our disobedience and disloyalty; and who among her court and sons are going to tell her no?”

Immediately, the red-haired Prince Kun appears in your mind. But that’s unimportant right now. What is important is breaking these chains. Once you break them, you’ll nearly be done with the rescue.

You grab Yuta’s chain in both hands, and you pull, putting all of your strength and reaching down into that well of power within you to summon your fire.

Nothing.

“Told you,” Ten says, “Demon powers don’t work in here. If they did, we’d have prettied ourselves up for you, and burned our way out of here forever ago.”

Yuta clucks softly. “We appreciate it, my love, but the trial sounds pretty decided up there. You should leave while you can.”

Both of them flinch at the loud, jarring sound of the chain smacking against the floor as you throw it down and stand up. You’re not anywhere near tall enough to come nose-to-nose with Yuta when he’s in his pure demon form, but you do your best.

“I’m not leaving you. You’re both absolute idiots if you think I’m going anywhere without you now.” You spin around, turning your back to the both of them as you think. You close your eyes, trying to picture everything that you’ve read and learned and plotted back on Ira’s island. Surely someone in all the planning had come up with something about how to actually break them out. Surely not all of your plans had relied on magic?

You should’ve brought a crowbar. Would a crowbar help, though? Surely there are tools that would help in this situation that you could’ve toted through your journey to Hell? You should’ve brought a blowtorch or something.

Ten actually laughs when you say that aloud.

You glare at him.

“What? I’m just imagining you busting in here with a whole blowtorch, the welder mask, a fuel cylinder, and an oxygen cylinder strapped to your back.” Ten laughs again.

“I wouldn’t need all of that if I’d thought ahead. I could’ve just manifested something that works like it’s got all of that, but it could be small and portable, able to just fit in my hand.” You frown. You’ve created original things before; objects that you’d imagined up and wanted in your apartment in Hell City. You could create whatever you wanted there, in the House of the Watchers, on Ira’s island – shit, you’d even created your own miniature solar system.

Oh.

You’d created your own stars and moons and planets before.

That hadn’t been just basic manifestation, Ira had assured you when you brought it up one day. That was the Watcher magic that made that possible. Being a Watcher meant that you had the power of creation. It was completely separate from your demon magic.

You drop to your knees again at the feet of your boyfriends. When you cup your hands together and close your eyes, Ten makes a noise of confusion.

“What are you doing? We told you already that–” He starts, but you cut him off with a quick shh.

Yuta and Ten watch as you dip into your well of power again, and this time you dig deeper, searching for the warm glow of your Watcher powers, focusing on bringing it all together into your hands. You can feel the moment it begins to work, when you feel heat pooling in your palms, when the buzzing in your mind becomes the quiet whispering of thermal energy eating the air, radiant light glowing through your eyelids.

“Maybe you should both look away,” you advise, and you can almost feel the power on your tongue and lips. You can feel the shift of power as the miniature white star takes form in your hands, as you have to keep your mind focused to control it. The star hisses in the damp air, sending up spirals of steam as you move carefully, bringing it closer to Ten’s chain.

When the star meets the chain, it’s a similar effect to your fiery hand encircling the padlock to the cell. Gobs of molten metal drip to the floor as the star liquefies the chain.

Ten gasps when the strain disappears from his ankle.

Without another moment wasted, you move to Yuta’s bond, melting through his chain just as quickly. As soon as what remains of Yuta’s tether hits the floor, you sink back on your heels, let your hands fall apart, and you focus on dissipating the star safely, cooling it until it sinks, just a perfectly round black pebble resting in the center of your palm.

Again, there is cheering from far above you, and then the cry of the Queen’s voice in one final declaration.

Ten and Yuta look at each other.

“What?” You ask, rising to your feet once again. You slip the dead star into your pocket. “What’s happening up there?”

Ten swallows hard. Yuta shakes his head.

“It’s over.” Yuta looks at you. “The trial, I mean. She just cried out ‘Death to the disloyal.’”

Your heart does something very strange – it stops beating or beats harder or just simply jerks in your chest – whatever it is, you gasp, clutching at your chest. This can’t happen. You won’t let it. You didn’t come all this way, do all of these things, create a whole fucking white dwarf star to cut your boyfriends free only to have them give up because some fucking Queen up there decided that they should die.

No.

You won’t let them.

“You’re not dying today,” you command them. “I refuse to let that happen. We’re leaving. Fuck the Queen. There’s got to be some way out of here that won’t take us back up into the throne room.”

After a moment of uncertainty, Ten looks at you and Yuta. “Well, there is one thing I think we could try.”

Yuta nods. “Then let’s go.”

You try not to look too closely as your boyfriends begin moving. Since you’ve never seen them in their true demon forms before, you’ve never seen them moving, and it’s mildly disturbing honestly. Yuta has backwards knees like an animal, so each step he takes, his knees bend the opposite way that you’re used to seeing. Ten just seems to float a couple inches off the ground. With the horns and the tail and the deep scars down their backs, it feels entirely new to look at them, and you’re beyond grateful when Ten takes the first step through the doorway of their prison and immediately the version of him that you’re used to snaps into place.

As soon as Yuta follows Ten out, he resumes his usual appearance as well. But you don’t have time to stand there and admire them. Each of them pulls together some semblance of clothing that seems to knit itself from the damp shadows around the edges of the room, covering up their nudity.

“Come on,” Ten whispers, and he glances up the long staircase that leads up to the throne room.

Darkness puddles in the space under the staircase, and to your surprise, that’s where Ten leads you and Yuta. “I used to explore the palace when I was skipping out on guard duty,” Ten explains in a whisper, “I found plenty of the secret passages and trapdoors and all sorts of secret things. And there’s one that comes out right back here.”

In the dim light, you watch Ten feel along the stone wall until finally his fingers catch in the gap between one stone and the next. There’s a faint click, and then with a grinding sound, a door slides inward to reveal a dark passage within.

Ten steps in first, then you, and Yuta takes up the end. Once the door swings closed behind you, the tunnel is plunged into darkness.

