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xxsabitoxx · 8 months

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Pale Blue [Part One]

Geto Suguru x AFAB Pregnant Reader

READ PART TWO HERE

Warnings: THIS FIC IS CANON COMPLIANT, if you are not caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen's manga, or at the very least if you have not seen "gojo's past" you WILL be spoiled. This story contains darker themes, heavier topics, pregnancy and all the lovely details of it, and lastly explicit sexual content. Read at your own risk!

A/N: Here it is!! Part One!! This fic is super self indulgent for me and I'm very excited for y'all to read it. The idea literally came to me in a dream like a month ago and I woke up and immediately started writing. It's been a long ass time since I've written a plot heavy fic, and it's been well over a year since I've actively planned a multiple part story and gone through with it. So, this fic is kinda like... my baby lol.

Word Count: 19k | Playlist

September 2007

Your mouth felt like chalk, hands trembling ever so slightly as you set the small wand on the countertop in your bathroom. You couldn't think straight, but that unfortunately wasn’t anything new, it had been that way for the last three weeks. Ever since he left, you had felt like your head was stuck in a fishbowl. People eyeing you with pity at the world you had been dropped into, their whispers muffled into incoherent nonsense as you walked by. Satoru was no better off, but he could at least tug his emotions off of his sleeves and place them in his heart where nobody could see them, except for you. At least you would be able to see them if he didn’t shut you out.

Not that you had been any kinder, you had withdrawn too.

The only one who seemed alright was Shoko, her reaction to Suguru’s deflection was nothing out of character. Not many things could shock her to her core, even something as absurd as what Suguru had done couldn’t wipe the gentle smile from her face when she saw him again. You envied her for that level of composure. You envied her for getting to see him again, just as you envied Satoru. For some reason, the man evaded you as if you were the plague. Or perhaps it looked like you were merely chasing after a ghost, a figment of your imagination. You kind of wished that it was true, that Geto Suguru had been someone you conjured up in your mind.

But he wasn’t, he was a real, breathing human who had taken over one hundred lives…. Including his parents. The thought made your mouth taste like metal, everytime you zoned out too long and thought too hard, you’d bite your inner cheek until it bled. Three weeks later you still felt like you were moving on autopilot, the only thing that could pull you out of it would be his gentle embrace. You blinked a bit, the metallic taste coating your tongue as you unclench your jaw and look in the mirror. You hardly recognize yourself, for a moment you think you look just like him, and it's enough to steal the little air you had in your lungs.

You had never thought you'd experience a heartbreak as severe as this one, and you especially didn’t think it would be dealt to you by Suguru. Though you saw all of the signs, the hundreds if not thousands he put out and never let you touch. No, his cries for help were always directed at Satoru. The white haired man never seemed to catch them, and if he did, he never said a thing. Suguru had refused to acknowledge his issues when he was with you, no matter how many times you tried to sit him down and get it out. He’d change the subject and move on.

He’d sweet-talk you, making you forget why you had been so concerned in the first place because there, for a fleeting moment, was the boy you had fallen in love with two years prior. He’d fill your mind with nothing but good things, pretty noises, good feelings. Not stopping until his name was all you could utter, not stopping until you fell asleep in his arms, content and sedated. He was a master at avoidance, trying so hard to keep things perfect just for you. You were beginning to hate him for it, but even the idea of hating him made bile burn your throat.

You were left in emotional turmoil, love mixing with hate mixing with rage and depression. No matter how many times the word hate flashed through your mind, it was never truly directed at Suguru. Rather the jujutsu world, the things they had forced upon him, the pressure he had been made to feel. You especially felt that bubbling hate for a certain man by the name of Fushiguro Toji, who caused this whole spiral. He was long gone now, Satoru had effectively put the man down and he would not be getting back up. Though it killed you to no end that he got the easy way out. You almost wished that Satoru had kept the man alive.

You couldn’t stomach it as your back pressed into the cold wall of your bathroom, arms folded over your chest as you stared at nothing in particular. Eyes refusing to focus on anything of importance but making a point to avoid the developing test on the counter.

Suguru had left you a note, shortly after his final conversation with Satoru. You had returned to your dorm to see it on your bed and you recognized his handwriting before you even read your name on the envelope. You could still feel your hands trembling as you ripped the paper, flinching as it cut your skin, crumbling as tears dripped down your cheeks. You read it three times before finally comprehending the words, the paper littered with tear drops and your blood. Every word was written with care, you could hear his voice as your eyes passed over each sentence, see his face before you as if he was speaking.

It was an apology, his resolve and a goodbye all in one. Leaving you more empty than you had felt before. Still, it sat on your nightstand, you couldn’t throw it away. As if his sweaters weren’t still hanging in your closet, like the blanket he got you wasn’t still sitting on your bed. You held onto that letter like it was the last thing you had of him. Mourning him as if he had died, like he wasn’t still alive and breathing and walking around within the very city you were in now. You almost thought it would be easier if he had died. At least you’d feel some sort of closure, knowing he’s not coming back. But this, this was a form of torture for you.

To know that you could bump into him at a restaurant, or even pass him on a busy street. He wasn’t gone, if anything he was doing better than he ever was. Leaving you, Satoru, Shoko, and everyone else behind to pick up the shattered pieces. Still, you couldn’t hate him for that. No amount of anger would mend the torn pieces of your broken heart. You were fairly certain nothing would, the only cure was the one man you could no longer call your own. You’d spend the rest of your life with your heart ripped wide, an empty void filling the space.

You inhaled deeply, pushing off the bathroom wall and taking a hesitant step towards the counter. The test was upside down, you couldn’t see the small little window that would show you the results, for a moment you wanted to pick it up and throw it in the trash without even looking. There was nothing stopping you from doing so either, but you held back anyways. The only reason you were taking a pregnancy test in the first place was because your period was two weeks late. You could easily chalk it up to stress, but at the same time you knew all too well that you and Suguru often went without protection. Idiot.

Somehow, despite his inner battles, Suguru’s sex drive never slowed down. Maybe it was the craving for physical touch or maybe sex was a great way for him to forget about his issues for a while. Regardless, you had always been eager to oblige, even if it meant falling into his traps and luring your attention away from the real issue at hand. You had no idea how long it had been and if the damn thing was positive you were sure it would show up by now. So you picked it up and flipped it over in your hand, tired eyes scanning it. Your forehead creased for a moment, eyes squinting in frustration because you couldn’t tell if there was a second line or not.

If it’s positive, it's too early to tell. Your grip tightens around the small plastic test, anger flooding your heart as you chuck it in the trash can with such force it rattles as it hits the wall. Once again you are left with uncertainty. It seemed nobody could give you a straight answer anymore. Truth be told, you weren’t sure what you wanted that test to say. The thought of being pregnant with his child would have elated you two months ago. Now the thought made your insides twist and turn, for a moment you thought you were going to puke again. At the very same time, the idea of the test being negative felt like a rug being pulled out from under you.

As if you didn’t know that feeling well enough.

In a twisted way, you thought that being pregnant would bring him back to you. As if it would erase every heinous crime he had committed and bring the man you loved back into your arms. You were foolish, but not foolish enough to really believe in those daydreams. You hauled yourself out of your bathroom and back into your dorm room, falling into your disheveled bed with a soft thump. His t-shirt was hanging loosely on your body, it still smells faintly of him. It’s the only shirt of his that you’d been wearing, too afraid to lose his scent on the others.

It was still early enough for you to sleep for a few more hours before Shoko was knocking on your door and hauling you into the world. You hated it, but she assured you that you’d thank her for it in a couple months. You doubted it, and for some reason you felt like she did too.

Your sleep was dreamless, it had been since Suguru left you. You weren’t quite sure if you were thankful for that or not. Suguru was still the last thing you thought about before falling asleep and the first thing you thought of when you woke up. His absence consumed your every thought, impossible to ignore, unable to forget. There had been a few tough nights where you dragged yourself down the hall towards Satoru’s room. The man was usually still up, sitting on his bed with a book in hand that you could tell he wasn’t reading. Just an attempt at distraction.

He welcomes you without a word, scooting over a bit so you could sit beside him, head on his shoulder as he tosses the book to the floor. You remain like that until you fall asleep, no words spoken but nothing needed to be verbalized to understand you were both mourning the loss of a man who wasn’t even dead. In an odd way, you felt as if you were mourning Satoru as well. His smile, his jokes, the way his eyes seemed to sparkle, all of those things had dwindled. To his credit, he was managing to pull himself back together, at least better than you had been.

A harsh knock at your door signaled that Shoko was there. You hadn’t even realized that you fell asleep, but you felt even more groggy than you had a couple hours prior. “I’m up.” It’s hoarse and unconvincing but you hear Shoko utter a small “ok”. You know she’s still there, she always waits for you to get dressed and emerge from your room yourself. If you make her wait any longer than fifteen minutes she's usually barging in herself to pull you from your bed. Your body aches as you sit up, stumbling across the room to the bathroom because you need to pee yet again.

The air almost feels stale as you get your routine done in the bathroom, the test is still sitting in the small can beside your sink. It’s presence is heavy, to the point you question if you should take it out with you despite only having a couple tissues accompanying it. You decided against it when she knocked again. “Just getting dressed.” You mumbled softly, listening for her small “Hmph.” At least letting you know she heard you. Your uniform still felt foreign on your skin, it had for the last three weeks but you tried to ignore it. “About time.” Shoko smiled as you emerged, Satoru beside her. “Oh? You’re both here?” Your tone was questioning but not mad.

“Yeah, Yaga said we should take the day to be normal or something like that.” Satoru drawled, circular glasses sliding down his nose as he rolled his eyes. “Us? Normal?” You snorted, pulling your door shut as Shoko began walking down the hallway. “He just doesn’t know what to do with us at the moment.” Satoru offered in a low tone, Shoko would scold him for speaking like that, especially to you. The thing is, he wasn’t saying anything that you hadn’t already thought of yourself. “I don’t know what to do with us either.” You could assume Yaga was being vigilant, the guilt of not seeing what was happening with Suguru was weighing on him too.

The flick of Shoko’s lighter was heard as you stepped into the morning air, laughter bubbling in your chest as you looked at her. “It was killing you, wasn’t it.” Yaga had been cracking down on her bad habit, trying to limit her by saying no smoking in the dorms. “Just a little.” She teased back, inhaling deeply before blowing the gray smoke past her lips. “Shoko, gimme one.” Your eyebrow cocked as Satoru stuck his hand out. Her eyes met you for a moment before begrudgingly handing the lighter and pack to him. “New habit?” You commented softly, watching as he stuck a cylinder between his lips and held his hand up to block the flame from the wind.

Satoru shrugged, inhaling a bit before blowing out, moving to hand the pack to you. You hesitated, the test in your dorm trash can still lingering in the back of your mind. “I’m good.” You took them anyway, handing them to Shoko. Neither of them said anything but they shared a knowing glance, they couldn’t be mad at you for trying to quit a bad habit. “So where are we going?” You didn’t like the prolonged silence as the two of them puffed away. “I didn’t think you’d want to go anywhere, but if you want we can go get breakfast.” Shoko’s eyes flickered over both you and Satoru, as if she was looking at two temperamental children.

“Breakfast sounds good.” Satoru offered, shoving one hand in his pocket while the other plucked the cig from his lips. “It does.” You added softly, stomach turning at the very thought of food but you couldn’t let them know that. You had lost your appetite shortly after he left, but you still forced yourself to eat at least one substantial meal a day. The nausea that had settled in your gut most days usually deterred you from anything else but plain rice and maybe some soup. Still, it was food and the only thing you could keep down at that. “Alright, I’ll call for a driver and we can go get something to eat.” Shoko pulled out her phone, clicking on a number she saved.

“You’ve been eating, right?” You jumped a little, eyes sliding over to Satoru. His tone was low, just low enough for only you to hear. “Yeah, I’ve been eating… you?” He looked the same, tall and lean with broad shoulders. Satoru nodded, pushing his glasses up to sit on the bridge of his nose. “The car will be at the gates for us in five minutes so let's get going.” Shoko started walking, like always you and Satoru followed behind her like ducklings. Satoru’s question still lingered in your mind, his ability to read your thoughts nearly rivaled Suguru.

You had to wonder just how much those six eyes of his could see.

The three of you clamored into the car, Satoru taking the passenger seat while you and Shoko took the back. You had no idea where you were going, not even when Shoko gave an address to the driver. It was somewhere in the city, you knew that much, but you trusted her judgment and prayed they would have something plain for your stomach. None of you spoke as the car barreled forward, your eyes glued to the surroundings zipping past you, as if you’d catch him walking down the street on a busy morning. You knew you’d always be looking for him, everywhere you went, your eyes would search for him.

You tore your eyes from the window, glancing at Satoru in the passenger seat. You couldn’t see his eyes, but his head was turned towards the window. If you had to guess, he was doing the very same thing. Looking for someone who would never appear. Unless you were Shoko of course, you still felt your throat tighten at the thought. You knew Suguru had chosen to reveal himself to her for a couple reasons. One being that she wasn’t nearly strong enough to take him down single handedly. The other being her easy going nature, he knew there would be little to no conflict or questions to answer with her. If roles were reversed, you’d do the same.

“Hello?” You blinked, looking at Shoko with parted lips. “You okay?” her head tilted, brown eyes lingering over your features. “I… yeah.” You swallowed, the car was still moving so you didn’t space out for that long. “What are you in the mood to eat?” She repeated the question she had asked seconds prior while you were clearly on another plane of existence. “Something plain.” You offered lamely, hands clasping together in your lap. “Plain?” Satoru questioned, eyes shifting to look at you through the rearview mirror. “My stomach has been sensitive. Plain foods are all I can really get down right now.” You shrunk into the seat.

Shoko hummed, eyes observing you intently now. You could almost hear her silently listing all of your physical symptoms, noting in her head the various things that could cause them. Most could be answered with heartbreak, but that didn’t typically make you sensitive to certain foods. Shoko and Satoru knew of Suguru's relationship with you. They knew you were serious about each other, that you often slept in the other’s dorm depending on the day. They knew you went on dates and bought each other gifts. They knew you had long since confessed your love to one another and were not strangers to holding hands when you thought nobody was looking.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the two of you slept together as well.

“Quiet.” You sunk your teeth into the side of your cheek, struggling to stifle your noises as Suguru’s fingers curled inside of your tight heat. “You don’t want them to hear us, right?” he cooed again, lips ghosting the shell of your ear as he pressed you harder into the empty desk, nearly pushing it into the wall of the classroom with the ferocity of his hunger.

You shook your head, not trusting your voice in that moment to make any coherent sounds. Your nails dug into his bicep, legs splayed hazardously over the sides of the desk as you used your free hand to brace yourself. Two fingers continued to plunge in and out of you, curling perfectly and sucking the air from your lungs as he found that one particular spot.

Suguru watched in fascination, dark eyes glazed over as they flickered between his hand and your face. Each draw back revealed the slick shine of your arousal on his digits, each push forward was accompanied by a squelch. It made his throat tight, arousal making him feel hot all over as he continued to fuck you with his fingers.

“Sugu…” You choked, face warming considerably as you realized how desperate you sounded. “Hmm?” a gentle hum, his fingers burying deep and massaging your walls until your thighs twitched. “I need you.” Your head fell back, hand leaving his bicep to slap over your mouth in an attempt to silence the cry that left you. “You…need me?”

Those words were jarring to him, as if a chain of firecrackers had been ignited under his skin. You nodded, helpless and at his mercy as you prayed Satoru and Shoko wouldn’t wander off to figure out where the two of you had gone. You couldn’t quite comprehend what happened next, the sudden retreat of his fingers left you feeling empty, clearing your foggy mind for a second.

They were quickly replaced with something else, something wet and soft. Your eyes widened considerably when you looked down to see Suguru on his knees, hands gripping the plush of your thighs with his face buried between. He would have given you more if it weren't for his damn pants, he was too impatient to struggle with the high waisted fashion choices he made.

You couldn’t think again, mind immediately fogging over as you focused solely on Suguru’s head between your legs. The flat of his tongue licking up your folds before delving further, bumping your clit with his nose and earning a strangled noise from you. You bit down on your fist now, not hard enough to draw blood but enough to silence yourself for a bit.

Suguru didn’t mind, if anything he wanted them to hear you. He wanted to see the shocked look on Satoru’s face when he realized what was happening. He couldn’t lie, this whole rendezvous had started because of an offhand comment Satoru made. One about how he was likely better at pleasing women than Suguru. You knew that's why you were in here too, you felt like you needed to thank Satoru for pushing Suguru to this point, whether that was his intention or not.

Heat continued to build in your gut, if you could trust yourself to stay balanced you would have let go of the desk and buried your hand in his hair. You wanted to tug the silky black locks from the confines of the bun he always kept them in, watch them cascade around his handsome face and turn messy because of your fingers. Then again, that may make it a little too obvious to your two awaiting friends. “Sugu…”

You gasped, hand flying from your mouth to grab the desk as you nearly lost your balance. Suguru had started to stand, knocking you back as his arms wrapped around your lower half in a bear hug. Suguru was standing at his full height now, your knees bent over his shoulders while only your mid-back and shoulders pressed into the desk. You could have melted into a puddle the moment his eyes met yours, his mouth still pressed firmly to your cunt.

“Suguru…” You choked again, hands moving to grip the sides of the desk for some kind of grounding. You could feel him smirk, eyes burning into yours as his tongue lavished you. It was all too much, too lewd, too risky. Your orgasm was building faster than you anticipated, the tingling arousal shooting down your spine and making your legs tense as he teased you. You came with a choked cry of his name, eyes squeezing shut as you rode out your orgasm.

“We’re here.” You blinked, eyes scanning your surroundings as Satoru got out of the car. “Are you sure you’re okay? We can get the food to go and head back to campus.” Shoko’s words were out of concern but her tone was still relaxed. “I’m alright, I could use some time in a busy space.” You lied, the quiet of your dorm room had never sounded so inviting. “Thank you.” You muttered softly to the driver, his small smile told you he was well aware of what was going on. Satoru was already by the front door of the cafe, putting out the butt of his cigarette on a nearby trash can before dropping it in. Shoko did the same, following after you as you entered.

Satoru’s looks tended to come in handy, his glasses sliding down his nose to show the startling blue of his eyes was all that was needed to get the three of you a seat and bypass the wait. “At least you’re good for something.” You teased him, watching him roll his eyes before smiling. “It’s my duty to get the two of you quick service and good food, even if I have to whore myself out.” For some reason, that had laughter bubbling in your chest, the genuine kind. “Such a noble sacrifice.” You laughed, the menu in your hand shaking as your shoulders bounced. You were too distracted to see the way Satoru’s shoulders seemed to sag in relief as he watched you, for a moment it was like nothing had changed.

If it weren't for the gaping, empty space in the booth beside him, he would have been convinced.

“What are you going to get, Shoko?” She was the only one actively looking over the menu. “I’m not sure yet, but they do have some options that would be easy on your stomach.” You weren’t sure why but it made your heart ache just a bit, she had been more concerned over your meal than her own. At the very same time, it made you feel small, like you were a bit of a nuisance for having stomach issues… or whatever they were… in the first place. “Oh, alright.” You focused on the menu, aware of their eyes on you as you tried to find something small but appealing. You settled on tamagoyaki and asked for it to be made on the salty side rather than sweet.

Shoko went for a traditional meal as well while Satoru ventured into their “western” cuisine. His choice sounded so sweet that the thought of it made your teeth hurt. “I don’t know how you do it, Satoru.” you sipped your tea slowly, letting the hot liquid slide down your throat and settle in your stomach. He only shrugged, smiling softly “I’ve yet to find something too sweet for me to handle.” Normally he would have added something flirty but he decided against it. Despite knowing you and Suguru were a couple, it never stopped Satoru’s flirtatious comments. It only bothered Suguru a little bit but he knew his best friend would never cross that kind of line.

“You may go into cardiac arrest before you meet your match, Satoru.” Shoko snorted, sipping her coffee as she took in the surroundings of the busy cafe. For a moment, you wondered if she was doing what you and Satoru had been subconsciously doing for the last three weeks. “I keep waiting for him to appear.” Your tone was just barely above a whisper, as if even bringing up his existence would cause the world to implode around you. “Me too.” Shoko spoke softly, eyes still looking anywhere but the two of you. Satoru kept quiet, face unusually somber as he sipped his coffee. “I think I’ll eventually go insane.”

You tried to sound lighthearted but the crack in your voice gave the opposite effect.

Satoru’s eyes flickered up at that, making your shoulders shrink into the booth. You had quickly come to learn that both of your friends were treating you like fragile porcelain. Though you partially felt the same when talking to them, especially Satoru. Despite the frequent and long nights with each other, little to no words were ever spoken. “I’m fine.” You tried, voice a little stronger than before. “We can talk about these things without falling apart.” It sounded like you were trying to convince yourself more than them. Before anyone could speak, the waiter was walking over with your food, effectively stopping any further discussion.

“Satoru…” You choked as the waiter walked away, eyes focused on the sugary, gooey concoction on the plate before him. “That’s your ticket to the ER.” Shoko was gawking at it too, a bite of food already halfway to her mouth. Satoru, on the other hand, looked like a kid on christmas morning, glasses sliding down his nose with a smile on his face. Your stomach grumbled as he cut into the pancakes, the feeling making you jump just a bit. You actually felt hungry, mouth watering as you looked down at your own plate and moved to take a bite.

Silence fell over the table as you all ate, within minutes half of your food was gone and you were quietly wishing you had ordered something a little bigger.

“You need a napkin.” You laughed softly, handing Satoru your spare napkin so he could wipe the syrup off of his cheek. “Thanks.” For some reason you couldn't help but think he looked like a little kid. For another reason you couldn’t quite explain, it made sadness sink into your shoulders. He should be here with the three of you, eating and laughing and bringing you the comfort you always looked for in him. Your hands shook as you moved to eat more, not willing to let the surge of emotion get rid of the appetite you rarely had nowadays.

As you finished your plate, you felt the bubbling wave of nausea build in your stomach. You inhaled slowly, trying to find a way to ease your worries and keep your food down. “Are you okay? You look a little green.” Shoko eyed you with concern, not even a second later Satoru was signaling the waiter for the check. “Y-yeah… told you my stomach was sensitive. That’s the most I've eaten at once in the last three weeks.” You couldn’t stand the embarrassment of making a scene or wasting money on the food you had just consumed. “I’ll be back.” You slipped out of the booth, your friend’s concerned eyes zeroing in on you as you disappeared for the bathroom.

Luckily for you the bathroom was empty, the fluorescent lights making you flinch as you stumbled to the sink and turned the water on cold. You leaned over it, hands and wrists submerged under the running stream, chest heaving with the effort to remain calm. You were desperate to keep the food down, so desperate you could feel sweat forming on your temple as you tried to focus on anything but the nausea. Suguru’s face flashed through your mind and for a moment you were convinced your knees would give out from under you.

“I told you to take it easy.” He huffs softly, fingers running through your hair as he rakes it away from your face. Carefully, he’s looping one of his elastics around your hair to keep it in place. Your head is still buried in the toilet, you had just finished throwing up for the third time in the last hour. “Are you still with me?” His hand is on your back now, rubbing slow but deliberate circles. Feebly you give him a thumbs up, throat burning from the sting of alcohol coming back up.

“You didn’t eat much today and then you went and got shit-faced with Shoko.” Suguru stated the obvious, trying not to scold you because he knew you weren’t doing good right now. “I don’t think you have anything else to puke up, do you want some water?” You lifted your head now, reaching for toilet paper to wipe your mouth. “Water sounds good.” Your voice was weaker than Suguru had expected it to sound, his heart aching a bit as he sat beside you on the bathroom floor.

“I’ll be right back, okay? Just yell if you get scared and I’ll be by your side before you know it.” You nodded, thanking him softly as he got up and disappeared out of your bathroom. You were only seventeen at the time, acting far older than you were and thinking you could get away with it. Now, you are facing the consequences of being naive. Typical for someone your age. Suguru had returned in under two minutes, handing you a glass of room temperature water. “It’ll be easier on your stomach at this temperature.” He chuckled as you grimaced.

He moved to grab a washcloth from your cabinet, turning the sink water on cold. “And this…” he wrung it out twice before turning off the water “will help focus your attention on something other than the nausea.” He placed the cloth on the back of your neck, watching your shoulders sag in relief as something finally cooled your clammy skin. “Thanks, Sugu.”

“Sugu… I’m scared.” Your voice was barely audible, tears burning your eyes as you squeezed them shut. Somehow it was working, your pain outshining the nausea as you tried to stop yourself from sobbing in the middle of the restroom. A year had passed since that moment in time, you were only eighteen now and yet you felt as if you had grown a decade. Yet, you were reduced to a scared and crying child because of nausea. Get it together. You forced yourself to straighten, hands slightly numb under the current of cold water.

You forced yourself to make eye contact with your reflection, observing how stark the dark circles were under your eyes. Shoko had been right, you did look a bit green, but it was fading steadily as everything subsided. You let your hands sit under the water for a minute longer before bending over the sink and splashing some on your face. The door to the restroom opened as you straightened again, Shoko was looking at you with worry. “Did you get sick?” you shook your head, turning the water off and reaching for the paper towels.

“Managed to fight it off… for now.”

“Satoru paid already, there is a convenient store a couple shops down. We can get you some nausea meds and a barf bag for the ride back… just in case.” You nodded, smiling a bit. “That would probably be a good idea.” you followed her out of the bathroom and through the restaurant, Satoru was standing on the sidewalk with a new cigarette between his lips. “Damn, you really did develop a new habit.” He only shrugged, inhaling deeply before blowing more out. “I’ll get over it at some point.” Knowing him and his will-power, he probably would.

“I’ll call for the driver, Satoru take her to the convenient store and I’ll catch up.” Satoru nodded, saluting her with a quick “yes ma’am” before grabbing your hand and dragging you along. You didn’t speak until Shoko was out of earshot. “Do you think it’s going to get better?” You appreciated the weight of his hand in yours, though you were certain he could feel how clammy it was. “I think it’ll get more bearable with time.” not better, but tolerable. The thought had your chest feeling heavy as you stepped inside of the small store.

“Nausea meds and barf bags.” Satoru chuckled, reading the signs above each aisle until he spotted one that seemed like a good start. “You’ll have to see a doctor if this doesn’t ease up… how long has it been going on anyways?” You shuffled behind him, arms crossing due to him letting them go a moment prior. “Shortly after he left, after I found the letter.” Only Satoru knew about the letter that had been left behind. How Suguru managed to get back onto campus and leave it in your dorm was beyond him. You had even let him read it, breaking his heart again.

“Shoko!” Satoru called, noticing her walk down the aisle before you could even turn your head. “I’m not good with this stuff, what should we get?” Satoru had already grabbed a box of blue cylindrical barf bags for you but the actual meds were basically foreign to him. “I’ll handle it from here, Satoru. You can wait in the car, he should be upfront by now.” Satoru’s brows furrowed, so did yours, but the look in Shoko’s eyes had him shrugging and handing the box to you. “Alright then, I’ll see ya out there.”

He whistled as he strolled by, your eyes narrowing on Shoko. “What’s this about?” you watched her shuffle through the shelves, picking up one and reading the box before setting it down and moving onto the next. “I don’t know what you mean.” She commented offhandedly, plucking another box and reading it before sighing. “This one should work.” She turned, handing it to you while motioning you to follow her down the aisle. You read it over, nothing out of the ordinary so you truly couldn’t figure out what made this one different from the others.

You stopped short when Shoko did, eyes scanning the aisle and feeling your stomach drop. “Shoko–” You sighed, she was standing in front of the pregnancy tests. “Listen, I know it’s probably the last thing you want to even think about but I think you should take one.” She was grabbing a box of the cheap tests, the same test that was still residing in the trash can of your bathroom. “Shoko, it's not necessary.” You couldn't bring yourself to tell her you already took one, for some reason you couldn’t tell her it was negative either.

“I’ll buy them, and you’ll keep them. If this nausea doesn’t subside in like two weeks, I’m forcing you to take them.” You felt your face burning, clutching the nausea meds tightly in your hands as you looked away from her. “Fine.” You sighed, head tilted at her shoes as you followed her up front to the register. Everything was placed neatly in a brown bag so nobody could see the contents. Once in the car, you popped open the barf bags just to keep one ready in the event your nausea returned full force. “I figured you would forget this.”

You looked up to see Satoru handing you a bottle of water, your lips parting in surprise. “You know me well, Satoru. I did forget.” you took it from him, grabbing the box of nausea meds and ripping them open. You took them and sighed, gulping down water when you realized how thirsty you had been. “If we have nothing else to do today, I think I’ll take a nap.” You were aching for your bed, more tired now than you had been after any missions. “Alright but we’ll wake you up for dinner if we don’t hear from you.” Shoko smiled, cracking the window to light a cig.

“It’s not even 11am yet.” you snorted. “Yeah but you can sleep like the dead when you really need it, if we don’t wake you, you’ll sleep straight through till tomorrow.” You opened your mouth to deny it, about to use your frequent bathroom breaks as an excuse but stopped yourself. Saying that would only confirm the very thing Shoko was suspicious of. “Alright, fine, whatever.” You resigned with a playful huff, arms crossing as you turned to look out the window. Luckily for you, you managed to make it through the ride without needing to use the bag.

“I’ll see you later.” You called after them, waving as you headed for the dorms. They both waved back, finding shade under a tree to enjoy more of the sunny morning. You felt your shoulders sagging with each step, your social battery diminished far faster now that Suguru wasn’t always by your side. You had almost grown a bit too dependent on him, thinking he would be a constant in your life. You inhaled shakily, the brown bag crumbling between your fingers as your emotions bubbled to the surface yet again. You couldn't seem to get yourself to your dorm fast enough, hot tears slipping down your cheeks as you shoved the key in the lock.

It came in heavy waves, making you feel weak as you could only succumb to the sadness festering in your chest. You dropped the bag by the door, kicking off your shoes and shouldering off your uniform jacket. Moving on autopilot, you drew your curtains shut and took off the rest of your clothing, sliding his shirt over your head until you were enveloped in his scent. You were gasping for air by the time your body hit the mattress, curling in on yourself as you sobbed. “I miss you.” You hiccuped, rubbing your eyes as if it would stop the tears.

God dammit, Suguru, why did you have to do this?

You buried your head in your pillow, trying to drown out your own feelings before sadness turned to anger and you ripped your whole room apart because of it.

“Stop wiggling so much.” His voice sounded like gravel, rumbling the back of your head as he spoke. “Can’t help it.” You retorted, trying your best to settle into a comfortable position. Suguru had you wrapped in a bear hug, his favorite form of affection, especially since he knew you couldn’t get out of his grasp. His arms were covered in thick muscles, something you initially didn't expect because his uniform and choice of baggy clothing typically hid them.

You could use all your strength and his grip wouldn’t falter.

