#yyxy angst | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

writingmochi · 2 years ago

Text

part 1

cast: taehyun ✗ fem.reader (ft. loona yyxy, txt's hueningkai, and other idols)

synopsis: the year is 1999. cardboard boxes were put on the driveway of the newly-settled home across from where taehyun lives. the five sisters will soon shake the neighborhood with their eccentric personalities yet mysterious auras. the moon sisters. since that day they arrived, taehyun is intrigued by them and especially you, the youngest of the sisters

genre: coming of age, bildungsroman, slice of life, romance, drama, high school au, late 90s au, angst, a tiny bit of fluff, mature content (explicit smut, suicidal characters, depressive episodes)

based on: movie the virgin suicides (1999)

word count: 32794 (32.7k) out of 52076 (52k)

warning(s): tyun wears glasses AND is an amateur boxer, smoking (cigarettes), mentally and physically abusive parent, narcissistic parent, gender discrimination, suicide attempt, self-harm, depression, blood, bruises, semi-public sexual act (handjob), explicit sex (soft sex for part 1), protected sex, loss of virginity (m & f), hand job (m & f receive), oral job (m & f receive), manhandling (if there is something that i forgot, let me know)

message from the moon: remember that this story is fiction and do be careful and read the warnings at the top. all the idols mentioned here are not what they are in real life.

welcome! this is supposed to be a one-shot but because the word count has reached 50k+ and my tumblr errored because of it, i have no choice but to split them in two. so this is part 1! thank you so much for the enthusiasm as i've read from the teaser and i hope you enjoy it!

cd mix | wall collage | part 2

it is almost noon on the first day of august in the year 1999. heavy breaths and the sound of metals colliding with each other filled the four walls as a boy dropped his barbell on the stand behind the bench he is lying on. a new personal best for the weight he succeeds in bench-pressing.

different paraphernalia of a teenage boy covers two corners of the room. one is full of textbooks for school, and the other is full of workout items, with a desk right between them that somehow integrates both corners. a roll of hand wrap bandage in front of his box-shaped personal computer’s desktop that shows the latest operating system by windows, windows 98, and its teal background.

chiming bells of messages the boy recognized from his instant messenger makes him sit up from his bench. the t-shirt he wore sticks onto his sweating body—pooling sweat in between his joints—as he stretches his legs by standing up, cooling down his arm muscles as another chime rings.

he grabs the towel that hangs on his desk chair; seeing the blurry black-colored text of the messages in the open chatroom window. his hand reaches for the glasses on his desk, making him able to see the red screen name of “penguinkai” and the pixelated penguin face for a profile picture. the messages are about him asking to hang out at his house or him following the boy to the gym for his boxing club activities. messages that signal “i’m bored” makes the boy chuckle as he sits on the chair to answer his best friend’s messages back, the towel now drapes around his shoulders.

what he should’ve noticed is the sound of a vehicle right in front of the window behind his desk and computer. the open window of his—a habit he got from his mom who opens it every morning until noon—makes the sound more prominent. eyes, that were looking at the blinking line on the screen after he finish typing, now focused on something else instead of sending the message.

peeking from behind the boxy electronic device, he sees a truck with words written on its side. he can deduce the large-scale words as the name of a moving company he has seen before, either by the advertisements he saw on the world wide web or the names written as a sign on blocks full of office-like buildings. the truck sits on the side of the used-to-be empty house across from his while a brown dodge caravan—it resembles the one his relative has—sits in the house's carpark.

the boy focused on the doors of the car as people came out. he could count seven heads, two adults: husband and wife, and what he can presume are their five children, all daughters.

he views the new family; the father walks towards the moving worker as they open the container of the truck while the mother stands by the side, holding onto a large purse as she walks to the door. he remembered a few days before, he saw the couple at the house. his mom added the context that they were there to park one of their cars and receive the pieces of furniture they bought or bring for their new home.

if their children are there, he knows they will stay here forever. it slowly comes true as he sees the abundance of cardboard boxes filling up the spaces on the driveway.

eyes slowly moving towards the sisters who stood with various styles of clothing, all looking to be around his age at varying heights. yet, he follows one sister in particular more.

a discman hanging on the strap that is on her shoulder. she bops her head with the headset on as she walks towards the back of the truck around the asphalt road; unlike her other sisters who are using the pavement.

a few of the other sisters help in bringing the cardboard boxes down from inside the truck, while he looks at the discman girl as she climbs up into the truck effortlessly. seeing one of her sisters climbing up into the truck, another one steps inside as another sister—who is wearing a white lace dress—looks inside at them, her posture looking stiff.

waiting and waiting until the discman girl jumps out of the truck with what looks to be a guitar case strap onto her other shoulder. she whispers something to the sister in the dress as she walks away behind the truck to her front door.

later in the day; when the truck has gone away and the front lawn of the house is now visible, the boy’s mom walks to the home across from hers, preparing a welcoming gift for her new neighbors. he sees it as he puts on his burgundy sweater and prepares his duffel bag to meet kai at the gym, his mom still wears her apron as she crosses the road and presses the bell on the front door.

he walks out to the front door to see his mom walking back home, a warm smile on her face as he lifts the strap of his bag up his shoulder more.

“new neighbors?” he asked with a regular speaking tone: a disguise for his curiosity.

“yes, they’re the moons. i invited them for dinner tomorrow night as they are unpacking their stuff first. that’s okay for you, right, taehyun?” mom replies as taehyun pushes his glasses up his nose bridge.

it’s not even a whole day, and he surprised himself at how he is already interested in them. knowing that in this block of the neighborhood, there aren’t as many teenagers around his age, rather it is full of kids younger than him as new families emerge one by one.

teenage girls, especially, are a rarity.

“i’m okay with that, mom.”

at first, he spends the rest of the day normally, punching the punching bag to work out while kai sits on the sidelines with a few of his boxing club friends that are tired. he didn’t think about the moon sisters until when he walked back home from the bus stop—after parting away from kai—when he sees the house across from his lighting up the outdoor lights as the sun sets for another day.

a silhouette of someone walking out of the door carrying a trash bag to the outdoor garbage bins. it is another sister he saw but didn’t focus on before as another one goes out, barefooted, to her. the discman girl. he took a quick glimpse at them before looking away to face his front door, knowing that he will get to know them better tomorrow.

taehyun usually never helps his mom to prepare dinner, but knowing that at least five people will come to his house—excluding his own four-membered family—he let himself help his mom after she told him to wear a semi-formal outfit, arranging the table while his mom and older sister finishes the cooking they made. dad not being there as he will arrive late means that he might be the only male in the house, but not if mr. moon will come as well.

he puts the plates he picked up on the four-person table, knowing that a few leftover plates mean that a few of the guests have to sit on the sofa. organizing the utensils beside the plate as his sister puts the food in the middle of the table. heads up: startled, his eyes were now on the front door as he heard the front doorbell ringing.

“i’ll get it.” his sister said as she rubs her hands on her own apron. taehyun finishes putting the spoons as he peeks from behind the wall to see his sister’s behind obscuring the door. she opens it to see the lady, mrs. moon, wearing a long dress as a few others stood behind her almost in a line.

he sees her sister gesturing to come in as mrs. moon steps inside and took off her inconveniently tall high heels by the door—she just went across from her house to be there. he straightens his posture when he felt a hand on his shoulder, his mom guiding him to the hallway so they can greet the guests better. his gaze sticks to the five girls entering the cramped hallway of his house, all wearing short dresses of various styles and colors, recognizing the last one entering as the discman girl.

“thank you for inviting us, mrs. kang. i’m sorry that my husband can’t join us cause he has a meeting to do.” mrs. moon said as mom steps forward.

“that’s okay. our patriarch also couldn’t join us tonight because of his work, so i apologize for that inconvenience.” his mom said as both the ladies gives a smile and a knowing nod. he puts his lips into a straight line as he nuzzles his glasses up the bridge of his nose, lifting his head up to look at the group of girls across from him, feeling his cheeks getting warm from blood flowing to them.

“let me introduce you to my daughters!” mrs. moon replied as she opens her arm to gather the girls closer.

“this is sooyoung, our eldest.” sooyoung steps forward in a pink sleeveless dress. her eyes looking towards his family and she gives a small nod to his sister beside her.

“this is jiwoo.” the girl raises her hand onto a wave as she greeted them with a warm smile, wearing an orange-white plaid dress.

“our third is chaewon.” chaewon who has her name mentioned, lifted her head slightly, giving a tight lip smile in her pastel green lacy dress. taehyun recognize her as the same girl in the white lace dress from yesterday.

“hyejoo.” mrs. moon turns her head towards the girl, who is the only one wearing an outer blazer with a grey dress underneath. her hands wrapped in front of her torso as she gently leans her head back against the wall.

“and (y/n), our youngest.” his eyes are now on the discman girl who’s wearing a blue sundress, a style different from the oversized sweater she wore yesterday.

looking at how the girl’s picking on her nails, he can’t seem to look away from her, from you. his eyes rise from your fingers to see your head moving up as well, an unplanned eye contact that startles him, making you let out a small chuckle as you cover your mouth.

“… and this is my son, taehyun.” he heard his mom say his name beside him as her arm rubs his back, not listening to how his mom was introducing the family. he gives a small smile on his face before his mom welcomes the rest in so that the food won’t be cold. taehyun, being the last one on the line, saw you giving another eye contact to him before walking forward.

the seating arrangement of nine people makes him sit beside his mom while mrs. moon sits beside sooyoung. his sister is with the other four sisters in the living room across the dining table and hallway. he thought the girls will eat on the cushioned seat but they all sat on the floor instead. sooyoung who sits across from him seems to be taking a glimpse of her four sisters before looking towards their mom who converses with his mom.

his eyes wander towards the girls and his sister that are conversing on the carpet, seeing glints of light on each of their ankles from the lights on the ceiling; he presumes sooyoung also has one too. they’re holding their plate in various ways like sitting cross-legged or leaning against the cushion of the sofa. he hears them giggle as he looks between the girls when he notices a bandage like what he uses for boxing on chaewon’s wrists, her quiet demeanor gives chills down his spine as what might happen to make them as a result…

time flew too fast from taehyun’s perception as he hears clinks of plates stacking on top of each other while his mom serves dessert for the others. taehyun gives a small nod to his mom, pointing to his plate in front of him before she gives an ‘okay’ as he stands up, picking up the plate and utensils on his part of the table and then walks to the kitchen, where he can hear running and splashing of water.

he thought it was his sister, having not seen the living room when walking into the room until he sees the back of the blue sundress and a stack of plates on the counter beside the sink. he walks closer before his spoon slides on the plate, creating a loud sound that makes you turn towards it.

your eyes widen as he gives a small smile, stepping towards you as he sounded, “you don’t have to…”

“oh sorry…” you replied as taehyun now stood beside you, placing the items he brought in front of the stack of dirty plates as he rolled the sleeves of his shirt. “it’s a habit. i’m the one that got assigned the washing dishes chore at home,” you continued.

he lets a chuckle come out, seeing that you were taking a glimpse at him whilst rinsing the plates from the bubbles made by the dish soap. “(y/n), right?” he tried to ice break.

“yeah, i am. and you’re taehyun…” he sees you flutter your eyelids before returning to the plates as you put them on the counter on the other side where he stood in front. he quickly picks up a napkin from the island counter, making you let out a chuckle as he picks the plate, one by one, to dry the droplets on them. leaning his back against the counter beside you, he creates a pattern of putting the dry plate on the island counter across from him.

“you’re the youngest?” his voice pitched up at the end of the question. you playfully hummed in agreement.

“your mom said that you and a few of your sisters are in my year…” he said, putting the plate on top of the one he dried.

“oh yeah… chaewon, hyejoo, and i are fraternal triplets. i was born the latest, a 30-minute difference from hyejoo who has a 10-minute gap with chaewon,” you replied. he nods as he looks down at your bare feet while drying a plate, seeing the result of the glint he saw was an anklet resting around your right ankle. the light from the ceiling above him reflects on the chain. its blinding shine didn’t let him feel a nudge on his arm before he finally notice.

his head tilts up as he sees you move in front of him, the bottom of your sundress grazes his clothes as you tilt your head up to look at him. the plate being pulled like a magnet from his hands to yours before wiping it with a tissue you grab and putting it on the counter behind you. taehyun’s eyes follow the plate as it stacks on top of its friends before returning to your figure who is looking back at him, a more direct and purposeful eye contact than the ones you both do in the hallway before eating. your gaze then looks down at his forearms that are exposed from the sleeve being rolled up, his veins protruding against the skin as the result of working out for most of the summer to improve his boxing skill.

“i see you glancing at us from the dining table…” you murmured as you move closer, making his slouching posture now straight as he sees the tiny gap between his and your body. you lift your left hand before putting it on the counter behind him, trapping his body between it and you.

he unconsciously gulps his saliva as he tried to look at the surrounding of the kitchen his mom and dad designed.

but, he… can’t.

“i don’t know what your intention is by glancing at us in plain sight. but, just to let you know…” taehyun finally felt his heart beats against his chest as you move your head closer to his, feeling a faint of your breath caressing his skin. he looks into your eyes, seeing them looking stable from the way they gaze, but on a longer look, they look puffy.

he can see faint cracks in your vase that is your mind. so subtle, but might haunt him for an unknown amount of time.

“there are so many things you won’t understand about us, taehyun.”

your eyes shake slightly when you said it before your right hand reaches up towards his face. he braces for the unplanned contact before feeling the glasses on his face moved up on his nose, seeing it being pushed by your hand before you let out a smirk and step back, retreating your left hand back before turning around and leaving him stunned in the kitchen by himself.

that was the last he saw them, the last time he saw you. until the first day of school, a week later.

leaning back against his and kai’s locker that are side by side, taehyun tilts his head up as he pushes his glasses while looking at the hallway. his dark blue uniform pants pair up with the girls’ uniform with their plaid-pattern dark blue skirts with vests rested on top of the white shirts. other students wear a cardigan, varsity jacket, and other outers—even not wearing the vest at all—to express their personality, passion, and school persona. he himself wears his burgundy sweater that becomes his signature.

the entrance at the end of the hallway was when he saw the moon sisters enter with their newly ironed school uniforms and uniformly styled looks—even to the same glints on their right feet above their white socks that he now knows are anklets. the ranging personalities he sees are now a clean slate when being compared to what they were like the first time he saw them moving their cardboard boxes.

but as the day went, he observed them, the five of them, having lunch at the trunk of the tree outside. seeing them laying down on each other’s thighs as they giggled. seeing moon chaewon with tons of bracelets covering her wrist and moon (y/n)—his newest classmate—with her silver and blue-colored discman.

it didn’t take long for the sisters to spread out of the cocoon that is the awkwardness of a new environment and new school.

as a month into living in the new neighborhood, one morning when he puts on his uniform shirt on top of his undershirt, he sees the girls walk out of the house in a rush. he presumes they want to chase the bus on the corner of the block. but, he didn’t expect them to hide between the garage and one of their cars in the carpark, where one of them picks up a garbage bag beside their outdoor trash bin. pulling out skirts whose colors and patterns are the same as the ones the school wears today and a bunch of various outer shirts from a bomber jacket to a cardigan. openly undressing themselves to their undershirts and switching around their clothes.

openly showing the world who they really are: individual people.

taehyun’s eyes focused on the girls scrambling around to switch their shirts between each other while buttoning his white shirt. some of them wearing spaghetti strap tank tops for their undershirt as he sees one of the sisters toss an oversized striped sweater to his classmate, you. focusing on you as you put your head through the hole, he held his breath as he sees you tidying up your hair, a smile he had never seen adorning your face made him chuckle. he then sees hyejoo leaning closer to you, making you pause before your gaze looks towards his house, his window, him.

the boy’s eyes widen as he stood in stunned before you give him a smirk, your eyes meeting, wanting him to be pulled gently towards you. sooyoung’s silent talk from where he is and gesture takes your attention as they left the house, your head giving one last look towards where he is before following your sisters. taehyun finally breathed after holding his breath all this time.

a month since they move, a month full of observing from behind his studies and boxing, is enough for his basic assessment of the moon sisters.

the oldest one, sooyoung, is the fashionista of the group. she likes to push the boundaries of the school uniform rule by wearing a shorter skirt and a tighter shirt that must be from the other sisters, even wearing accessories like necklaces and alike. a senior that took the breath away of the other seniors, her confidence and attractiveness attracted the likes of the most popular seniors in school, mostly the varsity jocks.

jiwoo, the second oldest, is also a senior and the brightest of the sisters. a typical girl-next-door he usually recognized from his sister’s teen movie collection. but her brightness lights the sisters up with her jokes and laughs will always fly because of her. though many boys seem to like her, her eyes always shine when she looks at girls: punk girls, cheer girls, and theatre girls. the apple of her cheeks getting more prominent if she looks at the flower girls of the school.

chaewon is the oldest of the triplets, child number three, and is the proper and elegant-looking sister. she wears the most oversized uniform out of all the sisters, a longer skirt that is almost halfway down her calves. she always looks down every time she walks, yet she gives him chills every time he looks at her figure. her wide eyes seem to glitter with some glistening on them. the sisters seem to always find a new flower to put behind her earlobe. she is the most out of the sisters that look and acts like what a feminine girl is. almost ideal.

hyejoo, the second triplet, is the tomboy of the sisters. a striker in the girl’s football team of the school and like dominating other students, especially physically and with boys. her actions making it seem that she has a vendetta against the other sex. she is always wearing a jacket almost like the one maverick uses in top gun. and her gaze slices people like a knife with her feline-like eyes.

you, the youngest and the last triplet, are the one he spends his time with the most, the one he takes interest in the most. yet still an enigma for him.

being in the same class where he sat in the middle row with kai, you sat at the back beside the window of the class, the lone desk on your row as you are an additional student in his class. every time he enters the class on school mornings, he can see you looking down the window beside your seat, before you put on the headset connected to your discman or picking on your nails.

what he can always appreciate is the way the morning ray finds the right place to shine on your face. your hair always shields the right place that you always took his breath away every time he glimpses at you.

what he never expected—but realized is what you might have done before moving here—is when he sees you smoke a cigarette. he first notices it when he sees you and hyejoo having a smoke during a free time when he went to the restroom, seeing how you and your sister lean against the brick wall while the other juniors are in the class. like the world just seems to stop for the both of you. yet, even though people around him don’t smoke, he didn’t mind the faint smell of it exudes from you that mixes with your eau de toilette.

for the month that you and he live across from each other, you were always the one that he caught sneaking out at night. he knows because sometimes under the light of his study lamp, he can see the silhouette coming from the house and when you came back, your eyes always meet him that overlooks his window as he chats with kai or studies at his desk. you give him a smirk before climbing inside your home and gently closing the door. though both of the vehicles your family has usually aren’t even at home at that time.

the moon sisters, though always attracted people’s attention, have never been separated from each other other than in class or after-school activities. they eat lunch together and even disappear together. but what you said to him always stick to him, no matter what, he wants to be closer to them, and he knows that the hollow-like eyes he sees a few of the sisters have, even you, always makes him curious.

there are so many things he won’t understand about them. yet, he wants to. he will do anything to understand.

the vibrating strings created sounds that travel around the four walls of the room. hands holding onto the neck and the around the body of the guitar, fingers plucking one of the six strings in a pattern that shapes a chord. the nails are different lengths on both of the hands, longer on the hand that plucks the nylon strings, and shorter on the hand that is on the fretboard. you pull the guitar closer to you as your fingers play by themselves.

you lay your head against the mattress from the bed behind you as you look at the night sky outside the window. the screen is playing a vhs tape of clueless as you look at each of your sisters’ figures being relaxed around the tv: doing whatever they’re doing with most watching the movie. waiting for something to happen, no ignition to cause it.

when you heard the faint sound of the ambulance siren roads away from where you at, your thoughts travel elsewhere. you don’t recognize if this is real or a memory of yours before you glance at chaewon’s bandage-wrapped wrists underneath the bracelets you and your sisters put on her.

you remember seeing her body; the color is saturated from her skin as blood seeps onto the temporary bandage when the emts brought her into the ambulance. seeing mama’s stunned face as the spinning red lights and siren attracts the neighbors that stare at the scene like a spectacle of some miracle or disaster. a young girl hurting herself in the overflowing bathtub of their bathroom, knowing two ways to go where she has attempted one.

yet, all of your sisters and you are not surprised to see chaewon being brought to the nearest hospital as the ambulance left with both of your parents; leaving the house to the children once again. you peer at the numerous scars your sisters inflict on themselves and the ones you inflict on your own body, all to whisk the pain away from living in this odious home, well… with odious parents.

mama’s impulsivity and shame from letting the neighbors see a side of her family that she doesn’t want and papa’s willingness to follow what she wants, make them decide to move the family over the summer to a new place, where nobody knew you or your family. if they do know, they knew how your mama is treating all of her daughters like princesses.

she is the queen that those princesses know to not defy, even though they want to.

coming from a prestigious family, mama has always been treated like a princess by everyone around her. a princess in their eyes and what she believes she is as she went to high-class gatherings and met important people all around the country. academia, wealth, and nobility become the statuses that matter to her. her parents put her in the most prestigious school. then she met papa—a fellow who grows up like her—in a private college who treated her more than a princess: treating her like a queen.

you always wonder—as you grow up—why she even thought to bear five daughters to create replicate versions of her every time…

all of them to be learning ballet. all of them to be learning musical instruments, especially in a classical sense—a loophole you found with the guitar that you now know how to play as you told her that there is such a thing as a classical guitar, which made her agree for you to take; unlike a few of your sisters’ default piano learning or other instruments like violin and flute. all of them learning how to be proper and poise like how nobilities from the 18th century should do—in the 20th century. all of it are the ones mama has done before becoming a socialite from an old money family.

you always wonder why they decide to grow five daughters up—who society always tells you that fathers are more nurturing towards daughters than sons—when your own is kissing your mama’s feet almost all the time…

papa has always been quiet and he doesn’t involve himself in ‘growing you up’, always a traditionalist of his of knowing the gender roles of fathers going to work while mothers take care of the home. because of that, mama can take over everything and set up expectations for all of you, including what you eat and what you wear in public. yet she seems to stay away most of the day and not even care about the well-being of the household, making all of you turn to be independent in taking care of your own well-being and your belongings by at least the age of 5: when your nanny passed away.

you and your sisters’ nanny is both a mother figure to the five of you, but also a pseudo-sister-figure of your mama as she is an only child, seeing mama growing up before her eyes and mama even make her a personal nanny that she brought with her until marriage and giving birth to her daughters. the earliest memory you remember was playing with your sisters on a playing mat full of dolls with your nanny overseeing all of you, mama and papa cannot be seen. you felt the pain a few days after her death, with no one there nurturing you on why she is gone, no one there helping you. only mama’s expectations of you all being her perfect little girls she can show off. only you and your sisters’ trust in each other as you both pain yourself away from reality.

the idea to fight against your mama’s expectations didn’t come until sooyoung and jiwoo entered high school: seeing how pretty their new uniforms are against the middle school ones you and your other sisters wore. then the magazines come in as they sneak them in their bags every time they bought a few on the way home from school alone—a contrast to your parents using their wealth to benefit themselves. the tons and tons of information you’ve collected from fashion, music, and gossip, all of them combined and ingrained into all of your minds, that there is something more to life other than this hellhole you call a household.

and so, you all fight in ways you are confident in. buying clothes that your mama deems inappropriate secretly. going out to see the town other than going to school or with your parents at night. trying something new, something dangerous, something fun. learning something to help to know your true self. all of that throughout 4 years of painful touches, curses, and living a life you wanted until near the end of summer break when papa found chaewon who can’t handle any more of the pain. a summer break that is full of ups but more downs than usual ones.

after chaewon gets out of the hospital, mama and papa couldn't be seen. the rest of you don’t want to see them anyway from the growing hatred you had for them, well, for mama. you remember all the insults and blame thrown onto all four of you for embarrassing her in the public's face, how fuming she is that her daughters don’t care about how she will be perceived later on. more changing of thoughts and emotions as she is becoming the real-life version of jekyll and hyde all of you have depicted her to be. because of them not coming home for days, partying up instead of taking care of such a vulnerable family before the day you move out, sooyoung thought of something to do as a last hurrah.

she has planned for all of you to go out to a bazaar by the beach near where you live before you move overmorrow. mama’s demands on cleaning up your less-needed stuff are made as she went out on a date with papa after putting her car in the new house—a perfect time to travel outside. sooyoung and jiwoo lead you onto the bus stop as they track down the stop's name by the beach. arriving there in the outfit you are all comfortable in and represents all of you uniquely, you observe hyejoo pulling a box of cigarettes out as you pick one up and putting it between your lips, nearing the end to the flame she ignites from the lighter as you take a huge puff. hence, the flame burns the stick before pulling it out, letting the heated smoke fly as your other three sisters stare at the two of you. chaewon gives a timid smile. her skin isn’t as healthy as it used to be as she was just discharged a few days ago.

walking down the boardwalk, booths upon booths of products line up in front of the beach as you all trail down the crowded street of the late summer, viewing the amount of street food that smells so delicious that you’ve only seen from magazines as mama has never given any sort of food like that for you to consume. that’s when you knock yourself on your older sister’s side as you turn your head to watch her looking at a stand that sells pieces of jewellery of any kind, but a mannequin’s foot takes her attention as she approaches to inspect the ankle that is wrapped with a chain around it. an anklet.

jiwoo’s focus on ice cream left you and sooyoung alone as the others are buying the food for you to snack on whilst you are here. approaching her, you hear her talk about wanting to buy a plain anklet like the one on display, but then you see the crescent moon charms in her cupped hands. she notices your presence when she turns to look at you and asked, “which of the charms here represent us the most?”

that’s when you step closer to see the small bowls of bracelet charms waiting to be hooked to the chain on the right person. you knew exactly why she asked that and you identified exactly what to bring up.

a white pearl charm catches your eyes as you pick up and pinch it between your thumb and forefinger, putting it between you and the person you knew represents this well. sooyoung.

as the oldest sister, you’ve gained much respect towards her and the elegance that exudes from her. a combination of old money and something modern. you’ve seen the dress designs in her journal beside the biology homework she has to take—the journal being more decorated is a piece of available evidence for you to identify which one she likes more under the pressure of your parents of her having a responsible and respectful career for a woman like a doctor or a lawyer. the suffocation she feels is always seen with the number of necklaces she likes to wear, a choker that is too tight for her neck but she doesn’t complain as she admires the mark it left on her skin back at home. the fashion magazines she sneaks in are always for her to see the latest line of her favorite fashion brands and models like kate moss and naomi campbell. boys flocking to admire her beauty every time she arrives at school, but she rejects them because they’re sometimes too pushy or even have a mindset of men in the golden age of hollywood—seeing her as an object that they seek to own. and she is so pissed to hear that.

a charm in the shape of a heart is going to represent your second oldest sister, jiwoo.

she has always been a lovable and positive child who loves to make people happy, sometimes clumsy, but she always tries to pass it as comedy. well, mama didn’t accept that at all as she has to be "proper, poised, and perfect." she always complains about that, being perfect when all she wants is to be different, especially since she came out to all of her sisters that she is a lesbian, a sapphic who loves anything woman and anything unique about a woman. you can always guess the girl she has a crush on by the subtle change in her gaze when they glance at them, but underneath that she has still seen to be friendly with the boys—the subtleness was gone in an instant when they interact with them flirting with her, the same look she has while rubbing her skin of the places they touch on her skin as hard as she can.

a silver butterfly-shaped charm is perfect for chaewon.

you’ve always thought that chaewon is a soul reincarnated from a beautiful and jovial fairytale. a fairy living in the deepest part of the forest who befriends every animal she can find. she wears the most regal but plain dress she could use from those hand-me-down gowns from mama. she also always greets her flowers every time she arrives back home from school, watering them and talking to them—like a butterfly spreading pollen to let the flowers grow. no wonder she is mama’s favorite daughter, her perfect mini-me. despite that, she is the one that breaks first from the intense amount of scrutiny. the unhealthy ways mama pressures her create her dislike of her own body, especially in facing the other people at school who look at her as the ditzy sister out of the five.

no other charm should be for hyejoo other than the moon.

hyejoo has always been a boundary pusher. she pushes for equality and eliminates activities assigned to a specific gender. mama always never allowed her to cut her hair short even to shoulder-length; that’s why she has so many hair ties on her wrist and in her bag. she has always been athletic, even tackling boys that have degraded her in volleyball in p.e. class. the teachers always acknowledged her skill as an athlete but not the students, especially jocks who presume she is doing it to steal their position. and yet, you can always see how sunken her eyes are every time she goes home with the sleeping pills she brought in her gym bag. the fight she has to defend a girl’s pride to do anything brought up every time she rebels on mama’s order, resulting in her being the one most scrutinised and under watch to do anything feminine; the reason she is the only one between the five of you to still being pushed in doing ballet.

for yourself, you pick a star.

you never knew how you would describe yourself when you always knew how you describe your sisters. sooyoung is the seductive one. jiwoo is the sweet one. chaewon is the regal one. hyejoo is the rebel one, then what about you?

you were always the one that tries to find yourself the most. all of your sisters have a counterpart to a famous character from a movie or a book, but you are an outsider. out of the five, you’re the one that is intelligent and always able to blend in with every sister. if sooyoung is the rock that everyone leans on, you’re the conch shell they can always hear to find comfort. a star is something so bright yet so dangerous, like the sun that is nearest to you. but, you’re the one that sparkles at night because you like to stay behind. you like to be unseen; you like to be different by playing classical guitar, listening to rock songs that mama doesn’t acknowledge—though she listens to elvis presley from time to time, and spending time after school while waiting for your sisters doing after-school clubs to cruise to the music store and discover any artists you can, even buying a discman from your savings and get a lot of cd mixes by the woman that founds the store who tells you her story of when she was a punk kid back in her youth.

as all of you sat at the table, sooyoung gave the anklets. sand grazes your feet as you gaze at the crowded beach with the backdrop of the sun going to sleep for the day. all of you settle on a promise. a promise sacred to all of you as you glimpse all the scars visible on your body: sooyoung with the light bruise on her neck, jiwoo and her scratch marks on her forearms, chaewon with her bandaged wrists, hyejoo and her sunken eyes, and you with your cigarette burns hidden on your thighs.