You bring a tiny white star to life again in your hands, and for a brief moment you see Ten and Yuta’s faces. You don’t have time to admire them, to actually rejoice in the reunion with your soulmates. You can feel it in the air, in the stones, in the tense set of Ten’s shoulders as he turns and walks away: you’re short on time.

“Go on, my love.” Yuta’s hand is light against your lower back. “Keep up.”

The tunnel is long and dark, cool and damp. It branches off a few times, it narrows and the ceiling drops to the point that all three of you must crawl on your hands and knees to pass through to a section with a little more height. But Ten seems to know where he’s going, and with the help of your little light and Yuta’s warm hand occasionally reminding you of his presence behind you, you steadily make your way forward.

“Where are we going?” You ask after several long minutes.

“There are three exits from Hell,” Ten explains in a whisper. “The first is the entrance, although it’s a little more difficult to leave that way since we’d be going against the flow of souls. The second is the way the Queen brought Yuta and I in; she’s in possession of a mirror that acts as a portal, and that’s how she usually dispatched us on important missions as it’s the most private method of exit.”

He pauses then at a fork in the path.

“And the last one?” You ask, stepping up beside him.

There’s a draft coming from the pathway to the left, but there’s almost a pull trying to guide you down the one on the right. You can see a faint light rightwards, perhaps a little sound of music that makes you want to dance.

“What’s that way?” You take a step ahead, face turned towards the music and the light

Ten and Yuta each grasp one of your wrists.

“No,” Yuta rasps, “Not that way.”

Again, you feel the draft on your left cheek. The air has a breath of something sweet, something that reminds you of autumn.

“This way.” Ten takes the lead again, and neither of them releases their hold on your wrists. “This way is the third exit option. It’s the one we’re taking.”

The path toward the light had curved deeper down into Hell, but you realize that the autumn path is leading slightly upward, the incline causing a slight burn in your calves and your breathing comes out harder than you expected as the path grows steeper and steeper until eventually you’re basically facing a wall.

Far above you, you see a light. But in between that light and the three of you down here at the bottom of this wall are about a hundred rungs of a ladder carved into the stone.

Ten starts climbing, and you have no choice but to follow. You’ve made it up about maybe twenty rungs before your arms start burning, unused to working like this. You wish that you were able to give yourself fully functioning wings so you could fly the rest of the way out of here, but instead you double-down your focus, breathe, and keep climbing.

You barely even notice when Ten disappears from a few rungs above you. It’s only when you reach for the next rung of the ladder and find your hand placed into Ten’s instead, that you realize you’ve reached the top. He hauls you up to your feet on solid ground, and you grip onto his arm as you look around.

You’ve emerged from what is basically a crack in the wall. There’s a crumbling bit of pathway directly in front of you that extends to your left where it eventually joins with a well-kept path.

The realm opens up in front of you in a cavernous space. Curved bridges arc over canyons you can see down into. Fires of all colors illuminate the paths and bridges and buildings. It’s still rocky, still everything has the cast of the red-brown dirt that made up the tunnels and the entryway, but it’s so much more open than you were expecting it to be.

Behind you, Yuta clambers up through the crack, joining you and Ten.

“That’s where we’re going,” Ten says, pointing ahead.

From here, you can’t really tell what it is that he’s pointing at other than a bridge that leads to a floating platform of stone that branches off into four more bridges.

Off in the distance, you hear a loud, angry cry.

Yuta’s face pales. “That’s her. She must have realized we’ve gone.”

“We don’t have long, then.” Ten grabs your hand.

You run. The three of you fly along the path, scree kicked over the edge to tumble down into the abyss below. You reach the first bridge, and you try your best to not look over the side; you don’t really want to see how far the canyon goes down, nor do you want to see what might exist at the bottom of it. Luckily, with Ten’s hand still firm around yours, you don’t have the time to worry either about what would happen if you slipped. Ten runs quickly and smoothly, and you have no choice but to keep up with him, Yuta sticking behind you like your shadow.

You fly over the platform, taking another bridge that shoots you off in another direction, and now you can better see that there are many bridges and deep crevasses all over the place. A wary peek shows you that Hell continues beneath you in many layers – bridges connect islands of stone suspended in the canyons, and you can see the true fires of Hell burning deep below. There are stairs and ramps that lead down below, and you realize you’re just at the top of Hell.

There are buildings here on occasion. You pass a bridge and find yourself jogging down a street with buildings on either side and lampposts giving off a flickering red light. You pass by what could be a park perhaps with grotesque statues and benches and what you’re almost positive is a sand volleyball court.

Each time you think that you must finally be approaching the spot Ten said would be the exit, he keeps going. Yuta keeps up a steady pace behind you.

“Aren’t we almost there? How big is Hell, anyway?” You gasp when Ten suddenly jerks your arm, dragging you along another new bridge. Surely you must be getting close because you can see another great wall of stone looming out of the darkness before you, much like the one you’d climbed out of what feels like forever ago.

“Almost there,” Yuta says from behind you. “And it’s damn near infinite, but that’s when you go downwards.”

Again, you try not to look too hard at what extends beneath you. Instead you focus on what’s ahead.

This bridge leads to a grove of sorts. Trees made of shiny black stone cling to the edges of this stone island, their roots dangling over the edge, dipping out through the seemingly solid stone they grow from. It must be solid enough to hold the whole weight of this grove of obsidian trees. Their leaves shimmer and shiver in a nonexistent breeze, changing between moonsilver and steel, like blades. You scan the branches as the three of you jog along a cleared path, half-expecting to find nothing, but also hoping to see some little creatures in the branches — birds or squirrels, insects or bats even.

A fork in the path through the dark trees presents you the choice between a small bridge over a crack through which the level of Hell beneath you is visible before it curves out across the open space to another area of Hell, or you can choose a path that winds deeper into the forest.

Ten, of course, drags you towards the left branch, deeper into the trees.

You do hear something above you in the branches. It snaps a branch in one tree before landing in another. But even when you look up, you can’t tell what it is. You can only see the silvery leaves fluttering down towards you, although they vanish in a puff of smoke before they reach you.

And Yuta swears viciously behind you. Ten forces you to run faster.

And then you hear voices.

Sibilant whispers through the trees. A cackle of laughter.