“Why not?” he mumbled again, if you had to guess, his eyes were closed as he spoke. “Cause it’s warm, Sugu.” you were both laying on top of the covers, little to no clothing on because of the heat and the broken air conditioning that the school was still trying to fix. Nothing but an old fan swiveling side to side to create some sort of relief. Still, Suguru couldn’t sleep unless you were pressed flush to him, warm or not. “It’s not that bad.”

“Oh it absolutely is.” you immediately countered, turning your head back to try and look at him. “It could be way worse.” he tried again, fingers thrumming against your side. “Yeah, it could, but it could also be better. Like if you let me go for example.” You wiggled a bit, trying to create space before he pulled you tightly to him again. “Nice try, it’s not happening.” You groaned, going limp in his arms as he began to laugh. “I could totally make it worse for you.” He added softly, lips ghosting your ear. Despite the heat, you shivered.

“The weirdest things turn you on, Sugu.”

“Hey, it’s not nice to call yourself weird.”

You slapped his arm, earning another rumble of laughter as he moved to hover over you. “C’mon, if I make you sweat, it’ll make the breeze from the fan feel colder.” You rolled your eyes, studying his features as he looked down at you, hair framing his face and ghosting yours. “That’s counterproductive, you know.” Your hands were running up his biceps anyway, moving to wrap around his neck and pull him close to you. “Maybe it is, but you can’t say I’m wrong.”

His head was lowering, giving into your pull with no hesitation. “You’re right, I can’t say you’re wrong. But… I want to.” You smile, pulling him further until your lips melt together. He was radiating warmth, his teeth grazing your bottom lip to ask for entrance. Your lips parted, hands snaking up into his hair and tugging at the strands until he groaned. Suguru braced himself on one hand, making the mattress dip just by your head. The rest of his weight was settled on his knees, caging your hips in so you truly couldn’t get away from him. Not that you wanted too now.

You felt small beneath him, his bare skin radiating warmth as he used his free hand to push your shirt up. You could ignore the heat for the time being, more focused on the steady beating from between your thighs. “Sugu…” You parted with a gasp, watching him lean up and pull you with him, allowing him to drag your shirt over your head and toss it to the floor before pushing you down again. His lips didn’t return to yours, instead they moved to your neck, kissing along your pulse point until you were whining. “Quiet, baby, don’t forget we’re in my room.”

Satoru was asleep next door, that realization set in like ice water being dumped over your head. “Suguru.” You choked as his head dipped lower, licking along your collarbone before moving to one of your breasts. He wasn’t going to answer you, and you knew that for a fact by the way his lips curled into a smirk against your skin. “You’re evil.” You gasped, hand fisting his hair tightly as he scraped his teeth along your breast, nipping at the soft skin. Your other hand found its home on his shoulder, nails scratching lightly as his muscles flexed under your grasp.

You sunk your teeth into your cheek when his lips wrapped around your perked nipple, arousal making it pebble slightly as he sucked. Suguru’s tongue lavished your skin, flicking the bud until your back was arching into his touch. It wasn’t nearly enough, your breath coming out in short pants as you tried to pry him off and focus on your other breast. “These would look so pretty if they were full of milk.” You choked, eyes wide as he looked up at you through his lashes. “Don’t you think?” You couldn’t breathe for a moment, stunned into silence by his comment.

“C’mon baby, don’t act so shocked.” He cooed softly, the tip of his tongue trailing up your sternum. He didn’t stop until he reached your lips, kissing them softly before dipping his head again. His hand toyed with the breast he had just teased endlessly, brown eyes observing the rate of your breathing before lowering onto your other breast. He repeated the same motions, nipping and sucking the senstive skin until you were squirming from the wetness between your legs.

“You haven't answered me, sweetheart.”

“B-because I don’t know how to answer that, Sugu.” You knew exactly what he was implying, but you couldn’t form a coherent response for him. “You just have to tell me if you agree, it’s pretty simple.” He chuckled, pushing himself up to look down at you. Your hands fell to your sides, his neck just out of your reach. “Just think about it, pretty girl.” You watched him, completely entranced as he pulled his briefs down and his erection sprang free. “Because I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“You have?” You sat up a bit, fingers shakily pulling off your own underwear to save time. “I have.” He confirmed, cheeks turning a shade of red that you could see even in the moonlight. His hand slid along his length, spreading the precum drooling from his tip while his boxers rested at his mid-thigh. “Take those off, Sugu.” You smiled a bit, reaching for the waistband and pulling them taut before letting them snap back against his thigh. “So demanding.” He snorted, letting himself go to push the material off, tossing it to the floor just as you had done with your underwear.

“So are you, demanding an answer for something so…so…” you couldn’t find the right words, not when his eyes were on you, devouring you whole. “…so what? How does it make you feel?” He redirected, pumping himself leisurely as your thighs fell open for him, still supporting yourself on your elbows as you waited. “How does what make me feel?” A stupid question but you were still reeling from the initial statement. Suguru laughed, hand still gliding over his length as he sat on his knees.

“How does it feel knowing I think about getting you pregnant… all the fucking time.” You couldn’t deny the thought made you feel hot, hotter than you felt from the heat and arousal mixing. Like molten lava was running its way through your bloodstream. “F-feels fucking…” you squirmed a bit, legs moving to close involuntarily until his hand shot out and stopped them. “Go on, pretty girl. Tell me.” You sat up, glaring at him with warm cheeks. “How about you fuck me. Then, maybe, I’ll tell you how I feel about your little fantasies.” Suguru groaned, head falling forward for a moment.

“Sounds like a good deal to me.” He moved forward, pressing you back into the mattress as he pulled your thighs towards him. Your lips found his neck, sucking on it harshly as he ran the dull head of his cock between your slick folds. You let him move you however he pleased, your legs being pushed almost painfully to your chest as he pressed into you. You gasped in unison, his cock stretching you open easily despite no prep. “Shit…” his head fell forward again, nearly bumping yours as he bottomed out, no space left between the two of you.

Suguru stayed in place, eyes shut as he focused on the way your walls fluttered and squeezed around him, unable to stay still. Your nails dug into his scalp, pulling a groan from his lips as you tried to relax but couldn’t. He was big, bigger than any fling or partner you had in the past. No matter how easily your cunt accepted him, it still stung for the first few seconds. You had grown to love the deep ache, the weight of him inside you, the way his tip would brush your cervix depending on the position. Like now, with your legs pressed so tightly to your body.

“Can I move?” his voice was soft, eyes peering into your own once he gained his composure. “Y-yeah.” You breathed out, the feeling of his hands on your skin still sent shockwaves of arousal through you. Especially when his grip tightened, bracing himself on you as he drew his hips back half way before rolling into you again. You moaned, eyes squeezing shut as Suguru found his rhythm, hips meeting yours with a soft slap. “D-Don’t forget Satoru is…” You wailed softly, pleasure building quickly as he moved. “I know…”

But the smirk on his face told you he no longer cared, he’d gladly listen to his white-haired best friend bitch and moan in the morning about being woken up by you. Suguru’s rhythm only sped up, hips angling perfectly to brush along that one particular spot as he thrust into you, cock head brushing your cervix every few thrusts until your vision was blurring. The pleasure ebbing through your body was more than enough to block out how uncomfortable your current position was.

A wet squelch started to emit between your legs, loud enough to be heard over the drone of the fan as Suguru pounded into you. “So…” he started, voice strained as sweat dripped down his temple. “... can you tell me how it makes you feel now?” You blinked, awestruck that he was still hooked on getting an answer from you. “S-suguru…” you whined, head falling further into the pillows. “I’m not letting it go…ha… Tell me how it makes you feel.” he ground out, hips slowing just a bit. When you didn’t speak, he pressed more of his weight into you so one hand could break free.

You moaned, loud and unrestrained as his fingers ghosted across your swollen clit, the sudden contact making you see stars. “Tell me how it makes you feel.” he repeated, watching your face go slack as his fingers and hips worked in tandem. “Makes me hot…” You admitted with a heavy breath, eyes struggling to focus on him. “I want you to do it, Sugu… fuck me till I’m pregnant.” The look on his face had you shrinking further into the mattress, an almost animalistic look taking over his eyes as he stopped moving all together. “Say it again.”

“I want you to fuck me ‘til I’m pregnant, Suguru.”

You woke up in a sweat, gasping for air as you stumbled out of bed and barreled to the bathroom. You couldn’t stop the nausea this time, knees hitting the tile floor with bruising force as you heaved into the toilet. You hadn’t even remembered falling asleep, but your dream was enough to send you into a death spiral. Tears burned your eyes as the little bit of breakfast you hadn’t digested came back up. Luckily for you, you had slept long enough that your food from this morning wasn’t a total loss. Nothing more than bile was left as you finally calmed down.

You reached for toilet paper, wiping your tears and blowing your nose until you could at least breath without difficulty. Aching, you got up, flushing the toilet and washing your hands and face. You had no idea what time it was but you assumed it wasn’t late enough for dinner if Shoko never came to wake you up. At least that’s what you thought as you stumbled back into your dorm room slightly sweaty. That’s odd… The sun had begun to set just beyond your window, your eyes flickering to your alarm clock. 7:23pm stared back at you in big red numbers.

I slept for over eight hours? You looked for your phone, seeing the missed text from Shoko.

Shoko: I decided against waking you up, I figured you could use the sleep. Just text me when you’re awake and I can bring you dinner

You were partially grateful for her decision, your face still warm as your dream lingered in your mind. Dreaming of the past, how cliche. You sighed, sitting on the edge of your bed. You had woken up so suddenly, adrenaline blocking out the sleepiness at first. Now, your body seemed to thrum with a dull ache, the headrush coming back around to kick you while you were down. You reached over to turn on the small lap residing on your nightstand, eyes squinting for a moment as you adjusted. Your eyes focused on the brown bag from earlier, the one you discarded on your floor after coming back.

You knew there was water in there still, so you got up and grabbed it, looking at the bag contents in disdain. You emptied it on your desk, nausea meds, barf bags and the box of pregnancy tests. You studied then as you gulped down some of the water, easing the burn in your throat. The pregnancy tests Shoko had insisted on were identical to the one you took this morning. Weirdly enough you wished she had grabbed the more expensive digital ones. That way you wouldn't have to strain yourself trying to figure out if a second line was present or not.

“Fuck it.” you sighed, dropping the now empty water bottle in the small barrel you kept beside your desk. You still had one more test in the box from this morning, you’d take another one just because of the memories lingering on your mind. Your face felt warm as you recalled that particular night from a few months back. Suguru had been pretty adamant after that, fucking you raw and in ernest with every intention of knocking you up. You, stupidly, let him because you love him and loved the idea of having a family with him. “Idiot.”

You scolded yourself again, ripping the foil wrapper and tossing it in your trash with the now empty box. You went through the same process as you did that morning, peeing into a cup and dipping the absorbent end into it for ten seconds before capping it and discarding the rest of the contents. You forced yourself to leave the bathroom this time, convinced it would make time go by faster. The text Shoko had sent was still left unanswered, you couldn’t even bring yourself to feel hungry at that moment in time.

You’d text her in a little while though, or else she’d likely come breaking your door down thinking you had run away. Just then, your phone vibrated with the ringtone you had set for Satoru. You grabbed it, flipping it open to see what he had to say. On the screen there was a message from him, asking if you wanted to hang out on the rooftop to watch the stars later on. You smiled a bit, it was rare for Satoru to ask things so formally. You clicked out a message, telling him yes and that you could use some fresh air.

It took him no time at all to send a happy emoticon, one that had you rolling your eyes as you typed back that you’d meet him at his dorm when you were ready. You backed out of the chat, eyes lingering on a particular contact, your message to him was naturally left unanswered. You had given up texting Suguru’s number when the messages no longer got delivered. You figured he’d discard his phone, throw away any direct contact he had with the three of you. You snapped your phone shut a moment later, you’d text Shoko after you got dressed.

Opening your closet was still proving to be a bit difficult, especially as your fingers trailed over the material of the clothing Suguru had kept in your room. They smelt like the laundry detergent he used as well as his cologne, it took your breath away for a moment. You forced yourself away, grabbing some comfortable clothes that were actually yours before shutting the door. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to discard his clothing, despite knowing he wasn’t coming back to you.

You pulled his shirt over your head, grabbing your own and replacing it. You pulled on a pair of shorts after, rubbing your face with your hands as you looked at your appearance in the mirror. No amount of sleep seemed to help the dark circles under your eyes or the sickly look to your complexion. You could only hope Satoru was right, with time it would become more manageable. You glanced at your alarm clock, 7:48pm stared back at you now. The sky outside your window had turned indigo, the sun minutes away from being completely out of sight. The summer was coming to an end, filling your chest with melancholy.

You couldn’t stand being alone in that moment, grabbing your phone and shoving it in your pocket as you made a beeline for your door. You made your way down the hall, remembering as you passed Shoko’s dorm that you needed to text her. Stopping in your tracks, you figured it would just be easier to see her in person. “Shoko?” you called, fingers tapping the door softly because she hated when people knocked too loud. “Coming.” You heard her rustling around her room before the door opened, a half smoked cigarette hanging from her lips.

“Thought Yaga told you no smoking inside.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him, and my window is open.”

You smiled, “I’m hanging out with Satoru on the roof if you wanna join us.” Shoko exhaled, puffing just a bit of smoke in your direction. “I’d love to but I spent the whole afternoon with him ‘cause you were sleeping.” You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck “my bad.” but Shoko was waving you off. “Don’t apologize, you need sleep… I’ll trust Satoru to feed you if you’re hungry.” She smiled as you rolled your eyes “Alright alright, enjoy the rest of your bad habit and I’ll take Satoru duty.” The look in Shoko’s eyes made your smile falter for just a moment.

They looked oddly wistful, but it vanished just as quickly as your smile faltered. “Aye aye captain.” Shoko started to shut the door as you turned to leave, watching you go for just a moment before shutting it completely. “Satoru.” You drawled, banging on his door so you could be heard over the music he was playing. “Oi, keep it down!” the door swung open a moment later, a cheeky grin on his face as he looked at you. “Ready to go?” He looked cozy in an oversized black hoodie and sweats, sunglasses resting on top of his head.

“Sure am.” you returned his smile, the ache in your chest easing just a bit. It was more bearable when you had someone who understood the pain you felt deeper than surface level. You watched him turn, shutting off his music and the lights before stepping into the hallway. “Are we going to take the normal way or are you going to test out your blue?” Satoru’s eyes seemed to sparkle as you suggested he use his curse technique. “If you insist on blue…” You couldn’t even make a sound as his arm wrapped around your waist, hauling you off of your feet.

In the blink of an eye, you were exposed to the cooling night air. “Damn.” You laughed as he set you down, shuffling over to the small lock box you kept up here with spare blankets and, as Shoko claimed, “necessities”...Which were just two cartons of emergency cigarettes. “Didn’t disorient you, right?” Satoru was standing on the edge, observing the glow of the city in the distance. “Not even a little, you’ve improved a lot, Satoru.” your back was turned to him, so you missed the way his eyes widened slightly, cheeks turning pink.

“Thanks”

You turned back to him, blankets in hand. “So…” You walked over to where he was standing, taking a seat just before the edge and letting your legs dangle off. “...So?” Satoru looked down at you, watching you settle. “Why did you want to come up here… I’d love to gaze at the stars but it’s not like we’ll actually see any with all the light pollution.” Satoru sighed, dropping down to squat beside you. “I guess I just wanted your company… ya know since you’re probably the only other person that understands this.” his tone was awkward, it wasn’t often that you were sentimental… or serious for that matter… with each other.

“Your welcome to have my company any time, Satoru. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you.” It was so heartfelt it made you feel strange. “Sorry.” You added, a bit meeker than before when he stiffened a bit. “Don’t be sorry, just not used to being so… serious with you.” He sat fully now, shoulder brushing yours as a silent invitation for you to rest your head. You did, just as you always had, watching the lights of the city a few miles away. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” You spoke in a gentle tone, hoping he knew what you meant.

“It is. Knowing he’s there, that he’s okay… while we’re sitting here sulking like idiots.” There was a small bite to his tone as he finished, one that quickly left when he exhaled. “It pisses me off.” It made you upset too, anger bubbling in the back of your mind like a pot of boiling water that was going to overflow at any second. “It pisses me off too, because I truly can’t understand it. I’ve killed myself over the last three weeks trying to understand, to make sense of it. I can’t and I don’t think I ever will. But it’s not my place to reason with it, you know?”

Satoru was silent, waiting for you to continue. “It’s not my life, it’s his. I tried for months to get it out of him, I tried so goddamn hard to get him to open up and he never did. Always redirecting, always avoiding.” You sounded defeated by the end, blinking away the tears that blurred your vision so you could regain composure. “Why didn’t you come to me?” Satoru questioned softly, letting your words sink in like an anchor.

“He gave you so many signs, Satoru. If you couldn’t see them, it wasn’t my place to assist.”

Satoru felt like that should have made him angry, but it didn’t. Mostly because you were right, it had been obvious from the start but he had naively pushed them to the side, pretending it wasn’t true. He was just as much at fault, if anything he was willing to shoulder all of the blame. Because at least you tried. He couldn’t say the same, and he knew that far too well. “Suguru made up his mind the moment he entered that village. There is no stopping a man who is set in their resolve. You said it yourself, Satoru. He looked healthier, happier, content.”

Satoru took in a shaky breath, leaning into you just as you leaned into him. “I just don’t get why he needed to kill his parents.” Your eyes closed, that was the thought weighing heaviest on your mind. “He needed to prove to himself that he was doing the right thing. That nobody, not even his parents, were an exception to his newfound ideology.” It killed you to say it, especially since you had met his parents last winter break. They were kind, at least his mother was. His father was a bit colder but there was still an undeniable love for his son. They had welcomed you so openly, they were proud of the son they had raised.

Now they were gone, nobody but Suguru was to blame.

“In a fucked up way, I don’t care that he killed those people.” The words felt bitter on your tongue, but his letter flashed through your mind and for a moment you understood him. Those two little girls, beaten and caged, scared and facing death for things they never did. Hell, had you gone on the mission with him, you may have encouraged his choices. That realization felt weird as it settled in your gut. “I… I don’t really care either.” Satoru admitted softly, thinking back over the last year, thinking about Amanai. He had been seconds away from doing the same thing.

But Suguru had been his voice of reason, stopping him with a simple command. It should have been obvious then, that Suguru’s life was completely altered from that moment forward. “It was so obvious.” He hissed softly, head falling forward just a bit as anger squeezed his heart. “There is nothing we can do now, Satoru. Nothing we can do will reverse the damage that has been done.” You wished you could believe your own words, part of you wanted to catch a train into the city and barrel into that religious group he took over.

You weren’t even sure what you’d do if you did. Hit him, yell at him? Crumple into his arms like the sucker you were. Maybe a mix of all three, no, it would definitely be a mix of all three. You couldn’t help but wonder how he would react if he saw you again. He made it clear in his letter that he loved you, he still loved you, he would always love you. If you made the choice to leave, would he welcome you in with open arms. Or was he resenting you already for not doing so sooner. Was he waiting for you? Or was it nothing more than sweet-talk.

“You’re not breathing.” Satoru muttered softly, tilting his head just a bit to look down at you. “Oh…” You inhaled deeply, laughing a bit as you exhaled “got lost in thought.” You felt Satoru relax again, head resting against yours. “I get it.” You fell into a comfortable silence, watching as the sky steadily turned from a deep blue to pitch black. There, if you squint hard enough, you could make out a couple of sparkling stars.

You knew if you asked, Satoru could probably whisk you somewhere far away. Somewhere clear so you could actually see the stars with no obstructions.

Yet you were too comfortable, too warm.

Sitting where you were now was more than enough for the time being. That feeling of content actually took the air from your lungs for a moment, blinking steadily as you took in your surroundings. There was a fleeting moment where your heart felt light, that aching heaviness that had been plaguing it for the last three weeks wasn’t present. You wondered quietly if Satoru felt it too. Given the way his body seemed completely relaxed into yours, you assumed he did.

You were stumbling down the hall like a drunkard. Your mind felt numb as you moved, head tilted down and expression blank. If anyone were to cross your path at that given moment, they probably would have been unsettled by the sight of you. A zombie moving on autopilot, your brain moving so quickly that it had reduced everything to a quiet, droning buzz.

Murder. 112 people. His parents too. He’s gone. He snapped. He’s a murderer. Suguru is gone.

Nothing made sense, not a single bit of the information you had received made any sense. The fact that Suguru wasn’t answering your frequent texts wasn't making sense. The fact that you had woken up to an empty bed wasn’t making sense. The fact that people were telling you Suguru, your Suguru, had taken over a hundred lives in the span of one night wasn’t making any fucking sense.

Your knees nearly gave out the moment your hand met the wood of your door, pushing it open so quickly it slammed into the wall with a loud thud before coming back at you. Not that you cared, at that moment you could be set on fire and you wouldn’t blink an eye.

You stood in the middle of your dorm room, eyes scanning the room as if it were something foreign. Nothing was making sense, not even your bed looked like your own. It was the pressure cracking down on you already, sinking its claws into your shoulders and forcing you to your knees as the weight of your new reality hit you like a freight train. You couldn’t even bring yourself to cry in that moment, too shell shocked over the report Yaga had read to you and Satoru.

Satoru.

You had stumbled away shortly after the report was finished, barely registering the way he had started to yell. You hadn’t looked back, but it wasn’t like either of them tried to stop you. Despite having just stumbled away from him, you found yourself moving to leave and find him again. At least you would have if your knees didn’t give out on you. You gasped, more out of surprise than pain as your legs made contact with the wooden floor. You sat there for a moment, arms feeling equally as weak as you pushed yourself into a sitting position.

You felt your chest tighten, every breath felt strangled as you tried to inhale. A cold sweat seemed to cover your skin, fingers shaking slightly as you pushed your hair from your face. You couldn’t move, completely paralyzed by shock. It felt like your heart was shattering, every shaky inhale deepening the wound. Still, your tears would not come. Not even as black spots began to obstruct your vision, chest heaving as you began to hyperventilate.

Despite your body vibrating in distress, you felt a nearly silent calm. Like someone had flicked off the switch and stole your ability to hear.

Nothing and everything all at once.

“Hey? Y/N wake up…” You jumped a bit, hand coming up to touch the wetness on your cheeks. “You were crying in your sleep.” Satoru muttered softly, hand smoothing over your hair as he cradled you. “I-I was?” You didn’t even realize the change in position or the change in scenery. You were no longer sitting by the roof’s edge, instead you were sitting in Satoru’s lap, his arms holding you tightly as he looked at you with worry.

“You were.” he confirmed, letting you go just as you woke up fully. “Sorry for worrying you, I was just thinking about him… it’s so strange. I’ve been having such intense dreams of the past… I've had dreamless sleep for the last three weeks… so why now?” Satoru sighed, watching you get up to stand and stretch your limbs. “I don’t know. I’ve been having odd dreams about him but I don’t really remember how most of them go by the time I wake up.”

“It’s the universe’s way of torturing us… as if we haven’t been tortured enough. Wait, how long have I been asleep?” The temperature had dropped significantly, the moon was shining high in the sky now. “About an hour or so, I was actually going to bring you back inside but you started to cry and… well here we are now.” Satoru got up, stretching dramatically as you sighed. “You’d think after sleeping for eight hours I wouldn't be tired.”

You walked to the edge of the roof again, feet pressing firmly to the ledge as you looked down. “Being depressed will suck the soul out of you.” For some reason you couldn’t help but laugh. “You seem pretty wide awake, Satoru.” He joined you on the ledge, pushing you a bit to the side. Your training gave you quick reflexes so you didn’t flinch when he did it. “Oh please, you know I’m right.” You glanced at him, laughing softly.

“You are, but so am I. We can be depressed morons together.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm, earning another laugh as you punched his shoulder. “Touche, Gojo”

“Yuck, never call me that again.” His face had morphed into a scowl as you used his last name. He never liked hearing you call him anything other than Satoru. “Fine.” you crossed your arms over your chest, inhaling the cool air. “I think I’m gonna go shower and maybe make something small for dinner… Just so Shoko doesn’t string the two of us up on a lamppost.” Satoru nodded, watching you step off the ledge and move about the roof to put the blankets away.

“I’ll accompany you.” he jumped down, trailing behind you as you moved to open the door that would bring you downstairs. “In the shower? I’m flattered but–” the way his eyes rolled were enough to stop you mid-sentence. “Joking, Satoru.” he sighed out an “I know” closing the distance to haul you up. “Using the stairs is boring.” Within the blink of an eye, you were back inside and standing in front of your dorm room.

“Text me when you’re done showering and we can go get food.”

You nodded, one of the perks of attending school in Tokyo was the fact that the city never slept. You could go find a place to eat at three in the morning and they’d still serve you hot food. Your body sagged against the door of your dorm after shutting it. Flicking on the lights lit the room in a warm, golden glow. For the last three years you considered your room a sanctuary, it was your happy place after a long day of training. Now, it feels oddly cold.

You walked over to your dresser, pulling the top drawer open to grab a fresh pair of underwear and pajamas for after. You tossed them on your bed, reaching down for your bottom drawer to grab a particular towel you liked. It didn’t take you long to put your hair up, not in the mood to wash it just yet, and head to the bathroom. You squinted a bit as the nearly white fluorescent lights filled the room, if you had your way you’d change them to something softer.

It took all of five seconds for your world to come crashing down around you again, eyes zeroing in on the pregnancy test sitting on your counter. I fucking forgot about it…

You set your towel down on the counter, holding your breath as you took the step and reached for the test. You gave yourself no time to prepare, eyes scanning the results once before it hit you like a ton of bricks. You dropped it, letting it clatter on the porcelain counter as a jagged sob ruptured from your chest. Your hand came up to cover your mouth, the other resting on your chest, your heart thumping so wildly you were certain it would burst.

There, on the test, were two lines. It was positive.

You nearly fell forward, dropping down to the trash can beside your sink and rummaging through it without hesitation. Your fingers wrapped around the plastic test from this morning, yanking it up and looking at the results again. There, on the initial test from that morning, were two lines. You didn’t drop it this time, eyes staring at the results as if they’d change. Positive, this whole time it had been positive. You just hadn’t let the first test develop long enough.

“When… How…” You uttered softly, the logical part of your brain screaming at you to be realistic for a second rather than acting so surprised. The irrational side of your brain was still reeling from the revelation. As if Suguru hadn’t been adamant in trying to knock you up for months. “You fucking bastard… you get your way and leave me with the aftermath.” You were struggling, there was no way you’d be able to pinpoint when it happened until you found out how far along you were. For some reason, that was what made reality really set in.

Hot tears streaked your face, sobbing so harshly that it felt like your lungs would collapse on you. You moved in a blur, legs carrying you out of your dorm and down the hall until you were pushing open Satoru’s door. “Woah there, sounds like someone’s hun…” He looked up, the teasing tone in his voice dropping immediately when he saw the tears streaming down your face. “What the fuck happened? Are you hurt?” Satoru crossed the room in two long strides, hands cupping your face as your lips wobbled.

You couldn’t get the words out, crying harder as he ran his hands over you searching for some type of wound. “C’mon, what happened?” His tone had more of a bite to it than he intended but you were causing panic to seep through his veins. You couldn’t breathe, legs nearly buckling under the weight of your reality. Satoru seemed to catch this, hands shooting out to support you as he brought both of you to the floor. “Y/N, please.” he urged you, throat feeling tight.

You shook your head, still sobbing as you raised your hand meekly, the positive pregnancy test out in the open for him to see. Blue eyes widened significantly when he saw it, he didn’t even need to see the two lines to understand why you were so hysterical. “Oh…oh.” he swallowed, hand shakily taking the test from your hand to look at it. “Oh fuck.” it was just barely above a whisper, arm holding you just a little tighter as you cried into his chest.

At least part of you was aware of the possibility, Satoru on the other hand felt completely blindsided. “You two didn’t use protection?” He uttered softly, rocking you slightly without thinking as your cries continued, you couldn’t think at that moment, unable to calm yourself down. You managed to shake your head in response, unable to feel embarrassed as you admitted to not using condoms when with Suguru. “Fuck… did you ever use protection with him?”

He knew the answer, of course he fucking knew the answer. Suguru was utterly obsessed with you, so in love it was nearly nauseating. You shook your head again, confirming that you’d never once used protection with him. “Hey… c’mon…” he started softly when your body shook with the force of your cries but you were no longer making any sounds. He wanted to say it would be alright but he wasn’t sure if it would be.

That answer relied on you.

He couldn’t expect you to be alright, you had your heart broken three weeks prior by the man who often talked about proposing to you as soon as you all graduated. If those were the kind of conversations Suguru was having with him, he couldn’t imagine the conversations Suguru had been having with you. Well, that was a bit of a lie. Considering your reaction to the test results, it seemed this was a long sought after goal. Your cries were from heartbreak, not fear.

“I’ve been looking at rings.” Satoru glanced up, noodles dangling half way from his lips. “Hah?” He watched Suguru grimace a bit, some broth splattering as Satoru questioned him. “I’ve been looking at rings for Y/N.” Suguru stated again, a little more cautiously now, watching Satoru slurp the rest of the noodles into his mouth. “Suguru, we haven’t even entered our third year.”

“I know, but…” he shrugged, unable to formulate the right way to say it. “...But? You’re not even eighteen yet, neither is she.” It wasn’t that Satoru didn’t think it was okay, he just figured you were both way too young to even fathom those things. “I don’t intend on proposing to her until we’ve graduated. Listen I know it seems fast but…” Suguru's hands fidgeted with his utensils for a moment, eyes avoiding Satoru until he was ready.

“I love her, Satoru. I didn’t even think it was possible to love someone as much as I love her.”

Satoru blinked, a bit taken back by such a bold declaration over a bowl of cheap ramen. “I’m not doubting that you love her, Suguru. I just think it’s a bit crazy to think about these things so young.” Suguru sighed, watching Satoru with weary eyes as he moved to eat more noodles.

“We’re sourcers, Satoru. A long life isn’t guaranteed.”

“Breathe, please. You’re going to pass out.” Satoru’s hand was slapping your back as you coughed, the tears had finally begun to slow but you still weren’t able to form a coherent sentence. “Please…” he tried again, watching you try your best to take a deep breath. It was followed by another, this time it wasn’t superficial. After a couple more, you were able to rub the tears from your eyes and look at him without blurry vision.

“S-satoru I’m so so-sorry.” you hiccuped, your throat feeling raw from your crying. “You have nothing to apologize for, stop feeling like you have to apologize for everything you do.” he let you go a bit, motioning for you to get up with him and sit on his bed rather than the floor. He watched you crawl under his covers, curling up against his pillows, sniffling softly. Despite the weight of the conversation you were about to have, Satoru couldn’t help but chuckle.

