#yandere yeonjun

[mrslaflour]

📸 cheese babe.

pairing — taehyun x reader

warnings — noncon filming, restraints, reader is drugged tf out, taehyun totally just cum shotted all over reader, somnophilia things but no sex scene, didn’t proof read shit, all lowercase

notes — VERY QUICK DRABBLE. yes, yes i did post this before grape party kai. this is a tiny drabble to hold you over that i just scribbled down basically :p.

you feel numb. tingles spreading throughout your whole body but you can’t move a single muscle. your eyes can only part slightly, everything else remaining blurry. god, how late is it? was this just another late night nap? you hear a click and then a bright flash come through your eyes causing you to groan.

“you’re awake?”

another voice. in your room? you live alone. you go to speak up but nothing comes out. nothing can come out. it’s like your tongue is just dead and your lips refuse to fully part. you go to sit up but even that task isn’t possible. your arms are stuck behind your back, you finally notice that. but still. you should be able to lift your chest. now you’re worried and your breathing becomes heavier and more strained. it wasn’t until you felt a cold hand press against your chest that you realized you probably were naked. you say probably considering that fact that you can’t move your head to look and you can barely see out of your eyes in the first place.

“you’re my muse for the night. you’re drugged the fuck out though, so if you’re freaking out due to the sensory issues, there’s your answer.”

a man’s voice. that’s all you could get out of what he just said. well, other than the fact that he definitely either kidnapped you or has you out in the back of an alley, once again, you’re literally in the dark. it’s starting to even become difficult to think straight. he moves his hand from your chest and brushes a hair behind your ear.

“i’ll show you the pictures when i’m done and well, when you’re not so out of it.”

he moves away and you hear a few more clicks and see a few more flashes. your eyes shut, and you decide to keep them like that. you feel him push you onto your back and spread your legs open. feeling an extremely cold breeze against your sex. you hear him mumble a few things, but you can’t make them out.

“can you smile?”

it’s silent. you can’t respond and he just laughs. you feel what feels like a giant weight on top of you and two fingers prodding at the corners of your mouth pushing it into a smile and the click of his camera again. that noise was gonna drive you crazy. you feel his arms move lower and start rubbing your sides and gliding through your collarbone.

“i could really have my way with you right now. don’t have to worry about you bitching, screaming for me to stop, pushing me away…”

he pauses.

“but that would be too easy. a struggle is always fun.”

he slaps you and tilts his head to the side with a questioning look on his face.

“could you feel that? are you still there?”

you slightly open your eyes and the tiniest tear pokes out. he hums in content.

“assuming you can hear me, just know you shouldn’t piss me off. i’m not afraid to kill you. it’s not hard for me to find someone new.”

he stands up off of you and you close your eyes again once the camera flash blinds you again. you feel him go to mess with your wrists and the slightest bit of tension seems to be released. he has a hold on one of your wrists and moves it over to your crotch and your other hand to your breast. moving you around like a doll.

“say cheese…”

another click. another flash.

“you look like a fucked out drunk little bimbo. i should live stream this and have people tell me what i should do to you. would give me some more ideas of what positions to put you in for my photos.”

you’re passed out. well…not completely. you can feel everything he’s doing, hear everything, but you can’t think anymore, and you can’t even open your eyes anymore. more tingles bouncing throughout your body.

the sound of a different button can be heard as well as the sound of the camera being placed on the floor. you hear his footsteps come closer to you and the sound of a zipper.

“i know i said it’d be too easy but i have plenty of chances to let you play hard to get after this.”

you hear him groan a couple times before you feel something cold dripping on your stomach and slowly moving up to your face.

“what a shot. can you say cheese for the video?”

he leans down and you feel his hand touch your face before he moves your face on its side. presumably so you can face said camera. you then feel full all the sudden. a sense of splitting in you and you groan. the feeling starts to become painful.

“sh, just lay there and look pretty and let me do all the work.”

he goes deeper in you as he moves up more so he can put his finger on the corner of your lips and moves it up into a smile again.

“say cheese!”

[cybsoo2]

temptation

01. neverland is not a dream

╰┈➤ synopsis — Shipwrecked, you find yourself stranded on a strange island. After searching the shores, you stumble across a rather annoying boy. His leads you to safety and you start to question what future, fate will bestow upon you.

╰┈➤ pairing — yandere!faerie!txt x reader

╰┈➤ word count — 4.3k

╰┈➤ content warning — slight angst

ੈ✩‧₊˚ note ; AAHH I’M SO EXCITED BUT SCARED TO POST THIS!!hopefully the taglist works cuz its my first time using one. also pls don’t be shy to interact or ask any questions. i luv to hear yall yap •ᴗ•

The salty sea is unfamiliar to your tongue. The waves that wash over you kiss your lips with every swell. The ocean breathes in shallow breaths that turn the tide. You’re swallowed under a sudden wave when you finally decide to open your eyes. 

Your cheek is pressed up against a cool surface. You reach out to run your fingers through the soft sand; digging your hand in deeper to ground yourself. Dehydration has left you dizzy. You lick your lips to get rid of dryness; spitting out the bits of sand that stick to your tongue.

You turn on your back to gauge your surroundings. A bright light blinds you and you bring up your hand to shield your eyes. The warm rays slip past your fingertips. You drop your arm back down once your eyes begin to settle in the sunlight. The void is filled with a bright blue. Millions of miles of nothing but the sapphire shade. The sea and sky battle against each other, two shades morphing into one. No ships sailing, no birds fluttering, you’re entirely alone in this vast expanse of nothingness.

You turn to the side, pieces of your past shipwreck are spread out across the shore. You reach out to touch the destruction. Discarded and decaying, all symbols of safety are ruined. Your breath begins to grow heavy. This realization rests like a 20 pound weight on your chest. You sit up slightly, leaning back on your elbows. Whipping your head around you, you can see that the beach goes on for miles. It stretches out across the horizon and wraps around the curves of the island. Sand, trees, and wreckage are all that you can see. 

You stand up fast, fighting off the feeling of lightheadedness. You swallow down the sandpaper sensation in your throat. 

“Hello!” Your voice tears into your throat. “Is anyone there?! Hello!” Your brittle voice breaks down against its misuse, but you continue screaming into the silence. While you shout at the seashore, you begin to search the beach for any stragglers from the wreck. Desperate eyes scour the empty shore as your cries are carried out to sea. 

You continue to search for what feels like hours until hope holds out its hand and shows you what seems to be… footprints? 

Small markings are dug into the sand and you sprint ahead to take a look. The tracks start in the sand and stretch out into the treeline. You walk alongside them, matching each step with your own. The footprints draw you further into the unknown forest. The woods welcome you. Shifting and reshaping its terrain to form a faint path. It pulls you in before you can think twice. 

Too naive to understand and too distraught to care, you turn a blind eye to your surroundings. Unbeknownst to you, magic flows through the forest. Running like roots through the entire island. It’s intertwined with the trees, dispersed in the air, and familiar to any lifeform that calls this island home. 

While you may not understand what is still unknown, you can feel a power that pulses in the air. An aura that you can’t quite put a name to, but can recognize its strength and ecstasy. It makes a faint humming noise that rings in your ears and hovers with every step you take. It’s not a nuisance like one would assume, rather a relaxant that washes away your worries. 

This feeling feels familiar, as is everything else that meets your eye. Nothing has any resemblance to reality. Everything is warped into a perfect, pink, picture. In your hazy recollection, it reminds you of a drifting dream. The place where sorrow and anger are absent. It’s a child’s paradise filled with fairies, mermaids, monsters, and all things interesting. A sacred sanctuary reserved for the fallen youth. Yet, it’s a wonder how you wound up here. An island lost at sea, never mapped and only known to those who spend their lives searching for it. Perhaps, the devil needed a shiny new thing to toy with. And who is he to resist a sweet thing so pure. 

You’ve followed your fantasies to temptation. Lured out by someone else’s lucky streak. The gates left unguarded to a new and interesting enigma. But when what you believe to be a dream starts morphing into a realm of reality, why would you want to leave? Even when you realize that the roots run red with dark desires and a sinful touch, would you even be able to escape?

A rustling in the bushes causes you to look up from your feet. You gain a feeling of unease and stop to hold your breath. The trees seem to taunt you, dropping leaves on your head that make you jump out of your skin. The bushes shake with laughter and the birds twitter teasing remarks. 

You can feel yourself growing closer. A certain presence plays hide-and-seek in the shadows. A storm swims in your stomach, the tides turning and making you feel almost powerless; like prey being toyed with before the predator pounces. The sinking sensation drags you down, your feet feeling like lead and knees threatening to give in. But you push through the fear, determined to find a solution to this mess.

You follow the footsteps further into the forest. Twisting and turning leaving you dizzy with dread. The tracks even appear to do laps and loops around you. Have you gotten lost already? You stop to settle your doubt for only a second before continuing on the crooked path. You remain running, just trying to hold on to your sanity while the sun begins to set. Darkness is falling fast and you'd like to find some sort of shelter before the sky submits to the black abyss.

As the minutes morph into miles, the footprints seem to appear fainter. Almost as if the culprit is floating with softer steps. The footprints then stop completely in the middle of nowhere. Two prints pressed into the dirt drop off into thin air. Nobody stands before you, no noises are heard, you’re surrounded by nothing at all. You lean down to give the prints a closer look and-

“BOO!” A sudden shout sends you to the ground. A shocked scream leaves your lips as you turn around in terror. You look up from your spot, sprawled out on the forest floor to see what seems to be… a boy? His silhouette blocks the sun, hiding his face under a dark overcast. He peers down into your eyes. You’re only able to make out the smug smile that settles itself in the shadows. He gives a soft laugh before asking, “I scared you didn’t I?” There’s a playful tone to his words and while he stares down at you with a smile on his lips and a shine in his eyes, you sit in shock. All coherent words have run away from your mind, leaving you stranded in silence with a stranger.

The boy kneels down in front of you, holding himself up with his hands. Curiosity catches his heart and he moves to poke and prod at the pretty little thing that has fallen at his feet. He brings one hand up to start teasing at your hair. He toys with the loose locks and tugs at it when you attempt to back away. 

“Who are you?” You ask with hesitancy. The boy only continues to pull at your hair, ignoring your question. “You weren’t from the shipwreck were you? I would’ve remembered you.” The boy's attention seems to have been captured by your question.

“You would’ve remembered me? Do you really think I’m that handsome?” He says with a smirk. His hand has stopped still in your hair, now fully focused on observing your reaction.

“No, I just would’ve remembered someone annoying like you.” Although his attractiveness does grab your attention, your sudden irritation at his behavior is much more prominent. Smacking his hand away from your hair, you stand up from your spot on the ground and he’s quick to follow. A faint frown falls on his face. “Are you from here then? Do you know how to help me?” He seems to stare right through your questions, amused by your actions instead of concerned. “Do you know how I can get off the island?”

“Why would you want to leave? Have you looked around you?” He asks in confusion and stares at you like you're stupid.

You tilt your head from staring at him to look at the trees tinted pink. Blushing blossoms sprout from each branch while butterflies flutter around you. The sliver of sunshine that snakes through the treetops shines down on the forest floor. The light reflects off every shiny surface, producing glitter in the air. 

The boy drags you out of your heavenly haze once he takes two steps closer. He leans forward the slightest bit to be on eye level. 

“I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.” His question comes off more demanding than you expected, leaving no room for disagreement. You nod your head to agree and he begins his interrogation. “You said you were in a shipwreck, what exactly do you mean?”

You spill your secrets into the silence. “I’d been traveling by ship for about a week before a storm hit, and well… we went under.” Your voice begins to break off. A shiver crawling down your spine at the recollection of the horrific incident. Water lines your weary eyes, but you blink back your tears before you can get caught up in your emotions. You rub at your eyes rather roughly, ignoring the boy’s intensive staring as you ask your question again. “There has to be some way to leave the island. Are there any boats? Any other survivors?” 

“There might be.” He stares straight into your skull. Almost as if he’s trying to search your thoughts with x-ray vision. Your agitation only seems to grow at his unclear answers. 

“Well, where are they? Can you take me to them?” Your voice grows frantic, clinging onto the frail piece of hope that there might be help for you. 

“What if I don’t want to tell you?” The strange boy seems to gain a sick sense of enjoyment watching you struggle. Your anger rises into your cheeks and a cherry blossom blush bleeds into your face. The boy has to hold back another taunt at the tip of his tongue. 

“What? Why not?!” 

“Why not? You ask too many questions, it’s starting to get on my nerves.” The boy rolls his eyes in irritation. He takes a step closer and you stare up at him through a shocked expression. Before you can yell out your annoyance and anger at his lack of sympathy, he shuts you up with some interesting information.

“And it doesn’t matter anyways, even if I wanted to help you, I wouldn’t be able to.” 

You ask your next question already dreading the answer, “And why’s that.”

“Because no one ever leaves.” He shrugs at the answer as if it’s a simple thing to say. As if he hasn’t broken any inkling of hope you still held dear to your heart. Your heartstrings snap apart and leave a searing pain that lingers. You gaze at the stranger in disbelief, unable to accept his confession. It’s only then that you realize you’ve started to cry when he reaches out to touch the teardrops. He pokes at the pink that lines your under eye, a pout of clumsy curiosity pulls at his lips. 

Beomgyu doesn’t understand how he hurt you, he just knows that he did. Teardrops and falling frowns are not something he’s familiar with, he’s only ever seen them in a man’s last moments. Which is why he can’t comprehend how such simple words can cut you clean. Your heart is like a fragile flower, the blossoming bud burrows deep inside your left breast. But everytime a tear rolls off your cheek, a petal drops dead. 

He’s never had to think twice about his actions. Always being so bold and brazen with his friends that just found him to be funny. But as your strange soul stands in front of him, a sliver of doubt festers under his skin. He tries to retract his answer, hoping that this time the tears will stop. 

“Maybe there might be a way for you to leave.” His mouth is moving before he can stop himself. Why is his heart reacting this way? He doesn’t want you to leave… but he doesn’t want to upset you anymore.

In an instant, that shining sliver of hope blooms back in your heart. “Really? How?” You wipe away your remaining tears. Looking down at the ground instead of his eyes, you try to hide your easy emotions. 

He hesitates for a moment, unsure if he should lie or tell the truth. He’s selfish and wants you all to himself, but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. The others would find out about you eventually and he’d just get into more trouble in the long run. One last look into your tear-struck eyes has him making up his mind. “One of my brothers knows a lot more about the island than I do, so I’d have to take you to him.”

“Then let’s go!” You start walking off into the forest. You don’t know where you’re going but you’re eager to reach a resolution as soon as possible. 

“You’re impatient aren’t you? And I hope you know that I can’t promise he’ll agree to let you leave.” Beomgyu scurries on after you, matching your fast pace and walking side by side. His eyes never drift far from your face. They always linger, looking at how unhidden your emotions are. He takes in the way your eyebrows are cinched in irritation, your eyes open wide with hope & hurt, and your lips that fall into a frown at his words. 

