#hongjoong x gender neutral reader

[jnginlov]

you’re hongjoong’s bias

when you and your group go on idol radio to promote your latest comeback, you don’t anticipate one of the hosts to be completely enraptured by you

⇀ pairing idol!hongjoong x idol!reader

⇀ genre fluff, idol au

⇀ style one shot

⇀ word count 8.6k

⇀ warnings brief mentions of idol life difficulties, food, hugging, kissing, this is basically all fluff

⇀ reactions from the gc “IM GONNA JUMP OFF A MOVING TRAIN” “Ooohhhhhhh Oh Shit” “You love to torment us with this don’t you”

note this is written completely gender neutral, all of your group members use they/them pronouns and have unisex names so you can imagine any type of group, there’s a mention of makeup but all genders wear makeup in the entertainment industry, also here is a little playlist inspired by the group in this fic if you’re real delulu like me

your group, eclipse, had been enjoying your recent promotional period, your fans, lovingly termed starlight, had been working hard to promote your latest comeback and for once your company had been able to do the same. eclipse wasn’t particularly unknown before, you’d already had your first music show win and been recognized at several korean music award shows, but this was certainly your most successful song and mini album yet. you, as the main dancer and oldest, had particularly enjoyed all of the interest from idols that had asked to do the dance challenge with you for tiktok and instagram. it allowed you to meet a lot of people in the industry who you had admired and wanted to get to know before but didn’t know how to approach. of all the idols you had done the challenge with there was certainly one that stuck out in your mind, kim hongjoong, captain of ateez and dj on idol radio.

your group had gone onto the radio show as part of your promotions, something not unusual for you all as you’d been on an episode when youngjae and young k were the hosts, as well as one with joohoney and hyungwon as djs just over a year ago. this time, however, felt very different. maybe it was the nerves from how much more attention your group was receiving that was making you feel a little fidgety in your seat or maybe it was the fact that one of the djs couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of you.

for the first ten minutes of your time at idol radio you’re scared that there’s something on your face, trying to subtly glance at any reflective surface to parse what could be causing someone to pay so much attention to you.

when yunho and hongjoong both seemed to be completely focused on another one of your members, asking something about the recording process for the album, you try to subtly place a hand on the arm of your group’s leader, nuri, sat right next to you.

as you lean away from the microphone in front of you, your leader turns to you, and you breathe out the word “makeup” in hopes that nuri will find whatever smudge caught hongjoong’s sharp eye.

unfortunately, they only shake their head, eyes darting around your face but returning to your own once they don’t find anything. they squeeze your hand gently with their own before turning back to the interview, a subtle gesture to both comfort you and let you know that they will definitely ask why you were concerned later.

as you retract your hand from nuri’s arm, you turn back to face the center of the table, which was conveniently set up so that your and nuri’s seats were directly opposite hongjoong and yunho’s, respectively. meaning that when you turn back to refocus on the matter at hand you instantly notice how hongjoong nervously looks away from you, suddenly finding the side of his co-hosts face extremely interesting.

“so, your latest mini album is called,” yunho begins, looking at the card in front of him to guarantee he doesn’t mispronounce it, “close orbit. this is the end of the orbit series in your concept right?”

nuri nods eagerly next to you before beginning their usual spiel about the members' roles in the creative direction of your group.

often times you’re deemed as the second in command, filling in the gaps your leader may miss, and therefore you’d like to think that you’re pretty good about turning on professional mode no matter the situation. however, from the corner of your eye you see hongjoong’s gaze flitting between you and nuri every few seconds and his behavior has begun to have you a bit nervous, fidgeting with one of the rings your stylist had given you that morning. you desperately try to pay attention to what nuri is talking about but, with the combination of the fact that you already know everything about what they’re saying and the heat that’s creeping up your neck as you try to push the thoughts of hongjoong’s behavior from your mind, you find your own thoughts wandering to hongjoong and his weird behavior.

yunho calls your name suddenly, once nuri is finished, shifting your attention back to the interview at hand and beginning to talk about your involvement in eclipse, aside from simply being a member of the group.

you try not to flick your gaze over to hongjoong too often, who now seems to find the cards he’s surely read over several times before intensely interesting, as yunho acknowledges your skills as main dancer and notes for the audience how involved you are in your group’s choreographic process, which already has a warmth blooming in your chest as you’re aware he’s the main dancer of his own group and you always find recognition from other group’s dancers to feel extra special, but the warmth is quickly transferred to your cheeks only a moment later.

“it’s kind of funny,” yunho starts and you tilt your head in interest as he peaks over to his co-host, “you’re hongjoong’s bias.”

from the look that takes over hongjoong’s face, a mix of shock and embarrassment, and the way he turns quickly to look at yunho with slight anger, you assume that this fact was supposed to stay secret, although you’re partly thankful that you have a seemingly good explanation for why hongjoong hadn’t been able to look away from you since you stepped into the studio.

you’re sure your own shocked expression comes over your face before you’re schooling it quickly, although you hear your maknae, star, sat right next to you, snickering softly under their hand, and you shoot star a quick side eye that seems to remove the humor from the situation for them.

“uh, thank you,” you say with a bow as low as the table in front of you allows, “it means a lot to hear that from a senior like you. thank you for your support.”

“of course,” hongjoong speaks suddenly, mirroring your bow as much as he can before stuttering out a statement about how you’re “so inspiring” and “light up the stage”. his face is getting redder by the second as he digs himself further into a hole but you can feel that your face is heating to match his own.

yunho seems to sense the way he’s pushed the interview off the rails and interrupts to bring attention back to your group entirely and your comeback.

through the next few minutes of the show, you’re noticeably and uncharacteristically distant as you now find yourself to have almost traded positions with hongjoong, subtly staring at him as much as you can manage without drawing immediate attention from your fans or members.

in opposition, hongjoong had now taken to looking at pretty much anything that wasn’t you after yunho had shared his little secret. unfortunately, maybe fortunately, you found that you can barely tear your gaze from the blue haired man across the table.

you were obviously a fan of ateez, being able to appreciate a lot of aspects about their talents and skills, but you’d never really gotten too much into the members themselves, aside from knowing who was who and what they each did. you found that as an idol yourself it could feel weird to try acting like a normal fan of a group, making you almost hyper aware of your own fans and their habits as you would try to focus on just one video that wasn’t related directly to the group’s music or performance.

this had meant that you had no ateez bias, although you knew a decent amount about the members, but now you’re rethinking your whole ideas of being a fan as an idol.

as you think to yourself, you attempt to rationalize the past few minutes, assuming that yunho was just joking around, trying to make fun of his hyung or maybe meaning something different from what your group’s fans meant when they said they biased you. however, every time you’ve managed to start convincing yourself, you’re just reminded of hongjoong’s reaction in the moment his member had said something.

your spiraling thoughts are only serving to distract you and suddenly, feeling a hand on your shoulder to bring you back to reality, you realize that they had started playing one of the songs from your album, letting you and your members grab snacks and wave to the fans through the window. the member with their hand on your shoulder, one of your best friends in the group, eunjae, looks at you with a mix of worry and bemusement, although you hear the slight smirk they wear in their voice as they ask if you’re okay.

you wave eunjae off before you head over to the window, not feeling particularly hungry, and hope that maybe seeing your fans will help to ground you, just as they always do.

as you’re waving through the window at several people with headbands of your and your member’s names you feel a presence beside you, much larger than any of your members. you turn to find yunho near you, not crowding you but obviously intentionally in your space, most likely to draw your attention without suspicion.

“sorry about that,” he says as you turn to him and he gestures toward the snack cart closer to the corner.

you know what he’s doing, trying to make it seem like you two are just talking about the food so as to not make fans question your interaction and so you follow him to the snack cart as you ask, trying not to show any of the question on your face, “about what?”

“making you uncomfortable,” he supplies. “hongjoong had asked me not to say anything but i didn’t think about the fact that he may have been asking that for your comfort rather than his own” yunho says in barely a whisper and you can see a light blush dusting his cheeks.

you’re thankful that your members had basically switched with you, greeting fans after clearing away from the snacks.

“don’t worry,” you reassure. “i'm not uncomfortable, it was more shocking than anything” you tell him, and as you say it you realize it’s the truth.

as an idol you often have to sacrifice your comfort for others but in this moment you aren’t saying it out of necessity but as the truth, and when you glance behind you at hongjoong, who’s intently avoiding all of your members as he also waves to the atiny that are mixed in with your fans, you feel something sparkle in the pit of your stomach. it’s a pleasant feeling, something reminiscent of admiration but more complex, deeper.

you’re not afraid to admit to yourself that hongjoong is attractive, undeniably handsome and, from everything you’d heard, genuinely nice to those around him. you could admire him as a leader and creative, knowing how much responsibility he had and that he still managed to enjoy what he did, but, with both of you working in the industry, dating could be next to impossible.

in all honesty, you’re not sure the last time you’d even had time to explore any sort of romantic interest in anyone, and maybe you were simply deprived of that experience so your brain was running wild with even the slightest exploration of thought. however your company had no dating ban and maybe it wouldn’t hurt to venture into that side of a normal life.

bringing you back to the present moment, yunho lets out a heavy breath and hands you a random piece of candy off the cart that you accept with a slight bow, convincing everyone that might be watching that you were talking about the snacks the whole time.

soon after your interaction concludes, everyone is quick to gather back around the table, taking your seats as your song fades out in the background. the next segment goes smoothly, yunho and hongjoong leading your group in a little game about how much your members know each other.

throughout the game you can’t help but sneak glances at hongjoong, your mind still working through the thoughts you’d had during the break. he appears to be trying hard to not notice you looking at him, but he manages to slip up occasionally and you try to send him a warm, if not slightly teasing, grin each time your eyes connect.

though your original intention with the gesture wasn’t to fluster the man, you find the way he reacts each time to be endearing, the blush returning to his cheeks and even starting to spread up to his ears. every time your gazes meet you feel that same tingle in your stomach begin to spread up to your chest, his expression each time feeding it, and you start to find a bit of comfort in that sensation as you feel like you’re getting to admire hongjoong who you’d been avoiding at the beginning of the show.

you’re starting to have a bit too much fun with this little game you made for yourself when yunho introduces another one of the songs from your group’s album and it starts to fade in, bringing an end to your antics.

this time, as the break starts, you intentionally take a moment before standing, pretending to stretch in your seat and standing slowly as you see hongjoong moving toward the fans out of the corner of your eye. you, as subtly as you can, move toward the fans and in the general direction of hongjoong, trying to get the opportunity to talk to him since he had been shying away from speaking to you ever since yunho’s little slip up. he seems too distracted by an atiny that’s mouthing something to him through the window to notice how close you manage to get.

once you’re sufficiently within speaking range, but not too close, always careful of fan suspicion when you’re in the presence of other idols, you try to casually greet him with a simple “hi” but you’re unprepared for the way he quickly flips around to face you, looking almost like a deer in headlights.

you’re both a bit stuck, just staring at each other before you hear a very obvious fake cough coming from both yunho and nuri that seems to snap you out of it and you each try to play it off with giggles and laughs, mostly for the camera and fans that had been intently tuned in to the strange interaction between the two of you.

“sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” you say as you move toward the window, pretending like it had been your intention the whole time to simply say hi to fans once again.

“oh no, uhm, i’m sorry, i don’t know why i reacted like that,” he answers shakily with a nervous chuckle and turns back to the fans as well.

for a moment you both just wave out at the fans, genuinely finding interest in those that had come to support you. after what you deem to be enough time of interaction you finally speak up.

“i’m not uncomfortable, by the way,” you mention casually, hoping hongjoong understands what you mean.

“oh, really?” he sound’s surprised, and you peak out of the corner of your eye to see that he’s trying to hold back the surprise from showing on his face.

“yeah,” you admit. “i’m actually flattered,” you add, turning to hongjoong with a soft smile before you move to the snack cart.

you miss the way his shoulders seem to visibly relax and the grin that spreads onto his face as you leave. fan’s will chalk it up to the fact that he was relieved to be a further distance from you, hongjoong being know to keep his space from the idols that come on as guests, but yunho is quick to spot that it looks more like the expression his captain wears after a satisfying performance or successful interview.

your break is quick to wrap up after that, this song being shorter than the one they’d played earlier, and you’re all back to your seats. you start to readjust in your seat, getting comfortable for the next portion of the show, until you’re passed a head mic and remember that you’re going to teach, along with another one of your members, insoo, yunho and hongjoong the point choreography from your title track.

you’re excited to be back in your element, almost forgetting everything that had happened with hongjoong as you and your member run through the choreography to demonstrate before you’ll teach the boys.

the choreography is nothing too difficult, as your company is always sure to remind you that easier point choreo is more marketable, but it involves a great deal of interaction between you and your member, them starting the section standing directly in front of you, and you manipulate them until they have to squat in front of you.

yunho is quick to decide that he will do your part, claiming that because you’re both main dancers it makes sense as well as sighting the height difference, although the height difference between you and insoo is almost negligible compared to yunho and hongjoong’s height difference, but hongjoong doesn’t put up a fight, the gaze he’d had on you at the beginning of the schedule returning with a different undertone, one you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

the choreography wasn’t particularly sexy, your group not one to lean too heavily into those kinds of concepts, but it was certainly powerful and this particular song made you feel confident, considering you got to be center for the point.

you blame hongjoong’s shift on your own perception, but his gaze certainly reignites the buzz in your stomach, now fully formed into butterflies whose wings brush against the inside of your ribs, longing to be released.

you try to shake it off and step into teaching mode, familiar comfort seeping into you as you take on the most usual role for yourself. you quickly teach yunho your part, and as expected he catches on quickly, and insoo tries to demonstrate what hongjoong should do as best they can, although their part is hard to describe as insoo often goes off of your energy and cues.

when he stumbles out of the ending squat to fall on his butt all three of you that are standing are quick to rush over to him but he just chuckles in slight embarrassment before picking himself up and you all laugh together.

“hm what about you try it with him and i can do it with yunho,” insoo suggests quickly, looking like they just thought of the best solution to hongjoong’s learning difficulties.

you’re a little surprised but agree nonetheless as yunho adds that he’s sure his hyung would be fine with that, but once hongjoong is standing right in front of you it’s not so much hongjoong you’re worried about.

you try to back up a bit, trying to give yourself a bit of distance between you two, but are quick to realize that the choreography won’t work if you’re any further apart and so just as you take a step toward the man in front of you he also takes one into you, realizing that you had both started to get too close to the table now behind him.

your hands are quick to come up to his chest before you can fully fall into him and you jump back as quickly as you can, pulling your hands away as though he burned you.

the same look of shock as when you’d come up behind him during the break is present on hongjoong’s face, and he’s glad there are no cameras that face him right now to see it, but all you can pay attention to is the warmth that you had felt on your palms at the contact between you two.

the whole interaction had felt to you like it was minutes long but in reality it was barely a couple seconds, and you’re once again trying to slip back into the dance teacher role as well as you can when you’re so acutely aware of how close hongjoong is to you in this moment. you can just smell the fading cologne he’d applied earlier in the day, a mix of linen and leather that feels like it turns your brain to mush as you try to remember what you were supposed to be doing with him standing in front of you like this in the first place.

his surprise melts to a look of concern as he sees you shake your head, hoping to clear your thoughts as though they were being physically blocked by all your senses screaming hongjoong.

“so you start like this,” you supply quickly, trying to ignore the way hongjoong won’t drop the worried expression from his face.

you need to move quickly, the man in front of you is starting to make you feel dizzy and you aren’t sure your company, or your members, would enjoy you passing out for seemingly no reason while on a live program.

normally when you dance this part, you make full contact with your member but you can’t bring yourself to touch hongjoong completely, partially fearing you won’t want to let go once you do. instead you ghost your hands along the places you might normally drag them and float over the places you might normally grab.

as you move him slowly into the final positioning you’re realizing that it may have been more torturous to avoid touching him then to just give in to your desire to connect with him, every time your skin makes the lightest contact sending a jolt up through your arms and your breath catching in your throat, if for a moment.

“so that’s it,” you nod, trying not to sound as breathless as you feel and hongjoong looks up at you almost expectantly. you’re waiting for him to move, looking back down at him, and you feel his gaze almost peering through you, like he can see every deep breath you’re taking to try to calm your heart, like he knows exactly how you’ve felt for the past few minutes as you tried to teach him the movement, like he knows exactly what he does to you.

it’s kind of funny how you could feel so small compared to a man that you’re currently looking down on but it’s kim hongjoong who’s looking back up at you, in your clouded brain it seems to make sense.

you’re not sure who speaks up but you hear yunho and insoo moving next to you, although the dull ringing in your ears hasn’t fully subsided. you feel yourself, as though in a daze, move away from hongjoong, something you’re not actually sure you even want to do but your body has decided for you.

as insoo reclaims their place in front of you, you’re suddenly aware of the fact that you’d had that entire encounter with hongjoong in front of, not just your friends, but your fans, your managers, and several live cameras. you feel redness creeping up to consume almost your entire face and you’re glad insoo is blocking you. they give you a slight look of concern and you just clear your throat, pushing the thoughts of hongjoong down until they meet the butterflies in the pit of your stomach, taking a breath to urge them to calm down as well.

the rest of idol radio seems to pass in a blur. you’re even more distant than when you were lost in your thoughts earlier, although this time it seems as though your mind is absolutely blank. if you had wanted it to shut up before, now you’re wishing for it to just go, the image of hongjoong squatting in front of you the only thing you can seem to focus on.

you don’t fully come back to your senses until you’re sat in the car that’s set to take you, and your members, back to your dorm, your schedules for the day complete, and although you thought that distance may have aided your situation you were certainly wrong. your mind has taken to replaying the moment you’d shared with him over and over, not sparing a single detail and you feel as though you’re reliving the interaction again as you practically sense the heat radiating from his skin under your fingertips.

“are you, like, good?” star asks, placed once again right next to you. you look at them with what you hope is a convincing smile as you nod gently, before turning back to watch seoul pass in a blur through the window.

that night, you and your members, seven in total, gather to eat the takeout your manager had ordered as congratulations on a good day of promotions and suddenly you feel several pairs of eyes on you.

“what?” you ask, looking between all the members that weren’t currently too focused on their food.

“what was that between you and hongjoong?” insoo asks with a smirk, noddles almost forgotten on their plate.

“what was what?” you ask, trying to will the blush that creeps up your neck away.

insoo rolls their eyes in response, seeing right through your act and very clearly remembering what they had seen when they were stood right in front of you.

“y/n’s crushing on hongjoong,” star sings cheerily before someone’s foot, likely eunjae’s, makes contact with their shin under the table and they hiss.

you scoff at the statement, trying to play dumb to the way all your members were clearly seeing through you. “i do not,” you state indignantly, taking a big bite of your food as you glare at star.

“whatever you say,” star shrugs, a teasing smirk on their face.

luckily the conversation is quick to shift away from you and you’re able to enjoy your meal without any more interrogation.

later that night, as you prepare for bed, you hear a gentle knock on your bedroom door and open it to find nuri.

“hey, what’s up?” you ask, noticing they’re already dressed for bed.

“here,” they say, holding a piece of paper out which you take from their hand with some hesitancy.

“thanks?” you state, although it’s more of a question as you wonder what’s on the slip of paper now in your possession.

“hongjoong’s kakao id,” they say with a nod toward the paper and you blush, clearing your throat quickly. “it’s fine to have a crush by the way,” they continue and your face only grows warmer. “i’d just appreciate it if you'd tell me if you end up dating. easier for me to help.”

you don’t say anything as you just nod your head in understanding, closing your door quickly and pressing your face into your hands in embarrassment.

you place the slip onto your desk, glad in moments like these that you got the only solo room, and debate about adding him. i mean, you hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences to each other, but what could really be the worst that could happen?

you try not to think about how nuri got his id, wondering if maybe they already knew each other and praying they hadn’t asked him for it just for you today, as you add him on your kakaotalk, tossing around ideas of opening messages. eventually you settle on a simple “hi, this is y/n” and send it quickly before you can overthink.

you don’t expect a reply immediately, noting how late it is, but almost as soon as you lock your phone the screen is lighting up with a message back.

hongjoong: hi

hongjoong: i wasn’t sure you were actually going to text me

hongjoong: i mean i know you told me you weren’t uncomfortable but still

a smile stretches across your lips as you realize hongjoong gave his id to nuri to give to you specifically and you scold yourself for being so out of it that he couldn’t give it to you directly.

you: i meant it when i said i was flattered

you: it’s a huge compliment to be admired by someone like you

you try to err on the side of caution. maybe he just wanted to talk to you about work, music and dance, so you tried not to be too informal, ateez and hongjoong being your senior. although you did try to hint that you were interested past a professional, and even platonic, relationship, but it had certainly been a while since you’d flirted with anyone, outside of fan service.

hongjoong: i wanted to ask you something

you: ask away

hongjoong: we have a new song coming out soon and i wondered if you’d be interested in doing the dance challenge for it

hongjoong: with me

you could feel the butterflies awaken inside of you once more, excited at the prospect of being able to see him again and the fact that he asked you specifically about doing the challenge.

you: i’d love to

you: just text me

with your agreement you both wrap up the conversation, bidding each other good night, and you go to bed with your thoughts full of hongjoong and stomach full of butterflies.