“no matter what, we cannot take off the anklet on our foot.” your oldest sister declared, followed by the nods and agreements voiced.

all of your stand up as you both create a circle, putting your right foot where the anklet sits to the middle, joining toes together. you look at all four of your sisters as they let out chuckles before jiwoo pushes the ones beside her forward as all of you follow to connect your head together.

a sister’s bond with each other. no one is left behind.

when you move away—putting your belongings in the truck—you can see the sadness and shock on each of your neighbors’ faces. giving a solemn smile, you turn away to see a few cars a few houses away and a few heads you recognized. boys that admired you and your sisters in your high school, all seem to not be willing to let you go.

boys look at you like they all do towards your sister, but the reaction to you is different. sooyoung replies in a flirtatious way. jiwoo replies in a friendly way. chaewon speaks timidly. hyejoo always taunts them back. while they never dared to approach you—turning their head away as fast as they can to avoid your view. though you know they want you like they want your sister, so unless you approach, they won’t act.

you remembered one boy in your first year who you approached. his parents used to be hippies and he got influenced by their culture—you used to think maybe a part of that could you help find your true self. he was the one who introduce you to smoking cigarettes: now a pass time for you and hyejoo to let out stress. you didn’t go out with him again when you found he already had a girlfriend from a girl who sends a message to you about his behavior and other victims. since then, you’ve only gone out with someone who you deem worthy, but in the end, they always find troubles that help you stray away from them by themselves. your task was to approach those boys who admired you from far away or to break up with them when you can see the warnings. never have they sought you out first.

so it stunned you to know that a boy likes to stare at you and not easily turn away when you faced him.

your neighbor and classmate, taehyun.

you notice nothing particularly unique in taehyun with his first impression before, but you recall how he looks at you behind that glasses of his when his mom invites your family to dinner. then the encounter you had in the kitchen, confronting him on why he glances at you and your sisters more than the food in front of him. you thought your comment will stop him but he doesn’t give up. you could always outsmart him, already sensing that he is there just from the one month you and he become neighbors and classmates. you can sense his gaze on you and your sisters as you change your uniforms to something you all like rather than a uniform that is uniformed with the other kids. you can always notice every time you hung out for lunch with your sisters outside every time he walks past you with his friend kai.

with that proof, you experiment.

first with park sunghoon. the so-called ice prince who is practically obnoxious, knowing his face will win him anything as he always proudly shows his features and genetics from his b-list actor dad and pageant-winner mom. you only approached him at lunch and he already thinks you want to date him. you didn’t even last a week with him when he suddenly asks for sex, which you deny and let go of immediately. he tries to save face at school later to repair his pride by your lockers when you blatantly open up on how he cannot respect a person’s choice, not failing to notice the subtle smirk shown on taehyun’s lips as he sees you openly speak up on your year’s famous guy.

the second experiment is with nicholas wang. a biker kid at school who joins a biker gang along with college students. he’s a more subtle version of obnoxious, thinking that every rule has to bend for him. he is almost like sunghoon but they use something different from each other. you and he last for more than a week, but the reek of alcohol on him just disgusts you. he sometimes brought you home with his bike that has the loudest engine, as if someone in your neighborhood just wants to show off their ferrari maranello down the street. one day when he brought you home—acting as a good “girlfriend”—you kiss his cheek before he left with his loud engine down the street. you knew that day you wanted to cut off from him when you feel how wobbly he rode the bike and you were behind him. you rather die on your account than because of him.

when he turns the corner away from your street, you pull out the cigarette box from your backpack and pick a stick to put between your lips. grabbing the lighter you have in your pocket, you turn the spark wheel and press down as the flame ignites, quickly shoving the end of the cigarette to burn it, puffing in the smoke and letting out as you try to clean the taste of the biker boy away. with your driveway empty and your house also, you stood outside the front lawn smoking away the stick. flicking the ash away as it falls on the pavement, you let your eyes wander around the neighborhood and the houses in it. the house of the young couple that just has a baby before turning to the house in front of you when you can see from a particular window, a silhouette of a boy.

taehyun.

he always has his sheer curtain covering his window from time to time, but it seems that he is lazy to widen it this hour. you can see him wearing his uniform shirt but with buttons open, showing his undershirt beneath it. you let your eyes gaze at his toned body that you never notice underneath his shirt and burgundy sweater. it stayed that way until he realizes that you notice him, dashing forward to the window yet not instantly closing the curtain. you took a huge puff, letting the smoke out as taehyun’s eyes were still on yours, before letting the cigarette fall to the pavement you are standing on. your leg instinctively crushes the stick beneath your shoes as you let out a smirk at him who looks at you before turning around. the only time, taehyun noted, that the cigarette you smoke didn’t burn halfway from the original length.

a month has passed since school started and it didn’t take too long for the excitement of homecoming to spread across the school as people asks to be each others’ date. you and your sisters quickly avoid the topic all together as mama prepares you all for a ball you have to join at the end of the year instead. sooyoung didn’t believe just how wide your family’s connection is until the real-life fact of your mama leaving you five behind to take care of the new home not even five days pass from moving in. it is a habit of hers to be such a socialite first, but never a mother first.

sooyoung and hyejoo mention 'school dance' once at the dining table—a once-in-a-blue-moon time when both of your parents are home—before mama then mentions how all of you aren’t allowed to go. you and your sisters turn towards papa who just shrugs his shoulder before you give an exasperated look to jiwoo sitting across you, replying with a sad small smile. something you knew would happen but still tried anyway.

the plucking continues as you move to sit in the circle after the movie ends, seeing chaewon rewinding the tape of the movie back with a pencil while sooyoung and jiwoo talk about homecoming as if they’re the ones going.

“who would you go with anyway?” hyejoo cuts them off as sooyoung turns her head towards her younger sister.

“juyeon,” she said coolly as all of you turn your heads toward her.

“the quarterback?” hyejoo asks as sooyoung nods. jiwoo’s smile on her face as she shrieked and nudge your shoulder, the guitar creating a weird clank as you pouted whilst facing her. she answers by caressing your head as you let out a big eye roll jokingly, making chaewon chuckle beside you.

“i wanna go with gyuri from theatre.” jiwoo said as your eyebrows lifted while mouthing “i knew it.”

“of course you do. we can see that enamored look you have every time she walks by. mama wouldn’t allow it, though.” sooyoung answered.

“i know mommy wouldn’t,” she sighs as she stretches her arms, lifting them to the ceiling before putting them behind her and putting her weight on them. “but a girl can hope, right?” you hear your sisters’ chuckle combining with yours.

chaewon looks between the four of you as she cuts in while you’re quieting down. “i think if we can go, i would go with that boy in school whose mother is friends with ours.”

“you mean seungmin?” jiwoo mentions the boy’s name you recognize as part of the student council. your sister gives a sheepish nod before covering her cheeks with her palms. a habit you learned from her as she always does that since you were a toddler whenever she got shy or flustered.

you move to see hyejoo as she tucks her knees close to her chest, “hyejoo’s not going to join ri-“

“actually i may go. if we can.” the girl mentioned spoke as you pat her kneecaps, leaning forward with your guitar on your lap.

“no shit.” you exclaimed.

“yeah, it’s sooyoung and jiwoo’s last year, so i’ll go for the sake of them.” awws coming from the sisters before chaewon speaks up.

“you know, you’ll be a great couple if you go with sunwoo.”

you heard a gasp as hyejoo eyes widen and eyebrows furrowed, “kim sunwoo the boy’s football team captain a.k.a. my mortal enemy? not a chance.”

“but you mentioned to me a couple of times that he gave you the flirty eyes.” you join in as you see your triplet sister nod, “and you don’t taunt him all the time like the other boys you mention to us.”

“true.” jiwoo exclaimed before you hear hyejoo’s grunt as they now turn towards you, knowing the question that is already ingrained into all of your minds.

“honestly, i don’t know,” you said as you rub your fingertips against the strings, feeling the skin hardening because of your calluses.

“what about that nicholas guy?” jiwoo asks before sooyoung leans in and nudges her hand.

“she’s not with nicholas anymore. don’t you notice?” your oldest sister said as jiwoo acts up with a funny offended look on her face.

hyejoo asked, “what about that boy?”

tilting your head towards her, “what boy?”

hyejoo looks at all four of you as they glance at each other, nodding their heads while using their bond that they block you from because you didn’t understand who they were talking about.

“you know him, (y/n),” sooyoung said followed by a giggle.

“who?” you realized you sounded like an owl when asking, putting the guitar on the floor beside you.

even though it is just five of you, chaewon leans in and speaks lowly. “kang taehyun.”

kang taehyun.

the name that rings in your mind ever since you meet him, well, fading in and out behind the wall of music that is playing in your ear with your discman and headphones on.

the only boy that is brave enough to subtly pursue you, not shying away from the so-called intimidation you are exuding unconsciously.

“i- i don’t know really… maybe? i just don’t wanna scare him.”

“oh (y/n) darling.” jiwoo said as she caress your hand, “you don’t know how many times he has gazed at you like you’re an angel that has fallen from the sky. he will not be scared by you.” your eyebrows move as your eyes blink, thinking about what your sister said as they all converse more about their future dates if you all could go with you. leaving you alone, wallowing with the thought of the boy from across the street.

that’s when you realized a spoken rule mama mentioned ongoing to any dance event by the school. she has talked about it before when you and your triplet sisters have just started high school.

“all of you must have a date to go. mama won’t like it if any of her daughters embarrassed her with no one by their sides.”

deep down inside, it’s the first time you notice your mama catch something about how the five of you interact with boys and use them against it. as if she knows that with your personality that varies from sibling to sibling, you won’t find a date for all five of you. one will always be left behind.

but you want to make a great memory with your sisters. you want to seep into the smallest frame of freedom you have just for half of the day. you want your older sisters to feel like teenage girls before they become an adult. you want everyone to experience what a girl in high school should experience. finding self. finding friends. finding moments that turn into memories. finding love.

it could all start with homecoming. you could think of something to get your sisters the partners they want to go with for homecoming. but as a newcomer, you have to have someone who can show you the school and the people in it.

you know someone who can help you.

gripping onto the strap of the backpack on his shoulder, taehyun lets out his breath in a huge yet silent whoosh. the muscles on his arms ache from yesterday’s exercise at the club but dissipate as the length between that day gets longer to the present. his veins seems to protrude more because of it and the bandage tapes that were supposed to cover his hands only while training: stayed on his left hand, wrapped around his thumb and along his palm as he can feel how the nerve signal of pain moves along thin wires to his brain every time he moves it slightly.

taehyun pushes his glasses up with the bandaged hand as he stands in front of his classroom door.

he’s standing there alone. no one at his side.

the door opens from the force of his healthy hand as eyes inside the room land on him, some were surprised, some are nonchalant—you were one of them. the nearest classmate from the door looks between him and the space beside him where his best friend should be standing. kai is not coming into class today. he just told taehyun he got a fever from the messenger window as he finishes his morning workout. he is not used to being without him at school. and other people also think like him too.

his eyes directly landed on yours, who sat at the very back with your headset on, covering your ears as he sees the corners of your lips twitching up. it lingers before you turn away towards the window, the right for him to walk to his seat a few seats away from you. he rubs his cheek against the sleeve of his burgundy sweater, stretching his head and neck while moving his knuckles, feeling the pain remains as he gets used to it. taehyun prepares his usual for today’s classes as the other students come in. the empty seat to his left is kai’s. he used to talk to him about random things, though kai is the more talkative one out of the two. and now, the bore is seeping through without his friend to talk to him beside where he sits.

he thought he could catch some sleep—the tiredness coming from the workout yesterday where he spar with his coach—and be able to rest his eyes and mind for a few minutes before the first bell rings. tilting his head to find the right position on the desk is when he sees the fabric of a familiar sweater.

“is this seat taken?” his ears perked and he turn to see the unexpected appearance.

you. your headset hanging around your neck as you’re holding your backpack in one hand while the other hand is holding onto your discman.

his eyebrows twitch in surprise before he shakes his head and says, “no.”

“okay. can i sit here?” you replied as you gently put your belongings down on the desk and beside it on the tiled floor. he sees a bit of hesitation in your movement before he gives a nod to you. the grip on your belongings loosen as they sat on where you put them before making yourself comfortable in your seat that was supposed to be kai’s.

while taehyun stays still—slowly turning his head to the front of the class—he can feel the warmth of another human being beside him and smell a hint of your eau de toilette. peeking, he sees you wrapping the headset around the discman before putting it in your bag on the floor. his eyes cannot stop rapidly looking at anything in front of him before he took another peek beside him and see you picking your nails that are resting on the connected desk. the two hands have different lengths for fingernails. one hand’s nails are longer than the other.

the teacher came into the class as all his classmates settled and class starts while taehyun sat in his seat, tense. his attention is on the teacher introducing the outline of today’s lesson, but his bandaged hand fidgets from a sudden contact from your own that is resting on the desk, mostly a light touch of a finger against his bandage. yet, taehyun still can’t believe that it’s real. he didn’t realize how his glasses frame has slides down the bridge of his nose before pushing it up.

“hey…” his head turns to find yours slightly facing him. not even five minutes since class started, and he had already lost focus.

“homecoming is, well, coming. and i just want to ask.” you licked your lips before continuing. “do you have a date for it?”

a date for homecoming? no. nada. he didn't even consider coming to homecoming this year.

he went there before in his first year with kai when they want to see how the crowd goes. but, since they don’t have any dates, it gets boring as the night continues. he remembered the faces sucking on each other as they craved for one another. a few teachers were chaperoning, but all he could remember is seeing the sociology teacher making out with the p.e. teacher. he tried to mingle with a few of the other ‘outsiders’ who attend, but they don’t click with him and kai. so, when prom comes at the end of the year, he rather played on his nintendo 64 with kai than go to another dance that will not be productive for him at least—and he wants to do the same for homecoming this year.

but the way you question him about it is intriguing to him, earning a slight tilt as an indirect response…

“i don’t.” he heard you hum after it whilst nodding your head, a slight smirk forming.

“then, if you’ll go, who would you want as a date?”

taehyun’s eyes enlarge as he can feel the warmth creeping onto his cheek before looking elsewhere. the teacher that is writing on the board, his classmates—who he knows are dating—are cuddling with one another in their seats, and his other classmates that sat at the back were playing with their game boy consoles.

yet, your query creeps in once again before an image of the five girls that have everyone wrapped around their fingers shows up, the faces all blurry except one.

“you.”

he caught a gasp beside him as he faces to see your wide eyes and palm-covered mouth. your hand trails down from your lips to your chest where your heart resides. “i’m flattered.”

huh?

taehyun scramble in his seat—but as discreetly as possible—as he barely realized he spoke out. he spoke out about wanting to have you as a date. his date.

fuck…

he was just trying to talk to himself when he spoke out. why would his mouth let out the word? why would he-

“well, we could go together.” his head whipped to face you, eyes moving all over the place as he doesn’t want anyone to notice how he reacts.

is taehyun dreaming? did you just say you want to go with him to homecoming? no chance, right? you could go with sunghoon, nicholas, or any other guy. you have everyone wrapped around your fingers. yet, you consider him?

“but i have a favor for you, well for us actually.” the touches of your hand gently caress his bandaged hand, lightly with no pressure. he sees you moving your upper body closer to him. your eyes glisten like a starlight at night. he can’t see the cracks clearly, but the way your pupils tremble is still a sign that there is something you are trying to hold back. your fingertips resting on top of the bandage as you pursed your lips.

“i want me and my sisters to go to homecoming this year. but my ma said that we can only go if all of us have a date. we talked about who we want as dates and i want to help them.” you lean back with a small pout on your lips, arms wrapped in front of your upper body. his eyes landed on your lips as your tongue gives a small lick before a light bite.

“as a new kid, i don’t think i’m familiar enough with these people. and there is where you come in.” the palpitating of his heart didn't stop when you looked at him again.

“i want to ask for your help to get their ideal date. would you help me-“

“yes.” he didn’t hesitate. taehyun’s trance falls out as he returns to looking around the class instead of you, hearing your chuckles from such a fast response.

“that’s swell. then, we can talk more during lunch.” he returns to you as you tilt your head, chin nudging towards the direction of your connected desk. “i don’t want to bother your studies.” you seem to finish the conversation.

he nodded and fixed his sitting position, grabbing the pen in his left hand, trying not to grip it so tightly as he wants it to heal. his eyes are anchored on the board in front of him, now full of the materials for today’s lesson whilst the teacher is explaining each pointer. taehyun felt like it was a blessing of his to know that one of the smart and active kids in his year is also in his class. both of them have a friendly rivalry for the highest overall score where they respect each other for it, and that includes participation scores. taehyun felt lucky the teacher focused on them, asking questions instead of wondering why taehyun didn’t ask any, distracted by having such an otherworldly being sitting by his side.

taehyun’s shoulder is tight when he can sense yours touching his. the chair moving beside him is unnoticeable before the light pressure’s touch. your body leans forward as both hands are on the desk, one writing and the other holding onto the notebook. the light on the ceiling gave a certain shine to your nails, highlighting how clean they look on both hands. your hair has fallen to your side, obscuring a few parts of your face from him. that’s when he noticed how your pinky finger rested on his bandaged hand. the fingernail is sharp enough that sometimes it caught onto the wrap.

he can’t push you away from his thoughts as the class continues, as another teacher comes in and teach another lesson, and as lunch finally comes.

when the bell rings, your chair scrapes the floor along with the others and you stood up to go outside of class as fast as lightning, leaving taehyun alone without no one to have lunch with. he thought you both will go together, but he remembered you never mention that to him, so he tidies up his desk and supplies on his part of the desk while seeing his classmates flocking out into the hallway and joining the herd. his vision lingers on the wide desk before focusing on your side to see how tidy you put your overwhelming pastel pink items when you knew the bell is about to ring. it contrasts with your plain dark grey backpack that is on the floor beside the desk.

taehyun can’t help but want to put it on your chair because anyone could accidentally kick it. that’s why he reaches out and grabs your backpack from the straps, not knowing its zipper is open, the blue discman catching his eyes’ attention.

the boy looks around the class to see no one now as they enjoy their lunch break. he couldn’t help it as he grabs your discman, the wrapped headset is now loose as he can pull the music player without tangling the wire yet it's connected in the port. the device is plain, blue with silver on its side, and the screen is a blank greenish hue as you preserve the battery of it. his attention sticks to the open button on the end of the row of buttons, genuinely interested in knowing the kind of music you hear as you seem to always be seen using it.

his thumb presses on the button and the lid opens, a plain silver cd attached inside with writings written with a marker—writing that is not yours from how he compares it with the written words in the notebook.

to my little pixie, y/n ☾

good luck with your new place and school, i will miss seeing you in the store - seulgi

cd mix #12 (‘88-‘95)

you made me realize - my bloody valentine

sweetness and light - lush

blue thunder - galaxie 500

doll parts - hole

tonight, tonight - the smashing pumpkins

...

taehyun traced out the writings on the burned cd, staring at the familiar formatting that forms three out of four sides of the circle, 15 song titles, and their artists with whom he mostly doesn’t recognize with a few scribbles on the last empty side. with the ones he does, he remembered the times when he caught his sister watching mtv and seeing the artists there, either their music video or their appearance on unplugged. looking at the number, the person must be so informed in music if they can make 12 cd mixes with 15 songs each on average.

he stares at the desk across from the seat as he recalls how your hand grazes his, most touching his bandage but some on his skin. though mostly the pinky, he can feel roughness and texture from its tip. combining with how you used to pick on your fingernails, he associates the texture from that small graze also with the calluses that are forming on his knuckles.

closing the lid of the discman, he realized he spend too much time wondering things where your words cross his mind again. he puts the music player inside the backpack—not forgetting to plug in your headset once again and wrap them around it as best as he can—and zips the backpack up as it leans against the back of the chair like his own.

the boy’s feet walk on the empty room and the mostly vacant hallways as he buys lunch he will eat whilst meeting you. he always sat at the seat near the front of the school at lunch with kai and it was near the tree you usually are at with your sisters, but there might be a reason you pick that specific brick wall.

hands holding onto the food package in his hands along with a water bottle, taehyun strolls along the main field of the school, seeing some jocks from differing teams of sports hanging out either at the field or on the bleachers. his feet brought him to the familiar place you told him as he sees faint grey clouds floating up. the boy looks at the source: you sitting on the graveled path, upper body leaning against the wall, a cigarette between your fingers as flick it to let the ash fall.

you turn your head to the sound of the gravel, looking up to see taehyun in his burgundy sweater, his glasses’ bridge fallen near the button of his nose, and his lunch in both of his hands. a small smile forming from your lips as you spoke while a light smoke flows out, “took you long enough.”

“the line is pretty long so that's why,” he replied, letting out the latest truth and no other reason why he took a long time. you give a nod before patting the space beside you.

taehyun slowly sits down beside you, following you by leaning his head against the vertical supporter. he could feel how his body is stretching and how relieving it is for his spine as he can faintly hear the cracking sounds that are from a layer that sticks two bones with one another that he learned from biology class that was discussing anatomy. his eyes stick onto your empty lap, the blue plaid uniform skirt resting on your knees.

“you’re not eating?”

“i already ate lunch with my siblings. that’s why i went out of the room so fast. chaewon is the one that holds onto our lunch boxes as she distributes them. so i don’t have any pocket money.” you said before sighing. “ma doesn’t even allow us to buy food outside the ones she made for the house.”

taehyun looks at his food on his lap, wandering between it and you as you take another puff from the cig between your fingers. the smoke slowly floats and dissipates into the air, the scent of it combining with the eau de toilette he smelled when you sat beside him. the mention of your mother reminds him of when he last saw her. though she looks nice, your words are contradictory. also with the fact that you and your sisters change your uniforms, the all-day disappearing presence of your parents’ cars usually appeared near midnight when he was talking with kai or his club friends.

his eyes return to his cooling food before deciding to eat it. you turn your head towards him as you glance down at the food, a certain melancholic look in your gaze before you blink it away.

“i’m going to tell you more about the plan, okay?” you let out the smoke when speaking, and the boy hummed to reply.

when he hears your plan for the homecoming, he realized how meticulously you spoke and think. taehyun’s perception of girls was pretty obscure, other than his mom and his sister. not that he is intimidated by them, but he spends more time with boys. the girls he sees in the rom-com movies he watched with his sister didn’t help either—how they are portrayed as ditzy and more as a desirable character for the main protagonist who is mostly a guy. he realized that the characters he knows are one-sided, the same as when people perceiving both you and your sisters. yet as he heard you talk, speaking about how detailed you talk about your sisters’ dream date and how you have a plan to approach him, the perception slowly moves for the better.

he hated how he thought so before. because they are people. and people are complex.

“so, sunwoo from football, juyeon from the other football, gyuri from theatre, and seungmin from the council?”

“yeah.”

“then how about you?” he said as he eyes on the only folded finger on his hand. though he focused on your words and accepted your favor, he can’t help to think that you were ‘using’ him. even with the light threat that you gave him—more of a warning rather than a threat actually—he still always notices you and you notice him. he always sees how sometimes clench your hands into fists, the knuckles of the white bone pushing up to the surface of your skin, sometimes rubbing your eyes with them.

he wants to reach out. but your mysterious and unpredictable aura stopped him. that’s why he grabs the opportunity when it’s proposed to him. how he felt sorry if you have your own dream dat-

“my dream date is you,” you said before clearing your throat, the hand holding onto your cigarette is now pushing the stick onto the gravel between the two of you before you buried it by the brick wall with the gravel, obscuring the white outer layer. taehyun’s eyes widen as he puts away the empty container and bottle on either side of him.

“i’ve been going out with a few people. i’ve tried to ever since i rebelled against my ma. but no one clicks with me. i guess i picked you because you were the only boy i met in other circumstances besides school. maybe that sense of familiarity is why it came to me that you’ll be a fine date.”

the boy views you moving closer to him, how your skirt grazes his pants as both you and he faces the sudden wind blowing with your sweaters, making you shrug your body against his. he pushes his glasses up as he turns his head towards you, biting on your bottom lip as you stayed in contact with his own vision.

he sees your shoulders rise before saying, “i know we stepped out on the wrong foot back when i ate dinner at your house. i was insecure with us moving here and some…” you let out a chuckle. “shenanigans happening in my home life.”

he trails along the features on your face before focusing back on your eyes. the haunting cracks in it is still there but no trembles. no tremble when you stayed to look at him.