Up ahead there is a glimmer through the trees, as of a handheld light swinging. The volume of the voices increases, still just incomprehensible whispers.

Ten breaks from the path, branches tear along your arm, tugging at your clothes and your hair. One twig burns across your cheek. The light continues swinging through the trees, and you find yourself rushing forward to meet it.

And then there you are.

Ten comes to a complete stop. You crash into his back, and he reaches back to steady you. Yuta steps around you, moving so he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Ten, both of them acting as a barrier between you and what lies ahead.

At first you think it is just a small, empty clearing.

But then you see the truth.

A black pool of liquid sits restlessly in the center of the clearing, the surface of it is choppy and bubbling, a gray mist hovers above the surface. A hook beside the pool holds one lantern, casting light down on the pool’s surface, but another light is held by a demon that stands among his peers at the edge of the pool.

They all turn to look at the three of you.

“Ah,” drawls Prince Kun, drawing himself up straight. “There you are.”

His gaze passes casually over your boyfriends before settling on you. He lingers, cocking his head slightly to the side, the look of an intelligent predator glowing in his eyes. At his sides, his brothers shift on their feet, sizing up Ten and Yuta and, to a lesser extent, you.

“Move out of the way, Kun,” Yuta hisses. “We just want to be free, not to hurt you or your brothers.”

“Well, Mother just wants to put you to death.” One of the younger Princes steps forward. “So who are we to stop her from that? We’re just here to stall you until she can arrive.”

“Chenle!” Prince Hendery hisses at the young Prince, jabbing him with his elbow.

Prince Kun glances at his younger brothers, then back at you. “Forgive my brother. He doesn’t truly understand what we’re doing here.”

Yuta curls his hands into fists at his sides. “And what’s that?”

Kun grins, cocky and sly. “We are definitely stalling for Mother to arrive. But not for the reasons he thinks.”

In that moment, you recall Kun’s hushed words in the throne room exchanged between him and Hendery. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have to steal it from her so I can fulfill my destiny as King,” Kun had said. And here he stands now, posted between you and your freedom, poised with three escapees who will do anything to escape from the Queen’s clutches.

You lean forward, squeezing between Yuta and Ten. “You’re plotting to involve us in something, aren’t you? You’re the Prince who longs to be King, but as long as your mother sits the throne, that’s not possible. And she doesn’t show any signs of abdicating anytime soon, so you’re thinking a little coup…. A convenient ‘accidental’ death by two death-sentenced fugitives in an escape attempt would do well to insure your placement upon the throne without the eternal wait. Hmm?”

Yuta turns to look at you, Ten squeezes your wrist. But you don’t look away from Prince Kun’s vibrant eyes, suddenly alive with hunger as he grins.

“You’re smart. I can see why Yuta and Ten like you so much.” He takes a step towards you. “We used to know each other well, your boyfriends and I. They were my personal guard, best of the best up until my mother decided they were too good to be left on my service, and she repurposed them for a more special mission.”

Again, Yuta and Ten move so they’re blocking you.

“Don’t worry,” Kun placates them, holding his hands up as he says, “Your girlfriend is right.”

Hendery frowns. Chenle takes a step back, casting quick looks at his other two remaining brothers.

The silver haired Prince who interrupted conversation earlier in the throne room interrupts again by stepping forward and placing his hand on Kun’s shoulder. “I’m with you,” he agrees. “You know I’m sick of her control. I want some freedom.”

Kun nods. “Thank you, YangYang.”

The final brother, the one who possesses wings like a bat, shakes his wings at that moment. It’s a dry leathery sound that draws every eye in the clearing to him. He looks first at Hendery and Chenle, then says, “Don’t act like you’ve never thought of it. We’ve all been under the thumb of tyranny for too long. Haven’t we longed for freedom too? To be able to take a short trip up to the mortal world just to see it? To feel the wind on our faces? Feel the light of the sun?”

“She’s our mother.” Chenle bristles.

The brothers turn upon each other then, bickering as they face each other.

Ten turns his head, his eye catching yours. “The pond,” he mutters out of the side of his mouth. “That is the last exit from here. We just have to get in, keep swimming, and we’ll come out where we’re supposed to.”

You understand that magic. Something you’ve come to understand here is that the lines of magic between Watchers and demons and even with Renjun’s elf magic is that they’re all drawn quite closely together, overlapping in many places.

“Make a run for it?” Yuta asks. “While they’re distracted?”

And then everything falls quiet. The Princes cease their arguments. The leaves grow still. Whatever small movements you’d heard in the trees earlier stop altogether. The air turns chill and so fragile that you feel as if a single sound could shatter everything.

She comes from across the clearing, which is one moment empty and then it’s not. She moves silently and smoothly, her long gown dirty at the hem as she passes barefoot over the obsidian soil and detritus of shiny leaves. Her hair hangs free and wild around her shoulders, only a thin gossamer veil hides her face. The air crackles faintly as she moves, the way it does before lightning strikes.

You stare as the Queen of the Night takes a seat, building herself a glittering black throne of shadow and stone as she lowers herself, trusting in her magic to catch her. .

“At last,” she says, her voice a sigh and a rasp, the creak of branches on a stormy night. Even though she wears the veil, which still muddles her features, you can tell she’s got her sights set on you as she continues, “At last we meet, face-to-face, my dear. I’ve waited years for this moment.”

“Mom,” YangYang begins, but the Queen flicks her fingers in his direction, and the young Prince falls silent.

“Your birth, dear child, was an abomination.” Her words are a hiss. “The fact of your creation is disgusting.”

You shrink into yourself at her words, but you can’t bring yourself to look away from her.

“The power held in your bones is enough to transform the world, has anyone told you that?” She leans forward on her throne. “Power enough to feed me for eons if I could just get a taste.”

Yuta firmly steps in front of you, which draws a horrifyingly shrill scale of laughter from the Queen.

“Oh, Yuta, do you think you could really stop me now? You’re weak, both of you,” she says with a lazy gesture towards Ten. “And her blood belongs to me, it calls to me, like to like.”

A chill climbs your spine. “I’m nothing like you.”

Again, the laughter.