He crawled onto his bed as well, sitting beside you but above the covers. “So… I guess the best place to start is… how did this happen. By that I mean, was it intentional?” You sighed, toying with the end of his pillow case as you spoke. “Suguru had been trying to get me pregnant for months now.” You felt warmth flood your cheeks, it felt awkward admitting something like that. “I knew the bastard had a breeding kink.” Satoru said it more to himself than you, but that didn’t stop the shrill yell of his name as you slapped his arm.

“I’m being honest! He just seemed like the type.” Satoru shrugged, holding back laughter as you rolled your eyes and settled back into sulking. “I shouldn’t be so blindsided by this, but it’s fucking ironic that he got what he wanted after he fucking left me… us.” you corrected softly, feeling selfish for being so focused on yourself when Satoru was hurting too. “The universe knows how to play cruel jokes, I’ve thought that my whole life. But, that’s beside the point. We can’t sit here and sulk over it, we need to talk about what to do next.”

You looked up at Satoru, eyes red from crying. It hurt his heart, you looked like a kicked puppy. In that moment he realized how heavily he relied on Suguru, because even now he found himself itching to grab his phone and call him for advice. What was worse, you were now looking to him for help, when really he was just as scared as you. “The next logical step is I need to find a doctor who can run a blood test and confirm the store bought tests are accurate. After that, they need to tell me how far along I am so I can pinpoint when this happened.”

Satoru nodded, you’d both have to fill in Shoko in the morning, she’d be able to help with all the medical bits. “I… I know this seems a bit invasive so please don’t take offense… but are you going to keep it?” Satoru fidgeted a bit, eyes watching as you seemed to zone out and think. Your initial answer was yes, of course, but were you really capable of raising a baby on your own? Then again, you didn’t think you could stomach giving them away for adoption, and you certainly didn’t want to get rid of them. Not after you chased this goal for months, regardless of the way things were right now. “Yeah, as terrifying as it is, I want this baby, Satoru.”

“Okay, so we got two of the biggest things out of the way. Now, the hardest…” you huffed as he trailed off, you weren’t entirely sure you were ready to answer the next question. “What do we do about Suguru, that’s what you’re going to say, right?” It was Satoru’s turn to huff now, nodding as he looked away from you to stare at his hands.

“He… he needs to know.”

“No the fuck he doesn’t.”

You both stared at each other, completely scandalized by the other’s response. “Satoru… He needs to know… he…he’s the fucking dad? How am I supposed to jus–” Satoru shook his head, hands coming up to rub his face before letting them fall back to his lap. “Suguru is a fucking criminal now, he murdered people. Hundreds of people I should fucking remind you and you just want to waltz back into his fucking life and tell him that shit?” You sat up now, eyes burning holes into his skull as you waited for him to at least look at you. “Do you hear yourself?”

You were seething, that same anger you held for Suguru leaving was now bubbling at Satoru for uttering his name like it was pure filth. Satoru stiffened, eyes turning to glare at you. But, every ounce of anger seemed to drain from his body when he saw nothing but hurt glowing in your tired and puffy eyes. “I fucking get it, Satoru. I know what Suguru did but fuck, how am I supposed to just get over him? How am I supposed to carry his child for nine months and push it out of my body just to raise it on my fucking own and never tell him? He’s the one that wanted this in the first place!” Tears glossed your eyes over, hands shaking as they fisted in his sheets.

His mouth opened before closing again, eyes looking away from you because he knew he'd never be able to try and talk sense into you when you looked at him like that. “And what if the child is unable to see curses?” he sounded defeated. “What then, Y/N? What if you give birth to this baby and they lack the ability to see them? That baby would be the very thing Suguru hates.” You froze, it felt like someone had poured ice water down the back of your neck. “If he didn’t spare his own parents, he won’t spare his own child.” Satoru swallowed, looking like he wanted to say so much more but didn’t. He let the words hang there, heavy and dark.

The silence stretched on between the two of you, mostly because you knew he was right. Just because both parents had the ability to see into the curse world and use curse energy, it didn’t guarantee that their offspring would also carry the same blessing. You blinked, hand subconsciously moving to rest over your stomach, as if it would do anything to protect them. “Suguru he… he wouldn’t…” Your words were weak and at that moment Satoru couldn’t bring himself to really fight with you. “But he would, y/n that’s the fucking issue, he would.” his voice was breaking, unsure if he should say what he wanted to say next.

“Then what am I going to do?” You were going to dissolve, tears burning your eyes again as the harsh reality began to sink in. “Let me help you, let me help you raise the baby. I can easily provide for the two of you.” He turned to look at you now, eyes burning with such intensity it stole the air from your lungs. “What?” you hadn’t meant for it to sound offended, you were shocked to say the least, but still the hurt that flashed through his features made you feel the urge to reach out and hug him. “Satoru I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh…” You moved forward, arms wrapping tightly around his neck and hugging him.

It took a second but his arms came up to wrap around your middle, holding you tightly. “It’s okay, it was a bold statement to make so suddenly.” he soothed you when really you felt that you should be the one soothing him. “No it’s fine, really it just caught me by surprise and…” you hugged him a little tighter, burying your face in his neck. For a moment you nearly stiffened, that was something you usually did to seek comfort from Suguru. In that moment, you couldn’t bring yourself to pull away, finding comfort in Satoru’s reassuring embrace. “You don’t have to answer me tonight.” He hushed you, hand coming up to smooth your hair as he kept you close. “I doubt you have an appetite now, how about we just sleep?”

“I still need to shower.” You pulled away, laughing softly when you remembered what you had been in the process of doing before your world flipped. “Okay, then go and shower but please come back to me when you’re done.” His tone was quiet, something in it held no room for you to disagree. So, you let go of him reluctantly, nodding as you crawled over him to stand. “Again, you don’t have to answer me tonight, or tomorrow, or even next week. But please, think about what I said.” He stayed on his bed, watching you shakily grab the pregnancy test before heading for his door. “I will, Satoru. Keep my spot warm.” you smiled at him over your shoulder, heart still heavy as you disappeared through the open door.

The hot water on your skin wasn’t enough to wash away the dread growing in your chest. You found your hands absentmindedly running along your abdomen, still finding it hard to believe something was there, something that would grow into a living breathing human in a few months time. A mix of you and Suguru, how strange. This wasn’t how you imagined it would happen, nor were these the feelings you expected to experience when the time came. If anything, it made you more upset. You should be happy, you should be fucking estatic. You should be basking in the euphoric state of knowing you’d be having a child with the man you adored.

Instead, you had sobbed in the arms of his best friend, completely hysterical. And the man you loved had no idea you were even pregnant, that the very thing he wanted had been achieved and he wouldn’t even get to know. At least not yet. You had taken Satoru’s words into consideration, of course you did. But in the back of your mind, you knew there was no way you’d be able to go on with your life without ever telling Suguru. He would know, he would know of his child, you were already set on that. You twisted the knob, the water turning off a second later as you got out and dried yourself off a bit before wrapping the towel around you.

Your body was aching from the events of the last few hours. Returning to Satoru’s room and sleeping in his warm bed sounded like heaven to you. Sleeping next to someone again felt like heaven to you. You had to wonder what Suguru would think if he knew you were sharing his best friend’s bed – albeit nothing sexual was occuring between the two of you. And even then, Suguru had broken up with you in that letter, you were technically no longer his. The thought made you feel sick as you reached for the clothing you had laid on your bed. You pulled the shorts on first, reaching for the oversized shirt second, trying to ignore the nausea building in your gut.

You moved around your room without thinking, flicking the lights off before heading out the door and back down the hall. Satoru had changed into his own pajamas, hair damp from the shower he must have taken while you went to take yours. He only had his bedside lamp on, the pace beside him vacant and waiting for you. “Are you sure you don’t want food?” he questioned softly as you shut the door behind you. “I’ll eat a good breakfast if my morning sickness allows.” Those words felt foreign, referring to your nausea as morning sickness felt so bizarre. “Alright but if you wake up in the middle of the night starving don’t hesitate to wake me up.”

You laughed softly, huffing out an “okay” as you crawled over him and under the covers once more. Satoru pulled the blankets up over both of you before reaching over and flicking off the light. “Goodnight.” he spoke softly, settling into his bed as you rolled onto your side to get comfortable. “Night, Satoru.” You whispered back, eyes already feeling heavy, the comfort his bed offered was no match for the gnawing reality you were facing. For now, you were thankful for it.

“Think fast!” You laughed, hurtling one of the poles directly in Satoru’s direction. He turned, using infinity to block it just before it hit his face. “Nice! Your reflexes are getting faster.” You picked up another weapon, Suguru was watching you intently, an easy smile on his face. “Sugu!” You called, aiming to throw another pole. “Think fast.” you repeated, arm going back before using every ounce of strength to beeline it straight at him. Suguru smiled, summoning a curse easily to deflect it. “Not bad.” you winked, watching him roll his eyes as the curse disappeared.

“Y’all are gross.” Satoru drawled, pushing his glasses up his nose. “We didn’t even say anything?” Suguru countered, stepping out of the shade and into the sun. “You don’t need to say anything, the tension is almost unbearable.” Shoko chimed, twirling her lighter around her fingers as she watched the three of you. This time you couldn’t help but laugh, letting Suguru close the distance and wrap an arm around your waist. “See, gross!” Satoru sighed dramatically as you kissed Suguru’s cheek. “It’s called being in love, something you wouldn’t get, Satoru.” You stuck your tongue out at him, laughing as he rolled his eyes.

“Well if you’re gonna be all gross and lovey with one another, go do it in private.”

“Okay.”

You and Suguru spoke in unison, a shrill laugh leaving you as he bent down and hauled you up and over his shoulder. Naturally Shoko faked a gagging noise, watching as he carried you away with a smile. “They’re so gross.” Satoru commented again, eyes following the two of you until you were completely out of sight. Though, he couldn't deny the small smile tugging at his lips.

“Suguru.” you slapped his back lightly, he was still carrying you over his shoulder even after entering the dorm buildings. “Hmm?” he paid you no mind as he climbed the stairs, his end destination would be your dorm room… more specifically your bed. “You can put me down now.” You knew he wouldn’t, so you opted for running your hands along his back, feeling his steps falter for a moment before composing himself. “I’ll put you down when I’m good and ready.”

You rolled your eyes, playfully swatting at his ass. “Alright, that's it. You’re getting punished.” His words were very matter-of-fact, so much so that you couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Okay dad.” Suguru didn’t miss a beat, stalking down the hallway towards your dorm room. “Yeah, I’m trying to become one so it would help me out if you cooperated.” You made a strangled noise, it had been three weeks since Suguru admitted to wanting to get you pregnant. Needless to say, he wasn’t giving up any time soon.

“You just want a reason to fuck me.” You tried to counter, jumping a bit as he pushed into your dorm room and kicked the door closed behind him. “I don’t need a reason to fuck you, baby.” You couldn't describe the noise you made, whiplash taking over as he tossed you onto your bed. “I guess that’s true…” You pushed up on your elbows, watching him pull his white shirt up and over his head, knocking his hair out of his bun in the process. “You’ll be good for me right?” He was dropping to his knees before you, a gentle plea of his name leaving your lips.

“Atta girl.” he murmured, warm fingers hooking in the waistband of your shorts and pulling them down. You watched him with parted lips, watching the way his eyes observed you. “Already wet? How fucking filthy.” his hands splayed along your thighs, pushing them wide open so he could really look at you. “Just because I picked you up? Or maybe it was from wrapping my arms around your waist?” He teased, pulling one hand from your thigh to spread your cunt open instead. “Tell me, pretty girl… what has you so worked up already?”

“All of it.” You’re breathless as you look at him, no shame in your eyes as you admit how badly you want him. Suguru smiled, fingers keeping you spread as he watched the arousal pool at your entrance. “All of it, hmm? I make you that horny?” His tone was light but the look in his eyes was anything but. You could feel him devouring you whole. “Yeah, you fucking do.” You tried to keep your hips still, praying he’d do something other than watch you grow wetter by the second. “Tell me something, would you?” he pulled his eyes away to meet yours.

“Anything.” You comment softly, waiting to hear what he had to say. Suguru smiled, fighting the urge to reach up and tuck some of your hair behind your ear. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.” His voice was barely a whisper, pupils blown wide as he looked at you. You audibly groan, face feeling warm as your head falls back. “Eat me out, Suguru.” You drawl, no longer embarrassed by the things he makes you say. “As you wish.” He couldn’t even tease you for such an honest answer. Suguru’s head dipped lower, tongue licking up your inner thighs, teeth grazing the skin eagerly.

“Sugu…” You whined out, his lips growing closer to your aching cunt. “... can I suck you off after?”

Suguru’s whole body jolted as you uttered those words, mouth moving to lick and suck along your folds as his honest answer. You took that as a yes. You couldn’t help but squirm as his hands began kneading the flesh of your thighs, all the while his tongue was lapping at your cunt. Each movement sent electricity up your spine, one hand shakily reaching out to hold his head as his lips wrapped around your pulsating clit. “Oh fuck… Suguru…” you were embarrassed by how quickly he had learned to make you cum, the pressure already building in your gut.

He didn’t slow, rather he slipped two fingers into your slick entrance and scissored them in time with his sucking. He loved to put on a show for you, going as far as to slurp your juices just so he could hear you cry out. You couldn’t think straight when his tongue was wiggling against your clit, stopping every few seconds to suck until your back arched. Suguru continued this until he felt your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling harsh as your moans turned into breathy gasps. He pulled away with a slick pop, smiling deviously as your head shot up to glare at him. “Suguru!” You wailed, letting go of his hair angrily.

“Not yet, I don’t want you coming yet.”

“No fucking fair!” you whined, head falling back against the mattress in defeat. “So selfish.” Suguru laughed as he pushed himself off the floor, now making a show of pulling the rest of his clothing off. “There goes your chances at getting head.” you chided, watching as that shit eating grin remained on his lips. “You think this is funny!” you whined again, the echoes of your denied orgasm making you close your thighs to try and alleviate the pressure. Suguru watched you, cock throbbing as he kicked his pants off the rest of the way and tossed them to the side.

“I do think it’s funny, mostly because you look so cute when you’re so worked up.” his hands wrapped around himself, pumping languidly as you spread your thighs again, eager for more. Suguru smirked, always defiant until his cock was out. “Nah baby, I don’t think you deserve this right now.” he continued to stroke himself, head falling back just a bit as his own aching arousal was finally being relieved. “Sugu…” you choked out in a hushed whisper, mouth watering as he let out a breathy sigh, fingers toying with the sensitive tip. You were regretting your earlier statement.

“Sugu…” you spoke softly, watching him lift one leg to plant his foot on the mattress, hand still gliding along his shaft as his jaw slackened. He ignored you, continuing to get himself off. He was waiting for you to do something, that realization had you pushing yourself up, pulling your shirt up and over your head and tossing it to the ground. You pulled your legs off the side of the bed, maneuvering yourself until you sat on your knees before him. “Let me suck you off.” breathless, hands folded neatly on your lap as you waited for his response.

Suguru smiled at you, watching the mattress move as your hips squirmed. “I thought you said the chances of me getting head were gone.” he teased, hand massaging just before the head of his cock, making his own voice falter as he spoke to you. “I never said that.” which was kind of true, you didn’t say those exact words. Suguru cocked an eyebrow, unable to maintain his stern demeanor as your tongue moved to wet your lips, eyes completely focused on his fist. “Please, your hand is so boring Suguru, especially when you could have my mouth.” you tried again, eyes sliding up his torso, admiring the dips and plains of his muscles.

“When you put it like that, it’s hard to say no.” he murmured softly, letting his cock go. You scooted closer, until your knees were nearly off the edge of the mattress. “Thank you.” You whispered softly, watching his face flush a shade of pink, eyes quickly looking away from you to try and regain some sort of composure. The first touch was always enough to make him weak in the knees, your tongue gliding gently over his weeping tip before lowering to the underside of his shaft. He met your eyes, face still flushed as you looked at him with such adoration. All the while your mouth was doing sinful things to him, your duality was enough to induce whiplash.

His fingers came up to rake through your hair, guiding you as your jaw slackened, head moving to engulf him in the wet heat your mouth had to offer. “Oh fuck…” Suguru choked when you didn’t stop moving, throat constricting as your nose brushed the unruly mess of black hair at his base. You held yourself there, drool dripping down your chin as your cheeks hollowed. Slowly you dragged yourself back, watching the shiny coat of saliva covering his shaft in your wake. You repeated those motions, finding a comfortable place to bob your head at, his length heavy on your tongue. “So good for me… fuck you’re so good for me… I don’t know what I did to deserve you…”

You merely hummed, ignoring the slow but steady ache building in your jaw as your hand moved along his shaft. You could tell he was starting to really feel it, his cock twitching every few motions, head tilted back as his eyes fluttered shut. You had to admit you were impressed he managed to stay on his feet. Most times, when Suguru dared to eat you out while you were standing, you were nearly a dead weight in his grasp by the end. The only thing keeping you up was the wall he stuffed you against and his shoulders because he tossed your legs over them. You stopped when you felt him twitching violently, jaw clenched tight as his head shot forward to look down at you.

“Gonna make me cum, pretty girl.” He choked out, hands cupping your cheeks to guide you as you moved your head again. Your hands shot out, holding his thighs tightly as you let him use your head how he pleased, guiding you to a pace that made your eyes water before he stilled all together. You forced yourself to relax as Suguru spilled down your throat, letting you greedily swallow all of it before pulling off of him with a lewd pop. “Fuck…” he nearly fell into the bed, dick still hard as he crawled onto the matress with you. “How about we do this…” he sounded breathless, laying on his side and guiding you to do the same. You knew what he wanted, swollen lips parting as you sighed, settling with your back just barely touching his front.

You let Suguru grab one leg, lifting it up slowly to create enough space for himself. “Lazy boy…” You teased over your shoulder, letting his arm hook under your neck, large hand resting on your chest. “Maybe I am, but you fucking love it.” You couldn’t complain, not when he was angling his hips and pressing the weeping tip of his cock at your entrance. He pressed into you, adjusting both of your bodies until he found a comfortable position to properly rut his hips into you. All you could do is let him, whining loudly as he split you open, stuffing you full. “How’s that, hmm? Does it feel good?” Suguru whispered against your ear, panting as your walls constricted around him and tried to push him out at the very same time. “F-feels so good…so good…” You whined loudly.

Suguru didn’t give you a verbal response after that, instead focusing all of his attention on finding a good rhythm to fuck you too. You couldn’t stop the noises that spilled past your lips, each drag of his cock in and out of your heat was enough to make your vision blurry. It took everything in you to at least keep your head up, tilted downwards to watch where he disappeared and reappeared between your legs. “Suguru…” a breathless plea, one that turned into a steady mantra as all you could think about was him and what he was doing to you. Had you not been so overwhelmed you would have heard his quiet grunts of praise each time your bodies connected.

Suguru watched a shaky hand slide down your front, in your whimpering daze you managed to slip two fingers down there to rub sloppy circles on your clit. “Gonna cum, aren’t ya?” Suguru gasped, his cock twitching violently as your cunt suctioned to him, nearly making his thrusts falter. “Y-yeah…” you managed to get out, no longer having the strength to keep your head up. You let it fall, resting snuggly in the crook of the arm he was using to support you. “Then come for me, pretty girl. I wanna feel you come all over my cock… then maybe I’ll fill you up, yeah? You’d love that…” you responded with a loud whine, walls fluttering around his length each time he pushed it back in.

“There we go, come for me.” He encouraged again, warm breath ghosting the shell of your ear and earning a shiver in response. You could feel it, the aching build of a damn that was on the verge of breaking, every breath you made was nothing but a labored pant. Your heart was beating erratically, just as you were about to fall over the edge, Suguru gasped. You couldn’t help but gasp with him, his release pumping into you, hot and sticky. “F-fuck sorry…” he grounded out, his own orgasm sneaking up on him and completely catching you by surprise. Not that it mattered to you, that strained and embarrassed apology was all you needed before you felt yourself coming as well.

You both essentially collapsed, Suguru holding you tightly as he angled himself to remain inside of you, to keep his cum inside of you. “You okay?” he mumbled softly, hand lazily reaching for the one you had used to rub your clit and bring it to your lips. You whined as he popped the shiny fingers in his mouth, cleaning them with his tongue. “Yeah, I'm good…great really.” You chuckled, eyelids feeling heavy as he hummed. “Good.” he mumbled softly, pulling your fingers from his mouth to kiss them gingerly. “You know I love you, right?” Suguru’s voice was tender, so tender it nearly pulled the air out of your lungs. “Yeah, of course I know that Sugu… you know I love you too, right?”

“I know.” was all he said in reply, you had to wonder why he was suddenly so sentimental. Suguru was typically softer with you after sex, aftercare was one of his specialties. But something about his tone felt different, something about his question felt like there was more meaning behind it. You had been noticing the bags under his eyes for the last few weeks, but every time you asked he always brushed you off. “Is everything okay?” you tried to turn your head to look back at him, but the angle he had you in proved to make movement difficult. “Mmhmm, just want to make sure you’re okay.” but he hadn’t been that rough with you. “Yeah, I’m okay… but you haven’t answered me.” He stopped kissing your hand, setting it down gently as he moved to kiss your shoulder.

“I haven’t?”

“I asked you if you were okay.”

“Well, I did answer you. I said yes.” he didn’t sound offended, more or less he sounded amused. “Mmhmm isn’t a yes, Suguru.” You, on the other hand, sounded a little less enthused. “I’m okay, baby. Is that better.” you couldn’t see it but you could hear the smile on his lips. “Yeah, that’s better.” But for some reason, you couldn’t shake the worry clinging to your heart.

“Hey… hey…” you woke with a gasp, eyes wet as you tried to remember where you were. “You okay? You started crying in your sleep again.” A worried but groggy voice was speaking to you, one that was familiar but your brain couldn’t seem to catch up. “Y/N? It’s me, it’s Satoru.” There it was, you nearly fell back into the pillow with relief as he spoke. “Shit I’m sorry… I was dreaming and it just… fuck it felt so real. I couldn’t remember where I was…” you wiped your eyes, slowly adjusting to the dark room again. “It’s okay… you’ve been dreaming a lot.” Satoru sighed, he remembered you saying that your nights had been pretty dreamless for the last three weeks so why was that changing now?

“I know… it just started happening too. Maybe it's because of the baby.”

Your hand lowered to your stomach, palm resting flatley against it. You still couldn’t process the fact that there was something in there, something that was growing, a mix of you and him. “Can pregnancy make you dream more?” Satoru chuckled, blue eyes shifting to read his alarm clock. It was just past four in the morning. You had slept pretty well until a few minutes ago. He had been watching you, woken up by your body growing restless. He woke you up the moment he heard you start to sniffle. “I dunno, maybe.” you sighed, eyes feeling heavy again. “Sorry for waking you, Toru.” You didn’t hear the way his breath hitched, your yawn effectively shutting it all out.

You hadn’t called him by that nickname in weeks, he hadn’t really realized how much he missed it. “Don’t apologize, I told you to stop that.” Not stern, just tired, he wanted you to go back to normal but he knew that was impossible. Things would never go back to how they were. “Oh, yeah… I guess you have told me that.” You chuckle, turning on your side to face him in the dark. “I won’t apologize for forgetting this time, okay?” You grinned, eyes closing and unaware that he was able to see it in the dark. “Okay.” He sighed, a grin creeping up his own face as he let his eyes shut again. Hopefully you’d sleep through to his alarm at 8:30am, you had a busy day ahead.

~END OF PART ONE~

Thank you for reading! I hope you look forward to part 2 <3333

Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated ;3

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angel-eyes05 · 11 months

Text

to leave the warmest bed i've ever known

pairing: spiderwoman!reader x miguel o’hara

summary: after miguel’s fight with miles, you confront him in his office

warnings: this whole thing is basically one big argument there’s SO much angst, implied suicide attempt, HUGE ATSV SPOILERS DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS MOVIE, im projecting a little in some parts of this ngl (i cried writing a certain section of this, you'll know it when you read it lmao), mentions and descriptions of blood, gore, and death

word count: 4.1k

notes: i watched the movie yesterday…and miguel is on my mind. but i remember reading this namor x reader fanfic after i watched wakanda forever of a similar idea to this and i loved it so this is HEAVILY inspired by that fic, but just make it miguel. i would link it but ngl that was so long ago and i dont remember the author. if i end up finding it again ill put it here. also, just pretend miguel has been doing this whole spider society thing for a couple of years at least, it just needs to work like that for this ik its probably not canon but just roll with it lmao. and yes the title is a taylor swift lyric im so glad you noticed (im so sorry she's in my brain rn with the eras tour)

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The anger boiled up inside your chest as you stormed your way across the lobby. Hundreds of different Spider-Man variants were scattered across the area, some more injured than the others. It sickened you sometimes. How he had so many people under his grasp and just decided to throw some of them at the walls sometimes, not caring how hard they hit the floor because they were all just ammo to him. How despite his denials of it, that’s probably what your role was to him as well. Nothing more than a bullet in his massive machine gun.

You normally tried not to think about it, how his determination towards his goal sometimes meant lack of care for others. But this time he had just gone too far. You always had a soft spot for Miles, watching closely on him whenever Miguel would let you go though scanners of all the different variants. You admired his struggle, but eventual success to taking up the previous Peter’s mantle, and always hated how Miguel talked about him. You knew there was no way Miles could’ve asked for any of this. For the pressures and struggles of being a Spider-Man, for everything causing such a strained relationship with his parents, for the death of his uncle, and for what will be the eventual death of his father. You definitely didn’t.

Ok lets do this one last time. Eh, whatever, there’s probably gonna be 50 other introductions after this one so it doesn’t really matter.

Being Earth-837’s Spider-Man has never been easy. Especially since you were bit when you were only 13 (another reason you sympathized with Miles and Gwen). Your life had followed the order of canon events to a perfect T, your older brother killed in a fight with a robber only two months after you were bit. You tried to overcome the burden of your powers by trying to live as normal of a teenage life as possible, but it was mostly in vain, having to give up multiple friendships and relationships in fear of those you love getting hurt. This was only elevated when your boyfriend Peter was murdered in the crossfire of an encounter with Doc Ock. You didn’t understand. You couldn’t. What you had done to deserve all of this. All you did was just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You wonder sometimes what would happen if someone was in the same place you were when you got bit. If someone else went to the closed down area of that museum and ran into that spider. That stupid spider that ruined your life. Those thoughts slowly started to disappear for a bit. For a few years things were easy. Things seemed like they were finally going in your favor.

You were 25 when it happened. The last canon event. Ever since you were a little girl you hated your mother’s job. Losing nights of sleep over if she would come home or not. She always did though. She was good at her job. Too good though. Good enough to get promoted to police captain, which for who you were, was basically sealing her fate. She saved so many people that day. You were too busy fighting Venom to notice how much collateral damage you were causing in the process. Your mother’s job was to evacuate all the citizens away from the fight. She died shielding a child from incoming debris. A noble way to go. But god was it gruesome. You found her after the fight was over, two metal poles impaling her. One through her stomach and one straight through her face, pools of blood growing bigger below her as she was left there, all the paramedics busy trying to save the heavily injured. You froze when you finally recognized her, unable to at first due to how mutilated her face was from the pole. Suddenly, you were transported back to being a six year old, falling asleep outside the door to your mother’s bedroom so you would know exactly when she would come home. Purposefully falling asleep in her arms so that she couldn’t go anywhere.

When you used the key she had given you to get into her apartment that night, and you slept in her room, desperate to intake anything left of her before she was fully gone. You doused yourself in her perfume so it still felt like she was standing right behind you. You had always loved her smell. The smell of vanilla, curl product, and fancy perfume. They were attached to memories you had of her. Trying on her heels when you were a kid to try and be fancy like her. Smelling her hair in the morning before school to comfort you before she left for work. Despite all of this bringing you comfort, all it really did was cause further denial in your heart. That one day you were gonna hear the keys clacking in the keyhole to your apartment one more time. That’s all you really wanted. You would give everything up in a heartbeat just to hear her police scanner go off one last time. But it wasn’t going to. And it was your fault. Deep down you knew it was. You should’ve done a better job controlling the debris. You had always been a messy fighter, but you didn’t know it was going to mean anything until it was too late.

How you got up to the top of that building is still a blur to you to this day. But next thing you know, you were looking at the New York City skyline from the very top of the Empire State Building. And at the very edge too. You heard some sounds behind you, but you just decided it was the wind howling from how high up you were. You were just so tired. Everything and everyone you loved was cursed all because of you. And with your mother as the most recent victim, you decided you finally had enough. You took a deep breath, eyes overflowed with water, as you set your foot forward.

Your plummet was interrupted by a sudden contact you felt to your forearm. Shock filled your body as you turned around to look at what had stopped your attempt. The blue hand was massive, nearly wrapping back around onto itself as it held onto you for dear life. You finally looked up at face that the hand belonged to. The mask that covered the massive figure was a strange one. Blue with strange red silhouettes for the eyes. It kind of reminded you of…your own costume? That couldn’t be though there was no way. This must be the afterlife or something. You already jumped and that's why you didn’t remember your way up to the top. This was some kind of creature trying to stop you from jumping down to hell below. His breaths were heavy and loud, almost like he was desperate to stop you. This convinced you that this was real, which caused you to try to escape from his grip. He was stronger than you, and was putting up a huge fight. You were slick though. Once you were out of his hand, you closed your eyes and quickly made your jump. Everything flashed before your eyes. Your brother, Peter, your mom. You were hoping to see them soon. This was very quickly interrupted again when you suddenly stopped falling. Something had attached itself to your stomach. You opened your eyes. A web? This web was much different than yours though. It was glowing a bright, neon orange.

The man was holding onto the end of it tightly with both hands. His mask then disappeared to show his face. His was long, matching how big the rest of his body was, defined cheek bones sticking out. Brown wavy hair slicked back with a few loose strands flying out in the wind. The look of desperation on his face stook out most of all. Why did he care so much? He didn’t know you, and you definitely didn’t know him. “Let me pull you up. Please,” he said to you between shaky pants. You stared at him for a bit before nodding. He slowly pulled you up with the string of his web, each move more careful than the last. As soon as your feet were planted safely back on the roof of the building, he wrapped you up in his massive arms. You appreciated the gesture, but you didn’t return it, still very confused about why he was so concerned. He was so big around your body though, you couldn’t help but feel a little comforted, feeling his still shaky breaths against the hairs of your neck. Soon after, he clicked on some buttons on his neon orange watch and led you into a portal.

The rest is history. You’re grateful he found you that day. It allowed you to meet so many people, Peter B., Jess, Gwen, Hobie, Ben, Pavitr, Margo. They all related to you and you felt like you could share things with them that you couldn’t do with anyone else. You had grown especially close to Peter and Jess, both of them having been in the game for a long time, just like you. They both knew how you felt, having lost so much and growing so tired after so many years. Peter even named you as Mayday’s godmother when she was born, a gesture that caused you to nearly kill him with your hug. Miguel though was different. He wasn’t nearly as social as the rest of your friends, but you found yourself having much more intimate moments with him (in more ways then one). You eventually found out why Miguel was so concerned for you the day you met. He had taken interest in your abilities early into looking for variants for his little “project”, but refrained from roping you into something so dangerous while you were still in your teens.