“Why not?” You stop walking and turn to look at him. “ Look, I promise I don’t want to cause any trouble. But whether you like it or not, I’m stuck here. I bet you that I want to leave this place more than you wish I was gone, but I need help in order to do that.” Desperation is laced deep into your voice. It borders on begging and for some reason Beomgyu finds himself slightly disturbed by your distress. Your serious tone makes him squirm and an uncomfortable sensation swims in his stomach. 

“You didn’t have to take it so seriously,” He lets out a light laugh, trying to take down some of the tension. “I’m just saying that he’ll probably want to make sure you aren’t dangerous is all. Which I bet you aren’t, I could never imagine someone like you being a pirate.” As if he’s trying to rub salt in the wound, he pokes at your chubby cheeks. Trying to get the message across that you couldn’t be less intimidating if you tried.

You shy away from the boy, turning your head to the side to get rid of his touch. You’re beginning to grow tired of his annoying advances. Immature and uncaring are all you see him as. Really, he’s just a boy. He’s about your age but it’s clear he’s been sheltered from the cruel chaos of the world. Hidden away to live an easy life on this island. But then again, perhaps you’re speaking too soon.

The snap of a twig brings you both out of the silence. Your heads shoot up in the direction of the noise. Only when you’ve been given the chance to look do you realize how fast night has fallen. The shadows swallow you whole. A cloak of darkness covers the sky, drowning out the ashes of the sun. The trees are tangled into one another, twisting and intertwining to create a confusing thicket. The black branches hold hands to ensure that you can not escape.

In a sudden flash of fear, you turn to Beomgyu for a solution. But the once bold boy now appears much more bashful than before. What were once witty comments and playful remarks have been transformed into a stolen silence. It’s so unlike Beomgyu to be without words, but suddenly, he finds himself fearful of what hides behind the trees. After all, when he’s alone with his own emotions, he’s just all bark and no bite.

You take a step back from the bushes, your hand brushing against Beomgyu’s as you come closer. He seems to have the same idea as he follows your footsteps. Further away from the sudden sound and farther into the forest. 

“What was that?” You whisper. 

“I don’t know.” He states simply.

You turn to look at him with a glare, “Aren’t you the one that lives on the island? Shouldn’t you know what animals come out after dark.” Your anger is quick to rise again. You really couldn’t be more unlucky, getting shipwrecked and stuck with the one boy that’s incapable of helping you. 

Beomgyu doesn’t respond, instead he stares at the eyes in the dark. The irises are opposites, one shines like a star, filled with intrigue. While the other burns with an angry intensity, fueled by malice. The glowing eyes grow bigger as the creature comes closer. Silent footsteps travel fast and just before it jumps out of the bushes, you and Beomgyu break into a sprint.

You both run from the creature that crawls at night. It’s an imaginary monster that only exists in this eternal paradise: A Beast bound in blood from its last meal. An animal that runs rampant, blind with a burning rage. A corpse that decays in the dark, a poor past soul who didn’t survive. 

These terrible thoughts run awry in your head. Torturing you with images of mangled monsters and other unknown that hunt at twilight. Tears of terror threaten to fall from your eyes, but you blink them back before Beomgyu can notice. 

The smell of smoke burns through your throat. Taking in lungfuls has you coughing and struggling to catch your breath. Rotten rage is running right behind you. It grows closer, and closer, until all you can think about is the consequences of getting caught. 

A tug to your wrist trips you up and tears you from your thoughts. Beomgyu pulls you up to run side by side. He holds your hand like you might leave him if he lets go.

“Are all humans this slow?” He speaks with exasperation. The subtle slip of unknown information leaves his lips before he can think twice.

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Your outburst of anger and panic is yelled at the top of your lungs. Your legs begin to burn, screaming at you to stop, but this chase will not stop until one of you has won. Either you outsmart the beast by hiding away, or die by being devoured. That thought is more than enough to keep you going. 

Occasionally, Beomgyu steals a quick glance to his side. He can see the tears slipping past your fearless facade. Too embarrassed to admit you’re terrified to the arrogant boy and his relentless insults. Your hand is clasped tight in his. Beomgyu sees how you tremble and watches the tears that fall. A growing bit of guilt begins to settle in his stomach. He had been such a fool. Taking his time to toy with you when he knew nighttime was near. Although Beomgyu shares everything between his brothers, he’s not eager to share your sweet affections. He found you first so he believes he has some sort of entitlement over you. A pretty little plaything that is his to have. Beomgyu has always been reckless when it comes to expressing his emotions. The selfish sin makes him act stupid, and his fatal flaw might be the death of you. 

As you run, fear follows after you. It’s hot on your heels and threatens to tear you apart. The beast is just behind you. You can feel its breath on the back of your neck. Your speed is no match for the monster. Beomgyu must be thinking the same thing, because he sweeps you away to somewhere safe. 

His hands wrap around your hips roughly. No reason to be gentle in this time of distress. You’re shoved to the ground and dragged to a hidden hole in the dirt. Tree roots tangle around both your bodies. They provide protection and safety while the animal continues its hunt from up above. You can hear it sniffing at the surface, searching for where their fallen food ran off to. At the sound of it growing near, you cling closer to one another. Beomgyu pushes himself flush to the tree trunk behind him while pulling you closer to his chest. His heartbeat is erratic. Blood flowing like fear right through him. You can feel the rapid rhythm beating against your back.  

His breathing is barely there. Too scared to suck in a single breath. You’re the exact opposite. Chest raising high with each heavy inhale. You’re beginning to hyperventilate. With your heart clenched tight in terror you’ve begun to lose your mind to emotion. A hand slowly slides over your mouth and for a second you freeze in fear. But it’s just Beomgyu trying to quiet your quick breathing. You turn to look at him. Your vision is blurred by the tears in your eyes but you can still make out the emotion on his face.

Beomgyu tries to hide his fear, he really does, but it slices at his skin until his heart begins to bleed out. His eyes sting with salty tears, they gather at his waterline and threaten to fall down his cherry cheeks. He’s an imitation of you, stuffing away the sadness and trying to hide his emotions. For the first time in a long time, a little bit of fear festers deep in his heart. He never meant to wander so far away from the others, but he got distracted by such a pretty little thing. He was so selfish, trying to steal you away before the others could find you, and now you both sit in an agonizing silence. Inches away from the Reaper’s wrath. 

Truthfully, you don’t have any idea as to what type of animal is chasing you. You just know that it’s a bloodthirsty brute that’s hunting you down to hollow you out and eat your insides. 

Fear is festering in your mind. Your imagination makes up memories of your worst fears. Putting together the pieces to create a bloodcurdling creature. You imagine the unknown monster to have fangs pierced with flesh and rotting red remains. It has bones that are broken free from its ribcage, resulting in the rattling sound it makes with every inhale. Each breath it takes feels closer than the last. They ring in your ears and you swear you can feel it breathing right over your shoulder. 

Ruthless rage is torn from its throat as it lets out a growl in anguish; disappointed it let its prey fall too far. You can hear the sound of its claws digging into the wood just above your head. After its fit of anger, the monster runs off in what you can assume is a search for more meat. You can see its tail end as it trails off deeper into the dark forest. It has a fluffy tail that flicks in irritation. A slight hint as to what monster lurks on this lonely island. The only monster to ever make Beomgyu truly afraid. 

You’re both too scared to make a move at first. You sit still and listen as the monster runs farther and farther off into the forest. After a few minutes, the only sound you can hear is the whistling wind and your heavy breathing. 

But you both manage to bite down your fear and stand up from the dirt. Your head whips around to look at your surroundings, still paranoid that the monster may be somewhere near. With hands still held between you, Beomgyu leads you both down a path in the forest. The trail looks run down, years of footsteps trampling the flowers and grass that grows. You two take your time. You let your legs rest and catch your breath by walking slow. Your heartbeat is now in harmony with the rest of your body, no longer racing with adrenaline. 

Each slow step you take feels heavier than the last. Fatigue is finally catching up to you. The amount of physical and emotional whiplash you’ve experienced today has deeply drained you. You’re too tired to talk or form a single thought, and slowly sleep begins to burden you. But before you can collapse and sleep through a thousand sunsets, a blinding light burns your eyes. 

Four silhouettes stand in front of the sun. That sun being the little bit of light held in their hands. Torches are used to scare off the shadows and drive away the animosities. It also carves out the shadows of each boy’s features. Forever young and flawless faces are all that meets the eye. Their aura demands your attention and you wouldn’t dare to look away. 

Are these the boys Beomgyu had mentioned earlier? If they are, will they welcome you with open arms or turn their backs on the outcast. A wave of unease rolls around in your stomach as the shortest boy steps forward. His big eyes are hidden behind a glare. Your heart burns hot under the heat of his gaze. Chest stinging and speech stolen, you start to shrink in on yourself. The boy breaks through the crowd and closes the distance. Now that there is nothing between you and his icy eyes, you wish you had been killed by the beast.

➜ ┊: (next) ᵎ ✰┊: (masterlist) ᵎ

taglist ; @intonvrlnd, @doitforbangchan, @lun4kazumii, @loumin908, @hearts4huening, @11thenightwemet11, @sthwaaberry, @lailols, @chuuswifereal, @junimoa03, @duckywuckypookiepie, @favoritegyu, @confusedabouteverythings, @soohashits, @marinette978

‎© cybsoo2 2024, all rights reserved

[linos-luna]

Dark 🔪

Yandere!Yeonjun x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Yandere, fear ?

————————— ♡ ♡

“Junnie!” You cried. “Junnie please let me out!”

You were sitting on the cold basement floor, shaking and crying. There was no light, only a small crack from the door, which you were in front of, begging for him to come back.

“Junnie I don’t like it here!” You sobbed. “It’s scary!”

It wasn’t long before Yeonjun opened the door and looked down at you with a smile.

“Hi baby.” He said happily as if he didn’t just put you there.

You instantly stood up and hugged him, taking in his warmth. He loved the feeling of you clinging onto him. It’s all he wanted.

“Junnie, I don’t like it in there…” you sobbed. “I-its too dark…”

“Oh poor baby.” He said with a pout. It was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Don’t put me back in there…”

“Are you going to be a good girl now?” Yeonjun asked while holding you.

You nodded quickly and buried your face in his chest.

“You know I don’t like when you go out without me.” He said while pulling back to look at you. “Someone could take you away…”

“I-I’m sorry…”You wiped some tears and tried looking down, only for him to tilt your chin up.

“You have to stay here!” He said with a frown.

“Junnie—”

“You can’t leave me!” He snapped while grabbing your shoulders tight. “You’ll never leave me! Right baby?!”

“Jun-”

Right baby?!” He repeated almost frantically.

“I-I won’t-…”

Yeonjun breathed a big sigh of relief before hugging you again and getting close to your ear. His tone then shifted drastically.

“Break another rule and I’ll lock you in that basement overnight…”

[igorsynee]

t.w// mentions of ab*se, strong language, forceful kiss?, yandere.

“can i kiss you?“, beomgyu questioned sitting close to you.

you looked at his face with no emotions in your eyes before looking away.

he grabbed your face and forced you to look at his face, "i asked, can i kiss you?", he said once again, this time a bit of anger in his voice.

you looked at him as your lips trembled and tears filled your eyes. you wanted to shout and scream but you had already done all of that and yet this man did not care. he did not care what you had to say at all. all he cared about was him. he was a selfish bastard.

“if i say no will you stop?“, you asked in a weak voice as he looked at you intensely.

“of course baby !! i would never do something that will hurt you“, he said looking at you with big starry eyes and a face filled with an expression of care and his brows furrowed in concern for you.

you looked at him and stared at his face as his face changed expression in front of you. a smirk appeared on his lips and the concern that was visible on his face was now not there anymore rather an expression of arrogance and mockery took over his face.

he grabbed your face and pulled it closer to his before capturing your lips with his into a forceful kiss.

“i lied“, he whispered in between the kiss before he broke the kiss moving away from you and creating a distance between you two.

“next time you try to talk to any other guy again it won't just stop with you not being able to walk or talk.“, he said as he looked at the bruises on your neck and body before looking back up at you.

“i will tear his limbs apart and make you sew them back to his body. understand?“, he said in a threatening tone.

“understand?“, he asked once again this time his hand grabbing a handful of your hair and pulling them with a force receiving a scream from you.

you grabbed his hand that was pulling on your hair and looked at him before nodding repeatedly as tears fell down your eyes.

you had stopped fighting and resisting way early into the relationship since that's what you thought would help you stay safe and have a peaceful life but you were a human after all. how could you so easily adapt to the rules and ways of this monster in human form? for you those were mistakes but for him those were the opportunities. opportunities to torture you and remind you of your place and to where you belong and all of that leads only to him.

//i am only gonna write pure hardcore kpop yandere fanfics. it would be very much explicit about everything but i think kpop stans who read yandere fics have already seen more enough to not be repulsed by wtv i will write LOLL anyways enjoy more fics coming very soon

[darkestescapes]

Devil By The Window

Synopsis: Kai just wants to fuck Yeonjun's girl. And she's okay with that.

Pairing: Yandere! Yeonjun x Innocent! Fem! Reader x Yandere! Heuning Kai.

Warnings: 21+. Smut. Lowkey non-con. Consensual videography during sex. Non-consensual sharing of said video. Size kink. Missionary. Voyeurism. Oral (F receiving). Kai is an impatient bb. Unprotected sex. Implied creampie. Jerking off.

There's just something about Yan! Kai being so in love with Yan! Yeonjun's girlfriend that he becomes a literal puppy around her, following her around like she's a siren made just for him.

God knows Yeonjun hates sharing, but seeing Kai like this around his girl makes him wonder what do you think of Kai, would you let Kai do whatever he wants to you if given the option?

You have to admit though, Kai is a very handsome man with broad shoulders and that charm that makes blood rush to your heat when he doesn't even try. Yes he acts all sweet and cute but fuck even you know there's a devil in him and it's so obvious he wants to fuck you at least once.

So when Yeonjun brought up the idea of recording you for fun and as a souvenir for when you're away, you agreed. Anything for Junnie right?

Imagine how shocked Kai is to find out that Yeonjun has sent him a video, and not just any video, a video of you being fucked so good your back is arching, you're gripping the sheets apart, your boobs are bouncing with every thrust and you're moaning so loudly Kai almost came in his pants. He's not even done watching the video when a notification pops up. A text from Yeonjun asking if he wants to experience this first hand.

And now imagine Kai's shock when he hears a knock on his door, both you and Yeonjun enter his room. Yeonjun is smirking and you're just so confused as to why Junnie brought you here with just a sweater and nothing beneath.

Yeonjun motions Kai to take over and do whatever he wants with just his fingers. Kai gulps and walks to you, his tall frame towering you. He tilts your head up and kisses your lips sweetly. He says that he won't be this sweet with you in the coming few hours.

Yeonjun finds a comfortable spot with a good view by the window to watch how Kai fucks his girl.