“Darling,” the Queen tips her head back, her laughter climbing up into the branches of the obsidian trees. “Just because I don’t share the same toxic combination of blood as you, doesn’t mean we’re not still alike.”

The veil flutters away from her face, folded back over her wild hair by an invisible breeze, and she tilts her face forward again to look at you.

Your heart free falls through the bottom of your stomach, and you clutch at Yuta and Ten as your knees threaten to buckle.

The Queen of the Night wears your mother’s face.

A pleased smile grows on her face at your reaction. “We share blood, my dear. Since learning the truth of your heritage, haven’t you ever wondered why the Queen of demons would spare your mother for her traitorous dalliance with your father? I wouldn’t have done that for anyone, nor would I have offered forgiveness so easily to anyone but my own sister.”

As your shock clears, you see now that her face differs slightly from your mother, but the similarities are certainly there. Her mouth sits a little different, her lips wind a little tighter. She doesn’t have the small mole your mother had beneath her right eye, or the faint scar that cut through her eyebrow. Close but different. Sisters.

“You still did cause her death, though,” Ten interjects. “You may not have chosen to kill her right away, but you did call for her death, as well as the death of the Watcher.”

The Queen snarls, “I had my reasons, Ten. My sister was set to inherit the throne from our father. She had more power, so she should have been Queen of the Night, but she never wanted it.” The Queen laughs before saying, “She fell pregnant, began losing her powers once the holy seed of that Watcher took root, and she slunk away to the mortal world, glad that she no longer would be forced to the throne. But then she produced you.”

Her gaze is piercing, a blade of black ice straight to your heart.

“That is the great irony, of course,” she says to you, “Your mother never wanted power, but she gave life to someone more powerful than any demon, than any Watcher. I took the throne from the King before he could make a deal with my sister, and my first aim was to take your life before you could grow up and realize that you have a claim to my throne. But the Watchers sought you out as well because they were afraid and intrigued by the result of a union between our kinds. We fought a war over your cradle, and it was only because your mother possessed such power that we were thwarted time and again until finally we settled on a treatise for peace.

“You were to be raised in ignorance, never aware of your powers, ignorant of your heritage, of the entire supernatural world that you come from. So long as my sister could keep you unaware of this throne, and of the immensity of power you could have, we weren’t to touch a hair on your little head. My throne would be safe as long as you were blind to its existence, and the Watchers need not worry about your power if you didn’t realize you had it either.” She leers at you, such violence in your eyes that you can tell some part of the Queen – your mother’s own sister – longs to throw herself at you and attack.

To your surprise, it’s the youngest prince that speaks up now. “So what happened, Mother?”

She spares her son a minute glance. “I found a loophole, Chenle. I couldn’t have a living risk to my throne, despite the treaty. I knew the Watchers were surely looking for a way around it as well. Like I said, a half-demon half-Watcher is an abomination. Your mother was my sister, dear,” she addresses you again, “and I loved her dearly. But there was this tiny little loophole in our peace accord that meant you were only safe from us while you were under her protection. So, yes, I called for her death. And for good measure, the death of that Watcher as well.”

The Queen claps her hands, brushing her palms against each other as if ridding herself of dirt. “I sent a small troop of demons after her. They were to dispatch her and the mortal lover she took to help raise you, and once they were both gone, my demons were supposed to locate you as well, to bring you to me.” Her smile goes sharp as she says, “But they returned empty-handed, to my never-ending disappointment, and there was no sign of you. Somehow you were still protected by my sister even after her death. So, I set Yuta and Ten on your trail, and like the loyal bloodhounds they were, they eagerly went in search of you.”

The Princes – your cousins, apparently – all stand there, staring at their mother as she unleashes this story. You’re at least relieved to see that none of them look at her with any approval or admiration. Kun actually looks more angry and more determined than he did before.

“Raging cunt,” Yuta whispers under his breath.

The Queen looks at him, her mouth twisting in a tight smile. “I wanted them to bring me your heart. But strangely their loyalty wavered as soon as they met you, and they hid you in Hell City, knowing that I couldn’t go there myself. Of course, them hiding you from me only made me want you more. Originally, I planned to only consume your power, and send you back to the mortal world to live your sad, plain mortal life.”

You can’t imagine going back to your life before. You’ve tried that once already since having your eyes opened to this world, and you couldn’t do it. She would have to erase all of your memories of this — of Ten, Yuta, WinWin, and Mark; of the Watchers and demons; of everyone and everything that has transformed your life over the last several months.

You do not want that.

Not that you’d be willing to give her your power regardless. You’ve barely met her, but judging by the hate her own sons feel towards her, you doubt she would do any good with the powers she would steal from you.

“Now that they’ve betrayed me,” the Queen continues, “I have to show some punishment in return, do I not? No longer do I long just to punish Ten and Yuta with their own demise, nor to satisfy myself with your power and sending you merrily on your way. Now that you’ve conveniently dropped yourself into my lap, dear niece…” Her lips curl in a wicked grin, her sharp teeth shine in the light as she declares, “I’m going to eat your heart and make them watch.”

Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what Prince Kun was planning. You don’t give a damn if he was going to end his mother quickly or brutally unleash years of pent up rage on her.

All you know in that moment is that Yuta and Ten both lunge for the Queen. And you are filled with a white-hot rage that your physical body simply can’t contain – the inferno breaks through the barrier of your skin, and you can see yourself reflected in the black mirror of the Queen’s eyes.

In that moment you are more demon than anything else, just a raging inferno incarnate, hurtling at the Queen.

Her sons stand frozen, watching.

Yuta and Ten fall back, at your sides like two wings of shadow as you fly across the clearing, and the Watcher part of you pulls together your flames into the shape of a fiery blade, casting you in its golden light, painting you as a vision of a vengeful angel.

The Queen’s eyes widen, but her lips curl in an awed smile — full of terror and delight as you come soaring towards her — even at the very moment that you swing your blade, as it connects with her throat.

Her wicked head separates from the rest of her unholy body.

Her smile doesn’t falter even as her head falls from her shoulders, her tangled hair twisting over her face as her head rolls across the floor of the clearing.