“so we have a truce, i guess?” you let out a pinky from your hand as he can’t help but let out a small smile, making you let out your own before he slots his own between yours.

“a truce.”

the bell rings at the right time as you tried to stand up using your own might and core muscles. taehyun lets out a giggle before he realized he can’t support himself to stand up if he doesn’t want to hurt his empty left hand.

that’s when he sees you leaning down to grab his half-filled bottle before wrapping both of your hands around his wrist as you drag him up, his legs a bit stumbling as you still hold on to his wrist before you notice and let go.

“let’s,” you said whilst tilting your head and you walked together through the sprawling hallway into your class.

when you both arrived at your classroom, he noticed you staring at your backpack on your chair before turning your head towards him who is sitting down.

“i don’t want your things being kicked so i put it up on the chair.” he explains as you mouthed a small “thanks” before sitting down beside him once again until the end of the school day.

kai is going to have a field day hearing about this.

it didn’t take long for you to be enamored by taehyun.

it sounds a bit cliché, but he’s different from all the boys you know. and the number of boys you know is limited, knowing the restrictions you’ve gotten throughout your life.

before you asked him, you had thought about it. realizing that when pursuing each and every dream date your sisters want with him, it will noticeably get you two close. but you didn’t realize how fast it was going to be.

it started when you both tried to approach juyeon—the one who is easiest according to him as you’ve told him that the senior is very much attracted to your sister. “just a small nudge,” taehyun said to you, is needed to let the senior learn you can help him get a chance to go on a date with your sister to homecoming. and that’s what you do.

“hello, juyeon.” you confidently approach the senior, a burning sensation on the back of your head as you glimpse behind you to spot taehyun a few steps away.

the senior holds the ball in his hand as he turns to you. a few of his teammates stop and are stunned to look at you—knowing your presence compared to your sister is that you are the “unapproachable” one.

“moon (y/n), what makes you come here to the field?” you detect the smirk formed on his face while fixing the pads on his upper body.

“i was wondering if you have a date for homecoming yet.”

“oh!” you heard him exclaimed as the smirk turns into a grin, trying to make you entranced by him as many people did. but you can see a genuine surprise and concern as his face subtly portrays. “many have approached me but i don’t feel like it. though if i could go with either of the five moon sisters, that’ll be great.”

“that’s great.” another voice comes in beside you. you don't need to face him to recognize who they are.

“we actually have a plan for you to go with one. specifically, the oldest.” taehyun nudges the proposal to the senior as he looks at both of you. as you stood beside one another, both of your hands graze each other.

“sooyoung?” juyeon wanders his eyes away before giggling to himself. “okay. does your sister know?”

“she doesn’t, but it’s a surprise. you can do any kind of proposal you want to her. she’ll be happy any other way.” as you peer at taehyun, you let out a smile and he does the same.

seungmin is a harder approach as he’s always busy but kai, who is mysteriously acquainted with everybody, gets him to meet you, taehyun, and himself during lunch—after you ate your lunch because you don’t want your sister to be suspicious of you.

“hey kai. why do you ask me- oh hey, taehyun!” seungmin then moves his head while noticing all three of you. “and (y/n), what a pleasant crowd we have here.”

“it just happens.” kai replied with a gleeful smile. “come sit.” he pats the empty spot on the bench beside him, facing you and taehyun on the other side.

“as you know, homecoming is around the corner…” taehyun starts before lightly tapping your hand on the table. you cleared your throat before continuing.

“and as a family friend of mine, i would really like it, if you’re available, to go with chaewon.” your statement causes him to raise his eyebrows, making you chuckle. “i assume that since you talk to her all the time when our family met up that you are close to her. i’m trying to make her happy after… what happened…” you give a somber look that only you and seungmin could understand while you catch kai and taehyun talking with each other using non-verbal gestures; a few shrugs are exchanged between them.

“of course. seeing as your sister has been such a lovely person to me, i could do that.” you raised your eyebrows as the corner of your lips lifted, facing away as you held on to your beam. “does she know you’re doing this?” you whiffled your head after seungmin’s questions. your hand on your lap unconsciously moves to the tiny space between you and taehyun as his leg lightly jumps from the encounter, making you shift towards him in surprise and you retract your hand.

but, he held onto your hand. not letting you pull away from him.

gyuri practically lives in the auditorium. the mirror with lightbulbs around its frame is where she sits as she tried on the costume she’ll be using for the play. that’s when she sees you from the reflection in the mirror, approaching her.

“hi (y/n). it’s a surprise to see you here. can i help you?”

“i, uh… want to ask a few questions.” you watch her turning around to face you, attentively listening to your next words. “i don’t know if it’s just me that has noticed it, but do you have any attraction towards my sister, jiwoo?”

your question makes her lean her head back on the chair, squinting her eyes in suspicion as she looks at you before letting pit a sigh, “how can i not be attracted to your sister?” you see her smile, “she’s… the sweetest girl i’ve ever met.”

“you’re in luck because she’s attracted to you too and…” you step closer to her, “i was hoping that you’re available to go to homecoming with her? i know the situation isn’t as ideal as you want. but my friend has an idea for his friend to be the cover-up date for her so you and she can meet up here at school.”

you explained taehyun’s idea of making kai jiwoo’s “date” when he’ll pick her up at your house along with your sisters. kai doesn’t have a date and doesn’t want to have a date, but when taehyun talks to him about helping you, he agrees and you don’t know how he agreed that fast. you assumed the boy needed more convincing, but taehyun found the right words and a great explanation for him to agree, or maybe he is as loyal to taehyun as you are to your sisters.

“i will contact you after i get out of the costume. your classroom is on the second floor, right?” gyuri’s eye smile as she sees you nod before you left the backstage area.

going out of the dark auditorium to the school’s main hallway, you see taehyun leaning against the wall in between lockers. he bent his head at you with a small smile as you give him a thumbs up, both of you walking away while discussing random stuff to spend your free time with as the teacher can’t teach for the class period.

sunwoo was the hardest to approach. the sayings by hyejoo on how the boy’s football team hated her stuck into your mind when you tried to approach him for your joined p.e. class in the indoor court. the two classes are playing dodgeball together. sunwoo is the prime target for your class to hit and they, indeed, succeed when they got him out. so it’s the perfect opportunity for you—who got out while defending your classmates—to talk to him.

“hi sunwoo.” your words catch the captain’s ear as he slightly faces you.

“hello, moon number 5.” you squint your eyes at the nickname as he continues, “here for something?”

“just not the way you think.” you regained your confidence as you sat on the empty long bleachers.

“it’s… can i ask you a question?”

he hummed while drinking from his water bottle. “go on.”

“what do you think of my sister?” your fingers playing with each other as you look between them and your schoolmates in front of you, throwing the balls as hard as they can to hit someone.

“which one?” he asked.

“number 4.”

“ah… hyejoo.” from the corner of your eyes, you can see him nodding his head. “i don’t know why she hates us but, not gonna lie, i’m alright with her.”

your hand covered your mouth as you recall her complains, perceiving it as she was too dense with her ideology. she is one of the stubborn ones, like you. you nod to tell the captain that you got what he spoke out.

you spoke in a serious tone “if that is so, i can tell you that hyejoo is attracted to you,” before you nudge your shoulder to his playfully.

“for real?”

“yeah, i can’t believe it myself. and she doesn’t have a date yet for homecoming. if you play your cards right, you might be going with her.”

you lean in closer so he can hear you, faintly saying something that is as close to the truth but not in the right frequency. recalling, in your mind, the people your sisters and you have rejected because you couldn’t go if you want to. the reason sooyoung asks mama again about school dances in the first place.

“my sisters and I are one of the most sought people for homecoming. we have been asked to be other people’s dates, but we’ve denied them because we want a specific person to ask. and hyejoo… well, she is waiting for you.”

sunwoo’s eyebrows rise as he looks at you, intrigued in his eyes before his head looks at the dodgeball players playing on the court, “i’ll think about that.”

you give a small smile to him before looking at the dodgeball people to see it’s a 1v3 where taehyun is the last player in your class. kai crawls towards you on the floor and sits against the bleachers you sat on top of. he gives you an unrecognizable expression as your gaze stays on him before the screams of your schoolmates catch your attention. you pivot your head up, seeing taehyun dodging the ball thrown by the other student as you see the other two walking to the side. he grabs the thrown ball, a burning look in his eyes.

the ball he threw hit the other student on the leg as he celebrates and your p.e. teacher blew the whistle. taehyun has a wide grin you’ve never seen before on his face as he turns to face you and kai who sat near each other, kai’s hollering to his best friend gain a laugh from you while you catch him looking at you, proud in his eyes as you give a smile, wider than usual. only for him.

when you got the news that the four dream dates of your sisters have asked them for homecoming, you didn’t expect their loud voices to bombard you when you enter your and your triplet sisters’ bedroom. hyejoo standing up near her bed—the farthest from yours and chaewon’s by the window that overlooks the street—as she looks at you with a sheepish smile and tells you how sunwoo asks her to homecoming at practice. her rambling comments about it make both sooyoung and jiwoo enter your room from their own across the hallway and chaewon’s footsteps climb up the stairs as even her small voice can combine with your sisters to create a dissonance yet beautiful harmony as you stood in the center of them.

“juyeon made this whole proposal before his practice with a bouquet i have in my room.”

“seungmin just give me a box of chocolate with a note near my classroom.”

“sunwoo and his crew created this bet where he and i do a cross-bar challenge and he asked me to go after he won. i wanna punch his teammates but i got the money anyway because he said so.”

“gyuri asked me out when i come out of home-economics class with a small box of eclairs. then, she said to talk to you after it, (y/n).” jiwoo’s head turns towards you as your other sisters followed. you nip the inside of your cheek as you tried not to giggle at your plan working, but a small snicker you let out causes the others to stare at each other.

“do you know anything about it, (y/n)?” your oldest sister asked as you can’t suppress it anymore, letting out the largest smile you have ever let out. an overwhelming joy that has been pushed down since you were a toddler.

“i do. i’m the one that approaches them so they ask you because i know all of you are too uptight to ask them by yourselves.” you snickers before looking down at your feet.

one-by-one, your sisters stride towards you and open their arms to envelop you from the steps on the floor. all of your body warmth combines to combat the cold and pain as you try your best to hug them with your two hands open as wide as you can. but, when you heard the cheers of your sisters, your beaming comes to a halt as your mind wanders to what your sisters said. sooyoung with flowers, jiwoo with eclairs, hyejoo with cash money, and chaewon with her chocolate. and just the act of them being asked instead of them asking their date.

while you don’t have none.

soon, they step back while giving a few ruffles on the head and a few kisses on it too, making you scramble out of their hold. chaewon’s stare lingers on you for a beat too long as you see her concerned gaze at you.

“how about you?” chaewon asked. the only one who noted that you aren’t as excited as they are. your smile falls to its resting position as pouted your lips, thinking of the right words to tell them.

“i’ve signaled taehyun, but he has made no moves yet.”

are you jealous because your sisters are the ones getting asked? yes. do you wish taehyun will automatically recognize your signals? not really. though he is a smart boy, taehyun sometimes gets too tense when you are around. he clammed up verbally and physically, as it feels like you have a spell that is only affecting him. with how both of you planned to approach each of your sister’s dates, you recognized something coming out of your neighbor every time you look at him or near his presence.

admiration and determination.

you hoped that what he exudes transfers to you as well so you can execute your plan that you have thought about very thoroughly afterwards—involving both he and you. but now, in the bask of your sisters’ joyfulness. you can only hope he will notice and make you more sure.

homecoming was more than a week away when the principal asked for your year to do a joined class in the auditorium as the last class of the day. after having a small smoke break and not forgetting the binder you brought from class, you walked as the sweater paw from your striped sweater dusted the ashes that might have fallen from the cigarette you were having to your blue-plaid skirt. walking into the auditorium, you identify that they’re playing an animal documentary while hearing the narrator narrate—glad that you aren’t terribly late as it starts with the usual nature shot before closing in on the animal. your eyes are searching for the recognizable head with protruding glasses that promised to keep a seat for you before you spot him, who is also looking around, agitated.

when taehyun notices you, he pats the seat while you nod your head with a small smile, saying a small apology for the people you disturb before arriving at the seat and sitting down on it. you sat beside him once again in class today when he came in without kai, saying that he has a family wedding he has to attend. you observe the ocean of heads beneath you that you seat pretty high up and not at the center of the room, slightly to the edge near the speaker that is playing the sound of birds chirping and gushing of wind.

your shoulder touches taehyun’s as you lean your arm on the armrest that is connected to his. the binder you’re holding is on your lap with your other hand. you stare at the projection on the curtain of a peacock showing his colorful furs. from where you both at, you can hear both of your breaths beside each. a gentle touch on your hand. the air of the air-conditioned room getting warm.

“as we see, the peacock opens his train. the beautiful blue, green, yellow furs ruffling as he tries to get the attention of the peahen.” said the narrator.

looking down at the armrest, you can recognize the bandage he wrapped on his left hand once again as yours rest next to it. his hand looks like it almost falls from the armrest with just a slight nudge, but your lingering fingers near his make his own move, sneakily approaching your own before moving back. the edge of your nails creates a small scratching noise from the bandage only you and him can hear. when you peer at him, his head is not moving away from the screen. your hand paused when something slips between it and your body’s side, the bandage now up against your palm as he locks his fingers with yours, which you reciprocate back.

“but the peahen has choices. she can see what humans couldn’t. the right mate. we can only describe beauty to any peacock’s train. yet, the peahen is the one that can see and choose who she wants to mate with.”

your fingers loosen as you angle your head to the hand. taehyun takes a quick peek at it also, peering at you with a tense gaze before returning to the screen that light the dark auditorium. you sense something burning on your lower part and something flowing down there too, squeezing your thighs as best as you can from the tingling. the comprehensive sex education class you took before helps in knowing what it’s called. arousal.

even if your sisters have mentioned sex, the taboo, and the importance of it in one’s relationship; indulging in it is never an option. you remembered your sex-ed teacher teaching about masturbation and arousal. even though you wanted to try to relieve it when you sense it, the only time you can is in the bathroom and it takes too long for you as you’ve heard the knock on the door where you just start caressing the nub that the teacher said is called the ‘clitoris’. all the time you perceive the same burning, it’s just plain arousal for the sake of it coming to you, but it came not from thinking about the sex—because you never have thought about someone like that before.

until taehyun comes into your mind.

taehyun seems to let you play with his hand, as he didn’t bother to stay looking your way. but you were already a step forward when you pick his hand up and rest them on your upper thigh near where your underwear is. the binder is the perfect cover to press down on your other thigh so the girl sitting beside you doesn’t notice how the fabric on the other side is lifted slightly.

you see taehyun turns his head as quickly as he could without bothering anyone, while you press his hand on your skin. his eyes widen as the glasses on his face fall. you can’t help but lean in as you chuckle at his subtle expression and push the frame up to its place before whispering into his ear, “keep looking forward. we don’t want anyone to notice, do we?”

“you want it?” he whispered, asking you as a small smirk grew on his face.

“yeah, you?” you bit your lip while waiting for his answer.

you felt his hand wiggle in your grip as he trails his fingertip down the edge of your underwear. “of course.”

the boy turns his head once again to the front as you followed his action, and also, your hand was bringing his to your clothed core. a small inhale coming from you as you help his fingertips make circles on the fabric.

“when the peahen have chosen the right mate. the peacock will do his little dance, gaining the attention of the peahen.” you see the peacock dance with his train.

your hand lets go of taehyun’s who is rubbing your clothed core, feeling the unrest building up down there. what you didn’t expect was for him to slide the underwear to one side as you can feel the air meeting your naked core beneath your skirt and the bandage on his hand contacted the surrounding skin—making you feel the roughness on it that creates chills running down your spine. your breath hitches as you look to the front, sensing two fingers of his moving up and down on your slit before one moves in between the lower lips to find your nub. when he founds it, your empty hand held his pointer finger, stopping him from moving as you can hear your heart beating so fast.

turning your head, you see taehyun looking towards you with something different in his eyes. not the admiration and determination he always gives, seeing it glance down to your skirt-covered lap before to your eyes again. with that slight gesture, you let his hand go as he rubs the clit he found. you were holding on to your breath so you can breathe out as stable as possible, but that weird yet satisfying feeling doesn’t make it better. nibbling your lower lips, you let taehyun play with you. your eyes are more aware of the surroundings so you can relieve your arousal with his help.

a breeze is blowing to your ear and you can’t help but move your head when you felt the tickle. his hand continues and alternates between the clit to rubbing up and down to the entrance, feeling the warmth relieve you of the coldness of the dampness. your head moves as you see his glasses frame near the side of your face, warm air on your ear.

“you are trouble, pixie.”

you tried to hide your surprise at hearing the nickname you haven’t heard since you move here. seulgi was someone who introduced you to the music colors that you listen to today. pixie is what she would like to describe, and by all means, your sisters also as she called the collective “the pixies“—not relating to the band, as she likes to joke. you remembered she define pixie as your and your sisters’ nickname because of how mischievous you are from the stories you told her of your and your sisters’ shenanigans. the coincidence of taehyun calling you that same nickname is jarring, and yet you felt another wave of arousal coming at it builds up.

and that is when you realize he knows. he knows you. your so-called threat to him you spoke before at his home is now crumbling right in front of both of your eyes. you thought it is enough. you thought you don’t deserve his attention. but he stays around, no matter how passive you are before you approached him.

there are so many things he won’t understand about you and your sisters as a collective. but there are so many things he is trying to understand about you.

and now he understood.

when the lights of the auditorium turn on, taehyun pulls his hand out of your underwear right as the teacher’s words are heard from the speakers. your hand tidies your skirt as you see taehyun looking at his pointer and middle finger, a slight gleam on his fingertips because of you. you both stayed in your seat to wait for everyone to go out of the room when you pivot to catch him took a slight lick on his middle finger only you both can look. when he pulled his finger out of his mouth, you didn’t hesitate to grab his pointer finger and also gave it what he did. tasting the slight tanginess that has come from you. taehyun’s gaze on you remains as the piercing aura coming from it slowly dissipates. as he knows understood you, you can’t help to want to understand him more.

“are you free after school? i don't know what to do with my sisters doing their after-school activities.”

you remembered that there was no gig in the usual places you go to. you are waiting to watch a new law and order spin-off that is airing tonight. so whilst you wait, isn’t it a great time to know the boy that you are genuinely intrigued by?

“not really. i have a boxing training session at a gym downtown.”

‘so that’s why he’s buff and wearing a bandage on his hand.’ your hearing is bustling with the sound of people conversing with each other as they walk on the carpeted floor on the main aisles. taehyun tilts his head to the side while fixing his glasses.

“i could go with you. if it’s okay,” you replied, not wanting to give up. yet, his enlarged eyes seem to make you think he didn’t expect that. you view as his eyes move between your own, to his bandaged hand which he just caresses you with, then back to your face but now lingers longer at your lips.

“sure. shall we?” he offers his hand as you accept, walking back to your classroom to grab your belongings.

on the bus, you sat in the two-seater with taehyun beside you. you used to ride the bus alone, standing by the priority seat as its unofficial defender, staring into the eyes of the people who is not in the priority category who sat there in a scrutinizing way, and even helping an elder or a woman with her baby to keep their seats empty. when you ride with your sisters, you all like to stand by the exit door as it gets easier to step off and not be left behind. so, it’s the first time you ever sit on the seat when taehyun brought you into the fairly empty bus.

outside the window, you look at the buildings moving in the opposite direction. a few of the signs of a cafe or a pub you have gone to watch a gig goes past you as the bus slows down near the stop where taehyun’s gym is supposed to be. his hand grip the strap of the bag when he stood up as you follow him, stepping down from the bus to walk a few meters. you both stood in front of a nondescript entrance between a corner store and a deli store where he guides you inside.

walking through a hallway with doors along the side, the space opens to a warehouse—the enormous space inside has two rings in the middle of the room, gym equipment placed on one side where there is a mirror wall and also a seating area resembling a smaller bleacher than the ones you see at school. by the looks of it, they have hosted many matches: banners about it with written years before 1999 are still hanging on the sides of the room. your eyes are not sticking to one thing, but you watch a pair training in the ring, a man and a woman with their proper sports attire.

“you can sit here.” taehyun brought you to the seating area, and he puts his backpack beside where you sat. you rub your sticky palm against your skirt as you gaze at the human bodies that if your mama’s here, she would, at once, cover your eyes. yet, when you see the muscles defined and the skin sticking to them, it fascinates you.

you didn’t realize when something is on your open palm on your lap. when you tilt your head down, you recognize a glasses with a thin frame, the lens is reflecting the shine coming from the exposed ceiling above you from the sun outside—the same shine that lights onto your anklet. your eyes squint. that means…

you looked up at the black-haired boy beside you as he rubs his hair before the side of his face, empty of his glasses. when you could finally his unobscured face, you observe how expressive his eyebrows are—combining it with his large eyes and nose.

he looks beautiful.

“i’m going to change clothes, alright?” your head lifts as he called to you. the way the sun shines on half of his face is making you look at him as something other than your classmate. almost like an actor in a movie you see with your sisters, a heartthrob that makes people could fall in love with him. yet, he’s not that. he’s more complex than that.

you give a small nod as he left to the hallway you went in from. the sound of rubber in contact with each other makes you turn towards the ring and observe the same man and a woman training. the woman is using the gloves to punch the flat surface of the man’s gloves: swinging from the side, from below, or straight at the torso. the light coming from above the ring shines a spotlight on them. you can see how defined their muscles are, like the deity sculptures you came across in one of the high-class parties your parents brought you and your sisters to. but, the marble carvings aren’t as dynamic as the way you look at them in real life. the human body is amazing; you thought.

your trance lasts for a while before it disappears as the two being in the ring stop their exercise. you study the man ruffling the hair of the woman before giving a small peck on her hair because of her smaller stature. your eyes gazed at the interaction, how they stare at each other with such adoration and seemingly push each other to be better, as exampled by the man helping her train. your eyes were on the woman as she approaches the other ring—a girl around her age at the side is warming her body up as she prepares to train. that’s when you picked up the man calling the name you recognized.

here he is. you spoke in your mind.

taehyun came from the other side of where you are; relaxed as he pass through the ropes. your eyes move to the pair on the ring when they wides as you realized taehyun has warmed up in shorts and a sleeveless grey shirt that is loose on his body, making you able to follow the ridges on his side, his muscles define but they have smoother parts to them. you still sense the weight on your palm as his glasses are still there. you gaze away from the boy to put it where he puts his bag beside you and you find his school uniform set folded beside his sweater, a t-shirt, and a towel. your eyes can’t wait to return to the ring when you can hear the wind being pierced as the gloves touch each other.

your neighbor is light on his feet, bouncing around the ring as his eyes give a certain gleam at the right time to make his move—like the one he shows back when your class did dodgeball. you once again fall back into a trance, but instead of focusing on the two people in the ring, you could only focus on one. watching him, you put your hand near your mouth, your fingers touching each other or your lips. sometimes it slips between the lips, letting you feel the calluses on your fingertips from your guitar playing. your teeth also didn’t fail in getting your body to rile up as you see taehyun spar, nipping your bottom lips as you see his body move.

though the sunlight isn’t as bright as before, the orange-hued spotlight gives a more fiery aspect to his exercise. your vision trails from the gloves on his hand along the expanse of his arm. the bulging of his biceps and triceps from each punch. that’s when you felt the dampness coming in between your legs, making you clench your thighs together again.

taehyun’s training flew by as you look at the man: his coach, stopping his stance and giving pats on the boy’s shoulders. his head sometimes turns towards where you’re sitting, but you guess it’s just his nerves signalling aches so it doesn’t stay in one place and moves to relieve it. you see them talking to each other before the man rattles taehyun’s body and they both nod their heads. taehyun gives a smile before stepping away from his coach and walking to your side of the ropes. his feet bounce after landing on the concrete floor from the raised ring.

he approaches you, biting the edge of his glove’s strap as he moves his hand to separate the velcro, and he does the same thing with the other glove as he let them fall out of his hands. the gloves land where his clothes are as he picks up the towel and cleans the sweat that is trailing down his arms.

“you must be bored,” he commented, your legs crossed with each other.

“not really. i learned a few new stuff while you train.” and i learned how great you look, you wanted to continue.

he lets out a small smirk as he rubs his hair and face with the towel, his face looking at the digital clock hanging by the hallway to show that the time is near sunset before he looks down at his shirt, “we should get you home.”

you followed his eyesight to the red lights before it trails back to taehyun, who reaches down to the end of his undershirt and pulled it up, making you pause every movement as you stare at his bare torso before he puts it on beside you: wiping the sweat that has formed on the skin with the towel. seeing the droplets of his sweat trailing down his defined abdomen muscles is breathtaking, obvious lines formed beneath his hips that are plunging to something underneath his shorts. you were so taken aback that you didn’t realize you were holding your breath until he put on his extra t-shirt before tying his burgundy sweater around his shoulders.

“taehyun.” your ears perked at his name being called to see the coach standing beside him, also cleaning himself up with a towel that is now hanging on his shoulder. “almost forgot your signature for the amateur tournament.” he gives out the clipboard to him. you see the boy putting on his glasses and signing on the piece of paper with the pen attached to the board. the coach gives out his farewell as taehyun zips up his backpack, all the unused clothes stuffed in the bag. you strap your own on your back as you walk to the hallway that leads you outside. you cough out from the chilly wind, feeling how dry your throat is, remembering the corner store beside it.

“can we buy something? i’m parched. maybe you too.” you turn around to face him as you walk backward, letting your backpack leaning against the door to push it. taehyun hurries and stabilizes the door before letting go as you both look at the stripe-patterned eave of the side of the corner store.

“of course.” he walks forward as you pivot your body and walk to the corner store where a few teenagers sit there on the table under the overhanging roof. your eyes gaze at them discreetly, seeing the boys and girls having fun together—a gloomy thought in your mind—as you heard the bell coming from the store’s door when taehyun pushes it open.

it is colder inside the store rather than outside, but your sweater helps you battle the sudden temperature change. both of you walk towards the beverage area where an entire wall full of fridges lines up. you stare at the various drinks available there as taehyun quickly grabs one that he wants before remaining at your side, shoulders touching each other's. coffee. tea. milk. yogurt. water. juice. your lips pouted as your mind wander on all the pros and cons of each beverage available, looking at the colorful packaging that has caught your sight, before picking up one from the shelf.

the breeze of the fridge meets your front as you pick up the drink. but when you turn around, you didn’t see taehyun.

your figure walks to peek at the six aisles in this corner store one by one from their entrance. maybe he might buy something to eat if he’s hungry after training. instant noodle is probably the best bet. yet, when you expect to find him standing by the savory foods, you found him in the sweets area, holding something in his hand.

“what you got there?” you asked. you thought it could surprise him as it did with your sisters, yet he turns his head gently, knowing that you’ll be searching for him.

he tilts his head as he lets you look at the packets. the packets with the name ring pop in two colors—red and blue—glimmer under the store’s ceiling light. you remember, when you were a child, your classmates ate this candy in class, recalling the rings that are too large on the fingers as they decorated all five of them—a dietary concern if you ask yourself right now. your nanny liked to give you all a discreet amount of sweets when she was alive because mama hated to buy sweets for the five of you. it got even worse when jiwoo got pretty addicted back then, resulting in her used to having a cavity in her tooth, making mama ban all sweets except for a limited amount of dark chocolate.