Kai lifts your up and places you on the edge of the bed. He kneels down and fuck he can smell how wet you are. Were you always this wet? Or is it him being so much bigger than you that's making you curious down to your core. He kisses both your knees and starts to kiss higher and higher till the hem of your sweater. He pushes you on your back, you gasp when your sweater exposes your heat to the air and to Kai, but Kai is just looking at your pussy like a deer in headlights.

He nudges your legs apart and touches his nose to your clit and smelling your scent. Fuck he could get so drunk on you. Placing you legs on his shoulders he wastes no time and starts to eat you out like he's waited an eternity to.

Once he's had enough of your taste he gets up and quickly undress himself and helps you out of your sweater as well. Yeonjun just chuckles at his impatience.

Kai lays you comfortably on his bed and rubs the tip of his cock along your folds and teases your hole by nudging his head in a few times. When you whine and plead him with your eyes, man's a goner.

Both of you moan out loud when he enters you. His cock stretching you, rubbing your walls so good your eyes roll back, your back arches from the bed and touches Kai's chest. He connects his lips to your and swallows your gasps and crys and starts fucking you with deep and impactful thrusts.

He feels so good you cant help but tear up. You grab his neck and and pull him close and start to rock your hips along with his. You turn your head to look at Yeonjun and gasp at a particular hard thrust while looking at him. Yeonjun has his cock out, his biting his lip and getting himself off to you being fucked by Kai. Your hand travels up to Kai's hair and you pull at it while moaning for him in his ear.

Kai swears and brings his fingers to rub your clit. He says your the best pussy he's ever had and you're even better than he'd imagined you'd be. You scream and claw at Kai's shoulders, legs wrapping around his waist as your cum for the first time.

Your orgasm triggers Kai's and he cums in your hole. He fucks you a few more times till you're pushing him away weakly. Yeonjun also cums watching you helplessly try to move Kai away from your body.

Neither of them let you sleep that night, taking turns to fill your sensitive hole.

[minho-hoho]

Shush

☾ GENRE ➝ yandere, mafia

☾ PAIRING ➝ yan!mafioso!yeonjun × gn!reader

☾ WARNING ➝ yandere themes, mafia related themes, violence, blood, murder, etc...

☾ REQUESTED ➝ no

☾ WC ➝ 0.8k

☾ NOTE ➝ uhh i actually wrote this and a quite lengthy taehyun one shot but it got deleted so sksksks i just lost hope and stopped coming to tumblr for a while srryyy

MASTERLIST

you were shaking under the covers of your bed, as if the almost constant state of fear you were living in wasn't enough, yeonjun had to do his business in your house. the screams and threats were freezing your blood, you were terrified that anyone would get hurt, and that you, would get killed because of what you considered yeonjun's reckless behaviour. for someone who claimed to only want the best for you, and only acted with your best interest in mind, he sure was being dangerous towards your safety. the only thing you could do was wait patiently, praying that whatever thing he was doing, was ending soon.

you heard a scream of intense pain followed by a loud thud. the voice didn't belong to yeonjun, but you didn't know if that reassured you any better. did he kill someone in your house? you wanted to get up and check up on him, and what happened, but the thought of the possibility of seeing a dead body laying on your living room's floor was frightening.

you carefully tiptoed to your bedroom's door, and tried to listen to any sounds that might come out of the living room. for a few seconds, only a dead silence fell on your ears. the silence stopped as a string of curses left yeonjun's mouth.

quietly, you slightly opened the door, enough for your voice to be heard.

“yeonjun..?” you called out his name, your voice quivering a little.

his eyes immediately darted your way, looking at your figure peeking through the door. not knowing what to say, he stared you, his dark gaze piercing your skull.

“what happened, is everything okay?” you asked, a bit reluctant, not being able to decipher his emotions.

yeonjun sighed, looking at the corpse laying next to his foot.

“this is what happens when you decide to go outside and disobey.” he walked towards your door.

it was true, you went outside and went out with some friends when you were forbidden to do so, as yeonjun was scared that the wrong people would get you and him, and hurt you. you regretted ever going out with someone heavily involved in the mafia world, in every step you took, you were reminded of the risk that and of the chances that you'd get harmed by anyone in the opposing mafia to yeonjun's. and on top of that, you added his obsessive and overly protective behaviour towards you, you deeply regretted ever agreeing to go out with him, your mental not being able to take any of yeonjun any more.

but even if what you did was objectively dangerous and stupid, did that mean that he had to kill someone? at this point, you didn't know whether he did it to protect you, because of his borderline psychotic and obsessive behaviour or because he simply enjoyed witnessing the death of over human beings.

“because of what you did, people now know about you, and i need to kill even more people for you.” he was now in front of you, towering over you, maintaining a chilling eye contact with you.

“no matter how much i warned you, you still went against my directions. do i need to threaten you? to show you the corpses of the people i've killed? because i can, and i will if that's what you need.” shivers ran through your body, you knew that by working in a mafia he had to do some shady stuff that potentially involved ending some people's lives. but you never thought he'd kill some people because of you. especially if it could have been avoided.

a wave of guilt washed over you as you felt at fault for the death of many. your shoulders dropped, and tears started to well up in your eyes. yeonjun's eyes were piercing through you in the silence. you looked down to your feet, remorse still eating you, you took a shaky breath before muttering low excuses, your voice unstable.

unbeknownst to you, yeonjun was smirking. his efforts were paying off, he had successfully manipulated you into feeling culpability for things you didn't even control. he was now sure you'd never leave his side, which was his ultimate goal, it was all he dreamt of.

he sighed, before taking you in his arms, startling you a little. “it's okay, just, don't do it again, okay? let's not spill more blood than needed. be careful, and as long as you follow my orders to the letter, you'll be safe and happy.” his shirt was now wet by your tears, you nodded, determined to not make any more mistakes.

yeonjun grinned, he kissed the top of your head. you sobbed in his chest, as he softly rubbed your back, trying to comfort you back into a happier state.

he finally achieved his most important mission, and he was more than overjoyed inside.

PERM TAG LIST! : @stacey-stonem, @sh1mzu, @axartia, @echantedrose, @leeknowbuttsmasher, @nikipedia07, @deafeningballoonnacho, @scrumptiousphilosopherunknown

[sleepchapter]

yeonjun yandere prompts 4 and 6

“you’re flinching like i hit you already today.”

“tell me, do you like making me mad?”

warnings; kidnapping (current situation for reader), noncon kissing, abuse, reader is restrained, blood mentions

how long have you been here? how many times have you tried to find a way out? how many times have you cried here? you’ve lost count. however, you refused to lose hope. you refused to let him win. you refused to love him or give into whatever sick fantasy he had in mind.

you had woken up awhile ago and were just laying tied up on the ground. you’d guessed it had been around an hour before he walked in. his shadow projecting on the wall.

“good morning honey,”

ah, there it was. that same cocky smile he wore no matter what. no matter the situation, it was rare that his smile ever faltered. even when you didn’t listen it only would become more sadistic or shrink into a small smirk.

he crouched down to the ground and that smile he wore just looked even more cocky. and it was as if it was starting to mock you. he reached his hand out for your arm and you flinch immediately. he looks you in the eyes and his eyes held amusement and a slight curiosity in them. he then just reached his finger towards your neck. it wasn’t even his whole hand, he just glided one finger across your neck and collarbone, which you immediately flinch when he touched you and you stayed tense as he glided it across your skin. soon after he pulls away and actually laughs a little out loud.

“you’re flinching like i hit you already today.”

today. he hadn’t hit you yet today. he probably would end up doing it at some point. light shades of brown and purples littered your arms from his hits on you. usually he only left them when you had tried to runaway or did something ‘awful’ in his book. however, sometimes his grip just left bruises on you. he barely even needed to touch you. it was as if he made your skin weaker and easier to bruise from the amount of abuse he had inflected on you.

he leaned in closer to your face this time ignoring your flinch and attempted to kiss you. key word, attempted. attempted because obviously you hated any touch from him so you turn your head away. even his eyes staring at you made you want to just crawl out of your skin. he didn’t have the patience to wait or give you a second chance to allow him to kiss you. he grabbed your hair and forced you to kiss him. although you bit his lip he continued to hold the kiss for a few more seconds. he pulled away and kept your hair in his hand and pulled it tighter causing you to whimper. he grabbed your face with his other hand forcing you to look at him and you could see his lip was bleeding quite a bit. that smile still there, but his eyes were glazed with almost excitement.

“tell me, do you like making me mad?”

he moved his hand off of your face allowing you to look away from him. it seems as though he wanted you to answer though because he had yelled at you for a response. you shook your head back and forth as much as you can manage with his hand still in your hair. tears streaming down your face rapidly. he finally takes his hand out of your hair and your head drops down onto the ground and you groan in pain, sucking the air in through your teeth. he just slowly rises to his feet and looks down at you. his eyes still glazed with that almost excited look. his smile never disappearing.

“i will drain every last bit of resistance out of you. it doesn’t matter how long it’ll take. and i’d advice you listen. i said i hadn’t hit you today, but do you think that you’re not going to get punished now?”

the day had only just begun, but you could tell the hours were just going to drag on from here. excitement in his eyes, fear now in yours.

[sunflwryu]

warning: yandere, murder | not requested

crazy

"fuck, i didn't think you'd come back so soon. i didn't want you to see this, you know..."

you know that voice.

and you know what those words imply. they imply that he had a hand in this, they imply that he's the one responsible for the gruesome scene in front of you.

you turn around to prove yourself wrong, hoping that it's just a nightmare, that it's just a dream, but no, it isn't, and reality hits you even harder when you see your best friend yeonjun behind you, gross red soaking his white tank top, splattered on his face, all over his hands, and it makes your eyes go wide and a terrified scream rips from your throat as you make a run for it.

at least, try to make a run for it.

but he's fast, he must've anticipated it, and instantly, he's got you, he's got you in his arms, twirling you around to face him, knocking your phone out of your hand in the process, ripping a scream from your throat as you struggle against his hold, but he’s strong, he’s always been strong and patient. you still after a minute or two, your energy now spent and wasted even after the adrenaline you got from the prospect of escape, before he nabbed you away from it.

his eyes are crazed, burning holes into you as you feel reality seeping in, seeping in your clothes, your skin as you feel the blood on him transfers to you, making you feel more disgusting than you already feel from having seen that mess, from seeing your boyfriend in such a state, from being best friends with a murderer.

where was your best friend? where was that playful, flirtatious boy you've known for years upon years? but you can't deny the truth anymore now, especially not after seeing him like that.

"w-why...?" you whimper, lips quivering, body shaking from fear, head turning and eyes averting to anywhere but that mad gaze of his.

he reaches to hold your cheek in his palm, gently lifting so that you have no choice but to look at him. “he made you cry, doll, so i had to keep my promise, you see?”

you're almost afraid to ask, but question tumbles from your lips anyway: "w-what promise are you talking about?"

"you know, when you first started dating him, i promised to you that i'd kill him if he ever made you cry. i couldn't just not follow up on it, hm? besides—"

"you fucking killed him!" you interrupt him and start to sob, the sadness and confusion hitting you all at once, the grief and trauma sinking in, feeling yourself break at his pathetic reasoning, your legs giving out, but he catches you, holds you as you blubber, continuing to speak despite the ugly nasalness of your voice. "just for one fight, one! a-and it was about you...i can't believe i defended you...i-i can't believe you did this...i..."

you remember how your boyfriend told you about how yeonjun had threatened him to leave you, how you should stay away from him. originally, it was just a simple talk at the dinner table, but it turned into screaming when you refused to believe it, refused to listen, especially after a particularly hard day at work, and you ran away into your best friend's arms, the arms of a would-be murderer, or perhaps a fully-fledged one considering how unfazed yeonjun is.

his thumb gently wipes away your tears, his hold on your cheek growing slightly harder to hold you in place, to keep you staring, looking at him. "it was really sweet of you, but i made a promise, and i had to keep it," he says softly, calmly, scarily.

"i thought you were joking! anyone would think that..."

he only smiles at you, the smile you used to be so cheered up and comforted by now sending shivers down your spine. "really..." he muses, his tone light and carefree as ever, like this was all a joke, like murder was a joke.

"w-what the hell...who— no, what are you, choi yeonjun?"

"i'm yours," he replies simply, patting your hair gently with one hand before it returns to snaking around your waist, keeping you with him, his eyes filled with a strange fondness you wonder why you haven't noticed before. "all yours, doll...and you're mine, that's all you need to know."

you shake your head vigorously, wanting no part in the role he wants you to, "...i-i'm not, you're just crazy" you jeer venomously, but weaker this time due to your dwindling hope.

his eyes flare at you, but just as they light up with anger, they only sparkle with amusement as he laughs, moving his face close enough so that it's mere inches away from yours. you instinctively pull back, but he only moves closer, a wicked grin upon his lips.

"even if i am, so what? all the best people are..."

note: clearly written when i was in the melanie martinez rabbit hole again (something i hop into every once in a while). part of my publishing-draft spree!

txt masterlist | main masterlist | by @sunflwryu

[kitsuneregin]

It hurts so much to love you (Yandere!Hanahaki Disease! Yeonjun x Reader)

It hurts...it really hurts...it feels like his lungs are on fire, he can barely breathe, every other breathe he takes he coughs up bloody white rose petals, your favorite flower. Yeonjun hunches over the sink as he hacks up more bloody petals, how long has it been a week or two, usually the symptoms come in slower but in Yeonjun’s case, they’re coming faster and faster. 

How did this all start how could he be so careless to not notice this disease much earlier...You, this all started with you. Your pretty smile and eyes, the way you giggle and laugh, your smooth smooth skin, your amazing personality. You were a trainee at HYBE getting ready to debut in a new girl group, Yeonjun had known of your existence for some time but meeting you...oh meeting you was a whole new experience, then it started.

It was the fever first, Yeonjun thought it was from overworking himself and his body telling him to stop for a moment, the next day he felt fine. Then the loss of appetite, he was always one to make sure people ate so it was ironic that he suddenly wasn’t eating so much, you had even taken notice at his weight loss. You would sneak snacks to him in passing, you were so kind and generous. Next came the shaking, this really was where he noticed something was wrong, Yeonjun was put to bed rest for the time being, however the disease grew worse. His body temp was dropping to an alarming rate, the staff had to take him to the hospital where they x-ray him. That’s where he saw it, it was small but noticeable, a flower in his lungs...but how? 

The doctor would inform Yeonjun that he had Hanahaki disease, Yeonjun was confused to be fair, this wasn’t a disease he’s ever heard of, then once it was explained to him it slowly made sense. Now here we are in Txt’s dorm where Yeonjun is stuck vomiting flower petals, it hurts so much...it’s getting worse day by day. 

Yeonjun was given the option to have the flower surgically removed, but that meant he could no longer love romantically. The only other option was for you to love him back. Yeonjun looked at himself in the mirror his mouth covered in his own blood a petal stuck to his cheek, his eyes watery and red, his nose red, he looked horrible. Yet there you stood just behind him as beautiful as ever, your small hand feeling and rubbing on his back as you soothe him, it was comforting, it was soothing, it was burning, it was starting to hurt, it’s becoming more and more painful, it’s agony. Yeonjun hunched over the toilet to vomit more bloody petals. Hallucinations were another symptom, Yeonjun wiped his mouth and stood up. 