One of the Princes cries out, another turns and you hear him vomiting into the grass.

You point the tip of your fiery blade at the corpse of your mother’s sister, the Queen of the Night. A twisted, dark part of you considers cutting open her chest, pulling out her heart, and eating it in front of her sons much like she had wanted to do to you. But you restrain yourself, satisfying the urge by simply touching the tip of the blade to her body and watching it engulf her in flames.

A hand falls on your shoulder as you watch the body burn.

“That’s enough, my love.” Yuta’s voice is gentle, placating, trying to get you to draw back into yourself because you’re still masquerading as a vengeful angel, wreathed in dancing flames.

Ten reaches for your hand that isn’t clutching the sword. “Come back to us, darling.”

You’re not sure whether you drop the sword or if it just simply vanishes from your grip, but your hand is empty as you lift it to Ten’s face. His eyes flutter shut as you brush the backs of your still-afire fingers against his cheek. His fingers trace up your burning skin from the bend of your elbow up to the softness of your inner wrist, and when his fingertips connect in a loop around your wrist, Ten opens his eyes as he turns his head and sighs over your skin.

His breath is a gentle wave, extinguishing your flames in a domino effect beginning with your fingertips and spreading everywhere until you stand as normal before them. A little smokier and charred than usual perhaps, but otherwise normal. Your clothes seem to have barely survived your personal inferno.

Beside you, Prince Kun clears his throat.

Ten drops his hold on your wrist, but he doesn’t let go of your other hand, nor does Yuta release your shoulder.

Kun’s brothers are gone from the clearing, save Prince YangYang who lingers at the mouth of the path, looking back at you and his eldest brother, although you can tell he’s determinedly not looking at what remains of his mother – her head and the smoking lump that used to be her body.

“Can I have a moment alone with the Prince… or King?” You ask your boyfriends. You’re looking at Kun, but he’s not looking at you.

Yuta squeezes your shoulder and takes a step back, but when Ten lingers, Yuta has to take him by the hand and pull him away to the other end of the clearing. YangYang disappears too, leaving just you and Kun and the dead Queen.

“Well, that’s done,” Kun sighs after a few moments. He lifts his gaze from the corpse, and to your surprise, he offers you his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, cousin. She never told us that’s what you were to us. Actually, I’m not entirely sure how much my younger brothers knew of her hunt for you.”

You look over at the path down which YangYang disappeared. “I know this is along the lines of what you wanted, Prince Kun. But what of your brothers? They may have agreed to having her off the throne, but was this too much?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know how they thought it was going to happen. But once she started threatening you, I could see where it was going. Honestly,” Kun says, nudging his mother’s disembodied head with the toe of his shiny shoe, “I don’t know what she thought would happen. As if you were just going to peacefully give yourself up and let your lovers watch you be eaten by her?” He scoffs and turns away from the smoking remains of the former Queen of the Night. “You should leave, cousin. Now, before the realm realizes what you’ve done. There’s deeply-rooted demon magic in this place, and if you don’t hurry, I can’t guarantee that you’ll make it out.”

Your first thought is his brothers – that they’ll turn on you and sic the demon army and all sorts of horrible beasts after you. But Kun quickly clarifies, “Whatever magic was used to build this place knows who is in charge, and if it senses that the Queen was murdered, it might do things to ensure that you don’t escape. It’ll close the exits, set the hellhounds after you. My brothers won’t get involved, don’t worry about that.”

A knot works its way up your throat, drawing tighter and tighter until you force out the question that’s been bothering you. “And what of you, Your Highness? Are you going to pursue justice for your mother after I leave? Am I going to continue being hunted by demonkind for the crimes I’ve committed here, for the power I possess that apparently gives me a claim to a throne that I swear I don’t want?”

Kun smiles and shakes his head. “Trust me, cousin, I don’t give a damn what you do with the rest of your life. Be free. Take Yuta and Ten with you, and be happy. As long as you don’t try to make a bid for my throne, you’re free to live your life in the mortal world or in Purgatory with the other Watchers; you can even visit or live in Hell, I don’t care.”

You know exactly where you want to be. You want to return to Ira’s island, safely with Ten and Yuta in tow. You want to be reunited with WinWin and Mark because although it’s only been a day since you left them behind, it feels like it’s been months. And it’s been even longer since you’ve had all four of your boys together, and you just know that it’s going to feel so good to have them together, all yours.

But now the Queen is out of the way, Kun is telling you that you’re free to go, and the pond that Ten says is the portal back to the surface world is right there.

You sigh.

You’ve almost got everything you want.

And then the surface of the pond begins to bubble and slosh over the sides. With a vast cloud of steam that erupts and fills the air with the smell of burnt rubber, the pond dries up entirely.

“Shit,” Kun swears, “That’ll be the deep magic I was telling you about. It’s trying to lock you in.”

Distantly, you hear baying – howling and barking that sends an uncontrollable shiver through your entire body.

“And that’ll be the hellhounds. As I recall, the alpha Cerberus wasn’t particularly fond of Yuta the last time they encountered each other.” Kun looks past your shoulder towards your boyfriends. “Run. I highly recommend going as fast as you can back to the palace. Ten should know the way to the mirror.”

You turn away, ready to heed Kun’s words as you can already tell the hellhounds are growing closer.

Kun catches your wrist before you can take two steps. “My last piece of parting advice, if the hellhounds catch up to you… don’t look back. Not even once you’re through the portal.”

You don’t ask why. You don’t linger for another moment as a loud snarl sounds from somewhere along the path across the clearing.

“Let’s go!” Yuta hisses, racing forward to grab your hand.

Ten leads the way, setting out full pelt. Yuta’s fingers stay laced with yours as you sprint back through the obsidian forest, across a bridge, down a crumbling set of stairs to the next level of Hell. The whole time, you can hear the growling of the hellhounds chasing after you, and whether it’s through your own supernatural strength or just pure luck, you manage to keep ahead of them.

Ten winds and wends you through Hell, up and down stairs and through tunnels. At one point he leads you and Yuta to leap over a chasm between two areas, a deep river of magma swirling at an incredible heat beneath you.