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the rest of your own promotional period flies by, successful and rewarding as the support from your fans results in several music show wins and lots of recognition from all over the world. the whole time you try to focus more on work than your recently budding friendship with the leader of ateez, but it’s hard when you find yourself just as excited to end your day and finally be able to message him as you do when you can see your fans or perform. your members have certainly noticed a change in your demeanor, eager to shut yourself in your room to be alone, and some fans have commented about how happy you’ve seemed lately. luckily, your interaction from idol radio is barely recognized, only a few of the usual shippers making theories about your or hongjoong’s behavior that other fans are quick to brush off as a reach.

hongjoong: happy last day of promotions! i hope your schedules go well today

he doesn’t normally text you in the morning but you’d been telling him the night before about it being your last day to promote your comeback and so you check the timestamp on the message to find it was sent around 3am, probably when he managed to actually get to bed considering he’d told you he was working in the studio on ateez’s next comeback.

you shoot him a thank you text back, doubting he’ll see it until he wakes up a little later in the day, and get ready to head out for your schedule.

you were performing on the show again today, a music show that one of hongjoong’s members, yeosang, was an mc on. you didn’t even think much of the fact as you arrived and got ready with your styling team, having interacted with yeosang as an mc during this promotional period already. although as you sat in the hair and makeup chair, ready for the usual routine, a light knock sounded against the door of your dressing room.

after a quick check that everyone was decent, nuri approached the door. you couldn’t see who was on the other side, nuri discussing something with them and bowing as you assume the other person handed them a plastic bag.

you were slightly confused, none of your members or staff having ordered delivery, as nuri closed the door, taking a peek into the plastic bag before heading in your direction.

“here,” they said as they placed the bag onto your lap and you gave them a questioning glance.

“what’s this?”

“from yeosang who said it’s from a friend,” they explain with a wink and you try not to blush at the implication.

nuri walks away without saying anything else and you glance into the bag, seeing a few of the snacks you’d mentioned craving to hongjoong just last night. you push around the items and find a little note, similar to that which had held his id on it, and open it in the bag to avoid suspicion from those around you.

i know how hard it can be to eat during schedules so i hope this can help. good luck today, text me when you win

you try to ignore the way your heart picks up at the thought of him caring this much for you but it’s hard when you know that you’re already so infatuated with him. his confidence in you and your group was also just so heartwarming, something that was certainly making you fall deeper for the man you’d so recently grown attached to.

you munch on the gift as your hair gets styled, a smile unable to leave your face as you debate texting him to thank him. unfortunately you don’t get a chance as you’re thrown into the whirlwind of performing and preparing for a potential encore stage, your group loving to do silly little things for starlight whenever you win.

of course, like most times, hongjoong is right and your group wins for the final time this comeback, celebrating on stage with your fans and members. throughout your encore, your mind drifts to hongjoong, how you can text him and celebrate together.

as soon as all of your members arrive to your dorm, shoes discarded in the entranceway and takeout being served on the table, there’s a sudden ring of the doorbell and half of you freeze. the other half continue on with their tasks as nuri offers to get the door, handing off the serving task to insoo who is more than happy to take responsibility.

“y/n!” nuri calls from the door only a moment later and a few of your members give you a confused look as you shrug and make your way to your leader.

“yeah?” you ask as you approach, turning the corner to see two bouquets, not too large but very beautiful, in nuri’s grasp, the front door closing as you assume the delivery driver leaves.

“this is for you,” nuri says with a grin and you don’t keep the surprise from your features as they hand you the smaller of the two pieces, noting that they are your favorite flowers and spotting the little card in the center.

y/n,

congratulations on your win today. you always look so beautiful when you dance.

hj <3

you don’t try to hide the blush that blooms over your cheeks, your mind hyper focused on the little heart at the end of the message, and turn to nuri.

“what does that one say?” you ask, gesturing to the other bouquet that contains a mix of flowers with your group’s official colors.

nuri turns the bunch to you so that you can read the card.

eclipse,

congratulations on a successful comeback,

ateez

you nod as you turn back to the flowers in your hands, nuri pushing past you to join the other members in the kitchen. you can hear them explain who the flowers are from and mentally thank nuri when they don’t mention your personal bunch.

you manage to sneak the flowers to your room before you head back out to the table for dinner, shooting hongjoong a picture and a quick thank you.

hongjoong: i’m glad you like them

hongjoong: and i meant it, you looked breathtaking today

you suppress your smile as you read his response, trying not to catch the attention of any of your members, but you glance up to see nuri looking at you with a knowing, if not approving, smile.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

you’ve been following ateez a little more closely now, their newest comeback, bouncy, releasing just last week and doing amazingly on the charts. you’d been sending hongjoong little things like snacks, coffee, and meals to keep him motivated and show your support and he’d been showing his appreciation by sending you pictures of him eating or just selfies of him during schedules.

you were certain that your relationship was headed in a more romantic direction as you both became more bold in your texts. you’d also begun video calling when you were able, sometimes just doing your own things while you were on a call together.

you were eager to possibly try taking the next step and actually go out on a date but with ateez still in the midst of promotion you understood that hongjoong’s free time was limited. so you left it up to him, not pressuring hongjoong by asking him out or even alluding to wanting to date.

“do you know the challenge or do you want me to teach you?” hongjoong had asked one night when you were on video call.

he’d brought up your promise from months ago to do the challenge and you assured him that you were still interested.

“i mean i sort of know it just from watching it a bunch, but if you want to teach me i’m not opposed,” you said with a cheeky shrug and hongjoong grinned.

“i don’t have to teach you babe,” he says with a light chuckle that sends a shiver down your spine.

that was another thing that had started recently, the pet names. hongjoong had accidentally referred to you as “babe” over text one time, rushing to apologize when you had taken just a second too long to respond, but you assured him that you weren’t upset just trying to be able to actually think again when the name had short circuited your brain.

“fine,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “i want you to teach me,” you admit with a slight wine. “there, happy?”

he chuckles again with a nod and an “okay” before you’re setting up the best day for you to meet at the kq company building, having to end the call soon after so that he can actually get some sleep.

the next few days have you on edge as you anticipate being able to see hongjoong in person for the first time since your appearance on idol radio. you even plan your outfit a day in advance, feeling almost like you’re going on a first date as you ensure your hair and makeup are perfect.

“have fun,” nuri says with a knowing wink as you leave your dorm and you don’t give them your normal embarrassed look, too focused on the excitement of seeing hongjoong.

you arrive at the kq building right on time, a staff member greeting you in the lobby and taking you to the practice room where you’ll be doing the challenge. you’d seen this same room plenty before on video, ateez dance practices being one of the few contents you’d watched before getting to know hongjoong.

“he should be here in a second,” the staff says, glancing at her phone, and you nod with a grin.

“its fine,” you assure. “thank you.”

just as you start to observe the room a little more, looking around and comparing it to your own practice room, the door opens and hongjoong enters.

even though you’d seen him on your screen almost everyday for the past week, nothing can compare to the way he looks in person, especially since he’d changed his look. atiny had been going crazy over his newly silver hair and you were no different, texting him how much you loved it as soon as you found out.

“hi,” he says with a smile as soon as he spots you.

you reach out your hand and repeat his greeting, bowing as you shake hands to imitate a sense of formality in front of the staff member.

you don’t want to let go of his hand but you pull away anyway, taking a step back to put some distance between you two and hoping to calm the urge that bubbles in your chest to take him into your arms.

“so, would you like for me to teach you the challenge?” he asks and you bite the inside of your cheek to stop the laugh that builds in your throat at the question, knowing you’d already asked him to teach it to you a few days ago.

“yes please,” you nod and hongjoong gestures so that you can move toward the mirror.

honestly, the choreography is pretty easy to pick up, especially since you’ve watched it so many times already, but you relish in the way hongjoong watches you and decide to just mess around with him a little. it couldn’t hurt to ask a few questions you already knew the answer to right?

“so, is it here or out here?” you ask with an innocent quirk of your brow, placing your left hand out, palm flat and moving it back and forth between two positions.

you see hongjoong’s eyes narrow just slightly, as he had clearly seen you get it right the first time, and you know he’s picking up on your little game. his eyes flick to the staff member in the room, noting that she’s on her phone in the corner, looking away, before he takes a step toward you.

instead of just answering your question he reaches around you, keeping his body on your right and wrapping his left arm around your back to grasp your elbow. he moves your arm into the proper place and you feel his other hand place itself on your waist. as you try to focus on anything but the way his fingers press into your skin he leans his head down slightly, enough so that you can feel his breath ghosting over the shell of your ear and across your cheek.

his proximity has your heart pounding and you almost hope he can hear it, wanting him to know that what he’s doing is working. you want him to know that this is exactly what you wanted, that you wish this is how close you could have him all the time.

“right here,” he says, barely a whisper, and just as you start to lean into him, longing to be completely consumed by his warmth, he steps away and his presence is replaced by the cool air that blows through the vent above you.

you clear your throat as you try to shake away the lingering warmth his touch left against your skin and slow your heartbeat as you go back to rehearsing the movements, for real this time.

you try to ignore the smirk that paints his face as he watches you practicing, a blush painting your own cheeks that starts to match his the longer he stares.

“okay, i think i got it,” you say after a few more rounds of practice. “what do you want to do for the outro?” you ask. “or do you just want to end it after the ‘fly’?”

you turn to hongjoong who looks around the room in thought.

“we could do the ending pose from moonbeam,” he suggests, referring to the title track you’d been promoting on idol radio, and you’re taken aback for a moment.

you’re not so much shocked that he would suggest something to do with your group but that he would choose that pose specifically. it would normally involve you and eclipse’s main vocalist, gam, standing while everyone else sat around you, leaning on each other. you and gam would be staring just past each other as your right arms were tangled in front of you in a sort of love shot position.

“oh, sure,” you say taking a moment to picture you and hongjoong in that position and your blush darkens. “i guess.”

“we don’t have to,” he says, sensing your hesitation. “we can do something else.”

you shake your head as you reassure him, “no, no, it’s fine.”

hongjoong just nods and you run through the challenge once more, practicing the final pose as well and trying to not let the proximity that the pose forces you into affect your face, of course you have no control over how it affects your heart and mind.

“great,” he says, mostly to himself, before calling over the staff member who directs you where to stand and prepares the shot.

the shooting of the challenge itself goes well, you both switching easily into professional mode even if you can see his eyes watching you through the mirror the whole time. you do a few takes, allowing the company to pick whichever they deem best, before you’re done and thanking hongjoong and the staff member for their time.

“oh,” hongjoong perks up before you can begin to head out. “i got you a thank you gift for doing the challenge but i left it in my studio.” he turns to the staff member and asks, “would you mind going to grab it?”

she nods before making her way out of the room, leaving you and hongjoong alone.

your eyes follow her as she leaves but before you can even turn back to hongjoong he’s pulled you into a hug, arms wrapped securely around your waist as he looks into your eyes.

“hi,” he greets with a chuckle, absolutely beaming as you snake your hands around his shoulders.

you giggle in response, your expression mirroring his own, as you finally get to see him how you wish you had for the entire time you’d been in his presence.

“i’ve been waiting to do this for the last half hour,” he says, practically reading your mind.

“so do you actually have a thank you gift or was that just an excuse?” you ask with a tick of your head to the door where the staff member had disappeared.

he looks almost offended as you ask, a humorous disbelief shining in his eyes. “of course i have a gift,” he says and you can hear a slight whine lacing his tone.

“of course,” you say with a chuckle and a shake of your head.

“i would’ve invited you to lunch but the staff would’ve been suspicious,” he adds, “so this is the next best option.”

“i can feed myself you know,” you joke, truly more than happy to have hongjoong buy you meals.

“not if i can help it,” he insists, wrapping his arms tighter and pulling you closer.

you don’t fight against him, your chests now pressed together as you simply wade in the comfort that surrounds you both.

you debate about leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek, wanting to feel the soft skin against your lips, but you don’t. instead you let your cheek fall to his shoulder, resting your head against him and letting the scent of his cologne wash over you.

“what are you doing tomorrow?” hongjoong asks, one of his hands starting to trace along your spine, his fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“mm,” you hum in thought as you try to remember your schedule. “we have shooting until five and then eunjae wants to watch a new movie,” you say before lifting your head from his shoulder. “why?”

he lets out a breath and his hand comes to a stop on your back, both of his hands gently holding either side of your waist. the smile he gives you seems nervous now, not quite reaching his eyes.

“i wanted to ask if you’d like to get dinner with me tomorrow night,” he explains with a gentle squeeze of your hips. “but if you’re busy we can do it a different night.”

you shake your head quickly, face red and smile as wide as your lips can manage. “eunjae can wait one more day for that movie,” you giggle and watch as his own smile grows.

his hands move from your waist and you start to pull your own arms away when his palms are suddenly on your cheeks, holding your face, and your own hands fly up to cup his. neither of you speak as you glide your hands down to wrap your fingers around his wrist gently, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks as his eyes flick between your own.

“can i kiss you?” he asks, trying to see any form of discomfort that might appear on your expression.

“yes,” you respond and before you even finish he’s bringing you into him, lips pressing against your own as softly as he can.

it barely lasts a second before he’s pulling away, his eyes once again searching your own for any hint as to how you’re feeling.

“again?” he asks with a smirk when he notices your lips still puckered and chasing his.

he doesn’t wait for your response this time, diving back into you with an eagerness that challenges your own.

his lips move in sync with yours, one of his hands shifting to the side of your neck and the pads of his fingers pressing into the skin there, sending a shiver down your spine that you're sure he notices by the way you feel him smile against your lips. hongjoong hums gently, the sound vibrating from his own chest to yours and causing you to melt into him further.

you try to pour all of your appreciation for him into the kiss, desperately grasping onto his biceps like he might just vanish at any moment. you hope that he can understand just what you’re trying to tell him, that in this moment, and every moment you’ve shared, he’s made you feel normal. when you were with him, talking to him, you weren’t an idol and neither was he, you were both just you, human and flawed, and in love.

he pulls away after a moment more, placing a few light pecks against your lips before separating completely, and you try to chase his lips again but his hold on your cheek keeps you in place. instead, he presses his forehead against your own, eyes closed as he focuses on steadying his breathing while you flit your gaze around his face, trying to commit each feature to memory.

after what feels like an hour of just existing in the comfortable silence that has engulfed you both, hongjoong pulls away from you, his eyes opening slowly as his hands return to your waist, your own grip on his arms loosening.

“so tomorrow?” he asks, biting his lip before you bring your thumb up to pull the flesh from between his teeth and he places a gentle peck against your finger.

“it’s a date,” you confirm, leaning in to place a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth.

he smiles and says, “i’ll text you,” before he takes a few steps back, forcing you both to separate and you immediately miss him even though he’s still stood right in front of you.

only a moment later the staff member from earlier is stepping back into the room, carrying a bag of your favorite delivery food and making a beeline to you.

you bow in thanks when she hands it to you before doing the same to hongjoong, showing your formal appreciation for the gesture, and the staff member is offering to guide you out of the building.

you’re quick to bid hongjoong goodbye, worrying that you might never leave him unless you go now, and the staff leads you back out the way you came in.

as soon as you make it back to your dorm you feel your phone buzz in your pocket, a text from hongjoong lighting up the screen.

hj<3: can i officially say i’m dating my bias?

↼ ateez masterlist

note this started as delusional texts in the group chat based on the specific instagram photos in the header and turned into this

tell me your thoughts

#hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gn reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong fic #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong fanfic #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #ateez fanfic #ateez x gn reader #ateez fic #hongjoong scenarios #hongjoong imagines #ateez x y/n #ateez x reader #ateez x you #fanfic #fic #fanfiction #fluff #idol!au #idol!reader #gender neutral reader #gn reader #idol reader #idol fic #idol!hongjoong

[noramoons]

what lies beneath | k.hj

pairing: kim hongjoong x g/n reader

genre: siren au, artist!reader

includes: angst, some fluff

rating: T/13+

warnings: language, slight horror themes, mentions/descriptions of food, Family Issues as a plot point (💀)

word count: 13.5k

summary: there’s a pair of eyes blinking up at you from below the pier. you think you know who (or what, really) they belong to—but you might be too afraid to admit it.

You had been sure of several things before you spent the summer at the beach with your cousins.

One, that you were not an "outside" person. You couldn't stand fishing, you hated lying underneath the sun to tan—you could swim well enough, you supposed, to keep yourself afloat—but that was it.

Two, that there was nothing more embarrassing than being a tourist in a town you'd practically grown up in.

And three, that sea monsters of any kind were absolutely, completely, 100% fictional.

It was fun to pretend as a child, sure—you remember plenty of summers playing in the ocean with your friends, or listening to your uncle tell scary stories to you and your siblings about the creatures he'd seen in his time in the navy or deep-sea fishing—but that was it. Pretending. You knew that just as well as the rest of them did.

Which is why it's now somewhat embarrassing to be back here—spending yet another summer with your extended family, and now seeing your younger cousins now running up and down the side of your uncle's small pontoon boat. "Fish-man!" one of them cries out, pointing towards the water. "I saw it! I swear!"

The other one nods. "He was huge!"

Your uncle laughs from the wheel behind you. "I bet he was! I always heard they like to catch the sides of the waves the boats make for speed—can't get too close, though, or they'll get chomped by the propellers!" He makes a chomping gesture by opening and closing his fist, and your cousins giggle.

"You heard?" you ask, turning around from the seat near the bow. "I thought you always said you'd seen those fish-men with your own two eyes back in the day, Uncle."

He smirks at you. "Those were the deep-sea days. I've never seen any creatures this close to shore, but who knows?" he shrugs, winning at you. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

Right. You resist the urge to roll your eyes as you turn back around, the spray of the saltwater coming up on either side refreshing enough to distract you from the stories your cousins are now hurriedly making up behind you.

The rest of the day is decidedly less painful; your uncle is considerate enough to let you stay on the boat when he anchors it on a nearby island, so you're able to at least attempt relaxing while your cousins run amuck on the shore. By the time you're finally pulling back in to the dock behind your uncle's house on the bay, you can already see the hues of pink and orange growing in the sky as the sun begins its descent beneath the horizon.

Your cousins make a mad dash for the house once they're within leaping distance of the dock, and you let out an exasperated sigh when you realize it's just you and your uncle left on the boat. You know exactly what that means—all the work's been left to you.

He grins at you. "You remember how to tie her to the dock, don't you?" As if this hasn't been your job on-and-off for the last ten years.

You offer a faint smile in response, but you keep yourself from saying anything negative while you pull out the ropes from beneath the seats, tying them into the knots you know from memory around the poles on the dock. You don't want to complain in front of your uncle—he's never been anything less than kind to you, especially letting you stay at his house this summer out of nowhere when you told him you needed a place to stay for a while, even when it's been over five years since your last summer here. No questions asked, although you're sure he's curious.

You might tell him the truth. Eventually.

His voice suddenly interrupts the stream of thoughts in your mind. "If you've got it covered, I'm gonna head inside and start on dinner."

You nod absentmindedly, tucking the last rope into the beginning of its knot. "What are we eating?"

He smiles at you. "Guess you'd better hurry up and find out."

You roll your eyes at him, but in your sudden rush to finish the knot, you don't complete it nearly as tightly as you should—and you can already feel the boat drifting to one side from the loose knot.

You sigh at your own impatience, but you start the knot over again anyway, pulling on the other ropes to line the boat up with the side of the dock again before you start, checking the angle into the water to make sure it'll be as close to perfect as possible so you can hurry up and go inside, and it's then that you see it.

There's a face in the water—and it isn't yours.

No. You're seeing things. After a long day in the sun, you know it's not unheard of for your eyes to play tricks on you looking into the water. You draw your focus back to completing the knot, shaking the unusual thoughts out of your head of what you know you couldn't have possibly seen.

When the knot's finally complete, you cast your gaze into the water beside the boat one final time—and you realize, in stunned horror, that you'd been right before. There is a face, a face you can just barely see in the water as you peer over the edge of the dock—and it isn't your reflection. No, the angles of the jawline, the cheekbones, the chin are all far too sharp and precise to be yours. To be human.

He blinks up at you, far too innocently for someone—something that has been holding its breath underwater for at least the past five minutes.

You don't know how long the two of you stare at each other. It could be minutes, hours—you really aren't sure. You're finding yourself practically lost in the eyes of the being before you, dark and abysmal and inviting all at the same time—this, you imagine, must be what drowning feels like. Completely helpless.

It's then that you realize your ankles are touching the water. That's strange—you'd been sitting atop the dock just a moment ago. When did you get in the water?

You feel as if you've just awoken from a dream. You don't know how you've gotten here so suddenly, but you've definitely moved—you've turned around to face the dock, and your arms are the only thing keeping you above the water, your legs submerged up to your knees.

You quickly scramble back out of the water and heave your body back onto the dock, making sure all your limbs are still attached before staring back into the bay beneath you, looking for that face beneath the water again—but it's gone. Whatever it was has completely vanished, leaving nothing but the soft lapping of the waves against the shore in its wake.

Your mind races to find an explanation. You've been in the sun for hours. You must not have had much sleep last night. Your cousins are driving you insane and they've finally pushed you past the brink. One of those, surely, has to be the answer for whatever the hell you've just seen.

It's all you can think about during dinner—you hardly touch the clam chowder your uncle had prepared. He notices the small helping you've poured for yourself when you sit down at the table, and you see him frown out of the corner of your eye. "Feeling alright, Y/N?"

You nod quickly. Too quickly. "I'm fine. Think I might've been out in the sun for too long today—I'll probably just get some water after dinner and head to bed."

He nods, visibly relaxing at your words. "Ah. That certainly can happen—I saw far too many colleagues faint back in the day after a long shift. It's brutal, that sun. That reminds me of one particular instance, actually—couldn't have been less than twenty years ago, I'll bet, when..."