Once you were old enough though, he started paying more and more attention, hoping to catch you in a fight and recruit you then. But he was always pulled away with more important duties to attend to. That was until he witnessed your canon event. He had seen it happen so many times before through his scanners. It was going to happen. It had to in order for your universe to not collapse in on itself. But for some reason, yours hurt more than the rest to him. Especially how you coped with it. Seeing you wrap yourself up in her blankets and clothes broke his heart. He knew where this would lead to. That’s why he was there that day. To save you. He had to, or he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. You got your own watch immediately, along with your own room in the Spider Society headquarters. He stayed close with you for the first month of you being a member of the team. When he wasn’t out on missions, he was with you. You didn’t really know what to label you two as, but whatever was going on, you liked it. And he did too.

That is until Miles came into the picture. Once Miles was bit, all hell broke loose for Miguel. He was always in some alternate dimension catching some Spider-Man villain who got out and rangled them back over here, falling back over to you more beat up and bruised than the last time. You couldn’t imagine how much stress he was under, the fate of the entire multiverse up to him. You had some ways of helping him relieve his stress, but you wish you could convince him that he wasn’t alone in this. But nothing ever got through to him. He had become distant, aloof even. You tried bringing it up to Jess every so often, but she would just brush it off.

“That’s how he’s always been.” Not to you he hasn’t. This week has been hell though. With Spot making it over to Miles, Miguel had been going into rages all week. You had put up with it for now, but that was all about to stop. Watching how harsh he was being on Miles, throwing so many Spider-Men at an innocent boy, risking all of their lives in the process. Disregarding everything Gwen and Peter were feeling and then throwing Gwen back into her broken world with nothing. He had gone too far. No one else was going to stand up to him about it, so you knew it had to be you. Maybe he would listen, maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t really matter. He just needed to hear it.

“It’s not worth it you know.” The voice snapped you out of your thoughts, stopping you in your tracks. “You know how stubborn he gets over these things,” said Jess, trying to convince you to save your breath. “I don’t care. I have to at least try,” you responded, monotonically. “I just don’t understand how you can follow him so blindly and not see what he’s doing is wrong.” “Because he isn’t wrong. I don’t know about you, but I’m not just gonna stand by and let some kid’s stupid decisions destroy another Earth,” Jess argued. “He’s just trying to save his dad, I can’t understand how that makes him such a bad person,” you said, finally turning around to face her, shocked when she was closer to you than expected.

“You know exactly why. Don’t be so naive, y/n,” she shot back. “You can’t stop me,” you said staring straight into her. She shrugged. “Then I can’t help you.” She began to walk away. You did to, until you heard her say. “You don’t know how much he cares for you.” You turned around to face her again, but her back was still to you, her head tilted ever so slightly to look at you. “If you really do care for the kid, watch what you say to Miguel right now. Cause you might just give him the final push he needs to do what needs to be done.” You didn’t give her a response, and just simply kept walking. You felt Jess’ eyes on your back as you entered the elevator to get up to Miguel’s office.

The elevator ride up felt longer than it should’ve, as you tried to gather all of your thoughts and emotions together so even if he didn’t listen, your words would still stick with him in some way. You didn’t necessarily want to hurt him (though your fists were telling you otherwise), but you did want him to be aware of what he’s done. Once the doors finally opened, all of that work flew out the window as rage took over your body again, seeing Miguel up there looking at the scanners. The fact that he looked just as normal as he always does made you furious. It’s like nothing happened.

“You know, I could hear you coming in from the lobby,” he said, almost stopping you in your tracks. You hated when he did that. Claiming that he knew what your every move was going to be. Like you were under his control or something. “Yeah, well then you must’ve heard me talking to Jess, which means you know exactly what this is about,” you shot back, stopping to where you could see him perched up there. “Why don’t you just save me the conversation about morality and just come up here and kick my ass already. It’ll save both of us time,” he said, not even taking his eyes off the scanners to look down at you. This only added to your fury. “That’s not what I’m here for Miguel, so don’t you dare try to twist my words here. What you did to that kid was fucked up and you know it.” “Oh yeah, then why didn’t you try to do anything to stop me?” he questioned.

“Because I’m not stupid Miguel. I’m not gonna try to take down hundreds of Spider-Men at once.” “Oh, cause you’re so much better than that?” This wasn’t like him at all. That gentle, kind, and caring Miguel you once knew was gone, taken over by some sort of personal vendetta he had against Miles. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but this all needs to stop before it gets taken too far. You’re getting into a fight you can’t win. That kid’s strong and so are his allies. And if you go any further into this, I won’t be here to help you.” He stayed still and only turned his head to look at you. “And what makes you think that you’re so important to my plan that it’ll fall apart if you leave? Have you really become that pretentious?”

Your body froze. Have I really? No no no, that’s exactly what he wants. If you begin to doubt yourself now, you’ll stay and nothing will change. You knew you were right. He was trying to crumble you down, but you wouldn’t let that happen. “And you really think that one kid is going to ruin something that you’ve been working for for years? How insecure you’ve become.” “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, turning back away from you. You did the same, wiping off your face in anger. “I hate it when you do tha-,” you said as you turned back around, but were cut off to find Miguel standing there right in front of you. He was close. Too close to your liking, although in any other circumstance you would’ve found this attractive.

He tilted his head up, but his eyes were down staring daggers into yours. You hated how much he tried to make himself seem more superior to you. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he repeated, this time slower as if you were a child. “He’s just a kid Miguel,” you said in a low, quiet voice. “An anomaly. And a dangerous one at that.” “God Miguel, all he wants to do is protect his dad, do you know how insane you sound right now?” you said letting out a slight laugh when you finished. You backed away from him a little. “He doesn’t know how much damage he’ll do with this. Saving his father will only prolong the inevitable. His world will be gone within hours if he does this. All I’m trying to do is make him understand,” he tried to explain. “By trying to kill him.” “You always have to exaggerate the situation,” he said palming his face. “But that’s essentially what you’re trying to do isn’t it? Why not snuff out the problem entirely by taking him out!”

He signed and began to walk away while you were talking, bringing up your anger even more. “Yeah, use all the power you’ve accumulated over the years and just take out the small problem! Except this isn’t just a fly on the wall Miguel. This is a child! An innocent boy who didn’t ask for any of this to happen to him, just like how we didn’t. I get it, I’m sorry that this job is stressful, I really am. But that gives you zero right to act the way you are!” You were screaming at him at this point. You didn’t want to. You didn’t want your emotions to get the best of you. But he was being too stubborn. This was the only way you thought you could get to him. You might not have wanted to, but you needed to hurt him now. It was the only way.

“You can’t be so power blind that you refused to accept the fact that there could be a way around Captain Davis’ death. You said we saved Earth’s before, I’m sure we could do it again.” Your anger only kept rising when he kept walking away and didn’t respond. “This is a personal thing isn’t it?” you asked calmly. You knew it was working now when he stopped walking. “Yeah, it it. You won’t let Miles get his happy ending. Because why should he be pardoned of his burden while the rest of us have suffered so much. While you’ve suffered so much.” The answer to your question was confirmed when Miguel stayed silent. “Just because you didn’t get the life you wanted Miguel, doesn’t mean you have the right to stop other people from getting theirs.”

You knew you overstepped the line when Miguel turned around and started walking towards you, fury burning in his crimson eyes. “Yeah, so what! What if that is what this is all about! You should know better than anyone how much this job takes away from you!” he screamed at you, backing you up into a wall. “Why should he get to be let off so easily, while people like you and me have to suffer so much? Don’t try to turn me into the villain here when I know you’re thinking the exact same thing, y/n.” He wasn’t entirely wrong. You had wondered it at some points. “I won’t let you turn this onto me Miguel, this is about you,” you fired back. “Oh no, you’re not getting off that easily. I know you’re thinking it. And you’re right. Why should Miles get let off so easily when you’ve lost so much.” He held your hands in his, trying to connect to you. “And you have mi vida. You’ve had so much taken from you and it’s unfair. Why should he only have lost one person when you’ve had three taken from you. Your brother, Peter, your moth-.”

He was cut off by your hand striking against his face in a harsh blow. “If you’re smart, and I know you are, you’ll keep those three out of them. I won’t let you drag their names through the dirt for something as stupid as this.” You both stood there for a while, both of your eyes looking towards the ground, hoping it would open up to swallow you both as an escape from this god awful conversation. You never wanted it to come to this. In all honesty, you cared for Miguel. You might’ve even loved him, if you were even capable of doing such a thing. You hoped he felt the same way about you, but in a job like this, he always had at least one wall up around you. It just wasn’t worth it anymore. You were too tired to keep trying for something that was most likely going to fall apart in the end.

“You’re still going after him aren’t you?” you asked, finally breaking the silence. Miguel looked back up at you. “You can’t ask me not to. You know better than anyone why this is so important to me.” He moved his hand up to cup your cheek and kissed your forehead gently. You let it sit there for a minute out of habit before pushing it off your face. “And you must know why I can’t stay anymore then.” His shoulders dropped. “Whatever this thing between us is. It’s over. I can’t stay beside someone who can’t see what he’s doing is wrong.” Miguel’s dropped hand turned into a fist of anger. “Fine,” he spat in your face. “I don’t need someone like you in my way. You’re just a liability to this anyways.” He began to walk away from you back to his scanners. “Just don’t come crying back over to me when your little plan doesn’t work out, cause I won’t help you.” He used his webs to pull himself back up to the platform to keep looking for Miles. You stood there for a second, gathering yourself.

Five years. Out the door just like that. It bewildered you how easily a bond like you two had could be broken all because of one teenager. You began to make your way for the door before you said. “When this is all over…don’t try to find me.” He didn’t respond. Once the elevator doors opened, you rushed inside, desperate to get away from him. So many thoughts rushed through your head as the doors closed and you sunk down back to the lobby to leave. You didn’t have much of a plan. This could end up being a horrible idea. Your gut told you it was the right thing to do though. And that was enough for you. You walked out of the headquarters lobby with a new heart and a new mind, ready to take action for your new plan.

First though, you had to find Gwen.

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a/n: god that took longer than it should've. dw dw i'll do a part 2 if enough people ask for one. im not 100% sure how im gonna do a part 2 cause yk....idk how beyond the spiderverse is gonna go so tbh, we're just gonna make it go the way i want lmao. thanks for reading, ik this was kind of a long one lmao

NEXT CHAPTER

#miguel o’hara #miguel o'hara x reader #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman 2099 #into the spider verse #spider-woman reader #across the spiderverse #fem!reader #fanfic #fanfiction #spiderman #spider man #spider man: across the spider verse #spiderverse

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dandelionprints · 7 months

Text

Don't Be Late

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Y/N (lil bit of fluff, angst, tormented Tommy and comfort)

Summary: When Tommy makes a promise to his wife he could never imagine that breaking it could potentially cost Y/N her life.

Warnings: bad language, a couple of slur words as used in the show *not words that I myself deem acceptable!*, a lot of violence, mentions of injuries, blood and death. Reader discretion is advised, do not read if you feel uncomfortable with this kind of content

Word Count: This is a long one coming in at 6,800k

A/N: It's been a while since I've written a full blown fic but I was on a roll so I just went with it! I hope you enjoy, please do like, reblog and/or comment your thoughts on it, I really appreciate the feedback x

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"It's been three days, Pol. Why won't she wake up?"

He leant forwards in his chair, a hand gently grasping Y/N's as she lay motionless on her hospital bed. Her body was battered with violent purple bruises and cuts covering what seemed to be every inch of her body.

The last three days had been hell, with a mixture of so many emotions running through him that he didn't know where to put and the not knowing. Worry, anger, sadness. Guilt. So much guilt, it consumed him.

Tommy wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to forgive himself for not being there to protect her. It could be said that it was a case of "wrong person, wrong time", but that did nothing to subside the sense of dread that filled his stomach whenever he thought about the brutality his wife had been through, all because of him. How scared she must have been on her own waiting for him to come and save her, but he came too late.

"Give her time, Tom. She's been through a lot, her body’s trying to heal, we can't rush these things. Besides, the doctor said this morning that the swelling and bleeding has started to go down so she is getting better. Slowly. We just have to be patient", Aunt Polly delicately placed her hand on his shoulder, softly stroking her thumb back and forth over the newly clean shirt.

Polly had brought a clean set of clothes to the hospital after seeing that Tommy was too terrifed to leave Y/N at the hospital alone for even a second, leaving him wearing blood soaked clothes for the first day. Y/N's blood.

"I should've been there Pol. None of this would've happened if I hadn't gotten too cocky and dragged John and Arthur down to London to Sabini's club. All this for a fucking business expansion"

He lowered his head and brought his free hand to his forehead, pinching at the sides as if to relieve some of the stress growing with tension there.

"Fuck!", he shouted before quickly covering his face with his hand.

Tommy could feel tears springing to his eyes as he glared down between the gaps in his fingers at the speckled hospital floor. He was so tired of crying in the presence of anyone that wasn't Y/N since the night this whole shit show happened, it made him feel weak knowing other people could see that in fact, yes, Tommy Shelby does have emotions. Y/N was the only one he'd been able to willingly show any kind of vulnerable emotion to since he'd returned from the war.

The sound of a lighter flicking open followed by the quick sizzle of a cigarette being lit came from behind him as Polly took a drag, before holding it within Tommy's line of vision.

"Here, take this".

He hesitated for a moment, making sure that no tears would fall, then slowly lifted his head and reached for the now softly glowing cigarette bringing it to his lips and taking a long pull, exhaling the smoke as if it were the stress partially releasing from his body.

Aunt Pol watched him carefully, almost as if she were waiting to see if he was going to explode like a ticking time bomb or finally let his shoulders relax and sink into the chair. She was thankful when he chose the latter, slowly leaning back against the wooden frame, still holding onto Y/N's hand.

"You should go back to the house, Tom. Get some rest. I'll stay with her until you come back", she spoke softly, her own eyes tired from the constant secret worrying she'd been doing as well as sitting with Tommy next to Y/N's bed the last three days.

"No. I won't leave her, Pol. I can't leave her, it's my fault she ended up like this, I can't risk them coming back or the risk of her...", he stopped his words in their tracks as a lump formed in his throat. The tears that had only just subsided now came back, threatening to spill over, "Of her dying. Alone. Without me here letting her know she's safe, that I'm sorry. So fucking sorry"

Polly's face grew empathetic as she saw the pain etched all over Tommy's, the vacant glassiness of his eyes that had only grown darker over the past few days.

"She's not going to die..."

"She might, Pol!", his anger exploded then, the ticking time bomb she'd been waiting for had finally gone off.

The chair scraped on the floor as he stood, letting go of Y/N's hand, before turning to face his aunt who remained seated, not taking her eyes off him.

"How can you be so sure that she's gonna live, eh? How can you be so sure that she's ever going to open her eyes again?"

There was less accusation in his words than it seemed, more like a plead for some kind of reassurance or promise that the love of his life would be okay, that she'd return to the real world again.

Polly stood, then, calm and collected.

"Because I know Y/N Shelby, and so do you. She's a tough girl, it'll take more than Sabini and the fuckers who did this to take her down. Now, go home and get some sleep. I'll stay here with her, give her a wash and read some of your poetry outloud. The nurses say she can still hear what's going on around her, that she may even end up dreaming of things that are being said so we'll be having no more talk of death. John said he'll take the next shift of watching the door so tell him when you get back to come here. You know he won't let those bastards go anywhere near her if they so much as step foot near the hospital"

Polly’s eyes remained on him like a mother scolding her child until they did what they were told. She knew that he was still reluctatant to leave Y/N's bedside but felt relief when he subtly nodded to her, stubbing out his cigarette and picking up his coat before leaning over Y/N to place a kiss on her head, being careful to avoid the purpling bruise that was forming there.

"I'll be back in two hours, Pol, then you can go home and get some sleep", he said simply, making his way over to the door.

"Not two, six. You need a proper sleep"

He narrowed his eyes at her without saying anything, his lips twitching as if ready to disagree with what his aunt had said.

"I'd say eight but I know you won't be able to stay away for that long. What good are you to her if your eyes can't even focus on what the gun is aiming at? Go. Get some sleep"

Three days earlier

They'd agreed that they would meet at 8pm later that evening, after Tommy finished up with business for the day, where the family car was stored in the garage near the Shelby family home.

"Don't keep me waiting too long", she giggled, stroking his face with the palm of her hand.

"Who says you'll be waiting?", he smiled, taking the hand that was on his cheek and bringing it to his mouth, placing a soft kiss to it.

The Garrison hadn't opened for the day yet but the Peaky Boys were starting to gather at the bar, getting in a pint before the days business was about to begin. John and Arthur were already trying to place a bet with Isaiah about who could down the most pints before blacking out with Arthur claiming it to be him.

"Eh, lads! No more drinking until business is finished for the day, and Arthur, I could place twenty pound on it being anyone but you who could drink the most", Tommy interrupted, leading to a cackle of ladish jeers.

Y/N laughed before getting Tommy's attention once again, this time placing a finger beneath his chin and gently pulling his face towards hers.

"I know you, Tommy Shelby. You like to be on time when it's for business but business is also what makes you late to see me"

He felt a pang of guilt hit his stomach at her words, he knew she was right. He'd lost count of how many times he'd come home to find her curled up in front of the fire in his office fast asleep. How many times he'd either carried her up to bed or simply placed a blanket over her while he continued working into the early hours of the morning.

"I promise, love. I'll be at the garage at 8pm sharp"

This time he leant forward and touched his lips to hers, taking in the sweet flavour of her lips that he loved so much.

"Go on, Pol will be waiting for you"

She paused, "Is it bad to say that I don't believe you?"

"I promise, Y/N"

She wanted to believe the sincerity in his eyes but a tiny part of her knew that she'd more than likely be kept waiting out in the cold while he finished up business for the day.

"Okay", she half smiled, "I love you, Mr. Shelby"

Tommy kissed her then, brushing a strand of hair that had fallen across her face behind her ear.

"I love you too, Mrs. Shelby"

---

It was already dark by the time she'd made her way to their meeting point with only the glow from a firepit in the workshop opposite as the main source of light, rain flooding down onto the pavement outside in typical autumnal British fashion creating the sound of pattering on the old tin roof of the garage.

Y/N sighed as she leant against the black Ford Model T, taking a look at her watch. 8:03pm.

'Well, it's only three minutes late, let's see if he's here before four minutes late', she thought to herself.

There wasn't much to see in the garage other than old petrol can's and some oiled rags that had been dropped lazily on the floor, not that she could see much anyway with only the fire for her source. In fact, it only stretched as far as half the length of the garage, where unbenownsed to her there were men that were lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting victim.

"Get 'em!"

The sound of a thick London Italian accent echoed through the cold rickety room and all Y/N could think to do was to cower against the car, waiting to be manhandled in some kind of way, the panic instantly settling into her chest.

It was obvious that the men who now had their fists blowing punches to her face didn't have a clue it was in fact a woman they were beating and not a man, probably due to the fact the fire was doing little to show that she'd wrapped her scarf over her head to stop the rain from ruining her curls. They didn't realise until she mustered enough strength through the continuous punches to let out the loudest scream she could.

It was only then that the men took a step back as the same voice from before bellowed out, "Stop!"

She held her hands up to her face and felt a slick warm liquid quickly covering them, the skin beneath it sore to the touch. Her left eye was blurry from the mixture of what she could only assume to be blood and swelling, but she could just about make out the silhoutte of a slim man with a hat standing near the wall.

The adrenaline was already kicking in helping to keep some of the pain from showing it's full potential, but her fight or flight hadn't seemed to of made an appearance yet. All she could do was stand there, frozen to the spot, her hands still holding her bloodied face.

"You must be Tommy Shelby's missus", spoke the man with the hat, taking a step forward confirming in the dim light that it was who she'd feared it would be. Sabini.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?", he smirked, leering towards her only inches from her face, "Apologies for the misunderstanding, we thought you were Mr. Shelby"

Her heart dropped into her stomach at the thought that this beating was meant for Tommy, that she knew they intended to do more than land a few punches to his face. She spat at the ground infront of Sabini's feet.

"You're lucky it was me and not Tommy, he'd have your eyes the minute you laid your hands on him", she was surprised by how even she managed to keep her voice despite the sheer panic coursing through her.

Y/N knew it was a lie, that Tommy would be far too outnumbered to take on five of Sabini's men on his own especially without being able to see much.

Sabini laughed, throwing his head back slightly before stopping abruptly and grabbing onto each of her arms.

"You listen here you little princess, I don't think you quite understand the extent of how pissed off I am at your fella. You see, him and his brothers came to my club in London two nights ago. The Eden Club. A well run establishment, I'm sure you've heard of it. Anyway, they caused such a fucking scene that I've had to take matters into my own hands. I was planning on getting to Tommy, show him how scared he should really be about barging into one of my clubs, but it seems I may now have an even better way of sending that message".

Even with the light uneven across his features she could see a sly snarl creep onto Sabini's face, his breath fanning against her skin as he spoke. It was enough to make her want to wretch.

"Right boys, forget about Tommy. I want you to do what you were going to do to Tommy to her"

Her heart flew straight into her throat, threatening to jump out of her mouth at any moment. She wanted to throw up but the best thing she could do now would be to gain as much attention to passers by as she could. She screamed again only to have her mouth covered by Sabini as two men took over the hold on her arms.

"Listen here you little bitch, whether you like it or not, you're getting a beating. If Tommy's not man enough to face me himself and resorts to showing up to one of my clubs instead then this is what happens, someones pretty little face gets smashed in"

"You're a fucking creep! Tommy will be here any minute and I'm sure his brothers will be with him too, you won't know what fucking hit you!", she spat, the venom spewing from her mouth.

Sabini wasted no time in landing a hard slap against her already throbbing cheek making her splutter out whatever saliva she had left. He didn't leave it there though as his gripped both hands around her throat, squeezing as tight as he could.

"We'll be glad to see Tommy and his brothers, we can have a nice little catch up. Those boys couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery no matter how hard they tried so I'm not too worried. Carry on boys"

He let go of her throat leading her to gasp for air, her lungs felt like they were on fire with every harsh breath.

She didn't even have time to brace herself from the punch that was swiftly administered to her stomach, knocking out every bit of air she had managed to gain back, bringing her to the ground with a hard thump. Her head bounced off the ground sending a shockwave of pain running over her skull and down her neck.

The punches were now followed by the kicks of steel toe capped boots, each kick more painful than the last until she almost felt numb. Where the fuck is Tommy?

She wanted nothing more than to scream out for him, to hear him running towards the men with bullets flying, ready to put an end to this nightmare, but all she could do was sob as the pain coursed through her.

"Boys, hold her up", Sabini's voice cut through the sound of the thumps and thuds, his voice menacing laced with a sneer.

Two men gripped Y/N's arms and yanked her back onto her feet, knees buckling beneath her with one of her ankles too weak to bare any weight. She was pretty sure she had some broken ribs and that her ankle was much the same way but she knew there was nothing she could do about it now. The only thing she could do was let her head loll forwards with sheer exhaustion.

It was hard to keep her eyes open as her head was pulled up by a harsh grab of her hair, weakness taking over her entire body.

"Look at me. I said look at me!"

Another firm yank of the hair had her gaze just about managing to focus on Sabini, his eyes showing a glint of evil.

"I want you to tell your dirty gypsy husband that I'm coming for him next, if he wants to take over my race tracks then he's gonna have to fight for it"

"You're a fucking pig Sabini", her voice was hoarse as she spoke, her head longing to fall fowards again and let her eyes shut.

"Take my fucking name out of your mouth! 'Ere, Franco, take my name out of this scum's mouth"

She wasn't prepared for what came next as a blade was forced inside her mouth, her cheeks slowly being cut as well as a part of her lip. The taste of the metallic blood filled every tastebud, the only noise she was able to make were muffled groans as the cold metal sliced roughly through her skin.

Her body suddenly dropped to the floor once more, the sound of the mens foot steps starting to fade as they made their way towards the back of the garage and through a hole in the wooden panelling.

"Don't forget to give your husband my message, if you survive that is", Sabini's spoke, a chuckle following him as he finally left her and made his way out the same way as the other men.

She had no energy to even cry any more, a numbness enveloping her body and the blood still slowly seeping out of every cut she'd sustained.

She couldn't focus on anything now, the need for sleep becoming too great to keep her eyes open. She didn't even hear Tommy's footsteps quickly approaching the garage a minute later where she lay in a pool of her own blood. All she could do was let her eyelids drop as she slipped into darkness.

—

"Y/N! Oh fuck, Y/N!"

His cries bellowed through the bleak surroundings, the only movement to be seen was the flicker of the flames from the fire in his peripheral.

“John! Arthur! Where the fuck are you?”, he screamed into the night before turning his attention back to Y/N.

"C'mon Y/N you need to wake up now, c'mon sweetheart", his desperate pleas did nothing as he cradled her head, her blood soaking into his trousers. He could see her chest rising and falling but knew that it was getting slower and slower with every moment that passed by.

It'd only been a minute or so since he'd gotten there but he could've sworn it'd been more like an hour, his heart thumping so hard that he thought it would surely pop out of his chest.

"John! Arthur!"

Tears were streaming down his face, dripping onto Y/N's blood soaked cheeks, leaving streaks running through the red liquid.

He knew his brothers were meant to be on their way with the promise of a bed at Arrow House for the night. He just hoped that they would be sober enough to help deal with the chaos that was going on.

There was so much blood that he didn't know what to do. Sure, he could leave Y/N and go get help himself, but he didn't want to leave her alone for even a second. He'd already let her down once this evening and he'd be damned if he was going to let her die here alone on the cold stone floor, or have the people who did this to her come back and finish off the job.

John and Arthur came stumbling through the open door of the garage, an arm wrapped over each others shoulders as they laughed about how many women they'd managed to pull that night. As soon as they saw the scene in front of them though, the laughing soon stopped and they both straightened up, their eyes almost not wanting to look at the state before them.

"Who the fuck did this, Tommy? Where the fuck are they? I'll fuckin’ get 'em Tom I fuckin’ promise you, those bastards won't get away with this!" John's hands had grown into fists with his knuckles turning white, the anger twisting his face into pure hatred.

"It doesn't matter right now, John. Just go and get help, call a fucking ambulance!", Tommy looked to Arthur whose expression had turned more into terror than anything else, "Arthur, I need you to get Pol, tell her Y/N's hurt, badly. Tell her I need her here, I need... just get her Arthur, now"

It took a second longer than Tommy would've liked but both brothers soon turned and ran out towards the Shelby family home, their legs wobbling beneath them as they went.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I'm so fucking sorry", Tommy sobbed as he gently stroked her face, pulling her in closer to him. His mind was racing with all the questions he was dying to know the answer to.

He knew he should be worrying about who it was that had done this to her but he was pretty sure he knew the answer to that already, and he wasn't about to waste what time he might have left with his wife thinking about that. No. All that mattered right now was that Y/N was going to live, that her eyes would open and she'd look up at him with that brilliant smile he loved so much to tell him that she was okay, that she was going to survive this.

Flashing lights appeared outside whilst Tommy had his head rested on Y/N's, whispering over and over again how sorry he was and how much he loved her. The pain he felt was all consuming and he knew he'd give anything to be in her position right now, just like it should have been.

Even when the medics came to retrive Y/N he couldn't bare to let her go, he insisted on carrying her into the back of the ambulance and holding her all the way to the hospital. They knew better than to argue with the Shelby man but managed to convince him to allow for her vitals to be monitored on the journey there, her pulse rate rapidly declining.

Polly hadn't arrived at the garage quick enough so Arthur had driven both Polly and John to the hospital at speed, swerving all over the road as they went, the tires slipping on the slick ground beneath them.

When they finally got there they saw Tommy disappearing through the double doors with Y/N still in his arms, a trail of blood on the floor behind him. This was going to be a long night.

—

The doctors had managed to get her heart rate back up to a reasonable pace by the time she was settled into a private hospital room. Fluids were being administered consistently alongside different medicines flowing through the tubes, her wounds now dressed with bandages and a thin blanket covering her black and blue body.

"Mr. Shelby, your wife has been through a terrible ordeal, it's a miracle she's still alive", a tall man with slicked blonde hair and glasses spoke, a clipboard and pen in his hands.

"When will she wake up?", Tommy tried to shake off his annoyance at the doctors statement of the obvious, of course this was a fucking terrible ordeal! Anyone with eyes could see that. He just wanted the facts that mattered most.

"Mr. Shelby, as I said, your wife has been through a terrible ordeal..."

Tommy grimaced, "I fucking know she has, don't you think I can see what's right in front of me? That and the fact I found my wife lying in a pool of her own blood half dead? Just tell me, when will she wake up?"

He was growing tired of not having answers to the main question he had and knew he wouldn't be able to relax until he had a definitive answer.

"The honest answer Mr. Shelby is that we don't know. To be blunt we're not sure if she's going to"

Tommy's heart dropped into his stomach.

"As you know, she's been through...", the doctor paused, not wanting to use the term 'terrible ordeal' again, "A lot. We've taken some images of her brain and we can see that she has some bleeding and swelling. We're not sure that she can recover from something like that, we can only hope that she will. Her injuries are severe, Mr. Shelby. As well as the damage to the brain she also has some internal bleeding, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, brusing to the esophagus, cuts to the inside of her mouth and a broken ankle. We're doing everything we can to ensure that she'll recover from this but it will take time. I'm sorry"

A ringing sounded in Tommy's ears, a noise so defeaning that he couldn't focus on anything right now other than the fact Y/N might not make it through this. His chest tightened and he found himself struggling to breathe, the sheer weight of the words he'd just heard sitting heavy on his chest.

"Are you okay, Mr. Shelby?"

"Leave. Now, please. Leave!"

The doctor wasted no time in carrying out Tommy's order as he scurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Tommy fell to the floor, his knee's weak and unable to hold him upright. He clutched his chest as he gasped for the air that seemed to have become so thin in the room. Tears that had gathered in his eyes began to fall and there was nothing more he could do than kneel there on the cold floor as his world came crashing down around him.

If he'd of been there at the time they'd agreed then this wouldn't have happened, not to Y/N anyway. It would be him laying in the hospital bed in front of him instead of her, or he'd be laying in a ditch somewhere ready for some poor passerby to find when dawn came.

He knew for a fact that the guilt that was growing in strength would never leave him even if she did make it out of this, that he'd always blame himself for not being on time.

A small knock on the door brought him shakily back up onto his feet again as he gripped onto the frame of the bed. Tommy managed to wipe away his tears just in time for Polly, John and Arthur to walk into the room.