You wish you had the chance to actually look around and explore Hell because from what you can see of it, it truly looks like an interesting place. But any time you slow even slightly to admire the bizarre architecture and landscaping of this realm, you hear the scraping of claws against stone, the panting of the hounds, and Yuta’s grip drags on your hand to speed you along after Ten.

“When we reach the mirror,” Yuta tells you, his voice shaken with each labored breath, “You’re going first. Ten and I will be behind you to try to fend off the hounds if they follow. We’ll be right behind you.”

“No, I want you two in front of me where I can see you, so I know that we’re all making it out of here.” You try to argue, but that’s pretty hard to do when Yuta’s suddenly jerking you around a sharp corner, Ten’s footsteps slap against the stone ahead of you, and you can see the three of you are rapidly approaching a wall.

Ten skids to a stop, and you watch as he starts touching the wall, running his hands along it at eye-level, searching for a seam. Just as his fingers catch on something that you can’t see, as you hear a faint click and a panel in the wall pops inward slightly, you hear the clatter of tiny pebbles being kicked across the floor and claws scrambling to turn a sharp corner.

You don’t even realize you’ve begun to turn your head towards the sound until Yuta’s palms are warm on your cheeks, keeping your head from facing back. “No, you can’t look at them. That’s how the hounds trap souls that attempt escape. If you look at them, if they look back at you, they’ll capture your soul and you’ll be stuck. Don’t look at them. Follow Ten.”

“Come on!” Ten cries as he holds open the door he’s found, waving you and Yuta forward.

No sooner have you both crossed the threshold than the door slams shut behind you. A split second after that, there’s an immense bang as a heavy body throws itself against the door.

“They might not be able to open this door,” Ten says, “But it’s not going to stop them from finding us for long.”

“Where are we?” The space you’re in is almost entirely black, only a faint glow emanates from small crystals embedded in the walls.

Yuta answers, “The palace. This is a servant’s entrance to the royal baths.”

Ten snaps his fingers, and a ball of fire appears in his palm, illuminating his face. “I wish that we could take you to the baths, darling. They’re exquisite. Heated by the magma core, so it’s delightfully warm. There’s every scent of every kind of body care you could hope for. When we were in Prince Kun’s service, I admit I spent quite a bit of time in the baths.”

“Too much time enjoying the pleasures of the baths rather than working, if I recall,” Yuta laughs. “And as wonderful as a nice bath sounds right now, shouldn’t you be taking us to the Queen’s mirror? I assume you know some secret, faster way to get there?”

Ten grins. “Like I said earlier, I spent plenty of time exploring the secrets of the palace.” He looks at you, his dark eyes reflecting the light of his flame, the heat of his passion. “I know a shortcut that’ll get us there in no time. And the sooner we’re free and it’s just us, the better. I’ve missed you so much, darling. I fully plan to make up for lost time, and remind Mark and WinWin that we were your lovers first.”

His fingers brush your collarbone where your shirt has been burnt away, and you know there’s probably a hickey or the lasting imprint of Mark’s teeth there.

Yuta is smiling. “I’m excited to see them, too.”

“Then let’s go. The sooner, the better.”

Ten nods, turns, and begins walking off down the dark tunnel. Behind you, there’s another solid thud against the door, the baying howl of a frustrated hound, and then silence.

“There’s a main door to the palace not too far from here,” Yuta tells you, “So we’d better hurry before the hounds reach it. I fucking hope Ten knows the secret passages as well as he thinks he does.” He waits for you to take off at a jog before he follows at the same pace, chasing after Ten’s distant flame.

When you step out into an open chamber, you’re surprised by the stunningly humid air ripe with floral scent until you realize this is the royal baths. The baths have been dug into the floor, and their surfaces give off curls of steam that rise to caress the ceiling, lovingly wrap around you and welcome you in. Iridescent bubbles float from the surface of one bath that smells like cotton candy, and another bath you pass by shimmers like the water is made of molten gold.

Ten’s light is just a hazy orange glow ahead of you, and you nearly lose sight of him as the steam grows thicker around you and Yuta. Yuta has one hand touching your lower back as you wind carefully through the pools that make up the baths. At one point, in a narrow ledge between two pools, your foot does slip on the slick surface, and it’s only by Yuta quickly grabbing the back of your clothes that you manage to not take a dip in the unnaturally blue water.

You can feel the humidity threading through your hair, dampening it until it sticks against your face and neck. You’re sure you almost look as if you had actually fallen into the pool, but as you finally draw up next to Ten, you’re pleased to see that he looks the same, and Yuta does as well although he’s raked his fingers through his hair to push it back away from his face.

“Here,” Ten murmurs, “One of you hold this.”

You offer up your hands, and Ten pours his flame into your palms.

You’re reminded of the first day you made your own flame, sitting with Ten, his hands warm on yours, his flame passed from his fingertip to yours, the way it had felt like a fluttering heartbeat. Now you feel that way again, and you realize how familiar Ten’s fire feels, like a welcome kiss from your long lost lover.

You pull your hands towards your chest, longing to press his flame over your heart.

Ten crouches on the floor in the middle of the room.

Here, the floor is made up of a million tiny tiles all coming together to make a mosaic image of a figure upon a throne over the burning masses below. An interesting choice of artwork for a relaxing bath space, but whatever, everyone has their own taste in artwork.

Ten runs his fingers over the tiles, and you watch the colors shift, responding to his touch. Until he reaches the small tiled throne. It glows as his fingers pass over it, and then it transforms into a handle, raised from the floor just an inch or two.

“Yuta, help,” Ten grunts as he fits his fingers around the handle and attempts to haul open this secret passage’s door.

Yuta crouches beside him, and you watch in the wavering light of your handheld flame as they both work in tandem to lift open the hatch.

Ten jumps down, you follow, and Yuta brings up the rear again, dragging the door shut easily as he comes. You pass Ten’s flame back over to his hands so he can lead the way. The passage goes straight for a short distance before it becomes a set of stairs rising upwards.

You’re surprised you only stumble once or twice as the three of you climb the stairs at a run, though luckily it is only a few flights before Ten shoves against a wall, and it swings outwards.

