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moni-logues · 21 hours

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Thank you thank you thank you!!!

I literally was writing this and messaged the discord like, omg I can't write Lino! I don't know him! I'm getting him wrong!!!! 🤣

Obviously, I pushed through, carried on writing, and I'm happy with how it ended up, but getting this comment makes me so happy!!!!

Thank you! 🥰🥰🥰

What the cat dragged in

Pairing: Lee Know x reader (afab, she/her)

Genre: smut, angst, strangers-to-lovers (kinda); 5+1

Summary: You followed Minho home because you had nowhere else to go. Then you kept following... all the way into his heart, but not his bed.

aka five times you and Minho don't fuck and one time you do.

Content: reader is 16yo in the first section (nothing sexual or romantic happens but there are suggestions of it), couple of references to human/sex trafficking; the gang are useless crime idiots but this is only barely relevant; interrupted foreplay; attempted car sex; unprotected piv sex; fingering; a lot of kissing tbh

Word count: 13.5k

A/N: SO this whole thing actually started HERE in JUNE (jfc, I thought I'd been thinking about this since like, October or something but, no no, a full ten months!!!!). It has drifted from that somewhat but that was its beginning and, honestly, I'm kind of stoked about this fic. I really like how it came out and it's my FIRST MINHO. It's taken me SO long to get around to my bestest evil catdad.

Huge thanks to @violetsiren90 for beta-ing! and also for reading it half-finished when I really needed some encouragment. AND for the title

*~*~*

FIRST

“Why don’t you fuck off?”

The voice came from behind you. It was low and cold and threatening. It was directed at Shindong, the man in front of you, whom you were sure was this close to offering to take you home. You whipped around to see who had uttered it.

Your immediate thought was that he was too short and too slight to be walking up with that level of aggression. Your second thought was interrupted by the spark that shot up your arm when he grabbed your hand. You’d have pulled it back, but his grip was solid and your arm didn’t budge.

“What the fuck do you want, Minho?” your companion replied, all the charm sliding off his face, replaced with a loathing, arrogant sneer.

“I want you to fuck off.”

“She yours? Might want to keep a closer eye on her; she was just about to come home with me.”

The stranger’s hand squeezed yours, so hard it started to hurt. He offered nothing in response.

Both men continued to stare at each other. Shindong had inches on Minho – both height and breadth – and you couldn’t believe your eyes when you saw him hesitating. He flicked his eyes between you and Minho.

“What if I want to fight you for her?”

“What if I told you she’s not legal?”

Shindong hesitated, moved just a fraction backwards, no longer leaning in, looming over the two of you. He rolled his eyes and gave a heartless chuckle.

“Not worth the fucking bother,” he muttered as he walked away.

Minho, still a stranger to you, still holding your hand, who hadn’t even looked your way, pulled you sharply by said hand, storming off and taking you with him. You followed him into one of the warehouse’s many dark corners. He kicked out the couple who were two clothing items shy of a citation for public indecency, and only then did he let you go. Only then did he turn his dark, flaming eyes on you.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you asked.

Shindong had been your lifeline. What did this guy think he was playing at?

Your vehemence took him off-guard, surprise flashing across his face, until his scowl returned, worse than before. You understood now why he made Shindong hesitate. His gaze was fierce, penetrating, his jaw set, his mouth a taut, grim line. You would never show your hand to anyone, but a cold droplet of fear slithered down your spine. You straightened it, rolled your shoulders back, lifted your head. You wouldn’t let him intimidate you.

“Do you know him?” he asked, voice still low, still threatening.

Not personally. Not until that evening. But people like him came with a reputation that preceded them. A reputation that you were relying upon being based in fact. A reputation that had spread all around your school and beyond, but that you had heard from a source close to the truth. It was close enough that you were able to find him here, in a part of town you’d never been to. It was close enough that you were able to pick Shindong out from this crowd. Close enough that when you approached him and he laughed at you – young, naïve, foolish, all of those things you were sure he thought – you were able to drop his cousin’s name and he suddenly took you seriously. That was what you had been hoping for. A connection was all you needed to keep you covered for a night, at least. Just one would be something.

And then this guy showed up.

“I was about to.”

Minho’s top lip curled, just a fraction, his nose barely wrinkling with the movement, but you got his meaning. Disgust. He could be as disgusted as he liked; that wasn’t your problem. Your problem was that his disgust had led him to chase away your only lead.

Or was he? Was Shindong your only option?

You changed tack. Realised that maybe you had another now. Minho, whoever the fuck he was, had approached you as if he knew you and scared off the competition. That must have been it. Despite the way he glowered at you, absolutely no interest or desire lurking behind his dark eyes, you figured you had nothing left to lose.

You relaxed a little, pouted your lips, played up to the damsel in distress he might have thought you were.

“But if he’s so awful, I guess I can only thank you,” you said, making your voice soft, your eyes a little wider. You lifted your lips in a tiny, shy smile and then put a hand to them, your thumb and index finger tugging a little on your bottom lip, hoping it made you look small, nervous, sweet.

He gave you no reaction. He continued to glare, his stance unchanged, unmoving. So you moved. You stepped towards him: shy, little bird steps, until you were so close that he moved backwards.

“Thanks for looking out for me. Your name’s Minho, right?”

His eyes tightened minutely. He didn’t reply.

“I’d like to thank you properly,” you said, sliding your body into his, pressing just one finger against his chest. You fluttered your lashes up at him.

His face changed immediately. Eyes wide, mouth dropping, and he was stumbling backwards, pressing himself against the wall.

“What the fuck are you doing? What are you, fifteen?”

Embarrassment licked your cheeks like flames and your scowl returned.

“I’m sixteen!”

“Wow, big age. My mistake. By all means, let’s fuck, Sixteen.”

His sarcasm was biting but you hadn’t given yourself up yet.

“Don’t you want to?” you asked, innocently. “You must have sent Shindong away for a reason. If not this, then what?”

He let out a sigh so aggrieved it was almost a shout. He rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, where are your parents?” he asked, but it was muttered, almost under his breath and you didn’t know if you were supposed to answer. You did anyway.

“Dead.”

His lack of reaction grated. He didn’t flinch. There was no surprise, no guilt on his face. He had robbed you of Shindong and now he had robbed you of your fun: getting a reaction out of people as a poor, orphaned, little Annie was as close as you got these days. Then again, he wasn’t a well-meaning aunt or nosy teacher. He knew what this place was; he knew, or at least knew of, Shindong. Maybe your hand-grenade was, here, little more than a snap.

“And this is your great life plan? Offering sexual favours to predators?”

He gestured widely to the room behind you, and you could only assume he did not mean to include himself in that group.

Actually, it was your plan. Kind of… Insofar as you had any sort of plan at all. You would not be telling him that. You kept your mouth shut tight and jaw clenched, refusing to look down, to be the one to break the eye contact.

“You know he’s a fucking bad guy,” he said, more softly than he had said anything so far but the hard edge remained.

“And what are you, my hero?”

“Absolutely fucking not. I do not want to have anything to do with whatever mess you are making of your life, but I’m not about to let that cunt take off with a child.”

“I am not a child!” you shouted, right in his face.

He took it, impassive, unimpressed even.

“That’s exactly what a child would say.”

You wanted to hit him. You wanted to smash him in his beautifully sharp jaw, or break that perfect, delicate nose of his. You were just about not stupid enough to try. How did he even know you were young? You knew you didn’t look it; you were always getting told you looked older than you were. How did he know? Why did he care?

“Go on then,” you said, darkly. “Leave. If I’m not your fucking problem, why don’t you fuck off?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t move.

“Worried I’ll get murdered?”

You lifted your hands to your open mouth, eyes widened, a mockery of fear.