He doesn’t want the surgery...so the only other option is for you to love him. Yeonjun cleaned himself up, he made his way to the company and looked for you, of course you were in the dance studio. Yeonjun smiled as he watched you dance to the music, the way you follow the music with your body, the smile on your face. Yeonjun was about to enter when another male trainee came into view, he walked up to you smiling as he placed his hands on your waist. The trainee pulled you in close as he kissed you on the lips. 

Time slowed down for Yeonjun as he watched with a broken heart at the display. The idol suddenly hacked up more petals, his lungs begging for air, Yeonjun was running out of time, he was going to die if he didn’t cure this stupid disease. Yeonjun felt tears prick his eyes as he fled from the scene and into a quiet area where he quietly sobbed. How could you do this to him, how could you betray him, he was in love with you. Do you not love him back? No...you have to love him back, you were so nice to him, you showed to care for him, is that not love? Yeonjun sniffled as he let his emotions set, if you don’t love him...he’ll make you love him. 

It would take longer than Yeonjun would have liked but he set his plan into motion. It was easy to lure that douche trainee to the top floor and a little shove was all it took to send him to his early grave. It would be plastered all over the news of a trainee’s suicide, with all the bad press Hybe decided to hold your debut till everything was cleared up...who knew how long that would take. Yeonjun would become your night in shining armor as you mourned you lover’s death. He was there for you from morning to night, he really was a great friend. You would join Yeonjun for a night walk at the park, it was empty at this time of hour but the stars were beautiful. Yeonjun would be coughing constantly which worried you, you’d ask if he was ok and then you’d see it, a bloody white petal in his hand, blood dripping from his mouth, his ragged breathing. 

Yeonjun turned to you his body towering over you as he smiled the blood noticeable on his teeth, he’d begin to rant about how he’s sick with this hanahaki disease and you were the reason for it, he’d ramble about how much pain he was in, each passing day becoming harder and harder to bear. “I could get surgery, but I wouldn’t be able to love romantically ever again...I don’t want that, so instead you’re gonna love me...just how I love you, you made me sick....so you’ll make me better” 

[euph0synee]

Ritual.

yandere devil! beomgyu × reader.

Nights are beautiful. The moon illuminating in the sky. The star spread out around the whole sky like glitters, sparkling and shining. The slow yet cold breeze that blows at night making one lose all their stressful thoughts and taking away all their worries.

Yes, nights are beautiful....for someone who has yet to face the sinister and darker side of the night.

You would also often praise the nights saying how much calmness it brought you and how you liked nights more than the days. Yet here you were sitting on your knees in your room praying to every God out there to make this night go as fast as possible.

You were sweating all over. Your face was a looking like a mess with all the sweat and tears mixed together. Your hair was a mess, strands of your hair sticking all over ur face and neck because of the sweat. Your eyes closed as your whole body shaked out of fear thinking how did you get into such a scary situation. Everything was fine a few days ago. Everything was okay until you decided to do something really stupid.

That day was just as normal as any other day in your life. You went to your work and worked till the evening and after work you went out with your friends. You all were enjoying your time after all you met your friends after a long time. While talking you did not realize when the topic changed and everyone started talking about some ritual to summon a demon that was going viral on social media. You had no idea what they were talking about since you kept yourself away from these things because honestly you were a coward and you knew that.

“what ritual are you talking about?“, You asked out of curiousity.

“whaaat? you don't know about the viral ritual everyone's doing to summon a demon?“, One of your friend asked with surprise and you just shook your head.

“well there's this ritual everyone's is trying on social media. basically you just take a coin, a paper and a pen. then write yes or no on the paper and write anything that you wish for on top of the paper and then put the coin on paper and say the spell before asking 'are you here?' and if the coin moves to yes then the demon is summoned and then ask the demon to fulfill your wish.“, Another of your friend explained in detail. It sent shivers down my spine but also made me curious. Would the demon really fulfill wisheswishes of the summoner?

“are you going to do the ritual y/n?“, Your friend suddenly asked.

“no why would i do that? i do not want to summon any demon“, You quickly denied.

“well the demon is supposed to fulfill one of your wishes“, Your friend said.

“omg you're right ! i heard that too“, Another one said.

“i might just do the ritual and ask for unlimited money at least i wouldn't have to go to office and see the face of my evil boss everyday. i'd rather see a demon's face than seeing my boss's face “, She said and everyone just laughed and the topic of your conversations changed again from demonic ritual to demonic boss. However, now all you could think about was the ritual.

Soon the evening with your friends came to an end and everyone left after saying their goodbyes. You made your way home as well. After reaching your home, you took a shower and ate dinner and went to bed but you couldn't sleep because your thoughts were filled with the ritual thing your friends told you today. You suddenly sat up and sighed.

You got out of your bed and bought a pen, paper and a coin with you. Sitting down on the floor of your bedroom you placed the paper on the floor in front of you and wrote yes and no on the paper. you thought for a while about what to wish for before writting the word 'LOVE' on top of the paper and placing the coin on the paper with your index finger on the coin.

You closed your eyes and said the spell before asking “are you here?“, however there was no answer.

“are you here?“, You asked again.

no answer again.

You tried a few times more and yet there was no answer so you just opened your eyes thinking the ritual was fake. You look down on the paper as a gasp leaves your mouth. The whole paper was now filled with the word 'LOVE' written everywhere on it. That scared you so you just picked up the paper before tearing it into pieces and throwing it away in the garbage.

You were so spooked that you couldn't sleep the whole night that night. The next day you woke up to see the piece of paper you tore last night was again back into it's original form lying on the same spot as yesterday on the floor of your bedroom. Your heart beat increased you picked up the paper and threw it in the garbage again. And went on with your day. However, throughout the day the feeling of someone staring at you kept you on the edge. You continuously felt a presence around you but you couldn't do anything about it and had to act normal or people would think you're crazy.

At night you would clearly feel someone laying beside you on as you would feel their breath on the crook of your neck but never did you ever had the guts to turn around to look what it was. Soon the activities became more evident as you now could see a silhouette following you or standing in the corner of your room from the corner of your eyes. You were scared. It was scary that no matter where you go it followed you.

Everything that was happening was driving you crazy. The doors of your room being shut by themselves. Light turning on and off. Feeling someone laying beside or sitting on top of you every night. It was all scary. The fact that it had now started calling your name at nights was even scarier. It would wishper in your ears the whole night. You were losing your sanity slowly.

Your colleagues started noticing this behavior change of yours. You would suddenly scream as if u had seen something constantly telling someone to leave you alone and being scared and paranoid. Slowly they started distancing themselves from you and started spreading rumors about you being crazy.

Now everyday at your work not only would u have to go through the constant torture of that demon u summoned but also with people constantly wishpering about you. You were alone completely alone when one of your colleagues approached you. He was a nice person. He was kind to everyone and never had he ever wishpered about you rather he stood there for you if he saw someone talking behind your back. Others thought he liked you. He really did.

He was the only one who would talk to you at work. He would eat lunch with you and accompany you home. You felt somewhat safe in his presence because at least there was someone being there for you.

Maybe you shouldn't have talked to him. If you hadn't then he wouldn't have died.

You had come from work today at your usual time and your colleague came to drop you off to your home as usual. You invited him to come inside the house but he just rejected and ran away. You didn't know why. Did he see something? You sighed and came inside and started doing your usual work at home when suddenly the power went off. You got scared. Honestly since all this started happening with you, you developed a fear of darkness. You wouldn't even sleep with your room's light off.

Suddenly behind you someone wishpered your name and you whiped your head back to see who it was but there was no one. Soon the wishpering got louder. Someone was constantly calling your name but there was no one. You covered your ears and ran into your room when suddenly everything got silent. You were breathing heavily. Now all you could hear was your own breath and sound of your heart beat.

Your whole house was pitch dark and only your room had a dim light coming in through your window from the streetlight outside.

From the pitch darkness outside your room you heard something roll. It was like a ball you couldn't see clearly until it rolled to where you were standing and stopped it in front of you. The light coming into your room fell on to and that's when u saw. It was the head of your colleague. You were horrified. A loud scream left your throat. You continuously screamed and out of reflex you kicked the head and it rolled back into the darkness outside your room. Suddenly a sudden burst of laughter came from outside your room. The voice so deep and scary that you started crying even more. Your whole body shook as you knelt down on the floor sweat in and crying. praying to every God there is.

“please what do you want please go away please“, You cried as you covered your ears once again.

You heard sudden footsteps coming from the outside. You open your eyes and look up. Your heart beating so fast you fekt you were having a heart attack. Your breath as heavy as possible. The footsteps came closer and closer. With each footstep you felt more and more dizzy.

Finally you saw silhouette of a man at the door of your room. Your whole body froze. You instincts were telling you that this being was something very dark and sinister and now no one could save you.

The silhouette moved closer and as the light fell upon him you saw his face. He was probably the most hauntingly beautiful man you had ever seen but that was what scaring you the most. He did not look like the typical demon you saw in movies and tv rather he was perfect, too perfect to a point that it was scary.

“i am here“, He suddenly said in a monotonous and deep voice as he leaned forward and gave you a child like smile. It sent shivers down your spine and sent you into an instant panic mode. You started crying hysterically and grabbed your hair pulling them.

He moved closer suddenly and you moved away in instant out of reflex. You moved away from him until your back hit the wall. Suddenly pale hands came out of the wall and grabbed you. You screamed loudly as you tried to break free but to no avail. Again two hands came out of the floor and grabbed your ankles. You kept screaming and trying to break free. Your throat had started to hurt from all the screaming and crying now.

The man just stood there and stared at you with an expression so unreadable.

“why are you crying? you called me here“, He said as he chuckled and sat down in front of your shaking form.

“little girls shouldn't play dangerous games you know“, He spoke as he lift his hands to caress your cheeks but you just flinched away.

“didn't your parents teach you that?“, He laughed loudly clearly mocking you.

He stopped laughing and looked at you again, “as i have already been summoned shouldn't i fulfill your wish as well?“ He said as he stood up again and you just looked at him confused. Your wish? What was it? oh yeah you wrote LOVE on the paper.

Suddenly in front of your eyes you saw people hanging from the ceiling of your room. You were horrified by this scene but what horrified you the most was it were dead bodies hanging from the ceiling. Dead bodies of your loved ones. You eyes were left wide opened seeing your family, your friends hanging from the ceiling.

“no no this can't be...t-this can't be happening oh my god“, You cried and screamed. The hands that were grabbing you suddenly vanished as you got up and ran to those bodies. You held the feet of your sibling as you screamed and cried. What had you done? It was all happening because of you.

The man who was watching your every move just titled his head and walked towards you before snatching your body away from your sibling's.

“why are you crying so much? isn't this nice? now you have no one who would love you except for me“, He said nonchalantly.

“wasn't that your own wish“, He said as he gave you a smile.

“what the hell are you saying? i never wished for this“, You screamed at him.

“go away get away from me you demon—“, You screamed again as you suddenly felt a force throw you across the room. Your body hit the wall as you fell with a thud. Your whole body was in pain now as you moaned with pain. Suddenly you felt your feets being grabbed and something dragged you again across the room and stopped where the man was standing.

He sat down in front of you, “you're a bit disrespectful aren't you? it's okay though i can teach you how to be respectful“, He said as he smiled sweetly.

“afterall you are to stay with me for an eternity now“, He said as his expressions changed to dark and sinister again and he stood up grabbing your feet and dragging you out of your room into the pit of darkness.

//I'M SO SORRY IF IT WAS BAD 😭😭 I PROMISE I WILL IMPROVE AAA ANYWAYS LOOK FORWARD TO UNCEASING PT.2 COMING SOON !!

[appleofthemoon]

i heard a rumor that yeonjun committed an arson at the old dorm. you can thanks the news channels, or did you already knew it?

i'm pretty lucky, i got away just in time but i feel like i'm being watched. i hope this feeling will disappear when i enter the plane.

a lot of murders have been discovered recently too, it's strange isn't it? do you think my sister is next?

w. bribery, arson

heh, another temper tantrum of yeonjun's.

his parents have always struggled to keep him on a leash, and now that he doesn't know where you are, any grip they had is out of their hands. must be a pain to burn through even more money, but that's the price you pay when your son constantly lands himself in timeout.

i would recommend you refrain from looking at anything but your boarding pass; yeonjun has sent his brothers after you. and knowing beomgyu, this is the first place he'll check.

without a doubt, she is. desperation is a a hideous look that the choi heir is not taking off anytime soon. so remember everything i told you, understand? if you see soobin or beomgyu, head down and walk.

because they are just as sane as he is.

come send in a rumor you heard !

[mrslaflour]

ᙏ̤̫ — ARE YOU GOING TO THE GRAPE TEAMS PARTY TONIGHT ? ? ! !

pairing ‎⸝⸝⸝ ot5 x fem!reader

genre ⸝⸝⸝ smut, dark (noncon), football player txt, cheerleader reader, reader is under 21 but 18 or over (implied)

warnings ‎⸝⸝⸝ txt are serial r8pists, unprotected sex, noncon, mean dom!txt, language, name calling, anal.., reader is dry (referring to her 😽), really not much prep on certain members, reader does not enjoy this in any way, drinking, smoking, reader is a virgin but she never states that to them, the things they do to her get more and more wild as each person takes their ‘turn’, possible murder allusions, suffocation, choking, oral (both), hair pulling, fingering, nipple play, gagging, riding, tummy bulge,

summary ‎⸝⸝⸝ after every important football game, 5 of some of the star football players at the school pick one cheerleader to “mess with”. the school knows them as the grape team, so clearly people know that they’re r8pists, no? no it’s not true at all! it’s just some stupid rumors girls make up for attention! they’re just jealous they can’t be with them so they want to make them look bad and are just trying to ruin their futures. how wrong of them to do such a thing, right? they’re just pitiful jealous whores…

your school had to be the absolute most stereotypical school from every tv show. dumb blondes, cheerleaders with big tits, football players with big dicks, nobody had a personality of their own. everybody on their knees for the star football team. as much as your school was filled with the stereotypical rich kid who’s daddy thinks that they’re going to be an all star athlete soon to be in the olympics, they kind of had every right to think that. your school had one of the best football teams in your whole city. it was rare that you ever heard that your school lost, it was basically unheard of. but within that big football team consists of a decently sized click. the grape team is what everyone knows them as. for really fucked up reasons too.

everyone knows them as the five sexy football players that every girl would love to get railed by, even just one of them! or you know them as the five football boys who once a year pick a cheerleader, typically the new girl on the block, to invite to their party, get her all fucked up and dizzy, bring her up to their bedroom, and fuck her so hard to the point she’s knocked out and doesn’t even remember waking up to go to school that day. but those are just rumors! come on, nobody would ruin their perfect all star record just to sleep with some bimbo cheerleader who supposedly didn’t want it when they could literally have any girl they wanted with the consent part involved. these girls are just mad that they didn’t want to fuck them or they didn’t want to date them so they go around saying these things just to try to ruin their chances of being a star. jealousy is such an awful disease. either that or these girls got too damn drunk to remember telling them that they could fuck her.