You run out into a large, beautiful chamber. It’s full of rich reds and golds, marble tiles, a large fur rug that looks as though it comes from a massive beast or many pelts sewn together, heavy furniture and fine fabrics. You look around in awe, trying to catch your breath even as Ten drags you forward by the hand.

“It’s just over here.” He directs the words over his shoulder.

Various doors lead out of this room. A large set of double-doors probably lead back out into the rest of the palace, if you had to guess. A smaller set of doors have panes of glass set in them, through which you can make out the dim firelight of Hell, so you assume those doors lead out to a balcony. You’re sure one of the doorways leads to the late-Queen’s bedchamber, another possibly to some kind of an office, and then there’s the small door Ten leads you and Yuta to.

It’s rather nondescript, nearly blending into the wall itself.

You’re just a few short feet from it when you hear a sound coming from the other side of the large double-doors.

Raised voices, panic and heavy footsteps moving rapidly along a corridor outside. And then, amidst the clamor of the guards, the keening howl of hellhounds on the hunt.

“Fucking shit!” Yuta is right behind you, close enough that you feel the kiss of heat as he summons his flames. “Go, Ten. Get her through the mirror. If they make it through, I’ll hold them off.”

Your arm wrenches painfully as you twist around and plant your feet. Ten is still trying to drag you towards the door that leads to the mirror portal, but you won’t leave Yuta.

“No, you can’t stay here!” You argue. “Come with us. If we just run, they won’t catch us.”

Yuta’s fire is burning hot enough to distort the air between you with waves. “I’m not staying behind, I swear. Just until you’re through the portal, and I’ll be right behind you.”

No.

You’re this close.

You reach for him, reaching through the waves of intense heat, and you clasp your hand around his wrist. “Defend our position from inside the room, then. Not from out here.”

There’s a softness in Yuta’s eyes when he’s and your face. His flames dim slightly. “Alright, I guess that works too.”

Ten throws open the small door to the portal room, waving you in first.

The room on the other side is a small, dirt room. There’s nothing to it — dirt walls, dirt floor, dirt ceiling, a singular torch with its end planted in the ground illuminates the bare room; its light is only intensified by the only decoration: the large gilt mirror that stands tall enough and wide enough to be able to admit two tall men standing abreast of each other.

Yuta bumps against your back before sliding around you, and then Ten is there too, his hand at your waist as the door to the room clicks shut.

You can see your image reflected in the mirror — the unwavering image of all three of you standing side by side.

A knot forms in your throat, but now is not the time to cry. You can do that later when you’re all safe and free back in your father’s little bubble, when you’re reunited with Mark and WinWin as well.

On the other side of the door, you hear the loud bang of the double-doors being thrown open. Footsteps, the clacking of claws, the whines of the hounds.

Yuta turns, his flames rising in heat and brightness as he faces the last door between you and the hounds.

Ten wraps his arm around your waist dragging you along with him towards the mirror.

As you stand facing the mirror this time, knowing you’re about to travel through it, you hope it goes smoother than the last time. You lift a hand to the surface, and as your fingertips brush along the image, minuscule ripples expand across the mirror. This mirror feels so much more liquid, like actual cool water, no resistance.

“Go,” Ten urges, “Now. Think of our destination as you pass through, and that’s where this will lead. Go.”

A thud that shakes loose a few clumps of dirt from around the door. You can hear claws scraping against the door, you can see the shadowy movement as one hellhound attempts to dig under the door. The door holds, though it rattles in place.

“Go,” Ten repeats.

“I’ll hold them off,” Yuta growls, and his fire is still building. “But you have to get through.”

“I’m right here, right behind you,” Ten keeps his voice gentle, encouraging. “Just step through the portal, my darling.”

He’s holding one of your hands lightly in his own, and you use that hold of his to have him help you balance as you lift a foot to step through the frame.

Ira’s island, you think, imagining the sight of the lighthouse, of the island, the kitchen, the study, the living room, the cove with the sirens.

The mirror smoothly drinks you in, wrapping around you like stepping into blessedly cool air conditioning after standing in the disgustingly sticky heat of a humid summer day. A long passage extends before you, which is somewhat different from the mirror journey you experienced with Renjun, but it feels so blessedly cool on this side that you don’t hesitate to keep pulling yourself through the mirror. You pass through until all that remains on the other side is your fingertips pinched between Ten’s, but even then, Ten lets go, and the last of you sinks inside the mirror.

Ten stands just on the other side, staring at you through a faintly blue tint.

“Come on,” you say, “Hurry.”

The door into the chamber bursts open. Yuta sends up a wall of flame.

Ten whips around to aid Yuta. You step back towards them, ready to throw yourself through the mirror as well to help, but your palms crash against the inside of the mirror as if it were back to being solid glass, no longer the fluid surface that let you in.

You slam your hands against the glass. You yell, scream, cry, swear.

Both Yuta and Ten stand wreathed in flames, putting up walls of fire between the door and the mirror at their backs. They’re being pushed back, you realize. Soon they’ll be backed against the mirror.

You can see Yuta gritting his teeth together as he puts his all into maintaining the inferno he’s creating. His usual appearance is fading slightly, you can see his true demon features beginning to peek through. The same can be said for Ten.

You hit the glass one more time.

Ten twists his head around to look at you. His eyes are the piercing narrow-eyed slits of his cat-like eyes. “You need to go,” he calls to you.

“No, not without you.” You lean your forehead against the glass. “I can’t come back through. I can’t come to you. Come here, hurry!” You can see shadows, smoky figures moving in the walls of flame Yuta and Ten have thrown up. “Hurry!”

“Go!” Ten shouts, his voice raw, raging, echoing up the passage behind you. And then, a little more gently, “We’re right behind you, I promise. Just trust that we’re behind you, and don’t look back! Now, go!”

This time he says it with enough power in his voice that you stumble back from the force of it.

On the other side of the mirror, Ten turns back to face forward, to face his flames and the hellhounds.

You take another step backward up the passage even though everything in you is telling you not to leave, to run back at the mirror and do something to make it let you through it, even though your mind is saying that, your body won’t obey. Your body is listening to Ten as you turn and start running up the passage.