He couldn't look at them, only at Y/N laying in the bed. Her lifeless body was slightly sinking into the mattress beneath her, a mess of hair covered in congealed blood surrounded her head.

"Is she going to be okay, Tom?", John's voice quietly cut through the silence like a knife.

Tommy took a moment before letting out a sigh, the lump in his throat wanting to escape and cause tears to come flooding out.

"I don't know. The doctor said that she's got bleeding and swelling on the brain amongst other things. They don't know if she's going to wake up".

The room stayed silent with no one wanting to say a word, both for fear of upsetting Tommy further and also because what else was there to say? There was nothing any of them could do to make the situation better or to make light of any of this.

Tommy took a seat next to Y/N's bed side and held her fragile hand, longing for her to wrap her fingers around his, but of course she didn't. Even that alone was enough to make his heart break.

"John. I need you to arrange for the blinders to be on a rotation of a look out. I don't want anybody coming in or out this hospital without us knowing about it. Arthur, take Isaiah and a couple of the blinders with you to London, I need you to find Sabini", Tommy spoke plainly, not taking his eyes off of Y/N.

"Yes, Tom", Arthur nodded, motioning for John to follow his lead out of the room.

"Oh, and Arthur? When you find him", Tommy turned to look at him now, his eyes cold but somehow a fire lit in them, "Bring him to me. Alive"

—

Three days later

As expected, Tommy arrived back at the hospital within four hours instead of the six Aunt Polly had ordered.

He couldn't sleep. Every time he'd managed to drift off he was soon awoken by nightmares of Y/N's screams as she was repeatedly kicked and punched, the sound each one of the blows made making his stomach churn. He could see her body laying there in a pool of blood with sobs wracking her chest... her calling out his name and him not being able to reach her even though he could see everything that was happening.

Tommy woke up in a cold sweat, his clothes soaked right through and his hair wet. He decided he was better off admitting defeat than to try going back to sleep, the thought of having to see those images of Y/N whenever he closed his eyes was enough to make his blood run cold.

His childhood home was quiet when he made his way downstairs. Ada had taken Finn to Arrow House under her watchful eye with Karl, it was better to be in a house that was stocked with firearms than back in London with nothing but a single pistol and where Sabini could be lurking in the shadows.

John had gone to the hospital to take the next watch and Arthur was somewhere in London seeking out Sabini and his lackeys, waiting to hand him a blow that would make the Italian man wish he'd never come to Birmingham.

Tommy decided on having a bath before putting on clean clothes, taking a look in the mirror before he left. His complexion had almost drained of colour over the past three days with the exception of the dark circles that appeared under his eyes, much darker than usual.

"God I hope she wakes up soon", he muttered to himself, adorning his peaky cap and reaching for the door handle before stepping out onto the bustling streets of Birmingham, lighting a smoke as he made his way to the hospital.

When he walked through the doors of Y/N's room he noticed something different. Aunt Polly was no longer sitting there with sadness in her eyes, instead she was stood next to the bed holding Y/N's hand, a small smile upon her face.

His eyebrows furrowed with confusion and his pace slowed as he approached her.

"What's happened?" he asked, nervous energy rushing through him.

"She moved, Tom. All on her own, she moved!"

Polly was beaming now, fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she had to resist the urge to hug him.

"What do you mean she moved?"

"I mean, I was reading her one of your poems and holding her hand. Her fingers started to move as if she was trying to tell me she could hear me. She's still in there Tommy"

His heart swelled in his chest although he didn't want to get his hopes up too much, there was nothing worse that breaking your own heart with false hope.

"It might've just been the nerves jumping, Pol. She probably doesnt have control of her body right now", he knew he sounded like dismissive bastard but he couldn't bring himself to believe that Y/N could do that but not open her eyes.

"Stop being so bloody negative Thomas. I'm telling you exactly what I saw with my own two eyes. Read to her yourself, you'll see", Polly scolded him, picking up the pages she'd left on her seat and going to hand them to him.

Tommy said nothing but shook his head towards the pages and instead took a step closer towards Y/N's bed.

Polly placed Y/N's hand in his and softly spoke, "Y/N love, if you can hear what we're saying then squeeze Tommy's hand, let us know that you're still there".

He held his breath as he waited to see if she'd respond, his eyes watching her fingers like a hawk.

"She's not moving, Pol. You're seeing things with the lack of sleep, go home and get to bed, I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere"

"Don't tell me what you think I may be or may not be seeing and certainly don't tell me what to do. You may be a man now Thomas but I'm still able to lay you across my knee and give you a good hiding", her eyes glared daggers into the side of his head as he continued to stare at Y/N's fingers, unmoving on top of his.

"I'm sorry Pol, I just can't... I just can't stand the thought of having the hope there that she'll show me she's okay if she never actually...", he stopped dead in his tracks.

His mouth dropped open and his gaze widened in shock as Y/N's fingers started to slowly lift upwards before coming back down to rest on top of his fingers, trying to curl themselves around his.

"Y/N? It's okay, I'm here. You're safe", he placed his free hand over hers and leant over to kiss her head, the bruises still prominent, "I'm sorry Y/N, I'm so fucking sorry".

Tommy couldn't hold back the tears that were coming and let them spill out to fall down her cheeks, the overwhelming burst of relief he felt within his soul was like nothing he could explain.

Polly stood with a hand over her mouth, a smile beneath her fingers.

"T-T-Tommy?..."

Did she just speak?

His head shot up, eyes wide in disbelief. When he caught the first glimpse of her face he could see that her eyes were slightly open. Her eyeballs had red spots on them where blood vessels had burst, either from the pressure of being strangled or from the numerous hits to the face she'd sustained. He tried to hide the shock that hit him and gently cradled her face with both hands, careful not to press down on the discoloured blotches that lay beneath them.

"You're awake, you're... I-I can't believe it", he stuttered, scanning her face for any kind of expression.

"Y-you... w-w-were... late", she croaked.

It was almost as if he'd taken a stab to the chest as her words met his ears and the guilt came flooding back.

"I know, I'm so, so sorry Y/N, I really am. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for this, not for as long as I live"

He stifled a sniff as his tears continued, a sob escaping his lips as his face screwed up into pure anguish.

"I-it's... okay", she murmered, taking a deep breath, "do-don't be... s-sorry... I-I'm j-just... glad i-it w-wasn't... you"

"No sweetheart, no. It's not okay, none of this is okay. Because of me, you're lying here in a hospital bed, completely black and blue with internal injuries and broken bones, all because I got too cocky and tried to challenge that fucker. I swear to you, Y/N. I'm gonna put a bullet between his eyes for this, he's not going to get away with it".

He brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face and she smiled softly, the memory of him doing to same back in The Garrison just before she'd left him that day, just before all of this happened…

"H-he said t-t-to... g-give you a... m-message..."

"No, shh shh, it's okay. You don't need to tell me anything right now, you need to rest and get better. You can hardly speak. Tell me anything you need to when you start to feel better. All I care about right now is that I have you, here, alive. No amount of money nor business could come close to how happy I am right at this very moment"

Two Days Later

She'd been awake more frequently over the next couple of days with each day being better than the last. Her bruises had now started to turn a lighter shade of blue with greens and browns dotted through them and the bleeding and swelling on her brain had improved significantly.

The doctors were stunned at how well she was doing, they half expected her to die within the first few days she'd arrived at the hospital.

"How are you feeling today?", Tommy asked as he stroked her hair from his position on the edge of the bed.

"A bit be-tter than yesterday", she softly smiled. She couldn't deny that she still felt like absolute shit and that every time she breathed it felt like she was trying to push air through a straw, but she was just relieved that she'd survived this whole ordeal, "Can you h-help me sit up a b-bit please?"

He instantly stood and gently swooped an arm beneath her legs and the other behind her back, carefully lifting her up before sitting her back down on the bed and repositioning her pillows behind her against the headboard. She winced with the motion but tried her best to hide it. She already knew that Tommy had so much guilt eating him up inside, it almost felt like if she showed him that she was in any kind of pain that it was a reminder of how much he'd fucked up.

"Is that okay?"

She nodded slowly, aware of her aching neck with every slight movement.

"Good, it's nice to see you looking a bit more like yourself", he smiled, his eyes studying every inch of her face.

"Sabini t-told me to tell y-you t-that he's coming for y-you next and that I-if you want to take o-over his race tracks then you're gonna h-have to fight for it... I'm s-scared, Tommy"

Tommy moved his chair closer to the bed, so close that his knees were touching the side of the frame, and took her hand in his.

"I promise you Y/N, you have nothing to be scared about. I know that I broke my promise before about being on time and it cost both of us more than I thought possible, but I swear to you, right here, right now in this moment, I won't let that fucker come near you ever again"

A response to that seemed impossible. Of course she wanted to believe her own husband but when he'd already broken one promise, one that had ultimatley almost led to her death, how could she possibly believe that he'd keep this one?

He could see her thoughts running round her mind, her eyebrows furrowing and mouth twitching like she didn't know what to say.

"Look, I know I fucked up massively. I will never be able to explain to you how sorry I am and I'd understand completely if you didn't want to be with me any more, but please believe that I will do everything in power from here on out to make sure that you're safe"

He was almost scared to hear what she was going to say. Did she want to leave him? Was he destined to lose his wife, not by death this time, but from the sheer fact she didn't think he could keep her safe?

"I-I could n-never leave you, T-Tommy Shelby", she smiled, her lips curving up into her bruised cheeks.

Tommy stood up and brushed his lips against hers, laying a tender kiss upon them before pulling back slightly, enough to still feel her breath on his face.

"Just p-promise me one m-more thing", she spoke, looking into his eyes.

"Anything"

"Don't ever be l-late again"

He grinned, the twinkle in his eyes that she hadn't seen since waking up returning once more.

"I promise"

———

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lovelyhan · 9 months

Text

— ode to you ⟢

if there's one thing you've learned from all the lives you've spent together, it's that jeonghan isn't always someone you'll end up wanting. he can be crass. he can be secretive. he can be nothing short of vexing. but in the end, he's everything you need him to be.

or: 25 lives in which you find and don't find jeonghan.

★ FEATURING; jeonghan x gn!reader

★ WORD COUNT; 6.9k words

★ TAGS; reincarnation, multiple lives, pining, angst, suggestive scenes but no smut, sooo many tropes

★ WARNINGS; mentions of blackmail, implied murder, implied depression, mentions of puking/vomiting, mentions of car accidents major character death

★ NOTES; i was supposed to work on my collab fics but i feel like i've gotten a little rusty w my prose so i wrote this as a little writing exercise of sorts :D i've written for other fandoms in this format before and i thought it was high time i did the same for seventeen with my ult of all ults <3 i hope you enjoy!

this is inspired by tongari's 25 lives

★ PERMANENT TAGLIST; @cheolhub - @pretty-trustme - @just-here-to-read-01 - @Idkmelkro - @dejavernon - @venusrae - @jyiiscool - @jiniesclub - @junhui-recs - @bldelaine - @featmia - @fruitzcup - @hoeforhao - @candidupped - @billboard-singer - @caratochan - @novalpha - @dahliatopia - @0717luv - @shiveringgaze - @toruro - @mixling-blog - @minnie-mouser22 - @homerunhansol - @mirtaspace - @ti–red - @zzucculent - @woozarts - @rubyreduji - @mozellerra - @lllucere - @cheolzip - @jjjzzzz - @lissiesykes - @jeonride - @meowmeowminnie - @colored-confetti - @partiallyinfluencial - @speaknowlwt - @flwrshwa - @lilylikesthat - @aurorahongg - @whippedforjihoon

★ JEONGHAN TAGLIST; @yoonzinoooo - @scandal-in-bohemia - @bias-recs - @lunaryoongie

01. the very first time i remember you, you are blonde and you don’t love me back.

One strict rule that you make sure to uphold with all of your clients is that business comes first before all else.

You're a well-known freelancer that lands gigs left and right from high-end fashion brands and magazines alike. The only way your career managed to survive in such a cut-throat industry is because of the strict professionalism you never failed to maintain.

That's until you meet Jeonghan for the first time.

Fluffy blonde hair framing his face, curling just along the edges. Slanted eyes that crinkle just a bit whenever he smiles. And a lazy grin that betrays just how nonchalant he is about the entire thing. Like he knows he's gorgeous he is and how everyone else in the vicinity is aware of the fact, too.

You've worked with a handful of people with breathtaking features in in the past, but there doesn't seem to be any word in any language that could encapsulate just how mesmerizing Jeonghan is.

For the first time in your career, you find yourself wanting to reach for the subject being captured by the lens of your camera. Just to make sure he was an actual person and not some doll crafted from fine silk and porcelain. The fact that he's modeling with a bouquet of lush flowers does little to your peace of mind.

But your innate professionalism overrules whatever nonsensical desires your sleep-deprived brain could conjure in that moment.

Once you're satisfied with the material you've come up with, you're quick to dismiss Jeonghan and the rest of the team, and call it a day. You have another shoot to oversee in less than two hours and you'd like to avoid the rush hour traffic if you can.

Yet, despite your urgency, you stop halfway to the door to the studio—casting a sidelong glance at the person who's supposed to be one of your temporary colleagues and none else.

"Jeonghan," you call out, his name tasting bittersweet on your tongue. "It was nice working with you today."

He barely glances up at you from the soft glow of his phone screen, not even a smile spared your way.

"Yeah, sure."

02. the next time, you are brunette, and you do.

Yoon Jeonghan is the biggest menace you've met in your life.

Not only does he keep stealing your parking space in the office basement and plucks off the last brownie in the pantry during break time, but he's after the promotion you've been vying after for months, too.

Needless to say, he's public enemy number one in your eyes, and all your colleagues are well aware of the scorching rivalry you two constantly waged in the workspace.

But on the night before you're set to present the proposal that you swear up and down would make your superiors choose you over that sniveling prick, the Devil himself swoops into your cubicle with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Do you really not see it?"

You frown at him as you shove your laptop into your bag with an air of irritation. "See what? That they're going to select you for the promotion? I don't, actually. That's why I'm—"

The words promptly melt on your tongue when Jeonghan forces a hand on divider separating your space with the others—trapping you with a sleazy look on his face. His dark brown tresses fall across his piercing eyes but you force yourself to hold your ground.

In the midst of it all, a moment's worth of familiarity crosses your mind.

Blonde hair styled to perfection. A bouquet of flowers just as beautiful as the man that models for them.

How long has it been since then?

"Can't you see that I'm only doing all this to get your attention?" he chuckles. "I've always known you're a bit slow on the uptake, but you might need an extra push in the right direction."

You gulp nervously. "W-What's that supposed to mean?"

Jeonghan shakes his head, amusement dancing across his features in a way that makes you want to smack him, if not for the laws imposed on the land.

"Have dinner with me tonight and I'll withdraw from the competition" he propositions. "How's that sound?"

...Isn't this blackmail? It definitely sounds like blackmail.

But despite knowing that you should just bring your knee up to smash into his family jewels, your face heats up with the implications of his offer instead.

An offer that you begrudgingly accept.

03. after a while i give up trying to guess if the color of your hair means anything.

"Really?"

Jeonghan grins when he steps into your apartment sporting his newest dye job. You're perfectly aware that idols these days get the most outrageous hair colors, but you didn't think his stylist would be daring enough to pull off long purple hair for Jeonghan just a few months after his group's debut.

Over the years, Jeonghan cycles through a lot more colors than you'd ever thought he'd be willing to try. Blonde, pink, red, brown, silver—all of them, he pulls off with grace.

Even when his idol days are over, he still gets bouts of wanting to march into the nearest salon for another makeover, and you rectify this by just buying the cheapest bleaching kits online despite his whines in protest.

"Our stylist noonas would've been alright with a house call." He pouts just a little as you force him to sit still. "It might come out all patchy."

"Do you have so little faith in your partner's bleaching skills?" you huff, dipping the brush you have in one hand into the bowl of sharp-smelling bleaching mix in the other. "Your stylists noonas charge a fortune, too. We're better off doing it ourselves."

Jeonghan laughs. "You act like we can't afford it."

Turns out, you fucked up the portions of your little bleach concoction and your harmless session resulted into googling first aid for bleaching burns and soaking Jeonghan's scalp with coconut oil for the rest of the day.

"Sorry," you mumble as you help rinse out the oil the next morning. "Do you want to contact your stylist or head to a salon instead?"

Despite your wary disposition, Jeonghan merely breathes out a chuckle, taking your hand in his as he meets your eyes in the bathroom mirror.

There, two rings glimmer in the morning light—the one he shares with his twelve brothers and the one you slid onto his index on the day of your wedding.

"I've been through worse, love. This is nothing," he insists before pressing a soft kiss across your knuckles. "Let's just let my scalp rest for a few days before we dye it, okay?"

You shake your head with a laugh. Really, what are you supposed to do with this man?

"If you insist."

04. because even when you don’t exist, i'm still in love with you.

"You got my name wrong again."

In the middle of packing a takeout bag for the food delivery guy waiting in the corner of the café, you look up to some familiar college kid standing in front of the counter with a furrow on his brow. A regular, maybe.

"Sorry?" you ask, brain a little too frazzled to make sense of what he was trying to say.

Said college kid shows you the underside of his cup—the name Jeonghan scribbled hastily onto the material.

"My name's Jeongin," he sighs. "I've been coming here everyday and I swear, you always get it wrong."

"Well, I'm so sorry, Jeongin, I'll make sure it doesn't happen again," you manage to wrench out before calling out to the delivery guy, saying the order was ready for pick-up.

Funnily enough, you end up living together with Jeongin by some twist of fate. Your shoes are lined up with his outside the apartment, toothbrushes lying in the same cup in the bathroom, and you even steal his hoodies every now and again.

But what you don't tell your boyfriend of five years is how you still dream of the man whose name brought you together in the first place.

A man who you don't get the pleasure to meet in this life, much like a dozen others that came before.

05. i remember most fondly those lifetimes where we get to grow up together

In the past (though its definition is a little...unique in your case), you were convinced that just because Jeonghan is the sole singularity to which your existence is anchored to, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get to have him and him alone in each life.

Yet in this one, you're fully convinced that he's the only person who'll ever have your heart.

It's on a cold, winter afternoon when you realize that you're in love with the boy that showed you how to cross the monkey bars in elementary school. The boy who gives you his packed lunch whenever you forget yours at home. The boy who taught you how to pick locks so you could sneak into his father's liquor shop and get drunk behind the counter.

Jeonghan has always been a fascinating person in whatever life you meet him. But now that you've got a taste of what it feels to grow up alongside him—witnessing him transition from a snotty kid to a troublesome adult—you can't picture yourself wanting anyone else.

He's rightfully startled when you confess your feelings merely minutes after having realized them. You've lived through this endless cycle of meeting and parting ways enough times to know that there's no room for uncertainty.

And each time he accepts you with open arms, the relief that washes over you feels like the first time all over again.

06. when i share my secrets and sorrows and hiding places with you.

There are times when you're the one who doesn't remember the lives you've lived in the seemingly endless cycle.

When you meet Jeonghan in this life, it's with shoulders carrying the weight of emotional baggage and dreams that have been crushed right before your eyes. It's an understatement to say that you're inexplicably drawn to him as if he's a beacon in the dark. But even if you're yet to remember, Jeonghan has always been easy to trust. Easy to fall into.

One night is particularly heavier than the rest. Your meds aren't kicking in the way they're supposed to and it's raining much too harshly to pay your comfort person a late night visit.

Yet when you call your boyfriend as you choke on your own tears, he's at your door in half an hour—paper bags full of all your favorite snacks in hand with a smile that feels like a ray of sunlight amidst a raging storm.

But he's quick to drop all of it and pull you into a hug when he sees the mess you are in the living room.

"I'm a bad person," you sob into his chest, clinging to the fabric of his jacket as he placates you in his tender embrace. "I'm s-selfish and always just think about myself. I've done so many terrible things, Hannie... How could you even love someone like me?"

Jeonghan doesn't answer right away. He calms you down for the better part of an hour before rising to get you a glass of water in the kitchen. Your boyfriend watches with quiet attentiveness until the look on your face tells him that you're ready to talk again.

"So what if you're a bad person, love?" he murmurs before planting a kiss on your forehead. "Tell me every terrible thing you did and let me love you anyway."

Despite yourself, you let out a soft laugh. "Which cheesy pocketbook did you pull that one out of?"

"Hey, I drove for thirty minutes in the rain and this is how you thank me?" He huffs before reaching for a bag of chips he haphazardly strewn across the coffee table, tearing it open and offering you a piece. "I read that on Pinterest, by the way."

07. i love how you play along with my bad ideas

In many, many lives, Jeonghan is not yours to love.

And that's okay. There isn't a fine print stating that because you're blessed (cursed?) to meet him in each lifetime, you're meant to be together against all odds.

Fate is fickle like that—so unpredictable that you never really know how to act whenever you do cross paths with Jeonghan eventually.

Still, even if you're not destined to be lovers, you can still love him in other ways.

Like helping him sneak out of his third period lecture so he can come watch local street performers hold a fundraising show in some underground bar. You do all this because he once told you that he wanted to support them in any way he could.

If only Jeonghan could see the grin on his face that gets wider with each dancer that takes the stage, he wouldn't have a hard time wondering why it was so easy to fall in love with him.

"So when's the next time you'll help me sneak out of a lecture?" Jeonghan asks as the two of you head back to campus at a mellow pace even if Jeonghan's next classes starts in ten minutes.

You hum as if genuinely contemplating. "Maybe after you do me a huge favor in return for this one."

Your shoulders bump together as he lets out an easygoing laugh. As the late afternoon sunlight filters through a canopy of trees and onto your best friend's face, you feel a tug at your heartstrings that urges you to pull him in for a kiss.

But you don't.

08. before you grow up and realize that they’re bad ideas.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

Jeonghan's voice sounds considerably spooked when the amusement park staff locks in the over-the-shoulder restraints. The buzz of excitement from other visitors rings in your ears and he seems to be the only person that isn't looking forward to being on a rollercoaster.

"You act like this is the first time you've been on one." You roll your eyes. "Just relax and feel the wind on your face, yeah? If it gets too much just hold my hand or whatever."

You should not have offered in the first place because by the time the you've made two trips around the wildly looped tracks, you're convinced Jeonghan has already cut any and all circulation to your fingers with how tightly he's gripping your hand.

But still...you can't deny that it feels a little nice to be needed by him.

09. (and in our lives together i have many, many bad ideas.)

“Do I know you?”

Jeonghan makes the mistake of blurting out those very strange words when he catches you sitting right next to him at the bar. You startle when he breaks the ice, fully convinced you're the one who had to initiate when you deliberately slid into the stool to his right.

Amused, you study him without much of a real expression before the tension in your posture melts into gentle laughter.

“No,” you say with a tone that suggests you're making fun of him. “But we could get out of here so we can get to know each other better. What’s your name?”

A dozen expressions flit across Jeonghan's face in mere seconds and you would've laughed again if you didn't know the reason behind the perplexity of his reactions.

“It’s Jeonghan. But you can call me…”

Before he can get the rest of the pick-up line out, he promptly throws up all over your outfit.

10. when we meet as adults, you're always much more discerning. I don't blame you.

"Again."

Your sweat beads across your forehead and drips onto the floor as you catch your breath. Palms braced across your knees, you look up to your mentor with a resentful glare.

In this life, Jeonghan—who was considered part of the 'anemic line' in his group eternities ago—is now one of the most well-known choreographers in the industry and would probably put Soonyoung to shame with how much of a perfectionist he is when it comes to your routines.

"Can't I get a five-minute water break?" you plead.

"You can get one when you think you deserve it," he says flatly before crossing his legs. "Do you?"

Much to your chagrin, you're just as much of a perfectionist as he is in this life. You shake your head with a guttural sigh, forcing yourself back into position despite your muscles aching for a break.

You don't miss the way Jeonghan smiles at your display of determination, but you don't let yourself think much of it either.

11. yet, always, you forgive me.

Jeonghan is upset with you.

He has all the right to be, really. You promised that you'll leave enough candy bars from your Trick or Treat haul to last both of you for a week, but you ended up overeating while binging your afternoon cartoons and now there's only one stick of chocolate left in the hollow, pumpkin-shaped bucket.

"I'm sorry," you murmur. "Do you want to go to the candy store to buy some more? I can break my piggy bank if—"

"No, you're saving up for that new game on your Nintendo DS, right?"

The fact that he actually remembers that makes you gape at him. "Um, yeah, but it's no big deal. A candy bar is only worth a few—"

Not giving you any leeway to speak any further, Jeonghan grabs the last candy bar inside the bucket—tearing the packaging open with his teeth before breaking the chocolate in half in the middle. Despite his annoyance, he hands you the other half with a small pout.

"Then just keep saving up so we can play it together," he grumbles and even when he's barely eight years old, it comes so natural for him to show you how much he cares about you.

12. as if you understand what’s going on

"Do you go here often?"

You flash the stranger who's speaking to you a befuddled look—not expecting to hear a line typically used on you in bars at your father's yacht club, of all places. He's wearing tattered jeans and an atrocious pink flannel over an equally tattered shirt. You wonder if he's just going for an odd aesthetic or if he's in dire need of a closet makeover.

"No. I'm just waiting for my father," you tell the man honestly before glancing at the boats docked by the pier. "He bought another yacht that I'm sure he won't even think of after bragging about it to his friends."

The stranger laughs. "I know how you feel. My old man's just as materialistic as yours sounds."

Oh. Maybe he is just going for an odd aesthetic with his fit after all.

"Wouldn't have thought you were a nepo baby, too," you snort before kicking a lone pebble into the water—watching it sink into the depths until it's out of sight. "I thought you were one of the boys that maintain these things while their owners completely forget about them."

"Hmm, I can be anything you want me to be," he chuckles and even if you've only met this guy five minutes ago, something about his laughter sounds so oddly familiar.

"The name's Jeonghan, by the way." The not-so stranger smiles and the feeling that you know him from somewhere intensifies tenfold.

"What's yours?"

13. and you're making up for all the lifetimes in which one of us doesn't exist

You like to think of yourself as an independent person.

You've crossed literal lifetimes in the strangest rendition of immortality that you've never once read in all the books you've deigned to pick up in this never-ending eternity. It's only natural for you to be self-sufficient.

But when it comes to Jeonghan, you always get to refamiliarize yourself with what it feels like to be lonely.

There are things about him that you consider irreplaceable: the curve of his easygoing smile, the warmth of his slender fingers, and the touch you yearn for constantly.

You're perfectly aware that you don't need Jeonghan for all these lives to gain some semblance of meaning. In fact, it's in the lives where you don't meet him that you get to learn a thing or two about yourself.

But when he is there, when he's the reason you get out of bed everyday, you simply think that a second of being with Jeonghan in the flesh is worth more than a lifetime in his absence.

14. and the ones where we just, barely, never meet.

Your phone is pressed into your ear in the middle of the grocery store because your good friend Joshua thought it was the perfect time to rant about his insufferable boss.

Being the lovely person that you are, you let him talk your ear off as you parse through the cabbages on display—wondering which one you should bring home for salad night.

"He's such a fucking prick, you know?" Joshua groans out the same sentence for the third time since you picked up his call. "No wonder his wife is having an affair behind his back. That's karmic retribution if I've seen it.''

"Shua, have you ever considered just resigning instead of making me your therapist?"

"I have, it's just that finding a new job is way more of a hassle than dealing with my asshole boss everyday," he grumbles. "But about the therapist thing—thanks for always listening to me. I know I can be annoying at times but you always put up with it any..."

Joshua's voice fades into the backdrop of your mind when you spot a flash of pink in the corner of your eyes. You instinctively turn your head in the direction of a stranger running towards the exit of the supermarket—wearing an atrocious pink flannel that you would recognize anywhere in any lifetime.

You briefly apologize to Joshua before ending the call, shoving your phone into the pocket of your jeans before leaving your push cart to chase after the figure receding from your line of sight.

You just barely catch him hopping onto a bus when your instincts lead you to further outside. You would have sprinted for a ride, had it not been for the children that obstruct your path with a little game of tag.

By the time you finally shake them off, the bus has already driven past the intersection—snuffing out the candle, leaving you in the dark.

15. i hate those. i prefer the ones in which you kill me.

You've watched a dozen serial killer documentaries in your lifetime—well, lifetimes. They always start the same way: a psychopath with a way with words charming his next unsuspecting victim into their utter demise.

While you absolutely did not know that this life's Jeonghan will turn out to be a crazed lunatic that gets off on seeing another human being's blood on his hands, it doesn't really change the fact that your heart is still tethered to him despite.

He still smiles as sweetly as you can remember as the tip of his knife glides along the column of your throat. His voice is just as comforting in those lives where he'd never forget to kiss you good night right before going to sleep.

"You're such a pretty little thing, aren't you?" Jeonghan murmurs. "But you'd be so much prettier if you just lay still."

The last thing you remember seeing is the angelic look on his face as if he's the one who'll personally escort you to the next life.

You don't particularly mind.

16. but when all's said and done, i'd rather surrender to you in other ways.

It's only amidst the post-orgasmic clarity that you realize how much of a fool you are.

These quick trysts you share with Jeonghan are brief. He invites you over under the guise of something that isn't sex for the sake of propriety, only to pull you into his apartment and kiss you until stars danced behind your eyelids.

He's flicks the cigarette he's having on the ashtray as he complains about a coworker he's been trying to get with for the past month. She likes playing hard-to-get, but I like her so much that I don't really mind? Is that weird? Oh, do you want a smoke, too? Sure, let me light you a quick one in a sec—

You're a fool because you've spent dozens, if not hundreds of lives chasing after him—whether you yourself are aware of it or not.

To Jeonghan, this is a life he probably won't remember in the next. To you, it's another inescapable death sentence.

"Maybe you should drop the nice guy act," you suggest before taking a drag of your own—not caring how the ashes stain Jeonghan's crisp white sheets despite his protests. "Showing your true colors is what got you to land me, you know."

"And we all know how much of a catch you are." He winks before killing his cigarette on the ashtray.

You're about to respond with an eyeroll until he plucks the cancer stick off your hands as well, disposing of it the same way he did with his own. When Jeonghan maneuvers himself on top of you again, you let out a withering sigh.

"Maybe I should just date you instead," he giggles before leaning down to nip at your ear, slender arms coiling around your waist. "What do you think?"

"You already told me before that I wasn't your ideal partner, asshole," you remind him with a huff.

Jeonghan hums, a noncommittal sound that seems like there's something else layered underneath. "But what if I told you that already changed?"

It's enticing—the possibility of getting to have him again when you couldn't really call him yours right now. But you know better than to take things that aren't meant for you.

At least, not in this life.

"Stop saying silly things and just fuck me already," you grumble, already tugging off his boxers. "Then you'll delete my number right after so you can finally get with the woman of your dreams. Got that?"

17. even though each time, i know i'll see you again, i always wonder

You've always looked forward to summer.