“she’s such a whore. i’d die to even get looked at by them.”

“who cares if they r8ped them or not? at least you’re getting fucked by the five hottest guys in school. any girl would kill for an opportunity like that.”

“if the rumors are true, can they r8p me next? i’ve been dying just to get yeonjun to even talk to me…”

see! it’s really not serious. these are baseless rumors that are just a joke to people. they’re not called the grape team because they actually r8p girls, they’re called the grape team because it’s an inside joke between the school, duh! and plus, they don’t seem to mind it. in fact, whenever anybody calls them that to their face they just laugh and smile. it clearly doesn’t bother them so it’s obviously all rumors.

you’d be lying if you said they weren’t cute. oh they were. but weather or not you thought the rumors were true, you don’t care enough to go after these boys. it’s weird to be accused by multiple people in the first place, you don’t really want tied up in all that. you had basically just joined the cheer team. you had saw them a few times over your cheer camp during practices and even in the hallway before you joined, but never interacted with them. besides staring at them thinking about how big it is, or besides having a project with a few of them! but hey, everybody has thought about it at least once, including the guys in the school.

usually every friday you’d cheer, hype up the audience, you know. and on the big game days, they always threw a huge party to celebrate. they weren’t a frat but shit that’s what it seemed like a lot of the time. practically the whole school goes. there was a rumor once that a teacher went. did she get railed too? you had never been to one because until this year, you hadn’t been that involved with your peers. but everybody goes, and it’d be a nice way to fit in more, no? interact with your cheer team and get even closer and connect with the people you’re cheering for, the football team! plus, all your friends were badgering you to go, so you basically had to.

it was the end of a huge game that the team had just won and you’re chatting it up with your cheer team. people slowly start to leave as time goes on and there’s less and less of you there. it’s silent for a few seconds after all the laughing and excitement until you hear a voice behind you.

“you’re going, right?”

you turn around to see soobin, a member of said grape squad talking to you for the first time ever. you were a little confused so you spoke up.

“uh, going where?”

“the party tomorrow night?”

you mentally slapped yourself in the face. duh it was about the party. but why’s he asking you to your face? anybody can go. but you brush it off. it’s probably because you never go but now since you’re on the team it’s kind of expected.

“yeah, uhm, i planned on being there.”

“great. hope to see you there then.”

he gave you a light smile and then that was it. he just walked away. it felt off to you, something about his demeanor, but whatever. probably just because of how tall he is, yeesh, how does one even get that tall, it was kind of scary, especially considering the ‘rumors’……but you head home and for some reason laying in bed, you couldn’t fall asleep. It’s usually not hard after a long game..but after tossing and turning in your bed for what felt like hours, you finally fell asleep getting ready for a long day tomorrow.

—-

“she’s coming right?”

“she said she would.”

“she’s gotta be the prettiest one we’re ever gonna fuck.”

“she’s a sweet girl on the outside but probably a sick fuck on the inside. shit, by the end, i’m sure she’ll love it. they all end up wet and slutty by the end of it all.”

—

if we’re being honest, you would have forgotten about the party and skipped it if your friend hadn’t literally came to your house to force you awake and get each other ready.

“what are you wearing?”

your friend asked. she was wearing a crop top with a short ass skirt just barely about to show her panties.

“certainly not what you’re wearing. with that outfit you’ll be the next victim of the grape team.”

you joke with her. she just scoffs before speaking up.

“any girl would be lucky to get fucked by them let alone looked at by them weather they liked it or not. so you can go ahead and sign me up!”

she said some crazy shit sometimes. no way she meant it…

“i’m just gonna wear a tight fitted top and some ripped jeans, i have nobody to impress and i’m not staying long.”

she just rolled her eyes. but hey, baby steps. this was your first party after all. it’d be one to remember.

“you don’t think there’s gonna be another rumor after this party?”

you asked. just curiosity makes you think. plus if you’re going to a party then why wouldn’t you talk about the people throwing it?

“after every big game there’s a new rumor. it’s obviously going to happen again. if only they could make that rumor a reality for me. tch, such a disappointment..”

you roll your eyes, she said dumb things no matter how fucked up they were. you didn’t agree with them but what can you do.

“we’ll see what happens when we get there..”

she winks.

“but we should head out now. we don’t wanna get there super late when everybody’s drunk and you can’t even speak to someone without getting thrown up on.”

—

walking into the party was loud as fuck. how had this place not gotten a noise complaint yet…? the amount of alcohol on the table and who knows what being smoked and the party quite literally had just started is crazy. drinking wasn’t your thing. you weren’t twenty-one and most of these people weren’t either but who gives a shit it’s a party. your friend immediately ran over to a guy she saw that she thought was good looking and then you didn’t know where to go. sit on the couch? go near the table full of drinks? no clue. you felt so out of place. ew. you spot some of your cheer team so you push through some people to get to them, smoke blowing on your face and you practically coughing your lungs out certainly was not fun. once you finally reached them you say hi and hug a few people and start talking.

“wow, i’m surprised you actually came. have you had a drink yet?”

you roll your eyes.

“no i have not, and no i don’t plan on it. i’m the one who drove here after all…”

“drunk driving is totallyyyyyy the trend now. literally everyone you’ve ever talked to has probably done it at least once. get some hunky firefighter to save you after you crash your car and have to strip you clean to treat your burns. maybe he’ll fuck you just in the right spot and wake you up. who needs cpr anymore when you have a huge dick right in front of your face?”

what a wild take. but that’s what most people at your school had. wild ass takes. but weather you disagree or not the only thing you can do is just laugh it off or be honest and give a disgusted face. after about 10 minutes of talking you feel a big ass hand lay on your shoulder for a second before lifting off. you turn around and it’s kai. it was crazy to think he was wrapped up in this grape squad shit. he seems as sweet as pie, a friendly giant you guess…

“i’m glad to see you decided to come! if i’m being honest i had doubts..”

you rub the back of your neck and do a light laugh.

“i’ve heard that one a lot tonight..”

you see him look back and notice the rest of their little squad standing by a small table with a few other people from the football team and just around school. he turns his head back around to you and smiles.

“hey, sorry we weren’t proper party hosts and welcomed you in. especially me, this is my house after all…but how about you come over there and we’ll talk a little. we know everyone on the cheer team pretty well except for you after all.”

eh, what could the harm be. it was only a few steps from where you were originally at anyways. you say bye to the people you were speaking with for a little and walk over to the rest of his little frat. the conversation the guys over here were having were mainly about girls and drugs. what a topic starter.

“so, what made you decide to join the cheer team?”

someone speaks up. you couldn’t see him too well despite the height until he pokes his head from behind one of his teammates. it was beomgyu. the troublemaker of the school. the class clown. he was probably the one person in the group that people didn’t like as much.

“uh, i don’t know. just needed something to do other than work i guess.”

they give a slight nod before they go back to their random conversation. you contemplate walking away. you were having funner with the people you actually knew after all.

“so, would you like me to grab you a drink? sorry i didn’t ask before. we have vodka shots and a bunch of other alcoholic stuff if you’d like.”

kai spoke up. trying to live up to what he said before and be an amazing party host. but just because it’s a party doesn’t mean you have to do illegal shit. that’s another thing people keep asking you about.

“sorry, i don’t drink. plus i drove here myself so tonight is not the night that i wanna try, aha.”

it’s much easier to mask the taste of a drug in alcohol than in something like water or juice…but you didn’t know that. all you knew was that this party was not fun to you at all and that it sure was a new experience but now that you’ve experienced it for a few minutes, you’re ready to go home. he tried to offer you something else to drink but you just weren’t really down for it right now. you’re sure you would be soon though. all this second hand smoke blowing down into your lungs was making your throat dryer and itchier by the second. but there was one thing you needed, a bathroom. all this water on the table from spilt drinks and all the gulping of water and the faucets turning on were not helping you hold it. you were hoping you wouldn’t have to ask for anything and have as little interaction with people you didn’t know as possible but you certainly weren’t gonna piss your pants in front of basically the whole school. they would probably be too drunk to remember, but still.

“uh kai, where’s your bathroom?”

he smiles. people can be bubbly and happy sure, but man he seemed way too happy to be telling you where the bathroom is.

“upstairs in my room! second room on the right.”

you thank him before heading off. it was going pretty decent so far. no bad interactions, no tripping on your face, the only thing that was bad was that you were bored..but hey! once your friend quits kissing up on guys then you’ll have a little bit more fun…you walk up kais steps and look down the hallway. “second room on the right…” you mumble to yourself damn this hallway was long. he was for sure a rich kid but you could tell that from the outside of his house. then again, he’s blonde, tall, plays football, and every girl wants to fuck him. it’d be a surprise if he wasn’t rich. you finally find the room and surprise surprise, the size of his bed is damn near bigger than your whole bedroom size. you see a door in the corner of the room and assume it leads to the bathroom. you lock it and do your business before washing your hands and then drying them off. you open your phone to check the time. “already twelve? sheesh…” you check your notifications too. a few missed texts but eh, you could check them later. you unlock the bathroom door and there you see the whole grape squad standing in kais room. did they have to use the bathroom too? this rich ass house, they must have at least three bathrooms and you couldn’t have been in there for too long…

“you really don’t drink?”

taehyun speaks up. the quiet charming one that didn’t even have to try to get girls to look at him. one stare and he had them like jelly in the palm of his hand.

“uh, no…not my thing i’m still not twenty-one and once again, i did drive here and i don’t wanna wreck my car. with my college debt i won’t get a new one until i’m at least thirty…”

you mumbled that last part. but uh, you didn’t really see what drinking had to do with any of this but you didn’t wanna just stand and have a silent staring contest so you just kind of scoot by going for the door before a hand grabs your wrist. yeonjun.

“if you would just be bad for once in your life, maybe you’d be able to enjoy this just a little. maybe even forget about it if you were fucked up enough and fucked out enough, but i guess now we’ll never know.”

you stilled, trying to comprehend the words he had just said before he starts pushing you onto the bed. it’s pretty evident on what’s happening so you of course go to scream but he quickly palms your mouth. he finally presses you to the bed and allows everybody to figure out what position they’d like to take. i mean come on, nobody stood a chance against five tall ass guys who play football. you would’ve been doomed even if you were a guy yourself. even if you had just been going against one of them you wouldn’t have escaped this fate. you start trying to kick your legs from underneath him before somebody pushes them down into the bed.

“soobin can’t go first this time. everytime he’s gone first or second his dick is too big and they don’t even feel the slightest bit of pleasure after and it ruins it for everybody….”

you squeeze your eyes shut, this must be a dream right? there’s no way this is real. sure you thought the rumors had to have some truth but even if they were completely true (which now you know, clearly they are) you wouldn’t have ever expected them to go after you. but i guess it makes sense. new cheerleader just trying to fit in and wants more friends, so what does she do? says she’s another victim of the grape squad to gain some popularity and a few new connections. it would make sense. or would you be one of the ones who didn’t tell anybody? eh, didn’t matter right now. all that matters is that they get their dick wet and have a new little image to imagine every time they need to get off.

“just hold her mouth shut and hold her legs down so i can fuck her without having to deal with her kicking me in the dick or making me have to stop right when i’m about to orgasm because somebody heard her.”

from the way he was speaking, you could guess yeonjun was the leader of this shit. soobin was the leader on the football team but this wasn’t football. this was ‘how many girls can we r8p before we graduate??!’ and it was pretty clear that yeonjun led that shit. besides taehyun, the guy was charming as fuck. seemed like prince charming. you feel the bed dip right where your head was. you open your eyes to see a beomgyu laying on his stomach, face right above yours with a sick smile on his face. yeonjun removes his hands from your mouth before beomgyu quickly replaces the empty space with his hands. He places his chin on your forehead and then gives an almost taunting kiss to it. his hands were basically holding your head still, so you couldn’t really turn away from it. yeonjun then sits up on his knees on the side of your hips and puts all his body weight on your stomach while pushing your wrists to your chest.

“this will be fun. we’ve never not drugged a girl out before fucking her for hours like this. i’m curious to see how it’ll go.”

he says all this with a smile on his face while looking you dead in the eyes. you hadn’t noticed but kai had left the room. probably to attend to the party and not seem suspicious. most people were drunk but there’s always a few sober people and it’s been years that they’ve been at this, they don’t wanna blow their cover now. you also notice that taehyun is leaning in a chair against the wall. his pants are unzipped, he was probably gonna beat to this shit, sick bastard. and then obviously by process of elimination, soobin was holding your legs down, and strong as fuck at that. you couldn’t even move it the slightest inch. you feel his chin move on your forehead as he speaks up.

“the fun begins now. are you ready?”

he loosened his hands jussstttt a little so he could let you shake your head no before tightening them back up. you felt yeonjuns finger prodding with the buttons on your jeans and feel your pants slightly loosening as he unzips them. what makes this all the more worse is you can’t even lift your fucking head to see what he’s doing.

“i haven’t even done anything yet and you’re already crying. don’t worry, you’ll be crying a hell of a lot more by the end of the night.”

he hadn’t even bothered to take ur shirt off. hadn’t even bothered to prep you, nothing. you couldn’t lift ur head but u could see him sitting above you and saw that sly ass look on his face as he quickly forced it in. didn’t take his time at all, as if he wanted it to be as painful as possible. you quickly squeeze your eyes shut and start trying to kick your legs as hard as you can, start trying to shake your head free, try your hardest to move your wrists away but nothing works. beomgyus thumb starts wiping at the tears falling onto his hand and you hear a snicker come from him. yeonjun goes down to prep you (a little too late so not really prep..”) starts rubbing your clit in circles and almost is in shock that you or your body isn’t enjoying this at all.

“fuck you’re dry as hell. stubborn, huh? let me tell you a secret,”

he leans in to your ear scarily close,

“i’d suggest you start to enjoy it or you’re in for one hell of a night. seven hours at the minimum sounds terrible if you’re not enjoying it, no?”

he says all this shit while still ramming into you, still trying to get u damp but his efforts are in vain. your friend would notice though. she’d wonder where her ride went and they’d say you were last seen with them. she’d go up the stairs looking for you and find out what was going on. she’d get help, right? or would they easily lie their way out of it. would they let you go to avoid suspicion? no. they’re all cocky fucks who think they’re the hottest best people in the school, they’re not gonna let their ego fold that easily. they won’t get caught that—

“i can usually go longer but you are tight as fuck, you a virgin?”

you realized he finished. you felt his dick getting pulled out as painful and rough as it was forced in you. you felt something wet dripping down your thighs and you knew it wasn’t from you. it was his cum dripping down. your eyes were still squeezed shut, not wanting any of them to see your teary eyes. you were so embarrassed, so violated. and even worse, you didn’t want him to know you were a virgin. that this night was the night you’d always remember as your first time..