He launches into another fishing anecdote, much to the delight of your cousins, while you continue to mentally spiral for the duration of dinner, locked in your own thoughts and what you know you couldn't have possibly seen. Your behavior, however, means your uncle doesn't mind at all when you go up to your room early—and when night finally falls and everyone else has gone to bed, no one notices you creeping back downstairs, either.

You have to know. You'll never be able to go to sleep tonight if you can't confirm whatever the hell you saw in the water earlier.

Your stomach interrupts your thoughts, piercing the quiet living room with an unfortunate grumble.

"Shit," you swear softly to yourself. You're hungry—it's no wonder. You barely ate dinner, and you only picked at a few snacks on the boat earlier. It certainly won't assuage your fears if you scare away whatever that thing was if your stomach growls the minute you step outside.

You quickly grab the first thing your eyes land on out of the first shelf in the refrigator—an apple, before finally striding over to the door and making your way back outside as quietly and nimbly as you can.

You practically run back to the edge of the dock, peering into the inky blackness of the water illuminated simply by the moonlight, only to find your own reflection staring back at you. There's nothing.

And you want to be reassured by that fact. You had to have been seeing things earlier, then—a result of the afternoon spent under the blistering sun, doing things to your eyes and your mind, and yet—

You have to check. You'll just dip a toe in, maybe—you're already barefoot, anyway. Nothing bites at your toe when you do, sitting down at the edge of the dock and letting the waves lap at your skin.

Well. You suppose to be really sure, you'll have to get in the water. It feels much better now than it did earlier today, you think as you lower yourself in up to your waist, still holding onto the dock with one hand, apple in the other. You don't remember the water ever feeling this good—this inviting. You wonder what it would feel like to go all the way up to your neck. Maybe even to go all the way underwater, to feel it enveloping every inch.

That last thought particularly entices you, so you let go of the dock, holding your hand (and the apple) above the water while you submerge the rest of your body beneath the waves. You wonder how long you can hold your breath underwater. Does it even matter, though? It wouldn't be so bad to stay here like this forever—

"...What is this?"

You're broken out of your thoughts by a muffled voice above you, piercing the silence and suddenly reminding you how long you've been underwater. Panic sets in almost immediately as you kick toward the surface, gasping for breath when your head breaches the waves again, breathing in sweet, fresh air as your arms attempt to tread water.

Well—arm. Singular. Someone else is holding on to your other arm, you realize far too late—the arm that's currently clutching that poor, stupid apple. A hand is wrapped around your wrist, and you feel dread sinking through your chest when your eyes follow the hand back to its owner. Perhaps that dread is why you aren't at all surprised when you once again lock eyes with the creature from earlier, this time his head and chest above water.

He looks at your sputtering form, unsurprised, before turning back to stare at the apple in your hand, head tilting to the side. "What is this?" you hear him repeat. His voice is incredibly raspy—as if he hasn't used it in years.

His lack of recognition towards you is almost irritating—as if he's disappointed that you exist. "...What?" you finally ask.

He brings another hand out of the water to tap at the apple. "This," he says. "I don't know what this is. Tell me."

You're still struggling for breath. "I...I'll tell you what it is if you let me back onto the dock."

He turns back to face you—quickly, head shifting far too quickly for something human. "No," he says, grip on your wrist unrelenting. "Tell me what it is."

Shit. "It's an apple," you say, frustration suddenly blooming in your chest. You're going to die because of an apple. Because you couldn't be bothered to eat your uncle's clam chowder for dinner. What the hell is wrong with you? If you ever get out of this, you swear on every god listening that you'll eat second helpings of every meal that man makes for the rest of your life. "You eat it."

Apparently you eat it to this creature means you can eat it—because he's lunging forward suddenly, bringing his teeth that look much more like that of a shark's than like the teeth in your own mouth onto the apple in your palm, tearing away a bite and swallowing it whole. God, you hope you aren't about to meet the same fate.

He makes a face, turning to look at you. "It's weird."

You heave a sigh. This is insane, you think. Maybe you really did lose your mind earlier on the boat—it's all your cousins' fault. Has to be. Hearing that constant, nonstop chatter about the overseas vacation they just went on (their third this year alone), and the toys the twins got for their birthdays, and the teacher at school they really don't like, has finally made you snap. "I don't know what to tell you," you say. "You said you'd never had it before. And you're stealing—I was going to eat that."

He lets go of your wrist from his damp grasp. "Hmm. You can have the rest of it, I guess."

He has let go of you. Every logical nerve in your body is screaming at you to start swimming, to pedal back up to the dock as fast as you can and scream for your uncle—but you don't. He let go of you. He had just wanted the apple.

You stare at him. You'd been right before—every feature of his is far too sharp to be human. The edge of his nose, the line of his jaw, the angles of his cheekbones—everything except his eyes. They're dark, as dark as the night sky behind you, but they're soft. They hold none of the sharpness of what you can see of the rest of his body.

You think back to the beginning of the day—to the stories of the fish-men your uncle had tried to spook your cousins with as you drove around the inlet. Damn him to hell—he was right.

You aren't sure who you're angrier at—him, for being correct about something so utterly insane, or you, for not being smart enough to realize he was telling the truth.

The creature in the water notices you staring at him. He blinks at you, tilting his head to the side. His gaze hasn't left you for a single instant, but there's something else spreading across his face now, tugging up the side of his lips in a faint smile.

"You aren't afraid," he says now, the rasp in his voice gradually beginning to ebb away.

You notice him watching your arms treading water now, apple bobbing beside you, but you don't say anything about it. You also don't say anything about how he isn't treading water but is still staying perfectly afloat—something else is propelling him to stay upright. And you think you may have an idea of what it is. "I...I don't know. I don't think so," is the only thing you can offer in response. "I don't know what you are."

He thinks for a moment. "A...a siren was what your people called us the last time we went to the surface."

A siren. You'll admit you didn't always pay constant attention in school, especially reading the Odyssey nearly three years ago, but you have a clear enough recollection of what these creatures were. Their entire purpose was to lure sailors to their deaths with their charms, wrecking their ships with a few words of a song.

"We couldn't come up to the surface very often then," he adds thoughtfully, remembering. "Too much of that black smoke in the air. That's what my father said, anyway."

Black smoke? You're confused for a moment before it dawns on you—you distinctly remember your uncle telling you that the railroad used to lie almost perfectly adjacent to the bay his house now resides on, back in the day before they'd decided to reroute the tracks to make room for the neighborhoods they were building. And if the trains the siren in front of you remembers were still billowing out black smoke...

Christ, how old is he, anyway?

"I'm supposed to drown you," he says plainly.

You furrow your brow at him. "You can try, I guess. I used to be pretty good at swimming."

He laughs at that too. The sound of his laugh is unbearably musical—light and gentle and not at all comparable to the rasp his voice had been at first, nor is it fitting for a creature who had just said he was here to kill you. "I almost did. That's how you ended up in the water—don't you see?"

Oh. Fuck. He must have been in your head, practically—convincing you to get in the water. It's what'd he done earlier in the day too, you realize—when you'd gotten in all the way up to your ankles without realizing. "How...how'd you do that?"

He shrugs. "I just hum. Some of my brothers are good at singing, but I think humming does the same thing at a much quieter rate. Harder to get caught that way." 

"Does that happen to you often?" you ask. "Getting caught?"

He seems to ponder that for a moment. "No. I...I didn't have any plans on telling you this, but I've never actually drowned anyone before. You've been my first attempt."

You scoff at that. "I guess you're not a very good siren, then."

He stares at you, and you wonder for a split second if you've just made a fatal mistake by running your mouth, like you always do—but the edges of his lips quirk up in a strange smile. "That's not all we do, you know. We were the record-keepers of the ocean, back in the days before that fool Homer decided to only focus on our...occasional people-drowning habits. Once you become known for something, no one really cares what you used to do."

You blink at him. "Sorry, I...are you trying to make me feel bad for you? After you tried to drown me?"

His smile widens. "But I didn't drown you! I decided not to. Because I wanted to know what that was in your hand." He looks down at the apple bobbing in the water between the two of you. "Do you have anything else like this?"

You let out an incredulous laugh. "Why? Do you want to go through all the fruit in our fridge and take a single bite out of each one?"

He cocks his head slightly at you. "Why would I do that?"

Because it's what you just did, you want to yell at him—but you don't. Some semblance of common sense must be returning to you, now that you know you aren't in mortal danger.

He continues anyway. "I want to go back to our record-keeping ways. I like learning things. I've never spoken to a human before now—I've already learned so much. I know what an apple is. I know how easy it is to tell you to drown yourself."

You try to ignore the way your blood freezes cold for an instant at that last comment—and the way he gives you a knowing look after it leaves his lips. You think you may have a better understanding of what your situation is, now. "So you decided not to drown me because you wanted to know about the apple. You...you're only going to keep me alive if I keep bringing you things that you find interesting?"

But he shakes his head no. "You can go back up to the land now. I won't stop you. I was just suggesting that you'd think about doing me a favor, since I did one for you."

Deciding not to drown me isn't much of a favor—but you keep that to yourself. "You really wouldn't stop me if I went back up the dock? If I never set foot in the water again? Won't you...I don't know, get in trouble with the siren police or whoever you answer to?"

A bemused expression flashes across his face. "No, I don't answer to anyone. We used to travel in packs—and I think some still do, especially in the southern sects of the Pacific, but most of us are solitary, now. I do whatever I want."

“Must be nice," you reply before you can think to stop yourself.

He frowns a little at that. "What do you mean? You're the masters of the world as we know it, aren't you?" There may be a little edge of mocking at the end of that sentence, but neither of you comment on it.

Instead, you take one arm out of the water briefly to try to wave your words away, accidentally flicking a few drops of water on his face—but he doesn't even flinch. "Look—I shouldn't have said that,” you say.

"Who could possibly be telling you what to do?" he asks again. "I'm serious."

Now you do let a small laugh pass your lips. "You'd be surprised."

He just blinks. "Surprise me, then."

He did say he liked to learn. "Listen, I can't—" You cut off your own sentence when you see a light on the second story window flick on out of your peripheral vision. Shit. "I've got to go."

He casts his gaze upwards to the soft light emanating from the house. "I see," you hear him say as you plant your elbows on the edge of the dock, hauling your body back up to the wooden surface. Once you're out of the water, a sudden thought occurs to you—you never even asked the siren for his name.

Who cares? a voice in your head cries out. Your conscience, most likely—whatever scraps of common sense you have left. That thing was going to drown you. You don't need his name; you're never going to see him again.

Well—that you aren't entirely sure of, even if you may not be completely prepared to admit it. As much as you had apparently intrigued him, he had certainly kept your interest too. For crying out loud—he's a goddamn siren. How often did you get to have a sit-down conversation with a sea creature you had been perfectly convinced wasn't real an hour ago?

Even more intriguing, you think, was that air of freedom about him. I do whatever I want, he'd said. You can't imagine the last time anything like that left your mouth—or if anything like it ever had. You're drawn to that feeling of freedom—either out of jealousy or a desire to live vicariously through it, you aren't sure. But you do want to experience it again.

So you turn back around, the question of his name on the tip of your tongue—but it never gets any further. By the time you're looking back into the water below you, he's gone. Had you imagined the entire thing all along, you wonder for a brief instant?

But that thought shatters when you hear a splash to your right, at the very edge of the canal before it opens back up into the ocean, and you see the edge of a long, blue tail flicker in the moonlight before it disappears below the surface.

You let out a short laugh of disbelief at the sight. And the small smile that lingers on your lips—even as you hurry back towards the house, open the back door as quietly as possible, hurry back upstairs, throw your wet clothes in the bathroom, and jump back in your bed in a fresh pair of pajamas—doesn't fade away for quite some time.

Three days pass before you see him again.

You'd run out to the dock three nights in a row after everyone in the house had fallen asleep, peering into the water only to be met with the ripples of your own reflection staring back up at you. Disappointed, you had trudged back to the back porch and snuck back up to your room, lingering confusions about that damn siren swirling around in your head. You won't go check again tomorrow night. That entire meeting with him was apparently a one-time thing. It was a miracle that he'd let you live, anyway—a miracle that you aren't ever supposed to see again.

You still find yourself padding down to the dock on the fourth night—and this time, you aren't alone.

There's an apple sitting on the very last wooden plank on the end of the dock, water dripping off the edge and forming a small puddle around it. You almost let out a laugh at the sight, but it's swallowed by the yelp you accidentally let out when the siren's head emerges suddenly from beneath the surface. He stares at you, unblinking as he hauls his forearms onto the edge of the dock, propelling himself forward to look up at you.

"You're surprised," he says.

You take a breath to calm yourself before speaking. "You're observant."

He blinks once. Twice. "That's for you," he says, gesturing towards the singular fruit on the last plank of wood. "Since I ate the other one."

You look down at the apple, deciding you're safer not asking where he got this one—and then you look lower, peering down off the edge. The siren has pulled himself up to rest against the dock, which means he's only about halfway submerged into the water now. You see his arms, crossed on top of each other to support him resting on top of the dock. You see his chest, his abdomen, droplets of water still rolling down the toned muscles. And you swallow the gasp that threatens to escape you when you finally lock eyes on the dark blue tail that begins past his waist, swishing back and forth as it glistens with every beam of moonlight it reflects.

If he knows the cause of your sudden amazement, he doesn't say anything about it. Instead, he speaks again. "I wasn't sure if you'd be back."

You manage to pull your eyes back up towards his. "I, um...I realized I never got your name the other night. I figured you didn't just go by 'siren.'"

He smirks. "No, I don't. But I've never had to say it out loud before, like this." He thinks about it for a moment. "Hongjoong."

Hongjoong. "Hongjoong," you repeat. 

You aren't sure if it's the moonlight playing tricks on you, or if his cheeks really do twinge a shade pink at the repetition from your lips. "What's yours?"

Now it's your turn to smirk a little. "You won't, like...gain some kind of terrible power over me once you know my name, right?" You think you remember reading about the fae having that kind of ability in school, but that was ages ago. And at the time, you didn't think you'd ever need to remember information about creatures you were certain didn't exist.

The siren—Hongjoong—shakes his head. "Not that I know of. I can look into it in our historical records though, if you'd like."

You shake your head quickly. Probably better off not knowing.

But you do tell him your name, and he smiles too. "Pretty," he says, and you think you understand how someone like him could talk someone like you into walking off a boat—but the thought doesn't scare you the way it might have the other night. He's so beautiful, you're realizing—almost impossibly so. To hear him say he thinks you're pretty, or at least your name is, almost makes you want to laugh.

Hongjoong pulls you out of your thoughts when he taps the space on the dock next to the apple with one hand. "Well? Are you going to take it?"

Oh. "Oh!" you say, bending over to pick up the fruit. "Sure. Thank you for bringing this to me—" and then, before you can stop yourself from the most sudden and peculiar act of boldness in your entire life so far— "do you...I don't know, want anything in return for it?"

He seems taken aback by your proposition at first, but only a moment passes before that soft, self-assured grin appears across his features again. "What would you want to give me?"

Christ. Why did you say that? "Well—um..." You glance down at your shoes with wet sand still caked to the sides, the green charm on the end of one shoelace, the fraying ends of the jacket you'd hastily pulled over your shoulders before walking outside tonight, before you see—

You quickly work it off of your wrist and hand it over to him. "Here," you say, sitting down at the dock's edge and handing Hongjoong the bracelet you've been wearing since you came to your uncle's house this summer. "You can keep it."

Hongjoong takes the bracelet delicately from your outstretched hand. He peers at it in the moonlight. "What is it?"

"It's a bracelet," you explain. "You can just wear it on your wrist for decoration—it doesn't have to mean anything. This one, um...it was actually from my parents, but believe me—it doesn't mean anything," you finish, trying (and failing) not to let that all-too-familiar drip of malicious venom back into your voice at the mention of the people who raised you. Who bought you this bracelet—a week-late birthday gift from your mother who had missed it while she was on a 'girls trip' in Italy. And yet, you still turned out like this—

Hongjoong continues studying the bracelet, poring over each individual charm. If he notices your attitude about your parents, he doesn't say anything—but after that first conversation you'd had with him, you think he may understand what you mean anyway.

The silence is starting to make you drowsy, so you move to stand back up. "Look, Hongjoong, I'd better head back. It's late. Will I, um—" Why does he make you so nervous now? "Will I see—"

"What are you bringing next time?" Hongjoong interrupts.

You blink. "What?"

He taps the bracelet with one finger. "I'll bring something else the next time I see you, if you bring something too."

He had said he liked to learn. "Okay," you say. There's a sudden warmth in your chest at the thought of seeing him again, even despite the cool breeze suddenly drifting off from the sea. "When will you be back?"

Hongjoong tilts his head to one side, thinking. "The next half moon. It should be in a few nights. I'll need time to find something good for you," he says, grinning.

You can't fight the grin that tugs at your own lips. "I'll be here, then."

You think about how the first two weeks of your summer had dragged by. Every day had felt like an unending loop of babysitting your cousins while your uncle went to work, of making an effort to laugh at said uncle's intentionally not-funny jokes, of picking up groceries and running errands and getting lost in the monotony of the mundane—but the second half of your summer is the complete opposite.

Going out and meeting Hongjoong by the end of the dock goes from a once a week occurrence to a nightly routine. And it doesn't stop at just bringing each other different little trinkets and knick-knacks and snacks that you find—you and Hongjoong both discover that you're better conversationalists than you'd previously thought. The two of you find yourself talking for hours about anything you can think of; you learn that Hongjoong's family is several times larger than yours, and that sirens swim further south when the water gets cold in the winter ("the same as everything else in the sea with any sense," he points out). And you tell Hongjoong about you, about all the summers you spent here with your older siblings when you were all still children, about the nights you snuck out with them and went to the gas station for ice cream—both of you hanging on each other's every word.

You find yourself looking forward to seeing him all day. You're in far better spirits than you were at the beginning of the summer, your uncle teases on several occasions, but you can't find it in yourself to be bothered.

You probably could try to make it slightly less obvious, though. After nearly a month of spending almost all your nights with Hongjoong, you find yourself one midsummer day back on the pontoon boat with your cousins and uncle, looking for an island to go for a picnic on—just like you had been that day you'd first seen him. You still keep to yourself on the bow of the boat the same way you did at the beginning of the summer, but your thoughts are full of nothing but the siren, now. You'd found an unfinished scrapbook of you and your siblings from years ago in your uncle's garage last night, and you're practically beaming at the thought of showing it to Hongjoong tonight. You wonder if he'll be able to pick out which one is you in the photos if you don't tell him. Maybe you'll—

"There's something in the water!" one of your cousins cries out, pointing towards the right side of the boat.

You practically shoot out of your seat. "Where?" you ask, rushing over to her side of the boat.

She blinks up at you, caught off-guard by your sudden enthusiasm. "Um...right next to the boat." She points again with a shrug. "There was a face, but it's gone now. I swear I'm telling the truth."

You nod, giving her a knowing grin. "I believe you."

Her eyes widen, a smile growing across her own features. "You do?"

Your uncle laughs from the wheel of the boat behind you. "You mean your reflection, bub?"

Your cousin shakes her head quickly. "No, it wasn't. It was something else, I know it."

Your uncle looks back and forth between the two of you, landing his gaze firmly on you. "Well—if you see anything else, you just let me know. It's almost the end of the summer, you know," he points out. "I've kept you all under my watch this long—I don't want anything to happen to either of you."

The little girl next to you nods before going back to her seat with the rest of your cousins, but you stay planted at the side of the boat for a while with them.

It's almost the end of the summer, you know.

What's been wrong with you for the last several weeks? Befriending a siren, of all things—where did you think that was going to go? Did you think you'd get to pack him up in your suitcase with everything else and take him home? Stupid, you think—you've been completely, utterly stupid. It's the only explanation for it.

No—that isn't entirely true, either. You may have been foolish, thinking you could keep a friendship with a siren, but that wasn't the only place those feelings were coming from. You've been distracting yourself, you realize now. You're trying to run, still—from the very same thing that led you to stay with your uncle this summer for the first time in years.

Maybe you've had your fill of running. It may be time to try facing the thing you've been avoiding all summer before it's too late—which is how you find yourself alone in the kitchen later that night, holding on to your uncle's home phone with one hand while you read her number to yourself off of your own phone (you're fairly certain she won't answer if she recognizes your number on her caller ID).

You almost hesitate before punching in the last number to dial and sealing your fate, but your uncle's words float back to you again. It's almost the end of the summer. What do you have to lose now, anyway?

You finish dialing the number.

She picks up on the fourth ring. "Hello?" She sounds slightly out of breath, as if she'd ran to catch the phone before it stopped ringing. The thought gives you a momentary sense of hope—maybe she won't hang up on you immediately once she realizes who's calling.

You take a deep breath before answering. "Hi, Mom," you say, slowly. "It's me."

She's silent for a long, long time—but she doesn't hang up. "...Oh," is the first thing your mother says. "I thought this was your uncle calling." You hear her take a breath, hesitating on saying what you know she's about to say. "I guess that's why you called from his phone, huh?"

You know there's no point answering that. "Mom, I...I wanted to talk to you, since the summer's almost over. I thought we could possibly talk about, um...about me staying at home for a little bit before school starts—or maybe coming home during winter break."

There's another long period of silence��and like the fool you are, you allow yourself to hope, for a brief moment, that she won't say exactly what you've known she was going to say the minute you dialed her number. "Hmm...no, Y/N, I don't really think that's a good idea." Your heart sinks, but she continues to push the dagger (that you practically handed her by making this call) further into your chest. "You know what—it's not really a good time right now, anyway. I'll talk to you some other time, alright?"