No more grueling classes. No more deadlines to catch up on. Summer means you get to go back to your hometown for a few weeks, unwinding in ways that your usual schedules don't quite permit you to.

Summer also means you'll get to visit Jeonghan again.

Your mother already has food and flowers prepared in advance—saying Mrs. Yoon kicked up a huge fuss when she found out you were going back home this weekend. You receive the news with fond laughter, noting how the flowers Jeonghan's mother picked out are reminiscent of the ones he held in the very first life you met him.

"I'm graduating next year," is the first thing you tell Jeonghan when you arrive, popping open two ice cold sodas before settling yourself on the grass in front of him. "Can you believe it? Four years of college, just gone in a flash. If you actually went through with your performing arts scholarship, you'd know how I feel."

"I'm thinking of getting a job here instead of the city. You know, so you won't feel too lonely without me," you chuckle, the moisture of your drink beading across your fingers. "Although, your sister keeps insisting that they give you plenty of company already and that I should chase after my own dreams first. She's starting to sound a lot like you, you know that?"

Jeonghan doesn't respond. Of course he doesn't. But you can almost hear his stilted laughter in the warm breeze anyway.

You place the flowers and the cola in front of his gravestone with a bittersweet pang in your chest. But before the tears can get the chance to escape, you turn on your heel and leave the cemetery altogether.

You didn't always look forward to summer after the accident that took the love of your life away. But knowing that your best friend—your soulmate—would simply be waiting for you in the next life, things became much, much easier.

18. is this the last time?

"Don't go..."

Jeonghan murmurs the words between drunken hiccups as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck. You chuckle, smoothing your hand across his sweater-clad back as he clings to you like a koala.

"Hannie, what do you mean?" you whisper as you glance at the mess of empty bottles you'll have to clean up from the coffee table once you put your boyfriend to bed. "I'm not going anywhere."

He pulls away from you briefly, puffy eyes glistening with tears as he lets out a shuddering sigh.

"I had a dream that you left me for some guy named...Jeongin, or whatever," he mumbles. "I promise I'll treat you better than anyone else. Just don't...leave me."

In some way, he remembers. Not everything because even you don't completely recall all the lives you've lived. There's too many of them now, most of which are too painful to think about all over again.

But this is the first actual instance where Jeonghan unknowingly hints that his past lives stay with him even beyond death, and it makes you wonder if he'll start to remember the others in time as well.

"I won't, Hannie," you whisper, weaving the words into a promise that you'll be sure to keep in the next life, and the hundreds of lives that will inevitably follow.

"I won't."

19. is that really you?

There are lifetimes where you try, but it just doesn't work out.

Sometimes, fate carves both you and Jeonghan into mismatched pieces of two different puzzles, and he doesn't even try to convince you to stay as you quietly pack away your belongings in dull brown boxes. The tension in your movements tells him that you knows he's watching.

"I'm not getting back together with you, if that's what you're wondering," you rasp. "If you love your job more than me, then I'll be the one to see myself out."

Jeonghan manages a sad smile that you completely miss—having been so caught up with your frustration with him to look. You thought that in each life he ends up becoming a world-famous idol, it meant that he'd also live all of his days with you by his side.

But things aren't always that simple, and Jeonghan merely stands in resignation as you shut the door to both his house and your heart.

20. and what if you're already perfectly happy without me?

When you took up a job as an events coordinator, never in your wildest dreams did you expect to be planning Jeonghan's wedding, of all things.

He doesn't seem to remember you and you don't really fault him for not recognizing someone he's met literal lifetimes ago. Not when he's obviously so enamored with his current fiancé.

"We were interested in the deluxe package on your website," Seungcheol, his intended, breaks the ice after the formal introductions, showing you a screenshot on his phone. "Is this inclusive of a lights and sound system or will we have to outsource those somewhere else?"

You nearly miss what Seungcheol was asking you—too caught up in how beautiful Jeonghan looks today. He's grown out his hair longer than he usually does and it's half pinned behind his head.

When it takes you a while to respond, both his and Seungcheol's gazes flicker with confusion before your heart sinks with how in tune they are with each other.

"Y-Yes, lights and sounds are already included in the package." You compose yourself with a warm smile. "But you might be interested in the royalty package. This would give you access to..."

21. ah, but i don’t blame you.

"Baby, I'm sorry."

Jeonghan looks like a kicked puppy sitting at the side of the hospital bed with how apologetic he is. You want to tell him that it really is no big deal but with the lower half of your body temporarily paralyzed, you can't really say that's the case.

"I shouldn't have insisted that you come to the music show when it was raining," he groans. "It's a miracle you managed to swerve out of the truck's way."

You wonder if he remembers the life where you lost him to an accident not so different from the one you narrowly escaped last night. The absolute fear in his eyes the moment he saw you covered in casts and bandages is reminiscent of the time you received the phone call informing you of your boyfriend's passing.

But you don't make it a habit to ponder too long about lives that have long come to an end. What's important is now, where you're still living and breathing and able to remain by his side.

"It's not your fault, Hannie," you murmur as you reach out to pet his head with some difficulty. "I shouldn't have gone past the speed limit in the first place."

"Well, you wouldn't have to do that if I wasn't being so pushy about you showing up," he sighs in defeat. "Tell you what, I'll pull out of all our comeback schedules until you can walk by yourself again."

You frown at him. "What? No! Your managers are going to kill you."

"They will, but knowing you'll be all alone while you recover will kill me inside too."

Jeonghan isn't usually this cheeky with you, so you keep this memory tucked away in your consciousness for as long as you can. Knowing there's no talking him out of it once he's got his mind set, you shake your head with a defeated sigh.

"You better take care of me like they do in those five star nursing homes then."

22. i’ll never burn as brilliantly as you.

Your favorite lives, you think, are the ones where he lights up the stage and the entire world as an idol.

He's happiest in these kinds of lives. The bond he shares with the rest of his bandmates transcends even the love you've harbored for him through lifetimes, and if there are people you'll gladly surrender Jeonghan to, it's those twelve boys that will always be his brothers no matter what.

"How was that?"

You're in the middle of giving out stage directions for the next round of performers when Jeonghan walks up to you with his signature, lazy smile. He's sweat-stricken with a stutter to each breath he takes, but he makes himself appear just as composed as he wants you to think.

"Breathtaking as always, Jeonghan," you decide to humor him—knowing that the sooner you give him a compliment, the sooner he'll leave you alone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to—"

"Will you be busy after the show? I wanted to cook dinner for us at home."

A panicked look seizes your face when you gesture for him to keep it down. Your eyes dart around the vicinity—idols and their stylists running around backstage in preparation for the next segment of the show. None of them seemed to have picked up on Jeonghan's little slip of the tongue.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" you whisper sharply over the sound of another fellow stage director paging you in the south entrance. "Anyways, I have to go, Hannie. And please don't go blabbing about our relationship where you shouldn't."

When that idiotically handsome smile doesn't fade from his lips, you know things won't exactly go your way as usual.

23. it's only fair that i should be the one

At some point, you stop counting altogether.

The lives you live with and without Jeonghan blend seamlessly into each other the longer the cycle repeats itself. It doesn't hurt as much when you don't find him, but your heart still gushes with relief when you do.

And yet there are instances where you try to spit in the face of fate itself. Instances where you decide that you don't want to be chained to Jeonghan anymore. That the lives you live belong to you and that you won't let some otherworldly force dictate the course of it any longer.

One day in the summer, in some petty attempt to cheat your way out of fate, you decide to date your next door neighbor.

Sujin has the same eyes as Jeonghan—it’s something you can’t really look past. Maybe that’s what makes it so easy for her to wear down your defenses without breaking a sweat.

But the moment the thought crosses your mind, you wipe out every similarity until you can’t see them anymore. They almost look the same apart from gender, but Sujin is so different from Jeonghan, that for a while, you forget about the burden you've been carrying all this time.

One day in the fall, Sujin talks about meeting her brother for dinner, and you don't really ponder about it—agreeing without a hitch.

But that’s only the first of your many mistakes because the man who walks into the restaurant is Jeonghan. Sujin’s brother, the person who’s kissing your girlfriend on the cheek, is Jeonghan.

“Did you know that Sujin never shut up about you when you brought her the housewarming gift?” Jeonghan snorts before ordering a glass of wine. “Hmm, you look kind of familiar, though… Have we met before?”

“No,” you respond almost instantly.

It doesn’t work. Your master plan of waging war with destiny is rendered utterly useless when Jeonghan bruises his way back into your life. Where Sujin managed to ease herself past the walls you've put up after a few weeks, Jeonghan tears them down in half the time his sister took to pick you apart.

One day in the winter, Sujin breaks up with you, and in spite of the coil of emotions twisting in your chest, you watch her pack her things and move back into the apartment across the hall.

One day in the spring, there’s a knock on your front door that you're in no hurry to answer. You stare at Jeonghan with equal parts irritation and relief when you see him there. His grin reminds you of flowers unfurling as he stares back with a challenge in his eyes.

A challenge you loathe, but one you can never refuse.

24. to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimes

“Don’t you ever get tired?”

Your head is resting on Jeonghan's lap when he poses the question, and you think the fact that your eyes are closed is already an answer on its own.

You used to think you were cursed. Maybe you've incurred enough bad karma in your very first life to provide you with a steady stream of misfortune in the next few million lives you're destined to live.

That could be the reason why you have to live all these lives, meet all these people—rinse and repeat. Is this how the gods are punishing you? Is there anyway to atone for sins you can't even remember committing anymore?

Though…when you open your eyes and see Jeonghan staring out into the distance, you have a hard time thinking of him as a punishment.

You sit upright and stretch out your limbs. There’s a kink in the back of your neck that might be resolved by a good night’s sleep, but you offer Jeonghan a hand before you can think about it any more.

“No,” you answer as you twines your fingers together, pulling him back to his feet as he spares you a loving smile.

“Not really.”

25. until i find the one where you'll return to me.

"That bouquet's really pretty."

Jeonghan glances behind him with a confused look—frustration clear on his face from trying to get the new stove he had installed in your kitchen last week to start. When his eyes land on the beautiful spill of flowers bundled up in a vase on the dining table, his features soften with fondness.

"Those are the flowers I had when you met me the first time, right?" he chuckles before taking a seat next to you. "The one where I was a 'prick of a model who wouldn't even bat you an eyelash'?"

Your chest bubbles with laughter at his description. You've grown more and more comfortable with telling Jeonghan about the lives you've shared in eternities that have long unspooled, and just when you feared he'd treat you like someone who escaped an asylum, he instead took all your words to heart.

He doesn't quite remember them all on his own, but when you bring up little pieces from old memories you do manage to dredge up, he's able to complete the pieces of the story to form a coherent picture.

Maybe that's what Jeonghan is to you—someone that isn't exactly necessary to have in your life, but someone who makes it infinitesimally better.

If there's one thing you've learned from all the lives you've spent together, it's that Jeonghan isn't always someone you'll end up wanting. He can be crass. He can be secretive. He can be nothing short of vexing.

But he can also be kind, considerate, and present in times when you need him the most.

In the end, he's everything you need him to be.

And you couldn't ask for anything more.

⟢ end notes: me: this is a writing exercise, the word count: pushing 7k :') ok so this wasn't proofread even in the slightest so if you spot any mistakes and errors, no you didn't <3 thank you for joining me in this very self indulgent train of delusion!

#svthub #seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #jeonghan fanfic #jeonghan smut #jeonghan x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen fic #seventeen headcanons #seventeen scenarios #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan scenarios #lovelyhan #full length fic 📚

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blluespirit · 2 months

Text

Overall NATLA Thoughts

Okay, now that I've watched the series, I can give my thoughts.

Overall, I thought it was good!!! I had fun watching it! I'd rate it a solid 6.5/10. It's nowhere as good as the original, but it was definitely enjoyable and made some nice changes here and there that I liked. There were also some things I was also Not a fan of too.

I said in another post that it's best to treat this like an AU of the original. There will things that are great and things that are bad. That's the nature of adapting something.

Having said that, I need to get my initial thoughts off my chest... here we go.

Things I thought were good:

Sokka's characterisation - I really enjoyed him! I thought Ian did a good job! He played the funny moments well and retained the underlying seriousness/cautiousness. It wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed the changes a lot and think it was overall a solid performance.

Zuko's characterisation - Like Sokka, I do think I was most satisfied with their performances. A lot of Zuko's moments from the cartoon are sometimes... well, cartoonish and definitely wouldn't translate to live action, but I think Dallas did a nice job at balancing Zuko's desperate anger and that occasional sassiness well.

Zuko and Iroh moments were great. Had me on the floor crying. As it should have.

The bending looks a trillion times better than the movie - I understand it would not have been easy for the actors but, overall, I was very happy about it.

The scenery was stunning. It just looked so beautiful. I loved it so much.

Absolutely ADORE that they made Zuko a good calligrapher and artist. I read a fic about a million years ago where Zuko is a fantastic calligrapher and I thought it was perfect and made so much sense, and now I can say it's canon. This is perfect for me.

S U K I

The Freedom Fighters were ✨ perfect

They were so real for making Oma and Shu lesbians

Koh, Wan Shi Tong and Hei Bai looked fantastic, but I have more to say about all of them below, unfortunately.

I actually like the change they made that Katara is Aang's sole waterbending teacher.

Aang is not perfect, and needed more goofy scenes HOWEVER, I did like how they've had Aang's guilt more prominent in the story. The original didn't do a very good job with that, imo.

Zuko entering is breaking and entering era by breaking into an impenetrable Earth Kingdom prison is just perfect.

In Masks, I like how Aang and Zuko got a longer conversation - that was pretty cute.

I liked how they changed Yue a bit and got her out of the arranged marriage... how Yue saw Sokka in the Spirit World before meeting him in the real world.

Things I didn't like:

Far too much info-dumping/exposition. So much spelling things out. It was not as egregious as the movie, and I get there's a lot of information that needs to be conveyed well and quickly... but sometimes it really took me out of the show.

Why are Mai and Ty Lee here.... I was hoping the live action would give them a bit more depth (and they might as it goes forward!), but why put them in season 1 at all if they're just going to stand around???

Some odd changes - putting this as one point, but there are some bizarre changes that didn't make sense to me, as they did not benefit the story or deepen the characters. I have two main examples: a) making it so Aang didn't run away from home, and b) making it so Zuko actually fights Ozai in the Agni Kai.

Characterisation of Katara was Not Great. I don't think I got many hints of the reckless, compassionate, badass Katara until the end when she fights Pakku and rallies all the women together to fight (which happens off-screen). She was sweet and kind, but she just lacked the fire that OG Katara has.

Azula's characterisation - Azula is desperate to impress Ozai and so her character is just…. brewing with anger, frustration, desperation. I was SO excited to see the Azula we are introduced too… perpetually and irritatingly calm, calculating and ruthless. She's perfect, she's terrifying! She's literally the character of all time. But this Azula had more Zuko vibes? I don't think there's anything wrong with giving Azula more concrete motivation by wanting to impress Ozai and establishing that Ozai is abusive to both his kids, but I do think trying to do that right off the bat is a mistake.

WHY is Wan Shi Tong here. I love Wan Shi Tong, but like I said: Why Is He Here? Why could we not have his iconic, ominous as fuck introduction from The Library, and instead he's introduced in a random season 1 episode giving Aang Information(tm) about the Spirit World.

When Aang gave Koh the statue, and then he just takes it and immediately lets all the villages go, and neither of them even say anything, I actually laughed out loud. Like, I am so sorry, but what in the jesus fuck was that.

Speaking of Koh - I think Koh is better the less we know about him. Roku saying ~all Koh wants is a family like the rest of us~ just pissed me off?? I like my Koh the Face Stealer Terrifying and Unknowable, thank you.

NOTHING EVER REALLY HAPPENS WITH HEI BAI!!?? where's my precious spirit bear?? Like Aang never really does anything with him and the replacement Koh story is boring and it sucks.

Bumi.... sorry I just didn't vibe with him at all.

Things I can't decide on:

Fancy spirit knife to kill the moon spirit annoyed me a bit, but I guess they wanted to Kuruk something to work with and a little bit more interaction with Aang which I get but idk. I really flip/flop on this one.

I've been very on the fence about having Azula (and Ozai) being in the show in season 1 in general. I'm not sure if it benefited either of their characters.

Azula & Ozai's dynamic - Okay, so, I think they're trying to give Azula more depth, right? They're trying to establish what it was like for Azula to live with Ozai and that she's also (like Zuko) trying to desperately prove herself to him, but Ozai using Zuko's... achievements to do that just felt so weird. I get he's doing it to manipulate her, but that just felt so wrong when in canon it's very obvious that Ozai just didn't give a single fuck about Zuko. Ozai pits Azula against Zuko by saying he's a failure, he's a bad bender etc. Azula is born lucky, Zuko is lucky to be born - like, Ozai says that to Zuko's face. I don't know if I am communicating this point very well, but it just didn't seem right to me??

Zuko vs Zhao in the Siege of the North... I genuinely do not know how to feel about it! I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I don't know how to feel about Zhao telling Zuko that his mission is a sham and that Azula is the prized one... It feels like it's saying the quiet part out loud? In the OG we all know that Ozai sending Zuko on that mission was an excuse to get rid of him, but we can work that out, no one actually says it. And then Iroh just fucking killing him/mortally wounding him instead of the Iconic scene where Zuko reaches out to save him despite everything Zhao has done to him, but Zhao's own pride gets in the way from letting him accept help from Zuko.

Zuko’s crew being the 41st is not necessarily a bad thing at all!!! But I do just want to say that in the original, the attack goes ahead, and presumably, those soldiers die. It’s horrible. Zuko’s sacrifice is in vain, and it was always going to be in vain because the Fire Nation as it stands would not allow Zuko's compassion to win. Ozai would not allow it. While not necessarily a bad choice (all the soldiers bowing to Zuko on the boat was so sweet I loved it!) but I think it does take away some of the horror of Zuko’s story (same as it does with making Zuko fight back in my opinion) because the whole point is that Zuko did the right thing - and he was punished for it, and those soldiers died anyway.

anyway...

Okay!! got that off my chest. I know I just had a big whine here, but I still had a lot of fun watching this show. I think some of the backlash is a bit over the top and unwarranted. It was never going to stand up to the original - and that's okay.

Enjoy it for what it is!

#zuko #sokka #katara #aang #yue #iroh #zhao #azula #ozai #jet #koh the face stealer #wan shi tong #hei bai #natla #avatar the last airbender #atla netflix #avatar netflix #jack talks #live action series

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lonelyharmonies · 9 months

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just friends

what happens when you wake up in someone else’s bed after getting drunk in a party?

pairing: jaehyun x fem reader type: fluff, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers au (or kinda), college au, word count: 22k warnings: swearing, slightly suggestive sometimes a/n.: hello friends!! this story here is my baby, the first full fic i've ever written 💚 3 years later i still love it as the first time i've posted it. i hope you enjoy it as much as i do. if you think you have read this story before, youprobably did, this is a repost. not very much edited so you might find some mistakes, i apologize!

The sunlight peeking through the curtains meets your face and you wake up as soon as your cheeks get warm. You didn’t remember your bed being this comfortable. A foreign smell invades your nostrils but you don’t mind for a moment. The perfume had notes of lavender and it was sort of strong, but you didn’t mind, deciding to put your head further into the pillow, capturing more of that pleasant scent.

A few minutes later, you open your eyes and it takes a while for you to realize it isn’t your bedroom. Neither is your cousin’s. You have no idea where and why you are here. The room is small but cozy, way different from your own. You can see some heavy books on the shelves next to you and a box full of vinyl.

You turn your head to the right to find a naked back facing you. Analyzing the body proportions and the room you were in, you assumed it was a boy.

What happened to you? Why were you sleeping with a stranger?

You tried to remember the events from last night.

“Come on, Y/N, it’s gonna be fun!” “I don’t like frat parties, Taeyong.” you repeat the same line “Plus, I am really tired. Do you know how many assignments I have due next week? And tutoring is killing. Some students really push my buttons.” “See? You are so stressed! A couple of beers will do you good.”

Then, you remembered the noise. A lot of noise. You see flashes from the previous night events: there were people dancing, Mark Lee spilling his drink on you, and a shirtless Yuta dancing on the top of the kitchen’s counter. The only thing that wasn’t clear on your mind was how you ended up in this room.

Your cousin was in front of you, clearly drunk. You knew he was a lightweight. He knew he was a lightweight. That was probably the reason why Taeyong would always try to find a way to drag you to the parties with him: to clean the mess he makes. “I can’t drive you back, pumpkin. I’m sorry,” He said, bringing his hands to cup his face, as a way to act cute, but spilling his drink on the floor in the process. “Well, I’m already aware of this. You don't even have a license.” You felt your head spinning. Taeyong smiles and focuses on something behind you “I’ll call an Uber. Or maybe I should just walk,” You fished your phone out of your pocket, but your cousin took it away from you. “No, no. Don’t go home now.” He waved at someone while you tried to get your phone back. “You should enjoy this party. How long haven’t you made out with someone?” “LEE TAEYONG!” You and Johnny, who had placed an arm on your shoulders, shouted at the same time. “and The Cousin!” “Can she sleep here tonight, Johnny? She’ll sleep in my room” Taeyong asked and Johnny screamed “Sure” while you tried to scold the other boy. “Lee Taeyong, come back here. Who said I agreed-” you tried to grab your cousin’s arm but he deflected your touch and went straight to a group of girls. “Hey, hey, Y/N. “ Johnny called your attention. “Relax.” He handed you a shot glass full of a transparent liquid “The night has just started.”

While you were trying to remember what happened the night before, the man that is lying beside you wakes up. Jaehyun turns around and lays his eyes on your figure. At first, he thought he was still dreaming, but the scream that left your mouth once you met his gaze made Jaehyun realize it wasn’t a dream.

You get so startled that you lean backward as Jaehyun tries to hold your arm to keep you in place.

“Be careful, you’re gonna hurt-”

You don’t finish listening to his sentence as your body hits the ground with a loud thud. If you were sleepy before, falling out of the bed made you feel completely awake. You knocked your head on the bedside table and groaned quite loudly.

“Good morning, Y/N.” He says from his bed, looking at your lying figure on the floor.

Now that you could see the stranger’s face, you just wished to go back to sleep. Dying was also a good option. Not even in your wildest dreams, you would imagine waking up next to Jeong Jaehyun after getting dead drunk at one of his fraternity’s parties.

You met Jaehyun when your cousin dragged you to your first frat party two years ago. You were getting some drinks in the kitchen when you laid your eyes on him playing beer pong with Yuta. You didn’t know a guy could look so attractive just by drinking beer wearing an all-black outfit. Ever since, you admired him from afar, never failing to be awestruck by his nice features. You never got the courage to talk to Jaehyun, but it all changed when your cousin insisted that you should help his friend Johnny.

“He is just trying to learn a new language.” Taeyong would blatantly answer every time you questioned his friend’s sudden interest in taking Spanish classes. At the time, you were working for the Language Center at your university, so the two boys were constantly pestering you to sign Johnny up for the Spanish course and they only stopped once you gave in. It didn’t take you long to find out the reason why Johnny was so persistent: Mrs. García, or Isabela García, the senior student that taught the course: Spanish for Speakers of Other Languages. She was very sweet, smart, and popular among everyone on Campus and, apparently, Johnny was trying to have his shot with her while getting extra credits. Eventually, you became closer. Not only because of your shared class but because Taeyong was your mutual friend. It was after one of your classes that you formally met Jaehyun for the first time, six months after seeing him in that party for the first time. He was waiting outside, a tray with coffee in one hand and a paper bag in the other. “I can’t believe you thought it was a good idea to try to make a pickup line in Spanish.” you sighed loudly. “You can barely introduce yourself. Plus, she’s your teacher, keep it in your pants.” “Please, I was amaz- OH, whassup Jeffrey?!” Johnny spotted his friend waiting for him “This is my boring classmate Y/N. Y/N, this is Jaehyun.” “Hi, nice to meet you,” you said sheepishly, avoiding to look at his face. “Nice to meet you too.” “Today I said to Isabella that she was “La chica más Bella I’ve ever seen.” You know, Isabella and all-” “I don’t speak Spanish, Johnny.” the guy mumbled and you suppressed a smile. “- and even though I couldn’t say the whole sentence in Spanish, she smiled at me and said I was sweet. I bet she loved it.” “I clearly remember her disgusted face when she asked you to keep doing the exercise.” “You're lying to make me look bad.” “She wouldn’t need to lie, Hyung,” Jaehyun said, making you giggle.

After that meeting, you did talk to each other, but never alone. It was either at their fraternity parties or at lunch when he would join you, Johnny, and Taeyong. Now, you had slept in his bed and didn’t even remember how you ended up there.

“I have no idea how I ended up on your bed. I am so, so sorry, Jaehyun.” you clumsily start standing up and finding your way to the door. “I-I swear I would never sleep with you.”

You realize what you said and widened your eyes regretting your words. The boy, on the other hand, only chuckles and stays laid down on his bed, finding quite amusing your flustered and messy state.

“Ouch, it kinda hurts my pride”

“I mean- I don’t mean like that. You are very attrac-” you stop yourself and shake your hand in front of your body “What I mean is, of course, I would sleep with- NO!” you stop, taking a deep breath.

Why couldn’t you come up with a simple sentence? You decide to focus on the Mickey Mouse plushie on the top of his shelf and start again.

“This is so embarrassing! What I’m trying to say is-”

Jaehyun’s laughter stops you. He runs his hands through his fingers as he sits on his bed, with the comforter only covering his bottom parts, torso completely exposed.

“I think you mean that you wouldn’t take advantage of me.”

“Yes! Yes. That’s exactly what I was trying to say.” you quickly agree, averting your gaze from his figure.

“I also have no idea how you ended up here.” Jaehyun states, grabbing a black t-shirt from the ground “but I’m sure nothing happened because I went to bed early last night. And alone.” he emphasizes the last part “Were you at the party?”

“Yeah,” you answered while looking at your feet and end up taking a glance at your stained shirt.

The stain on your shirt makes you realize how fucked up you must look. You also smell terrible. Why was this happening to you? There were so many bedrooms in this house, why did you end up precisely in his?

“I had a few drinks last night…”

“A few?” he raises an eyebrow curiously.

“Maybe too many.” you scratch the back of your head and keep looking down.

Then, the awkward silence comes. You, standing there, in the middle of the room, like a statue in the middle of the room and Jaehyun a few steps away from you. It fazed you how he managed to look charming even after just waking up.

“So, uh… The door…” he says motioning to the door behind you, snapping you back to reality.

“Oh, yes, sure. I’m sorry.” you turn back and open the door.

Luck being on your side, the first thing you see as you get out of the room is your friend, Johnny, holding a puzzled look on his face.

“Isn’t it Jaehyun’s…”

“Yes.”

You grumble and turn to your left, heading to the staircase, not giving Johnny enough time to make questions.

"Did you sleep together?” he asks Jaehyun loud enough for you to hear by the end of the hall.

“NO,” both of you say at the same time.

Actually, you screamed from the top of the staircase and Jaehyun mumbled beside Johnny. “I think she’s not really interested.” he completes with a sarcastic note, chuckling.

“Why was she coming out of your room? How did that happen?”

“Did you smell her clothes? She was probably dead drunk last night.”

By the time the boys reached the messy living room, you were already opening the front door.

“At least drink a cup of coffee” Johnny offers and you shake your head.

“Tell Taeyong I went back to the dorms,” you say, stepping outside and shutting the door as fast as you could.

“Let me drive-” Johnny starts but you close the door before he could finish “you.”

The two boys head to the kitchen and start preparing their breakfast. Johnny places a cup of coffee in front of Jaehyun who smiles and silently thanks him. The next one to wake up is Yuta, who walked down the stairs inexplicably happy for someone who should have a hangover.

"Care to explain why this house is so noisy on a Saturday morning?” he calls the room’s attention to himself. “I hear too many voices.”

“There was a misunderstanding,” Jaehyun mumbles.

“What do you mean?” Yuta raised an eyebrow at the younger and Johnny giggled.

“Y/N woke up on Jaehyun’s bed this morning.”

“What, Taeyong’s cousin?” he turns to Johnny who nods “She slept with you?” Yuta gaps at the younger boy “So she finally admitted she-”

“YUta” Johnny interrupts him “I was joking.”

“She was just really drunk and ended up in my room last night,” the youngest says, munching his cereal “When she got there I was already asleep. I didn’t spend a lot of time at the party last night. I have three projects to hand in this month. They are tiring me out.”

“So, Y/N really slept with you?” Yuta asked again.

“In my room,“ Jaehyun corrects. “Well, if you excuse me, I’ll go to the gym.” he gives them a small smile and leaves the kitchen.

“Yuta, you almost said Y/N likes Jaehyun!” Johnny whispers-yells at Yuta.

“Well, it’s not like she knows how to hide her crush.”

“So you’re telling me that you slept with Jeong Jaehyun?” your roommate asks after you finished telling her about the events of the previous night.

You sigh loudly and shove her hands from your hair. “Did you listen to what I said? I slept on his bed because I was drunk and probably thought I was entering Taeyong’s room.”

“Come back here, I didn’t finish drying your hair.” she pulls you back by your shoulders “It would have been nice if you had slept with him. I heard stories about Jaehyun…”

“You should stop gossiping around,” You roll your eyes.

“Don’t pull up this act, I know you love it when I spill all the tea for you,” she pulls your hair with unnecessary strength, making you groan “Some girls say he really knows how to use his tongue, you know…” she says, pointing down at your lower body and you hit her hand.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” you say in disgust. “Plus, I don’t know how so many people know how Jaehyun is in bed. He looks really reserved and quiet.“

“The quiet ones are the worst, my friend.” your roommate says before blowing air on your right ear, making you yank away from her.

It was midday when you decided to open your laptop and get some work done. You have three essays due to Thursday and you haven’t even started. It was now your third year and the pressure on your shoulders was getting heavier each day. You’re a good student, excellent grades, the professors love you, but after spending all those years studying communication, you still don’t know what you want to do with your life.

Taeyong always says that your problem is that you are too afraid to take the first step. Deep down, you know what you want, you’re just too afraid to pursue it.

Not even twenty minutes after starting your assignment, you hear a special ringtone and see your cousin’s face on your phone’s screen.

“I’ll stop calling you pumpkin and I’ll ask Sicheng if you can have his nickname,” Taeyong says as soon as you pick up the call.

“Who is Sicheng?”

“Winwin” he replied and you hummed acknowledging. He was a Chinese exchange student who lived with your cousin last year.

“And why would I want to be called Winwin?”

“Because a little bird told me you managed to hook up with Jaehyun. That’s not even a regular win, you deserve a fucking Olympic gold medal for finally going for him.”

You sighed loudly and groaned at your cousin’s words. Did you really think they would keep quiet about this morning’s accident? All the gossips of the campus either start or finish in the damn frat house. They love gossiping.