His face and tone were flat when he responded.

“There are things worse than death.”

Then he pushed past you and out of the door.

You took one shaky breath and walked after him before you could talk yourself out of it. You decided that, one way or another, this guy owed you and it was time to collect.

You followed him, not too closely, but not exactly hiding it, for over a mile. You wondered, at one point, if he was trying to lose you, if he was actually heading to his destination or just trying to outlast you. You’d show him. You were a long-distance runner at school; you were extremely confident you could keep up.

So confident, in fact, so determined were you not to lose him, that you were too slow to notice him slowing, to notice him stopping, to very nearly not stop yourself walking into him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, not turning to look at you.

“I’m walking here.”

“Stop following me.”

“I’m not following you.”

He raised his eyes skyward. He stood for a moment and you stood, too, waiting for him to continue – walking or talking, you didn’t know which. He finally turned around and looked at you, everything about him a little softer than before. Not soft, but softer.

“You can’t follow me,” he told you slowly, emphatically. “I am not looking after you. I am not your fath-“

“I don’t have a fucking father.”

He scoffed.

“Yeah, that much is very clear, Sixteen.”

“I’m not sixteen!”

He frowned.

“That’s what you told me.”

“That’s not my fucking name! Stop saying it like I’m a child. How old are you anyway?”

“Old enough to know better.”

“What does that mean?”

“Go home, Sixteen.”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Well you can’t have mine.”

He turned on his heel and continued walking, a little faster this time, increasing his pace to a jog as he crossed the road. You knew he hoped you wouldn’t be able to follow, that the flashing green man would disappear before you could make it, but you’d been underestimated before.

After another mile or so, you saw him take his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear. You couldn’t quite hear what he was saying but you thought it sounded like Japanese. Was he Japanese?

It hadn’t missed you, the knowledge that you had no knowledge of this man. You understood that you were, as far as you knew, in as much danger following him home as you had been going with Shindong. But you literally had no other options. It was follow this guy somewhere or wander around on the street all night; it was too cold to stay out. You hadn’t thought beyond that when you’d left your house earlier that day. Hadn’t thought much at all, except about getting out.

Now you were out. Mission accomplished. And you had no idea what to do next.

You almost missed him ducking into a narrow side street, but you caught the door he rushed through just before it shut. He disappeared from view through another door, off to the left of the dingy, dimly lit corridor you found yourself in. You stalked up to it – it wasn’t even fully closed – but something made you hesitate.

Suddenly the fear that you had been suppressing all night raised its head. Was this a lion’s den? A serpents’ nest? Was Minho playing some kind of long game, saving you from Shindong so you would trust him, so you would follow him here, so he could…?

“Are you going to fucking stand out there all night?” you heard a voice call from inside. It had to be Minho’s but you wouldn’t have bet on it.

You fixed your face, your scowl reappearing, and kicked the door open with excessive force.

It was just a bar. Just him, sitting on a stool with a beer in his hand, and one other guy, standing opposite, looking at you with his eyebrows raised in the way a parent does when they catch their child doing something naughty.

“You break that door, I’m going to make you pay for it,” he said, in an accent that you knew wasn’t local.

And, just like a defiant child, you slammed it shut without breaking eye contact. He turned to Minho.

“Thanks, man. You had to bring home a fucking streetrat.”

“I am not a streetrat,” you spat.

“No?” Minho chimed in. “Then where’s your home?”

“Fuck off.”

“I really wish you would.”

You sat down in a booth just off to your left and stared him down.

“She can’t stay here,” the stranger said to Minho, as if you were no longer there.

“I didn’t bring her; she just came.”

He, the newest stranger, looked between you and Minho for several seconds. He was looking at Minho when he spoke again.

“One night. That’s it. And she’s your responsibility.”

He heaved a box full of empty glass bottles into his arms and wandered away, through a different door, mumbling something about ‘strays’.

“Who was that?” you demanded as Minho continued to sip at his beer.

You realised that you hadn’t actually been introduced to him either. And he hadn’t asked for your name. You wondered if he would now.

“None of your fucking business,” he answered, finally moving from the stool to walk behind the bar.

He opened the cash register and took bags from a cubby just below it. He produced a tiny pencil from his pocket and tore off a strip of the receipt roll. He took out the cash and started to count. You watched his lips move silently as he flicked quickly through the notes, pausing to drop a stack onto the bar and write a number down. He picked up the next stack and repeated.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, not looking up, not even, apparently, pausing in his counting. “Even if you got your urchin mitts on it, you wouldn’t make it to the door.”

You believed him, but you weren’t planning some kind of move. You didn’t need his money. You were just watching.

You watched until all the notes and all the coins were accounted for, until they had been put into bags and those bags into a box and Minho turned to follow his friend. You stood from your seat and went after him.

There were two doors, you realised. Minho took the left. It led to an office. The other guy must’ve taken the right because the room was empty except for furniture and, in the corner, a safe. Minho dumped the box before it and turned to you.

“Turn around.”

“Worried I’ll crack the code?” you asked with your eyes rolling back in your head.

“Just turn around.”

You did as you were told without a fight because, at that point, there was nowhere else to go. You couldn’t admit defeat and walk out of there; you weren’t sure that Minho wouldn��t make you do just that. It was a knife-edge, being the obnoxious, vile brat that you were. You’d stormed past boundaries before but, well, look where it got you. You were tired and worried enough now to decide you would stop pushing your luck. It had been stretched far enough already.

There was a second of silence before you heard the beeping of the buttons pressed and the shuffling of bags, the clink of coins, the thunk of a bigger, metallic something against the walls of the safe. He didn’t tell you when he was finished, didn’t say you could turn back around. He just walked past you, out of the office, turning the light off as he went. As soon as you were out of the door, he shut and locked it.

You followed him back to the bar and he did the same thing: turned off the lights and held a door for you (not politely, not because he was being nice), following you through it and locking this one behind him, too. You walked to the end of the corridor and he gestured you down some wooden stairs that creaked as if they would break under your weight. He turned the corridor light off, too, and locked the door at the top of the steps.

This was it. You were locked in. There were at least two locks between you and escape. When Minho shoved past you to the left and opened yet another door, your stomach sank a little further. Three locked doors. He didn’t hold this one for you but he didn’t slam it in your face either, so you rolled your shoulders back, put on your game face and walked through.

You almost regretted it when you saw where it led. It was possibly the worst place you had ever seen. It wasn’t messy, but there was something dirty about the room anyway. Outdoor furniture inside; everything vaguely brown in a way that you didn’t think it had been fresh out of the box; everything tired and worn and sagging; the naked lightbulb dim and humming as it shone; the fridge, scratched and dented and shoved into a corner, also hummed, managing to sound as well as look tired. It was bleak. It was grey. It made you feel like things were crawling on you and you’d only just stepped foot in it.

You half expected your feet to stick to the floor when you took a few steps forward. They didn’t but the carpet was so old and worn that you had no idea what colour it was originally; in places, you could see the floorboards clearly through the threads.

Minho pointed to the sofa.

“There,” was all he said.

Then he disappeared out of the room. You gingerly sat on the edge, wondering if you should be more concerned about your health or your safety. Maybe you were sheltered here, but you pictured a thousand and one diseases squirming on the cushions. It wasn’t fair to, because you could see that it was cleaned. The room wasn’t filthy; there were no crumbs or water rings on the coffee table; there was no rubbish littering the floor; the sink was empty and a stack of plates and bowls stood beside it, washed if not yet dried. Minho was clearly diligent.

Minho and whoever else lived here. There were too many doors leading off this room for him to be here alone.