“how was it?”

“it was amazing. might need round two later. this is so much better than just drugging them up. so much funner, so much tighter, so much squirmier.”

“you can say that again, she almost bit my hand off..”

it was so eerie to hear them talking like this as if you weren’t even here listening to them.

“here i’m gonna go next. you take her mouth, i’ll take her ass.”

you had never been fucked in general since five fucking seconds ago, but in your ass? fuck no. and when you heard him say “take her mouth” you knew exactly what he meant and you just wanted out of this room. beomgyu was always the sly one. the funny one. the one half of the school loved and half of the school was annoyed as fuck by and hated. clearly he liked jokes but taking your ass was a pretty fucking sick one. they tell soobin to let go of your legs and you immediately start kicking. yeonjun flips you on your stomach while beomgyu lets go of your mouth. you hadn’t even gotten the chance to scream, your face immediately getting slammed into the sweaty mattress. beomgyu swiftly grabs your wrists, now uncomfortably forced behind your back in one hand and yeonjun is sitting up in front of your face on his knees with his dick still out of his pants. he forces your head up by grabbing a fist full of your hair. you wanted to scream immediately but the threatening look on his face made you not wanna test him. but also you knew as soon as you opened your mouth what would happen. he’d shove it in there without a care in the world just like he did your pussy. he stares into your eyes for a good second before speaking up.

“oh look at all those tears. you’ll be crying a lot more when ur choking on my dick. open up.”

you tried forcing your head to look the other way but he only squeezed your hair even tighter. he holds his dick in one hand and starts trying to force it through your tightly squeezed lips. as if almost on cue beomgyu forces his dick in you pretty little ass. slower than when yeonjun fucked you, but still too fast for your liking. that made you open your mouth to scream in pain, but it was quickly muffled by his dick. beomgyu was showing you some sort of mercy, but only because he needed to get used to how fucking tight you were and how much your ass was pulling him in. you realized that your feet were still free so you start kicking at his back trying to squirm free. ultimately, that made your head move a little further down yeonjuns dick and you gagged so fucking hard, you thought you would throw up. he quickly pulled the air through his teeth on that one holding in a grunt.

“i love to feel a struggle it only makes me even harder. go ahead and bruise up my back with your kicks, i love it so—fuck-much”

so they didn’t just forget to hold your legs down but it was for beomgyus sick pleasure too. it was futile anyways. it only got him off more and even if you had heels on and stuck the heel through his back he’d only keep thrusting even harder into you.

“you better hold your mouth open as wide as you can, if you fucking bite my dick i swear to god it’s over for you”

you never heard of any missing people or dead people at your school from the grape team or just in general but you didn’t know what he meant and you didn’t wanna take any chances. he quickly grips your hair even harder and pushes it as far back as he can. feeling your throat tighten and gag and cough up on his dick, he couldn’t help but groan. it hurt so so bad. feeling your ass being pounded and feeling like you’re about to throw up all over his bed from the amount of gagging you’re doing. you don’t even wanna know what they’d do or say if you threw up. you try to squirm your wrists free, try to kick even harder but beomgyu only squeezes your wrists tighter, you only feel his cock twitch more at the kicking, and when you try to turn your head you only feel your scalp burning more and as if he’s about to rip out a huge chunk of your hair. you feel him shoot his cum down your throat and you immediately start trying to spit it out while his dick is still in your mouth. you can’t even focus on that though because you still have this sadistic fuck ramming into you and grabbing ur ass every few seconds, gripping his nails into it.

“don’t waste it all. you know it’s an honor that we’re even doing this to you. show us some respect.”

respect? an honor? was he joking? he takes his dick out of ur mouth before he slams your face right into the mattress. you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t struggle because your hair was still in a tight grip, couldn’t do anything but hope he let you go before you suffocated. you feel beomgyu pause before groaning loudly and finally pulling out. he did it slowly, almost teasingly, but he did it. and when he did yeonjun finally let you breathe. the only thing you could do was gasp for air and let out a few sobs. you couldn’t even scream for help you were so out of breath.

“please—stop-”

you were about to sob out loud. you were barely even able to get those two words out. tripping over your words. snot running down your nose and tears staining your face. no sense of privacy besides the fact that they still hadn’t taken off your shirt and your jeans were stuck just above your knees. even though nobody was holding your legs down it still made it difficult. you wrists still in beomgyus tight grip.

“does it really matter if she screams? everybody’s probably blackout drunk by now.”

taehyun speaks up. it’s the first thing he’s said since this whole ordeal started. he’s just been sitting in the corner getting off to this fucked up shit. you could hear his small groans and curses every once in a while but it’s hard to focus on so many things at once in a situation like this. but what if he was right? what if you screamed and nobody heard it? what if you screamed and somebody heard but they just didn’t care..

“the party is loud as hell. unless she screams fucking crazy nobody should hear.”

you wanted to scream but you also didn’t want to give them what they wanted. they wanted to hear you scream. you’d just been sobbing and saying small ows under the palm of beomgyus hand earlier. you hadn’t had any moans of pleasure at all. but they didn’t care, they were here for themselves, not you. yeonjun grabbed your chin and forced you to kiss him. you had no hands to push him away and he held your head perfectly still. he finally leaned away after what felt like forever even though it was probably only ten seconds.

“i’m gonna go down with kai, i’ll be back before the fun part.”

the fun part…? you didn’t wanna know. that evil smirk on yeonjuns face and the uncomfortable silence in the room spoke volumes though. you hear the door open and shut. you feel beomgyu let go of your wrists and you immediately sit up. at the end of the bed you just see three faces staring, piercing right into your eyes. you immediately go to pulling up your jeans and your panties before two strong hands grip both of your wrists. you slowly look up only to see taehyun staring intensely at you. as if daring you to move. he quickly pushes your chest down and you start yelling at him to get off of you.

“get off of me you asshole!”

you were pulling his hair and smacking him and you could tell he was getting frustrated. he rolls the front of your shirt up trying to get a view of your chest. finally starting to strip you clean of everything.

“does he have—shitthisfuckingbitch— scissors somewhere?”

he finally got sick of your antics and landed a clean slap on your face and you finally let go of his hair. you go to scream and he only slaps you again. he stared at your now red face and looked at you dead in your face. he was telling you to go ahead and do something else using his eyes. you didn’t wanna know how else he’d hurt you. someone finally hands him scissors and you try to push yourself up before he can cut your shirt. he puts one hand on your waist to hold you in place and one hand presses the tip of the scissors right into your collarbone.

“if you move you’ll get cut and it won’t be my fault, so i’d suggest you quit being so whiney and just be an obedient fucking whore.”

you still quickly. taehyun had to be the scariest to you. he didn’t speak much he just went straight in and tried to avoid as much talking as he could. he just wanted to get what he took you for and go on with his day. he cut your shirt off and then he goes to cut your bra off, but he quickly realizes he can’t because it’s a wired bra and he couldn’t cut through it. he puts the scissors to the side and sits up on top of you.

“take your bra off.”

you’re confused at what he just said and just lay there trying to cover up your chest.

“..what…?”

“sit up and take your bra off.”

his stare was going to be the death of you. you slowly sat up but you just looked down at your bare legs with tears streaming down your face. it was humiliating enough for him to cut up your shirt but to make you take your own bra off to get r8ped by him? it would’ve been less embarrassing if he did it himself.

“i said take it off. i’m not going to do it for you. i could always do more than a slap. and the scissors are right here.”

your start sniffling and choking on your sobs from trying not to sob outloud and give them the satisfaction. in the corner of your eyes you can see soobin getting even harder (if that was even possible) and beomgyu standing there about to unzip his pants again and start jacking off right there.

“don’t make me tell you again.”

you start un-clipping your bra as slow as you can. you slowly take the straps off your arms and slowly let the bra drop to your thighs. the only bit of coverage that you had now. he quickly throws it to the floor and pushes you back down. he starts pinching your nipples and swirling his tongue around them. you try pushing his head away but he just bites your nipple causing you to yelp. he moves away and towers over you once again. you see his hand start to move lower and he quickly starts fingering you with two fingers. you quickly go from hugging your chest to pushing against his and yelling at him to stop.

“damn you’re still barely wet? at least it’s getting there. i really don’t even need to do this. yeonjun already fucked you here so it’s ready for me but i’m choosing to be nice. do you think i’m nice?”

you quickly shake your head no and he just scoffs with a smirk. you finally decide to scream for help and all he does is take the fingers that were fucking you and forces them in your mouth and down your throat. he starts moving them around and it causes you to gag over and over.

“should i make you throw up? make you clean up the mess with your tongue while i fuck your ass?”

you only gag more around his fingers with tears spewing out your eyes before he finally pulls them out and you have a coughing fit. too busy coughing and wiping your face, you failed to notice that he already had his dick out and was rubbing the tip against your entrance. finally slightly wet, but still not wet enough where it would go in smoothly.

“wait wait wait! please don’t..!”

he just laughs.

“what? you don’t want me to?”

you mumble some no’s just barely audible to him.

“ok then, you can do it.”

confused, he grabs your hips with both hands and drags your body all the way onto his dick. you quickly wince at the feeling of being so full and once again go to trying to push him off of you. the only thing he does is grab your neck with his hand and start putting pressure and squeezing, successfully blocking your air flow. you start scratching at his arms and he just throws his head back while still thrusting into you. the sweat causing his hair to stick to his face. you go to kick at him but realize that when you flail your legs more into different positions that the feeling of him only gets worse so you just keep your legs still. however, you were still scratching at his arms, afraid you were gonna pass out and then they’d do who knows what else to you. he started to squeeze tighter and you finally started fearing for your life. trying to open your mouth to beg him to stop but no words came out.

“quit —shit-fighting me and i’ll let u-fuck!—i’ll let you breathe.”

not even having a second thought you let your hands drop to your sides and he finally lets go. you just turn your head to the side, trying to force it into the pillow to silently cry as he finishes up. he grabs your chin, and you flinch thinking he’s about to choke you again, but he just turns your chin to face him and he speaks up.

“i want you to look me in the eyes as i finish or i’m gonna make sure this whole thing for you lasts way longer than planned.”

of course he was probably lying but you didn’t want to take the chance. you hear the door open while he continues to look you in the eyes and thrust into you but you can’t even check to see who came in because you didn’t want to look away. you didn’t wanna take any chances. but once you see his eyes squeeze shut and him throw his face forward and feel the same dripping sensation out of your pussy that you’ve felt the whole night, you know he’s done. he slowly pulls out just to tease you before shaking a bit of his cum onto your legs and on your stomach before moving over. it was kai who had come back to the room, staring at you in awe.

“she’s still awake? and i missed all the fun?”

taehyun scoffs at him.

“the no drugs is so much better than what we’ve ever done before. come get a taste for yourself.”

he was speaking as if you were some meal waiting to get eaten. it was gross. it was sickening that nobody there probably even saw you as a human. kai always was and seemed to be the nicest out of them all. he was the most approachable, the most helpful, the easiest one to talk to and do projects with besides soobin. it was weird to see him staring over you with this hungered look on his eyes but he still had this oh so soft smile on his face. it made you conflicted and made you genuinely upset. hurting kai, although he was never close to you, just seemed so much more terrible than if you were to hurt taehyun. he slowly starts to crawl on top of you, one hand on his pant zipper and the other caging you in.

“you look stunning right now. even with your tears. i would love to see your pretty smile, i’ve seen it at school. oh to see you smile in this state. i think i’d die..”

he takes his thumb and wipes your tears. you grab his wrist with one hand and looked him in the eyes, begging him with your eyes to stop. but he only smiled and pulled your hand to his face, closing his eyes. it was as if he was trying to make this situation seem like a consensual thing between the two of you. he pushed you down to your back and layed completely on top of you while still holding your one wrist to the side. he was ten folds heavier than you so it made it kind of difficult to breathe. he pressed his face into the crook of your neck and just laid there for a little, just letting you hear him breathing down your neck. you finally feel his arm move to mess with his pant zipper and you start to try to move away from him but he just glides the back of his hand across your face with one hand, now looking you in the eyes, and taking his dick out his pants with the other. you could feel his tip align to your entrance and you finally gather the strength to speak. although it’s hard considering all his weight is pressing down on you.

“kai, please don—”

he just presses down even more on you and he kisses you. but not just for a second, he keeps kissing you to keep your mouth shut. whenever you moved your head to the side he moved his head with you. he was not breaking from the kiss anytime soon. as he was doing this you felt his dick finally push in. your eyes widened and your mouth opened with a gasp which he quickly took advantage of by pushing his tongue in your mouth. no matter how many times you’d experienced getting fucked tonight, it got no easier. no less painful. you finally had gotten a little ‘slicker’ down there too. the way kai was handling this just made your body feel so conflicted. but don’t get it confused, you still wanted him off of you. still wanted him out of you. he’s making slow movements in you, not really thrusting, but he’s still getting into it, just slowly. you start trying to hit his back and trying to push his face away but he only moved his other arm and grabbed your arms one at a time and forced them to stay locked around his neck. if anybody were to walk in and see you in this position, they wouldn’t even know that you didn’t want it. they would never know that he was r8ping you. it would just look like a loving couple having sex. every so often he’d let go of the kiss to breathe for 5 seconds before going back in. he uses one of his legs to move one of your legs so that he could feel you better. this was the only time tonight you felt good and you hated it. it was only his leg holding your leg down and you still could barely move it away and kick. you start trying to squirm even more as it feels better and better. he pulls away from the kiss again and pushes his forehead against yours breathing heavily.

“does it feel good finally? i can tell. yeonjun said you were dry but look how wet you are right now. did you just need a little more love? were they mean?”

you just started tearing up and crying more, your arms stuck around his neck and him drawing out these slow movements in you.

“please i just wanna —ow —go home, nobody will believe me anyways just—agh- let me go.”

you were pleading with him. he was probably the most sane person here, the safest person here to try to reason with.

“but i just—aghshitshit— love this, love you so much..i love how you feel, i love how you look,”

he leans in close to your ear and whispers to you.

“after tonight, we should keep talking, yeah? maybe date, maybe just let me keep fucking you like this. i’ve never enjoyed one of these nights more than this..”

more? of this? even if it was just him fuck no. you just shake your head no but he just presses a kiss into you again. your legs start to shake a little and you can feel him smile against your lips. he speeds up a little more and you hear him groan. you feel the vibration of his groan spread through your chest and through your lips before the same warm feeling in your pussy comes back. the same substance coming out. you felt disgusting. you felt like some prostitute cum dump off of the street. this was absolutely humiliating. he just lays their still for a few more seconds, leaving his dick in you, holding the kiss between the two of you before he finally allows you to breathe and finally pulls out. how long has it been? how much longer would they keep going? how much longer until they got bored of you and let you go home? you didn’t know. you wanted nothing more than to hug your blanket and just go to sleep and forget this all happened. but this was a night to remember for all of them and for you. he finally climbs off of you and sits at the edge of the bed swaying his feet a little like a giggly child.