"I know your little bird is six feet tall and goes by Johnny,” you say in annoyance. “Couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?”

“It’s like I always say, Cousin,” you hear Johnny’s faint voice, apparently he was far from the microphone “Once the tea’s ready, we need to spill it. But in fact, no. It wasn’t me.”

“First, I’m not your Cousin, Johnny,” you say, clearing your throat. “Second, you should spill your fucking tea correctly then,” you growl at him which makes both men laugh at the other end of the line. “We didn’t sleep together - I mean, we did sleep together but-”

“I KNEW IT! I told you I heard weird noises coming from the kitchen.”

You hear a high pitched voice coming from your cousin’s side. You will kill Taeyong as soon as you get a chance.

“Taeyong, is this Donghyuck? That demon? How many people are listening to this phone call?” you lower your voice and feel your cheeks getting hot. Either from embarrassment or anger. (It was probably both).

“Only me, Johnny, Hyuck and Mark.” he simply states, making you huff in annoyance. ONLY four people discussing about your life.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME, THEN?” you scream and hear a bang on your wall, warning you about the noise. “Sorry!” you scream again to apologize. “You said Mark is there? Hey, Mark!”

“Hi, Y/N. I’m still very sorry about your shirt. I promise to buy you a new one,” he says closer to the phone.

“It’s okay, sweetie. My roommate knows how to clean the stain.”

“Why do you call Mark sweetie and call me a demon? Hyuckie is sad,” Donghyuck says, faking a cute voice.

“Cut the crap, demon. You don’t deserve my love and affection.” you say looking back at your open laptop, realizing you won’t be able to focus anymore “By the way, what does the noise have to do with me? It could have been literally anyone.”

“Well, I heard that you guys spent the whole night, you know… Having fun. Even on the kitchen counter,” the youngest says suggestively ,making you gasp.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? HEARD FROM WHO? THAT’S A LIE”

“That’s why I called, we needed to confirm the story,” Taeyong says laughing at your reaction.

“STOP LAUGHING! THIS IS NOT FUN” you hear your dorm neighbor punching your wall again and you snap “I’M BEING DEFAMED, ABIGAIL. GIVE ME A BREAK.” you scream towards the wall she has just punched.

“Abigail should just buy earplugs. She gets irritated by any sound you make.” you hear your cousin mumbling.

“Don’t try to change the subject, Taeyong.” you warn him “I am seriously so mad at you. Especially you, Johnny. I’m sure Jaehyun explained the whole incident.”

“She’s really mad, isn’t she?” someone whispers and the rest of them giggle.

“I can hear you.”

“Yeah, Jaehyun told me you were drunk and ended up in his bed, but who knows what happened before the sun came out.” Johnny giggles.

“NOTHING happened, for your information. I didn’t have sex on the kitchen counter” and you make sure to quickly answer “OR on Jaehyun’s bed. I didn’t hook up with that man, please, stop getting on my nerves.”

“Sicheng can keep being Winwin, she’s still a loser.” you hear Donghyuck snickering at his joke.

“But why did you go to Jaehyun’s room, though?” Mark asks.

“My drunk-self probably thought it was Taeyong’s,” you answer and throw yourself on your bed.

The line stayed silent for some seconds, the boys were whispering something to themselves but you couldn’t understand anything they were saying.

“Hello?”

“So, dear cousin.” he has just started and you could already assume he was trying to hold back his laughter.

“Do you know your cousin’s bedroom is the first room on the right?” Johnny asks and you hum in response.

“Jaehyun hyung stays at the end of the hall, dude..." Mark continues.

“On the left,” Donghyuck adds.

“Are you insinuating I went there on purpose?” you ask them “I was drunk!”

“You know what they say, noona,” you hear Donghyuck’s “drunk actions are sober thoughts.”

“That’s not how it goes,” you mumble.

“We all know you like Jaehyun hyung.” you gasp at the youngest words. “It’s not like you make an effort to hide your crush on him. Even Yuta hyung knows it.”

“I promise I didn’t say anything to them,” Johnny says immediately

“Me neither.” Taeyong adds “But Hyuck made a good point, you’re not subtle.”

“Do you remember last Tuesday how she choked on her own saliva when Jaehyun offered her sour gummies?” Johnny added laughing.

“Stop mocking me.” you huffed. “Please, don’t make a big deal out of this. The situation itself is already embarrassing.”

“You should shoot your shot, Y/N.” Mark says in a supportive tone “If I hadn’t made the first move, I wouldn’t be dating now.”

“Yes, we support you.”

“If even Mark has a girlfriend, you can get that d- OUCH DON’T HIT ME”

“Plus, you already know each-”

“You’re not that bad-looking either-”

All the boys start speaking at the same time and you think you might go crazy. What are they talking about? Dating Jeong Jaehyun? It’s not like you were in love with the guy, it was only a crush, for heaven’s sake! You were only acquaintances and dating was definitely not your top priority right now. You hang up on the rambling boys at the same time your roommate comes back to your shared room.

“What happened? Abigail was complaining about you screaming at her,” she says closing the door and sitting beside you.

When Monday came, you instantly wished that it was Friday. You are woken up by a pillow being thrown at you, full force. The alarm on your phone must have been ringing for a while but you didn’t hear it.

“Good morning to you too, Jiwoo.” you groan.

“Turn this off,” she says covering her head with her comforter looking like a caterpillar. “What time are you free today? Wanna grab dinner?”

“Spanish class finishes at 7.” you yawn and stand up, finally getting enough strength to start your day.

You’ve been taking Spanish classes for a year and a half now. And even though Mrs. García graduated last semester, Johnny continued taking the classes, which positively surprised you.

“I’ll meet you at the Language Center, then.” she pokes her head out of her comfortable cocoon to whisper “You can invite that hot classmate of yours. The tall one.”

“I’m not gonna invite Johnny,” you say shaking your head and choosing your pair of jeans and t-shirt of the day “He will certainly embarrass me.”

“We’ve been living together for three years, is there anything about you I don’t know yet?” she says, now sitting on her bed. “Stop being selfish and help your lonely friend here.”

“Why Johnny, though?” you ask, turning your head to her “Remember how he signed up for the Spanish classes only because of the hot teacher?”

“Yeah, he’s a frat boy.” she says shrugging her shoulders “But it’s not like I want to marry him. It’s like Cyndi Lauper used to say...” she stands up and takes her phone out of the charger and ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ starts playing. You roll your eyes and smile at her.

“Alright, I’ll ask Johnny.” you close your drawer and open the bedroom’s door “Just turn it off before Abigail starts hitting our wall.”

Your morning classes went smoothly, no surprises. Some professors scheduled exams for next month and you made sure to add a reminder on your phone. At noon you went to the cafeteria to buy your lunch and ran to Mrs. Park’s office. She was one of the professors responsible for the Academic Writing course, and because of your excellent grades, she recommended you as a tutor. Despite being an elective subject, a lot of freshmen always signed up for it since it was very helpful during your undergraduate life.

Once you get into the long hall, you swallow the last piece of your sandwich and knock on her door. The old lady opened it with a smile, motioning for you to enter.

“How are you today, dear?” she says sitting on her chair and you mirror her action.

“I’m fine, thank you. Is everything alright, Mrs. Park? You called me here…” you say cautiously earning a giggle from the lady.

“Oh, don’t worry dear. I’m sorry if my email sounded so urgent, I just wanted to talk to you about your tutoring classes.” she types something on her laptop and looks back at you. “There are some foreign students in my class who might need help not only with the academic style but the language itself. I will ask you to be patient and take a closer look at them.”

“Of course! I haven’t tutored any foreign student yet, but I’ll gladly help them,” you say smiling.

“I’ll keep you updated with my lesson plans and their assignments…”

Your meeting with Mrs. Park was short and very pleasant, as always. She was kind enough to give you a cookie once you finished. You were now heading back to the main building, finding your way to the library where you would continue the assignments you postponed on Saturday. Too focused on arriving as soon as possible, you didn’t see a tall guy, holding three heavy books, coming in your direction and when you realized, it was too late to get out of his way. You met the floor, just like the books and some of his notes.

“I’m so sorry.” you start picking up the sheets of paper next to you “I didn’t see…” you only meet his eyes when the guy kneels and picks up one of the books on the floor.

“Hi, Y/N” Jaehyun’s lips stretched into a subtle smile, showing the dimples on his cheeks.

“Oh, hi! I’m so sorry for this mess.” you say, both standing up. “I didn’t see you there.”

“You’ve been apologizing a lot lately,” he comments, remembering your flustered state two days before.

“Sor-” you stop yourself before you could finish your apologies, again. Jaehyun giggles at you.

“You’re distracted, it happens.” he shrugs, smiling widely and you swore your heart was going to combust at that very moment. “Gotta go, see you around.”

You don’t even have time to answer, the boy was already at the end of the hall.

Some hours later and with an empty stomach, you finish your first essay and check the time. You had five minutes to get to class. Hurriedly, you gathered your belongings and ran across buildings to get there on time. Fortunately, the teacher wasn’t in class yet. But Johnny was.

“Señorita, muy tarde, ¿no?” he says and you roll your eyes “Our Spanish princess is late, I can’t believe it.”

“Stop being so annoying.” you say throwing your bag beside him, “I thought I was the Spanish queen. Did you declass me?”

“Now that that straight A student is gone, I gave it a second thought and I believe the queen title belongs to her,. But you're the second best," he says taking a pen and a notebook out of his backpack, making you raise an eyebrow. “I promised I wouldn’t copy your notes this semester.”

“I have to say I’m surprised. I didn’t think you would want to keep studying Spanish.“

"Why not?”

“I thought you only wanted to… you know… hang out with our teacher.” you hesitate.

“Since when is fuck a forbidden word?” he chuckles “Yes, I wanted to fuck her but I told you, I wanted to learn a new language too.”

“You didn’t need to be rude, Johnny,” you mumble and he laughs.

“Plus, I’m doing this for you too.” you give him a questioning look and he replies with a cheeky grin “So you can see Jaehyun’s face twice a week.”

“And here I was considering hooking you up with my roommate,” you say to him.

“What do you mean?”

“She invited you to have dinner with us tonight because she wants to flirt with you.” you say bored, looking at your wristwatch. “Isn’t the teacher a bit late?”

“Well, I’m free tonight, why don’t give your sweet roommate a chance?”

“Just, please, tone it down while I’m eating. I don’t want to be the third-wheel.”

You had a knife and you weren’t afraid to use it against Johnny right now. When he said he would make sure that you wouldn't be thirdwheeling, he didn’t mention it involved inviting Jeong Jaehyun.

“Is it a double date?” Jiwoon whispered in your ear when she saw the boy approaching your table.

“This is not a date,” you say behind your gritted teeth. “Johnny…” you look at the man in front of you and he smiles widely.

“So, Jiwoo, that’s my friend Jaehyun. We live together.” Johnny introduces Jaehyun to your roommate, who shakes his hand. “This is Jiwoo.”

“Nice to meet you, Jaehyun.”

“I called you here because I thought it would be nice to have a double date!” Johnny boldly says making your eyes grow wider and your face burn. It made Jaehyun’s ear red, but that you didn’t notice.

“This is a friendly dinner,” you say, taking the knife from the table, “and I would appreciate it if you stop being so inconvenient.”

“I thought I could call it a date after what happened Saturday morning.” Johnny grins at you and before you could scream at him, Jaehyun speaks first.

“Stop bringing that up,” he places a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, “you’re making her uncomfortable.”

“Why are your ears so red, Jaehyunnie?” Johnny tilts his head to the side and places both hands on the other boy’s ears.

“I’ll punch your face once we get home,” the younger mumbles and Johnny lifts an eyebrow.

“It will be fun watching you try,” he mumbles back. “So, ladies, shall we order?”

After the dramatic introductions, the dinner went quite well and there wasn’t another mention regarding The Incident (how you like to call it on your mind). Johnny and Jiwoo were too engrossed in their own flirting to think about embarrassing their friends. It was a really pleasant meal and by the end of it, you found out Jaehyun is easygoing and it wasn’t hard to hold a conversation once he opened up. He told you about his major, architecture, even though you already knew that, and said he was glad that Johnny invited him to dinner because, being full of projects to finish, he probably wouldn’t even remember to eat properly.

“We know each other for what, a year and a half?” he asks and you nod. “How come we never talked like this?”

“I think we never had the chance,” you say smiling.

Johnny and your roommate were walking behind you. You glanced back and saw his arms around her shoulders, giggling while she blushed.

“They are disgusting,” you say with disdain, and Jaehyun laughs. “Seriously. I asked him to tone it down… I’m tired of thirdwheeling,” you say under your breath, but Jaehyun hears you.

“Is that why Johnny called me?” he says suggestively “So you did want it to be a double date.”

“What? NO!” you say hitting his left arm but regretting right after. You just got to know the guy, you are not that close yet. But your heart feels lighter once he chuckles.

“Do you know why Johnny always messes with you?” he asks and you shake your head. “Because you get riled up easily. I was only joking, dummy.” he flicks your forehead lightly, smiling at you, exposing his dimples.

“So, you and Jaehyun talked a lot, huh,” Jiwoo says while both of you are on your way back to the dorms. It was late, but you didn’t mind missing a few hours of sleep. Not today.

“Yeah, he was friendly,” you refrain yourself from saying much more. “I had no one else to talk to since you and Johnny were almost making out in front of me,” you say with a playful smile while she pushes out of the sidewalk.

“You are exaggerating.” she sighs and you smile wider “But we did flirt.”

“Did you give him your number?” you ask, linking your arms together.

“Yes, we exchanged numbers. I hope he texts first.”

“Oh, don’t wait for Johnny.” you say and Jiwoo tilts her head in confusion “He will forget to text you. Once we get home, send him something like ‘thanks for dinner’ or ‘I had so much fun tonight’ and he will be happy.”

The rest of the walk back home was your friend trying to embarrass you bringing up Jaehyun and you trying not to get riled up easily, as the boy had mentioned before. You realized your attempts to remain unbothered were in vain when Jiwoo was running away from you to avoid physical retaliation.

Both of you entered the building laughing as quietly as you could. Once you got to your floor, you headed to the end of the hall, meeting one of your neighbors, Abigail, getting out of her own room with a plate full of cookies.

“Hello, girls! I made those cookies for my roommate, but she’s already asleep. Do you want to share it?”

“Are you sure you don’t wanna keep them for when she wakes up?” Jiwoo asks, already putting a cookie on her mouth “I take it back. Yes, we accept the cookies.”

“Is it good?” she asks expectantly.

“This is DIVINE!” you hit your roommate’s shoulder and open your door.

After accpeting you neighbor's cookies and chatting for a bit, you and Jiwoo went to bed. You laid your head down on your pillow and, even though you felt tired, you couldn’t get out of your head images of a certain dimpled boy. Before The Incident, you and Jaehyun barely had opportunities to know each other like you did tonight. Of course, you would rather cut off your tongue than tell Johnny you liked his idea of inviting the boy. It made you wonder if getting to know him better will make your little crush fade away or make it bigger. You sincerely hoped for the former.

In the morning, rather than your alarm, your cousin’s ringtone woke you up. You groaned and picked up the phone.

“Good morning, pumpkin! Is the grass greener, the world beautiful and life worth living yet?” you hear his giggles and sigh loudly.

Johnny Fucking Seo.

“You are alive to bother me, life still sucks.” you whisper trying not to wake up Jiwoo “Do you know you woke me up before my alarm? What time…” you take your phone from your ears to check the time and when you read 6:17 am on the screen, you know Taeyong days are numbered. “Are you a psychopath? I still had almost an hour of sleep.”

“I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be late!” he says loudly and you hear a thud in the background “And also because I wanna meet my lovely cousin before my first class that starts at 8:30. I’m making a special breakfast for us.”

“Please, don’t.” you have flashbacks from the last time Taeyong made a ‘special breakfast’ you had to spend the rest of your day taking antacid “Just stick with simple breakfast. Simple is good.”

“Okay, then. Meet you at 7:30 in the cafeteria.” he says and when you are about to hang up, he finishes with “I might invite Jaehyun too.”

“LEE TAEYONG” you whisper-yell but he had hung up before you could protest. The person who said that family is everything clearly didn’t have an annoying cousin like Taeyong.

You spend some time scrolling through your social media and messaging death threats to Johnny and Taeyong. Then you decide to get up and write a note to your friend. Today both of your classes wouldn’t start until 10 am, so you decided to warn her and let her sleep peacefully.

At 7:35 you arrived at the cafeteria and spotted Taeyong sitting in one of the tables, two trays in front of him.

“You are late.”

“Only five minutes.” you shrug “I thought you were making me a special breakfast,” you go to his side and greet him with a hug.

“You said I should make it simple so I bought you the cafeteria breakfast. Don’t complain.” he takes his bag off the chair next to him and motions for you to sit down. “I need your help.”

You frown while munching a piece of bread. “Help? I thought you called to make fun of me for going on a date with Jaehyun.”

“And yet, you came, willingly. I’ll tell Johnny you considered it a date.” he had a knowing smile adorning his face. “But, no, I wouldn’t wake up earlier just to annoy you. You’re not that important.” he says while peeling a banana. “First, don’t forget that my sister is coming to visit us this weekend. My mom will kill me if you’re not there to celebrate with us.”

Taeyong’s family lived closer than yours. Being only a one hour drive to his hometown, both of you constantly pay your aunt a visit - most of the time requested by her. This time, Taeyong’s sister is visiting after a whole year living abroad with her son and husband, so, obviously, there would be a huge family gathering.

"But I also need your help with a surprise party. Yuta’s birthday is coming soon and I would ask for the boys’ help, but now that Doyoung is gone I can only trust Taeil.”

“That’s because your friends can’t keep their mouth shut,” you mumble and see your cousin smiling. “What do you want me to do? I don’t know Yuta that well, he will find it weird…”

“You won’t need to talk to him or anything. I was thinking you could buy decorations and make the cake.”

“Where will you celebrate it? You can go bowling, maybe going to an arcade… Arcade sounds nice.”

“Arcade? How old are you 12?” Taeyong scoffs. “We’ll just throw a party and invite everyone.”

“You will throw a frat party and give a cake to the guy and call it a surprise?” you deadpan. “Are you dumb?”

“Yeah, I’m throwing him a party. What else do you want me to do?” he looks at you bewildered.

“Well, if your plan is throwing a party and inviting everyone on campus, you won’t need to worry about your friends because Yuta will know one way or another.“ you sigh and place your sandwich back on the tray. “It will be a party full of people who barely know him… it’s better if you just take him to a place he likes. Maybe an amusement park? You can try to find a ticket for that french film festival, he looks cultured, he might like it.”

“People don’t want to spend their birthday at cultured festivals, Y/N. People wanna get drunk. I’m people. Yuta is people.” Taeyong says stealing your sandwich.

“Give it back, thief.” you take it from his hands “I’m not saying he can’t get drunk, I’m just saying it’s stupid to make a frat party to celebrate his birthday, there’s nothing special in it.”

You continue bickering for a couple of minutes until a tall figure appears patting Taeyong shoulder and sitting next to you.

“Good morning to you”

You hear his baritone voice and your heart starts beating faster, but you say to yourself that it had nothing to do with Jaehyun being right beside you. Your pulse was fast because of your argument with Taeyong, yes, that was the reason.

"What are you fighting about?”

“Before you murder me, I didn’t know he would be here.” Taeyong whispers to you. “I didn’t know you had classes early today, Jae.”

“Yeah, I actually came early because of my group project. One of the girls ruined it and now we need to fix it.” he scratches the back of his head and you see him slumping against the chair “What were you talking about?”

“Yuta’s birthday.” you blurt out at the same time as Taeyong says “My mom’s dinner.”

“Sorry…” you say smiling apologetically to your cousin “I’m sure Jaehyun won’t say anything.”

“So, Jae, we’re planning a birthday party,” Taeyong starts but you interrupt.

“You are being unreasonable.“ you scoff at your cousin “Your idea doesn’t make ANY sense. You can’t make a surprise party when you plan to invite half campus.”

“Could you, please, shut up?” he warns, lifting his index finger in your direction “I was telling her that we could throw a big surprise party and invite everyone to celebrate Yuta’s birthday.”

“Basically, he wants to throw one of your frat parties and expects Yuta to be surprised. This is a terrible idea.” you say crossing your arms over your chest “I suggest something more intimate, for his close friends…”

“You’re just saying this because you don’t like our parties. They are the most fun-“ Jaehyun interrupts Taeyong before he can finish.

“I agree with your cousin, hyung.” you and Taeyong quickly shift your attention to the boy “She has a point. You can’t expect that everyone you invite won’t tell Yuta. And it’s his birthday, he should celebrate with people that actually care about him,” he sips his iced coffee before continuing “We can make a small surprise party. I heard Winwin is planning to visit us and Johnny knows one of his classmates, he can ask-“

"No, not Johnny.” you interrupt him “He will end up telling Yuta about the party.”

“I can try talking to the guy, I guess.” he smiles and you nod happily.

“See, Taeyong, that’s what we call a good idea,” you say and he makes a disgusted face.

“Since when are you guys that close? You had your first date yesterday!“ your cousin teases you and you throw a banana at him.

“It was a friendly dinner.” Jaehyun corrects Taeyong, copying your words from yesterday. You smile, even though a tiny part of you felt a little bit hurt that he didn’t consider it a date. “And this has nothing to do with our new friendship, I’m just being fair.”

Taeyong hums looking at the younger boy suspiciously.

“I do think we can throw a party for him at a bowling alley, though. Does he like bowling? Maybe an arcade-” you start ranting but Jaehyun laughs at you.

“How old are you?” as soon as the question leaves his lips, Taeyong snickers.

“I told you it was childish.”

You place your elbows on the table and rests your cheeks on your hands. “I really wanted to go to an arcade,” you mumble.

“Go by yourself then,” Taeyong says, placing the banana you threw at him back on your tray. “I’ll create a group chat with you so we can think about the details.” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and widening his eyes when he looked at the time “I gotta go or I’ll be late for class.”

Jaehyun stands up at the same time as your cousin, gathering his belongings “I should go too.”

“It’s a surprise, don’t tell anyone.” Taeyong points a finger at you before waving goodbye.

“I’m not a snitch,” you say loud enough for him to hear you.

You had to admit, the rest of your week went by quickly and nothing exciting happened. Except for one of your tutoring students. He was one of the exchange students Mrs. Park had warned you about. His language skills were still a bit rusty, but he was brilliant nevertheless.

Hendery Wong was so easygoing and fun to be with, that even boring tutoring sessions became bearable.

"So, you are telling me that I can’t use this structure here” he frowned and pointed at the same sentence for the third time “But in this other situation it is correct? It makes no sense!” he laughs and throws his pencil on the table.

“Hendery, you need to analyze the whole sentence. Pay attention to the syntax.”

“Y/N, you are a great tutor, but it’s been two hours and I’m starving.” he stopped you by placing his open palm in front of your face.

“You’re right, we should let this matter for the next session.” you started gathering your belongings while the guy next to you stood up.

“Do you wanna grab lunch together? But you are forbidden to talk about syntax or verb tenses.” you laughed at him and nod

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Great!”

Once you stood up and got ready to go, you realized the boy started giggling while looking at you.

“What’s wrong? Do I have something on my face?” you asked, palming your cheeks and forehead.

“No, it’s just that I was thinking,” the boy opened a big smile and you can’t help but mirror his action “You are really pretty."

That stuck to your head in a way that even now, on your way back from your aunt’s house, Taeyong could pinpoint there was something on your mind. He was on the passenger seat, looking at you curiously, and you could feel his stare.

“Spill it,” you say without taking your eyes off the road.

“Oh? Nothing. Just thinking about how I haven’t seen you since Tuesday.” he hums to an unfamiliar song and you frown “You’ll drop me first, right?”

“Sure. I need to give Johnny’s car back since you don’t have your own.”

“You should be the one with a car, I don’t even have a license.”

You scoff and he turns the radio on. You lived too far from your campus, so bringing your car with you wasn’t an option and Taeyong, being the useless cousin you think he is, doesn’t know how to drive. Johnny is nice enough to lend you his car once in a while. Taeyong said he would only need the car at night, so he didn’t mind if you took it today. It was a relief because going to your Aunt’s by bus was hell.

“Since you’ll drop me first, do you want to spend the night? It will be late to go home by yourself.”

“It’s 6:45, Taeyong. I’ve walked back to the dorms later than that.”

“We’re having a movie night. Maybe you can finally convince us to watch High School Musical.” he lifts his eyebrows suggestively.

“You know I always lose, everyone hates it.”

“Not everyone,” he emphasizes, but you shrug.

“I'll stay if you buy us pizza.”

“Deal.”

The rest of the ride is quiet. Taeyong falls asleep and you turn off the radio to avoid getting too distracted by the music. You have a license, but it doesn’t mean you are a confident driver.

Around thirty minutes later, you park Johnny’s car and go inside the big house with your cousin. Yuta was sprawled on the couch, reading a book and a guy you knew as Jungwoo was sleeping on the armchair. You could hear faint sounds coming from upstairs and you guessed it was Mark playing guitar. Or maybe Donghyuck’s screams while playing games, you weren’t sure.

Taeyong guides you to the kitchen and you find Taeil eating a bowl of something you couldn’t really guess what it was.

“Hyung, that’s my cousin.” Taeyong gets closer to the boy and whispers “She is going to help us with operation Osaka.”

“If you want to keep it a secret, maybe you shouldn’t call it operation Osaka.” the eldest jokes and you nod in agreement.

“Isn’t it frustrating living with Taeyong? He is so slow sometimes.” you sigh and hand your phone to your cousin. “I’m getting hungry.”

Taeyong tricked you into thinking that there was a movie night previously arranged. He said, however, the nicest things are done unplanned, so he invited the others. Mark and Jungwoo were the first ones to refuse. The first has a date with his girlfriend and Jungwoo is probably just not feeling it. Yuta stayed on the couch reading his book, not minding any of you. Donghyuck probably didn’t even listen to Taeyong, too engrossed in his games. The only ones left were you, Taeil, your cousin, and Johnny, who said would stay for just a while.

“What about Jaehyun?” you asked, bringing the beer cans to the living room. The words left your mouth before you could realize the consequences. You saw Johnny and Taeyong smirking and Yuta taking his eyes off the book and staring at you. “I mean, the more, the merrier.”

“Jaehyunnie has been locked in his room since yesterday. He said something about a project.” Taeil was the one who answered you.

“We shouldn’t bother him, then,” you say handling Yuta a beer and drinking your own.

“Oh, cousin,” Johnny called, making you roll your eyes.

“I’m not your cousin, John-”

“Where were you on Friday?” he smiles at Taeyong and looks back at you.

“You usually have lunch with us,” Taeyong says and proceeds to sip his drink to hide his growing smile.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sorry about that! I had lunch with someone else.”

“We are aware,” Johnny says not-so-innocently. “A little bird told me you had lunch with Hendery Wong, the hot exchange student.”

“I seriously hate this little bird of yours,” you say motioning your body to look at the TV. “and he suggested we had lunch together only because I was tutoring him.”

“Having lunch with the students it’s not part of a tutor’s job.” Yuta says as he closes his book “Taeil hyung, stop scrolling and choose a movie already!”

“He was just being nice,” you mumble, but Taeyong hears it.

“First Jaehyun, now Hendery? Your standards are too high for your own good.” he whispers playfully and you hit his legs.

Once the three boxes of pizza were opened in front of you and the movie started playing, you let yourself relax on your spot on the floor. You felt your eyes flutter and slowly close. You weren’t a very energetic person, and the previous week seemed to have drained all of your energy. You woke up to someone poking your cheeks.

Johnny was already gone and Taeyong was sleeping beside you. Yuta and Taeil were the only ones paying attention to the movie. You turn your head to see Donghyuck smiling down at you while holding a plate with three slices of pizza.

“Oh, hey, Hyuck,” you say, adjusting yourself. “You can eat it if you want.”

“I ate it already. I’m offering you the opportunity of taking this upstairs and giving it to Jaehyun hyung,” he says placing the plate on your hands and making his way between you and Taeyong. “You should also take a beer or two with you.”

“Why don’t you take it?”

“Shhhh.” you hear an annoyed Yuta.

After exchanging glances and engaging in a silent fight with Donghyuck, you stand up and go straight to the kitchen to grab two cans of beer. Why were you listening to him? Why was your heart beating faster the closer you got to the staircase? What if Jaehyun was asleep? Or, maybe, he just wanted to be alone. You pondered if you should leave the food at his doorstep, knock the door, and run back to the living room.

But why were you so afraid to knock on a simple door? Because it was Jaehyun’s.

Even though he had acknowledged that you were friends and, now, you could manage to hold a proper conversation with him, you couldn’t help but stay very conscious about your own words and actions. What if Jaehyun realized you were actually very awkward and not interesting? Or worse, he could find out about your crush and distance himself from you. Then, all your efforts to build a friendship will be in vain.

You were overthinking about knocking a door. Jaehyun will make you go insane.

When you are about to knock, you see one of the doors in the hall opening and Jaehyun getting out. He looks taken aback at first by the sight of you in front of his door, trying to hold a plate and two cans of beer. But then, he smiles and reaches to grab the cans from your arms.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were here.”

“Taeyong invited me for a movie night.”

“And what about these?” he asks, lifting the beers and pointing his chin at the plate you were holding.

“Oh, these are for you. Taeil said you didn’t leave your room the whole day.”

“Yeah, I’m still fixing that project from Tuesday.” he moves to open his bedroom door and you glance at the amount of paper, glue, and materials you couldn’t even name. It was a mess. “I would invite you in, but I don’t think I can fit anyone else in here.”

“Oh my God, Jaehyun.” you widen your eyes and he feels his ears getting hot from embarrassment “Do you need help? I can start cleaning…”

“No, no, please,” the boy says, placing the beers somewhere and taking the plate of pizza off your hands “Go back to watch the movie.”

“You seriously need help.” you look around once again and then turn your gaze back at his face “Plus, the movie is not that fun.”

And that’s how you spend the next few hours with him. While he took a break to eat the things you brought, you started separating garbage from the things Jaehyun would actually use. Just by finishing that, he got back half of his room. Then, once the boy went back to the project, he gave you some little tasks like cutting some paper squares and handing him utensils. Jaehyun even made sure to explain to you what you were doing and talked about his project. Most of the time you just nodded in agreement, not really understanding what he said. What you did get was that the model he was building represented 40% of his grade. If you were him, you would be freaking out too.

“I had to rebuild the whole thing except for these details,” he says, pointing to one of the benches on your hand.

“And your group didn’t help with anything?” you ask, extending your open hand for him to get another tree.

“I wouldn’t let Naeun get close to this again. If she touches it, I might actually kill her.” Jaehyun mumbles while using tweezers to glue the tree on his project. He had his lips puckered, focusing on his task.