“which one do you like?” he asked, the way his glasses slid down his bridge, making you see how his eyes look with it and without it—even though only a small glimpse.

“what for?” you gnawed the inside of your cheek, letting out a small smirk.

“i noticed your sisters got a memento after their dates proposed to them for homecoming. though you’re the one that asked me first, not going to lie, i dislike seeing you without your own memento.” his words catch you by surprise as your eyes widen.

did he read your signal?

“i want to buy this for you. just as a reminder that you indeed have a date for homecoming.” taehyun answered so charmingly you felt his words trying to buckle your knees, but you hold your body well enough to not openly crumble in front of him; just that your own protection wall is crumbling for him. your hand hovers above his and you pinch the edge of the red packet, pulling it from his palm to grip it in your own. taehyun lets out a chuckle before putting the other ring pop into its place on the shelf as you both walk to the cash register. you said nothing when he pulls out his wallet and paid for all the stuff you bought. though if you want to pay him, you can’t. no pocket money, remember?

grabbing onto each of your purchases, you both walk out of the building to the bus stop as the dimming sunlight creates shadows that overhang the rest of the surrounding structures. the bus is nowhere to be seen when you both arrive and no one is at the bus stop as you both sit on the bench. you close the lid of the beverage you choose as it relieves your dry esophagus before hearing the scrunch of aluminum to your side. a glimpse of the plastic ring with a red candy at the top. your eyes glance at his hands that are meticulously opening the plastic wrap before he turns his body towards you. his backpack creates a sound from him moving while yours is leaning to your side on your other side.

“may i?” he questioned politely as you let out a giggle.

“you may,” you answered as he grab one of your hands in his, slowly sliding the ring candy on your middle finger. you discover how big the candy on the ring is as it covers vertically half of your pointer and ring finger. the dense, crystalized candy could reflect the light that is coming from the bulb above the two of you, making it glimmer the way a real diamond would.

“thank you, taehyun,” you replied. but, he hasn't let your hand go from him. that’s when he lifts the hand up and gives the candy a taste—reminiscent of what you had done to him in that auditorium that you thought was a long time ago. he envelopes the jewel-shaped candy in his mouth. a few seconds pass before letting it go, licking the bottom of his lip. in his eyes, you notice the teasing twinkle that you have seen jiwoo or hyejoo have. a payback for what you did in the room, still the feeling of his fingertips linger on your lips and on your lower part.

“great choice. it’s tasty.” your face hasn’t changed since his action as you gently pull the hand with the ring near your lips. giving it a light lick before fully focusing on the taste of strawberries that is more subtle than what you expected. your eyes glance at the ring before to taehyun, seeing the same demeanor on his face as what he gave to you in today’s last period. as you let your buds perceive the sweetness combined with a tinge of sourness, the boy reaches out to brush your hair away, tugging it behind your ears as best as he can.

you were looking elsewhere when you sense the warmth forming on your cheeks before it hovers—nearly touching—your cheek. with a piece of courage and confidence, you incline your head to face him as you feel his hand now cupping your cheek. his eyes look at yours before to your lips—you did exactly the same. slowly, you lean in closer, letting gravity lean you both forward as his forehead touches yours: your breath clashes with his.

your vision captured headlights when a silhouette of machinery comes into view with its grunting sound. you lean back from him as the bus arrives at the stop, seeing it crowded with people as you put on your backpack. taehyun followed you, slowly. when you climb onto the bus as a few people come out, you paused as you try to find any open space you can stand in before a hand reaches out to grab you. taehyun’s protruding veins are in your eyesight as he helps to guide you inside and found enough space for both of you. his hand reaches for the hanger on the top of the bus while you grab the pole near the exit in your free hand. it’s heavy when you tried to lift your held hand up, trying to give your ring pop another lick. when you see taehyun give you a squinting eye and slight pout that made you snicker. both of your hands tangled with each other the entire bus ride.

as the sun sets in your neighborhood, you walked on the pavement of your street, hand in hand. sometimes when you felt taehyun relax his hand, you move your tangled hand up with the ring pop and give it a lick as the solid sugary substance melts with the saliva; letting your buds savor the strawberry flavor once again. you view the neighborhood and the houses of the people who live around you, seeing a few kids riding their bicycles down the street. either they are waving at taehyun or gawking at you both before riding away. giggles erupt from your figure when you see their wide eyes, seeing their most obscured neighbor with a boy they know since they were little. you give taehyun a small look as he shrugs his shoulder, hearing the muffled jingling coming from your anklet that is resting above the sock you’re wearing as the streetlight helps it glow.

when you see the carpool of your house, it’s empty as it usually is. but, you let your eyes wander to the windows from across the street, the lights are on; your sisters are home. you turn towards taehyun, who stood with his house behind him. pouting your lips, you let out a small smile, reflecting on what happened today while glancing at the boy.

“thank you for today and uh… for allowing me to see you box.” taehyun’s chuckle is prominent before he slowly stops himself with a sheepish smile.

“thank you too. for going with me. i’ll have to scold kai for leaving me alone again.” his words earn a laugh from both of you and the tangled fingers slowly let go of one another. in the empty street of your neighborhood, you give a small wave to the boy before stepping onto the asphalt to your house in front of you.

and yet, there’s something you felt you’ve forgotten. and taehyun knows it too, as he still stood there on the pavement when you glance back at him over your shoulder. from the number of emotions you both have inflicted on each other and felt with each other, there is one that is so prominent you can’t help to not reveal it.

and so, you stride and captured taehyun’s cheeks in your hands before smashing your lips on his. both of your bodies stumbling with each other before taehyun’s hand stabilizes it, holding onto your love handles. the way your taehyun mimics your feverish way of kissing him is giving the right signal for you to move your hands to his nape, playing with the ends of his hair as he moves one of his hands to put underneath your jaw and chin. both of your lips trying to learn each other as best you can—feeling his tongue lightly brushes your bottom lip, both of you felt like you can’t breathe without each other.

taehyun lets out a gasp from the thrilling kiss as you let your lips travel to his jaw and trail down a bit to his neck and adam’s apple before he brought them back to his lips. kissing passionately as the sun sinks beneath the horizon and the purple now fills the sky fully. with the last push of yearning of your lips against his—letting the strawberry flavor melts on his buds as well, you both pulled away, seeing a light string of saliva connecting both pairs of lips. seeing his eyebrows frown and his glasses disarray from his place before you fixed it.

“good night.” you let him go before turning around and jogging to your house. looking one last time at him from across the street, though so little of his figure, you can see a smug smile on his face as he pivots his body to his house.

you climb up the stair hastily as you arrived at your room to open its door, seeing all four of your sisters who are doing homework on the floor. their eyesight turns towards you as you catch your breath and brush your lips with your finger. the realization of losing your first kiss and the haze of the desperation of love: for taehyun.

“where’ve you gone to, missy?” sooyoung gives a teasing remark while you hunch your body and pull down the straps of your backpack off your shoulders. the thud on the floor behind you combined with the lightness of the weight makes you let out a satisfying sigh. you nibble your bottom lip before letting out a smile, showing your hand with the candy ring.

“taehyun asked me to homecoming, and he gave me this.”

the amount of thumps on the floor is noticeable as you see your sisters clamber up from it to give you a wholesome hug, surrounding you with affection and care. jiwoo’s words cut through as she said, “we can show mama the evidence of our dates asking us and she’ll let us go.”

“hell yes,” sooyoung remarked as you all move back and link up your hands to create a circle before jumping around. the groans of the floor from all of your movements ring in your room, and downstairs too where no one is there to listen. when you feel the sweat on your face and back, your sisters stop and let go of each other. they’re giving hugs to one another before doing their own things with a smile on their faces.

while you picked your bag to put on the bed, you turn towards the window of the room that overviews the street. looking down at the house across from yours and to a specific window, a silhouette standing there with an orange ray behind him before he moves away.

“you like her, don’t you?”

taehyun straightened his pose from his hunched body, sweat falling down his skin. from his blurry vision without the glasses on his face, he could see a figure doing the same movement as his in front of him, lowering his gloved hands to the side of his body.

“what do you mean, coach?” the boy heaves as he takes in as much oxygen as possible. his heart is thumping in his chest from the spar.

“the girl you brought here.” the man said as taehyun takes a glimpse of you. your striped sweater and the shine of your anklet visible from the light coming from above him—marking where you sat in the dim side of the room.

“i’ve seen the look in your eyes.” the coach said as he lets out a small smile. he juts his head towards where you at, “the way you look at her,” before looking at the ring behind taehyun when he focuses on the rubber colliding and the movement of the two women he detects before doing his own training. “i look at my wife the same way.”

taehyun lets out a tight-lip smile before he felt hands on one of his shoulders—muffled sounds of velcro opening are muffled along with the other noises while he looks down. the coach stares at him when he slants his head, a certain expression in his eyes resembling the one that his father has when they talked about how proud of him they are; on how he would help his children.

“i can help you.”

taehyun lets out a huge breath as he faces the mirror in his room, fixing the collar of his shirt with the tie that he tied himself—taught by his old man. through the reflection, while he fixed his askew glasses, he can detect his boxy pc screen lighting up as a chime comes in from the chat room window he opens, seeing the colored usernames he has just familiarized himself. the words beside them were written with what they wanted to say.

he remembered he was the one that approaches all the moon sisters’ dates, you, and kai to create a chat room together to discuss the homecoming plan after that day he and you hung out outside school. thus, the “HC Dance“ chat room was born: discussion of the plan they have conducted between all the members. taehyun turns around from the mirror and walks towards the screen to examine the new message coming in.

22juyeon: heating the van. see u all @ taehyun’s home

the boy stares at the message from the newly-championed player from yesterday’s match. his hand moves to the mouse as he recalls the plan that has been put in place, the sound of the scrolling wheel against the finger that is rolling it. glancing at the side window with the members’ list, he sees all the members online, except for a certain “m00n12345“. it is near sunset when they agree to gather at taehyun’s house. he observes the windows of the house across from his, recalling how the timeline of events happened after the chat room was created.

sooyoung—as one of the five users that uses “m00n12345“—mentioned in the chat room how they have to bring one representative of the dates to help them convince their parents. at first, taehyun wants to volunteer before “dandyminnie“ wrote first in the chat room. seungmin is the right choice, he then reduces. he remembers you mention how chaewon was the most closed off of your siblings—not that he doesn’t notice. but when mentioning your mother’s proposal for all of you to get a date to go, chaewon will be the hardest to get a date for because of how she is. with seungmin being chaewon’s date, it helps convince your mother that 1. even chaewon can get a date. 2. a family friend is the one asking her. and 3. his diplomatic skill for being a council member helps in convincing the parents to let him vouch for the other dates as well.

dandyminnie: their parents said yes. they’re gonna have a curfew at 9.

the boy lets out a slight frown as m00n12345—that mention is hyejoo on the keyboard—replies in chat, “screw my parents :(“

as he walked out of his room to the empty hallways of his house, he kept thinking about that minuscule comment. both his parents are on a business trip while his sister is back at her college town, making taehyun have to tend to his own home for a few days. he didn’t mind it—already good enough at taking care of the home as he doesn’t do much in the other rooms except his. he puts the cans of soda he bought for the boys that are going to come any minute now—gyuri will stand by at school for jiwoo. kai was the first to come with seungmin and then sunwoo before the rumbling noise of juyeon’s van is heard as he parks it in the kang’s empty carpark.

crushing the can of soda he drank before throwing it in the bin, taehyun fixes his dress shoes and cuffs of his suit before nodding to the others. then, he leads the march towards the house across from his. he can feel his heart beating quicken as he approaches the pathway to the front door. even though he has known its presence and sees it every day, he has never gone to the moon’s home, only recalls that his mom has. he never stood as close to where they live as this, a knock away to see the interior.

juyeon moves to the front and lets his large hand knock on the wooden door in a precise rhythm. he didn’t expect to meet the patriarch opening the door, letting out a polite smile as seungmin—who stood on the other side of juyeon—greets the man. he gazes at the faces of the boys one by one while letting out a polite yet gracious smile before the sound of a woman you dreaded comes closer and closer, calling for her husband. when taehyun sees mrs. moon, she is wearing a thick robe on top of her home attire, looking luxurious as if she has come back from a spa day. the matriarch looks at each of them, gazing a little longer at both seungmin and taehyun: the ones she has met already.

“come and wait inside. they’re going to come down in a few minutes.” the woman said in a poised voice as both adults retreat from the door frame, letting their entrance space open to allow them inside. not wanting to stain their exotic-looking rug, taehyun steps carefully as he admires the inside of the house. it is as if he was stepping into the wrong time frame, seeing the ornate-looking furniture decorating the entrance which contrasts the more angular-looking furniture he has in his home. before the hallway diverts to multiple rooms, a large frame hangs on one wall beside the stairs. counting the people in it, he sees the moon’s family portrait. well, more like painting as he can see the texture on the surface of the canvas. but, all the people in it are younger.

the parents stood side by side in the middle as two daughters stood on each end. the rest of the three daughters is sitting on a fancy-looking sofa. when looking at the bottom corner of the canvas, he can learn the year it was finished.

1990.

taehyun tried to suppress his smile as he looks at each of the daughters of the moon. each of them has a facial expression that just exudes them. sooyoung stood with her height above her mother’s shoulder and a proud smile on her face while jiwoo stood above her father’s elbow and a grin on her face. his eyes look down at the similarly dressed triplets on the sofa. chaewon has a pout on her face, which contrasts with hyejoo who has a subtle frown, and there was you: sitting in the middle of the two with a small smile on your face. he let his eyes stay on younger you longer, recognizing the way your face matures as you grow up nine years later. yet, he felt chills when he looks into your eyes, seeing the familiar gaze and crack before, albeit softer—much like what your age was supposed to be at that time.

he turns his head when he picked up the creaks from the floor above. shadows coming closer before all five figures stand by the stairs. the sisters all seem to wear similar-looking dresses to differing lengths, only chaewon having a slightly puffy sleeve for her white dress while hyejoo’s has a sleeve that is the length of the upper arm of her silver dress. sooyoung wears elbow-length gloves that match her maroon dress—with a gold necklace to add the glow—and jiwoo has a shawl hanging on her hands of her pink gown. your black dress seems to be the base of your sister’s base, spaghetti strap, square-shaped at the torso, and fits onto your body until it flows down to your ankle—differs from sooyoung’s whose end sticks to her claves or jiwoo and chaewon who has a larger circumference for the lower body.

taehyun recognizes those dresses as he has seen his sister wear them before for her school dances. almost similar to the ones his mom and his sister bought in a store at the mall. but based on appearance alone, he can tell that the dresses are expensive, and he can’t help to glance at who is the stylist for them: their mother with a smile on her face. a rarity that even the sisters could notice. as each sister landed on the ground floor, he didn’t forget to notice the anklet on each of their right legs before their high heels. all of them stood in front of their respective dates as sooyoung turned to their parents. you give a winsome smile at him before turning your head when they heard sobs by the stairs.

all of the sisters stare to see their father looking at them before wiping his nose with his napkin as the mother confronts her husband in whispers. she turns around and lets out a small and performative smile. “remember the curfew.”

“we do, mama.” sooyoung replied as taehyun looked to see you staring longly at your father calming himself down. when your gaze met him, you give a small shrug with your head, a somber look in your eyes.

the moon sisters and the boys said their goodbyes as you walked across the street to the van. taehyun slightly looks back to notice that the front door hasn’t closed yet and when two figures stood by before one is left, recognizing the father by the doorframe. he sat beside you who sat beside jiwoo, while kai sat on the other side of him in the van's backseat. your sisters and their dates scramble into the places as sooyoung handles the placement—like the oldest sister that she is. she then sits in the front seat with juyeon in the driver’s seat, and the rest sits in the middle.

when the van goes backwards from the carpark, he sees you and jiwoo looking outside the window to see your father going back inside the room and closing the front door. the radio plays a britney spears song as the van drives as the sun has set on the horizon to school. they made small conversations in between the ride and songs playing from the speakers before hyejoo is the one that gave a certain relevant comment.

“did pop really cry?” her eyes peer around between the sisters that sit around her.

“i couldn’t believe it, but yes, he did.” sooyoung answered from the front.

“why, though?” jiwoo bounces and voices out.

“i really don’t know…” sooyoung replied.

the people inside the van then move on from the subject as taehyun witnesses sunwoo and hyejoo bickering in their seats, annoying chaewon who stares at them calmly while leaning more against seungmin. kai has spoken a few times directly to his ear that he has to tap his best friend’s thigh to remind him to speak with less volume, not that jiwoo’s jokes didn’t get the whole van to erupt suddenly and he heard his friend’s signature laugh beside him.

taehyun felt light touches on his dress pants as he looks down to the other side and at your gown-covered thigh before he saw your fingers trailing along his thigh like how his mom used to teach him how the spider crawl up in itsy-bitsy spider. he follows your fingers as they found his hand, flipping it over, and interlocks them with his fingers. he turns his head to your face to catch a mischievous look in your eyes before he looked at your other hand reaching to his face.

“what are you-“

“just relax, taehyun.” others singing a backstreet boys song that is playing on the radio muffled your voice, yet he hears it. he senses the frame of his glasses moving on his earlobe as you nuzzle it away to repair his bangs that have fallen on his forehead.

“can i try your glasses?” you asked as taehyun’s other hand reached for the glasses and pull them off. his other hand lets go of your hand as he steadies the glasses near your face.

“you’re going to be dizzy when wearing it.” he sees you nod to his reminder whilst closing your eyes. your lashes land perfectly as he pushes the glasses on between your earlobes. when taehyun lets the glasses sit on your nose, your eyes open and squint—earning a giggle from him.

“wow, this is weird…” you commented and shook your head lightly from the dizzying feeling he had with his glasses before letting his eyes adjust to it. while he thought you were going to let it off as soon as possible, he sees you tapping your sister’s arm beside you as you ask her how you appear with glasses on. jiwoo’s chuckles filled the air as taehyun can peek—from the corner of his eyes—kai’s subtle eyebrow raised and a smile on his face, making him roll his eyes at his friend.

taehyun was glad he was nearsighted. he can focus on the smile on your face with his glasses decorating it.

as the van parks in the school’s parking lot, the people clamber out of the vehicle as best as they can without ruining their outfits. in the distance, a girl walks toward the passenger as jiwoo fast-walk to her. taehyun fixes his glasses on him as he can now see how jiwoo is hugging gyuri before they turn to look at the others and gesture for them to come. taehyun looks at the other students that are coming from their respective vehicles towards the entrance. sooyoung’s shoulder is wrapped with juyeon’s arm as they greeted his teammates while celebrating their victory. both sunwoo and hyejoo approach their football teammates with them hollering at the unlikely couple teasingly. seungmin and chaewon approach you to inform you they’re going to be walking to the indoor court with jiwoo and gyuri. only taehyun, kai, and you are left.

“i feel like such a third wheel right now. i’m going to catch my club friends, okay?” kai said as he pats taehyun’s shoulder and give a smile towards you which you follow. the spring on kai’s stride left the two of you as you both stare at each other, nudging towards the building as he lets you hook your arm in his before walking to it.

the room is full of balloons littering the floor and confetti hanging on the ceiling that glimmers from the lights. the way the indoor court is now just a sea of people gathering makes taehyun feel slightly claustrophobic, but he can see the moon sisters there scattered throughout the room with their respective club members or other friends as he stood with you, grabbing the syrup with fruit in them to drink. as they both stand by the sideline together, side by side, he cannot comprehend the loneliness you must be going through that he also recognizes within himself. out of all the sisters, you were the one that doesn’t have many friends outside of your siblings. maybe it’s because of your decision to not join a school club like him or people’s perception about you that made them stay away. you never talked to him much about close friends, not even mentioning the seulgi that gave you the cd mix.

“how is it?” he genuinely asked as you both stare at the crowded dance floor, letting him take a glance at you as you nod your head while expressing a small smile.

“i can understand why we teenagers like this. but the music kinda bores me, though.” you let out a chuckle. he recalls your music taste based on the artists he remembered you listen to and let out a small chuckle himself.

“that’s what i thought, back in my first year when i went to one. but since my curiosity is satiated, i never guessed i’ll be here again,” he spoke as you give a tight-lip smile. you tug taehyun’s hand, asking only with eye contact as you glance at the snack area before he gives a nod. as you walked past, he notices people looking towards both of you before whispers enter his ears.

“who is that with moon (y/n)?”

“bro is lucky she got to be with her.”

“kang taehyun and moon (y/n) is the most unlikely couple i ever predicted.”

“didn’t she just break up with that nicholas guy?”

“i thought she still was with sunghoon…”

“i wish she goes with me.”

he shook the words away as you both grab a plate by the buffet table, hearing you grunt out at the food you ate with a look of satisfaction before you stare at him with your cheeks full—making him giggle. should he be insecure to have you as a date? no. he should’ve been proud. but he didn’t expect it to be one topic people converse about tonight. is that why you like to be away from people?

when the mc stood on stage to announce the homecoming king and queen, he remembered he didn’t vote for it because he has to go to the gym. you stood beside him near the tables as you face the stage. the mc plays a drumroll and said the winner when he can see the shock on his face reflected on yours. you both looking at each other when the resounding voice of your oldest sister is called homecoming queen. as they both look towards the stage, he can sense you whispering in his ear.

“i didn’t even know she got nominated.” his eyes glance at you beside him before looking at your sister’s astonished expression.

“i don’t think she knows it either,” he replied as you lean away before a smile bloomed on your face, yet it still looks restrained. he listens to the clapping and cheering before he heard some comments around him.

“i voted for jiwoo, but i’m glad to see her sister won.”

“well, i voted for (y/n) ‘cause look how hot she is. her sister is also hot. they really captured the people’s hearts fast, don’t they?”

they did indeed, taehyun silently answered to himself. he peeks at the jock crowd as they cheer when the spotlight landed on juyeon, the mc holding onto the other crown as sooyoung looks at him with a gleam on her face. taehyun looks towards you to spot you clapping your hands and cup around your mouth, letting you let out cheers for them.

“she deserves it!” he sees you smile as your oldest sister and her date step down onto the dance floor to have their dance. sooyoung turns towards you and gives you a wave with the widest smile taehyun has ever seen on her.

the lighting of the room changes to a warmer tone as “kiss me“ by sixpence none the richer play from the speakers. the people with their partners are walking to the dance floor when he felt a tug on his sleeve. with a smile reserved just for him, you said, “may i have this dance, sir?”

taehyun lets out a giggle as he replied after giving a gentle kiss to your hand, “of course, my lady.”

you brought him to the floor. your hands directly found their place on his nape while he awkwardly holds onto your waist. your movement leading the dance as he follows. by the way you move, he suspects you have danced before, especially in a setting like this.

under the decorations, the lights that shine on it refracted to your face, resembling the stars he has seen before in the night sky. the stars and their moon stand before him as he can catch a twinkle in your eyes. you let your head move all over the dance floor as you greeted your sisters that are also dancing there. sooyoung and juyeon have a spotlight on them as the light makes their crown shimmer. jiwoo and gyuri playfully dance on the floor in a ballroom style; the same as seungmin and chaewon, but they’re slower and closer to each other. sunwoo and hyejoo dance in the same stances as you and the boy, but they focus on tickling each other’s bodies. his eyes linger too long on their playful interaction before he brought back to you, turning his head with your hand on his jaw.

“eyes on me, handsome,” you stated with a smirk on your face. your eyes that haunt him before now excite him as they glimmer more when meeting his. taehyun can’t help to lean his head closer to you, resting his forehead on yours as you both continue to glide on the dance floor. he felt your hand holding him tighter in your hold as your smirk turns into a warm smile, making his move his hands to your back as they pushed you closer to him: seeing your eyes close as you enjoy the moment you both are in. it opens to let him see a sly look combines with the expression you had when you were daydreaming, a dull stare almost numbing. your eyes sometimes glance away toward the doors of the indoor court.

he knows how he could help you.

he took you away into the dark night street as you rode the bus. taehyun didn’t regret bringing his wallet with him as he helped pay all the payments, that includes the food you bought when you both buy a set of it from a fast-food restaurant. the room was empty except for the few employees that are cleaning the place up to close for the day. your groan from eating delicious food wavers in the air as you stare at him full of glee. how your elegant-looking black dress and his suit-and-tie combo are out of place in the colorful restaurant booth. how you both cackled at a story he told you that you accidentally throw the fries you were holding in your hand to him—silently glad it’s not the ice cream that you also bought. taehyun seemed pleased as he sees how you enjoy the food he recommends, knowing the limitation you have said to him about what you eat in your household. he wishes he could bring you to more places to show you what the world offers.

both of you stayed in the restaurant until the employee that serves you is going to close the restaurant doors for today. when you told the employee how well they do their work, taehyun see how the employee was silently awed by your comment before they went their separate ways from both of you. you and taehyun sit at the bus stop as comfortably as possible as you both waited for the bus to arrive under the starry sky. when he peeks at you, you turn his head to face yours before leaning and kissing him—the first kiss tonight. you gave multiple kisses of various lengths as your touch lingers on his skin, the way your thumb holds his chin still as you both lightly make out in the raven night; creating the thrill he hasn’t had since the first time you both kissed.

the air-conditioned bus creates a sheet of dew that sticks onto the window. both of you are sitting on one of the empty seats in the bus when your pointer finger reaches for the moisture, making a “hello!“ large enough for him to read. he lets out a giggle as he leans in to kiss your temple before you shriek, making him smile widely. you give him a peck on his cheek before your eyes widen as your hand caresses it.

“didn’t notice these dimples here.” your fingertips caress the slight dent in both of his cheeks before one rises to his glasses and push the frame up. the fog from the kiss slowly fades away. he never really thought his dimples were something special, as much more people around him have much more attractive dimples than he has. but, if it is you that likes it, then he must wear it more if he could.

you both walk on the pavement of your neighborhood, reminiscent of when you followed him to the gym and the day he lost his firsts with you. the first time kissing someone and the first time teasing someone down there. yet, the difference is clear as you walk side by side with you walking barefooted, the ends of your heels dangle on your fingers from how tired your calves are. the streetlights create a magical nuance on the night as you walk home, a few puddles of water on the asphalt road makes the street more alive.

when you both arrived at the location of your houses, both of your heads turn towards your house—the upstairs window he remembers you point out still hasn’t had its lights on. the realization it got to you makes you shift your head to face him, a glint in your eyes as the corner of your lips twitches up.