"Listen, Mom, I'm—"

Click.

She's hung up.

You told yourself earlier you wouldn't cry if she did this (you knew she was going to). And yet—you still can't fight those tears brimming at the edge of your eyelids, threatening to spill over. As you try to blink them away, your gaze is drawn towards the back window—towards the head of blue hair you can just barely see at the end of the dock, waiting expectantly for you already.

God. You cannot talk to Hongjoong right now—but you can't just blow him off entirely, either. You'll make something up, tell him you've gotten sick and can't see him for a few days, and hope he'll just forget about you and find some other human to trade apples for bracelets with.

You pad as quickly as you can down the end of the beach to the dock, peering over the edge to see Hongjoong's dark eyes looking up at you. "I can't talk tonight," you say sharply. "I'm sorry."

Hongjoong frowns. "What's wrong? Did you forget to bring something? It's okay, you know. I don't mind just talking to you. If you want."

Of course that's what he's concerned about. "No," you say, somewhat shakily. "I just can't, alright?"

You move to turn around, but the siren is a step ahead of you like always. He lunges forward onto the dock, grabbing ahold of your ankle with a strength you hadn't known he'd had. You think, for a moment, that if he had really wanted to drown you that day—he could have. "That's not good enough," he replies firmly, but his gaze softens the minute he sees your face closer. "I want to know what's wrong. Please."

It doesn't take much pleading from him for you to succumb to his wishes, so you relent, turning back around and sitting down on the edge of the dock. Hongjoong props himself up with his forearms before pushing the rest of his body up onto the dock, sitting upright and facing the sea beside you, just like you—something he's never done before. Only the last few scales on the edge of his tail just barely brush the water. "Tell me," he asks again, gentler this time.

So you do.

"It's my mother," you tell him, slowly. "Both my parents, really—they planned out me and my brothers' lives from the moment we were born. We were all supposed to be doctors, or lawyers, or scientists—something to make a ridiculous amount of money for them, just like they did for their parents. It was the only way to make them proud. They sent us to private schools and paid for expensive tutoring for years to ensure it, and they only spoke to us when we did well. They didn't want children—they wanted trophies. Things they could show off to their friends who were just as selfish and conceited as them. And they got them with my brothers—they did exactly what they were supposed to. Graduated law school or got their doctorates or PhDs, and now do nothing except work and get filthy rich. I'm the last one to fulfill what my parents had planned out for us. But I guess things don't always work out the way you planned," you add, somewhat bitterly.

Hongjoong keeps his gaze fixed on you. "No," he says, as gently as the water lapping at your ankles. "They don't. And...you don't want to do what they want you to."

You nod. "That's right. I don't. I think I should get a choice in what I make of my life, not slaving away forever at something someone else picked out for me. To do something of my own volition. And I told them so—and they told me I'd be on my own, forever, because of it."

"What do you want, then?" he asks.

You feel tears brushing against the edges of your eyelashes again. "It doesn't matter," you say, trying to keep your voice as steady as you can. "I'm screwed as it is. I have enough money saved for this semester of college, but they've cut me off entirely. I tried to call and make an attempt to patch things up tonight, but she wouldn't even listen to me. I'll be coming here every other semester to work, save up for the next semester, and stay with my uncle. I'm extremely grateful to at least have him on my side, to have someone who will allow me to stay with them—but I don't know if I'll ever get to see my parents or my brothers again. And I knew that would happen," you admit, voice definitely shaking now.

"I knew that was the choice I was making when I told them I didn't want to just be a stupid trophy for them to display, that I wanted to make something worthwhile, that I deemed worthwhile with my life. I knew it wouldn't be easy and that I was taking the harder route, but I thought I'd be able to just cut ties with them. Go no contact, and all that, but it...it's hard, Hongjoong," you tell him, tears rolling down your cheeks. "So fucking hard. And it's so stupid. Even after all this, after she's told me she doesn't want anything to do with me, now that I've chosen to 'waste my life away' and she 'doesn't know who I am anymore—' I still care what she thinks of me, for some stupid reason. She's still my mother—God, what am I supposed to do?"

Hongjoong turns to you almost instantly, cupping your face in both hands, and the sudden touch alone almost makes your tears stop falling. "Nothing stops the flow of the sea," he says, quietly. You want to move your gaze, to move your head away so your eyes aren't locked onto Hongjoong's so intensely, but he keeps you there anyway. "You just have to keep moving through it. With it. I think it's the same with your mother. It won't immediately be better tomorrow, just like how the sea isn't immediately perfectly calm after a typhoon—but it will be better, eventually. A little bit every day, as the waves return back to their normal rolling patterns."

"You don't think it's stupid?" you ask, quietly. "That I'm still so desperate to hold on to my mother, even if she's practically already thrown me away?"

Hongjoong shrugs. "Nonsensical, maybe. But not stupid. I don't think there's anything stupid about reaching out for someone who's taken care of you. My family has always been spread across the oceans—no matter where I go, it seems, I can find someone. I think it would be a much harder life if I was told none of them wanted to see me ever again. I'd feel stranded. And I haven't lived the same life as you, so I don't know what the exact circumstances are like, but I don't think it's a stupid aspiration. Just slightly nonsensical—but I think I'm realizing that a lot of things you do—that humans do," he corrects, "are that way."

That makes you laugh, even as his words settle into your ears and you begin to feel a kind of lightness in your chest. His world is so different from yours, you think. You're almost jealous of it, in a way.

And still, when he says things will be easier, eventually—you believe him.

"What is it that you want with your life?" he asks.

You laugh a little again. "It's cliché."

Hongjoong doesn't hesitate. "How would I know what your clichés are?" His hands are still firmly cupped against your cheeks.

Now the smile that ghosts across your face is real. Genuine. "Art," you say, quietly—as if you're afraid of admitting the truth even to him. "I love drawing—always have. It's all I've ever wanted to do. It used to be my escape when I came here in the summers with my family; I'd sneak away from everyone and paint on the beach for hours until my uncle would call for dinner. I begged for paint sets as a kid for birthday presents—even stole a set of charcoal pencils from the art room in middle school once. The teacher let me keep them even after finding out," you add, laughing a little. You bare your soul to Hongjoong, the parts of you that you've tried to squash for years but have failed to completely erase—like charcoal marks on a piece of paper that just won't quite go away.

He seems to ponder this for a moment. "Could you draw me?"

You laugh, feeling like a dam of relief is beginning to break within within you. He knows what has practically been your deepest, darkest secret for your entire life, and he doesn't want to shun you forever for it. "You know, I've always heard that's the one thing you aren't supposed to ask an artist."

Hongjoong blinks. "I didn't know that." There's only a single beat of silence before he asks, "Can you draw me anyway?"

"It won't be very good," you say with a shrug, smirk still tugging at the corners of your mouth. "I've never been very good at portraits. Landscapes and still life are easier for me."

He moves one hand to wrap around your wrist. "Try anyway."

The tenderness of the action coupled with his words—blunt as always, but reassuring in a way you've never known from him, never known from anyone—is enough to cause tears to prickle at the corners of your eyes again.

This time, Hongjoong notices, moving his free hand up your cheek to gently brush them away before they ever have a chance to cascade past your lashes. You see him sniff once, then look back up at you—realization dawning on his face.

"Salt," Hongjoong whispers in awe. "There's a piece of the sea in you, too."

That dam inside you breaks.

You meet his eyes, dark as the bottom of the ocean—feel the cool grip of his hand wrapped around your wrist and his fingers resting gently on your cheek, and you feel the pull towards him like the magnetism of the Earth's core.

When your lips land on his, it doesn't surprise either of you. It's a chaste, careful kiss at first. Hongjoong takes only a moment to breathe, forehead touching yours so lightly you almost wouldn't know he was there, before pulling you back to him and pressing his lips against yours again.

You've never experienced anything like it before—the tenderness of his hands on your skin, the softness of his lips on yours, his warm breath skating across your jaw. It's like he's everywhere, taking over every sensation—but not at all like that first time he had met you and influenced your thoughts. You feel fully in control right now. You're the one who's let him in.

If this is what drowning feels like, you think, you'd never complain.

You taste salt on your lips when you wake in the morning, and the sensation immediately sends a flurry of butterflies through your chest. A smile tugs at your mouth before you can even think to hide it from yourself.

Had last night even been real? Hongjoong reassuring you, kissing you so gently that you thought you might melt right into the water below the two of you—God, how could it not have been real? You could never have dreamed something like it.

If your uncle and cousins notice your uncharacteristically chipper mood at breakfast, a stark contrast to your melancholy behavior at dinner the night before, they don't say anything—but your uncle does look surprised when you offer to help load the cooler and towels onto the boat for the day.

"I've enjoyed having you here for the summer," your uncle tells you later that afternoon, when you've dropped anchor on a nearby island and your cousins are eating their lunches peacefully—the only time of the day you find that they're quiet. "Reminded me of the old days, with your brothers. It's been good to have you here."

You smile at him. "I've enjoyed being here," you admit, even if he doesn't know all the reasons why. "Thank you for letting me stay the summer. I really, um...really appreciate knowing there's someone who has my back."

His eyes crinkle in a soft smile. "Listen, Y/N. I know it's hasn't been easy after what happened with your mother—I don't know the whole story, but I'm not old and senile enough yet to not know something's up. But you'll always have a place to stay here. I want you to know that."

Your heart jumps. "Thank you, Uncle," you say. "You've always gone out of your way to make this feel like home for me, and you did the same when my brothers were here too. I can never thank you enough for that. And I—"

He just waves your words away. "That's what family does, you know? I've always felt like a bit of a black sheep living out here—compared to my sister, anyway. She always had big plans for all of you. But I've wanted this to feel like a good place for you, and your brothers, and now your cousins too—no matter what. Even when you all would sneak out for late-night gas station runs back in the day...or whatever it is you're doing now," your uncle adds, pointedly.

Your stomach twists. "I've...been taking moonlit strolls. It's helped me relax, with everything going on."

He doesn't seem convinced, however. "Honey...you know, you can always—"

But he's interrupted by one of your cousins shouting. "Jay won't give me the binoculars back!"

Your uncle frowns. "Jay, let your sister have a turn. Only fair, you know."

Jay crosses his arms, tucking the binoculars under one elbow. "No way! Every time Bianca uses these, she keeps telling me she sees somebody staring at her in the water."

Bianca scowls, lunging for him. "And I did! Just because you didn't see him doesn't mean I didn't."

Him.

After what your uncle had just said about your moonlit strolls, you restrain yourself from running over to the edge of the boat immediately like the other day—but your eyes still scan over the water ahead of you hurriedly.

You can see your uncle's gaze flicker back to you out of the corner of your eye, hesitating for a moment too long, before turning his attention back to the twins. "You guys have seen more stuff on the horizon in the past month than I saw in twenty years on the sea," he quips, forcing a tight laugh. "Might need to get you kids back to living in the city soon if you're seeing this many things in the water—not everyone's made for the sea life," he adds.

The knot of worry tightens itself a little tighter in your gut, and not for the last time this summer.

You still smuggle your sketchbook down to the pier once night falls, slipping out the back door with it tucked securely under your arm.

Hongjoong, of course, is waiting expectantly for you, peering up at you from the edge of the dock. "Is that for drawing?" he asks, and you can hear the twinge of excitement in his voice.

Your heart does a little backflip in your chest. "Yes," you admit, a little more sheepishly than you'd meant to. "Do you know how you want to pose for it?"

He thinks for a moment. "Can I sit up here with you? I want to be close to you for it."

Oh—now there are serious acrobatics going on within your chest. "Sure," you say, grinning as you sit on the far edge and watch him scoot up to sit beside you, leaning on the support beam at the very edge of the dock.

You gaze at him for a moment after flipping open your sketchbook and finding an empty page. His tail practically shines in the darkness around the two of you, moonlight reflecting off of each dark blue scale. His torso looks practically sculpted by the gods—arms and chest full of just as much unearthly beauty as his face, jawline sharper than the tip of the pencil you're sketching him with.

Not for the first time, you think to yourself how beautiful he is.

Hongjoong's cheeks turn the fairest shade of pink as you continue to stare at him, but he doesn't say a word as you begin your initial sketch. You find it slightly difficult to get the right shape of the tail flicking against the edge of the water beneath you. "Can I ask you a question?" you say instead, putting down your pencil for a moment.

Hongjoong blinks. "You've asked me questions for weeks, now."

You laugh. "This is a different one. I...I think one of my cousins saw something in the water today. When we were on my uncle's pontoon boat. Any chance you might know something about that?"

His cheeks turn pinker than before, but he doesn't flinch. "I suppose I might."

You can't bite back a grin. "Are you...following me, Hongjoong?"

Hongjoong frowns a little. "I wouldn't call it that. I've...just been in the area. Keeping an eye on things. Not just you."

"Just at the same time as me."

"Right," he says, clearly relieved. "Exactly."

Your grin widens.

Hongjoong points at your sketchpad. "Are you finished with the drawing?"

You laugh a little, picking your pencil back up from beside you on the dock. "No, not even close. I've never drawn anything like you before—but I love a good challenge."

He seems somewhat pleased with this admission. "Will you show it to me once it's done?"

“Of course," you tell him, and he beams. That smile—God. You only hope you can put even a fraction of the way it makes you feel back onto the paper in your palms.

Your uncle corners you in the kitchen after breakfast the next morning. You feel yourself panicking inwardly at first, thinking he's going to continue pressing you on your "moonlit strolls" conversation from yesterday—but he just informs you that he's planning on a big seafood broil for dinner tomorrow night, as a send-off for the summer. And more importantly, he wants you to pick up a few pounds of shrimp from the seafood store in town today.

It's been a while since you ventured that far back into town—God, probably since the very first week of summer. And now your uncle is preparing a feast for the end of the season. You've never known time could pass you by this quickly.

That thought lingers as you ride your uncle's bike down the boardwalk and across the bridge, gradually making your way onto the mainland. You've put off thinking about what will happen once the summer comes to a close since that night you called your mother—but it's an inevitable fact that you'll have to leave, obviously sooner than you think. How can you even begin to bring that up to Hongjoong? Does he know, already, somehow? Will he be disappointed that he can't obtain any more knowledge from you and dip back into the sea, never to be seen again?

Your racing mind quiets somewhat when you realize you've made it to the seafood store—or shack, as it's always been affectionately known. You gaze for a moment at the neon sign outside, realizing that "THE CRAB SHACK" only has a few lights that actually work. "T E CR B S H  C K" is what the sign displays now. 

You remember that the lights didn't work when you were here years ago, either. The whole bottom row of neon was always out, meaning that the sign only read "T E CRB." You wonder if there's a meaning in that—that the sign was broken then and broken now, just showing it in different ways.

Or maybe it's just a neon sign for a seafood shack, and your suddenly gloomy mind is searching for meaning where there is none.

You roll your eyes at your own thoughts, park your bike, and make your way inside. The smell of seafood is nearly overpowering the minute you step through the door and doesn't fade for an instant, even after you've collected your pounds of shrimp in bags and make your way to the register in the very back. You wonder if the employee behind the counter even smells the seafood anymore, or if he's completely accustomed to it now.

He clears his throat awkwardly. Oh, God—how long have you been standing here? "Are you ready to check out?"

"Yes! Yes," you say hurriedly, laughing at yourself. "Sorry. In my own head this morning."

The cashier laughs good-naturedly in reply. "It happens." He looks down at the bags of shrimp after weighing and typing them in. "You visiting a friend here or something? That's quite a few pounds of shrimp—and I don't think I've seen you in here before."

You nod. "I'm staying with some family on the other side of the bridge. We're doing an end-of-summer broil tomorrow night."

He grins at you. "Can I come by if I only charge you for one of these?"

"If there's any leftovers," you reply coolly. "My cousins are pretty ravenous."

The cashier just laughs again, handing you the bags. "Fair enough. You have a good day, now."

"Same to you," you tell him absentmindedly—because you've noticed something in the open door behind the cashier. It's probably not meant to always be open, as it leads to a boardwalk out to the sea. Another Crab Shack employee is lining up a few crates of stock not yet loaded into the store. A couple canisters of fruit, three or four crates of sodas—and at the very end of the boardwalk, you think you might just see a head of blue hair peeking out of the water.

Shit.

You wonder as you quickly make your way out of the store, as you duck under the Sea You Later! sign at the exit, as you pedal the whole ride back over the bridge and back onto your uncle's property—a trick of the light, maybe? (When has that ever been the case this summer?) Will Hongjoong even say anything about it tonight, if it was him?

He does, of course. When evening falls and you make your way down to the dock, you haven't even taken your pencils out of your drawing bag before Hongjoong is pulling himself up beside you, gazing at you intently.

"What was so funny?" he asks, in a tone so innocent you almost think he's being genuine. "I want to know."

You make an exasperated face. "I don't know what you're talking about, Hongjoong."

"The man in the store today," he answers plainly. "In the apron. You laughed at something he said."

"Nothing," you say. "I was being polite—I promise. He was the one trying to make jokes about inviting himself over. Not nearly as funny as he thought he was."

He isn't quite satisfied with that. "Did you know him before?"

"No," you tell him. "I was just in there getting shrimp for my uncle to cook tomorrow."

Hongjoong frowns. "I could've gotten you shrimp. There's plenty around that cove near the bridge."

You laugh. "I appreciate the offer—but where would I have told my uncle several pounds of live shrimp came from?"

He frowns, thinking for a moment. "The apron man wasn't too bright, I think," Hongjoong says. "I saw him come out onto the boardwalk not too long after you left—almost fell over trying to help the other apron man pick up those boxes."

His words hang in the air for a beat. Then two. "What would you have done if he had?" you ask, partially teasing and partially serious. "Drown him?"

Hongjoong ponders that. "I'm not sure. Maybe."

"For what? Talking to me?" you ask, somewhat incredulously. "What were you doing watching me in the middle of the day, anyway? Just 'in the area' again?"

He crosses his arms indignantly. "I didn't plan to. I heard your laugh when I came up for air, so I wanted to know what was funny." He seems to pause on that for a moment. "You're almost a siren yourself, in that way."

Now that makes your heart stop—maybe more than he had intended it to. You have to hide the smile that threatens to creep up the edges of your mouth. "So you really aren't going to drown that poor cashier? Or me, for talking to him?" you ask,  still only partially teasingly.

Hongjoong's face softens slightly at that. "I don't think I ever really intended to. Not from the moment I saw you."

You wonder, for a split second, if he can hear your heart thundering in your chest—if he has any idea what kind of effect he has on you, siren abilities or not.

He seems to have an idea of your thoughts, either way—because he reaches for your hand, intertwining it with his. "I want to show you something."

You stare at him for an instant too long. "Where?" you ask, nervous laughter accidentally escaping you. "In the water?"

He nods, as if that should have been obvious. "Of course."

You give him a look. "Hongjoong—I don't know how far this is, but you know I'm not nearly as good at holding my breath as you are."

Hongjoong laughs a little at that—that bright, airy, musical laugh that almost instantly sets you at ease, reminding whatever sane parts of you are left that he's still a siren. "Don't worry," he says plainly. "I'll make sure you can breathe."

Just as always, there's no malice in his tone, no hint of a hidden plot behind his eyes, although you wonder if you would even know if there was, skillful siren that he is. Regardless, you squeeze his hand in yours and let him lead you off the dock and beneath the waves, taking one last gasping breath before your head slips underneath.

Hongjoong keeps your hand in his, tail swishing as he leads the two of you further beneath the surface—the scales across it continue to reflect moonlight as brightly as if you were still above the water, giving you just as much visibility in the dark water as if you had a flashlight with you.

What's a flashlight?

You nearly let out a yelp before you remember the two of you are underwater. That was Hongjoong's voice, no doubt about it—and it was in your head.

You can talk to me this way too, you know.

It's like he's invaded your head—his thoughts are suddenly yours. Can you always hear my thoughts? you wonder. If that's been the case all along—

But you can just barely see Hongjoong shake his head in front of you through the darkness. No, you hear him say. Only when we're here, like this. Do you need air?

God, you definitely, definitely do—the shock of Hongjoong's voice in your mind had completely distracted you for a brief moment from the lack of air in your lungs. It's nothing at all, though, compared to the shock you feel when Hongjoong cups your cheeks between his hands and presses his mouth to yours.

He's kissing you.

No—he's not, you realize suddenly. He's breathing into you, pushing air down your lungs and filling them up until you feel like you can breathe again, despite being completely submerged beneath the water.

Hongjoong pulls away after a moment. Good? he asks.

You nod—you're slightly embarrassed now, especially now that you know he could hear your confusion in your head.

And especially considering the smirk you can see on his lips right before he turns back around to push the two of you further through the water. He's well aware of the confusion he's caused.

Hongjoong only has to give you air two more times before you finally arrive at what he had wanted to show you—and it nearly takes your breath away once more.

It's a shipwreck. A massive one, sitting completely undisturbed at the bottom of the bay. The ship has three broken masts, some of the sails slightly submerged in the sand with several of the cannon openings peeking out at you, which you know can mean only one thing.

This ship is hundreds of years old. One that had clearly gone down in a fight.

Hongjoong beams at you taking in the scene. My cousins did this, you hear him say, and you nearly laugh at the clear pride in that declaration.

You think about your own cousins, playing pirates on the beach while they throw buckets of water at each other, stomping over sandcastles and leaving childlike destruction in their wake. Yeah? you finally ask. Sounds like something my cousins would do.