Your throat feels raw as you pant for breath, but you keep going, running up the sloping tunnel even as you feel as if your chest is going to cave in and your heart is going to burst. You can’t hear anything at all over the racing of your heart and the thunder of your breathing, so you can’t even hear if Ten and Yuta are behind you. Hell, you can’t even tell if the hounds are still pursuing you or not.

Kun’s warning and Ten’s last words ring in your ears.

Don’t look back.

You just have to trust.

Sobs tear from your throat with each jolt of your feet against the ground. You feel like you’ve been running for hours, days, weeks. You just want to peek backwards, to know if they’re behind you because if they’re not then all of this will have been in vain, and they’ll be re-imprisoned in Hell for the crime of the Queen’s death.

Don’t look back.

You’re almost certain you hear a footfall behind you, rock scattering under someone else’s foot. Was that a breath? Was it an echo of your own breathing, or was it the panting of a hellhound almost upon you?

Don’t look back.

An entire lifetime ago, you’d sat in a literature class that taught mythology. At the time, you’d felt a bizarre mixture of shame and interest – your highly religious upbringing made you feel that learning these stories was improper as they were based on false idols, but you were so intrigued by the pantheon of gods, their many stories and interactions with mortals that differed so greatly from the stories of the One God that you were familiar with.

Among those many myths you’d learned in that stuffy classroom, there was the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. The woman who died from a snakebite, and her lover who journeyed into the Underworld to bring her back.

The story comes back to you now.

Orpheus, who rescued Eurydice, who was allowed to bring her back to the mortal world on the sole condition that he didn’t look back at her until they were both in the mortal world. And now, more than ever, you understand that story. You have two lovers behind you, death nipping at your heels, and as you race out of Hell, you can’t look back – it’s a warning you’ve received now twice, and as much as you want to look back to be certain that Ten and Yuta are behind you, you know the mistake Orpheus made; in the last moments before success, Orpheus looked back.

Eurydice was lost forevermore.

It could have just been a tale, except that when poring over tomes and tales at Ira’s kitchen table during the useless planning of this rescue, one account had been that of Orpheus.

A miserable tale that you’d barely been able to stomach reading given your circumstances. How Orpheus, barred from telling her that he was forbidden to look back at her, marched before his wife out of the Underworld, both of them in cold silence. He heard no sign of her – not a footstep or a sniffle, not the sound of her voice or a whisper of her breath as they walked for an eternity – and he wondered if she was truly there, or were the words of the gods false and he was walking this endless path from Hades for no reason?

With mere footsteps left before he and his wife rejoined the mortal world, with hope burning bright in his heart as the light of the Sun warmed his bones, Orpheus couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. As he turned, he heard her anguished cry of his name, he saw the horror on Eurydice’s face, and Orpheus had no choice but to watch as she was reclaimed by shadow and drawn back down into the Underworld, screaming for him.

Don’t look back, Kun and Ten had both uttered the warning, Orpheus’ tale echoing the words at you again.

You run until your knees feel like liquid and your feet like stones, your chest burns with each breath, and surely if you didn’t have the power of your mother and father both in your veins, you’d have collapsed long ago. How far can this path from Hell possibly be?

Your toe catches a loose stone on the floor, and you stumble. Your palms burn as they scuff along the rough floor, your knees bruise and sting where the tatters of your clothes don’t cover them.

There’s no sound behind you. No hands reach forward to help you up and urge you on as you stay there for a moment – hands and knees on the dirty floor with your head bowed as your tears drip into the dirt, your ragged breath still loud in your ears.

Are you alone? Or is that deeply-rooted demon magic Kun mentioned holding Yuta and Ten under the same spell as Eurydice had been – unable to make a sound or touch you, unable to make their real presence known to you?

You find the strength to push to your feet again, to start forward again. Your mind races, and you can’t help thinking, I just want to go home, to be free of all of this. I just want to be happy with my boyfriends again, like we were in our apartment. All four of us. Why did everything have to go so wrong? Why did everything have to play out like this?

You run even as your bones ache and your mouth dries out. You feel hollow.

And then the ground evens out.

And you look up, and you can see watery daylight ahead of you.

You remember this: the sight of the world through the inside of the mirror. The watery distortion of everything when Renjun first led you through a mirror portal to escape the dungeon of the Watchers. You pray the exit runs smoother this time than the last – that you won’t feel like you’re drowning and suffocating and stuck within a glue trap as you had last time.

A fresh burst of energy rolls through you as you see it so close, close enough you can reach out and touch it.

Your fingertips pass through like reaching into water.

Your toe catches the inner lip of the mirror.

The world tilts and blurs, nausea rolls your stomach as you fly through the mirror and dash yourself against the floor on the right side of the mirror.

And you wait.

You don’t dare to turn to look into the mirror. You don’t know what you would be able to see. Does it look just like a regular mirror, reflecting only you and the room you’re in? Is it semi-transparent, so you’re able to see back into the passageway you’ve just escaped through?

But more terrifying than that – in some version of Orpheus and Eurydice, he reached the safety of the mortal world, and rejoicing in that, he turned to celebrate with his wife, only to find that she had yet to pass the border between the realm of Hades and the surface. Thus, he lost her because they were not both with their feet safely on the soil and in the sunlight.

You won’t make that mistake, even if it means you have to wait here forever with your cheek pressed against the wood of the floor, your clothes crumbling even more into charred bits after the rough friction of passing through the mirror and colliding with the world.

Tears still spill down your cheeks, and you squeeze your eyes shut because you’ve nothing to look at anyway.

<-previous || next–>

a/n: Thank you for reading! I'm so excited to see what y'all think about the rescue finally happening! It was a little bit different than originally planned, both in the opinion of the characters, and also different than I originally planned lol This chapter is the reason it took me so long to finally finish writing this story.

As usual, likes, comments in the tags, reblogs, messages about your thoughts, all of that is of the highest value to me! I love feedback, and I hope you can share this story with more people too 💗

#nct fic #nct smut #wayv smut #wayv fic #ten lee #yuta #ten #ten fic #ten smut #yuta fic #yuta smut #unholy #nct yuta #nct ten #wayv ten #nct #nct 127 #wayv

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