“they’re not home yet. so, i hope i haven’t passed curfew yet.” you said as you gnaw the inside of your cheek, looking at the house behind him before back to him. “since you mention your parents aren’t home, can i come to your house?”

the way you look at him lingers with a familiar tension he once experienced before with you. that fateful day that stayed in a separate storage of his memories. your eyes exude the burn that also comes from the touch of your hand on his in that dark auditorium, letting him touch your thigh and your private part, remembering how wet it is.

lust.

and with the hardening of his own private parts, he thought this moment would never come. and he never thought it will come with you involved.

as you dropped your heels behind the front door with taehyun pulling off his shoes, you approach him and cling to him with your lips. the feverish quality of the kiss you both had comes back with more heat yet gentle touches of it appearing. your hands drop to the button of his suit and let them go as taehyun held onto your body, trailing it down to your thigh. you gasp when leaning back, staring at taehyun who gives you a signal before he grabs your empty hand and leads you to his room. though no lights in his room are on, the streetlight and moonlight from the outside combine to give a perfect aura to the yearning you both have for each other.

he never believes he could see you standing inside his room after he closes the door. the boy looks at how your head moves to memorize the room, seeing the bench for his bench press and the weights leaning on the wall. the pc’s buzz filled the room as the cpu runs underneath his desk, cluttered items are everywhere unlike his very tidy wardrobe. your gown shines from the light coming from the small glimpse of the sheer curtain behind his actual one. shining at you and for you.

taehyun walks up behind you and rests his head on your exposed shoulder, letting his plump lips kiss the skin as he can hear your breath flatter. his arms wrapped to your front and rested on your stomach. the lingering touch of his lips trails up to your earlobe, the teasing he has noticeably done to you ever since that day. yes, he feels it too. he also does not want to tease, but you’ve been the one that sticks in his mind for a month and more. he wants to be that same thing for you.

“i forgot to tell you how beautiful you are tonight.” he can see how your facial muscles contort from that comment and how your hands reach to hold his. your head leans away from him as he kisses your clavicle before he turns you around. cupping your cheeks, he perceives how warm they have become while you gently pull his glasses off of him, closing the temples up before tucking them inside his suit pocket. taehyun held his breath to breathe as slowly as possible when your fingertips touched the bridge of his nose, trailing down until it falls off.

“i say the same about you. though i’ve called you “handsome” before at the dance." you steadily say as your hands now rested on his chest. taehyun feels a slight pressure on it, hearing his heartbeat clearer. the hands slip inside the suit as you push them away, letting it fall off his shoulders to the ground behind him. his chest rises and falls in a steady beat as he glances at one of your hands that is trailing down his arm. the same pressure appears again as you seemingly scan his body with your touch. your hands gather on the cuffs and unbutton them one by one.

taehyun watches how your hand lingers around his heart as you follow how his chest rises and falls. no spoken words between the two as you learn about him. he knows he will do the same to you later.

your hand reaches his tie as you pull it, not too hard to let his body stumble, but right enough for the tie to untangle. his brows raised in surprise when you take the tie from his collar and let it fall to the floor before your fingers reached for the button of his white shirt. as it opens, he sees you're taken aback by the appearance of his undershirt before taehyun shoves the shirt to the floor and pulls off his socks. then, he pushes the layers of clothing he used near his wardrobe—hoping his glasses will be alright.

“why do you have so many layers?” he overheard you whine when turning around to face you again, giggles leaving both you and him.

“i didn't know we would do it. believe me, if you say it before, i would wear less.” he strides to stand in front of you once again, grasping your hands in his before putting them on his abdomen.

“but i like a surprise,” he mumbles as your palm moves on his cloth-covered abs. though it isn’t as prominent as his coach—who he has seen before in the locker room—he is proud of how bulked up he is. especially with the sport he plays. taehyun looks down to see you pull the tuck undershirt from his pants. you might touch a slight bump if you move lower. yet, in this case, you focus on his torso first, already feeling your cold touches on the skin beneath the undershirt. and so you slowly lift it. taehyun’s arms raise to help you as it leaves his hand.

“wow.” he could hear you remark quietly, making him bite his lower lip at the sheer appearance of his bare torso to you. the glimmer in your eyes comes back once again as you admire his body. your hands and eyesight are all over his skin as you let them trail down his muscles as taehyun can only stand there to not let your trance on him disappear. he felt like he was the statue he saw in an art museum he visited. the difference is the ropes around it or the pedestal it stood on are nowhere to be seen, making guests can touch how intricate the carvings of the marble are. another difference is he only allows him to touch him like this.

“how long have you boxed?” you questioned as you close your body with his, letting him wrap his hands around you.

“since i was very young. i tried many sports before it but boxing is the one that matches me.” he tilts his head and the bangs of his hair flail from the movement.

“i can’t imagine how much training you have done to have a body like this…” your words trail off. then he senses a prominent tug on his pants, letting out a slight smirk.

“you couldn’t wait, huh?”

“i want to see more of you.” you quickly answered back.

stepping back from your embrace, he takes off his belt and throws it gently to the floor before he opens the zip of his dress pants. the bulge is clear as he accidentally caresses it, sending shivers down his spine. he never had his cock this hard before, even with the porn magazines he got introduced to from the older boys he met through the boxing club and when he first jack off. but, it’s different if it’s the real thing.

taehyun murmurs out a small “thank you” in his mind for himself for wearing a nice pair of boxers tonight. he senses your burning gaze as he pushes his pants down, exposing his leg and the lower part of his thighs as his boxers cling to his pelvis. his clear bulge makes him lick his lips as he stares at you—admiring what you are presented by.

“it’s your turn,” he spoke out. your eyes rising to meet his as he met with your less-layered outfit.

taehyun steps forward and embraces you like before. both of you breathing the same air—feeling your breath on his skin—before he reaches behind you. his hand founds the zipper on your dress and you flinch from the sudden sound as he opens it.

“you okay?” then his concern answered with a hum from you.

you gasp lightly when his palm meets the skin of your spine. like you do before, he lets a fingertip trail up your spine. goosebumps show up on your forearms as he heard you inhale. the finger met the ends of a bra before he lean back to see you looking at him with more desire. he kisses your forehead as he pulls off the straps of your dress. taehyun follows the upper end of your dress as he pulls it down, seeing the black strapless bra you’re wearing as he gives a kiss above it. he pulls it down to your stomach when the line of your underwear is peeking, giving a small kiss below your belly button.

when meeting your underwear, he realized you are not prepared either. he usually thought that for sex, both partners wear the best undergarments they have. but he didn’t meet any silk underwear as he predicted from the porn magazine he viewed. instead, he met with a regular brief. with that, he knows that what both of you are feeling isn’t something that one of you intended to do today. but it comes from the growth of one’s relationship.

the dress falls to your knees and his eyes meet your thighs, his eyes enlarged in concern. marks decorated your thighs and as he perks up to you, you catch him before you turn away. the marks that decorated your skin looks too unnatural to be a birthmark or freckles, all have a similar shape with varying shades as they fade near to the color of your skin.

“what are these?” he gazes between looking at you and the marks, kneeling on his carpeted floor. your eyes still facing away as your expression changes. taehyun sees you compose yourself, swallowing your saliva before you answered his questions.

“cigarette burns.”

if you were looking at him, you could see how his eyebrows furrowed at your answer. a scowl formed on his face before he replied, “did someone do this to you?”

“no!” your reply was instant. “i did it to myself.” you turn your head to face him, a glistening streak falling down your cheeks as you brush it off.

“this is what i meant when i said you won’t understand about us.” you reached for his shoulders to hold on, trying to not tumble yourself down. “we’re broken, taehyun. my sisters and i are broken human beings.” your vision glances at his hand on your thighs, resting right underneath the fading marks. “That is how i deal with pain. my sisters have done various other things comfortable for them but it also leaves a mark on their skins. this how i cope.”

taehyun can’t help but hold you tighter in his hands as you peer down at him. the sentences you tell helped him complete more of the puzzles that are you and your sisters. how the bandage around chaewon’s wrists now makes sense—now covered by the bracelets that were already in place to cover the bandage up—to cover the scar from her attempt to cope with the pain. when you mention how each and every of the moon sisters has a mark like chaewon, he is disappointed not to notice them, and yours were even harder as you are trying to hide from yourself.

he tugs the dress down to the carpet and drifts your foot one by one from it. that’s when he finally sees the anklet with a closer look, the silver band with two charms hooked on it: a crescent moon and a star.

the understanding of what the crescent moon means comes to him fast, but the star is the one that caught his attention. when he thinks of a star, he thought of the many dots he saw when you both walk down the pavement in the night—all of them are watching both of you connecting. but a star is also a sun, the same sun that lets its shine beam on you in the classroom every time he went inside.

your hands clasped his shoulders before they let go when he was too far to reach. he hears you gasp as he lifts your right leg and gives the skin above the anklet a kiss before continuing upwards.

“you are a star.” he started, kissing up your calves and knees to rest in front of your thighs full of burn marks. “every star has a cycle. and when their cycle ended, they cause a supernova.” holding the back of your thighs with his hands, he gives a squeeze.

“the most beautiful thing a human eye could see is the results of the supernova.”

“either a nebula or a black hole.” you filled his sentence. he hums.

“two different outcomes with two different repercussions.” he stares up at you. “though, in that case, you might see yourself as a black hole.” taehyun gives a light kiss on one of your marks, “i see you as a nebula that could create a new star.”

he continues to kiss every burn mark he can reach from where he kneeled. looking up to see you face the ceiling, he listens to a few out-of-place sniffles that are still there. yet, he listens to you sighing, letting out your weight bit by bit. he gives one last kiss to your underwear.

“what i wanted to say is,” he slowly stands up and cups your cheeks, brushing away stray tears that have fallen as your eyes glisten more because of the moisture. “no matter how are you, you are always beautiful to me.” he gives you a long kiss on the lips before pulling it off, to see you with your eyes still closed. when it opens, he could see the sadness being pushed back as you cup his face too and pull him to you, letting you taste his lips again.

he can feel the exploding emotions coming from you as it triggers his as well. the way his lips nibble your bottom lip earns a whimper from you before you let your mouth open up, letting his tongue enter to meet yours. your hands traced down his body as he let your lips go before trailing down your cheek, to your jaw and neck, before landing above your breasts.

“can i touch them?” he asked, feeling a tad bit shy.

“yes, you can.” you nod as you bite your lips where his hand reaches to cup one of them, feeling them up and knowing how soft yet sturdy they are.

your hands reach behind you to let the hook of the bra off, letting taehyun feel how the fabric loosens in his touch. carefully, he pulled the cups off as he sees your breasts. his lips travel closer to her areola as you moan lightly, the sensitive skin meeting his exhale causing it to erect. he lets out a hum before taking one nipple, softly kissing it, and giving a slight suck while caressing the other. your hands tangled in his hair as you hold him close. small whimpers coming out from you as taehyun closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of being wanted by you.

when he pulls back, your hand holds onto one of his as you brought both of you to his bed. you stood between the two, seeing how the edge of the bed touches the back of your legs. you give him a lingering kiss before tracing down to his collarbones. taehyun hiss as not only do you pucker your lips at it, you also give a few sucks on the area. he sees your head moving down to his pectorals with hooded eyes, feeling a tickle as you do the same to him—playing with his nipple and kissing the muscles he has done so much to tone. he couldn’t help but think you are marking him. you are leaving evidence that you have touched him more than other people have.

the bed springs’ noise piqued the boy’s ears as his eyelid fluttered to see you sitting on the mattress, your hands pushing him close from his lower back. he can sense your tongue tracing the faint lines on his abdomen before moving downwards, looking down to glance at your nose grazing his cock before moving back. you glance up at him, hands on the rubber band on the boxers.

“can i?”

“y-yes.” taehyun shivers.

the air of his room flushes onto the newly exposed skin as your eyebrows rose at how stiff his cock is. taehyun wanted to face away from the pleasure, but when he’s seeing you try to touch him, he guides you.

“slowly…” he mumbles when he noticed the lingers of your touch, making the blood rush more towards his lower part. his jaw drops when your thumb touches his slit. the pre-cum he made compliments how cool your touch is as it spread. taehyun looks down when you are trying to wrap your hand around him, giving an experimental stroke that felt different from when he masturbates. his eyebrows frown when your wet tongue touches the head, a gasp coming from him before you give a kiss on it. his hand holds your jaw, thumb caressing your cheekbone, while you let your tongue lick along his cock until the base as you tease his balls—more like discovering it and trying to see what they are.

the way your eye-lined eyes stare up at him, he sees the mark of your tears as it stains the color of your skin. your eyes look beautiful even though they’re puffy. he guides you back to the head of his cock, letting you do things to him that could only turn him on. you widen your mouth and let his head in. your lips wrap around it before it slowly goes out. then you continue to take him deeper, one hand still around his shaft while the other is holding him close by his ass cheek. you form a rhythm he enjoys: sucking gently, a few strokes with your hand before you let him slump. your cheeks narrow to suck him off best as he can, letting your tongue wet him up while grazes from your teeth making him hiss—which you seem to notice and tried to not let them touch him as much.

taehyun stares at the ceiling as he gasps for breath while you’ve been taking so much from him. he caresses your hair when you moved your head while sucking him, reminding him of when he jacked off to the magazine. and you went faster, your stroke getting rapid, and you do even more when he moaned your name, eyes staring at yours, looking at him as you take him in. he panicked when he heard you gag and pulled himself out at once, holding your face in his hands. as you gasp for air, he could see drools trailing down the corners of your lips, a streak of eyeliner now appearing from your smudge eyes as he brushes the stray tears away.

“are you okay?” he asked as your fluttering eyelids returns to him.

“yeah, i hope you like it…”

fuck, he is more than liking it.

“can you go to the pillow? i wanna return the favor.” taehyun confidently says as he sees you nod, crawling to the head of the bed as you lay on his pillows. the mattress dips as he moves to hover above you, leaning down to give you a passionate kiss, tasting something different on his buds before realizing it is from him. the single bed is small now for two people, but he likes how close it makes him feel to you.

your lips bite his bottom lip when two of his fingers reach your clothed core, feeling it wet like the last time he touched it. your head moves to see the space between the two of you—seeing how his hand is closer to where you want him, but not enough. taehyun sees the eagerness in your eyes as you take off your underwear, letting taehyun take the rest off of your feet and throw it with your dress. his hand moves to caress your legs as he lets his nose tip trace the skin up to your core. his body move to be in between your legs as his face arrived in your inner thighs, the two fingers rubbing on your clit while he gaze at the opening. giving the marks on your thighs kisses, he then replaces the fingers on the clit with his tongue while the fingers move to your lower lips. taehyun heard your body shifts on the mattress as you pant his name. his eyes look up to see you adoringly gazing at him. your hand reaches for his dark locks as he licks and kisses your clit while a fingertip plays around your hole before pushing in one.

“taehyun…” you gasp and he closes his eyes to let his senses savor you. him tasting you, how you clench his finger in, and your hand tugging on his hair. he let himself enjoy you before adding another finger inside, hearing a whine coming from you as he opens you up. he moves his head away as he looks at your writhing body on his bed. your thumb moves to his lip as he gives it a suck. while he pushes inside of you with his fingers, he let his kisses focus more on the marks that litter your thighs. taehyun hopes with it, he can help in clearing your head of those thoughts and their traces. he hopes that by the end, he could be an anchor to help you overcome your problems and insecurity.

the grip on his hair tightens more when he exchanged the fingers for his tongue, tasting you more clearly than the wetness staining everything around your slit. he hums as he tastes you, sending shivers around your body that are signaled by the tug from your hand. after moments upon moments of him enjoying you, he pulls away to the sound of you whining. he chuckles at your expression while licking his lips, seeing you pout adorably at him before he smooches the pouty lips. that’s when he met your tongue prodding his lips as he lets you taste yourself as he did with himself before.

“are you ready?” he asked as his eyes focus on you as everything around him blurs out.

“ready.” that’s what makes him turn to his bedside table and open the drawer. he sees the box of condoms his coach bought for him.

“treat her like how you want to be treated. go slowly.” his coach told him as he places the box inside his bag.

taehyun pulls out one packet from the box as he sees you sit up on the mattress, silently nodding as you seem to communicate with yourself. he pulls the condom from the ripped packet when your hand grabs his.

“i learn this from sex ed class…” you murmured as you place the condom right at the head of his cock before rolling it onto his shaft. the rubber on his skin feels strange before you stroke him while fixing the condom. before he hovers above you once again, you spit on your palm and rub them on his covered cock as carefully as possible, he perceives the warmth of your palm against him.

you brought your heels down on the mattress when you lay down, caging him in between your legs. taehyun grabs onto his member when he leans closer to you, eyes conflicting between looking at how you react and finding the hole he has prepared for. your hands stabilizing yourself as you also want to see how it’s done.

“it’s your first time?” you asked him.

“yeah, you?”

“mine too.”

one of your hands reaches down to his as his tip lodges into the hole, hearing your light gasp from the contact. then, he pushes the tip in as slow as he can, eyes noticing your figure laying on his bed. biting your lips and seeing his concerned face, you give a nod at him while glancing downwards.

his palms move to either side of your body as he pushes in and his jaw drops from how tight the grip is. his head drops near yours as he gives kisses along your face before you turn yours to let him meet your lips. the tongues battle one another as the sudden yet small movement makes moans come out from both of you. he cups your cheek when he pulls away.

“you want me to continue?” he questioned as you tried your best to look at how both of your bodies connected, his pelvis nearly meeting yours.

“yes. go all in, taehyun,” you said as you nod your head. the way your hair sprawled on his pillow will always be ingrained in his mind.

the boy’s hands reach for both of your hands as he puts them beside your head and hair. his body leans down and he pushes himself in until the skin of his pelvis meets yours. you clenching your thigh before you lift your legs to wrap them behind him. taehyun gives a long and passionate kiss as he moves slowly, feeling how his cock pulls out and pushes into you.

with the way you react, furrowed eyebrows, and small moans, he tried to not be fast as he does when jacking off. but when your eyes open—all of your attention to him—he sees you licking your lips as the way you clench around him relaxes, letting him slide in and then out. he groaned when your legs pushed into his back, feeling the cold touch of your anklet. one of your hands moves out from his grasp before finding its place on his shoulder.

“can you do more? you feel so fucking good.” your remarks send shivers down his spine as he kisses you, letting your moans and groans swallow each other’s as he moves more. he let himself experiment, from making his thrust faster in pace and letting his cock almost slip out from you, or he moves slower but deeper as he pushes in to make you full. your tight hole now forming to fit him.

“fuck! you’re so tight just for me.” he heard you hum before you grab his nape and brought him down, smashing your lips as your hands moves down his back. the way your nails move on and how he can sense the roughness of your calluses touching his skin. his hands reach for the ankles near his butt and separate them before pushing them near your upper body.

“YES!” you exclaimed. “you, you’re deeper in me. so deep.” you moan out as your walls tighten around him once again from the new position. his lips suck your collarbone as he thrusts in and out of you. your pelvis also moves to meet him.

it went on for minutes before he noticed how tired his arm is holding your legs up and how sore it must be for you. your moans still fill the room when he whispered into your ear, “do you want to be on top?”

your hands reach to cup his face, and the way your eyeliner and eye makeup is smudged around your eyes turns him on as you nodded at him, a smile forming on your face.

“hold on tight,” he said before he wraps his arms around your body and flips both of you around. his muscles contracted from the movement as he tried not to slip out of you while moving. his head rested on his headboard as you give him a peck on the middle of his chest.

“fuck, i like a strong boy who can move me around.” you teasingly said to him before your expression changed. you bite your lips when you sank down on him.

“shit, (y/n)! does it feel like i’m inside you more?” he asked when he pushes into the untouched territory.

“fuck- you did. i feel so full.”

taehyun’s hands move to your hips as you move on him. the new and almost familiar feeling makes both of you moan out more. that is until you move up and down on his shaft, the same sensation of him pushing into you overwhelms him. his hands move to your lower back as you lean against him, arms wrapped behind him as you both make out with you continuing bouncing on his cock, moving away when one of you gasping for breath, moaning or biting each other’s lip. your skin stuck onto his from the sweat as you move to give him his own hickeys like the ones he gave while letting his hand play with your bouncing boobs—yours also playing with his nipples.

“you’re so good for me, right?” he asks as he brought your head to his—forehead touching. his eyes can’t escape yours as you nodded. taehyun grabs onto your lower body as he tries to match the rhythm with his trust. your whines and whimpers are entertaining him as he is to you by how your grip on his muscles and comments on how strong he is to you. when he reaches down to caress your clit once again, your body trembles above him.

“y-you’re gonna make me c-cum.” you whimper as you brought your face as close to him as possible, barely finding your way to his lips. just caressing his as you move makes him grit his teeth. he will gladly be the first boy to make you cum.

“cum for me, my pixie,“ he whispers to your skin as he hears your groan because of it. then, you clench around him so hard that it makes you moan so loud before he lets his mouth onto yours. he felt how your movement slows from the orgasm as he thrusts up, the gush of your release creeps onto his skin as the movement becomes smoother.

“please cum for me too, taehyun.” he listened to you whimper as you moved on his hips once again, stimulating him by making out and your breast moves against his pecs. taehyun lets out a loud groan as he cums with him inside you. the semen drops onto the skin of his cock as it met the condom’s wall. both of you breathe heavily as the sweat on your faces makes your foreheads stick together and now stronger like glue. taehyun’s hands caress your back and butt while yours grips his biceps.

“you’ve done so good.” he heard you comment before rewarding him with a kiss from you.

“gosh, you’re more beautiful.” he breathes out as you wrapped around him once again, snuggling your face with his as he laid both of you down with you on top of him.

you whimpered when he is out of you, he traces the pulsing hole he was inside of as you remind him to clean up. he saw how much of his cum was inside the rubber when he pulls his cock out and tie the condom before throwing it away. while you seem to grab his undershirt to clean yourself and him up. he could pick up your groan when you step onto the floor to put it back on the pile and he accepts you with open arms and a blanket when you lay above him.

“you’ve done so well, (y/n).” he can’t help but please you as you shut him up with a kiss before laying on his pecs. the blanket covers both of your lower parts as your anklet meets the skin of his leg, shivers running down his spine once again.

“i didn’t expect to lose my virginity tonight,” you remarked.

“mine too.”

your smile slowly drops as you caress him, and a sudden melancholy hits him as he realizes how everything changes between the two of you. did all you want was to hook up with him? it didn’t feel like it when you both were kissing and fucking. you would not trust him that much to do that if you felt like it. his mind then wonders to your sisters. are they home yet? are they having fun? he remembers the smile each of them adorns on their faces in juyeon’s van. the first time all of you smile at outside factors rather than within the five of you. he wishes to see that all of them are safe and sound in their lit bedroom while you are in his arm.

but he can’t check when he wants to. your hand moves his head so you can kiss him. the kiss itself seems different from the ones you give to each other. the other time was passionate, lustful, and cheerful too. with this kiss, it seemed like you were trying to communicate. a certain yearning is there resembling the yearning he has for you. he can see how serious you are when you let both of you breathe.

“run away with me.”

his eyes enlarged as he stops caressing you, “what?”

“run away with me, taehyun,” you say breathlessly. he sees how the corner of your lips twisted up. “you’re the only person who ever makes me feel this way. you’re the only boy that ever adored me like how movie couples do. you’re everything that i wanted in a guy and by the looks, how you do to me, and with me, i know you felt the same way.” you then cup his cheek.

“let’s fucking run away together and start a life on our own. it’s us against the world, taehyun.”

taehyun looks at you, stunned. your eyes widen with hope inside of you as he can sense the warmth that it pours out. the way the cracks inside your eyes are slowly fading away, healing themselves with hope.

“i can’t.”

yet, taehyun disagreed.

“i have a life here, (y/n). i have my family, my friends, my home, and my upcoming career in boxing. i, you know, right? you know i can’t just leave them behind?” the boy pours out all the coming words in his mind. your face now hovers above him and not as close as before.

“no, i don’t know that taehyun. i don’t have that many friends and my family. fuck them-“

“what do you mean ‘fuck them’?” he sits up to get closer to you. but you lean away more, both of you sitting on the mattress. “what about your sisters?”

“why do you care about my siste–wait…” your body retracts. “don’t tell me…” you shook your head as you stare at your covered bottom part.

taehyun panics and tried to reach you, but you scoot away even further. he overheard you scoff as you brushed your messy hair out of your face. “of course. why didn’t i think about it?” you giggled before a frown once again formed on your face.

“you’re just like them. you’re just like all the people outside of my family…” you said with gritted teeth.

“i- what do you-“

“of course, you want to hook up with me. you’re exactly like the boys i met before i move here. the people i met every time i walk through the school’s hallways. all of their eyes look at me and my sisters thinking ‘wow, fuck they’re pretty.’ and that’s it. pretty. someone’s eye candy. a pawn for someone to ogle then play, just like what ma do to us. to me. how didn’t i realize it before?”

taehyun’s body steps off the bed as he kneels on the floor by the side of the bed you were in. “no, you misunderstood.”

“if i misunderstood, the first thing that you thought about of me leaving this forsaken place is my sisters? not asking me what my ma did to me? are they also your concern just much as i am? you care for them maybe even more than the sister that is sitting in front of you? oh, that’s not how misunderstood works, silly.” he listened to you chuckle, “it feels weird to think about you pursuing sooyoung or chaewon with how you did to me. but, you know you do that so you can brag on it to your friends, don’t you? ‘i hook up with one of the moon sisters. fuck, she’s great.’“

he froze as he heard you try to mimic how he sound before you continue, “i should have to trust the me that came to your home and warn you. that you’re just gonna see us, gonna see me, as a thing to pursue. to get a taste off.” you lean closer to him. “is it wrong for me to be selfish? is it wrong for me to be like that when i’m living in a family of seven with sisters that are around the same age as you with no privacy?”

“is it wrong for me to be selfish when my mother is an abusive parent towards me and my sisters and i want an escape? is it wrong for me to be selfish and run away with a person who i put my trust in to confide with and even let him take my virginity?” you shook your head as you bit your lips. the way taehyun sees you from his kneeled position, he felt like a follower of a deity who is given a punishment.

“i, i thought that even if with my warning, you pursue me because you like me for me. that you understand me as i thought you are. well, my plan didn’t fucking work.” he can’t help to feel his breaking heart as he heard you sob. the faded cracks in your eyes when he saw you moments ago are more prominent, much more prominent than the ones that haunt him when he first saw you up close.