Hongjoong stares at you thoughtfully for a long time after that—you wonder, for a brief moment, if you shouldn't have compared your family to his in this way. You're just about to formulate a thought to apologize when you feel his lips on yours again, one hand on the back of your head while the other cups your cheek gently.

You stare at him, confused once more when he pulls back. I didn't need air, you tell him, eyebrows knit together in confusion.

He stares right back. I know.

Hongjoong waits to see the realization on your face before he touches you again, clasping your chin between two fingers gingerly. He's giving you a chance to push him away, if that's what you want.

It isn't.

You hold his face in your hands when you press your lips to his this time, and you can practically feel the relief emanating from him in your own mind. He wraps one arm around your waist and the other around your shoulders, holding you as close to him as he can. Everything else—all your fearful thoughts about the end of the summer from today, your suspicions about your uncle, your constant stress about your mother—all fades away past the point of existence, and in that moment, there is nothing but you and Hongjoong at the bottom of the ocean.

"Sure you don't want to go out on the boat today?" your uncle asks the next morning. "It's your last chance for this summer."

But you shake your head again. "I got pretty sunburned across my back yesterday," you fib. "I'll watch the house here until you all get back. Do you need me to run any errands for you while you're gone?"

He doesn't quite stop himself from narrowing his eyes at you. You've been out in the sun enough times this summer that the half hour you spent in the backyard watching your cousins' impromptu performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream yesterday shouldn't have burned you at all. And you know he's fully aware of this. "...Don't know how many times I've told you kids to wear sunscreen," he says after a moment. "And reapply."

"I know," you wince. "I'm sorry. I'll put some lotion on it after breakfast."

"There's some in the closet upstairs with aloe," he informs you. "That usually speeds up the healing process for me."

"Good to know," you tell him. In truth, the only thing you plan to do while everyone is out of the house is work on your drawing of Hongjoong. You've solidified the outline, gone over it with an ink pen, but you're still trying to decide how to place the shading. You want to show the finished product to Hongjoong tonight—your last night of summer. You've put off that dreaded conversation with him until the very last minute—but you know you two will have to talk about what happens two nights from now when you're across the country, moving into your dorm room for your first night at college.

At least—you think you will be. There's a mad fantasy, of course, of staying here, of sneaking out to see Hongjoong every night for as long as you can, of running away with him somehow to some island where no one will ever bother the two of you—but it's just that, a fantasy, and you know it. Even if the entire summer has felt like a fantasy in its own way.

You don't know how that conversation will go tonight. But you want to at least be able to give this piece to him, regardless of what happens.

You're hunched over your sketchpad for hours, messing with the combination of paints for your watercolors until they're just right (or at least as satisfactory as you can get them). The scales on his tail are the hardest—you want so badly to show how ethereal they look with the moonlight reflecting off them, making him look like he's glowing from the waist down. You lay down a base color first and paint over it with different shades of blue and green, creating several different layers until you're pleased with the color's result.

Your work on the contours of his face and torso comes much easier, and the full painting is almost completely dry by the time you're heading back outside, moon high in the sky to greet you as you step onto the dock.

Hongjoong is waiting for you too, forearms resting at the edge of the pier. You roll the painting into a cylinder shape as you walk down to meet him, but you know he knows exactly what it is.

He grins. "I've been thinking about this all day," he admits, immediately, and you feel an entire enclosure of butterflies fluttering through your chest at the statement.

But you steel yourself. Take a breath. "Before I show it to you," you say, "I want to talk."

Hongjoong nods. "The end of the summer. Right?"

You raise one eyebrow at him. "How'd you know?"

"I heard you talking about it. With your uncle, that first time that your cousin spotted me from the boat." He grins a little at the recollection. "I heard him say there wasn't long until the end of summer, when you'd be leaving, so—I imagined this conversation would happen soon."

You exhale, slightly relieved. At least you wouldn't have to break the news of your sudden departure to him. "And how did you imagine this conversation?"

He takes a breath now. "I know I can't ask you to stay here. That's not fair to what you want—to the choices you've made with your own family for being able to make your own life. But I was thinking—"

"Y/N!" You hear a voice cry out from behind you.

You'd recognize the sound of your uncle anywhere—and you feel your blood practically freeze over in your veins. "Get back here. Now!"

You turn around quickly, trying to block the view of Hongjoong from your uncle—but it's too late. And as you turn to face him, you see that he's come prepared for this exact situation—a shotgun raised to his shoulder now, eyes peering down the barrel pointed at you, and a long fishing spear beside him on the dock.

"Uncle," you say, as calmly as you can. "Put that down. Please."

"Get back here, Y/N," he says, voice trembling with barely contained rage. "Get away from that thing right this minute and get out of my way."

You take a shaky breath. "Uncle, please let me explain. He's—"

"I know exactly what that is!" your uncle spits, pulling back the safety on the shotgun with a loud click. "A goddamn monster. You have no idea what those things do," he says, voice cracking. "I've seen men—good men, my friends taken from me, by its kind. Yanked right off our ship's railing and into their waiting mouths. It's nothing but a bloodthirsty animal that—"

"Stop!" you interrupt him with a shout, surprising yourself with the tenacity in your voice. You feel Hongjoong's hand wrap around your ankle, probably trying to tell you to stop—but you can't. You won't. "He's not a single thing like that. His name is Hongjoong. He's never even drowned anyone, let anyone killed and eaten anyone, Uncle. You have—"

"It's got you under it's spell," your uncle says, horrified. "Oh, my poor Y/N. I'll kill this nasty beast and free you from this trap."

You practically scream the next time you open your mouth. "No! You can't!" There's tears streaming down your face now, and the intensity of your emotions must be a surprise to your uncle, if the look of shock on his face is anything to go by. "Uncle—I'm begging you," you plead, sobbing. "I'll do anything. Please, please don't hurt him. He's my friend."

Something strange flickers over your uncle's features. He drops the barrel ever so slightly from being pointed at you. "Your friend, huh?"

You nod as you choke back another sob. "I love him." It's the first time you've admitted it—to yourself, let alone out loud—but you know it's the truth. Has been for longer than you've been aware, most likely.

That admission causes your uncle to drop the barrel entirely, holding the shotgun down in one hand and letting his other arm rest at his side. "My Y/N," he says, after a moment with a sigh.

"I've always wanted the best for you. I lived with your mother for eighteen years growing up, up until she met your father and had you and your brothers. I know how...how demanding she can be," he says with a laugh, one you don't reciprocate. "I know her tendencies all too well. She's my sister, and she'll always be my sister—but that doesn't mean I think she's a good person. I've tried to show you that there's a different path in life. That you don't have to do things her way. This...isn't what I thought you'd do," he says, laughing emptily again. "But I would never want to do anything that would hurt you on any level close to what I know she's caused you."

Your uncle swallows. Takes a breath. "I swore an oath," he says, steadier now. "In the navy. When I see anything like this, when any of us do—I'm honor-bound to report it. The local unit will be over here in under half an hour. Maybe even sooner."

You feel yourself holding your breath.

"So," he says, sighing as he meets your gaze down the dock. "You two...had just better not be here by the time they show up."

Before you can say anything in response—or perhaps before he can change his mind, your uncle turns on his heel and walks back towards the house.

You turn back around to face Hongjoong, sinking to your knees—and the minute you do, you feel tears streaming back down your face again.

He immediately pushes himself up onto the dock, grabbing hold of your face and brushing away the tears the instant they fall. "Y/N," he whispers. "You didn't have to do that. I...I love you. I would've gladly taken a bullet from your uncle if it meant you'd be safe."

Your eyes well with tears again, a shaky laugh leaving you. "Shit," you whisper back. "I don't—I don't know what to do, I just...just wanted to show you this stupid drawing," you say, laughing shakily. "And now I've ruined both of our lives. I'll never see you again."

"No. You haven't," Hongjoong says firmly, squeezing your cheeks in his hands.

You grab hold of his wrists. "Hongjoong—you have to get out of here. You...you said you have family everywhere, right? Go anywhere else. Please."

"No," Hongjoong says suddenly, straightening up the instant your hands wrap around his wrists.  "Where did you say that school you were going to for your art was?"

You tell him. "It's on the coast, but it's not nearly as close to the sea as we are here, I—"

He interrupts you again. "I'll find you."

You let out an unbelieving laugh. "Hongjoong, there's no way—"

"I'll find you," he repeats, hands still cupping your face firmly. "On the name of the full moon that night you found me—on that stupid apple that led me to you. I'll find you. And then, you can let me see that drawing."

He leans forward, his lips pressing against yours in a messy kiss—all teeth and salty tears and hands squeezing too tight, or maybe not tight enough—before he lets go of you, pushing himself off the dock and into the water. You see one flick of his tail before he descends deep beneath the surface, and it's not long at all as you sit there, chest heaving and cheeks stained, before the waves are gone and the sea stills, and it's like Hongjoong was never there at all.

Fall semester has left you busier than you could have ever dreamed. You've never done this many sketches in a week, never tried this many different techniques at once, never spent this many all-nighters on a single project—but you'd be lying if you said you weren't still enjoying every second of it.

Your job keeps you plenty busy, too—your roommate had been kind enough to put in a good word at the campus library and gotten you a job in the coffee shop on the first floor. You're taking as many shifts as you can, but the pay isn't bad, all things considered. You may not have to take a semester off after all.

But the diving club keeps you almost busier than both your work and assignments combined. You've already logged more hours than any of the other freshman, and some of the upperclassmen, too. If the club captain has noticed how you're always late packing up after a dive, she hasn't reprimanded you. Maybe she's noticed the unique shells you seem to always come back with, or the skip in your step as you pack up your scuba gear, rolling a shiny bracelet over your wrist—or maybe she's noticed something else, entirely.

After all—last summer, you had been so sure that there was nothing like Hongjoong living below the water's surface. Of course, that didn't mean other people didn't already believe otherwise.

a/n: happy holidays !! i hope everyone is staying warm and healthy and having a lovely week so far <3

and finally…this title escapes my wip list 😭 y’all. i have been working on this on and off since late 2021—sometimes you can have an idea, have absolutely no inspo to write past halfway through, and then write 5k in one night. 💀 no such thing as a perfect project ofc but i do hope you enjoyed this oneshot! feedback is always welcome through reblogs, comments, and messages 🫶🫶 thank you sm for reading!

taglist: @petrichor-han @kangroo-chan @ot7lonelylover @lilacdreams-00 @mainexiii @awkwardnesshabitat @lotus-dly @elizabeth11moreno @nerdysl-t @seung-scrittore @fireheaurt

©️ noramoons 2021-2023. do not translate or reupload my writing.

#hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong x reader #ateez oneshot #ateez x reader #ateez fluff #ateez angst #hongjoong fic #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong angst #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong oneshot #ateez fic #beck writes ✍️

[sluttywoozi]

Kinktober Day 12: Mirror Sex + Hongjoong

For @bahng-chrizz

Rating: M (18+) | WC: 704

Pairing: Hongjoong x Reader | Genre: smut

Warnings: mirror sex, sub!hongjoong, hand job, talk of punishment, marking

Reader Notes: gender neutral, dom

Hongjoong shifts in your arms, his toned back pressing against your chest and his hips bracketed by your legs. You’ve set the mirror up in a chair at the end of the bed, and you know he’s feeling restless just sitting here looking at himself with your head tucked over his shoulder. 

But you want him to see. You want him to see how good he looks, how lovingly you look at him, how desirously you look at him. You want him to watch as your lubed up hand trails down his chest and over his abs to brush against his hard cock, as you wrap your fingers around it and pull, as his hips jump into your touch and his face twists in pleasure. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, his half-lidded eyes locked with yours through the mirror. His plump lips are open, his eyebrows drawn together, and he’s flushing in the most beautiful way. You want to look at your hand on his cock but you can’t seem to look away from his face, your eyes drinking in every expression that crosses it. 

Hongjoong doesn’t have the same problem, his gaze dropping to the movement between his legs as he rests more and more of his body weight against you. He’s letting out little grunts and groans as you squeeze and pull, his noises joined by the slick sound of your hand moving around his cock. 

You stay silent until his back arches and his eyes flutter shut, opening your mouth to tell him,  “Eyes open, Joong. Watch.”

The corners of his mouth turn down in a frown, and you know he just wants to sink into the pleasure but you won’t let him. You want him to stay with you, want him to watch you take him apart, want him to let you see every emotion in those expressive eyes. 

When they open again, you reward him with a soft smile and your other hand cupping his warm, full balls. He shivers in your arms, his head dropping back to rest against your shoulder as you work him with both hands, his hazy stare caught on the debauched picture the two of you make in the mirror. 

You roll your palm over the head of his cock before dragging it down the length of him and squeezing hard at the base. His hips buck into your touch, his dick twitching and getting harder in your hand. 

You can tell he’s growing close by his broken moans and shifting body so you squeeze tighter and pull faster, nearly desperate with the need to see him cum. Watching him lose himself is almost as pleasurable as experiencing it yourself, and already you can feel the heat gathering in your belly as you push him up to the edge. 

All it takes for him to fall over is an urgent, “Cum, Hongjoong. Cum for me,” followed by a stinging bite to his neck, the mark placed high on his throat for all to see. His cheeks pink and his face crumples, his expression nearly one of pain as his cock throbs and jumps and twitches in your hand.

Ropes of hot, sticky cum paint his abs and you keep going, keep jerking him off even when tears gather in his eyes and his whines get so high pitched he’s practically keening. You don’t stop until you’ve squeezed out every last glob of cum, until he’s collapsed and panting against you, until his hand covers yours and forces it to be still. 

Hongjoong knows he’s not supposed to touch and, judging by his self-satisfied smirk, he did it just to incur the punishment he knew would follow. You have half a mind to not play along, to stop everything here and show him who’s in charge, but you know you won’t. You love indulging him too much to really put your foot down, and that’s a fact you’re both well aware of. 

So you’ll give him what he wants, even if he doesn’t deserve it. 

And if the so-called punishment is really just an excuse to sit on his face while he sits on his hands, well, that’s not really anyone’s business but yours. 

Kinktober Masterlist

#kvanity #hongjoong smut #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong fic #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x y/n #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez x reader #ateez imagines #ateez smut #kpop oneshots #kpop scenarios #kpop smut #kpop fanfic #✨emily writes✨ #✨em's kinktober✨

[aclowntiny]

Ink Trails- Hongjoong x GN!Reader (Soulmate AU)

Just about everyone has a soulmate, a person they're destined to be with, to go through life with in some capacity. The mark of this? Anything you write on your skin shows up on theirs.

Word Count: 2.4k | Soulmate AU, Banter, Faint Humor | Warnings: a bit of language

You weren’t a big fan of drawing on yourself. As a child, you were something of a neat freak, washing all the dirt you could off your hands and never wanting to add ammo to the enemy in yours and the sink’s war. Of course, your favorite sheet of temporary tattoos didn’t count as dirt, not when they granted you several days of carrying your favorite character, a little purple penguin, with you. In fact, you practically ignored the rest of the sheet besides a few snowflakes surrounding him, all of which everyone told you were now decorating some other kid, too.

Well, good, you thought, your penguin was the best and they probably loved it, too. Otherwise they couldn’t marry you or whatever soulmates did. Usually it was get married. Maybe you would get married when you grew up. Your grandparents liked being married.

As you grew a bit older, you wrote in school. Sometimes your pen or pencil slipped, skimming your hand with an accidental line. Sometimes your soulmate was clumsy, too, and you watched a pencil trail appear when you didn’t even have one in hand. The weirdest was when you watched a whole shaky ㅎ appear, the circle looking a bit square, then suddenly erasing and being reborn round again.

And then just like that, it was all gone.

It hadn’t really been your habit to write things on yourself like others you knew- it just didn’t come naturally to you when you had paper and, a bit later in life, your phone. Beside that, given the marks of soulmates, any notes you wrote would appear on someone else’s arm, hand, anywhere they could get scolded for if they had strict family or teachers or a barrier to looking presentable at an academic event. It just didn’t seem fair. That was the same reason why, even years after school and becoming an adult, you chose not to get any tattoos. What if your soulmate hated it? Then they get it removed and you lose yours and the cycle goes on like some sort of stupid cartoon sequence of ink and lasers.

Ok, that part maybe not so much, but you knew how personal and controversial tattoos could be, so kinda weird to put one on someone else without their consent. Sorry about the penguin, you supposed all those years later, I was four.

Instead, perhaps preferably, you doodled a lot on paper, keeping at it even when that rude boy Matthew from seventh grade told you your cat looked so bad, it made him think it was a dragon holding a cookie. Such insults would not be taken from the guy who used ‘I don’t like the color red’ as an icebreaker ‘fun fact’…while wearing a red shirt.

Even if you were no artist, improvement naturally came with age and frequency, and you favored keeping your drawings cute anyway. Yet another reason to put them down on paper- pen ink faded from skin, but on paper, it was like a tattoo. Permanent with all your other notebooks of doodles that would have more than covered your body.

Your body, which was semi-frequently decorated anyway, not of your own accord. Your soulmate, likely around your age, had no qualms about use of the forearms as a notepad, so it wasn’t the oddest occurrence by far to wake up with things like ‘7:00 독주회’ or a more frantic ‘ENGLISH TEST 9:00’ scrawled there. Or even once a very unceremoniously written, shaky, clearly hastily added ‘BUMJOONG WAS HERE’ on the back of your hand. That was a fun one to try to explain. It made you wonder sometimes if your soulmate was a less considerate person than you or if you’d simply proven well in your restraint.

You weren’t expecting any answers, or perhaps more questions, to come in the form they all did.

The morning was like any other: it was your day off, time you’d reserved so as to endeavor some shopping. Making yourself a nice breakfast and choosing one of your favorite outfits, you hopped in the shower. Deciding what the heck, it was your day off, you even busted out the new sugar scrub you’d bought as peals of warm, crashing water echoed around you, lathering some exfoliant luxury upon the skin you’d always cared for.

Never once had you expected it to entertain anyone’s notice.

But there it was as you strolled along the concrete of the shopping center’s sidewalk, completely unaware of what was exposed until you ran into a friend, waving and exchanging the platitudes of two meeting after some time.

“Wow, (y/n), what a surprise, I didn’t know you got a tattoo! I thought you didn’t want any!” Your old friend Brian exclaimed with a wide smile, tilting his head. “May I see the whole thing?”

His words rose slowly to your head as you blinked, gears turning. For you had not, in fact, gotten anything of the sort done. Instinctively you held out your hand, assuming your soulmate had scrawled another vague practice reminder on the back of their hand or wrist, but your skin was blank, just a smooth expanse the same tone it always was.

“No, not your hand, silly! There!” Your eyes followed as he pointed down towards the ground, toward…your leg?

Swiveling at the hips, you bent and tugged on any necessary clothing to reveal, sure enough, writing near your ankle. Your chest sunk.

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you said quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t get a tattoo,” you repeated, voice a deadpan.

He pointed, finger rising slowly, almost shakily. “Then what’s-”

“I don’t know. I- I guess my soulmate did it.”

“Your soulmate got a tattoo without asking you?”

“We haven’t met,” you burst out as you raised the fabric around your leg higher, “I guess they don’t care what I think! What’s this even say, anyway?”

Frustration pricked at you at the sheer height of the piece- it wasn’t exactly dainty. Quite a ballsy move, all things considered. Sheesh. Wait, those were wings, huh?

“It says ‘faith’,” Brian supplied, “and I think it’s nice. Could definitely be worse. Could have been a partner’s name or, like, naked Spongebob or something.”

You cocked a brow. “Naked Spongebob?”

“Well, would you want that on your leg?” Brian shot back, crossing his black t-shirted arms.

“No,” you sighed, staring at your new, involuntary body art, “I suppose I would not. Well, you’re right- this is pretty nice. I can live with this. Hopefully it’s not the first one of many, though. My soulmate better leave me some control of my own skin.”

“Yeah, and if they don’t, you’d better give them a piece of your mind.”

A chuckle escaped you. “Yeah, right. I don’t even know where they are.”

“Have you never tried to find out?” Brian’s eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowing at you like he was asking the dumbest question he’d ever uttered.

And maybe he was. Your chest contracted in realization that you had, in fact, never once considered taking any initiative into finding whoever it was had those recitals or English tests or who you really hoped had the spine to smack Bumjoong one for defacement of property. The person who, by the universe’s decree, was meant to be some miraculous piece of your life forever and you’d just…assumed they’d walk in whenever it was time. All your concern had gone to not bothering their appearance despite their clear lack of regard on the subject.

“Uh, (y/n)?” A hand waved in front of your face. Brian’s. “You’ve gone all spacey on me, what’s wrong?”

“Brian, I might be stupid.”

“Might?”

You descended back to earth, or at least close enough to its gravity, to find the wherewithal to smack his shoulder beneath the momentous echoing of reality throughout your brain.

“Also, I take it then the tattoo on your arm wasn’t your idea either?”

“The…what?”

Shopping day over.

~

Hongjoong couldn’t recognize his own handwriting. Or could he? Had he written that address on the back of his hand? He had to have. Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. As if his schedule wasn’t busy enough, now here was some other errand he’d forgotten.

Pulling out his phone and typing it into maps, he saw that at least it wasn’t too far away. A reasonable drive, especially for a…tuesday? Oddly specific, but appointments were appointments, he reflected as he swiveled in his leather office chair.

After all, if it wasn’t important, he wouldn’t have written it down so visibly on himself like that. That was a habit he’d largely dropped in adulthood, image of greater concern and regard for mess a bit higher, too. Plus, the only other good it would have served seemed not his lot.