Your curiosity was stopped in its tracks when he reappeared with a pillow and a towel. He threw the pillow wordlessly at one end of the sofa and then he raised the towel a little.

“I don’t have any blankets. Don’t get cold.”

You scoffed a laugh and were grateful that he ignored it. You weren’t indignant; you weren’t being a brat this time. You were dismayed. You couldn’t believe it. A house with no spare blankets. You were going to sleep under a towel. You glanced around you for a final time, tears pricking in your eyes, fingers at your lips, picking nervously. You weren’t going to die here, you told yourself. Probably. You were probably not going to die here and that was all you needed.

You stood up, turned off the light, tested the door handle (not sure if you wanted it to be locked or unlocked), then returned to the sofa. You took off your shoes, took your bag from your back and hugged it tightly to your chest. You lay in the dark, in a stranger’s horrible house, alone, tired, more vulnerable than you would ever admit. You cried silently, reluctantly grateful for the towel, until you fell asleep.

SECOND

“Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to everyone! Happy birthday to you!”

You only got one birthday a year. The whole group of you. There wasn’t enough to stretch to everyone getting an individual birthday, an individual cake, a day off. So the middle day of the year, 2nd July, was chosen and you all had a birthday together.

One cake, one candle each, six people blowing them out. Most unsanitary, but, by now, there wasn’t much you hadn’t shared so a little spit didn’t even register.

You were too drunk by far, which was stupid really. It wasn’t even your first time drinking legally (because your real birthday wasn’t until later in the year), so there was no reason for you to behave as if you had never had a drink before. You should have learnt a little self-control.

But it was your birthdays. So you kept having one more and one more and one more. As did everyone else.

“Nineteen!” Minho called as he fell into the booth next to you.

“I thought I was Sixteen?”

He shrugged.

“You do still act like it.”

You shoved him, almost hard enough to push him off his seat completely. He shoved you back.

“Shut up, Minnie.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, plotting death for using the nickname he loathed above all others, and you sent a simpering smile back at him.

“You’re a little squirt, anyone ever tell you that?”

You rolled your eyes.

“You, literally all the time, because you are for some reason desperate to sound like the oldest grandpa in the room.”

He let out a growling sort of cry, dramatic because he’d also had too much to drink. Then he stood.

“BYE, Sixteen!”

If someone didn’t know the two of you, it would seem as if nothing had changed in the time since you met: both antagonistic, unlikable, as hard as you could make yourselves, forced together and barely tolerating it.

Those who did know you, however, knew that things were very different now. Minho had, reluctantly, taken responsibility for you and, when you had grown up just enough to realise what that had meant, you felt all your hard resolve melt.

They had very little, this ragtag bunch of kids (barely older than you) but they shared everything between them. Never quite enough to go around, money from legitimate enterprises never stretching far enough and having to be supported by money from less than legitimate means. You were a liability. In every sense. The only girl, a stranger, certainly not (at that time) a criminal. But Minho took responsibility and the others let you in.

When you had learnt to see past your own nose, you saw the myriad ways in which they took care of each other. The silent, invisible way Minho cared for his friends. For you. You hadn’t forgotten the sting of electricity you’d felt when he held your hand way back when. Before you’d even seen him, before you knew his name, before any of this. You felt it all the time now. You were a live wire for him.

No one in the group was stupid enough to refer to you as siblings or even joke that you acted like them. Your feelings for Minho were your most closely guarded secret but that didn’t mean everyone didn’t know. You were pretty sure even Minho himself knew. Not that he would ever act on it. He pretended not to notice, you thought. You had pushed close to the edge of being kicked out enough times to know that some things were still precarious. To know that he would never risk his weird family by acknowledging there was anything more than friendship between you. If it even was between you. He had given you very little reason to believe your feelings were reciprocated. So you did your best to ignore them.

They became a fact of life. Like the fact that Minho was the only one Chan trusted to count the cash (not because the others weren’t trustworthy; they just weren’t accurate). Like the fact that Chan had the final say on everything. Like the fact that he would never abuse that authority and act for anything other than the wellbeing of the entire group. It just was.

And it wasn’t like you were stupid enough to pine. You had some pride. Plenty, in fact.

You stood from the booth and sauntered to the bar where your sometime-boyfriend, Johnny, was getting another drink.

“Babe,” you whined, draping yourself over his back, hooking your chin over his shoulder.

“Babe,” he whined back, copying, mocking.

“Entertain me, I’m bored.”

“It’s your party.”

You pouted and forced him to join you on the makeshift dancefloor. You refused to notice that Minho left it as soon as you joined, his face dropping, looking only at Johnny and never once pleased about it.

Chan had cut off the booze supply hours ago and the sun was thinking about raising its head above the horizon, which meant that, far from being wasted and happy and giddy and passing out in your bed, your hangover was already crawling in and you were tired and irritable. Johnny had pissed you off sometime before the booze dried up and then pissed off entirely before you’d begun to sober up, so you’d spent the smallest hours of the morning making your bad mood everyone else’s problem.

Everyone except Minho. Because whilst you were always determined, at these moments, to needle him, to want to get under his skin, to want to scrape it back and spit on it, he was never there. He managed to avoid your venom and, even when he didn’t, seemed immune. He would just slow-blink at you as if he were looking through you and turn away. It boiled your blood and he knew it.

You stomped downstairs to the same shithole basement you’d walked into two years ago. Everyone else had either left or gone to bed already, you thought. You expected it to be empty. It wasn’t.

“Fuck sake, Mouse,” you spat, using your usual nickname, his preferred one (… preferred being too strong a term; it was the one he allowed you to use without retaliation). “Why are you sitting on your own like a fucking loser?”

“You know he treats you like a fucking loser?”

He turned to lean over the back of the sofa, looking tired under his eyes but energetic within them.

“Fuck off,” you returned. “As if you give a shit who I date.”

“Date? That’s what you call it?” He scoffed, deliberately, exaggeratedly, as if you wouldn’t otherwise have recognised his scorn. “He treats you like dirt.”

“You would know.”

He was on his feet and in front of you before you could blink.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

You’d had about enough of it, you decided at that moment. Not enough sleep, too much alcohol, and just enough of this bullshit. You grabbed the front of his T-shirt and pulled him with force towards you. You took him by the back of the neck and kissed him, hard and like you meant it. Because you did. It only took him a second to push you back, hands firm on your shoulders, holding you away from him. His face had lost his usual mask – the blank, passive, flat-eyed one that he used to stare people out with unnatural stillness – but he was still keeping you out; it was guarded, flashes in his eyes being stamped out with every blink, his jaw held tight and his mouth shut.

“That’s what I fucking mean, Minho,” you hissed.

“How dare you?” he hissed back, voice so low in his throat you almost couldn’t hear it. “You have no fucking idea.”

His blinks weren’t quick enough this time to hide all the anger burning in his eyes.

“No idea of what? What?!”

His lip curled and he let you go. He let his guard down around you more than he should have: shrugged you off and turned his back on you. You took both palms and pushed him. He tumbled forward, catching his foot on a side table, pulling it down with him as he hit the floor. Cat-like in his reflexes, he was on his feet before the table had stopped rocking. He charged straight at you and continued until you were pressed up against the door, until he was pressed up against you.

“You want a kiss?” he asked and every part of you should have been screaming yes, because you did.

You did want a kiss, but nothing about this was how you wanted it. It was a threat, not an offer. You’d been threatened with worse. You jutted your chin out a little, always standing up, never backing down.

“You going to give me one?”

His eyes flicked towards your lips, hovered there a second, like he was really thinking about it. They stayed there a little longer and doubt was picking up speed on its race to your consciousness. You thought he wouldn’t. You thought he would. You still couldn’t predict his behaviour. You thought you had him pinned and then he flipped you. You always thought you had him on the ropes, but you never really did.