“if you thought we would go on after this, you lost your chance, taehyun. you lost your chance when you said “no” and miss out on living the best life with the girl who likes and adores you as much as you do her."

with the last sentence, you stepped down from his bed and walk towards where your dress and clothing were. he found out you were whimpering as you walk, imagining how sore you must be as he hears the stomp of your foot on the ground and the zipping of your dress. taehyun wants to stop, he wanted to. but with the fiery near-monologue of yours, he can feel the guilt rising in his chest. yes, he thought you were selfish when you spoke to him about all the reasons you should and why you want to run away with him but not your sisters. what he regretted was that he should’ve seen it coming. chaewon’s bracelets-covered wrists, the way you mention to him how you don’t have pocket money, the cigarette burn marks on your thighs, your first warning to him. you are much more complex than he thought a teenage girl should be. and he was wrong, gosh, was he wrong about his idea on you.

a girl so beautiful, so rebellious, so out-of-this-world and she is also so broken, so depressed that she hurts herself with the thing that helps her pass time.

he listened to the slamming of doors twice as he can finally let out his held breath. taehyun looks outside of the sheer curtain to watch your dark figure running across the street to your house and slip inside the front door. he dims his eyes as the pc hums into his ears, reminding him to turn it off so that it can rest. the sudden bright light slaps him in the face as he met with the cyan-colored desktop wallpaper and when he wants to click on the start button, he takes one look towards the time that he does not track back when he was with you.

midnight.

part 2

taglist: @endzii23 @fluffyywoo @camipendragon @hiqhkey @wccycc @stayzentiny @rebsmoonn @boba-beom @angelbythewindow @ttyunz

#txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt angst #txt smut #txt fluff #txt x reader #taehyun x reader #rsc: troubled pixies #cr: taehyun #cs: txt #sc: regina

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writingmochi · 2 years ago

Text

part 2

cast: taehyun ✗ fem.reader (ft. loona yyxy, txt's hueningkai, and other idols)

genre: coming of age, bildungsroman, slice of life, romance, drama, high school au, late 90s au, angst, a tiny bit of fluff, mature content (explicit smut, suicidal characters, depressive episodes)

based on: movie the virgin suicides (1999)

word count: 19282 (19.2k) out of 52076 (52k)

warning(s): tyun wears glasses AND is an amateur boxer, mentally and physically abusive parent, narcissistic parent, gender discrimination, suicide attempt, self-harm, depression, blood, bruises, explicit sex (semi-rough sex for part 2), protected sex, hand job (m & f receive), oral job (m receive), manhandling, dissolution of marriage (broken home peeps, i get you), mentions of arranged marriage, mention of smoking (cigarettes) (if there is something that i forgot, let me know)

message from the moon: remember that this story is fiction and do be careful and read the warnings at the top. all the idols mentioned here are not what they are in real life.

welcome! this is supposed to be a one-shot but because the word count has reached 50k+ and my tumblr errored because of it, i have no choice but to split them in two. so this is part 2! i know this is the shorter part but you also need to take a rest to because of how heavy the topics are. thank you so much and i hope you enjoy it!

cd mix | wall collage

read part 1 first!

you have no regret as mama slaps your cheek when you arrived back home after crossing the street. the burn on your cheek lingers as you hold back your tears. for you, it’s a reality check that you will get nothing you want as long as you are still in high school and live with them.

you see the various expressions your sisters have on their faces as they see you being berated by the person who gave birth to all of them. nothing screams joy in them. and yet, you defended them and taehyun.

taehyun. yeah, your plan didn’t work, yet you blame yourself for everything that happened tonight. all of you are stuck here, getting the brunt of your matriarch’s untrustworthiness towards the whole idea where she also sets a boundary she didn’t expect all of you could pass.

you told mama it’s your fault you’re still out past curfew, telling her you split up with your sisters and go with your date somewhere else on the school grounds, how you’re bored mingling with people and you converse so much with your date—making you lost track of time. that’s why she doesn’t question the disheveled look of your hair, clothes, and the additional piece of clothing you’re wearing from the colder autumn weather.

after being bombarded with your mama’s sayings, you fled back into your room as a throttle of steps followed you. all of them in their sleepwear with you being out of place—like a black swan in a flock of white ones. you expected that they’ll ask you and guilt you like how mama did, like how you’re doing it to yourself as it eats you up from the inside. your shoulders hunch as you sit on your bed, the dried tears from the corner of your eyes still culminating in new ones that are still producing since the fresh moment from downstairs. you wanted to peer at the house across from you, but you didn’t. you didn’t want to feel like you’d lost.

“hey, you seemed different.” hyejoo is the first to approach you, sitting beside you.

you let out a sigh, shaking your head, and licking your bottom lip before replying, “i’m so sorry i lost track of time with taehyun. you can blame me for whatever thing we might get from my shitty carelessness.”

“we could talk after you cleaned up. your eyeliner is so smudged…” sooyoung commented as she caressed your messy hair. picking up your pyjama from the wardrobe, you gave a tight-lip smile to them before going to the bathroom.

you can see the hickeys taehyun left on you clearer when you clean your make-up by the mirror. the dark spots scatter at the skin between your collarbone and neck while a few are on your chest. fingers pressing against one of them, you close your eyes, returning to that moment with taehyun as your body reacts to the pleasure you remembered. you force yourself to stop from the memory and face the reality of your consequences.

sitting down in a circle inside the nightlight-lit room, you dried your hair with a towel as your sisters tell you stories about what they did with their date. sooyoung and juyeon had an impromptu photoshoot as the king and queen of homecoming for the yearbook club. jiwoo and gyuri sat on the bleachers of the indoor court, conversing about her date’s play with the theater. chaewon and seungmin hung out in the school’s greenhouse—her club’s place. hyejoo and sunwoo played football on the field with the rest of the boys’ team and girls’ team. their guts told them how the night is getting late when they returned to juyeon’s van as it brought them home. you and taehyun disappear. they searched for both of your whereabouts but gave up on it.

as the spotlight turns to you, you gnaw the inside of your cheek before you say, “i tried to pursue him to run away with me.”

escaping has always been the matter you talk about once every month or when one of you thought about it. all of you put together many plans to escape your parents. you recall sooyoung’s plan on working part-time at university to save money so when all of you have graduated, you can move away and try to build your life with her. but, it all changed when your mama pushed sooyoung back one year below her, making her and jiwoo in the same year—and what sooyoung theorizes is how she can control her more. sooyoung was supposed to graduate this year but with that circumstances, she can’t.

“then…” chaewon leans into the conversation.

“i got selfish. i got mad that he focuses on his own life. he got mad that i didn’t care for all of you to run away by myself. he’s-“ you let out a somber smile. “i’m sorry. i plan this without thinking of all of you. i’m tired and angry and i don’t want to live this life anymore until she will let us go. so i made a path myself and i was hoping he’ll come too. if he agreed, i would have wanted to help all of you to leave.”

you sighed, “i also realize how he’s the same as the guys that pursue us, you know? he doesn’t like me for me. he likes me because i’m in a collective with you. i realize how selfish i am because of it. he was the only one who was brave to chase me. so i take it as a challenge of how much he wants to be with me before i realize i fell too deep for him to recognize other factors.”

hyejoo scoffed before she reaches for your hand, “i shouldn’t have mentioned that motherfucker.”

“no, it’s okay. that’s life, right?” you justified yourself and her. she wraps her arm around your shoulder and gives you a small side hug before you noticed her relax. you turn your head towards her to see her eyebrows raised.

“why is there a bruise on your neck?” you realized where she is going, but didn’t react fast enough as you felt hyejoo brushed your hair and moved your head away, letting her see a hickey on the spot she mentioned.

“i knew it!” hyejoo whisper-yelled as your other sisters crawls to you to show the spot.

“that means…” chaewon questioned, representing all of them.

the weight slides down your shoulder and back as you reply, “yes, i had sex with him too.”

even their reaction is making you laugh as they try their hardest to not make a ruckus as your parents are asleep downstairs. but your shoulders are sore from the number of times they shake you to tell them ‘yeah, you had your first time’ and the only one in your sisters who did it.

“how does it feel?” jiwoo asked, her eyebrows wiggling.

“honestly, overwhelming. it is a concoction i can’t summarize.” you remembered the constant praises between the two of you. “he’s great, and he said i’m great, so that’s that.”

you're glad it's a sunday so all of you talk about what you are facing, what you were thinking, what you had experienced, and other topics the entire night. you learned your sisters were also as selfish as you. hyejoo even mention how she wants to run away by herself at the start of the new school year but it’s not right. sooyoung mentioned how she almost had her first time but didn’t. as the moon sets to the west, the stories are stacked. how envious chaewon is of you and hyejoo being the more active one than she is, while jiwoo mentions the attempts she had to ask girls but didn’t do it because she’ll expose herself as a sapphic. all of your thoughts meet one another that night as the sisters resolve their conflicts in the open round-table conversation. you can state that all of you love each other and it’s very unconditional.

you can state that all of you are teenagers who need to experience life.

well, mama disagrees with that.

you stare at the dropping expression on all of your sisters’ faces at the dining table during breakfast—your heart follows too. you look away when you sense the glare landing on the side of your face. the shame growing inside your heart joint with the drooping of your eyelids as all of you took an all-nighter to talk.

it happens way too fast; you thought. mama’s stories she shares at the table somehow make you feel more guilty, how she said she would be at a school dance with her date and having her nanny with her to grab her food and drink, saying that she never forgets the curfew her parents give. she also cites chaewon as the one that is like her—not mentioning the other three sisters that also arrive home before curfew too. chaewon’s face turns from shock to a frown as mama continues to ramble about how an irresponsible child you are to her. your hands were on your lap when you felt another grasp on one of yours, hyejoo sitting next to you, subtly fuming.

your rebel of a sister explodes after hearing that mama will quit all of your after-school clubs, enrolling all of you back in ballet and musical instruments classes once again.

it happens way too fast when monday comes. you stared at your sisters in your similar-looking uniforms as mama brought you all to school for the first time when she will quit your sisters from the school clubs. it’s weird to see all of you wear the same style, knowing that all of you are inherently different. hyejoo’s wearing more than enough hair tie on her wrists that it battles the bracelets chaewon wears, but you know she’ll be aware of the pain later in the day.

they felt it too as mama’s warning to stay within the five of you the whole day—still ringing in all of your minds. your sisters stayed silent when they come across their former dates. a few of your sisters even spoke to them to leave them alone. when you witness it, you can’t help the guilt eating up inside you as your sisters give small smiles when returning to your crowd of five.

your hands continue picking on your nails as it jitters, imagining a cigarette stick between your fingers and how you tap the ash away as it fell onto the gravel. but mama will rage more if she can smell the recognizable scent from either you or hyejoo. so you both had a truce to stop smoking for the foreseeable future. though with your sisters’ club items being banned, your personal items aren’t as you still allow to bring your discman, but with a twist that you will hear orchestral music around mama if she’ll asked you to let her hear what you’re listening.

your eyesight glance between the hands on your desk to the open door of the classroom as you see the last person you want to see.

taehyun.

you looked at kai nudging his elbow at the boy as he stopped to look towards you. the world comes into a pause as you notice how tired he looks from his enormous eyes. you wanted to comfort him, but your mind lets you recall the conversation at night. you roll your eyes before looking towards the window beside you, glad that you sat with no seatmate.

after school, you went to the ballet classes that hyejoo still joins until this day. the teacher was in shock when she sees hyejoo introducing you and your other sisters—saying that you are going to join them. it feels weird to relearn the ballet positions again as the last time you remember going into the class was at age 7 when mama lets you learn classical guitar. you hear how your joints cracked from the moves as you stare at the dance floor with hyejoo dancing, all of your sisters’ backs leaning against the mirror wall as you study the other much more advanced ballerinas that are your age.

after ballet class when all of your sisters are asleep, you return to your usual routine of sneaking to your older sisters’ room to watch the new law and order: special victims unit episode, seeing how detectives elliot stabler and olivia benson solve the crimes; even with you joining in theorizing. you were glad that both of them are heavy sleepers, curling into the sweater you’re using. but tonight, you didn’t wear your usual striped sweater. you’re wearing the sweater you brought back home on that fateful night everything changed.

your mind recalibrates itself when you go back to learning classical guitar, not saying much to your teacher as you’re scared that they’re going to tell your mama about the problems you could accidentally expose to them. but as the lesson goes on, the way you pick the strings made of nylon and how enjoyable it is playing the guitar comes back to you. and you’re hoping that it last until your torture ends.

everything seems to find its place a week in. ballet dance class on monday and thursday, classical guitar class on tuesday and friday. mama said she’s not going out on wednesdays to oversee you all cleaning the houses. your usual chore of washing the dishes has now increased with another chore of washing your parents’ cars. you stole a glance at papa who is looking at his pager, still curious about why he cried on homecoming night but seems to be more emotionless as the day goes in the week.

the next monday, mama didn’t bring you to school as she does. instead, papa does. the weather itself is getting colder as is nearing the middle of october when you’ve been given permission to use outerwear for school so you don’t get sick. mama, who is on a “trip” with her friends, left the house to papa alone. as you sat in the middle of the dodge caravan he uses—the less of the two cars your parents own—you steal glances at your papa from the rearview window. the words are rising in you as you can’t help to vomit them out.

“pa…” you were the first in that entire drive to speak. “why did you cry when we went to homecoming?”

sooyoung, who sat in the front seat, turns her head to papa as you could see how the only man in the car is looking at the road and not at his daughters.

“it’s okay, papa…” you continue to glance at the rearview mirror as you could not back down, rubbing your hands with each other in the sweater paws. “it’s okay to cry. to cry is a human experience.”

papa stayed silent until the car arrives at school—you didn’t expect a reply anyway from your silent dad as he stayed that way most of the time. the only time he emote was when you saw him cry that evening.

you and your sisters part ways as you brought yourself to the bathroom. splashing away your face with cold water, you stare at yourself from the reflection. you notice the corner of your eyes has drooped more rapidly than you expected and how sunken it has been from the dark circles becoming darker. you held the pain of the icy water running down your fingers, burning the open wounds on each finger from the picking you had done as you pick not only the edge of your fingernails any more. your eyes glance down at the sweater that you wear as you brush them down, the color is the same as the blood that is drying up around your nails. your mind wondering if someone in class would notice how different your sweater is from your usual.

that indeed happened when you arrived at class and heard the audible gasp behind the wall of music you’re listening to from the headphones you are wearing. surprise is something you expected because you are wearing his sweater right now.

taehyun stares at you in his burgundy sweater as you walk to your desk. he wore a hoodie that you’ve never seen before but you recognize it deep down: he felt out of place without his burgundy sweater. your eyesight catches him behind the glasses as he stares at you. his face sits in a resting position that if anyone doesn’t know him may look intimidating. maybe he intends to intimidate you.

a folded paper arrived at your desk as you were writing notes in your notebook—preparing to compare it with your siblings. the paper was ripped from the corner of a notebook as you recognized the lines. you open the paper to find a message written with a thin pen.

meet me at your usual wall at recess - tyun

your eyes lifted to see him glancing behind his shoulder before he faces back to the front of the class. biting your lips, you slip the note inside your skirt pocket before returning to focus on the writings on the board.

picking your nails, you leaned your head against the brick wall near the field—sometimes the side of your fingers still rubs with one another as you expected a certain smoking cylinder. the shrugs from the moving gravel enter your ears as you turn to meet the boy of the moment.

“taehyun…”

“(y/n)…” he follows you and leans his upper body against the wall.

“what makes you want to meet me?” you chuckle, already knowing what he will say.

“you’re,” he licks his lips, “wearing my burgundy sweater.” taehyun replies, hands in his pockets, making his upper body appear much buffer than you remembered. but you observed how hunched his body is. cowering. “and i want it back.”

“it’s a memento for what we did that night.” you playfully said as you rub yourself with the clothing. “besides, it’s so soft.”

“give it back.” he snarled as you looked towards him, seeing how his eyes squint behind his glasses. his fang-like teeth give a threatening look. different from that night. different from that day. different from the first time you two met.

“make me.” you crossed your arms in front of your chest. you pay attention to how his face reacts as he looks at your face, his eyes then wander to your chest where your hands are resting above the arms, covered with the sweater paws. but the wind is blowing enough air to meet the open wounds you create. you wince as your nerve signals the injury to your brain.

“did you hurt yourself again?” he catches you as you see the exposed fingernails from the sweater. you wanted to hide from him. you didn't want him to see the pain you haven't let out to him on his mattress. but he caught them before you sucked them into you; before it sunk under the surface that is your face and body language. so, you nod and scoffed.

“everything changes so fast in a week. we could’ve been outside the town. just the two of us, you know. instead, ma’s fucking us up more.” you glance back at him. “i guess. this sweater will be a reminder for me of how it could be and how my mind was turned whatever degree they have turned. muddling up what i know about me, about my surroundings, and about you.” you give out a huge exhale before facing away from him, facing forward once again.

“you’re-“ taehyun paused. “you can’t just steal my belonging?!”

“so what? i did right.” you turn back towards him, stepping one foot forward closer. “or in your mind.” another step forward.

“no girls are brave enough to do it?” you hummed, tilting your head. “you always assume girls to be as quirky, as innocent, as easily control, huh? well, change your mind, silly. ‘cause this is how the world is.”

“then what about you?” he retaliates, turning his body. you stumble backwards before putting your hand on the wall to stabilize yourself.

“not everything should be revolving around you, right? i admit i adore you. i still fucking am. but your proposal to ask me to run away with you will not be the right way, (y/n).” taehyun rolls his eyes before continuing. “any guy would love to take you away: making you his. but i’m not like that ‘cause this is how the world is.”

you gritted your teeth as he threw your words against you. taehyun steps closer, making your body touches the brick wall once again. “you’re like me. thinking all boys are the same. thinking all the boys will treat you the same way you have been treated.” he nods as you stare into his eyes.

his large, vivid eyes staring down inside your soul. you see him shaken by your words and his realization of you and himself. it happens too fast when both of you lean forward, connecting your lips together.

his hand moves towards your waist, gripping the sweater you’re wearing, as you wrapped your hands beneath his underarm, pushing his shoulder blades forward as you heard a thud beside your ear. one of his hands holding him against the wall and you in between the two surfaces. the feverish sensation crawls back under your skin as your lips, tongue, and teeth clashed with each other so much that you can feel saliva dripping down the corners of your mouth.

pulling back and seeing a string of saliva connecting the two of you, you both breathe, making yourself steady with taehyun fixing his disarrayed glasses frame. his hand still sits beside your head as you both stare at each other, both of you are shaken up by the whole interaction.

ring!

the bell broke both of your trance as you slip out of his hold. his touch lingers at the end of the sweater as you walked backward, facing him.

“still a no for giving your sweater back, silly.”

and you disappear, leaving taehyun with a smirk on his face.

while your pain returns and lingers—stagnant for another two weeks, mama has become more of a helicopter mom you are aware many of the children in your social class have. the height of the plates you washed seemed to lower each day as you came back from your guitar and ballet lesson. your eyes linger on chaewon who took care of the backyard garden from the window, her dress’ end covered with manure and dirt which mama doesn’t allow herself to approach. then to sooyoung and her vacuum cleaner scrambling to both floors as the noise pierces your ears. they continue to hyejoo who is hanging the clothes that came out from the washing machine. lastly, to jiwoo who is dusting and putting the clutter back in its place—you saw her put the pillow back on the sofas. mama oversees everything as sits with her legs outstretched and a cup of tea by her side. papa is at work, working his ass off so you all could live and survive.

it continues just like that until halloween night.

the sound of children screaming around the street in the night sky is deafening as you and hyejoo stare outside of the window in your eldest sisters’ room. you touched the bruise on your cheek as you dared to ask your mama if you can trick or treat tonight. your sisters stare at it in horror before she’s the one that storms away at night, wearing a fancy dress as if she’s also going to a halloween party. papa also sees the incident before he and mama went back into their room. you overheard her booming yet unclear voice from behind the wall before he left first, then she did.

your nails play on the end of your turtleneck shirt’s long sleeve, hearing the scratch of the fabric as you stare down at your all-black ensemble for your costume as olivia benson from special victims unit.

you took a glimpse at hyejoo in her veronica sawyer from heathers costume as she tucks her blazer before walking back to the room. chaewon’s dazed gaze at the box-shaped tv is more pronounced with her juliet from romeo + juliet outfit complete with her wings as jiwoo reaches for her in an outfit that if you look close enough looks like her regular outfit but it’s her ginger spice costume. sooyoung sits in front of the tv as she lets out a sigh, her open palm trembling as she looks at each of you who she styled while she is in her cher from clueless costume. your oldest sister has tried her best to make your costume as exact as possible with the limited pieces of outfits all of you have. you heard her change the tv channels a few times before landing on one.

returning your head to the window, you stare one last time at the crowded streets full of children and pre-teens, as no other teens live here except for the one across from you.

speak of the devil, the front door of the house opens to see mrs. kang puts a plastic pumpkin bowl full of sweets and a cowboy-costumed taehyun with a space ranger-costumed kai went out. taehyun’s head turns towards your window when the door shuts behind him. kai seems to talk to him as they face the scattered crowds of people in costume. you can only let out a small smile you hope he catches as you close the window and curtains, facing the screen to spot addams family values playing on the tv. you sat beside jiwoo, resting your head against her shoulder as you watch the macabre family unit that is so united you don’t know how to classify your own.

your unfulfilled food cravings combine with your body that hasn’t had a proper rest making you collapse into a deep sleep only ten minutes into the movie. when you wake up, the only source of light closest to you is the running device—outside sources help your eyes adapt faster. the tv is playing a rerun of an older sitcom when you sit up on the floor, seeing the silhouettes of your sisters. the sound of excitement is now gone when you could only hear grasshoppers outside. stretching your body, you stand up from your position to see that your sisters have fallen asleep, except you only counted three and identify them as the three oldest.

you heard floorboard creaks as you walk to your own room, hoping your other triplet is asleep in her bed. the door opens to the beds arranged for the three of you, but no silhouette is there before you close the door.

“hyejoo…?” you called her name but the hallways stay silent. so silent that you can catch the gush of the wind blowing inside the crevices. following where it comes from, you arrived at the open laundry area with the ladder to the roof, and the hatch above it is ajar. the thing that contrasts your memory of the room is the blazer on top of the washing machine, the blazer you recognize hyejoo wore before. you decided and climb up the ladder.

the darkness almost blinds you as you let the outside light makes you adapt. you called for your sister’s name once again but not as loud as before, hoping not to cause a disturbance for the sleeping children. when you approached the front of the house at the roof, that’s when you meet a silhouette, the air blowing the ends of the hair and oversized shirt as you watch the body moving closer to the edge.

“moon hyejoo!” you exclaimed as the person named turned her head slowly. the moon reflects the conflict in her eyes.

“don’t step closer.” she reaches her hand out and sniffles. you gnaw your lip as you also reach both of your hands out, stopping whatever she’s trying to do.

“don’t move…” you speak as you see her shaking her head, the sniffles getting heavier as she looks beyond the raised edge of the roof she stood on.

“i’m fucking tired of living this life, okay? i just…” she sighs, pulling her hand down to be beside her body once again. “i want to give up. we’re too tied up with her bullshit. i wanna be free, (y/n). i wanna do what i wanna do.”

“i know.” you step closer, seeing her anklet refract the light along with yours, dimmer because of her position, creating a shadow in front of you. “but we all promise to stick together, right? we made a pact that we have to live and die together.”

hyejoo looks down at her anklet as she nods, “and we’re gonna make one of us mad if we didn’t fulfill our promise.”

“that’s right. you can talk it out with us as a collective. believe me, all of us are tired too.” you took a step closer to her as she doesn’t push you to stay back anymore. “who’ll be our front-line offense if we revolted together?”

“of course it’s me.” hyejoo chuckles as steps forward to the roof instead of the ledge. “you all won’t survive mother’s torment without me berating her back.”

“exactly.” you were a few meters away from her. “then we’re gonna cherish every time we have together, okay? all five of us?”

as she nods, you grab her from the platform at the ledge into a warm bear hug. you sense your turtleneck getting wetter as she let her heart out. brushing her hair and swaying to calm her. your eyesight sticks to the unfamiliar view of the surrounding houses from above. that’s how your sight stays on one specific porch.

taehyun stood by his front door with his front face towards you. his cowboy hat tucked beneath his underarm as you stop swaying and focus on caressing your sister instead. his stare lingers on you, goosebumps growing on your skin as you cannot tell what he is thinking—only his piercing gaze.

he must’ve seen everything.

you let out a smile that might be hard for him to see. but when he enters his house, you’re feeling as if he understood what you’re communicating to him.

yet, your trance disappears as you picked up the screech of a vehicle before you lean closer to the ledge, seeing the dodge caravan hot with how papa just arrived back home. he stumbles out of the car before slamming the door shut. hyejoo leans away as she looks down at you, papa stumbling his way in before he disappeared underneath the platform from the second floor.

“is pa okay?” you asked her, seeing her brushing her tears away.

“he’s definitely not. if he is as intoxicated as i think he is, he can’t open the front door.”

the two of you arrived at the first floor. you opened the door to find your papa leaning against the door before stumbling inside with hyejoo helping to prop him up. you almost gagged at the unfamiliar stench of alcohol reeking from him. his eyes not fully shut might mean he’s not 100% unconscious, clearer with his sudden murmur.

“hye… (y/n)…” he mumbled as you both help him bring himself into the master bedroom. you heard hyejoo grunt as you let go of the weight to push the door open. it’s a rarity for you to enter your parents’ room as mama doesn’t allow you to be in there. when you realize it, most of the items are hers. it sickens you that your papa’s personality isn’t being shown enough. but when you consider it, papa’s origins are unknown as mama’s the only one that told stories of her life before having kids, giving papa no chance whatsoever. pulling his shoes off, you both push him onto the bed. when you thought he has settled and you jut your chin towards the door so both of you can leave, you overheard the man talking.

“kids…”

it has been a long time since he called you that and it makes your body freeze. hyejoo and you turn around to see your papa leaning against the pillow, an unrecognizable smile on his face that combines something warm and cold at the same time.

“i’m, i’m sorry…” he hiccups as his head almost fell asleep before he jolts awake, but only lasted for around 30 seconds.

“i, i will try- to get a bet, better future for… us…”

as papa fell asleep, you look towards hyejoo as she gives you a shrug, the tear tracks on her cheek make you gesture so she can clean it. papa hasn't spoken to his daughters in a long time. the family picture photo shoot was the last time you remembered it. your steps become slower as hyejoo went up the stairs, leaving you alone to look at the portrait of your family from nine years ago.