At least a fair number of songs had come from it. Ah, music- the eternal, universal processor. What would he do without it? Music was a way of filling every void-no, scratch that, coming to terms with the existence of voids within oneself- the thing that made him feel complete, or certainly one of them. Jokes had it that music was Hongjoong's soulmate, and while the songwriter didn't appreciate fun being poked at his expense, it was hard to deny the itching grains of truth beneath his skin at the words.

Music-related or not, this short trip was his lot, so why not make the best of it? After all, whoever had organized it picked a pretty nice café as the rendezvous point. Worst case, Hongjoong would at least get a coffee out of it.

~

You were starting to wonder if nobody would approach you, more singles and even couples getting in line and heading straight for a table or the door than you could count on one hand. In fact, in came someone else right in time with your thoughts, a super hot guy in fact, though he looked confused as hell. His eyes darted back and forth between the chalkboard menu and the industrial-style metal tables as he stood a little bit out of line.

Shit didn’t hit the fan until he pulled his phone out to check it, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. His loose black t-shirt sleeve fell back, revealing a tattoo suspiciously similar to the second one that Brian pointed out on your own body. And that font was very, very unique. And big. And it was on you now.

Moving completely of its own volition, your body peeled from its metal seat and strode right up to him. No thoughts swirled to the surface of your mind even as you reached his side, prompting him to turn on his heels.

The only words your mind could barely form fell out of your lips. "You're the one who gave me these tattoos."

Jumping back, the man gaze at you with saucer-wide eyes, saying nothing as you pulled your own sleeve back to reveal the second and luckily last set of writing Brian had found on your body, this time reading 'No 1 like me', and again showed your ankle.

"I designed that one myself, how could you possibly-" His wide-eyed gape fell slowly into a smile. "I have a soulmate?"

"Yes, of course you do!" You replied, incredulous. "Did you think you didn't?"

"You never wrote anything!" He shot back.

"I was trying not to mess you up!"

"I just..." The man's handsome features fell, first into seeming hurt then just into a pensive look. "For so many years I taught myself to make my own way. Sometimes I was fine with it, sometimes I wasn't."

"No wonder you thought there was no one like you," you said before panicking, thinking better of it, "not that the tattoo isn't cool! And still true. I really like the font, actually? You said you designed at least one of these?"

"Yeah, I knew what I wanted, so I drew up the faith one and..." He tilted his head, sliding his phone from his hand back into his pocket. "wait, do you want to get a table?"

"Only if you buy me a drink," you teased, nodding toward your arm as you got back in line, "you owe me for these."

"I think you owe me for years of radio silence," the man shot back with a smirk, crossing his arms.

Heat crept into your face at the way he fixed the intense look at you, but you refused to back down. "The way you described it sounded like I taught you a valuable lesson."

"Pain can teach lessons."

Ok, you were about spent at that. "Are we really fighting over something as stupid as one free coffee?"

"I mean, fighting wasn't the word I would have used there, but you're right. I've got this one."

"Oh, you two are so cute!" The barista waved her hand as you placed your orders. "I love couples who bicker like old married grandparents! So, what are your names?"

You and your soulmate glanced at each other, your eyes sliding back into those deep, dark, expressive ones you wouldn't mind getting used to. He searched yours, too, and a small smile played on his lips that had you wondering what he was thinking... until you realized it, too.

Maybe you had wildly opposite views over the years on using your body as a notebook, but you two soulmates had the exact same sense of humor.

"We don't know," you both said at the same time.

"I'm Hongjoong," the man in black introduced himself, smiling wickedly now.

"(y/n), nice to meet you," you replied, bowing back to him.

The barista mirrored Hongjoong's initial shock at your confrontation as you both headed to your table, laughing now. Somehow that all came as easily as bickering, all your interactions up to that point having a certain flow you'd never felt before. Placebo effect? Maybe, yet the tug you felt the moment you first saw Hongjoong was yet to fade. It was like those old sayings: it felt like you two were making music.

"Ok, please don't think I'm being rude," Hongjoong's voice cut into your thoughts, "but I'm a songwriter, and I feel like I just have to write down some lyrics right now."

All you could do was just grin at that. Well, shit. Maybe now you really would have to try leaving more of an ink trail.

#ateez #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #soulmate au #can't believe this is my first soulmate au piece tbh...but hope y'all enjoy 😁

[wonhosmistress]

Hongjoong x gn reader. | self-care fluff l Warning: mention of depression

Yearning for:

Hongjoong the boyfriend that noticed you haven’t gotten up and been asleep for longer than four hours. And, notices that you haven’t been acting like your usual self thinking back to when you told him about your depression.

Hongjoong who takes it upon himself to cook your favorite food and sets it down on the side table beside you and then,wakes you in the most gentle manner to let you know to eat your food before it gets cold.

Hongjoong the boyfriend who helps you get up from bed and walks you over to the bathroom and runs you a warm bath. The boyfriend, who helps you in and helps you bathe by massaging shampoo into your hair to put you at ease.

Hongjoong the kind and caring boyfriend who helps you out of the bath and helps you get dressed because he knows that some days you just can’t do basic tasks. And that’s okay, because he loves nothing more than you help you out.

Hongjoong the type who’d pick your favorite movie and blanket to cuddle and comfort you as much as he possibly can. Only for y’all to end up falling asleep on the couch with your arms around him gripping onto him for dear life.

(A/N: I’ve been depressed lately and life hasn’t been the greatest as of recently which is a reason why I haven’t been writing. But I decided to jot this down before it left my head)

#kim hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x gn reader #hongjoong x you #ateez x reader #ateez x gn reader

[woncon]

Flufftober Day 23

Trinket

🍁 hongjoong x gn!reader

🍁 special thanks to @honeytwo for helping me translate this into english, correcting my grammar and other mistakes. thank you for everything! °♡̷•.

🍁 flufftober masterlist | main masterlist

✁- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It wasn't gold or silver, but a plastic bracelet resembling tiny, colourful crystals. Yet you wore it as if it were your greatest treasure. You showed it to all your friends. You only took it off when you went to shower. Sometimes you found yourself sticking your fingers under it, twisting it, unconsciously playing with it. When you realised this, you smiled happily, as if you were twirling your wedding ring.

All because your boyfriend gave it to you.

One afternoon, when you visited him at the office and cuddled on the couch by the bush, you again seized your gift with your fingers.

"Do you like it?" Hongjoong often needed repeated confirmation to really believe something. He wasn't too confident in his abilities.

"Very much! I love it. Thank you for buying it for me." Smiling, you nestled closer to his chest.

"But it's not valuable."

"How can you say that?! It's pretty and you gave it to me. Its value is not determined by what it's made of. I wouldn't be happier with a gold bracelet because I know it's expensive and until you're promoted, we have to be careful of how much we spend. For me, this is the perfect gift. Just go with it."

"All right," the man hummed. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. His fingers traced the surface of the gift unconsiously.

flufftober taglist (send an ask! <3)

@jaeheekangslover

@haechansbbg

#fluff #gender neutral y/n #flufftober #flufftober 2023 #day 23 #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x y/n #ateez fluff #ateez hongjoong x reader #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x you #kim hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong x y/n #ateez x gn reader

[jacksons-goddess-gaia]

Poly Ateez x Reader Time Stamp

❖ Ateez, all members x gender neutral reader

❖ Comedy, Drabble

❖ No warnings

❖ wc: 342

❖ @atiny-piratequeen @atiny-dazzlinglight @kimnamshiks❖ Masterlist ❖

. ⋅˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ ⋅˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

Hope you enjoy! Commissions and Kofis are open!

. ⋅˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ ⋅˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . “I am not getting in trouble for this again.” Seven pairs of eyes glared holes into his skull. “Nope you guys did this to yourselves.” Jongho shook his head, sipping his drink and watching the tv, feet up on the arm rest. The maknae was comfortable, not bothered by them at all. Wooyoungs irritation culminated in a throw pillow being launched at the youngest. “Careful!” Seonghwa snatched it from the air, stopping its clandestined meeting with a deocaritve bonsai. San gripped Wooyoung by the front of his shirt giving him a good growling shake. “Sorry-sorry-” “Okay enough fighting, lets just try and get this cleaned up, and figure out a proper apology before they get home in…” Hongjoongs voice faded away as he looked at the broken cat clock that could no longer tell the time. “An hour and thirteen minutes.” Thankfully Yunho piped up, holding his phones led display up for them all. “So you have fourtyfive minutes to clean up and pick something out at the shopping mall down the road since its 15 minute walk both ways.” Jongho input for them, pushing more popcorn into his mouth. “If they didn’t end up getting off work early like they wanted too.” Once again pandemonium broke out, as people leapt over one another to clean, get jackets on and find out what they could get. Jongho not stirring from his spot on the couch, after all this was the fourth time they’d broken something just this week alone with their shenanigans. He didn’t want to face your murderous rage, not when the one request you’d had when they asked to stay at your apartment and try living together fulltime had been to please cut down on the rough housing and not break things. He lowkey was looking forward to this, maybe he’d finally get some piece and quiet that night when you punished them all. Or even better, get alone time and maybe one on one romance in your room all too himself. That was something he was looking forward too.

#kdiarynet #8makes1teamnet #polyteez #ploy ateez #poly relationship #ateez x gender neutral reader #poly ateez x reader #poly ateez x gender neutral reader #jongho x reader #jongho x gender neutral reader #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #yunho x reader #yunho x gender neutral reader #mingi x reader #mingi x gender neutral reader #san x reader #san x gender neutral reader #wooyoung x reader #wooyoung x gender neutral reader #yeosang x reader #yeosang x gender neutral reader

[jooheonspinky]

One Last Time

Characters: Hongjoong x Gender Neutral Reader

Genre: Spooky

Synopsis: You receive unexpected news one evening on a stormy Friday, the 13th.

Warnings: Character death, thunderstorm, power outage

A/N: Another gorgeous mood board by @millie-ionaire05. I love it so much!

I hope you all enjoy this little spooky story on this Friday the 13th. Stay safe ;)

Word Count: 2.1K

ヽ｀、☁ヽ｀

The sun had gone down not too long ago when the rain began. The weather channel advised that the incoming storm would be somewhat intense, producing high winds, heavy squalls of rain, lightning, and possible power outages in the area. Not wanting to be caught off guard now that the rain has arrived, you place your phone on its charger and then set a pot of water to boil. As you wait on it, you gather a few candles and bring them into the living room. 

A stormy night makes for a perfect time to read.

The shriek from the teapot has you dashing back into the kitchen. It’s not long before you’re settled on the couch, your piping hot tea on the side table, your legs propped up on the cushions, and a throw wrapped snugly around you. You’d lit the candles, the warm scent of vanilla filling the air, wanting to be prepared in case the lights went out. Then, opening up the book you’d chosen, you let the sounds of the storm drift to the background as you delve into the story.

An hour passes before the pelting rain is loud enough to pull you out of the world you had lost yourself in. Lightning bursts brightly on the other side of the window blinds you are sitting next to, and the lights flicker at the same instance thunder crashes deafeningly around you. You startle, though you’d never had a fear of thunderstorms. But the hair on the back of your neck stands on end, and the sudden feeling of anguish washes over you. You press the heel of your palm over your heart as if that would soothe the ache that has burrowed deep into the ferociously thrumming organ.

“What is happening?” you wonder aloud as you shift your feet to the carpeted floor, a heavy breath escaping your lips. 

Shaking hands reach for the tea, and you inhale then exhale slowly, willing your hands to still as you finally grasp the mug. Then, taking a careful sip, you let the warmth of the lavender chamomile tea soothe your nerves. After a few more swallows of the fragrant liquid, you begin to calm down, though your nerves are still on edge.

You pick up your book in hopes of getting swept away by the story enough to push the strange feelings aside, but the sudden ringing of your doorbell has you shooting up from your couch, your heart rate picking up speed again.

“Who in the world would be out in the middle of this storm?”  you ask yourself even as you walk towards the door.

As you reach to turn on your porch light, there is another flash of lightning along with a crack of thunder, and the lights go out. The room plunges into a soft amber glow given off by the tiny flames of the various candles strewn about your coffee table. You groan as you look through the peephole and are met only with darkness. Wary of opening the door, you keep your eye on the peephole a moment more before an urgent knocking has you jumping back.

“Y/N!” You hear your name called desperately from the other side of the door, the voice familiar to you. “Please let me in. It’s crazy out here!“

You scramble to open the door as swiftly as possible. On the other side stands a very drenched Hongjoong. The golden strands of his hair lie plastered against his head, and the black windbreaker he wears clings to his trembling frame. 

“Hongjoong!” you gasp. “What are you… Get in here!”

Your fingers wrap around his hand, and you’re surprised to find the skin there is extremely cool to the touch. You tug him into your home with a concerned frown and close the door behind him.

“Listen, I – I  nee….” 

You cut off his chattering; his lips are a lilac color, his skin pallid and there are pink splotches across the skin beneath his eyes. He looks terrible, and it only makes you worry even more.

“Let me get you something dry to change into. You’re going to catch your death!”

You begin to head out of the room towards the linen closet. 

“Y/N!”

The strong demand in Hongjoong’s voice has you stopping in your tracks instantly. You turn on your heels, completely shocked as in all of your years of friendship, you had never heard him use that tone with you before. Your best friend reaches a hand out to you, and you step forward, letting your own hand slip into his. His thumb rubs soothingly over your knuckles as he looks into your eyes. 

“Is everything OK?“ you ask hesitantly. 

The smile he gives at your question is a small one that looks like a mixture of reassurance and a hint of regret.

“I have to tell you something, and I’m sorry I never said it before,” he shakes his head. “It’s too late now, and I’m just-.”

“You’re scaring me, Hongjoong,” you cut him off, desperately squeezing his hand.

Water runs down his face in thin rivulets, and you have to fist your free hand to keep from reaching up to wipe off the moisture. What could be so important that he had to come out in this tempestuous weather?

“I love you,” he states bluntly, and you smile.

You sigh in relief, the tension in your body instantly released. “I know that, and I love you, too.”

He shakes his head, “No, no. What I mean is….” He pauses as his eyes flit across your face. “I’m in love with you.”

Your eyes widen, mouth dropping open slightly as the words sink in. Your heart stutters in your chest. Your best friend since second grade had just confessed that he loves you more than just a friend. Your heart kickstarts a wild fluttering now behind your rib cage. 

“What did you say?” you whisper, your mind too shocked to voice anything else.

“I have for a while now,” his eyes plead with yours as if begging you not to be upset. “I just didn’t want our friendship to change in case you didn’t feel the same.”

You can only stare. You, too, had begun to have feelings for him for a few years now, but you’d decided to keep it to yourself, uncertain how he felt. You enjoyed things as they were and also had not wanted to ruin the closeness between you.

“I didn’t know,” you hear yourself say.

“I get it if you don’t feel the same, but I just needed to tell you.”

You step closer to him, “I do.” His brows draw down; his lips stretched into a thin line. You watch his eyes glisten as you add, “I do feel the same.”

Releasing your hand, Hongjoong closes the small distance between you. His lips press to yours, and they are cold against your warm ones. Simultaneously, as you drape your arms at his shoulders, he wraps his arms around your lower back, hugging you to him.

His mouth moves languidly against yours. It feels so natural as if the two of you had done this countless of times before. His tongue licks into your mouth, and you shiver; a quiet murmur of affirmation purrs deep in your throat, letting him know you are enjoying what he’s doing.

He pulls away slightly, dropping another kiss on your lips.

“I wish I hadn’t waited so long,” he whispers as his hand rubs at your lower back.

He’s trembling in your arms, and the moisture on your face reminds you he is still wet and definitely freezing. 

“It’s never too late,” you kiss his cheek. “Let me get you a towel. I think you have some clothes here you can change into….”

He smiles as he releases you but then palms your cheeks,  his eyes roaming over your face as if he can’t believe this is all happening. He leans back in to kiss you deeply, and it’s you that breaks the kiss this time.

“I’m sorry,” he smiles adoringly at you. Then, sobering up, his lips turn down in regret as he adds, “Take care of yourself. Just know you’re going to be ok.”

You frown at him as you giggle an ‘ok’ and force yourself to walk away. You find his words strange but thinking of his kisses and how they had been filled with years of pining has you wanting to explore more of him. You are all for making up for all that wasted time, and quickly his words are pushed to the back of your mind. 

Thunder continues to rumble as rain still falls around your home, the sound like white noise in the background as you carefully step through the darkened hallway towards the linen closet. You grab a thick fluffy towel and make your way back into the living room only to find the room empty.

“Hongjoong?” you call out into the darkened space. Thinking he may have gone to the bathroom, you turn back to the hallway, but the vibration of the phone on the coffee table has you halting in place. A sudden fear grasps at your soul so violently you actually feel nauseous. You almost don’t want to answer. Dropping the towel on the couch, you grab your phone and with a trembling hand, you accept the call, bringing the cell to your ear. “Hello?”

You shiver as you hear Seonghwa’s voice on the other end.

“Y/N,” his voice cracks in a sob. “Y/N, he’s gone.”

You swallow thickly, your throat suddenly dry.

“Wh-who?” you croak.

“I told him not to leave,” he cries. “I told him to wait for the worst of the storm to pass, but he insisted on leaving work right then.”

“Who!?!” you whimper anxiously.

But you know. You fucking know, but you need to hear him say it anyway.

“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa wails. “God, Y/N. Hongjoong is dead.”

“But…but he was just here,” you whisper. Your fingers lift to slide across your cheeks, the flesh still slightly moist from the rainwater that had transferred from his face to yours. The pads of your fingers trail over your lips, the memory of his chilled mouth against yours still imprinted there. “He was just here,” you demand a little louder.

The phone drops from your numb fingers as your lights flicker, struggling to come back on. You rush to the bathroom, the door banging against the wall. Empty. You dash back to the front door and fling that open as well, the wind blowing wildly across your face. No Hongjoong. Nor is his car in your driveway, either. 

Closing the door, you reach down to pick up your phone, and your eyes land on the puddle in the very spot where Hoongjoing had been standing moments ago. Tears fill your eyes as your heart shatters into a million tiny pieces.

Seonghwa is still there, calling your name desperately.

“I’m here,” you mumble dumbly.

“Are you ok?!”

“Mmm,” you murmur, neither a yes nor a no.

Seonghwa sniffs, his tone filled with concern now as he tells you, “There’s no way he could’ve been there, Y/N. This happened about 30 minutes ago.” He takes a shaky breath. “The officer said his car was struck by an SUV and he died instantly. The driver said the rain was so heavy; he didn’t see Hongjoong’s car pulling out of the parking garage onto-.”

“No.” You think back to how he looked, so pale and sickly-looking standing out on your porch. “No, no, no.” Your eyes remain on the puddle. “He was here. I saw him. I saw him. I know I saw him.”

“Ok. Ok. Just relax,” Seonghwa says softly. “If he really was there, did he say anything?”

“Yes,” I whimper. “That he loves me and that he was sorry he waited so long to tell me.”

“Wah” He sounds surprised, uncertain whether to believe what he’s hearing or not. “Ok. Ok. Listen. The storm is dying down. I’m coming over.”

“Ok,” you reply mechanically. 

As you hang up with Seonghwa, the electricity comes back on and your wide eyes are drawn to the side table on your right. There you find a beaded bracelet, the tiny lime green, blue, black, and clear beads bright, almost glowing, against the dark wooden table. Picking it up, you set it on your palm. You turn it around so that the largest white bead with a black letter stamped in the center is facing you. The letter H stares back at you. It is then that you clutch the beaded bracelet to your chest, the tears finally falling thickly from your lash line.

ヽ｀、☁ヽ｀

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. Feel free to leave a comment, like, and reblog my little drabble!

Moodboard Image Credits:

Silhouette in Rain

Hongjoong face

Hongjoong hand

Couple silhouette

ヽ｀、☁ヽ｀

#ateez #Hongjoong drabble #ateez drabble #fanfic #ateez fanfic #Hongjoong fanfic #Hongjoong x Gender Neutral Reader #Gender Neutral Reader #Hongjoong #Kim Hongjoong #spooky #Hongjoong spooky #Hongjoong Friday the 13 #Friday the 13

[jinnieboosworld]

The pointe of my existence

Pairing : Hongjoong x ex ballet dancer readers

Genre : slight angst, fluff, heartwarming

Warnings : injurie, trauma, mentions of past depression, medication

Synopsis

Hurting your leg to the point where you can't do the thing you love not only hurts physically but also mentally. Even after your leg healed and getting a clearance to dance from your doctor, you still never danced again. Fearing that you wouldn't be as good as you were before, you decided to just quit altogether and get a job as a lyricist for a boy group at KQ Entertainment. Little did you know the leader of the group would be the one to revive your passion for ballet and your will to live again. 

#ateez x reader #ateez #hongjoong #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong oneshot #ateez oneshot

[alxtiny]

can you do which ateez habit you would have picked up from being around them for too long?

I struggled with this more than I should have I’m sorry 😭😭😭😭 Happy reading!!!

Habits you pickup from Ateez

Synopsis: little habits you pick up from ateez

Pairing: ateez members x gn!reader, idol au

Genre: fluff

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: none:)

masterlist

• Hongjoong

Falling asleep in random places

You never thought you'd pick up such a peculiar habit from Hongjoong but here you were, dozing off on the couch in his studio. It had become somewhat of a routine lately. Hongjoong often found himself working late into the night, composing music and writing lyrics, and you couldn't bear to leave him alone. So, you stayed up with him, keeping him company and offering moral support.