You were impatient, tiring of this, doubt and insecurity and embarrassment swelling up inside you and you opened your mouth to tell him to go away, to fuck off and die, to do something vile to himself. It was at that moment that his eyes met yours again, for a split second that sent a streak of ice through your blood, and then his mouth was on yours.

You had never once looked a gift horse in the mouth, but even if you had wanted to, even if you had decided before he did it that you would push him off, return his rejection, you couldn’t possibly have done it now. His lips were soft, his hands still tight around your arms. He crowded you further against the door, your bodies pressing together as he swiped his tongue against your bottom lip, asking for entry. You gave it to him. Your hands snaked up his chest and into his hair; it was softer than you’d expected, silky. For a moment, you were disarmed by it. Soft. He never let his softness show if he could help it. Only rarely. Only when he felt safe enough to let his guard down did it ever come creeping out from its hiding place. But here it was, sprouting from the top of his head. Here it was, pressed against your lips, brushing your tongue. You felt weak at the knees.

As far as kisses go, it was the best you’d had. Fire and ice fighting: goosebumps erupting on your skin as it flushed hot, making you shiver. His mouth was warm and wet and sweet and you were desperate for more, knowing that he was kissing you just right and that you weren’t doing the same. You were too eager, too greedy, too needy. This wouldn’t be enough. Couldn’t be enough. Just his lips on yours, his tongue rolling with yours, his hands still pinning your sides. You couldn’t stop here. You had to have him. All.

You whined when he pulled back, when his grip on you loosened, and you opened your eyes expecting his to be soft and liquid, to be those sweet, round boba eyes he didn’t show enough of.

They were hard and flat. He moved away from you in one, long step and back was that impassive blankness he loved so much.

“Happy fucking birthday,” he said.

He stalked off to his bedroom and shut the door.

You stayed, glued to the front door, shaking. With anger, probably. With embarrassment, maybe. With something akin to heartbreak, but you would never admit it. The roaring in your ears, the screaming of invective at both yourself and Minho in your head so loud that you didn’t hear the sound of a key in the lock, weren’t aware that someone was trying to get in until they were shoving at the door, pushing you with it.

“What the fuck?” came a quiet whine from the other side of it as he slowly pushed you away and got the door open. “Why were you trying to keep me out?”

Jisung’s hamster cheeks were full of kimbap, the other half of the roll still in his hand, and his eyes were wide with that cute, pitiful look he carried off so perfectly.

You ignored him. You stomped into your bedroom and slammed the door as hard as you could.

THIRD

Despite having your own bedroom (graciously offered up by Changbin and very ungraciously accepted by you), privacy in the small basement flat was an issue. Which is why you were huddled in the farthest corner of it, fists stuffed in your mouth, crying as quietly as you could in the dead of night.

You lived with five men, but you had not yet found someone to date who would take the threat of them seriously. They did make threats, on occasion, when they had to. Because you had not yet found a man who could treat you as anything more than shit but you had, apparently, found the least bothered and most unfazed men in the city. The one before last had barely flinched when all five of them had battered down his door to come for you, when you had finally managed to get a message out that he was keeping you there.

You never found out what happened to him. You didn’t ask and no one told you.

This one hadn’t been that bad. That was the problem. You had thought he was nice. You had thought (as you had so many times before) that he might actually be the first to treat you right.

You were wrong. So, you were crying in the corner of your room. You didn’t always cry. In fact, you didn’t often cry. Rarely, even. It meant that, when you did, the floodgates opened and you found it hard to stop. You found it almost impossible to breathe, desperately snatching air between sobs. Your head was already pounding, your face aching. It was total and complete the way it overtook you. So much so that you didn’t notice the presence of another person until they sat down beside you.

You gasped, as much as you could amongst your shaking, shallow breaths, and were only slightly comforted that it was him. He said nothing. He pulled you towards him and held you like that until the storm had passed.

You continued to sit in silence as your tears dried on your face, as your heartrate settled and your breathing became even. He didn’t make a move to let you go and you didn’t make one either. You were tired. You were sad. You were, though you wouldn’t admit it, a little bit heartbroken. This bit of comfort was exactly what you wanted.

You didn’t want him to say anything. You didn’t want to hear it. That you’d done it again. That you’d never learn. That, somehow, you were gullible and easy to fool despite the fact that you had been hardening yourself against vulnerability of every kind since you were a child. That men just found a way to get beyond your defences—that bad men found a way. The good ones didn’t find you at all.

“His loss,” was what he said.

You lifted your head, tears still clinging to your lashes, drying on your cheeks. He had that look on his face that he saved for you: the soft, sweet one he gave you when you’d earnt it or when you needed it. The one that made your insides curdle, that even now made your heart skip a beat, that you wanted to fall into forever, that had sealed your fate so many years ago now. He blinked slowly at you, cat-like as always, and brushed your hair from your face.

You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came. Your voice was trapped in your throat because he was still looking at you like that but his eyes kept flicking down, then back up, then down again at longer and longer intervals until he closed them completely and brought his lips to yours.

You didn’t have to think twice. Didn’t have to think at all. Your body did the thinking for you. Your hands pushed into his hair and your legs pushed you up so you could slot them down either side of his hips. His hands found your waist and then the soft skin on the other side of your t-shirt.

This was nothing like the first time. You remembered it all too well: the electricity, the anger, the volcano of feelings you’d tried to suppress rumbling and threatening to erupt, to blow the lid off the equilibrium you’d found. The hunger, the desperation, your own neediness spoiling it all.

You weren’t desperate anymore, for his approval, for his love, for whatever he would give you. You wanted it all, would lay yourself on the floor and kiss his feet if he asked, with no hesitation, but you always knew he wouldn’t ask. You’d got used to that.

Except now he was kissing you – he had kissed you – and his hands were squeezing at your waist and it was slow. Controlled. Deliberate. There was nothing accidental about the way his tongue rolled over yours, the way his teeth bit at your bottom lip, the way his hands pulled you lower on his lap, pulled you closer to him until there wasn’t so much as a breath of air between you.

“Mouse,” you murmured, quietly into his mouth.

He shook his head minutely, a tiny hum swallowed by you when he pressed your lips together again. No talking. Fine. You didn’t need to talk. If he kept kissing you, kept touching you, you wouldn’t need to utter another word again. But you couldn’t stop the little gasp when he sank his teeth into the sensitive skin of your neck, the moan rising in your throat when he ran his tongue over the same spot, hurting then soothing. Like always.

It made your brain turn fuzzy, static wavering in your mind, as all your conscious thoughts turned to liquid, melting into Minho’s mouth, swallowed down by him, eaten whole.

Then the front door slammed hard.

“Guys!” Chan shouted, in a way that he never did.

You heard him pounding on doors, opening them, starting with Changbin and Hyunjin’s on the right.

You sprang apart like two north magnets, instinctively repelled by one another, just in time for Chan to burst through the door and scan the room for you, too wired, too stressed to register that it might have been weird for you to be sitting on the floor like you were, certainly not noticing your kiss-bitten lips or heavy breathing or the way Minho’s hair was ruffled like it had just had a fist in it.

“We’ve got to go,” Chan announced. “Like, right fucking now.”

FOURTH

No one wanted to up the ante. No one wanted to start getting involved with the organised crime lot. Your crime was… disorganised. It was local. It was just you doing the things you needed to, skirting around the law to survive. It wasn’t really crime, not if you squinted hard enough. Then the police raided the bar (which was illegal in pretty much every way that mattered) and you had nowhere left to go.