“put on your greatest smile, kids!” you recalled him said. yet, you could see the suffering of you and your sisters as they crawled up the frame of the portrait. and, you seem to believe papa now realizes it too as the few of the first things he sees each time he came out of his slumber is the reminder of how his daughters' lives are deteriorating.

nothing interesting happened since halloween and entering the eleventh month of the year, well if you count mama’s much more prominent sob stories at the dining table interesting. you gazed between chaewon and hyejoo, having the triplet connection to talk with facial expression, realizing that what she talked about is her earlier stories but more elaborate and dragging.

you nibble your bottom lip while watching the street passing by in the morning sky. papa’s turn to take you to school as mama is sleeping her ass off after they both went to a gathering. hyejoo’s the one in the front seat as the radio plays the hits of 1999, dido‘s “thank you“is now playing in the caravan‘s speaker.

you sometimes catch how papa took a glimpse behind his driver’s seat in the vacant street of the neighborhood. how, little by little, he almost resembles his children. sunken eyes, a frown that stays on too long, his wrinkles getting more prominent along with slight white hair growing from the roots on his scalp. your headphones hanging around your neck with your backpack straps on and the discman strap hanging on one shoulder as the quiet ride to school continues.

stepping out of the car, you all greet your papa goodbye as he looks at you proudly before he goes to his work in his not-prime condition today. putting on the headphones on your ears, you brush your cool hands against the burgundy sweater that you almost called yours after a month of holding onto it—pressing the play button to play cd mix #12 once again after already playing since #1.

the door of the class opens with you as you step inside, seeing your classmate giving small smiles because you didn’t indulge in any of their gossip to make them care about you anymore—you wanted to fade into obscurity and you hope it’s working. seeing the open space beneath you from the window reminds you of hyejoo’s attempt, how it’s almost laughable that she thought of the same ways to end things as you—how you thought about if you openly ended your life at this specific window from your seat. your eyes glance back to the front when the teacher is coming into class and one last peek at the glasses-wearing boy who sits a few rows in front of you.

rubbing your tummy that is full of lunch after you gather at your usual tree trunk, you let out a yawn and stretch your palms from how tired they are from playing your guitar. the chipped pointer fingernail reminds you how you strum along to the music from your cd mix as you don’t have a pick. the class is empty as people still took a rest and eat lunch before the last periods of today’s school day.

you pulled out your discman, unwrapping your headphones before putting them on. naturally, you rub the ridges of the button to turn the device on before moving to the play button. the sound of guitar playing coming from your headphon- wait…

you’ve never heard this song before.

the seat you’re sitting is your place. the discman that you’re hearing from is your discman. but the song differs from the mix you brought from home. putting the song on pause, you take the device in your hand before opening the lid. a silver cd that resembles the ones you have there, but this is different and that’s when you raised your eyebrows as you read it.

to my moon pixie, y/n

cd mix #✰

luna - the smashing pumpkins

hey - pixies

child psychology - black box recorder

little trouble girl - sonic youth

venus as a boy - björk

…

you counted 10 curated songs in the mixtape, some you’ve heard, some you recognize the artist, and some you didn’t know. your callused hand reaches to rub the marker on the burned cd. then, your eyesight scans the last set of written words at the bottom of the circle.

you want to watch me in my boxing match? reply through aim, kay? - your silly boy

taehyun’s fingers fidget with his ballpoint, flipping it all over his hand. his stare switches between his homework and the interface of the messenger with two windows open. one window is the chat room he has with kai that stays open—the last message is about him finishing playing goldeneye 007. the other window shows the members list, people he has added on aim as each second one of them switches from online to offline, and vice versa.

yet, his eyes are stuck on one screen name that always switches on and offline. moon12345.

the bandage he wore for sparring for his upcoming match rested near the back of the desk as his mind is slowly stepping back from the homework. he doesn't know if his plan will work. he and kai scrambled to the nearest music store from here to find the right songs to put in your cd mix. with his parents leaving him once again at home—still sad as they could not see their son compete—he needed at least one person to be by his side. he asked kai to come with him before his friend reminded him that this is the perfect opportunity for him to ask you.

“i can’t ask her. she fucking hates me.”

“how do you know that?” kai chuckled as they both walk around the street. the green and purple color of his buzz lightyear costume shine from the streetlights. both of their basket full to the brim with candies and chocolates.

“well… she won’t return my sweater.”

“and i’ll do the same if you and i are fighting.” kai sarcastically rolls his eye before tipping the hat on taehyun’s woody costume up.

“you’ve said to me you’ve changed.”

“i did and i am.” taehyun reiterated.

“you change your ways of thinking because of her, right? how you can’t expect what someone thinks because of what they are? how she is more than just a cool girl for you?” kai tilts his head, with taehyun sighing and nodding afterwards.

“don’t you want to tell her?” kai responded, “like you said to me before, she’s hurting in there. if you truly adore her, do you want to drag her away for a night?”

taehyun lets out a scoff as he brushes his hat off his head. “everything changes way too fast.”

“so did us. i mean, i do. i didn’t even think of having a fucking significant other this fast and i certainly don’t believe i got one faster than you. especially counting how long you have been pining for this girl.” kai comments on his new partner, making taehyun giggle as he brushes his dark hair, almost obscure to the dark sky above him.

the boy reflected on it once again. his friend is correct. how would you learn he changed if he doesn’t show it to you? the last conversation both of you had showed that you and he are flawed. both of you let your biases affect how you think.

“okay, i’ll do it,” taehyun exasperated as kai’s face turns to glee before he returns to his thoughts, eyebrows now furrowed.

“but?” his friend squints his eyes.

“how am i gonna do this?” the boy sighs as he looks at the children walking in their costumes, some are eating the sweets they got. “she seems more closed off ever since she broke her curfew, which, i know, my fault with that too. i haven’t seen her go outside again in the evenings and even if i have the moon sisters on my list, she’s typically not the one to chat on aim. in our homecoming chat room, she didn’t even write a single word. even if the moon sisters�� screen name is online, how would i know it’s her?”

kai nodded and said, “then, what is always in her mind? what does she always have with her?”

taehyun’s head lifted as he fixed his glasses, carefully pulling his hand down as he realize what his best friend mean.

“her discman and cds.”

taehyun has listened to music he has never listened to before to make a cd mix for you. as your taste is vague, he didn’t know which genres were the right ones to give to you. but he hopes it’s enough to get your attention.

he shook his head at the thought as he does his homework, hearing the tv in the living room where his parents are watching a movie. his mind transcends to the notebook he’s writing in—a few pages before it was the same page he ripped to give you a message. the words he got from reading and listening have been collected in his brain so he can do his homework as best as he can. rubbing his hand because of how tired he is at writing, he felt the calluses that grow on his knuckles from the training.

taehyun leans his head against his hand that is propped on the desk, lulling to one side as sleep tries to capture him in their bed. the boy’s eyelids are getting heavier and heavier and when he wrote the last word for his homework, he seemed like he could sleep in peace. so he rested his head on the hand, letting it hold him as gravity can’t pull it to fall. he’s too tired to climb back into his bed where his gym bag still sits.

that’s when he heard a chime from his pc.

pushing the glasses back up, he searches for the chat room on the desktop. yet, penguinkai said nothing in the chat room. he then looks to the other window and finds a screen name highlighted. he clicks the name as quickly as possible and a chat room opens.

moon12345: hey stranger, it’s (y/n)

moon12345: great recommendations you gave me

moon12345: would love to see you beat your opponent ;)

taehyun lets out a chuckle, looking at the small shine from one window on the second floor of the house across. the chime comes in and out until midnight as they both talked, talked about everything he could think of like how’s the homework and you asking him how he found the songs he put on the cd. the topics you two talked about are even deeper than he expected to talk to anyone other than kai or his family.

K_Tyun: hows ur nails?

the screen paused as the light pierces into his eyes. he’s glad he turned on his nightlight before so it doesn’t hurt his eyes more.

moon12345: healing

moon12345: not all of me though…

K_Tyun: whatd u mean?

taehyun looks out the window again before looking down at how he sees only one car is at the carpark. the dodge caravan which he sees your father drive.

moon12345: kinda wanna blame you for this

moon12345: i guess it’s my fault too

moon12345: ma’s getting harsher day by day

moon12345: i mean

moon12345: you saw hyejoo almost killing herself, right? before i saved her?

the boy nods his head, expecting you to know his answer before he heard the clack on his keyboard and types down his message. he waited for a few seconds to pass before he sees the minute number changing once again before you answer.

moon12345: then i’m glad you’re taking me out

moon12345: it felt weird to know my sisters chatting with their friends here when i don’t have one

moon12345: so… thanks… i guess…

he lets out a giggle as he replied.

K_Tyun: urwell

K_Tyun: dont forget my sweater at the match

moon12345: i won’t forget it, i promise

moon12345: i might just give it back if you win :)

when the day of the match comes, taehyun warms his body up under unknown nervousness. the match was in another town and he’s scared you could not come because of it, knowing how harsh your mother has been in your own words.

he always seemed confident each time he competes, remembering how he won a podium place back in elementary school and how he fought his match between that and this match. remembering his parents and sister’s cheers by the sideline before it changes to kai and his boxing club friends. he looks at his friends that are also in the match and their varying results. some cried and others were ecstatic with their results.

“you ready?” his coach asked as he puts his hand on his shoulder, rattling his body to wake him up inside the locker room. taehyun nods as he looks away, but he felt his head move from his jaw to face the coach.

“you don’t look okay. what’s on your mind?” he questioned.

“the girl i told you about. she’s going to be here.”

“then impress her.” the coach’s fiery gaze transfers to him.

taehyun stood up from his seat, body all warm up, emotions all over the place as his coach puts on his robe before bringing him into the ring where hundreds of people are focusing on him. he ignores the flashes from cameras that litter the large room like stars in the sky, eyes focusing to the ring as he sees his opponent. a tad bit bigger than him by height but skinnier—makes sense to him that they’re in the same weight class.

after sitting in one corner of the ring, he sees his coach and his assistant putting on vaseline along his face and exposed body. the cold substance is rubbed on his skin so that he won’t be as battered as he hope he was not. he drank a few sips of water before he puts on his mouthguard. the surrounding crowd is blurry without his glasses, but he could view his opponent’s figure. nothing that reminds him of you caught his attention.

i won’t find her now, he thought.

as the round starts, he holds his guard position as both boxers move in the ring. taehyun is known to have great stamina by his coach and peers—he hopes it will persist him until the end. he heard loud cheers from the side that he recognizes before the opponent gives a right hook, which he successfully dodge before giving a jab, hitting the opponent’s torso but slipping because of the lubricant he uses. as much as he tried to focus, he has times when his stare at the crowd linger too much that his opponent notices. where are you?

as it enter the sixth round, taehyun felt his head getting heavier—the wounds on his body are aching him. the scores are even but the overwhelming sensation of getting punched, blocking, and avoiding gets a toll on him. the vaseline with another concoction that is added to put on his open wound helps it as only droplets of blood is on his skin. he looks out of the ring again, searching for you as fast as he can, hearing the sound of his opponent’s punch. his coach is yelling from the side, telling him to stay focused. but his body struggling is to breathe and stand up, his blurry vision getting blurrier than what is his prescription. a force pushes against his cheek before his body follows.

bam!

thud!

his opponent gave a hook and knocks him down. the referee counts down as the room moves so slowly from his perspective. the people that gathered around the ring made a commotion, he recognize a few of his club friends with looks of concern as the opponent looks at him from above, letting out a smug smile. all his eyes can focus on is outside the ring.

1…

2…

blood is running down his nose as he tried to prop himself up…

3…

“KANG TAEHYUN!!”

he looks at where the voice came from. a familiar voice piercing from the crowd.

4…

he sees someone wearing burgundy struggling to come to the front of the crowd towards the ring. taehyun’s eyes widen more, making him push himself more, hands fumbling to hold himself upright.

5…

the figure is blurry as it tries to pry itself to the front of the crowd. when the figure stood near where his friends are, he finally realized who are they…

you. you who is wrapping your hands around your front as you see him trying to stand up. a sudden smile now grows on his bruised face.

6…

he knows you’re here, and he will not let you down. he pushes more to stand up, moving his feet so it stabilized him as he straightens his legs…

7…

he erects from the floor and stood in his stance again, head lolling as he brushes the blood away that flooded from his nose. the sound of the bell ring and he moves around again, getting a surge of energy to continue until the end of the round 15 seconds later. a few jabs and hooks hurt the opponent.

the bell rings signaling the end of the round as his coach and his assistant crawl up to the ring and give him his water bottle while wiping his face with the towel, and giving him a small ball of tissue for his bloody nostril. they put the vaseline combo on his skin again so that it helps him and his wounds more.

“you did well there.” his coach says, shaking his body and arms so it doesn’t go numb.

“no, i’m sorry, my mind got into a bit of a haze back there.” taehyun replied after taking out his mouthguard. the coach nods as he knows what the boy meant as he sees the burgundy figure approaching closer to his corner. taehyun’s eyes set on you as his coach turns to meet you in the flesh.

“you must be the girl…” he said as you turn towards him, tilting your head while taehyun shrugged.

“yeah, she is.” taehyun looks at his coach, still huffing. “can she-“

“yeah, she can.” the coach permitted you to get into the ring, nodding at you as you climb in. you were holding onto a messenger bag where its strap goes across your chest and pipe jeans with sneakers on.

“i’m so sorry, it’s- fuck. it’s a long story.” you hugged him, not caring about how sweaty he is as he stay still before you lean back.

“no, it’s okay. you’re here now.” he looks up to meet you. the way the lights that shine on the ring now illuminate your figure but obscure your face so only he could see. you wear wearing pretty smoky eye makeup with your winged eyeliner. his gloved hand comes to touch your side as he brushes it against his burgundy sweater you’re wearing. he tried his best, but blood seems to rush down to his lower part—he wants to rip it off of you. his coach taught him to not relieve himself before a match, but he felt the frustration even more when you’re here.

taehyun closes his eyes and feels the chills on his skin when you kiss his forehead. your lips linger there as you brush his dark bangs away. his enlarged eyes uncovered looking into yours, seeing something new other than your cracked vase. a fixed vase as your eyes wrinkle.

“i know that you can beat him. i didn’t know shit about boxing but i almost saw you knock him down. so i believe you can…” you replied. taehyun looks at you, smiling from cheek to cheek, and he stood up so he can hug you again.

“you want to take this sweater from me, right? then beat him.”

you whispered in his ear, pulling yourself away from him to go outside of the ring. the coach gives him his mouthguard back as the bell rings, starting the seventh round.

his mind is much clearer as he throws punches, jabs, and hooks as best as he can. his abs muscles are aching for being such an easy target, but he prevails, knocking him back or even more. and at round nine, he notices his opponent swaying and his energy depleted. that’s when taehyun punches him and knocks him down, his chest rises and falls while everyone counts along with the referee.

taehyun’s gaze stays on his opponent—who doesn’t struggle much—then stand to you, who stood beside his coach. your eyes caught his as you give a slight pout, hearing the count rounding to 10 in 3… 2…

ding ding ding!

taehyun sensed how his body almost knocks down by his peers, hugging him like how he did to them in the earlier matches. his head facing the ceiling to breathe out before seeing you let out a grin he hasn’t seen in a long time. as the referee raises his hand, he can feel hands reach for him, saying how well he has done and how he qualified for the next round. taehyun brought himself to his opponent, and compose him before they both hugged. as he turns to see you, the thought of things he’ll do with you is slowly moving forwards.

“hey, coach. can i go to the hotel first?” he said when he recognized his coach wrap his arm around the boy’s shoulder. the coach squints his eyes before mumbling “teenagers“, making taehyun chuckle as the man lets him go.

“your room key is in your locker with your bag.” the coach says as he nods before leaving him. taehyun steps down from the ring and wraps his gloved hand around one of your forearms as he brings you away from the sea of people.

“where are we going?” you replied got muffled by the velcro strap he ripped open in the hallway, pulling the glove off by biting the rubber.

“you’ll see. wait for me here, gonna grab my bag.” you stay beside the door he went in like he wanted as he arrives at the locker he was assigned to and put on a hoodie he wears as a replacement for his sweater, changing into his usual shorts from his boxing one. seeing the key as he pulls his bag out, he puts it in the pocket before closing it and grabbing the strap.

from the crowded and warm room full of people, the night breeze greets both of you. taehyun sense the cold from it as his sweat is still sticking onto his skin, weakening him with the breeze. both of you walk in the street of the unknown town to the hotel he and his club has checked in.

“why are you so quick, tyun?” you giggled before he stops you, holding onto both of your shoulders while you bite your bottom lip.

“just, it’s that i haven’t jerked off in weeks. coach’s order. but seeing you in my sweater is making me…”

“you called me here to fuck?” your eyes squint.

“not like that. it’s just a side effect-“ he hisses as he moves his body, especially after being reminded of how bruised his body is after the match.

“we’ll talk it out on the way to the hotel.” you cut him off, nudging towards him before he took both of you away.

when you both enter the hotel and pass the lobby to go to the elevator, he stood right across from you when you open your mouth, asking, “you’ve changed, right?”

“define change.” he challenges.

“what we talked about before at school and in the chat room.”

“i hope so, you?”

“my sentiment also,” you quickly replied before stepping closer to him. “i’m not going to lie here. you look hot in the ring…”

taehyun chuckles, “you said you wanted to wait for me to patch up first…”

“you started it, now i can’t think of it.” you close the gap between the two of you as you whisper, “think of it like my appreciation to you for winning that match.”

taehyun quickly leans forward and captures your lips in his as the door of the elevator opens and he dragged you to the hotel hallway in the room's direction. as you both reached there, he felt your hands wrapped around his front, back hugging him as he opens the door.

“this room is for you alone, right? no roommate.” your chin pressed down his back muscles as he inserts the key in.

“i was supposed to be here with kai but he back down cause he has a new partner he wants to have dates with.” he picked up your gasp right as he turn the key and heard the door unlocked.

“really? ho-“

he pulled you in and pushed you against the door as its close, enclosing you in between his arm as he slotted the key back in and lock the door. “we can talk about this later, yeah?”

you giggled as you caressed his hair, brushing away the sticky hair while nodding. after pulling off your shoes and socks, he brought you into the room to see the two single beds as he puts his bag on the one closest to the door—you follow him. his hands found the end of his sweater that looks different because of you wearing it. hands rested on his nape as he caress your covered skin underneath the sweater, letting him kiss them every time he turns his head.

your arms stretch above you as he pulls his sweater off of you, seeing you dressed in a black muscle tank that fits your torso as he put the sweater on the occupied bed. “your turn to have layers, huh?” taehyun teasingly asked.

“not my intention. it’s just what happened,” you smirk as you lean in and kiss him more and deeper. your hands are reaching for his abdomen when he winces, making you lean back. “too hard?”

“yeah…”

you brought him to sit on the other bed as you pulled your jeans off, making him see the anklet he hasn’t seen in a long time. he pulled off his hoodie as you take your tank top off before putting it on beside your jeans, leaving you in your undergarments that is matching in colors. he tried to open his shorts, but he heard a tsk coming from you, kneeling in between his legs as he allowed you to pull it off of him.

“you’re hurting and i’ll try my best to not make it hurt.”

he sighs as your hand is on his bulge before pulling his boxers, making him lift his hips to let you pull them down and throw them somewhere in the room. your callused fingers trail up the skin of his thigh as he squirmed from the ticklish sensation he got before it arrive at his base, seeing it had already risen a little.

“did you get turned on at the match? you’re nearly there,” you comment on that as you gave him a stroke to let his blood flow more there.

“yeah. i’m frustrated when you’re not there so i tried to pour it out in the fight and other advice the coach gave to me. then you came and this,” he looked down, “grew.”

“uh-huh…” you hummed as you wet your palm with your saliva and caress it on him, making the movement much smoother as he let out tiny groans, knowing he’s in a hotel room instead of the comfort of his home. his jaw drops when he sees you let him inside your mouth. your lips pucker while dragging your head back and you let your tongue lick his tip as he brushes away your hair. the lights coming from outside the sheer curtain reflect on both of you.

your hand reaches for his hip to hold him down, noticing the scabs that form because of your excessive nail picking that goes beyond cleaning your free edges like you used to. the fingertips he remembered is harder and thicker—you might have played your guitar more often. one of his hands reaches for yours as the other is holding him up. you let him caress your hand as he felt the scab along the open wounds he remembered. he let out a groan as he sees how deeper you suck him; as if you were waiting for a long time to showcase it to him.

hearing your muffled moan, he catches your free hand playing with yourself as he sits up to caress your head, gripping the hand as he sees you pleasure yourself with him. his other hand reaches to caress your cheekbone, sometimes pushing you down so you stay still and embrace him.

you pull out and peer up at him, seeing a sheen of saliva around your lips as you wipe them away before stroking his now hard and raging member. he pulls you up before hugging you, pushing you close to him by your cheeks and gives a kiss on your stomach—holding onto your body as if you disappeared if he lets go. taehyun noticed your body is frailer than the last time, eyes looking at the almost-faded cigarette burn marks still on your thigh. underneath the eu de toilette you still use until this day, he hasn’t smelled the distinct cigarette scent again. it’s as if you’re transferring how to cope when your parent is more restrictive than before—showing off how you hurt yourself instead of hiding it like you used to.

taehyun pushes your underwear down before guiding you to sit on his lap, both of your legs spreading to the other side of his legs. he hears you gasp as your wet core touches his skin. leaning down to catch his lips, your hand traces his sweaty body, the muscles that ache from the ring as it still awake to indulge you, before rubbing a few of his wounds, making you lean away.

“i’m scared that if i ride you, i’m going to hurt you.” you pouted as he kiss the pout. he stares into your eyes before seeing you raise your eyebrows. you move against his thighs to drape your hand around his neck as slowly as possible, his hands holding onto your back as he gives kisses above your breasts before sucking the skin on your shoulder. your chin sits on his shoulder as he sensed how your breath caresses his earlobe, how you sigh and whisper profanities you used to exclaim.

“take me, taehyun. i need you.” he heard you whisper, making him separate your fronts that were touching. he brushes your hair as he sees that look back in your eyes, the feverish passion he always had and thought with you coming back. the way your hand reaches one of his that is beside your head to let his thumb traces your puffy lips, giving a slight suck on the fingertip.

“lay down with your back facing up.” he juts his chin towards the pillows behind the two of you as you let him go. he sees you stretching your head and neck before following what he said.

taehyun grabs the condom from his bag and puts it on, wetting his palm to help make the rubber slip easier. though it’s his second time, he still feels nervous to be in a more dominant position. but with the way you act, it seems that you’re letting him take charge—making him feel more blood rushing down to his parts.

he grabs another pillow from the other bed and he sees you laying face down on the pillow, looking to the side as you tried your best to breathe. as he climbs up the mattress, he lifted your pelvis and put a pillow right beneath the part where your stomach and hips meet, making him see your core underneath the light before he pulls your hips up, your knees arching along.

your head is looking behind your shoulder as best as you can as he let his tip touches your hole before he’s pushing in. taehyun hears your moan as you muffled yourself with the pillow you’re holding onto. hands gripping onto your pelvis, he embraces your walls once again after a long time, missing the tight pressure that is making both of you sensitive. his thrusts are careful as he tried to memorize every part of you in him.

all he wanted was to pound you for the teasing you did and the frustration he succumbed to. at how you thought you were the right one before he gave you his piece of mind. he sees your hand coming up behind you, reaching for something before he grips it with his own. you have a fiery look in your eyes as you face him.

“fuck, go harder,” you said before letting out a moan, your hips pushing up against him to meet his slow push. feeling it deeper in you. taehyun’s grip on your hand flatters as he opens the hook of your bra before leaning in closer.

“my fucking pleasure.” taehyun gritted his teeth as he grips onto your love handles before drilling you into the mattress. the number of moans you let out multiplied as you tried your best to muffle it down or add more air as you gasp. the strap of your undergarments falls down your arm as he reaches beneath you and your breasts move with his harder and faster thrusts.

with his position and sore body, he leans down his body and lays on top of you, grabbing both of your hands to rest them on each side of your head. your head pivots as he kisses your spine up to your shoulder blades, hips now focusing on pushing deeper. his head nears your ear as you try to breathe, sweat falling down your temple as he kisses it before the corner of your lips, seeing you pout to kiss him more.

“i fucking miss you.” he groans into your ear as the mattress moves because of his movement. you tried your best to crane your head to kiss him, but one of your hands fell out of his grip as it reaches for his nape so you could capture his mouth to yours.

“i miss you too,” you whine. he sees your eyes glistening as you stare at him so beautifully. the strength from inside him comes as he pulls you up into the kneeling position, hands holding onto the front of your body as you let out quiet moans you’ve learned this moment. his hand moves to your clit and breasts as you hold on to one of them, teeth and tongue clashing with him as best as you can. the groans and moans between the two of you combined with the skin slapping filled the room—little intrusion from the street of downtown making it livelier than he expected.

thrust upon thrust and marks decorating your back as your well-kept nails create scratches on his forearm. he felt himself about to burst.

“i’m cumming.”

“come for me, tyun,” you said with his nickname as he burst inside the condom. his hands going limp as you try to find your edge, his hips moving automatically to help you.

“fuc- i’m-“ you exclaimed as your body tremble before both of you fell to the mattress. the pillow has stains from your makeup as you try to not mess it up more. both of you trying your best to breathe and make yourself steady as he kisses your cheekbone before mumbling against your skin.

“i like you so much. you got me wrapped around your finger since the day you moved in across from me, moon (y/n).”

he lets go of your body before slipping out, hearing you exhale as you turn your head to face him. tying the condom up and throwing it in the trash can, he felt the lingering sense of you watching him as he turns his figure around. you nibble on your swollen bottom lip as he stood there, staring into your soul with him bearing one for you to judge. he finally let out his feelings for you. that no matter what happened between the two of you, he still likes you, and he will love you if you let him.

you wince from the pain in your hips as you stood up. tired, naked bodies facing one another as you step towards him, reaching for his nape as you push yourself closer to him, your skin near touching his as he felt your breath.

“well…” you let out a small smile, “you got me wrapped around your finger, kang taehyun.”

you give him a peck on the kiss as you both looked at each other, memorizing each other as your finger trails his facial feature. all the frustration he had gotten from you and his match all dissipated. there is only care between you.

taehyun washes himself up as told by you while you help clean the room. there is a robe hanging by the bathroom door that he wants to wear, one part of a pair that you’re wearing while cleaning. behind the running water, he heard the door knock before someone opens it, hoping it was not one of his club friends. when he came out, he sees you in his sweater already ordered food from room service.

“eat up. you’re tired after the match and fucking. i don’t want you to die on me this early.” you jokingly said to him as you entered the bathroom. your messenger bag is on top of the table beside your discman that is open, seeing the cd mix he made for you inside it with a small first aid kit pack next to it.

after you both wash up and eat up—dressed in the robe from the bathroom—he sits on the floor as you pulled the upper part of his robe open and bring the first aid kit with you. putting on the antiseptic on his wounds as he observes your own. he sees you prepping for the bandage to be put on his much more open wounds. your eyes meticulously scan all over his face as he can’t take his stare off of the scabs on your finger.

“do you want me to patch you up, too?” he questioned. you look at where his eyesight is.

“it’s okay. all of them are already scabs.” he hums at your answer.

“how is it?” he asked as you put on a bandage on his cheekbone.

“you did well. i didn’t expect that you were struggling before i came.” you chuckle as you put a bandage on the bridge of his nose. “you beat the guy. so good for you.”

“hmm, yeah.” he nods as he let you finish patching him up.

“i almost failed to be here,” you spoke out as you lean back, both of you sitting on the floor as you closed and tidy his robe once again.

“i tried sneaking around, telling my sisters to help me, which they agree and luckily, ma’s not home since she went with her friends again.” you push your tongue into your cheek, “then pa found me.” you gaze at him from the corner of your eyes.

“i was scared shitless when i got caught. i don’t know shit about this town and sooyoung wanted to come with but she can’t drive a car even if she wants to drive pa’s caravan. so i realize from the deepest part of my heart that i’m not going to go.” you wrapped your arms around yourself, hugging yourself as you lean back against the mattress—following the boy.

“i spoke to him as best as i could. my papa doesn’t talk that much and his power plus influence stays underneath ma’s for most of my life. so, i don’t know what he’s thinking and what he’ll do. it came to my surprise when he offered to bring me here…” taehyun’s eyebrows raised.

“no way.”

“i know, right? so yeah, he brought me here and gave me pocket money. that’s why i can call room service and order us food.” you tuck your knees near your chest before putting your head on his shoulder. his hand reaches yours as he brought them to his lap, brushing it with his thumb.

“pa’s has been more forward towards us and sneaking up behind ma too. i never thought that day would happen…” he sees you from the corner of his eyes, a somber look on your face as you stare into the darkness in the hotel room.

“i’m happy he retaliates. i know little about him because ma always overshadows him and her grip on us—her grip on him too. it’s…” your head shakes on his shoulder.

“i still don’t get it. like why now? why not earlier? why hasn’t he been able to stand up against his wife who’s controlling the family and throws him aside too as she uses his hard-earn money for her expenses?” you groan before rubbing your face with your palm as he faces you to him, holding onto your robe-covered body as he stares into you, seeing all the confusion floating in you as a little star sits there in the middle. its light being pushed back from all of its shadows—the conflict, pain, and suffering in your life.