Tonight was no different. The studio was dimly lit, save for the soft glow of the computer screen where Hongjoong was tirelessly tinkering away. You sat beside him, occasionally offering words of encouragement or fetching him a snack to keep his energy up. But as the hours passed, fatigue started to weigh heavily on your eyelids.

"You okay Y/n?" a familiar voice chimed in, bringing you back from the brink of slumber.

You blinked a few times, trying to shake off the drowsiness. "Huh? Who? What?" you mumbled, rubbing your eyes.

Seonghwa chuckled softly and gestured towards you. "You fell asleep in a chair, I think you’re spending too much time with Hongjoong. You should get some real rest before you start falling asleep in random places, like him, too."

Glancing over at Hongjoong, you realized he was completely absorbed in his work, oblivious to the conversation happening around him. You laughed sheepishly, realizing Seonghwa was right. Lately, you had indeed found yourself dozing off in various places – the couch, the kitchen table, even leaning against the wall.

"It's just... I can't leave him alone when he's working so hard," you explained softly, a small smile playing on your lips.

Seonghwa's expression softened as he understood. "I know, and I'm sure Hongjoong appreciates it too. But you need to take care of yourself as well, okay? "

You nodded, grateful for Seonghwa's concern. As you settled back into the couch, you made a mental note to try and get more sleep, even if it meant leaving Hongjoong to his work occasionally. But for now, you allowed yourself to succumb to the comforting embrace of sleep, knowing that Hongjoong was just a few feet away.

• Seonghwa

Acting motherly towards the members

Seonghwa watched with a bemused smile as you flitted around the dorm, straightening pillows, picking up stray socks, and tidying up the kitchen. It was a sight he'd grown accustomed to – you, inadvertently taking on the role of the dorm mom, just like he did. It wasn't something you consciously did, but rather a habit you'd picked up from spending so much time around him and the other guys.

You had a thing for neatness and sometimes acted much like a mom in your friend group, but lately, you found yourself slipping into Seonghwa's shoes more often than not. It was something he found endearing and amusing, seeing you scold the other members for leaving their belongings strewn about or for forgetting to do their chores.

"Y/N, what are you doing?" Seonghwa asked, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen.

You turned to him, a blushi tinting your cheeks, wondering just how long he had been watching you. "Oh, just tidying up a bit. It was a mess in here."

Seonghwa chuckled softly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You don’t need to do all that, you know"

You laughed, shaking your head. "I can't help it. You guys are like family to me, and I just want to take care of you."

The other members wandered into the kitchen, groaning as they saw you fussing over the cleanliness of the space.

"Come on, Y/N, we already have one Seonghwa," Yunho teased, flashing you a playful grin. "We don't need you turning into another one."

You rolled your eyes, but couldn't hide the smile tugging at your lips. "I'm just trying to help keep things organized around here. Someone has to do it."

Seonghwa wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close. "We appreciate it, really. Just don't forget to take care of yourself too, okay?"

You nodded, leaning into his side. "Of course. But someone has to keep you guys in line."

The others laughed, knowing deep down that they were lucky to have both you and Seonghwa looking out for them – even if it meant enduring occasional scoldings for their messy habits.

• Yunho

Picking at or biting your lips

Yunho had always been the type to immerse himself completely in whatever task he was working on, often biting or touching his lips in concentration. You, on the other hand, had never noticed this about yourself until Yunho pointed it out one day.

You were sitting together at the studio, both lost in your respective work. You were so engrossed in what you were doing that you didn't even realize your hand had wandered up to your lips, fingers lightly touching and occasionally biting at them in a habit you had unknowingly picked up from Yunho.

"Y/N," Yunho's voice broke through your concentration, causing you to look up, startled. "Don’t do that," he said, nodding towards your lips.

Confused, you furrowed your brows. "Hmm? What do you mean?"

Yunho sighed, his expression turning slightly serious. "You keep biting your lips. You might hurt them if you're not careful."

You blinked, suddenly becoming aware of what you were doing. "Oh," you muttered, feeling a flush of embarrassment creep up your neck. "I didn't even realize I was doing that."

Yunho's lips twitched with amusement, but he quickly composed himself. "It's a bad habit. You should try to stop."

You couldn't help but feel a bit defensive. "Well, you do it too," you scoffed and pointed out.

Yunho's cheeks flushed slightly, and he looked away. "I... I do?"

You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips. "Yeah. Maybe we've just been spending too much time together," you teased.

Yunho's embarrassment was palpable now, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. "Maybe," he muttered, unable to meet your gaze.

But despite the awkwardness, there was a warmth in your chest knowing that even your unconscious habits were intertwined with his. It was just another reminder of how close the two of you had become, and you couldn't help but feel grateful for it.

• Yeosang

Clapping while laughing

You and Yeosang had spent such a long time together and over the course of it, you became attuned to each other's habits, quirks, and gestures without even realising it. One particular habit of Yeosang's that seemed to have rubbed off on you was the way he would clap his hands when he found something particularly amusing.

The way your hands would subconsciously come together and follow the rhythm of your laughter felt natural and neither of you actually noticed how a habit, once Yeosang’s, was now shared by you.

However, that was until one lazy afternoon when Yeosang excitedly showed you his phone, "Hey, check this out," he said with a grin, pushing it towards your face.

Curious, you glanced at the screen, finding yourself staring at a Twitter thread created by an ATINY. The thread was a compilation of gifs and videos, side by side, showing you and Yeosang laughing together. What caught your attention, however, was the caption accompanying the thread: "Am I the only one who noticed that Y/N and Yeosang have the same adorable habit of clapping while laughing? #YeoY/N."

"Oh my god they’re adorable."

"They look like cute little seals when they're laughing together, it's like they're synchronised."

You couldn't help but smile and giggle as you scrolled through the thread, amused by how certain things never went unnoticed by their fans, even if you yourselves were oblivious.

Yeosang glanced over at you, his expression softening. "I guess we really do spend too much time together, huh?"

You chuckled, leaning closer to him. "Maybe. But I wouldn't have it any other way."

• San

Covering your mouth while laughing

It was just one of those habits you picked up without even realising it – covering your face while laughing. It was something you'd seen San do countless times, his hand rising instinctively to his mouth as his laughter bubbled up. Maybe it was the contagiousness of his joy, or perhaps it was the familiarity that made you do it, but whatever the reason, you found yourself unconsciously mimicking his actions more and more as time went on.

You didn't think much of it, not until one fateful day when you and San were doing a live stream together. The comments were flooding in, a flurry of emojis and supportive messages from fans all over the world. Amidst the sea of text, one comment stood out:

"OMG, look how they laugh the same! 😍 SanYn are the cutest! 💕"

Curious, you glanced at the screen, only to see San's eyes widen in realisation. He turned to you, a playful grin spreading across his face. "Looks like we've been caught," he teased, nudging you lightly.

You felt your cheeks flush with embarrassment, but there was also a warmth spreading through you, a sense of fondness at the thought of sharing such a small, intimate detail with San. "Guess we spend too much time together," you joked back, unable to suppress a smile.

But as the live stream continued, you couldn't help but notice how often you and San found yourselves laughing, your hands rising simultaneously to cover your mouths. It was a small gesture, but it spoke volumes about the bond you shared, the way you seemed to sync up without even trying.

After the stream ended, you leaned in to press a gentle kiss to San’s cheek, you couldn't help but giggle at how much these little quirks affected you, maybe making life more comfortable along the way.

• Mingi

Making the 🥺 face

To the people outside, Mingi seemed to be very intimidating, with his deep voice and built 6ft stature but inside the comfort of his he couldn't be more different. He knew he was cute and he knew how to use it against people. One quick look sent your way with his puppy eyes and pouty lips and you would melt, at some point this habit of his rubbed off on you.

The members weren’t safe from it either, like when Seonghwa had just finished making a delicious batch of ramen for himself. The aroma wafted through the room, teasing your senses and making your stomach growl loudly. You and Mingi couldn't help but stare at the steaming bowl with longing eyes.

"Seonghwa hyung, that smells amazing," Mingi exclaimed, his eyes widening with hunger.

You nodded enthusiastically, finding yourself unintentionally mirroring Mingi's expression, your lips slightly pouting like the 🥺 emoji.

Seonghwa chuckled at your antics, shaking his head. "Sorry guys, this is just for me. I only made enough for one."

"But hyung, we're starving!" Mingi whined, his voice tinged with desperation.

You glanced at Seonghwa, your eyes pleading as you continued to unknowingly imitate Mingi's puppy-dog expression.

Seonghwa sighed, feeling the pressure of your combined adorable stares. "Oh no, I have to deal with two Mingis now, don't I?"

You and Mingi exchanged a glance before bursting into giggles, realising your unintentional synchronisation. Seonghwa couldn't help but laugh along with you.

"Fine, fine," Seonghwa relented, dividing the ramen between the three of you. "But next time, make your own!"

• Wooyoung

Smacking people while laughing

You couldn't help but laugh at the way Wooyoung told a recount of the recent Wanteez episode the boys shot, adding his own commentary in between. He always had a way of making you laugh wholeheartedly, even when you fought he would be the one to apologise first and crack a joke to make you smile. However, what you didn't realise was that you had picked up one of his habits along the way.

In the midst of your laughter, your hand instinctively swung out and smacked San's thigh, eliciting a surprised yelp from him. It wasn't until he looked at you with a mix of amusement and slight irritation that you realised what you had done.

"Oops, sorry, San!" you apologised, cheeks flushing with embarrassment as you tried to suppress your laughter.

San rubbed his thigh, shooting you a mock glare. "I already have to take abuse from Wooyoung, and now you're doing it too?"

You couldn't help but giggle at his playful complaint, but Wooyoung nudged you with a grin. "Looks like my habits are rubbing off on you, huh?"

You chuckled, realising how similar you two acted these days. "I guess so. Sorry, San, I’ll try not to do that but I can’t make any promises." You winked at him.

San shook his head and scoffed at your mocking, a smile breaking through his faux irritation. "Ahh so much I have to go through,"

You and Wooyoung giggled at his words, knowing how much he loved you both the same, with the occasional physical abuse of course.

• Jongho

Scrunching your nose while smiling/laughing

As you sat on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through your phone, you stumbled upon a video compilation titled "JongYn Couple Moments" ,obviously your curiosity got the better of you and you clicked on it, not fully knowing what to expect. What unfolded on the screen was definitely not what you were expecting, it sent a sudden blush creeping up your cheeks.

The video was a compilation of moments featuring you and Jongho, through the fans’ eyes, complete with dramatic commentary about how cute you two were together. Especially about the way your noses scrunched and crinkles formed around your eyes as you both laughed, with your faces making the same endearing expression.

You couldn't help but be amused as you watched, realising that you had subconsciously copied Jongho's habit of scrunching his nose when he smiled.

Suddenly, you felt a presence beside you. Glancing over, you found Jongho peering over your shoulder, his eyes fixated on the screen. As he watched the video, a wide grin spread across his face, small giggles leaving his lips.

"Wow, we really do look alike sometimes," Jongho remarked, amusement dancing in his eyes.

You nodded, still giggling at the sight. "I never realized I picked up on your habit."

"It's adorable," Jongho said, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your cheek. "I guess I've rubbed off on you, huh?"

You chuckled, leaning into his touch. "Looks like it. But hey, I don't mind sharing a few habits with you."

© alxtiny . Do not steal, plagiarise, translate, repost, or use my works on any platform in any way.

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DISCLAIMER: THIS IS PURE FICTION AND NOT RELATED TO THE MEMBERS OF ATEEZ IN REAL LIFE PLEASE DO NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY

Taglist:

#ateez fanfic #ateez fluff #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #ateez reaction #ateez smut #ateez x y/n #ateez x you #ateez #ateez soft hours #ateez requests #ateez reactions #ateez idol au #ateez ot8 #ateez oneshot #ateez drabbles #ateez ff #ateez headcanons #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yunho #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho

[yoonkles]

he’s the type to (hyung line ver.) ..

genre: headcanons, fluff. gender neutral reader.

warnings: none :)

authors note: first x-reader fic on this blog and ofc it’s ateez. my sweethearts !! requests open- just read my pinned beforehand :)

— hongjoong !

... to always give you a kiss before leaving.

always before you part from each other. rushing from room to room searching for his wallet, late to practice he says, making a mess he’ll deeply apologize for later. haphazardly throwing on a coat and tying his shoes while you watch in amusement from the couch. stuttering through goodbyes as he reaches for the doorknob, only to full body freeze, and turn on his heel. and then he’ll be hovering over you, eyes glazed over, and a grin on his lips. “what, you didn’t think i’d leave without a kiss, did you?” he’ll tease in a breathless tone and your heart will skip a beat. soft pink lips will lean in as your eyes flutter close, pressing a loving kiss to your forehead. it’s a familiar warmth, one your all too used to. a move hongjoong had picked up after walking you to your doorstep at the end of your first date. a move he had yet to drop, never leaving your side without a sweet press of his lips against your warm skin first.

— seonghwa !

... to plan the dates.

always being able to count on him for a night out. planning down to the exact time, making reservations weeks beforehand, always a bright smile on his face as he adds a date to your shared calendar. it never seems to fall repetitive, either. from expensive dinner dates where you get all dressed up, to late nights in with a movie and popcorn days later. lego dates, where you both spend hours hunched over a messy table concentrating in comfortable silence. or even the time he had carved out a hole in his schedule, an entire day just for you, where you had driven hours out to a field overlooking the city. a packed picnic in the trunk, a blanket, and seonghwa staring with sparkles in his eyes as you awe at the scenery. “nowhere near as beautiful as you,” he’ll whisper with a lovesick tilt of his lips. you don’t think you had ever felt so loved than that night, wrapped in his arms and overlooking a setting sun and a lively city.

— yunho !

... to movie marathon with you.

stacks of movies and old dvds fished from attic storage displayed on your coffee table constantly. a bubbly yunho practically prancing back and forth with excitement, dressed up in silk pyjamas that match your own. the smell of popcorn seems to have embedded itself in your apartment from the hundreds of bags you go through a year, stronger now that another one is heating up over the stovetop. the man in front of you points at a large stack of christmas hallmark movies when you ask for a suggestion. you don’t remark on the fact it’s currently the middle of june, or how all of those movies were in english, not when yunho is looking at you with the brightest grin you’ve ever seen. “you’re my favorite way to unwind,” he’ll sleepily whisper hours later, hand running up and down your spine. and you exhale, heart warming, as you whisper back to him the same sentiment.

— yeosang !

... to hold your pinky.

soft laughs and lovesick smiles that make you feel like you're both back in high school again. he's always so touchy with you in such subtle, loving ways. a hand at the small of your back as he directs you through a crowd. the brush of his thigh against yours at the dinner table. soft, warm lips brushing against the skin of your cheek every time he leaves your side. but the one gesture that he seems to treasures above all else is the way his pinky wraps around yours. “it’s like a promise,” he whisper to you every time you ask about it, a pretty smile on his lips and intimacy laced throughout his gaze. a promise to keep you in his life, to follow you wherever you happen to lead him. a promise to never let you slip from his touch. you were a jewel to precious to him- he doesn't dream of letting go, ever. not when your pinky fits so right wrapped around his.

#ateez fanfic #ateez #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #gender neutral reader #x gender neutral reader #gn reader #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez headcanons #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gn reader #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x gn reader #yunho x reader #yunho x gn reader #yeosang x reader #yeosang x gn reader #kpop fluff #kpop x gender neutral reader #kpop x reader #kpop imagines #male reader #hongjoong x male reader #seonghwa x male reader #yunho x male reader #yeosang x male reader #ateez x male reader #kpop x male reader

[jnginlov]

eclipse playlist

a playlist of songs inspired by the group from this fic in the ateez x idol!reader universe

⇀ red moon - kard

⇀ lilili yabbay - seventeen

⇀ 4walls - f(x)

⇀ invu - taeyeon

⇀ blue hour - txt

⇀ candy - baekhyun

⇀ save - nct 127 x amoeba culture

⇀ last sequence - wjsn

⇀ we must love - onf

⇀ my universe - bts x coldplay

#you’re hongjoong’s bias #ateez x you #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez imagines #ateez x y/n #ateez x reader #ateez x gn reader #hongjoong fanfic #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #hongjoong x gn reader #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x reader #idol!reader #idol!au #hongjoong x idol!reader #idol!you #idol au #idol!hongjoong #ateez fic #ateez fanfic #hongjoong fic

[yuyusuyu]

birthday surprise!

pairing. idol! kim hongjoong x gn! non idol! reader

synopsis. hongjoong knows wooyoung is up to no good... which is a good thing because he sure is in for a pleasant surprise at midnight!

warnings. a few curse words (lolsies), pet names (it's just one i think), a little bit of violence (it's not bad i swear, but someone gets a lil physical IJFAIWJ), mentions of food, lovesick couple energy (ew), reader is a foreigner!

genres. fluff, romance, slight comedy?, established relationship

rating. sfw

wc. 1.6 k

a/n. birthday special for hongjoong ! (we are going to pretend like i posted this on his birthday and that it was posted in november okay 😻)

reblogs and comments are appreciated as it helps with not getting shadowbanned!

HONGJOONG knows something is going on. something evil is brewing right under his nose and he needs to find out right now because for the hundredth time now wooyoung has given him a knowing look accompanied by a smirk. why the hell is he smirking? he has to be plotting something against him. his downfall, maybe?

he taps his foot on the ground, checking the time on his phone every once in a while waiting for wooyoung to finish his shoot, having decided to wait for him to go back to their dorm together. the time is nearing midnight; hongjoong huffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

“you look like you’re losing your mind, hyung.”

“shit, jongho! you scared me,” hongjoong jumps, glaring at the younger male out from the corner of his eyes. “what are you still doing here?”

“i just finished shooting,” jongho shrugs, “are you waiting for wooyoung hyung?”

with a nod, he presses his lips into a thin line. “yeah… so i can figure out what he’s up to.”

“i think you’re being paranoid—”

“see!” hongjoong points at wooyoung, gawking at him. “he did it again.”

“...did what again?” jongho glances at wooyoung, shooting him a glare and looks back at hongjoong quickly.

“he just winked at me!”

snorting, jongho pats his back. “hyung, wooyoung always winks at everyone.” a chime from his phone has him checking it once, turning away afterwards, “i’ll see you back home, hyung.” jongho leaves him after bidding goodbye to wooyoung with a wave of his hand. hongjoong goes back to patiently waiting for wooyoung to finish, entertaining himself on his phone.

hongjoong: hey there

yn: hi there stranger

hongjoong: you’re up?

yn: i think i should be asking YOU that. isn’t it nearing midnight for you, mister?

hongjoong: it is

yn: filming, i assume?

hongjoong: yeah

hongjoong: hey can you send me a voice memo? kinda want to hear you right now

yn: how about i call you instead?

your caller id flashes on his phone, his lips curling into a small smile when he answers. “hi,” he breathes out, walking out of the building. hongjoong leans against the wall next to the door, looking down at the screen when you hum out a greeting in return. “how are you?”

you laugh, “i’ve been better. how is my pretty boy doing?”

“doing just fine,” he answers, chuckling. “i miss you.”

“woah,” you gasp, “is the kim hongjoong being mushy with me right now?” your face is shrouded in darkness, only illuminated by the lighting from your phone—which, now that he thinks about it, is weird. it should be morning for you right now.

he shakes those thoughts away, thinking that you probably still have the curtains drawn in your room. “don't be a brat,” he huffs through his nose, amused. “or else i won’t be like this anymore.”

you apologize quickly, making his smile turn into a cheshire grin. “why are you still in bed, dear?” hongjoong drawls, his eyes twinkling when he watches you start to stutter. he isn't very affectionate, but he knows that you love it and cherish the moments when he is. pet names? they make you swoon. “you should get up now.”

when you're about to reply, you end up falling and disappearing from his sight. worriedly, he calls out your name. “i’m fine!” you pop up on his screen again, though it’s just your eye staring into the camera, blinking.

hongjoong raises a brow, “now what are you up to, y/n?”

“absolutely, no—” you pause, disappearing from his screen again and returning momentarily. “gotta cut the call short, joongie. i’ll call you later, okay?”

“y/n, wait—”

“i love you, hongjoong,” you sing.

baffled, hongjoong replies, “i love you, but what—” the call ends and he’s left staring at his text messages with you. shoving his phone into the back pocket of his pants, he straightens up when the doors to the building slam open, wooyoung walking from them.

“oh, hyung!” he says, “why are you out here?”

“i was on the phone,” hongjoong replies, leaning forwards to peer inside the building. “are you done?”

“yeah.”

humming, he excuses himself to thank the staff for all of their hard work and returns moments later. he’s motioned into a car along with wooyoung, their manager dropping him off at their apartment. they both walk in unison towards their home, the oldest’s steps are sluggish, sleepless nights finally catching up to him while the younger one’s are energetic, a bounce in each step he takes. but as soon as they reach the door, wooyoung shoves himself in front of hongjoong, shouting, “i’ll get the door!”

the little voice in the back of his head heightens his senses, telling hongjoong that, again, wooyoung is up to no good. so he leans back, watching with careful eyes as he fumbles around with his bag. “sorry,” wooyoung mumbles, “i’m looking for the keys.”

“wooyoung?”

he responds with a hum.

“we don’t have keys,” hongjoong stares at the back of his head, seeing how wooyoung freezes. “we have a passcode which i’ll put in.” he moves to step in front of wooyoung, only to end up in a fight over who gets to open the door.