There was just enough of the trust your parents left you (which you got access to at 21) to secure a new apartment (one that was not underground) and a small buy-in with a group of much larger, older, more experienced criminals. There was very little else you could’ve done at that point. Or so you all told yourselves.

The apartment was an upgrade in every way but size. It was newer and above-ground which meant it stayed warm and didn’t get damp. It had windows which let the sun in. It had enough room for two sofas so everyone could sit comfortably. It had a gas hob which really only Chan and Minho cared about, but they cared a lot. It had two bathrooms with reliably hot water and good pressure. It did not get power cuts. It did not always smell musty. It was not brown and beige and grey. But it did have fewer rooms to be parcelled out between you all.

The last one had four rooms that served as bedrooms. This had three. Between six. There had been furious arguments and endless straw-pulling and no one was happy with the results. It took a few weeks but eventually things shook out as they always should have.

You shared with Minho because he was the only one who was willing. You both had reputations for being scary (in totally opposite ways: you the raging bull to his still, fathomless water); you loved to take your bad moods out on one another; he was the only one you ever willingly let see you when you were sad and small and vulnerable. Besides which, no one else would dare try to take the space at your side from him. So you shared a bedroom: two twin beds on opposite sides of the room, because Minho refused to sleep in a bunk bed and you refused to sleep together in a double. There was little room for anything else.

You complained about the sleeping arrangements almost daily. You loved the hot water and the sunlight and the not-mouldiness of the apartment, but some days, you couldn’t bear the way you couldn’t get away from Minho.

You’d thought you had it bad. This was even worse.

Four days. Four days, so far, staying (squatting) in a vile, empty, dilapidated villa apartment, staring out of a window, waiting for something to happen. Just you and Minho and one room. For four days and counting.

It was Minho’s turn to watch and he sat at the monitor, diligent, hard-working, as always, whilst you were supposed to be catching up on sleep. Instead, you were lying on what passed for a bed, tossing an apple into the air and catching it, over and over and-

“You going to stop that?” Minho asked, with his trademark tone: both light and threatening.

“Nope!”

“Want me to make you?”

You flicked your eyes over to him: he was studying the monitor seriously, but you were sure he had been looking at you.

You hadn’t spoken about that night. Partly because you hadn’t had the time. You’d jumped up from the floor of your bedroom, grabbed as much stuff as you could fit in the first bag you could find and the six of you had legged it, making it out just in time to watch the police cars roll up and trash the place.

“There was so much fucking money in that safe,” Chan had said, plaintively, staring at the sky. That was when you’d offered up yours.

You had had to find somewhere to live, and fast. You’d all had to find jobs, something to do, some way to make money that wasn’t connected to the bar. You had been passing like ships in the night, meeting only to argue about shower time and sleeping arrangements. Then Changbin had come home with a suggestion. You’d argued about that, too, but in the end, it was unanimous. Go in with the bigger boys or – well, there was no ‘or’. That was the point.

So you and Minho were working recon. You’d pulled the short straw in more ways than one. It was the longest you had spent together. Ever. Confined for days in this space.

On the first day, he refused to talk to you at all.

On the second, you made everything into an argument because at least you could get a rise out of him.

On the third, he had seemed to thaw. Something had softened and you talked, like friends, like you used to. You laughed and joked and it wasn’t so bad.

Now it was the fourth day and that ice had returned. He had frozen over, doubled-down on silence. No sooner had you had warmed up than he was giving you frostbite, chilblains. Whiplash. Those ten words were the first he’d spoken to you all day.

“No,” you answered. “I don’t want you to make me.”

You paused, wondering if the words you were considering were a sign that you were going mad, that being cooped up in this space had sent you a little doolally. The unbearable nothingness of your days passing like sludge forcing all those hidden thoughts forward, with nothing to distract you from them. The words were certainly risky, but Minho had shown his hand. He had kissed you. Like he meant it. And you knew he would’ve continued to kiss you had Chan not interrupted. He’d have continued to do a whole lot more than just kiss you.

And you were bored.

“I want you to fuck me,” you said plainly, catching the apple in front of your face and turning to look at him.

He was still studying the monitor. Nothing on his face gave anything away: surprise, disgust, lust, laughter. Nothing. You were used to that.

“We’re on a job.”

“Yeah, and it’s boring and nothing is happening and who fucking cares? I would rather have sex.”

He sighed and rolled his head to look at you.

“Really, Sixteen? Now is the time you want to bring this up?”

“Stop calling me Sixteen.”

“I always call you Sixteen.”

“You always call me Sixteen when you want to put me in my place or make me feel like a child. I’m not a fucking child anymore.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“Then why won’t you fuck me?”

He laughed and your blood began to simmer.

“There’s more that I look for than just ‘is not a child’.”

“Don’t try to act like you don’t want to.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

“Well then, shall we?”

He smirked and the glint in his eye was new to you.

“We’re on a job.”

“Stop saying that!” you cried, stalking the three steps from your side of the room to his.

You manoeuvred yourself into his lap, blocking the monitor from his view, and took his face in your hands.

“We’re on a job and nothing is happening and nothing will continue to happen for ages yet, so why don’t we make it a little less fucking boring?”

You knew he wanted to. Could see his pupils dilate. Watched his eyes flick to your lips and your chest and back up. This might have been all he wanted: sex and nothing more. You didn’t know. Weren’t interested in having that conversation. Were convinced that it didn’t matter either way. If he only wanted sex, you would give it. Give it until it was too late and he was in too deep to come back out. Hadn’t worked before but there was a first time for everything.

But even that was beside the point. You were desperately bored and bored of being desperate for him and there was one stone that would kill both those birds.

“Mouse,” you said quietly, keeping your voice low, as you placed a kiss on his jaw, as you spread your knees a little wider, sinking lower into his lap. “Come on.”

His hands were on your thighs, neither encouraging nor discouraging, just holding tight. He didn’t respond as you continued to press kisses to his face, to his neck, grinding your hips over him slowly. You could feel his pulse beat fast, noticed the way his breathing was getting heavier, his fingers dipping deeper into your skin, until it hurt. Until he stopped pretending he was going to continue to work, stopped pretending that he could resist you.

“Fuck,” he gasped, his voice hoarse.

He gripped the hair at the back of your head and pulled you from his neck, tumbling you both to the floor. You didn’t want it to be fast, but you’d take it any way he’d give it. So when his hands pulled at your t-shirt, you let him take it off as you unclasped your bra. He didn’t give you time to fumble with the hem of his top, to discard it for him; he dipped his head straight down, swirling your nipple with his tongue, sucking it into his mouth; he rested his weight on one elbow and his other hand descended. You were grateful you had no buttons, no zips to contend with, just the loose, elasticated band of a pair of leggings that had seen better days. Minho’s fingers slipped beneath it and he circled his fingers around your clit, the fabric of your underwear dulling the sensation only slightly.

This was moving even faster than you’d expected but you’d been waiting so long already. Blood rushed to the surface of your skin and your breath began to shudder. Underwear now pushed to the side, you gasped when Minho ran a finger through your folds, shivered when he moaned at what he found there. He brought his lips back to yours but you turned away to let his name drop from your open mouth.

“Mouse...”

“Shut up,” he said firmly as he sank two fingers into your slick cunt and stole your breath with another kiss.

You couldn’t talk but you could moan. Could whine. Could whimper as his fingers moved inside you, as he ground his palm against your clit, as he made your thighs twitch and walls spasm. You tried not to lose your mind completely, to stay grounded, to stay present now that this was finally, really, actually happening. You reached your own hands down to Minho’s trousers; he hadn’t got the no-buttons, no-zips memo and your fingers fumbled with both. They shook with adrenalin as you popped the button through the hole and dragged the metal zip down. You pushed them away from you, off his hips, and had one hand in his boxers when the crackle of the walkie-talkie cut through Minho’s moan.