“love makes people do crazy things. i think your dad loves your mom so much that he hasn’t realized how much you suffer in your life. you told me that your family has a traditional view on gender roles, right?” you nodded to reply to him. “maybe he now realizes how your mom enforces it to all five of you is not helping, but hurting you instead.”

“not exactly but enforcing it, but she wants to make us a clone of her.” you right him and he nods as you return to the topic. “does it mean that he fell out of love with ma? because i don’t see it that way.” he chuckles after hearing your observation.

he remembered that halloween night as he pulls off his costume in his room, seeing the dodge caravan parked in your house’s carpark. seeing a silhouette of a man stumbling out of the driver’s seat as he approaches the front door before his body limps by the frame. he got chills that night, the first time he sees the parents of the sisters he adores not wearing his mysterious mask—his persona that he shows to people in the neighborhood.

“from what you’ve said to me in our chat room and what you’re telling me now. i don’t think it’s not because he fell out of love with your mom.” he cups your cheek as you gaze at him, eyes sparkling with stars littering in it; as if the entire world is on his palms. his entire world.

“i think it’s because his love for his children grew tenfold. when your dad cried that homecoming night, i have a sense that he’s guilty of something.” taehyun sensed something aching in his heart that differed greatly from the one has gone through before. yes, he has felt sad, angry, disgusted, terrified, and joyful. but this is the first time that when it’s tugging him, tears are forming in his eyes.

it is as if he is connected to you so much, he feels your pain, your stress, and how it has hurt you inside out. taehyun has never been this empathetic before, maybe once when euphoria surged in when his sister got into her dream college from the mail. taehyun sniffles his nose as you glance at him in concern, to which he replied with a small smile.

“i sense regret coming from him but also pride. proud to see his daughters growing up so well and regret to know that you all persevere without his help at all. cause, in my mind, he wanted to, but he can’t.” hearing his words, he sees you openly sob in front of him, letting him brush away the droplets of tears coming out—knowing his own will come out eventually.

“and i think he realized just how important you and your sisters are in his life. maybe much more than his wife.” the tears gather from the corner of his eyes, threatening to fall as he can’t keep up with his emotions again, letting his bearing soul connects with yours.

“and i think he realized how big his love is for his daughters.” he leans his forehead against you as he hears both of your sniffles. eyes open to look at yours as you regulate your breathing.

“like how big my love is for you.”

wait, what?

“huh?”

“you heard her, right?”

“what the fuck?”

“no way…” jiwoo said as she pushes the door closed. five of you are in your oldest sisters’ room, staring at each other. all of them looking stunned in their own different ways. you don’t believe that this has happened. hyejoo has anger inside her eyes. jiwoo wanted to cry out if she can’t hold on much longer. chaewon’s eyes are empty. sooyoung looks much more tired when the frown overcomes her face.

“is that why she went out so much these past few months? trying to find the right people to be our husbands?” hyejoo breaks the silence.

you caught it right. mama is arranging all five of your marriages with her friends’ sons. you wanted to throw up and crawled yourself out of your skin from how unbelievable she is.

winter break doesn’t have to be any worse than what've you faced. the start of a new year doesn’t have to be like this. mama didn’t even have an arranged marriage with papa, why does she want it now? for wealth? status? ego? you don’t know. what you recognize is that she is playing her pawns—all five of you—and putting them in places that benefit her and she’s the only one that got the benefit out of them.

“hey, hey, hyejoo. please…” sooyoung reaches out towards her sister, wrinkles forming between her eyebrows before she brought her younger sister into an embrace.

“she fucking ruined everything.” your triplet said into your sister’s shoulder as you gnaw the inside of your mouth. you glance at jiwoo who has a rare scowl on her face and chaewon who has a pillow in her arms. the tension builds in the room as nobody talks. even sooyoung—the usual mediator—can’t say anything, eyes getting emptier as she succumbed to the pressure before holding onto hyejoo tighter.

“okay…” you’re the one brave enough to cut the silence. “you heard what she said. she arranged partners for all of us and we know who they are. she said they are her friends’ children. i, for certain, don’t agree with any bullshit she’s doing. but…” i need to talk to taehyun, your thought cuts you off. but you look towards the desk that only has specks of dust on it. no humming can be picked up. the last device you own to communicate with anyone—other than the home telephone—is gone.

when you call home from the hotel room for papa to pick you up—he was the one to tell you to call the previous day, you thought he or one of your sisters was the one that picks up the phone. that’s when you find out her voice and froze up, cutting the line as fast as you can as long beep echoes in the room. you turn your head towards taehyun who is in the other bed, awake enough to realize the expression on your face.

“take me home with you, please.“

she was furious when she found out you went out to be with taehyun—no other explanation is necessary before she scolds you as she usually does. yet, that day was different,

that day when you come home was the first time more than you and hyejoo had protested against her explicitly. droplets of blood were flying to the floor as your sisters looked at it in horror. you were furious with your unlucky streak before your sisters stepped forward. hyejoo pushes to stand in front of you as jiwoo holds your face, scratches with blood flowing on your cheek because of the rings on mama’s fingers when she slaps you. chaewon tried to hold mama down, but she also got pushed to the floor. sooyoung was the one to calm her from her raging fit at you. instead, words are flying about how a terrible daughter and sister she is for not following what the matriarch told her and not keeping her sister intact.

papa stood on the sideline near the stairs as he sees everything in the living room, your torn tank top on the strap that you should hold up to not expose your torso, your bleeding cheek that jiwoo is cleaning up, and your broken discman that is split into two from mama’s stomp, empty of any cd. as your sisters and mother argue, you turn towards papa who has a grim look on his face before his wife calls for him. eyes glance up at his wife with trembles that the others don’t recognize—you were the closest to have noticed and your eyes have trembled like him too.

you cowered when your mother tells all of you to shut it, hearing the heavy steps above you as you see the only desktop all you and your sister has a collective being brought down to the garage, the sticky notes all of you have put on still sticks to the frame. one by one, he brought down the pieces of the machine you used to communicate with other people outside of the house.

“once winter break comes: no leaving the house. no land telephone. no communication outside of the home.“

as the two weeks before winter break that is full of exams has come, you didn’t speak with anyone—your sisters also didn’t as all of you are rattled by the bomb that was dropped at home. you give taehyun a shake of your head when he tried to approach you. not right now. you hope he gets your message as he nods before walking away. you spend your time at school listening to the noise you didn’t notice before, the sound of the rustling leaves as they died to prepare for the snow, the scratchy voices of people at school talking, and the chirping of birds flying in the sky.

when the first snow falls, you and chaewon enviously looked outside the window to the children of your neighborhood welcoming the falling snow. hands and feet hurting from all the lessons you got both ballet and musical instruments—the last classes before winter break were yesterday. you watch girls and boys opening their arms as the snow falls on them, seeing the white particles on their clothes. the new family with their toddler child introduces the snow to the little one, playing in it with the mother and father. as you breathe out, you can see the air droplets you let out from the dropping temperature.

she has taken your freedom from all of you. you will not be surprised if she pulled all five of you out of school during winter break so you all have to be homeschooled with, of course, her.

you didn’t communicate to taehyun verbally during winter break. the last time you saw him was when he walked home from training, a gym bag on his shoulder from the match he told you about before, one near the end of the year as he pushes into the quarter-finals with his matches. but he caught you from the window, giving a wave as specks of snow are on his dark hair—glasses fogged because of his breath.

“do we wanna do this?” you said to them before looking at your anklets that held on until this day. “do we want to end our lives together?”

all of your sisters are silent hearing your implication. the pact that you made between the five of you has held onto all of you so tight that even thinking of it makes you have to tell them. it tells them you don’t want to exist in this world anymore. and at this time and in this situation, you might be happier if you’re not.

“no.”

“don’t.”

“no…”

“we’re not.”

your sisters’ rejection filled your ears as you can’t hold back the corner of your mouth from lifting. though, rationally, you said “yes” to it anytime so that your suffering ends. deep beneath your heart, a “no” always lingers. and for this life you have been living for the past six months, the “no” has grown and rivalled the “yes”. the realization of it waters your eyes as you watch your sisters glance at one another.

“then all of us have something to hold on to stay alive,” you spoke your mind as you brushed the tears that are falling down the apples of your cheek. opening your arms, chaewon knocks out your breath by hugging you first. the pillow stayed between the two of you as your other sisters gather and make a group hug—the sobs and sniffles filling the cold room.

pushing them away with your might, your sisters giggled as sooyoung gather you into a circle putting your right foot where the anklet sits to the middle, joining toes together. you glance at all four of your sisters as they let out chuckles before hyejoo pushes the ones beside her forward as all of you follow to connect your head together.

“hold on tight.” sooyoung said.

“love each other.” jiwoo added.

“we can do it.” chaewon spoke.

“fuck them up.” hyejoo exclaimed.

“stay alive, pixies,” you mumbled before the circle dispersed.

on christmas morning, you didn’t expect a feast to be put at the dining table as you all look at it, bewildered. mama stands at her end of the table while papa is doing work in his office in the house. the house doesn’t even have a christmas tree or decorations themed around it as you got even more confused when mama gave each of you a present in a box. opening it, you see a beautiful gown and a matching pair of elbow-length gloves that you know comes from a fashion house, judging by sooyoung’s gasp as she viewed it. it has a similar shape to the homecoming dress you wore, but the fabric is velvet—much more expensive than what you wore. you stare at it before looking at your sisters’, seeing how they are the same, but the dark colors are different; from purple-based to green-based.

“on the 31st, we’re going to the ball i told you. at it, you’ll meet the suitors i have picked for each of you.“ you glance at the end of the table as you don’t want to react out loud from her gift. you don’t want to react to satisfy her ego.

“remember, make me proud. and be glad that i found you husbands who are as handsome and rich as our family.“

‘will they make me happy? you wanted to comment, but she command you to eat the food in front of you. you glance at chaewon who is sitting across from you behind the clinking sound of the fork meeting the plate. her wrists exposed the scars from her coping ways—the lines are much thicker than you remembered but not deep enough to bleed out like last time. her eyes took glances at your matriarch who is having fun by herself with her new cell phone before returning to you, the first time you see her rolling her eyes in disgust almost making you splutter the meal you eat. even the softest of five of you is done with her antics.

when the night of the 31st came, you heard a vehicle starting outside as you fixed your dress. a little tighter for your liking, but it looks modern enough for the 90s and regal at the same time—regal is what mama likes people to call everything about her.

you stared out the window as sooyoung is fixing your dress, seeing the caravan not in its place. all of you are helping one another in each of your outfits when you helped in spraying the perfume and jiwoo fixing your concealer. hyejoo is fixing sooyoung’s hair while chaewon fixed the accessories. the clock hand is close to 10 at night—the time you need to go. you never celebrated new year’s eve but you’ve seen the festivities before from the tv to the fireworks outside your window.

in the car that your mom is driving with her high heels; much more luxurious and modern compared to the caravan, you sit in the backseat with all three of your sisters whilst chaewon—still her golden child—sits at the front. your shoulder rubbed against sooyoung’s as you stare out of the car window beside you, letting your eyes gaze at the jungle full of towers high above and touching clouds. you realized mama brought you downtown to a place that is supposed to be for your social class—that she’s the one being benefitted the most from your family. it is s a ball, as she reminded you.

you see, down the streets, people preparing to close the road for the festivity. you knew this year’s new year’s eve is special as all of you who are alive are entering a new era. a new year, a new decade, a new century, and a new millennium. the 2000s.

the pressure is real when you faced that daunting fact, that for everybody alive currently: the 2000s is something new and they are the ones that are going to build on it. people are crowding the street going to places like pubs with live music that you haven’t gone to in a long time. you wished you still do because you love music and you wished you still have your discman with you as mama is putting on a radio station that is playing christmas songs. you want to return to listen to exciting guitar riffs and unique voices again.

the car stops in front of a lobby of a large building with people all around it. the butlers in suits open the door and offer you a hand as you stand up, waiting for all of your sisters to come out as you were met with cameras all over you. this is a real deal, you thought—scared of being bombarded by one. but when you look at your eldest sister’s face, she’s living it. the valet drives the car away as you climb up the stairs into a foyer with mama at the front—looking like the ducklings that followed their mother duck you saw in an illustration from your elementary school biology textbook.

the sparkling ballroom full of people and chandeliers blinded your eyes as it has been a long time since you’d been to one of these balls—the last time was before you enter your first year in high school. her group of friends immediately greeted mama, the ones you knew as her friends back in her school years—seungmin’s mother was a weird detail you notice. you let out a smile along with your sisters as your mama’s friends greet and compliment all of you. you were glad you didn’t shriek in surprise when one of them has a chihuahua in their purse or one of them pinch your cheek until it hurts.

five of her friends are left standing by her side, all of them—you recognize—having sons. you stood with hyejoo beside you, seeing her clenching her dress fabric. it scares you that she will tear it; not that she cared about it. they all talked to mama before glancing at each of you one by one.

“are we going to meet our “suitors”?" her hands raised to make quotation marks, making you giggle in this horrible situation all of you are in.

“i think so. you didn’t expect to be paired out with freaking liu yangyang, right?”

“how about you with that lad, jay park-“

“don’t remind me, hye.” you shush her up as you see yangyang and jay’s mothers approaching both of you. you went back into your previous posture and give a small smile as you greet both women.

“let me bring you to jay, sweetie.” she giggled as she took you away from your sisters, all of you separated in different directions as you strode on the carpeted floors. you then find a boy that is talking with a girl, a smirk don on his face before his mother taps him to stop their conversation. he subtly pushes the girl away before turning to you and you already know his infamous playboy behavior is out and about tonight. you didn’t even believe he was as young as you and heard many rumors of him switching girls every two months on average.

“jay. you’ve met (y/n) before.” his mother said to him as you see him squint his eyes, a look you recognize coming from him as he grabs your gloved hand in his.

“moon (y/n).”

“jay park,” you replied similarly.

“i will leave you two to bond.” mrs. park says as she gives you a wink before blending into the crowds.

“whatever bond is,” you mumbled.

“i can show you what bond is.” you heard the boy flirt as you pulled your hand out of his grasp, timidly holding it beside you.

“uh… can we go grab something to eat?” you rub your stomach beneath your dress. “i’m starving.”

“of course.” he then guides you to the buffet table as you search around, seeing a few people you’ve recognized since you were little all grown up. you tried to get as much food as you can because of reasons: 1. mama added more to your food limitations since she scolded you for going past curfew—meaning that you forget how some food tastes; and 2. you want to disgust the man? boy? whoever he classified himself from you by eating like a pig. surely, it won’t be attractive to have a “wife” like this.

“so, where do you go to school?” you talked to him as you eat while he grabs an alcoholic-looking drink that you know he wasn’t supposed to drink.

“a boarding school for the rich. i thought you went there ‘cause you smell like money.” he tried to flirt with you again as you nod.

“i don’t go there.” you almost burp out as you tried to digest all the food you put on your plate. “different school. a public one.” he hums as he sips before he puts his drink, grabbing a plate of strawberry-covered chocolate that he tried to eat seductively.

“i also know about your don juan? lothario ways?” you squint your eyes as you watch his reaction.

“i prefer to call it casanova. but keep going.”

you leaned back before continuing with your words. “and you go to boarding school so…”

you see him smirk while chewing his strawberry, wiping the chocolate coming out of his mouth before saying, “i fucked almost all girls there…”

then and there, you almost vomited out your food as you heard him giggling behind you. a subtle disgust is on your face when you turn to him as you pick yourself up. “almost all?” you questioned.

“yeah with students, below me, the same year, above me, teacher-“ you cut his tangent from your hearing as you ignore him flaunting on sticking his dick inside any women he sees at his school. you rubbed the crumbs from the corner of your lips—careful for your makeup cause mama will come back into her fury mode if she sees a small smudge. the boy talks away as he looks somewhere else, a perfect time for you to slip away into the crowd.

you find a buffet table for drinks as you grab yourself a small glass of water before chugging it into you, feeling the liquid refreshing your esophagus as the last time you drank was before you prepare to come here. holding the glass close to your lips, you view the lipstick mark on the side before you wipe it away with your fingers. your eyes wander around the room, trying to locate your sisters with the boys mama assigned them to. trailing and trailing at the sea of heads when you see someone, your hand froze up as you try not to let the grip of the glass go but not too hard to make it shatter in your hand.

kang taehyun.

he’s wearing an all-black ensemble with a turtleneck right beneath his coat. the glasses sit on his face perfectly and his dark hair has gel in them, letting him style it with his forehead exposed.

what is he doing here?

you put the glass on the table for dirty dishes before you walk on the floor, eyes focused on him. people seem to understand you’re passing by, dispersing so that you can reach him easier. taehyun seems to sense it too when he turns and sees you, a smirk forming on his face. when you reached him, you pat his shoulders before he held your hand against his heart.

“it’s you, right? i’m not dreaming?” you murmured. you can feel it beating beneath the layers between your skin and his skin.

“it’s me.”

you hug him, wrapping your hands to pull him close to you as he puts his hands on your waist—he knows because you’ve hugged and held each other so much. you pull away, letting your gloved hand caress his cheek.

“what are you doing here?” he holds on while he looks at the crowd behind you. the lights are getting dimmer. you can pick up slow jazz playing, letting people dance if they want to.

“i’m taking you away with me,” he spoke out.

“what?” he grabbed onto your hand and pulled you out of the ballroom.

“w- what about my sisters? they’re still in there-“

“their partners have brought them out too,” he explained as you try to keep up with him. seeing the lobby, he brought you down the stairs into the cold street of the downtown area. you heard the explosions of fireworks all around as you walk down the pavement—as carefully as you can because of the heels you’re wearing. the exposed skin along your shoulder can’t combat the cold. hearing you loudly hiss, taehyun offers his blazer for you to wear—buttoning it up so it doesn’t make you much colder.

“how did you find me there? what’s happening?” you genuinely asked. everything is moving behind your back and you don’t like it. you don’t recognize anyone that is as meticulous in planning a heist as this.

for the answer, taehyun pulled out a folded paper from his pant pocket, nudging it to you. you stop underneath a hanging roof of a restaurant, the dim lights coming inside and christmas-themed lights around you help you read out loud taehyun’s handwriting, which you realized aren’t his words.

hello, my daughters.

i know that this is a sudden message to be told, but i’m hoping that each one of you is with a person who you trusted and i also trusted. sooyoung with juyeon, (y/n) with taehyun, hyejoo with sunwoo, chaewon with seungmin, and jiwoo with gyuri as kai had spoken to me—no matter your circumstance, jiwoo, you will always be my daughter.

i’ve sent them here to get you out of the ball that your mama has brought you. i know she didn’t ask for your permission to go and for setting all of you up for marriage. i’m aware she is trying to exert her power on all of you for the last time this year. with the start of the new year, a new decade, a new century, and a new millennium, i hope you will forgive me for not being the best father in your life. i will settle this down during your winter break with your mama and i hope that all of you will be safe wherever you will be for the break.

i love all of you so much and i will reach for you when i’m done or when i need you.

love. papa.

both of your hands hold onto the paper, goosebumps rising underneath the coat. biting your lip, you swipe your tears that haven’t fallen out as you read it one more time to get the words right.

he cares, and he loves you.

“how did you get this?” you mumbled, rubbing your nose because of the dry cold air and tears forming.

“your dad contacted us through aim messenger after a few days after we went home. he told everything to us about what all of you are going through and he needed someone to protect you for the time being. he made a plan to bring us to the ball and pick all of you up as he prepares something behind the scene. he didn’t say much else out of that, but he said he wanted to help you find your happiness after the escalation back home.”

you looked down at the letter, reading the last few words from it as you grab taehyun’s hand, keeping him near you. is that why he has disappeared so much? is that why he has been in his office most of the time? he’s in there trying to help all of you and helping himself too. you wanted to join in on the fight with him and you could read your sisters’ minds that they also want to be with him. but based on the letter, all you have to do is to trust him and trust the preparation he has done to execute.

“i know you agree with this. but i don’t want to be a burden to you and your family. your sister might come home for the break, right? i don’t want to bother her rest with my presence.” you said as you lean your head against his chest, his arm wrapped behind you.

“my parents rent a cottage in a rural village for winter break. i told my family about your situation from your dad and more from the stories you told me. they agree for you to be there.” taehyun said in your ears as the fireworks explode more and more. “and they agree that you need time to heal and you won’t be if you’re in your house.”

you look up at his face when you heard people all around you counting down. your eyes stick to one of the tvs that are playing in the restaurant as the number goes down. people standing and gathering as they stared at the countdown, hands holding a drink of their choice, a few of them wearing glasses with frames that spell the number 2000 on them. as it gets closer, you can hear them counting down loudly from the inside.

fireworks explosions filled the outside as you take a glimpse above the hanging roof, lights sparkling in the dark sky more and more.

your head turns towards the boy as both of you give a knowing smile.

you lean in and kiss him. his hands hold onto you more and you tilt his head, feeling the lips you have missed. the exploding lights and bustling people inside the pub filling your ears with excitement.

pulling away, you glance at him as he glances at you. a certain confidence in his eyes combines with loveliness.

“happy new year, my pixie.”

“happy new year, my silly boy.”

both of you chuckled as you stare at the restaurant, seeing the people sitting back down and fried foods being served on the tables by the servers.

“you want to grab a table?” taehyun asked as he follows your sight.

“we can?” you took a glimpse to see him nod. a grin growing on your face as you drag him, opening the restaurant’s door.

“you have to tell me how your match went…”

the two of you enter the restaurant as the firework extravaganza continues. celebrating a new chapter of everyone’s life, including you and taehyun.

the moon sisters disappeared on the first day of january in the year 2000.

“so, that is how you two met...”

taehyun stares across the dining table to view the pre-teen girl leaning against it. her hands playing with the fork on the table.

“i left out gory details because i don’t want your sisters to know now.” taehyun replied. the sun shines brightly into their house as they eat for the first time in the new year.

it is the first of january of the year 2023 when taehyun tells a story to his three daughters during breakfast. the girls are wearing matching pajamas in different sizes.

his oldest, jihye, is the one that sticks to the words he said the most—because she is the one that asked how he and their mom met.

jihyo, the middle child, is focused on playing mario kart 8 deluxe on the nintendo switch.

and the youngest, jihyun, is hugging her precious teddy bear while holding a handle of a small sippy cup full of chocolate milk.

“is that why mom is a, a p- peu- peusychologish?” his youngest asked, sipping the milk from a straw near her lips.

taehyun chuckled when he listened to his child trying to pronounce her mom’s career. a presence lingers beside him when he heard the chair scraping on the wooden floor and sees plates of pancakes with various toppings on them.

“that’s right, bear, that is why i’m a peusychologish.” he glimpses to see you, his wife, standing beside him, wearing a grey tank top that matches his grey t-shirt. you step behind your daughters’ seats to bring the pancakes for each of them. his heart still beats the same for the last 23 years since the two of you met.

you are now a proud child psychologist while he is a retired professional boxer turned boxing coach. he boxes away to national and even international championships while you learn to help children face things that are beyond their understanding. you still play the guitar from time to time, even playing it in your sessions. he remembered when he went home from one of his matches to see you having a session in your office with a child younger than your youngest. you were playing your guitar—finger-picking style—and he sees the child who looks at you, eyes sparkling as the music plays in the room, before hugging your knees, making the caretaker giggle.

as you meet the new millennium, you knew from what happened in your past—and from the way you still watched svu until today—that you want to help other people who face hardships like you do. you were glad that you were given an opportunity to do so and grab them when it’s your time.

when picking a major for university, you were confused if you want to pick psychology or criminology—two of them are nearly the same where one focuses more on criminal psychology. other than the crime shows you watched, you’re curious because of what you have experienced with your mother. so when you realized you have to choose between helping people like her to reform or helping your inner child, taehyun is your beacon and came to the rescue with his opinion. you choose your inner child first because if you are treating children, you also treat your inner child.

you also didn’t expect to have daughters all the times you’ve gotten pregnant as your sisters have sons with each of their partners. with that, you’ve tried your best not to emulate the worst things about your mother to them, learning also from your mother-in-law how to raise a child the good way.

“i also wanna ask.” jihyo exclaimed as all of you consumed your food at the dining table. “is that why grandpa is alone?”

at winter break in the year 2000, when all of you and your sisters disappear from the face of the earth for a few weeks, papa fights your mother in court. he told all of you how he has collected evidence upon evidence of your mother’s physical and emotional abuse towards him and all of you for the past 20 years they are married. he said it’s enough for one case. but more evidence comes out when in the six months you live in that house, she is also cheating with a younger man.

you remembered holding onto chaewon’s hand when a family law attorney papa hired called you for an interview. trembling hands as you shook her hand and jitters crawling down your skin, she turned out to be the most caring person you’ve known back then. you remembered seeing her eyes glisten when you tell how you want to end your life because of your mother’s deeds, showing her scratch marks on your cheek from when she slapped you until you bleed. after a week passed by with no messages, she asked all of you if you rather live with your mother or papa. all of you unanimously said papa rather than her.

when winter break ends and you went back home to your household, the divorce has been settled. even though she got most of the money—because she is a woman without a job—papa got custody of his daughters. all of you settle into your new home a few blocks away from your previous one, letting her live her life in that house alone before she moves in with her younger lover. taehyun seems upset with the turn of events, but he was just glad that you are settled with your domestic life.

“grandpa is not alone. he lives with auntie chae and uncle seungmin.” jihye tells jihyo as she gave both of you a smile.

“that’s right. and by the way, we will meet them at auntie soo’s house for lunch. so finish your breakfast and take a shower after this, okay?”

“okay, mom.” the girls said as they devour the pancakes. you turn to taehyun as he smiles at you with food in his cheeks. the way his glasses sits on the button of his nose, making you push it up.

when jihye volunteers to wash the dishes as her sisters prepare to go to bathe, you drink your coffee with taehyun, staring at the back garden of your house in peace. the wall where the glass door leading to it stood with two empty spaces on both right and left—where both of you put your precious items there. taehyun’s medals and belts are on one side, newspapers and magazine clippings of him in the ring with his belt hanging on the corkboard you put. the other side is you put your music players and cds, seeing the albums you love now in physical form to hand down to your descendants, a few of them are cd mixes seulgi gave to you back in the early 90s and the special cd mix taehyun gave to you.

“i’m so glad i stick with you for 20 years and more.” taehyun heard you said, you have a raspier voice that he swoon about because of your age—and from the cigarettes too.

“i will be glad to stick with you even until the world ends, pixie,” he replied, making you let out a grunt.

“stop with the pixie nickname, okay? it feels different when you’re hearing it at 40 years old.” both of you chuckled as you stand up and wash your cups. taehyun lets out a smile for the life he made with you before joining you in the kitchen, drying away the dishes, and putting them back into the right place.

taglist: @endzii23 @fluffyywoo @camipendragon @hiqhkey @wccycc @stayzentiny @rebsmoonn @boba-beom @angelbythewindow @ttyunz

#txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt angst #txt smut #txt fluff #txt x reader #taehyun x reader #rsc: troubled pixies #cr: taehyun #cs: txt #sc: regina

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