“hyung, let me open the door!” wooyoung whines, trying to hook his foot behind hongjoong’s ankle in an attempt to trip him.

hongjoong tries kicking wooyoung’s legs in retaliation, attempting to shove him away from the door. “you’re being weird, wooyoung! let me—oof!” wooyoung successfully trips hongjoong; he lets out a triumphant noise of sorts, checks his phone and steps aside, smiling widely as the oldest stands up slowly.

“okay, you can open the door!”

gawking at him, hongjoong grumbles profanities and punches the passcode in. the door unlocks with a click and he takes a step inside, taking his shoes off and putting them neatly on the side before walking over to turn on the lights, only for wooyoung to jump on his back and clamp a hand over his eyes. hongjoong staggers forwards, quickly regaining balance. “what the hell, wooyoung? what are you doing?”

“it’s not midnight yet!” he hisses, yelping in surprise when hongjoong manages to shrug him off. 

glowering at him, hongjoong crosses his arms over his chest and taps on the ground with his foot. “now, what is going on—”

“surprise!”

the lights are turned on, blinding both males. however, the sound of familiar giggling has his heart beating faster. he slowly turns around, thinking to himself that there’s no possible way that you were here and—oh, but you are here. you, his beloved partner, standing amongst his members, squeezed between the tallest of them all, while holding a birthday cupcake with a singular candle on it, smiling widely at him.

“oh look at him,” gags jongho, “he looks lovesick!”

“i do not,” hongjoong retorts, shuffling forwards.

“i got you a cupcake,” you sing, holding it out to your boyfriend when he stands in front of you. “because i know wooyoung would have tried shoving your face in a cake like last time.”

“damn right i would have!”

“let’s give the couple some space, yeah?” seonghwa ushers everyone towards the kitchen with promises of letting everyone get the food out from the fridge.

when it’s just the two of you in the living room, you open your arms up and hongjoong dives straight into them, nuzzling his nose in the crook of your neck, his breath hitting your skin and causing goosebumps to appear. “miss me much, lover boy?” you tease, playing with the hair on the nape of his neck.

all hongjoong does is nod, continuing to breathe in your scent for a few more moments before speaking, “you were here this whole time?”

“i actually got in after you left for filming to prepare the place,” you say, laughing softly. “you should thank wooyoung and jongho. they helped in buying my ticket and booking a hotel—.”

“and who said you’re going to stay in a hotel when you can just stay with me?” 

“um… no thank you.”

hongjoong pulls back, eyebrows pinched together and his lips pulled into an adorable pout. “and why not?”

“because i’ll start nagging at you,” at the sight of hongjoong’s shoulders drooping, you continue, “i’m just messing with you, silly.”

your boyfriend’s pout becomes a frown that soon turns into an amused smile. you had reached over to the cupcake with your arm that’s wrapped around his shoulder, taking a bit of the frosting from the small desert and smearing it across his cheek, giggling.

“well, aren’t you quite the mischievous individual today?” he grins, resting his hands on your waist.

you shrug, “only for the birthday boy.” 

“ew! they're kissing!” wooyoung screeches. you weren’t. he’s just exaggerating.

both you and hongjoong wince, hongjoong resorting to leaning over slightly—you cling onto him when you end up leaning backwards because of him, but he holds you easily—to grab a pillow from the couch to fling it at him. wooyoung dodges and the pillow hits jongho. with wooyoung laughing and jongho flinging the pillow at him, hongjoong watches you. he sees your eyes close from how hard you’re laughing at wooyoung running away from jongho chasing him around the apartment, he sees your lips start to tremble from how hard you're smiling, and he sees the way your eyes glimmer when you glance at him.

that evil thing brewing right under his nose was nothing of that sort; instead, it was a very nice and pleasant surprise that came in the form of his significant other flying out to celebrate his birthday at midnight with him… and the others as well.

perma taglist. @asjkdk @kodzukein @hrt4jeno @jeonride @lissiesykes @satsuri3su @atinytownclown @sanhwaism

#꒰💌꒱ drea's drabbles ! #yuyusuyu #cromernet #kflixnet #wonderlandnet #ateez imagines #ateez fluff #ateez scenarios #ateez fic #ateez fanfic #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x y/n #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez x gn reader #kim hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong x y/n #kim hongjoong x you #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x you #hongjoong x y/n #kim hongjoong imagine #kim hongjoong fanfic #hongjoong imagines #hongjoong scenarios #hongjoong fanfic #hongjoong fluff

[sanhwaism]

bf!ateez and that one specific habit they do that highlights their love language

pairing ⟡ bf .ᐟ ot8 x gn .ᐟ reader

genre ⟡ established relationship, romance, fluff

author's note ⟡ haaaaapy valentine's day 💌☁️ not long ago i have reached 100 followers eeek ^_^ so so grateful for every single one of you!! take this as my gift for both this milestone and valentine's day <3 (the specific habit of theirs will be written in italics just so it can be easier to spot hehe)

k. hongjoong — quality time

ah yes, the busy and very hardworking captain :,)

he's aware of the time spent in his studio; composing and producing music are in his nature after all!

so he feels very thankful that you are understanding and always there for him to cheer him up or reassure him that he doesn't have to feel guilty even when he's pulling all nighters there

yet he still feels bad deep down

at the same time he can't abandon his work

so every chance he gets — and i mean EVERY — when he's not that overworked he makes sure to learn about what you're into so he can spend time with you in a way which you'd enjoy the most

whether it's a new game you're into, or a tv show or a book or

the moment you mention it ONCE???? be sure he's taking a mental note and paying the closest attention to it

because he acknowledges that it will be useful for later

no matter what it is, he'll try his best to pick up on it so you can have a great time together

"oh is this the new video game you started playing? guess what i actually got into it as well so we can play it together now!! :D!"

"oh i know you told me about this book you're reading so i bought a copy as well and i started it whenever i took breaks at work!! let's talk about it!! :D!"

sobs

he's genuinely so thoughtful

so yes, knowing how much time he spends away from you makes him want to learn more about your interests so the moment he has you back in his embrace, he will make sure to repay you in the sweetest way possible!

p. seonghwa — words of affirmation

the type of boyfriend that always makes sure you know how great you're doing and how proud he is of you :(

he wouldn't go a day without praising you

if he is away from you because of work, expect a very early morning message from him in which he wishes you a good day ahead, that you will do great no matter what and he hopes you get to eat some yummy food in the meantime

and then later that day more encouraging words to keep you motivated and to also remind you that he loves you dearly

sobbing again

he wants you to tell him every detail about your day so he can praise every single effort you're making out there, no matter how small or insignificant you think it is

he'd tell you that just thinking of you gives him enough energy to go throughout the day

and he'll try his best to comfort you with his magical healing words if there is something you're going through

one thing about seonghwa is that he will validate your feelings no matter what. and that makes you feel so safe and appreciated and so so loved :(((

he's just comfort personified

he feels like hot chocolate served with marshmallows on top in front of the fireplace

if he's home and there are no miles that distance him from you, every single affectionate word that comes out of his mouth sounds even more soft hearted if that's possible

because not only does he know how to pick the best words and when to use them, but also the tone of his voice is just so soft and soothing

and now that no screen separates you both, his praises feel even more meaningful

he'd gently smile while caressing your cheek and whisper that he missed you so much and now that the day is over, everything that you have accomplished makes him so proud <3

j. yunho — physical touch

oh my god

PLEASE listen to me

when i say that i keep seeing those specific cutest clips of yunho that altered my brain chemistry

i mean it

they altered it so badly to the point where my opinion on his love language changed

everything clicks in your head the moment you realize that yunho has been doing this gesture to you after you two got more comfortable with each other

you walk baside him while holding his hand?

all of the sudden you feel his large, soft hand on the top of your head

he looks at you all smiley while you talk to him?

the next second his hand is moving towards the crown of your head, cutely ruffling your hair

you're eating and paying attention to the food before your very eyes?

headpat.

another headpat.

cute little soft headpat

is it the height difference that just makes him unable to control his hand from such sweet gesture?

probably

most certainly, actually

he just can't help it :( one look at how cute you look and you don't even get the chance to finish your sentence be–

yup. headpat!!!!!

it's never enough for him, there are times where he feels the urge to just start speedily yet gently tap the top of your head countless times while your head just bops up and down

the way people do with their pets when the cuteness aggression hits (please tell me you know what i mean)

if you dont i gotchu i provide with visual representation here! (volume warning!!!! its loud!!)

he finds that HILARIOUS and so adorable at the same time

he'd just start giggling and you can't help but enjoy his laugh and playfulness

but if he doesn't stop you're gonna get dizzy a bit so he'll recieve a headpat in return!

... just a more aggressive one

call it a cute bonk ^_^

emotionally prepare yourself not to get TOO affected by his sudden puppy eyes because how dare you do such thing to him :<

apologize with a forehead smooch and he'll get all shy and so cutieful

k. yeosang — acts of service

your personal trainer angel fairy dreamy looking like boyfriend

fondly sighs

yeosang's love for you is so gentle and thoughtful

he's your safe haven

his best way to express his feelings is by making sure you're always taking care of yourself, especially reminding you daily to take your supplements and vitamins!!

one day while you were cuddling him on the couch, you expressed your desire to have a more balanced and healthy lifestyle because he inspires you to do so

that was the moment a big shiny lightbulb lit up above yeosang's head

because he had the perfect idea how to help!! :D

the next day you'd already have in your hands a cute storage vitamin box that he got for you where you can organize your vitamins by days so it can be easier for you :(

of course he has one as well

he is always the one that helps you buy them once you run out

and he'd try his best to do his research based on your preferences and what seems to work best for you

when you tell him how much of a big difference they've been making and how much more energetic you feel, his smile melts your heart

he gets all bashful and giggles to himself, waving his hand as if he doesn't consider that he has done a lot

(well i consider eating him in one bite)

after all, that's what a good boyfriend should do! no biggie!

but yeosang has no idea how much it means to you; for him to always check up in you, to be your daily reminder just in case you forget about the vitamins, to diligently help you achieve the healthy lifestyle you strive for

c. san — physical touch

everyone please act shocked

of course it's physical touch

i feel like i'd commit a crime if i didn't pick it

he's just a cute clingy cat :(

you figured out his love language quite fast, a little bit after you have made your relationship official and gave him your consent

he was shy at first

VERY shy

at first he could feel satisfied enough even with just your hand in his, or a timid hug

honestly he just wanted you near him!

but after some time when both of you got more comfortable with each other and after lots of showers with affection,

he started attacking your cheeks in the cutest way possible

every time he would have you near him, you'd see him suddenly leaning towards one side of you

next second you'd feel the softness of his cheek touching yours

and not only touch

but he would push himself even closer to you if that's possible, smushing your cheeks together while he's pouting

as if he wants to fuse both of your bodies into one because having you like that against him?? clearly isn't enough

also starts gently rubbing it against your own cheek, humming to himself because of how nice the feeling is while his eyes are closed in content

with time you got used to it and even started to like it and look forward to it

(every time i see clips of him doing that to other members i can't help but giggle)

he's just the cutest <3

no one cats the way san cats

s. mingi — quality time

the type of boyfriend that if he could, he would attach you to his hip like a lucky charm forever and ever

because you always bring him luck, inspiration and hope whenever he has you near him :(

he feels a bit lost in your absence, always looking for ways to hear from you one way or another

so a lot of times when you two would blissfully share each other's space, mingi would ask you to attend his dancing practice, so you can witness what impressive moves he came up with and what choreographies he has been working on ^^

he is truly sososososo talented

and you'd just watch him with your lips slightly parted, amazement written all over your face as your eyes would follow the way his flexible body moves like water, with such calculated and striking motions

or other times, when he'd willingly share his personal space with you in his studio where he worked on so many new instrumentals and demos that might be useful for the group's future releases or his solo projects

every minute he would turn his head towards you just so he could catch a glimpse of your face expression

and he would smile to himself as he'd gaze at the endearing way you enjoy the rhythm and overall vibe of the music

his eyes would start sparkling in the dim lighting as you praise his efforts and works

and the biggest, cutest smile would adorn his bare face

sobs mingi.. mingi!! ^__^ mingi :3 MINGI!!!!!!!!

from that moment on, he only grows more confident to have you partake in any type of project he's crafting

you soon realize that you're the only one that gets this treatment

that's how big of an effect you have on song mingi. and he loves you dearly. always share your feedback and space with him. pretty please with a cherry on top <3

he said that not me

j. wooyoung — BITING gift giving

sorry let me get serious

WOOYOUNG.

this man emanates love through every single pore so it was SO hard to pick only one love language

but it had to be done!

he's typically in his sugar baby era

but when it comes to you????????

i hope you're prepared to get spoiled ^^

his love for you is just too strong

but so is his credit card!

even before both of you confessed to each other, wooyoung had been giving you subtle hints that he was having a crush on you

and a lot of his hints were consisting mostly in him buying something for you

you eyed a cute plushie through the shop's window?

"waa, wooyoung, this plushie is so cute don't you think!!!!"

wooyoung thinks that he is buying it for you!!!!!

and you know what

he's getting two plushies actually, because they remind him of you and him

once he steps out of the shop, he hands the plushie to you with the cutest smile plastered on his lips and a twinkle in his eyes

"look, it's us," he exclaims as he brings his plushie close to the one in your hands and, to your utter surprise, makes them aggressively kiss.

(i just made myself SO devastated by writing that oh my god)

that was actually the day you two admitted having a crush on each other

from that day on, wooyoung's need to spoil you only grew

he'd want to match with you not only when it comes to a pair of plushies or ten, but clothes as well

not those that are SO visibly matching, instead more subtle ones that sort of compliment each other's looks and make you two match perfectly, like two puzzle pieces :,)

yes, wooyoung would be the one that would buy the clothes for you and surprise you with soooo many bags in front of your door, so excited for you to try on everything

he's whipped! can you blame him :(

you are his happiness and he wouldn't have it any other way, you deserve every single gift, end of discussion!!

c. jongho — acts of service

the acts of service king

i said what i said!!

also the king of americanos yup yup iktr!

speaking of americano coffee :>

in the beginning of your relationship with jongho, you'd often have dates at the prettiest, comfiest cafes in town

you'd both order your usual drink of choice, and whenever you'd get coffee, he would pay extra attention to what type of coffee is it so he can get a cup for you next time and impress you with it

not just coffee but shh this is about coffee shh

after some time, you took the relationship to the next level, moving in together;

and whenever jongho had to leave earlier than you for his schedule, the mornings would smell like the best freshly made coffee you had ever smelled

because your sweet and attentive boyfriend would try his best to copy the recipe of your favorite coffee drink

from scratch as well

grinding the best coffee beans he could find into grounds

using water heated between 195°F-205°F

aiming for a total brew time between 3-5 minutes

like this is serious for him.

because he NEEDS it to be perfect and he NEEDS to cutely brag about it and he NEEDS to make you feel very pleased!

"hey, y/n, would you like some coffee?"

"no, thank youuu, my boyfriend made me the best cup of coffee this morning !!"

he would also leave a lovely note next to the mug :(

what more could you ask for. seriously.

you're gonna have some people become jealous but hey! choi jongho THE choi jongho chose you <3 and you will always be the only one he would make coffee for, from scratch, at the first glow of the sunrise

you are the apple of his eye

the only apple he would never break in half

see what i did there :D

𓏲 ࣪₊♡ taglist: @yuyusuyu

{💌ྀི} masterlist.

#ria.snhw #ria!drabble ateez #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez headcanons #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez x you #ateez x reader #ateez fluff #hongjoong x reader #seonghwa x reader #yunho x reader #yeosang x reader #san x reader #mingi x reader #wooyoung x reader #jongho x reader

[aclowntiny]

Hongjoong + Firsts

Continuing my firsts series 🥰 thanks @xlli3 for also requesting to see this! Don’t mind me giving (y/n) & joong my dream pet for the man of my dreams 🤕

First Date: The first time you officially go out, Hongjoong takes you to a paint night! He loves the idea of you guys receiving the same prompt, hearing the same instructions yet creating something different- to him, this date will more deeply capture some part of both of your essence. He already knows you, so dating is just to strengthen that! The theme is nature and sure enough, you create very different pieces, his an intricate design of plant life while you sketched an animal portrait.

First Time Holding Hands: You’re a few dates in when the late night chatting starts, both of you on your backs stargazing. The sky is like a broken string of pearls, light scattered, and the beauty has your voices quiet with awe even as you spill your innermost thoughts. Insecurity blankets you, though, itching beneath your skin harder than the blades of grass poking through holes of the quilt you laid on. Your quiet voice fails. “I- I don’t know if that makes sense…” Warmth flooded you as Hongjoong’s hand fell atop yours. He sat up, eyes fixing on yours, a soft smile upon his lips. “Of course I understand.”

First Kiss: It’s a little longer before your first kiss, definitely not because he doesn’t want to, but just so the moment is right. It’s early in the morning- a rare, sudden open time in Hongjoong’s schedule that has you getting ready at the crack of dawn. Literally. The two of you stand upon a bridge watching the sunrise, commenting of course on its beauty. “I love getting to see a new beginning like this with you,” you comment, “it feels right.” Something breaks in Hongjoong the moment you say that, drawing him in until your lips connect beneath the day’s first faint rays.

First ‘I Love You’: This was a moment you two would share in private, one that would be special if Hongjoong had anything to say about it. And he did, setting up a rooftop dinner complete with fairy lights just for you. Meal complete, he turns on a speaker, extends a hand. “May I have this dance?” You oblige him, smiling at the extra affection he’s been showing, whether it was the way his hand trailed down your arm at dinner or the way he held you tighter than usual as you swayed. Soon, though, you’re barely moving as he’s pouring his heart out to you, telling you that you’re his muse, his heart. “I love you.”

First Fight: “One day! One day is all I’m asking!” “You don’t think I would give it to you if I could?” All you wanted was for him to show a little spine, get one day off for you but it looked like yet again that wouldn’t be possible. “I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if you even try,” you shoot back, turning away from him. “You don’t think I-” Hongjoong sighs, the intense dark of his eyes subsiding. “Can you not tell how much I love you?” You were ready for him to yell, to keep going back and forth or leech more venom into his words, so the soft entreaty caught you off guard. “I just…” You sighed, too. That wasn’t fair. You knew he tried- seen it in the things he made you by hand and dates he’d set up carefully as arranging a stage. “Sometimes with it all it just feels like I’ll never be as important as your job. I let that take over.” His eyes fluttered shut, one final shudder of frustration draining from Hongjoong before he speaks again. “I know, love. I’ll try. I want to try for you, I do.”

First Anniversary: It seems like a romance novel come to life when you finally lay your eyes upon the surprise Hongjoong said he had for you. “Everyone tends to do rings,” he told you, “so I guess I wanted to do something different.” ‘Something different’ being custom-ordering a unique pair of necklaces for you each, similar but not identical, just like your unique souls. You held the chain with one hand, gently caressing the pendant with the other. It was obvious how much thought had gone into capturing your personality, something that spoke your name. “What do you think?” Hongjoong asks, glancing with a smile of uncertainty that surprised you. “Of course I love them!” You reply, all but rocket-launching into his arms, the pendant lightly striking the back of his jacket. “Happy six months,” his voice rang out in your ear as his hand wrapped around your back, pulling you close.

First Pet: “Are you sure that’s not dangerous?” Giggling, you shake your head. “Nope, he’s just a baby. Worst he can do is a nick if he bites.” “He bites?” “Only if we mess with him. Come on, you liked the idea before. Having cold feet?” Holding up the small young snake plaintively slithering along your hand where he wrapped himself, you watched Hongjoong’s apprehension melt into a smile. “No, not really. You look so cute with him. Got a name?” “Snape.” “Snape the snake?” “Yep.” Hongjoong just shakes his head, chuckling. “Alright, professor. Welcome home,” he bends down to speak to your new baby.

#ateez #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #hongjoong #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #firsts with ateez

[sluttywoozi]

i’m not sure if it’s been asked already but i didn’t see it so imma take the risk- about bang chan or hongjoong x chubby reader? 👀✨

simultaneously wants everyone and no one to look at you

wants everyone to look at u bc ur gorgeous and perfect and flawless and he thinks every person alive should know about your beauty

wants no one to look at you because you’re his and nobody deserves to gaze upon the sheer masterpiece that you are

loves to lay on you. you’re on the couch minding your business when he appears, lays himself out on top of you, and falls asleep

upcycles all kinds of clothes for you - one day in a thriftstore is like a years’ worth of shopping

genuinely wants to make life as easy for you as he can

cleans whenever he has time, takes care of the laundry, helps with meal planning, and always makes sure you have ingredients for your favs

has a private folder of songs inspired by you

keeps them to himself because his feelings are his own and nobody else would understand how exactly he feels about you

dating you legit made him more affectionate

he’s always hugging you and kissing you and he simply must be the little spoon

he’s more affectionate with the boys too - barely leans away when wooyoung drapes himself over him, accepts san’s kisses with only a little bit of a shudder after, doesn’t even notice when seonghwa takes his hand until he needs it for something

gets himself on a good sleep schedule the second you give him those puppy eyes and tell him the bed feels too big without him

still brings his laptop and headphones to bed with him but when you close your book and turn your lamp off, he turns in too because he loves how domestic it feels to pull you in close and fall asleep all tangled up with you

chubby!reader masterlist

#✨emily answers✨ #hongjoong headcanons #hongjoong fluff #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x chubby!reader #hongjoong x chubby reader #ateez x reader #ateez x chubby!reader #ateez x gender neutral reader #ateez x you #ateez x chubby reader #ateez headcanons