You both froze.

“Minho? What’s happening? Chan said they’re on the move?”

You glanced at each other, for one more frozen second, and then the world lurched into overdrive. Minho clambered to the monitor with his trousers around his ankles and, as soon as he saw the screen, started swearing viciously, tugging at his clothes and throwing your t-shirt back at you.

“What’s happening?” you asked, breathless for all the wrong reasons now.

“They’re clearing out,” Minho reported into the walkie-talkie, ignoring you but answering your question anyway. “Two loads have left, a third on its way.”

“Shit! How did you miss it? What the fuck were you doing?”

“Nothing! We lost the feed for a minute but it came back quickly and then they were already moving.”

He shot you a glance, something between panicked plea and angry admonishment. It wasn’t often he was caught on the hop, wasn’t ever. You, however, were used to being on the wrong side of things, so you re-dressed quickly and had already started packing your shit up. No matter how sideways this went, you could take two positives from it. One, you wouldn’t have to stay locked up here with Minho any longer. Two, he definitely, definitely wanted to fuck you.

FIFTH

You still hadn’t talked about it. You continued to share a bedroom, sleep there every night, wake there every morning but you had not once discussed the twice now that you had almost had sex. You were waiting for him to bring it up, even though you knew he never would. He wasn’t a coward, not ever, but if there was one word to describe him it was loyal and you knew he would protect your group with his life. And that also meant not pursuing whatever it was that was between you. Because it was a risk. It could jeopardise the stability of what you had established—what Chan had established long before you ever came into the picture.

But you were digging your heels in this time. You’d already come on too strong. Your pride was being wounded with each day that passed, with each day that he continued to pass you up. You’d crack first. You knew you would. You always did. Minho was unbreakable. You weren’t. But you wanted to pretend, for at least a little while, that you could be. That you could be impenetrable, too.

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” Junho repeated as he slammed into the car, instructing Minho to drive before the door was even shut.

Minho didn’t need telling twice.

“Where to?”

“Safe house,” he gasped, ragged breathing setting your teeth on edge.

You didn’t ask what had happened. What had gone wrong. That didn’t matter as much as getting out. Getting Junho out. You were disposable, still. You knew that. Even Minho. You were runts; you also still had something to make up for given what happened on your last assignment. So you travelled in silence. Junho in the back, breathing heavily; you didn’t turn around to see if he was ok. You didn’t want to know. You assumed he wasn’t but as long as you could hear him breathing, you knew he was alive.

Minho was facing forward, eyes scanning the roads ahead, reflexes allowing him to run red lights without accident – in this part of the city, no one would stop a flashy car like this for speeding, for driving recklessly. That was what they all did. His jaw was tense, eyes tight. He looked calm but you could see his little legs kicking under the water. You knew him well enough by now.

You didn’t keep your eyes on the road. You kept them on him. Felt like someone needed to be watching out for him, too – not that there was anything you could have done to be helpful anyway. There were always two in the getaway car. That was the rule and you didn’t ask why because you didn’t want to know the answer.

As a teen, you had thought you knew everything. You were old enough now to know not only that you knew nothing but also that you preferred it that way. Need to know basis. For everything. All the time.

Minho slowed, driving more carefully as the car left the city, winding across hills, negotiating turns that you’d have driven straight over, plummeting you all to a miserable death. He turned the headlights off at the mile marker he’d been told about, one that you’d already forgotten, and crawled, slower still, up to the house, blanketed in darkness, hidden by an overgrown and untended garden.

Junho grunted.

“Thanks. Wait until I give the signal then get the fuck out of here. Do not go anywhere you’ve ever met with us. Ditch the car when you can; destroy the plates.”

He didn’t wait for a response. You watched him stagger away and then waited until the light in the top right room flicked on and off and on and off again.

Minho put the car in reverse and slowly backed out. At a further mile marker, he turned the lights on. He continued to climb, driving away from the city still, until the car reached the top of the hill. The lights from the city were so bright you almost didn’t need the headlights at all. It didn’t feel a safe place to stop. Too visible.

Then Minho slowly and quietly backed the car into nook on the hillside. No doubt worn away from years of cars trying to pass each other on the narrow road, it barely contained the car, but it put it in some shadow and no one would hit you.

He turned the engine off and let his hands fall to his lap. His head tipped back against the headrest and he sighed.

“You ok?”

You asked him all the time and he never gave a serious answer because he always was. And if he wasn’t, he certainly wasn’t going to talk about it. But you asked all the same.

He nodded then turned to you.

“You?”

You laughed nervously, suddenly feeling the last twenty minutes as the adrenalin began to drain.

“Kind of feel like I could hurl.”

He laughed too and nodded again.

“I feel like I want to sleep for a thousand years but also like I could run a marathon,” you continued.

“I feel half-dead already but also fucking invincible.”

He held his hand out and it trembled. You clasped it between yours and held it tight. He smiled; from where you were sitting, it looked like a smirk, but then he turned more fully towards you and it wasn’t. It was sweet. His eyes were gleaming. Your mouth dried.

“Half-dead, huh?” And you knew you were going to say it. You always knew you would be the one with which it would raise its head. “How about a little dead? A little death, even?”

“Sixteen…”

His voice had that warning tone to it but the gleam in his eyes remained and you’d broken the seal now. Were going to push this as far as he’d let you.

“Mouse…”

You saw him waver. Absolutely, definitely, were certain that he was considering it. Until a car came over the crest of the hill and its headlights flashed in at you; at the same moment, Minho’s phone buzzed from the cup holder it had been thrown in. You jumped. He jumped. Whatever moment there had been was gone now.

Minho took his hand from your grasp and checked his phone. Then he put the car in gear.

“We’ve got to get out of here.”

You expected it to be quick. Expected it to be simple. It turned out to be neither. You had managed to destroy the plates and were very near clear of the car you’d now abandoned when you, once again, found trouble (‘why did it always have to be you?’ you had asked yourself fleetingly as Minho shoved you towards your own piece of shit car that had been waiting for your getaway; he had not waited for you to be fully seated or your door to be closed before he slammed a foot on the accelerator and squealed off). The two of you were screaming around corners, tearing out of the city in whichever direction provided the easiest escape. With the headlights off and the city lights streaming into the distance, you could barely see the road in front of you, had no idea how Minho was still driving straight. You trusted him with your life and it was just as well, because it was in his hands. His, yours, and potentially everyone else’s, too.

The summer sun was minutes away from popping its head above the horizon when you were finally able to return home.

You sat in silence for a few moments. You had moved beyond exhaustion into this kind of frayed, wired alertness. You felt your eyelids dropping even as your heart still hammered. Minho’s hand found yours.

“Mouse,” you said, letting the rest of it fall away unspoken.

“Yeah,” he replied but you didn’t know if that was his answer. “Just give me a minute.”

You were too tired to argue so you let silence fall again. You were almost dropping off, head just beginning to nod, when he tugged on your hand.

“Come here.”

You turned. You leant. His other hand cupped the back of your head and pulled you closer. He kissed you. Electricity crackled and a surge of energy rushed through you. It was happening again. He was kissing you. You couldn’t let this time pass by.

You scrambled in your chair, forgetting to undo your seatbelt, being pulled back by it and swearing coarsely when your lips broke from his. You clambered over the gearstick and the handbrake and fell with one foot heavily in the footwell as Minho slid his seat all the way back. You didn’t have time to care about the jarring in your knee or the bump on your head as it hit the roof. Could barely feel it. Didn’t matter.

Well, it didn’t matter until it did. Until there wasn’t really room enough for you to straddle him. Until you were pressing yourself up against the roof so there would be room for him to get his hands to his belt. Until you lost your balance and fell backwards, landing with bump on the steering wheel, which blared out into the dark dawn street.