“one more until we get to the fun part. soobin!”

beomgyu yelled that across the room. he sounded so happy and you hated it. you had forgotten there were five of them, and now you knew even after soobin would go, there was apparently more to go on. you just wanted to close your eyes and think about anything else, imagine anything else, but you knew they wouldn’t let you. kai stands up and comes to the side of the bed and stands you up onto the floor. good thing he was holding you up because if he wasn’t you probably would have collapsed to the ground. soobin, dick already out crawls onto the bed and lays on his back and kai sets you right in front of his dick. hard as a rock sticking straight up in the air.

“you’re gonna ride him.”

you pause and just sit there. no you weren’t. you—no. just no! but kai lifts you up by your shoulders and hovers your pussy right over soobins dick and slowly lowers you onto it. how do you even get out of this one? they’re not gonna let you lift yourself off of him, hitting him will do nothing, and you literally can’t kick your legs. even if you could, it wouldn’t do anything. you just squeeze your eyes shut before kai quickly lets go and you quickly put both of your arms on soobins chest but it’s too late and he’s already balls deep in you. you swear you can feel his imprint in your stomach and he clearly sees it too because he reaches his hand out to touch your stomach and feel. soobin was quiet. he didn’t say much in class but he always came across nice. helped when he could, smiled almost always, very calm, just overall not bad to be around. in a situation like this you almost wish he’d say something.

“have you ever rode before? or is it just mine you stay still for..”

he mumbled the last part, but you still heard him. you refused to answer, you didn’t want to give any of them a hint that this was your first time.

“i’ll help you, help me.”

you didn’t know what he meant but he grabbed both sides of your hip and easily lifts you up and down on his dick. it was as if you were his own personal alive little flesh light. it was easy for him too, didn’t give him any added difficulty. his chest just gets wetter and wetter, your tears falling like a waterfall onto it. his abs glistening despite the dark room. you tried to push his hands away and lift yourself up off of him but you were only helping him more and his hands only dug into your hips even more. he wasn’t going to let you just pull yourself off him so you easily.

“you’re taking me so—shit—so so so well.”

“you feel so—so good-ahh—so good around me baby—ah fuck-”

he was clearly hungry because even after you felt him cum, he still kept going, his balls smacking against your ass, him going from fast to slow. he finally stops completely, now just letting you sit there and squirm on his dick, getting him off more and more. you started doing it unintentionally, it was just so uncomfortable but clearly not for him, you could hear his soft groans. he moves one hand from your hip to your ass and squeezes which causes you to jump up on his dick and you could feel it pulse in you. he just starts to rub it more before he slowly moves towards your clit. he grabs some slick from it which causes you to shiver, making him curse under you. his fingers now coated, he moves to your pretty pink asshole. he circles his finger around it a little before pushing a finger inside abruptly which caused you to leans forward and jump up before sliding back down onto his dick. you could feel his dick twitch so much in you and it just made your body even more uncomfortable that it caused it to jump up again. you started shaking a little so your body naturally starts riding his dick a little, no matter how much you tried to hold yourself down. soobin starts spewing nonsense before he finally cums again in you. somebody, kai you soon see, lifts you up off of soobin and pulls you into his lap as he holds onto your tummy.

“i saw all that. you couldn’t have been that wet when it was my turn?”

you only just now noticed that yeonjun was in the room. guess over the tears, adrenaline and pain, you hadn’t noticed he came in.

“you all got your turn, all got what you wanted-”

you pause to sniffle and choke on a sob,

“just let me go now please.”

they were silently laughing at you, you could tell. there was nothing funny about any of this. why keep you here any longer if they all got a piece? to torture you?

“it’s only two in the morning sweetheart, we still have until at least seven in the morning. so at least four more hours.”

kai presses his chin in the crook of your neck. you felt sick to your stomach. at least four more hours…maybe letting yourself throw up on their dicks wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.

“and you know what’s next?”

you didn’t look up, but you knew it was yeonjun speaking by the cocky ass tone. you could almost hear the smirk he definitely had on his face through his voice.

“an actual gangbang. all five of us on you, in you, touching you, at the same time.”

now you wish you had taken the alcohol. you wish you would’ve just broken the law for once. risked getting in a wreck and getting a dui, risked waking up delirious and sick. you wished every time they suffocated, every time that they choked you that you would’ve just passed out, but they weren’t going to let you take the easy way out. five hours of every hole getting stretched, your dignity, every sliver of confidence that you ever had removed in a single night.

“you’re just gonna be just another jealous little whore trying to ruin all of our careers with a stupid rumor. how mean of you, we’d never do such a terrible thing, right? it’s impossible, crazy even.”

“right?”

[cybsoo2]

temptation

00. teaser

╰┈➤ synopsis — After a shipwreck that left you stranded, you now find yourself stuck on a remote island. Distracted by the beauty, freedom, and five boys that inhabit the land, you fall further into the arms of temptation. That is, until strange events make you question what secrets lay buried beneath the sand.

╰┈➤ pairing — yandere!faerie!txt x reader

╰┈➤ word count — 1.8k

╰┈➤ content warning — nothing!

ੈ✩‧₊˚ note ; chapter 1 to this series will be posted on august 30th, at 4:00pm PDT. if you want to be added to the taglist send an ask, message, or comment :)

The salty sea is unfamiliar to your tongue. The waves that wash over you kiss your lips with every swell. The ocean breathes in shallow breaths that turn the tide. You’re swallowed under a sudden wave when you finally decide to open your eyes. 

Your cheek is pressed up against a cool surface. You reach out to run your fingers through the soft sand; digging your hand in deeper to ground yourself. Dehydration has left you dizzy. You lick your lips to get rid of dryness; spitting out the bits of sand that stick to your tongue.

You turn on your back to gauge your surroundings. A bright light blinds you and you bring up your hand to shield your eyes. The warm rays slip past your fingertips. You drop your arm back down once your eyes begin to settle in the sunlight. The void is filled with a bright blue. Millions of miles of nothing but the sapphire shade. The sea and sky battle against each other, two shades morphing into one. No ships sailing, no birds fluttering, you’re entirely alone in this vast expanse of nothingness.

You turn to the side, pieces of your past shipwreck are spread out across the shore. You reach out to touch the destruction. Discarded and decaying, all symbols of safety are ruined. Your breath begins to grow heavy. This realization rests like a 20 pound weight on your chest. You sit up slightly, leaning back on your elbows. Whipping your head around you, you can see that the beach goes on for miles. It stretches out across the horizon and wraps around the curves of the island. Sand, trees, and wreckage are all that you can see. 

You stand up fast, fighting off the feeling of lightheadedness. You swallow down the sandpaper sensation in your throat. 

“Hello!” Your voice tears into your throat. “Is anyone there?! Hello!” Your brittle voice breaks down against its misuse, but you continue screaming into the silence. While you shout at the seashore, you begin to search the beach for any stragglers from the wreck. Desperate eyes scour the empty shore as your cries are carried out to sea. 

You continue to search for what feels like hours until hope holds out its hand and shows you what seems to be… footprints? 

Small markings are dug into the sand and you sprint ahead to take a look. The tracks start in the sand and stretch out into the treeline. You walk alongside them, matching each step with your own. The footprints draw you further into the unknown forest. The woods welcome you. Shifting and reshaping its terrain to form a faint path. It pulls you in before you can think twice. 

Too naive to understand and too distraught to care, you turn a blind eye to your surroundings. Unbeknownst to you, magic flows through the forest. Running like roots through the entire island. It’s intertwined with the trees, dispersed in the air, and familiar to any lifeform that calls this island home. 

While you may not understand what is still unknown, you can feel a power that pulses in the air. An aura that you can’t quite put a name to, but can recognize its strength and ecstasy. It makes a faint humming noise that rings in your ears and hovers with every step you take. It’s not a nuisance like one would assume, rather a relaxant that washes away your worries. 

This feeling feels familiar, as is everything else that meets your eye. Nothing has any resemblance to reality. Everything is warped into a perfect, pink, picture. In your hazy recollection, it reminds you of a drifting dream. The place where sorrow and anger are absent. It’s a child’s paradise filled with fairies, mermaids, monsters, and all things interesting. A sacred sanctuary reserved for the fallen youth. Yet, it’s a wonder how you wound up here. An island lost at sea, never mapped and only known to those who spend their lives searching for it. Perhaps, the devil needed a shiny new thing to toy with. And who is he to resist a sweet thing so pure. 

You’ve followed your fantasies to temptation. Lured out by someone else’s lucky streak. The gates left unguarded to a new and interesting enigma. But when what you believe to be a dream starts morphing into a realm of reality, why would you want to leave? Even when you realize that the roots run red with dark desires and a sinful touch, would you even be able to escape?

A rustling in the bushes causes you to look up from your feet. You gain a feeling of unease and stop to hold your breath. The trees seem to taunt you, dropping leaves on your head that make you jump out of your skin. The bushes shake with laughter and the birds twitter teasing remarks. 

You can feel yourself growing closer. A certain presence plays hide-and-seek in the shadows. A storm swims in your stomach, the tides turning and making you feel almost powerless; like prey being toyed with before the predator pounces. The sinking sensation drags you down, your feet feeling like lead and knees threatening to give in. But you push through the fear, determined to find a solution to this mess.

You follow the footsteps further into the forest. Twisting and turning leaving you dizzy with dread. The tracks even appear to do laps and loops around you. Have you gotten lost already? You stop to settle your doubt for only a second before continuing on the crooked path. You remain running, just trying to hold on to your sanity while the sun begins to set. Darkness is falling fast and you'd like to find some sort of shelter before the sky submits to the black abyss.

As the minutes morph into miles, the footprints seem to appear fainter. Almost as if the culprit is floating with softer steps. The footprints then stop completely in the middle of nowhere. Two prints pressed into the dirt drop off into thin air. Nobody stands before you, no noises are heard, you’re surrounded by nothing at all. You lean down to give the prints a closer look and-

“BOO!” A sudden shout sends you to the ground. A shocked scream leaves your lips as you turn around in terror. You look up from your spot, sprawled out on the forest floor to see what seems to be… a boy? His silhouette blocks the sun, hiding his face under a dark overcast. He peers down into your eyes. You’re only able to make out the smug smile that settles itself in the shadows. He gives a soft laugh before asking, “I scared you didn’t I?” There’s a playful tone to his words and while he stares down at you with a smile on his lips and a shine in his eyes, you sit in shock. All coherent words have run away from your mind, leaving you stranded in silence with a stranger.

The boy kneels down in front of you, holding himself up with his hands. Curiosity catches his heart and he moves to poke and prod at the pretty little thing that has fallen at his feet. He brings one hand up to start teasing at your hair. He toys with the loose locks and tugs at it when you attempt to back away. 

“Who are you?” You ask with hesitancy. The boy only continues to pull at your hair, ignoring your question. “You weren’t from the shipwreck were you? I would’ve remembered you.” The boy's attention seems to have been captured by your question.

“You would’ve remembered me? Do you really think I’m that handsome?” He says with a smirk. His hand has stopped still in your hair, now fully focused on observing your reaction.

“No, I just would’ve remembered someone annoying like you.” Although his attractiveness does grab your attention, your sudden irritation at his behavior is much more prominent. Smacking his hand away from your hair, you stand up from your spot on the ground and he’s quick to follow. A faint frown falls on his face. “Are you from here then? Do you know how to help me?” He seems to stare right through your questions, amused by your actions instead of concerned. “Do you know how I can get off the island?”

“Why would you want to leave? Have you looked around you?” He asks in confusion and stares at you like you're stupid.

You tilt your head from staring at him to look at the trees tinted pink. Blushing blossoms sprout from each branch while butterflies flutter around you. The sliver of sunshine that snakes through the treetops shines down on the forest floor. The light reflects off every shiny surface, producing glitter in the air. 

The boy drags you out of your heavenly haze once he takes two steps closer. He leans forward the slightest bit to be on eye level. 

“I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.” His question comes off more demanding than you expected, leaving no room for disagreement. You nod your head to agree and he begins his interrogation. “You said you were in a shipwreck, what exactly do you mean?”

You spill your secrets into the silence. “I’d been traveling by ship for about a week before a storm hit, and well… we went under.” Your voice begins to break off. A shiver crawling down your spine at the recollection of the horrific incident. Water lines your weary eyes, but you blink back your tears before you can get caught up in your emotions. You rub at your eyes rather roughly, ignoring the boy’s intensive staring as you ask your question again. “There has to be some way to leave the island. Are there any boats? Any other survivors?” 

“There might be.” He stares straight into your skull. Almost as if he’s trying to search your thoughts with x-ray vision. Your agitation only seems to grow at his unclear answers. 

“Well, where are they? Can you take me to them?” Your voice grows frantic, clinging onto the frail piece of hope that there might be help for you. 

“What if I don’t want to tell you?” The strange boy seems to gain a sick sense of enjoyment watching you struggle. Your anger rises into your cheeks and a cherry blossom blush bleeds into your face. The boy has to hold back another taunt at the tip of his tongue. 

“What? Why not?!” 

“Why not? You ask too many questions, it’s starting to get on my nerves.” The boy rolls his eyes in irritation. He takes a step closer and you stare up at him through a shocked expression. Before you can yell out your annoyance and anger at his lack of sympathy, he shuts you up with some interesting information.

“And it doesn’t matter anyways, even if I wanted to help you, I wouldn’t be able to.” 

You ask your next question already dreading the answer, “And why’s that.”

“Because no one ever leaves.”

➜ ┊: (next) ᵎ ✰┊: (masterlist) ᵎ

© cybsoo2 2024, all rights reserved ‎

[linos-luna]

TXT Masterlist

Angst 🥀 || Yandere 🔪|| Smut ❣️|| fluff ☁️

Yeonjun

• Dark 🔪

• Needy ❣️

• Cream ❣️

• Odd Fantasy ❣️

• Rainy Day ❣️ (req)

• To Be Desired ❣️🔪

• You’re mine, right? ❣️

• Lessons (+ Hueningkai) ❣️

Soobin

• Tantrums 🔪

• Your Bunny 🔪 (req)

• “Relax Noona” ❣️☁️

Beomgyu

• Games ❣️ (req)

Taehyun

Tongue out ❣️

Hueningkai

• Lessons (+ Yeonjun) ❣️

• “Where’d You Go?” ☁️

• Just cooking ❣️

• Music Lessons ❣️

• Injuries 🔪

[hyukascampfire]

the poll omg yeah i may have spoken too soon…

To: Someone From a Warm Climate

wc: 23.2k

genre: smut, angst, fantasy violence

pairings: faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader

synopsis: a life lived as a human among the fae is one hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.

you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.

a/n: this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)

! warnings: angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism, orgasm denial, jealousy, angst again, dubious intentions of multiple main characters... poor mc has no idea who to believe

playlists: taehyun | yeonjun | series

prev | next

You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.  

Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.  

You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.  

“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room. 

He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.” 

Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help. 

You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?” 

Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.  

You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that. 

Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head. 

You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions. 

“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.  

Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.  

“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.” 

Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.” 

The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over. 

You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.” 

His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.” 

Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat. 

You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”  

You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed? 

You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it. 

Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.” 

Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you. 

“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”  

You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it. 

“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much. 

“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?” 

“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?” 

Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.” 

You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want? 

“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.” 

Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.  

“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic.  

“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.” 

Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return? 

“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it?” 

“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When will you begin living your life for you?” 

Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats, and then he seems to settle into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous. 

You hadn’t expected him to react like that. 

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says. 

Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.” 

“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.” 

You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from. 

He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.” 

You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes. 

“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest. 

He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.” 

❉

The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.  

You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.  

You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe? 

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.” 

“I know my limits,” he says. 

Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.” 

He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.” 

You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells. 

“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.  

He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?” 

Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?” 

You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.  

“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.  

You follow him. 

You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it. 

Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is. 

“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t. 

Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.  

“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?” 

A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it? 

You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave. 

“I do.” 

He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?” 

You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.” 

Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep. 

“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface. 

No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet. 

You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage. 

“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all. 

Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness. 

“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.  

Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.  

“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?” 

Your legs tremble beneath you.  

“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.” 

Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.  

The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?” 

The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.  

Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.” 

Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.  

“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it. 

“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?” 

“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.” 

Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.” 

You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around. 

Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal. 

“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”  

Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?” 

“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”  

You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one. 

Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says. 

“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself. 

Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.” 

Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.” 

Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do. 

It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.  

“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.” 

“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.” 

You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.  

It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.  

“Taehyun,” you warn. 

He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question. 

Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day. 

“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.” 

You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”  

As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.  

Really? Is this happening right now? 

“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.” 

Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.  

It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.  

The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.  

The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.  

“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.  

You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely. 

“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.  

You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run. 

Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.” 

The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.” 

You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in. 

“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.” 

The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.  

“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?” 

“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.  

He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.  

The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.  

“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite. 

You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?” 

Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.” 

You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him. 

As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.” 

At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.

“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.  

You continue to trudge through the forest behind them. 

❉

Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.  

His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.” 

He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.” 

“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.” 

Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.  

“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?” 

“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us. 

“It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.” 

Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately, no?” 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?” 

“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?” 

His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.” 

Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.  

He’s quiet. 

“Answer me,” you demand. 

“Is this not my home?” he says. 

Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?” 

His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms. 

That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again. 

❉

You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him. 

Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.  

You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.” 

Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form. 

“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?” 

You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.  

“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt. 

You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.” 

A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.” 

“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him. 

Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.” 

Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?” 

“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.” 

Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.  

Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless. 

Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?” 

Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious. 

Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?  

His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.” 

Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, voice strained with shock. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin. 

He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no!” you say, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today. You know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds. 

“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.” 

Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.” 

His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves. 

“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.” 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.” 

Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes?” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat. 

He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.” 

You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.” 

“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll just stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”  

That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time.” 

“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says. 

“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?” 

“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.” 

You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no? 

You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?” 

He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.” 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?” 

“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension. 

You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch. 

❉

Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours. 

You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories. 

You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had. 

You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.  

As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court. 

The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then. 

You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks. 

“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.  

You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life. 

“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.” 

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?” 

Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself. 

You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.” 

“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?” 

“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.” 

He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...” 

“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?” 

Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?” 

You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?” 

“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor. 

Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?” 

“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.” 

Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer? 

He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.  

Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine. 

An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.  

She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!” 

You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu. 

“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?” 

Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence... 

“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all? 

He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.  

Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside. 

Do you intend to return to Court? Perhaps we keep missing each other. Though, the Lord is always there. I wonder where you are. If my letter reaches you, please write me back. Or better, come see me. My doors are open to you.  

They always have been. 

Yeonjun 

Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart. 

Have I done something wrong?  

The General’s son continues to attend Court, and though I seek your lovely face beside his, you’re never there. I’m under the impression that he wants you not seeing me. Although, perhaps that’s only because I loathe what your absence might mean otherwise. 

Is it because I learned of your identity? Is it that you think I hate you? 

Allow me to make it utmost clear: I do not. I doubt I could if I tried. You’re quite the heart stealer.  

I know I sound a bit ridiculous telling you I love you when we only knew each other for so long. I understand that. It’s that sort of love that ought to burn bright and short, right? But I won’t let it. Not us. 

Some might say that a love found so easily is fickle. That it doesn’t exist. I say it does, because I have felt it. 

Do you remember how it felt the first time our eyes met, too? How odd is it to feel something so deep inside you, but also so far beyond your reach that you cannot alter its course?  

Please write me, pretty. If I can’t see your face, at least allow me the pleasure of knowing that you’re okay. 

Yeonjun 

“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you apart from the words on paper that manage to send your heart hurting.  

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Life works in odd ways.  

“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with the word, though,  

Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”  

You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You can’t tell. Maybe it’s both. 

The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...” 

Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.” You reach for the next letter.  

The next envelope has dried up rose petals that come falling out when you pull out the letter. The flower of love. 

Have you left the north? Could you not have at least lent me one last look at your face before doing so? I don’t mean to be so pathetic, but my heart is lonesome. I thought we’d have more time. Hadn’t you wanted to stay with me?  

If you still reside in his estate, I send these letters to you. I’m not sure if they’ll reach you, but I hope that they’ll move you. Don’t you know that I’d give you anything? 

Please come see me. I beg. Let’s talk. I just want to know what’s wrong. 

Yeonjun 

Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love.  

You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had this happened? Maybe this is just what happens when someone spends a lifetime not allowed to think of themselves before serving others. You don’t want to be selfish, though.  

The next one you open is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand. 

If you think that I’m the sort of man that will easily forget what we’ve shared, I am not. I love you. I love you. I love you. Please return to my arms. They ache for you. They remember your weight, and they won’t soon forget it.  

Do I need to say it anymore?  

I love you, darling. It’s making me sick.  

Yeonjun 

You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you. 

❉

“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...” 

Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”  

You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him. 

You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.  

The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.  

Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.  

Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you. 

Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts. 

“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.” 

It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.  

Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging. 

On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace. 

Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you. 

“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?” 

“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.” 

A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.  

“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.” 

Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters. 

“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it. 

You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head. 

His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.” 

Weeks? You’d only seen four.  

“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?” 

You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it. 

“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.” 

Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.” 

Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t. 

Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.  

“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?” 

His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.” 

Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.  

Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl. 

“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.  

You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask. 

“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”  

Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you. 

“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.” 

You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”  

He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?” 

Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.  

“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”  

Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more. 

“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less. 

He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks. 

Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.” 

His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks. 

“Huh?” 

“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?” 

You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.” 

He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.  

He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.” 

Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway. 

Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.  

“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.  

He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.” 

You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake. 

“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.” 

Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?” 

“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.” 

He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions. 

He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.” 

See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.  

“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.  

You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen. 

Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.” 

You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.” 

He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.” 

You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs. 

Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.  

“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.” 

You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine. 

“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?” 

“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.  

“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping. 

He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes. 

You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes. 

“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?” 

Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”  

He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.  

He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.  

Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.  

Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.” 

His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.  

“Please,” you whine. 

He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining. 

You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.” 

Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—” 

“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.” 

He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there. 

“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.  

“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough. 

You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.” 

The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say. 

The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core. 

The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing. 

You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds. 

Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”  

You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.” 

“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop. 

You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.  

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”  

You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.  

For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake. 

“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”  

Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.  

You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter. 

❉

“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.  

Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.” 

“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.” 

“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.  

Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?” 

You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.” 

He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says. 

“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.” 

He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles. 

You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it. 

Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.” 

You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers. 

“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.” 

You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.” 

You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin. 

Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill. 

Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?” 

“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.” 

Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.” 

“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”  

You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit. 

As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you? 

Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks. 

Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”  

You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.  

Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?” 

He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.” 

“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?” 

“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”  

His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.  

Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause. 

“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—” 

A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.  

The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.  

You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?” 

She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.  

“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though. 

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?” 

Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you. 

He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging. 

“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.” 

With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd. 

“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you. 

Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.” 

He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?” 

“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?” 

Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”  

You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it. 

Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.  

 A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?” 

Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”  

He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.” 

Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived. 

“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.  

Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning. 

An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?” 

Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?” 

Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?” 

He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?” 

His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?” 

He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face. 

Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.” 

His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you return?” 

Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.” 

You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie. 

He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses. 

“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall? 

Another flash of disconcertment flashes, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.  

His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.” 

You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can. 

“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.” 

Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?” 

You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right? 

He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...” 

Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand. 

“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.” 

Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his. 

“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...” 

If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though. 

You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen. 

Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you. 

A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you. 

What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you. 

“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.” 

Tears scald your cheeks. 

“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.” 

You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears. 

Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something." 

You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen. 

Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.” 

“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.” 

Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie. 

You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.  

You’ve become their spectacle. 

Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin. 

You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed? 

Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here. 

All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke. 

White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while. 

Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says. 

You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.” 

Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun. 

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu. 

Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk. 

Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path. 

He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her. 

“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.” 

That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.” 

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes. 

❉

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that. 

You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t. 

You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch. 

A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire. 

“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.” 

Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.” 

Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would. 

“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. 

Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.” 

He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.” 

“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.” 

He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.” 

You furrow your brows. “Huh?” 

“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.” 

It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.” 

“He will if I command it,” he says.  

“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood. 

The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?” 

Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it. 

You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.” 

The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have. 

Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.  

“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?” 

His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.” 

Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...” 

“It’s not infected,” he says. 

That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him. 

He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head. 

You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.  

Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse. 

Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.” 

“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.” 

You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?” 

Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.” 

The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hair in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.” 

You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all. 

You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know. 

Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.” 

Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?” 

Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.” 

“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.” 

You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder. 

Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.  

“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.” 

The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.  

Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.” 

Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.” 

You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.” 

“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.” 

You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right. 

What’s left for you now that he has?  

END PART 4

a/n: RAHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?

taglist: @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @sanshiningstarhwa , @hyucktapes ,

[hyewka]

᭄⁑　txt as yanderes | thoughts

warnings: yandere, noncon, baby trapping, mention of knife play, slapping, perversion, not proofread

yandere!jjun is the type to be too sweet, sickly sweet. like barfed cupcakes and sprinkles, he pretends to care, he love bombs, he kisses you like he truly loves you, like there’s no one else but you and maybe its true, maybe there is no one else but you in his eyes. but its not romantic. not when he has blood on his hands, figuratively or literally, he’s responsible for innocents lost.

“i didn’t lay a single hand on them, how many times do i have to tell you! doll, baby, believe me. please.” his voice cracks, like he’s about to cry. you scoff and turn your head to the side, disgusted, feeling like you could very much vomit right now.

“stop fucking calling me these—these words!”

yandere!jjun, the type to crumble to his knees and beg, holding onto your leg like an abandoned puppy despite having much more power than you, both in strength and status. lips trembling, eyes wide and crazed, full of pitiful tears, giving you a false reality, sense of hope that he isn’t that much more powerful than you could even imagine.

now yandere!soobin on the other hand is the type you don’t even realize is mentally out of it, not until you’re literally two years into a relationship with him with a stable history of 7+ year of friendship. he’s been jealous here and there, one instance of him breaking down over you having coffee with a male colleague that you had to craddle him, rocking back and forth as he sobs and hiccups— that keeps you up at night sometimes, but he’s so convincing you don’t even notice how often he manipulates and gaslights and manipulates. the way he slithers his long arms around your waist, pressing your bodies flush, holding you tight, whispering random “love you’s”, you almost completely forget. almost.

when yan!soobin’s fucking you senseless, lost in pleasure, tongue out dumb like the horndog he is, you manage to warn him again, “b-baby, not on—hah birth control”

don’t cum inside. don’t cum inside. you told him that before you got too into it, and he agreed, he promised he won’t. of course he won’t.

so why’s he shaking his head? why’s he refusing now? your eyes widen a little, trying to push him but he leans to kiss you, drowning out your protests, turning them to mere mewls. “baby—wanna—wanna make you have babies..”

the alarm bells ring again. and again. and suddenly you remember the few warnings from your friends, the offhanded comments about how he’s a little off, a little weird, that he seems obsessed.

“you won’t leave me when you have my babies, you can’t—” suckling on your nipples through your shirt as if to prove a point, he wets it completely, making it see through with his spit. you feel gross. you feel—“can’t leave me,” he says one last time, moans straining as he empties his load in you. a generous load.

yandere!beomgyu is my favorite in the most deranged way possible. he’s not too sweet, he’s not the meanest, and he isn’t the most pathetic, but he’s definitely the craziest. beomgyu would be the one to go as far as to lock you in his home, keep you chained, bondaged—he’s fucking insane. the type to be into knife play as well, he loves the switch in power dynamic. instead of the past bossy, in control at all times y/n and her pretty lanky best friend who’s probably “head over heels” for her, it’s you on your knees, cold hard wood, getting your throat brutally abused like his personal sex doll.

he loves finally being the one in control. he’s so addicted. sometimes it feels like he’s only inflicting his craziest perverted dreams on you, and you were just his nearest victim, but oh no, out of the five, he’s definitely the most ‘in love’.

“let me out…beomgyu…please.”

his back is pressed against the bedroom’s door, listening in to your sobs that barely transcend the sound proof walls. he sighs, frusteningly running a hand through his hair.

“why—why don’t you love me?”

and suddenly its silent on your part, the sobs not reaching his ears anymore. its enough to cause more cracks in his heart, making him undeniably more bitter but god forbid he gives up on it—on making you love him back, he’ll risk everything for it.

yandere!taehyun is the most cruel but he’d also be considered the least delusional and the most delusional at the same time. he knows you won’t love him back, he could care less (well…debatable actually), it’s about protecting you at the end of the day. that’s where the delusion comes in, he thinks he’s your white knight and you’re only acting out like you’ve always been. stubborn and hard headed. when it comes to the sex, this man has you at all times legs spread up, with your hand restricted, supplying your pussy like a free breed whore. other than the humiliating position, he makes sure you’re aware at all times of what you are to him.

his saliva and cum covering your body like filth, using you like a rag, truly. he’s the type to slap when you act out—a strike against your face, pussy, tits, he’d do it all. and yet he still wholeheartedly believes he’s protecting you from the world that “corrupted” you.

yandere!hyuka is beyond pathetic but you’ll never know because he doesn’t act on his desires. well, in the sense that he doesn’t scratch the eyes out of every one of your boyfriends and doesn’t have you tied to him at all times—he’s the pussy type. in the dark, following, each and every step. that was the beginning. then it was jerking off on your balcony peeking between the blinds as he watches you undress. then it was stealing panties, sniffing, licking, as his hands go manic on his poor dick—it hurts, it’s dry but he keeps going, because he is so fucking addicted he doesnt wanna stop. whining n’ squeaking as he lets out your name out of his mouth over and over and over again.

your scent when he hugs you drives him mad, when you kiss his cheeks he embarrassingly spots a boner, he’s just pathetic with horrible horrible dirty thoughts in his head.