“Fucking hell,” Minho muttered. “Get in the back.”

More willingly than you ever had, you did as you were told. He moved his seat forward again, all the way, and you watched him climb through to you, hands reaching for him. It was no less awkward. Not enough room to lie down. Still not enough height to sit. Not space enough between the back and front to kneel. It was messy and uncoordinated, grabbing for anything, taking what you could get, knocking into the window and falling off the seat, kicking and elbowing each other in a tangle.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Minho roared, in an uncharacteristic display of frustration. “No use. Not happening.”

He sat back and sighed, trousers undone but still around his hips. He pushed his hands through his hair and you tried to settle demurely next to him, smoothing your own hair, zipping up your jeans, swallowing hard as you fought to accept that he was right. It was not happening. Not here. Not now.

You stared through the car window and were sure you could’ve punched straight through it. You wanted to. It was the window, Minho, or yourself. Couldn’t effectively punch yourself. Knew you wouldn’t dare hit your mouse. Your fingernails pressed sharply into your palm as you squeezed your fists tightly.

A hand covered yours. Gentle. You looked at Minho and there he was: your secret, soft guy. You unfurled your fingers and he linked them with his own.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s just go home.”

FIRST

You tramped into the apartment, bringing your bad mood with you. Everyone was sick of it by now – you were sick of it, but you couldn’t shake it.

Minho was avoiding you. That much was clear. He had been avoiding you since you tried and failed to fuck in the car. You didn’t know why because you didn’t care. You had reached the end of your tether with the universe. Three times now. But still no cigar. You wondered – asked yourself a hundred times a day – what it was going to take to make this happen.

Frustrated didn’t even begin to cover it. You could go out and hook up with whoever you liked. You could get yourself off just fine. But it ran so much deeper than that. If you pulled at the thread, it tugged on your heartstrings, all tangled up in knots. It hurt. It pulled at something so deeply interwoven with your very being; all anyone had to do was follow it to its source and they could destroy you. All anyone had to do was cut it and they’d cut you, too.

You didn’t like that. Hated it, in fact. Hated that all this tugging and wiggling had opened up a hole and you could feel your vulnerability exposed. You could feel weakness leaking out of you, seeping from your pores, visible to the naked eye, for anyone to see.

It made you bitter. Made you angry. Made you lash out even when you shouldn’t have. Because you were always on the defensive. Even now. Especially now.

You knew the others were talking about you. About Minho. About the two of you. Knew it from the awkward silences when you walked in a room and the furtive glances and the group chat that had grown curiously quiet, leaving you to assume that there was a separate one you weren’t a part of.

You were beginning to lose your patience and you were not starting with a plentiful supply.

You lay on your bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm your rage. You had woken with it, just like every other day this week, and it would not leave you. You breathed slowly and carefully and tried to think of difficult and boring things.

You thought only of Minho.

Then he opened the door. He hesitated – you could feel him standing there, assessing – and then shut it, leaving you alone. As the door clicked, you felt that tug. You felt the knots tighten, so impossibly tight now that the joins weren’t even visible. You jumped up and threw yourself through the door.

“Stop fucking ignoring me!”

You hadn’t meant to shout.

Minho turned and looked at you. His stillness enraged you further. He didn’t say anything.

“Are you going to fucking say anything?!”

“What do you want me to say?”

“ANYTHING! You haven’t spoken to me for weeks! You literally walk out of rooms if I’m in them! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You think this is easy?”

His voice was cold and sharp as steel. His head cocked lightly to the side and his eyes narrowed, peering at you, looking inside you.

“You think I want it to be like this?-”

“I don’t know what you fucking want!”

His nostrils flared. This delighted you. He was annoyed and you loved it.

“Not once,” you continued, still shouting because you couldn’t rein it in, “have you ever fucking told me. Not once have you ever actually said what you want! That you want me. Do you? Fucking do you? Because I don’t fucking know anymore! Every time we get close, you get further away from me! I’m not a fucking yo-yo, Minho. You can’t play with me-”

“Play with you? You think I’m playing? What part of this is a game?”

His voice was rising now, too, his perfectly blank mask slipping.

“It’s never been a game, Sixteen! Not once in the entire time since we met has it been a game! How are you still not getting it? Junho almost fucking died and if he had, it would have been our fault! We all almost ended up in prison because of the fucking bar. The night we met you almost got yourself trafficked! It’s not a game! You act like life is so fucking simple! It’s not!”

“IT IS! It can be that fucking simple! Stop overthinking! Stop taking everything so fucking seriously!-”

“It is serious! That’s what you don’t get!”

He was close now, had been inching closer and closer, and he was looking down at you, his eyes black as pitch, his jaw tight, his breath struggling through clenched teeth.

“You don’t get it and you never have.”

His voice was quiet, back to that steel that sent a chill down your spine.

“Everywhere you go, I look out for you. Everywhere you are, I am responsible for you. It’s been nine fucking years, Sixteen, and you are everywhere I go.”

Your vision tunnelled, stomach fell to your feet. You had to look away and hated yourself for it. You never flinched. You never backed down. You were never the first to retreat. Except for him. You couldn’t bear to look in his eyes, to see what loathing and disdain they held for you. Your embarrassment was on your cheeks already and pricking in your eyes.

Then his nose nudged yours and he took more steps forward. He pushed you slowly against the wall and you cursed yourself for retreating to it.

“You are in my life and in my bedroom and in my fucking head,” he whispered. “All the time. All the fucking time. And I haven’t been able to do shit about it because you are my job. You are mine to protect. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows I would burn this place to the ground for you. I would scorch the earth. I would drain the sea. For you. Don’t you get it? When it comes to you, I’m a fucking liability.”

You risked it. A glance. Lifted your eyes for less than a second but you had to do it again. Had to stop there, be sure you were really seeing what you thought you were.

Soft, round, liquid eyes. An openness in his face that he hadn’t let you into before. His mouth was still a grim line, turned down at the corners so slightly, had it been anyone but you, it would have gone unnoticed.

“Mouse...”

You tried to whisper but could barely manage that, his name creeping out on a hoarse gasp.

He moved his face closer to yours, lips almost touching.

“Don’t you get it?” he repeated.

You got it. Because everything he said was true for you, too. You’d started out as a liability, for sure, but you had continued to be one because Minho was your north star. Not Chan. Not the group. Not whatever sense of purpose you might have derived from the life you had cobbled together. If he said jump, you wouldn’t ask a thing. You would jump. You’d been following him since day one and, then, it might have been desperation, a lack of options. Now... well, there was still desperation: a desperate need for him, a desperate desire to be wanted by him, kissed by him, touched by him. You had other options. Options you would never take, not as long as he existed. You would stop existing before you ever thought of leaving him.

You nodded, feeling more like a foolish, vulnerable 16-year-old than you had when you were foolish and vulnerable and 16.

He sighed, breath sweet with the pudding he could never resist, and you were closing your eyes, tilting your chin up, expecting him to give in.

He turned away. You watched him, mouth agape in disbelief, as he pushed his hands through his hair.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” you screamed, bringing your hands down on his back in something that was half-shove, half-slap.

He had whipped around before you could lower your arms and you found your wrists caught in his hands.

“You don’t fucking stop, do you?” he hissed.

“Why would I stop?! I don’t want to stop, Minho! And nor do you! You can’t say you don’t! Because I KNOW. I KNOW you want it. I know you want me. And I’m fucking throwing myself at you. Take me! TAKE ME!”

His eyes were hard and dark. His fingers pushed so tightly into your wrists that you could feel your pulse against them. He was breathing heavily, nostrils flaring but lips shut tight, pressed together in a thin line.

“Take. Me,” you repeated, level and firm, not sure if he would, but sure that, if he didn’t, things would never be the same again.

You couldn’t do this a fourth time. Couldn’t put yourself in his hands, have him take you, and then... Not. And then stop. And then act as if you didn’t exist. That thread between you, tied up in your heartstrings, was taut, stretched, at its limit. And so were you.

The pause was painful. Excruciatingly long. Adrenalin coursed through you, making you hot, making you shake, making your heart beat so hard against your ribs you thought they might break. Thought your heart might break. Hadn’t been willing to admit how fragile it was but it felt like venetian glass now. You could already feel the cracks forming, the web extending, the shards-

He kissed you. Pulled you roughly towards him by your wrists and kissed you. Put his hands on your hips, then slid them under your top, and still kissed you. He was kissing you. It took a few seconds to slip back into your body, to feel it, the soft petal of his lips against yours, the sharp bite of his teeth, the wet warmth of his tongue. You forgot your shattering heart and grabbed his T-shirt, using it to pull him closer, to drag him into your shared bedroom.

Not that he needed dragging. You stumbled over each other’s feet as you tried to kiss and walk and grope all at once. You tumbled backwards onto his bed and took the brief separation as an opportunity to lose your top, to unclasp your bra. Your hands were in the waistband of your joggers when Minho climbed over you, topless now too, breathless as he mirrored your actions, pushing his trousers and his boxers over his hips. He huffed a frustrated sigh as you giggled, as he stood back up to take them all the way off, to kick them off his ankles and take yours away, too.

He didn’t give you time for admiration, for appraisal. He lay his body over you and his lips pressed against yours, quickly, firmly, before trailing them across your jaw and down your neck. He was every bit as vicious as you thought he would be, teeth nipping at your sensitive skin, sinking into your soft flesh. You wanted him to mark you, wanted the proof of it to last. You scraped your nails down his back and he hissed when you broke the skin. Hissed but didn’t complain. Hissed and moved his mouth lower, swirling his tongue around your nipple, sinking his teeth into that, too.

When you tugged on his hair, he pulled off, looked at you, his face an open question. You shook your head.

“It’s fine,” you panted. “I like it. I just want to pull your hair.”

He laughed and clamped his teeth over your breast again, harder this time, so you keened and your back arched into him. You twisted his roots in your fist and he moaned, eyes flicking up to yours as he kissed across the valley of your chest.

“Do that again.”

“Fuck,” you gasped, tipping your head back, doing as he had asked and tugging hard.

The ache you felt for him had ballooned inside you, taken up all your hollow spaces. There was your flushed skin and your fluttering heart, your rushing blood and your deep, persistent ache for Minho. Nothing more. Nothing less.

“Mouse,” you whispered, voice tight with desire. “Touch me, please.”

You never asked. You didn’t beg. If you liked a guy, you let them do what they wanted with you, and if you didn’t, you took what you wanted. It was always one-sided.

But this wasn’t. It was Minho. It was the fathomless depth in his eyes as he lay his mouth all over you. It was the slip of his fingers through your soaked folds as he sucked sweet bruises against your neck. It was the sound of a moan caught in his throat when you wrapped your fingers around his hard, leaking length. It was mutual. It was reciprocated.

It was burning you up, hotter and sweeter than you’d ever felt before. His fingers sinking into your core made you shudder with delight. The twitch in his cock as you brushed your thumb over his head made your mouth water. The sound of his mumbled sweet nothings pressed against your skin, whispered in your ear, licked straight into your mouth, made you dizzy.

“So soft,” he said. “So wet... Fuck, you’re so fucking beautiful... I’ve wanted this for so long... Wanted you...”

He used your name, your real one, the one he didn’t learn (didn’t ask for) for months after you met. You returned the favour, ‘Minho’ tripping from your lips, until he shook his head.

“Mouse,” he murmured, mouth still pressed against yours. “‘Mouse’ is yours.”

“Mouse,” you echoed and he nodded before kissing you so that you could say nothing at all.

You barely spoke, couldn’t catch your breath enough to form the words, couldn’t engage your faculties to find any to say. Minho spoke, though, more than you had ever heard him speak: praise and exclamation and remembrance and, yes, even admonition, but it was all so sweet, syrupy, dripping from his tongue like honey. You’d never heard him speak like this before, never had him melt in your hands or in your mouth, never felt him as easy and pliable as this.

It wasn’t just his body. It wasn’t just the perfect smoothness of his warm, soft skin. It wasn’t just the stretch, the fullness, he made inside you, the insistent rhythm of his hips thrusting his cock tightly into your slick, waiting warmth. It wasn’t just his wet, sugary mouth, at your lips, at your jaw, at your clavicle. It wasn’t just all these things he was doing to you, all the things you were doing to him.

It was his open eyes, round and shining and fluttering closed as your walls clenched around him. It was the tenderness in them, the depth he was letting you see, for more than just seconds at a time. It was the gentle tracing of your face with his fingers, even as he fucked into you, even as his teeth drew blood beneath your skin. It was Minho, the entirety of him. Yours. Finally yours. Finally giving in to you, giving himself to you.

You got it. You had said you did and you had, but now, beneath him in his bed as he loved you, you actually understood the magnitude of it. His feelings for you. Yours for him. Held back behind a dam for so many years and now, the dam had broken. Now came the deluge that would flood the world, could drown everyone in it.

To hell with them, you thought. To hell with anyone else. You found what you needed almost a decade ago. He found you. You found each other, somehow, by some miracle.

When the pleasure swelled up in your core, toes curling, back breaking, you cried out with all the breath you had in your lungs, felt tears sting in your eyes, and the following inhale wobbled and shook. Minho paused, pressed his forehead against yours, kissed you lightly, didn’t have to ask the question out loud.

You nodded and kissed him again, then again, each time hungrier than the last. You didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to feel anything but this, but him. He moved slower now, though, hips rolling smoothly, lips not leaving yours, even when he spoke, even when he murmured how fucking good you felt, how much better than he’d imagined, how hard he was trying not to come, how he didn’t want this to end.

You couldn’t take it. Thought you really would cry, thought you would collapse entirely under his weight, under the weight of everything you’d been carrying around, all these feelings: all this love and fear and frustration. He pushed you to the edge again without even trying, your red thread thoroughly tangled, inseparable now, and pulling a greater ecstasy from you than you had ever known.

He couldn’t hold out either, his final, sharp thrusts filling you with his sticky release. You held him there, as close as he could be. He kissed you, so light it was barely there, his fingers grazing your face as he pushed the hair from your brow.

“Mouse,” you choked, tears threatening your waterline.

He kissed you again, that little butterfly kiss; you’d never seen him be this gentle.

“Sixteen,” he whispered and, for possibly the first time, it didn’t sound like disdain, didn’t come accompanied by a smirk or an eye-roll; it was hushed and secret and just for you.

As it had always been.

You lay on his chest, bodies pressed together in the small, single bed, as they would have been even if the bed were bigger.

“I want some water,” he said, lips against your forehead before he manoeuvred himself out from underneath you. “Want a drink?”

You nodded and he smiled down at you as he fetched clean underwear and pulled a T-shirt over his head.

You watched him go, watched him open the door, and then heard the sound of party poppers, whoops, and applause.

The apartment was empty. Had been empty when you entered your bedroom. In the midst of everything, you had failed to notice the gang return home. They had not failed to notice you and Minho.

“Fucking finally!”

“You mean, they finally fucked?”

Laughter resounded from the living room. Minho turned around, closed the door, and climbed back into bed without a word.

#what the cat dragged in fic #f3racha

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