You stay silent for a moment, watching the boy cautiously finishing the details of his work. Now that you were focused on analyzing his figure, you perceived how tired Jaehyun must be. His tousled hair looked dirty and his eyes were adorned by eyebags and dark circles. You saw him yawning frequently and sometimes you could see him batting his eyelashes swiftly, to whisk away his sleepiness.

“Did you sleep last night?” you ask, giving him the last tree that was on your hand.

“Not really.”

“Shouldn’t you go to sleep, then?”

“I will once I finish my next assignment.” he says, motioning to grab a brush that was behind him “Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s hard not too when you look like a panda,” you answer and he smiles, but doesn’t answer. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘next assignment’?”

“I need to hand in an essay on Monday.” he mumbles, placing the last tree next to the main building of the model “But it’s almost ready, I just need to proofread it.”

“I can proofread it for you. Where is it?” you ask standing up and looking around.

“It’s fine, sit down.” he holds your hand and pulls it in his direction “You’ve helped a lot already.”

“The only thing I did was stare and hold some trees,” you say quietly, looking at his fingers holding your hands.

“You helped with the grass. The grass was important.” he smiles and pulls you with more strength now “Come on, sit down. You also helped me to not fall asleep, that’s important.”

“You know that you are too tired to proofread your essay properly, right?” you say sitting beside him again. “Plus, I’m one of the tutors of Academic Writing. Proofreading is what I do the most.”

“If I promise to go to sleep and finish my essay tomorrow, will you shut up?”

“Why can’t I proofread it for you?” you tilt your head to the side.

“You’re smarter than me, you’ll see my dumb mistakes,” he mutters and you smile at him.

“We all make dumb mistakes, Jaehyun.” you sigh and start gathering the unused utensils around you “Fine, at least let me help you organize this mess.”

Yuta is the one that comes and takes you out of your bubble. Jaehyun was giving his model the final touches while you were placing one of his books back to the shelf. The elder knocked on the door and entered before Jaehyun could answer it.

“Jae, are you- oh!” Yuta looks at you surprised “I didn’t know you were here. We thought you left before the movie ended.”

“She was helping me.” Jaehyun says without looking at his friend “Hyung, can you take the dishes downstairs for us, please?”

“Yeah…” the other boy exchanges glances between the both of you before leaving and kindly takes the plate and the two empty cans downstairs with him.

“You take your phone out of your pocket and surprise yourself with the time. “I should get going, it’s getting late.”

“How will you go back?” he asks standing up from his spot on the floor and stretching his arms.

“It’s only a 15-minute walk, I’m used to it.” Before you can reach the door, Jaehyun holds your arm and pulls you to his side.

“Look at the floor, you were about to step on the scissors.” he scolds you while you just stare at his facial features. How can he manage to look gorgeous and a complete mess at the same time? “Taeyong is going with you, right?”

“Taeyong is probably asleep by now.” you chuckle and try to avoid any other sharp utensil on the floor.

“You’re going home alone? At this time?” he follows you to the hall and stops at his door frame.

“What do you want me to do? Sleep here?” you question him playfully.

“Well, you slept here last week. I wouldn’t mind sharing my bed. Again.”

And then, you swear you see him smirking.

“Are you flirting with me?” you blurt out and pretend to sound uninterested.

“I might be.”

You feel your cheeks burning and avoid meeting his gaze.

“You are really shameless, aren’t you?”

“I was just kidding, silly.” he laughs and pats your head “I’m actually offering to walk you home.”

You quickly turn your head to meet his face. “No, I won’t accept your company.”

“Why?” he says putting a hand on his chest soundings genuinely offended “I was kidding, I’m not flirting with you-”

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” you mumble, quite offended this time “I guess I should say thank you?” you giggle and stop at the top of the staircase “I appreciate your offer, but you look really, really tired. Just go to sleep before you start hallucinating from sleep deprivation.”

Instinctively, you cup his cheeks on your hands and look at him seriously “Please. Go. To. Sleep.” you take your hands out of his face, leaving Jaehyun’s cheeks numb and his ears, red.

“It’s dangerous for you to walk alone at night.” he stutters, a bit flustered from your sudden affectionate touch.

Before you realized, you were already on the ground floor. Donghyuck was cuddling Taeil, both asleep on the floor.

“And you’re suggesting you will protect me if something happens?” you whisper passing by the two of them in the living room “You can barely keep your eyes open. I’ll be more worried about you walking back here alone. No way.”

“I told you to stop worrying about me.” he gets closer to you just to hold the doorknob, stopping you from opening it.

“Then you shouldn’t worry about me either.” you take his hand from the handle and open it.

“You ladies keep complaining about the death of chivalry,” he says leaning on the door frame “but here you are, ignoring my attempts.”

“Oh, you’re such a gentleman.” you mock him and he shakes his head smiling. “Goodbye, Jaehyun.”

“Text me as soon as you get home,” he shouts to make sure you listen.

And you did. Your cheeks blushed at his words and you couldn’t dare to look back, but if you did, you would see Jaehyun standing still in front of the house, and only getting in once your figure was out of frame.

The boy has always admired you, even though you only small-talked before. He found you smart and it was funny watching you and Johnny bickering all the time. The morning you woke up beside him was clearly a shock. Jaehyun didn’t know you well enough to share a bed with you, but, somehow, he felt that was the beginning of your new friendship.

Once he got inside, he saw Donghyuck whining while Taeil pushed him away.

“Get off me, Donghyuck.”

“I’m gonna make some ramyeon, do you want it?” Jaehyun asks while walking past them.

The youngest stands up and follows Jaehyun to the kitchen. Taeil takes advantage of this and quickly goes to his room, not even saying goodbye to the other two.

“What happened upstairs?” the younger had a mischievous grin on his face.

Jaehyun prefers to ignore Donghyuck as he doesn’t understand the question. “Do you want ramyeon or not?”

“Yeah, put on a pack for me” he takes three packs from the cabinet and throws them on the kitchen counter while Jahyun fills a pan with water. “What happened after Y/N went upstairs to give you some food?”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’m omniscient.” he uses a sarcastic tone, “I told her to take that to you, being the caring dongsaeng I am, obviously.”

“Your jokes are getting funnier each day.” Jaehyun deadpans and Donghyuck smiles. “Nothing happened.”

“I saw her leaving just now and it’s almost two…” the younger uses a suggestive tone, making Jaehyun roll his eyes.

“She was helping me with my project,” he answers simply, making the boy groan.

“That bitch is slow as fuck.” he mumbles and Jaehyun smiles.

“I talked to Johnny about it and, now, I’ll ask you too,” he says after getting three eggs from the fridge. “Stop putting her in uncomfortable situations. The other day, Johnny invited me to dinner and when I got there, she looked like she would collapse at any moment.”

“She spent four hours watching you cutting paper, do you think she really feels uncomfortable around you?” he shrugs and continues “Plus, you both seem to be a lot closer. Text me when you get home? You don’t even open our messages.”

Jaehyun’s ears start getting red while he faces the younger boy “How do you- Yah, Donghyuck, you shouldn’t be eavesdropping.”

“Do you remember that project I did three weeks ago?” Jaehyun says excitedly.

Today was Friday, one of the only week-days you could see your friends - at least the ones who didn’t live with you or you didn’t share classes with. At the moment, Jiwoo is sitting next to you in the cafeteria, Johnny in front of her and Taeyong nowhere to be seen. Jaehyun appeared now, taking the other seat beside you.

“The one with the building and the trees?” you ask, taking a bite of your apple pie.

“He is an architecture student, every project involves buildings and trees” Johnny snickers and Jaehyun shows him his tongue.

“Not every project.” the boy takes a paper out of his bag and places it on the table, right beside you. “We got the grades today. It got 3.5 out of 4.” he flashes you a smile and you swallow your food harshly.

“That’s amazing!” you cheer on him, taking a closer look at the paper. “Is there any feedback about the grass? I was the one who made it,” you say the last part leaning on Jiwoo, who didn’t give you much attention.

“He didn’t mention the grass specifically,” Jaehyun smiles at how focused you were on the feedback note on your hand “But I can assure you it was exquisitely applied.”

“Wow, Jae’s using big words,” Taeyong appears behind you, greeting everyone and giving you a hug.

“You should celebrate it,” you say, giving his feedback note back.

“And what type of celebration would you recommend me, miss?” he playfully asks, stealing one of Taeyong’s fries without the older seeing.

“She will give you the WORST recommendations,” Jiwoo interferes before you even open your mouth “There is a professor that haunts Y/N and every assignment she finishes, her celebration is sleeping.”

“Or eating ice cream and then, sleeping,” Taeyong says with his mouth full of food.

“Last year, we went to the movie theater to celebrate the end of midterms and she slept before the movie had even started,” your roommate says, making everyone laugh.

“We’re going to the club tonight, Jae.” Johnny says and turns his head to Jiwoo “You’re coming, right?”

“I don’t know, I have to read some of Hendery’s notes and-” you start and Johnny interrupts you.

“Yeah, yeah, you rarely come. I was asking Jiwoo.”

You love seeing your friends happy, especially when, somehow, you are a part of it. However, since that double date - or friendly dinner, whatever helps you sleep at night - you couldn’t help but feel jealous. Your great friends were dating each other (they didn’t admit it yet, but it wasn’t really needed) and you couldn’t help but feel neglected. Jiwoo started to spend more time at Johnny’s than at your dorm, being considerate as you have already walked in when they were in a heavy make-out session.

“Yeah, sure,” she answers tucking her hair behind her ear. You gag on her action and she hits your shoulder.

“Movie theater is a good option though,” Jaehyun says bringing your attention back to him. “There are some new movies that seem nice.”

“Did you see they released a new one that’s based on a book?” you turn your whole body on the chair to face the boy beside you. “The book is so good. It’s a thriller and it’s narrated in the first person, so you only see the story from the character’s point of view. And, then, she starts going insane…”

“Is it that book you have been begging me to read?” Taeyong asks and you nod furiously.

“I really wanna watch this movie,” you add excitedly

“Let’s watch it then,” he suggests looking at you and smiles when he sees your blushing cheeks. “All of us, I mean. To celebrate my temporary freedom from that class.” he clears his throat and looks at the other at the table.

“I’m in, when do you wanna go?”

Taeyong asks, eating one of his fries. Johnny and Jiwoo simultaneously try to kick his ankle from under the table but end up kicking themselves instead.

“What about today after class? We can get the evening session,” he asks, watching your reaction from the corner of his eyes.

“I’ll have to get ready for the club, you know,,” Johnny says quickly and looks at Taeyong expectantly, but your cousin is still focused on his food.

“I have to run some errands too,” Jiwoo adds “But I’m sure Y/N is free. Her classes end at 3p.m!”

“I really wanted to,” you start and your frustrated tone gives away you’re not going to make it “but as I said, need to read some essays from the students and prepare some notes to help Hendery. Sorry.”

“You can do it during the weekend,” Jiwoo says, nudging your side.

“Stop hitting me!” you whisper to her.

“Well, I’m free.” Taeyong lifts his head and smiles at Jaehyun “We can go together, then.”

“Taeyong, won’t you come to the club with us tonight?” Johnny asks the other boy, giving him a knowing look.

“No, I told you they banned from that-” he grunts when Johnny successfully kicks his ankle from under the table. “Oh, right, yeah, I totally forgot about that. Sorry, I won’t make it.”

“Are you sure you can’t come, Y/N?” he asks you again and you feel Jiwoo elbowing your ribs once again.

“Stupid bitch, he’s asking you on a date,” she whispers and you silently ask her to stop.

“Guess I’ll celebrate at the club then. You should come too, at least for an hour.” he says poking your arm “You helped me finish it. It’s practically your project too.”

“If you don’t accept Jaehyun’s invitation right now,” Jiwoo leans to whisper in your ear, “I’ll lock our room and you’ll have to sleep on the hallway for the rest of the weekend.”

“I have the key too, you know,” you whisper back.

“I wanna see you try to open the door with the drawer blocking it.” She sits back and happily, goes back to talk to Johnny.

What if she was reading everything wrong? If Jaehyun wanted to go on a date, he would promptly ask you. Everyone knows how straightforward the boy can be. However, he invited everyone. You did want to say yes, but there were so many things to be done. Deep down, you knew it was just an excuse. You didn’t want to fool yourself into thinking that the boy’s invitation meant something more than just watching a movie. Still, he was your friend, how could you disappoint a friend who worked so hard and deserved to celebrate.

“I guess I can do my assignments tomorrow,” you lean closer to Jaehyun and say in a low tone “Let’s go to the movies.”

“Are you sure?” he questions furrowing his brows.

“Yes! Don’t worry.”

“Okay,” he nods and rubs your back. "Just don’t forget to text me when your last class is finished.”

“I will.”

“How did you like it?” Jaehyun asked you on your way out to the theatre, his arms around your shoulders.

“It was fine,” you answer, slightly nervous by the sudden proximity.

Truthfully, you had a hard time focusing on the movie. How could you when your hands were constantly meeting when both of you went to grab a handful of popcorn or when he laid his head on your shoulder to take a short nap? It was especially hard to pay attention to the movie when he started playing with your hand that was on the armrest during the last twenty minutes.

“It was kinda boring,” he says, guiding you to the exit and adding a distance between both of you once you reach the street. “I didn’t feel the thrill at all.”

“Well, I did,” you mumble, thinking about everything that happened but the movie itself “I’m just disappointed by the fact that this has nothing to do with the book. Not even the plot is the same.”

“The movie was your idea and it was terrible.” he playfully nudges you and you gasp, pretending to be offended “I’m afraid of how tedious the book must be.”

“Well, we could have watched any other movie. You didn’t need to choose that one.”

“But you wanted to watch it.” he pouts and you can feel your heart pounding on your throat. “Anyways, it’s almost seven now. If you get ready fast enough, we can get a ride for the club.”

“And who says I’m going to the club?” you raise an eyebrow and cross your arms around your chest.

“I am.” he takes your hand in his and hushes you to walk faster.

“Yuta’s birthday is this Saturday, don’t forget.” Taeyong reminds you before hanging up.

How can you forget since this is all he has been talking about this week? You started to regret helping your cousin with the surprise party considering the amount of work you had on your hands. You should have seen this coming. You spent three peaceful weeks without any new responsibilities. Suddenly, all your professors decide to schedule assignments and exams for this week. You were on the verge of killing anyone who crossed your path until someone really did.

“You’ll get wrinkles if you don’t stop frowning,” Jaehyun said beside you.

“Where did you come from?” you asked, slightly annoying for getting startled by his sudden presence.

“I was laying down right there,” he pointed to the green area on your right side “when I saw you getting out of your class.”

“Don’t you have classes? How come you are always doing nothing when we meet on campus?” you adjusted the books that were on your arms and Jaehyun noticed.

“No, I don’t have classes,” he said, taking the books from your hold “I work my ass off on those projects because it’s fun. Why are you so irritable today? Where are you going?”

“Library, I need to return them,” you say without complaining and appreciating your friend’s gesture. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just exhausted,” you said under your breath, but Jaehyun listened and used his free arm to embrace your shoulders to bring you closer.

“You know you owe me, right?” he whispered close to your ear and smiled at your flustered state.

“Uh?” you turned your head to meet his face and held your breath when you saw he wasn’t many inches away from you.

Jaehyun suspected about your behavior even before you became friends. You weren’t the most subtle person in the world, so it didn’t take him long to realize you had a tiny crush on him and got embarrassed every time he got more physical or playfully flirted with you. He found it awfully cute when you gave him the same stunned expression you are wearing right now: lips parted, wide eyes, and hot cheeks.

“You owe me a movie date.”

“A what?” you said louder than necessary, avoiding his gaze, and he laughs.

“A movie day,” he corrected, chuckling while you sighed.

“I don’t owe you any date or whatever,” you mumbled taking his arms off your shoulders “Stop with the frat boy behavior, I don’t like it when you do this.”

“Do what?” he asked innocently, smiling when you scowled at him and resumed your walk to the library “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Plus, I am a frat boy.”

“I am aware of it,” you said in disdain. “Why would I owe you a movie day?”

“Don’t you remember that terrible movie we watched together last month? I deserve compensation,” he said reaching your side and placing his arms back on your shoulders.

“You were the one who insisted on paying for my tickets. Do you want me to pay you back?” you asked genuinely and Jaehyun shook his head quickly.

“What? No! Of course not, silly.” he took off his arm from your shoulder just to flick your forehead “I said you owe me a movie, not money.”

“So you wanna go out this week? I’m sorry I can’t-” you guessed and he shook his head again, stopping you.

“You can come over and we watch it together. A little bird told me…”

“What does that frat house of yours have with little birds? Oh my God you guys really love gossiping, don’t you?” you scoff, and Jaehyun laughs.

“Johnny told me you love High School Musical.”

“Yeah, it’s a childhood classic.”

“Me too.” you swiftly turned your head to him as you heard him say “I like High School Musical too. Let’s watch it on Friday.”

“Are you kidding me?” you asked in disbelief.

“I’m not. You can come over after you finish your assignments. A High School Musical marathon will be waiting for you.” Jaehyun slowed down his pace as he saw the library entrance “You can’t say no, you owe me.”

And that’s how you ended up in Jaehyun’s bedroom on a Friday night.

He is currently in the kitchen getting popcorn and drinks ready while you are preparing the room for the High School Musical marathon. You place Jaehyun’s laptop on the bedside table and search for some blankets to cover the bedroom floor. You spent three whole days wondering if it was really a good idea to come over and watch movies with Jaehyun. You knew it wasn’t good for your heart, especially when you were already falling for him - for nobody’s surprise.

You have to keep reminding yourself that you are just friends and you should be happy about it. Being friends it’s better than strangers, isn’t it? But there is something strangely familiar with the way he places his arms around your shoulders and invites you over, on a Friday night, just to watch childish movies. There is a knock on the door and you stand up to open it, thinking that it must be Jaehyun with his hands full, but you see your cousin.

“Hey, Jae- pumpkin?” Taeyong tilts his head to the side looking puzzled “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yeah, Jaehyun invited me to watch the High School Musical movies with him.” you shrug. “Do you wanna come in? There’s space for you.”

“Oh, no, no. I was just- nevermind.” Taeyong was about to joke about how you too seemed like a couple, but he decides that it’s better if you keep your good mood. “The boys are going out to celebrate Yuta’s birthday.” he finishes and you frown.

“But the party…” you whisper and he chuckles.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of our tradition to celebrate our birthdays the day before too. Hyuck calls it a farewell party.”

“Did you tell them about tomorrow?”

“Not yet. I’ll tell them in the morning,” he says and rubs his hands on his back pockets

“Aren’t you going with them?”

“No, I have to stop you and Jaehyun from doing funny business,” he lets out and you hit his shoulder “Stop hitting me! I’m kidding. Doyoung is arriving late at night so I’ll stay to help him sneak in.”

“Won’t they suspect it?”

“Don’t worry, I’m a good actor,” he says patting your head “Well, enjoy your date.”

“This is not a date!” you scream as he goes away, leaving you alone.

Downstairs, Mark, Johnny, Donghyuck, and Yuta are seated in the living room, waiting for Taeil. Taeyong glances at the kitchen and sees Jaehyun too engrossed in his task, so he takes it as an opportunity and runs to his friends.

“Do you know who’s upstairs?” he whispers sitting beside Johnny.

“Taeil hyung?” Mark questions and Donghyuck slaps the back of his neck.

“Y/N.”

The two younger guys gasp and Yuta takes his eyes off his phone screen, paying attention to his friends.

“That asshole said he had an important arrangement,” Yuta whispers in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you lied too, Taeyong.”

“I’m telling you the truth! I really need to finish an important report.” he lies “This upcoming week is being so hectic. I’m really sorry, Yuta.”

“The boy’s getting his dick wet, I would say it is very important,” Johnny giggles and Taeyong makes a face.

“She’s my cousin, man.”

“I doubt it.” Donghyuck speaks up “I bet 10 bucks nothing will happen. That chick is dumb.”

“Yo, I think Jaehyun hyung will take it to the next level” Mark replies back.

“Make it 15,” Yuta intervenes “He’ll get some tonight.”

“20 on Hyuck,” Johnny says “He will kiss her, she will freak out and won’t look at his face for the next three weeks.”

“How much are you betting, Mark?” Donghyuck asks the older and Taeyong stands up to flick the youngest’s forehead.

“Stop betting on my cousin’s sex life.”

They hear a thud is coming from upstairs and everyone looks up. A faint “are you okay?” is heard and several seconds later, Taeil is in the living room with the others.

“Yah, Taeyong, why was your cousin climbing on Jaehyun’s closet?” the oldest says chuckling. “She fell, but I think she’s fine.”

“I told you, she’s dumb” Donghyuck mocks.

A few minutes later, everyone is gone and the only ones in the house are Taeyong, you, and Jaehyun. Differently from you, the latter doesn’t even spare a glance at Taeyong when he asks if he could join your movie night. The younger just grins and sends him a middle finger.

Different from what his roommates expected, Jaehyun planned this movie night with absolutely no other intention rather than spending some quality time with you. He saw your distressed state and it hurt him to know he could do nothing to help you with your exams. The least he could do was try to comfort you with food, as a good friend would.

“Y/N, what are you doing?” he asks, placing the popcorn bucket and the drinks on his writing desk and going straight to your direction. You are standing on his swivel chair, on your toes, trying to reach the comforter that was on the top shelf of his closet.

“I’m… almost…” you touch the cloth at the same time Jaehyun holds your waist. His hands were gripping your sides, securing you in place.

“Get this before you fall.” the boy warns you, squeezing you gently.

“I already fell.” you pull the comforter and it hits the ground. Jaehyun extends his hand for you to take it. “Taeil helped me, though.”

“Did you get hurt?” he holds your face in his hands, looking at you attentively and it doesn’t fail to make you flustered.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” you push his hands, avoiding his gaze. “Let’s start!”

Both of you sit down against the bed and you press play on the movie. Once the movie started, you could feel your heart getting warmer, memories from your childhood days flooding your mind as you still remembered some of the characters’ lines and, mostly, all the songs lyrics. You refrain yourself from singing the first three songs, embarrassed by Jaehyun’s presence, but once you hit the middle of the first movie, both of you were already making duos and you even stand up to perform ‘When There Was Me and You” making Jaehyun cackle as you use one of his middle school pictures as a fake Troy Bolton poster.

You wake up against Jaehyun’s chest feeling your back sore from the position. Your butt is numb and your legs were tangled in his. The boy has one arm around your body while the other is resting on your thigh. The laptop screen is black and you guess it has turned off. You lift your head to find Jaehyun’s head hanging back, resting on the bed’s mattress. It will certainly cause him a stiff neck. You smoothly remove yourself from his hold and stretch out as you stand up. You place the empty popcorn bucket on Jaehyun’s desk and close his laptop. You couldn’t find your phone, but from his window, you could see it was really dark outside. You had to go back to your dorm, but you couldn’t leave your friend laying down like that.

“Jaehyun,” you whisper “Jae, wake up.” you poke his face. “You’ll get hurt if you keep sleeping in this position.”

Your hands find his hair and softly pats his head. Jaehyun was warm, soft, and smelled so good.

“Jae, wake up, I can’t carry you to bed.” You keep moving one of your hands against his hair while the other is caressing his face until you see his eyes fluttering open. He groans as he moves his neck and you smile softly.

“What time is it, babe?” his husky voice and the sudden nickname catch you off guard.

“Uh… It’s late.” you answer moving away from him “I just woke you up to tell you to go to bed. You’ll hurt your neck.”

“Are you leaving?” he asks with his eyes barely open.

“Yeah, I need to go. You can keep sleeping, though.”

You start standing up and searching for your shoes, but Jaehyun presses himself against your back, enveloping you in a hug.

“No, don’t go. It’s dangerous,” he whispers in your ears and rests his forehead on the crook of your neck, making you freeze.

“I need to go,” you try to take his arms off you, only for him to hold you tighter. “Jaehyun, stop,” you use your most serious tone, but he pretends not to listen. “You’re such a child.”

“Stay the night. I’m too tired to walk you back to your dorm” he lifts his head to look at your side profile “and I won’t let you go alone.”

“I’ve walked alone so many times before…” you mumble and he buries his face on your neck again.

“Now you have me, you don’t have to walk alone again.”

You feel your heart beating faster at his words. If you weren’t already nervous enough with his sudden physical affection, his words completed the job of making your heart rate skyrocket. You keep on the silent battle to try to free yourself from his grasp and you feel him smirking against your skin.

“You know I’m stronger, babe.” There it goes, the damn nickname again.

“Fine, fine.” you give in, not bearing the current situation anymore “If it means you’ll let go of me, I’ll stay.”

He instantly releases you and pats your head. You start gathering your belongings, finding your purse and your shoes, but still looking for your phone.

“I’ll find it tomorrow,” you say to yourself and look at Jaehyun getting some clothes from his closet “Well, goodnight, then” you raise your hand and wave goodbye, but he catches your arm before you can turn to leave.

“Where are you going? You said you’re staying,” he asks genuinely confused.

“To Taeyong’s bedroom,” you answer as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s- why-” he frowns and gets closer to you “That’s not what I meant when I asked for you to stay.”

“What do you-”

“I asked you to sleep here.”

“Yeah, Jaehyun, I heard it. I’m staying in the house tonight.”

“With me.”

You gulp at his words. You definitely don’t like this game he was playing with you. You could bear the daily messages and the playful pickup lines, but this was going over the line. Why does he always insist on walking you to your dorm or buy two cupcakes at the cafeteria just to give you one because he knows it’s your favorite? Why invite you to watch childish movies with you on a Friday night when he can just go out with his friends and have fun? Why is he always giving you sudden hugs or holding your hands? Why would he call you ‘babe’? Does he know you like him? Is he trying to prove a point? You aren’t sure what this is, but you are seriously afraid of getting hurt.

“Sleep here with me. We shared a bed before, I don’t mind doing it again,” he continues, bringing your attention back to him.

“I asked you to stop doing this,” you pull your arm from his hold and walk two steps back.

“I’m not doing anything-”

“This behavior. Stop acting like this.” you repeat raising your voice a little bit “Quit playing with me.”

“What are you saying? I’m not playing with you!” he reaches for your hand again, but you deflect.

“Stop flirting with people if you don’t mean it.”

Your voice is stern and you see Jaehyun adjusting his posture.

“Who says I’m flirting with you?” he regrets what he said as soon as he sees your disappointed expression.

Why would you feel disappointed when this is exactly the answer you were expecting? It wasn’t the answer you wanted, though, and deep down you knew it. Your anger leaves your body as sadness takes over, but you manage to smile.

“I’m glad I haven’t misread your actions then. We’re just good friends.”

Jaehyun doesn’t understand why his heart clenched at your words. They were completely true: you were nothing but good friends. He doesn’t have any feelings beyond friendship towards you. Or does he?

“Just don’t go bother your cousin, he must be asleep,” he clears his throat and hands you a pair of sweatpants and a large t-shirt “There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom’s cabinet, you can get it.”

You were thankful for being able to talk to Jaehyun like the conversation from the night before didn’t happen. You woke up alone on his bed. He was folding the blankets you left on the floor last night and flashed you a smile when he saw you awake. You realized the awkwardness was gone when he started cracking jokes with you. Jaehyun was treating you the same as before and you decided to forget about the conversation you had the night before. It was like a silent agreement to not mention the sexual tension that both of you decided to ignore.

Once you went downstairs, you had an eventful breakfast though. Both of you found out your friends made a bet on your sexual life. Mark and Yuta believed you would have sex while Johnny and Haechan believed you were too shy to try something with Jaehyun. You were sure your cousin was in the middle of this, even though no one mentioned his name. Taeyong stayed too quiet during the whole breakfast for your liking. Jaehyun almost killed Donghyuck and Mark but said nothing to Johnny or Yuta because he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against the older ones.

You went back to your dorm to change your clothes and get all of the things for the party Taeyong was hiding from Yuta. The rest of the day went smoothly once all of the boys were warned about the surprise party. The plan was to keep Yuta away until you guys got everything ready by the evening. You went back to their house with Jiwoo, who was glad to help Taeyong and Donghyuck decorating the house while you, Taeil, and Doyoung were preparing the food.

Donghyuck was sulking the entire time for not being warned beforehand about the party, calling your decoration plain and boring. After you found out it was him who started the whole bet thing, you just wanted to kick his face. However, you decided to do it after Yuta’s birthday, just to avoid a commotion.

One of Yuta’s great friends, Sicheng, was, indeed, coming for his birthday and everyone was really excited for his reaction. Even though he could only spend this weekend with his friend.

“He was supposed to arrive with me,” Doyoung explains to you “I was going to drive to the airport and bring him here with me, but his flight got delayed so he will arrive at 1 pm.”

“And he will leave on Sunday?” you ask, handing him the spatula.

“Unfortunately.”

“He said to me he has exams on Tuesday,” Taeil completes “ And his birthday is two days after Yuta’s, he probably wants to spend it with his family.”

“Well, I hope he can at least enjoy his time around.”

The party was supposed to start at 5 pm, so everyone was running against the clock. At 1, Doyoung left you and Taeil in the kitchen to go pick up Sicheng at the airport and by 4, everything was ready, the guests arriving for the party. Taeyong, being the one of the only ones with a suite, kindly let you and Jiwoo use his room to get ready. Your roommate brought both of your clothes with her, and you had to admit you should have expected her to choose something you wouldn’t like.

“I just asked you to grab pants and a shirt!” you complain to her with your clothes in hand.

“And I did!” she uses her mascara to point at you “You act like those clothes aren’t yours. I took them from your drawers!”

“I know they are mine but-”

“No buts,” she gets out of Taeyong’s bathroom to face you. “I’m tired of watching you wearing rags when you have nice clothes. This is a party, woman, you need to show what you came here for.”

“I know, I just- This is…” you look at the skinny pants on your hands, different from the ones you’re used to wearing “so tight. I’ll get all…”

“All the attention, because it will hug you in all the right places. Come on” she whines and you smile at her. She was right.

You were so used to puttin on the same set of jeans and loose t-shirts everyday. You deserved to look good once in a while. Although your bottom was tight, your friends chose a loose long sleeve shirt for you to use, which you silently thanked her for. The weather was starting to get chilly, and you are the type who gets cold easily.

When you were both ready, you went downstairs to see a considerable number of people. Yuta seemed to be really popular in University. It isn’t really shocking though, since it is known how kind and polite the boy is.

When Yuta arrives, everyone screams ‘surprise!’ and starts singing the happy birthday song, he freezes. It takes him a moment to absorb the whole situation, especially when he sees Doyoung and Sicheng holding his cake.

“I wanted to make something special because it’s your last year,” Taeyong says hugging the guy “I know you will graduate soon, so I want you to miss us when you’re gone.”

“Thank you so much, guys!” he says after blowing the candles. “OH, WAIT. Can we light up some other candles? Winwin’s birthday is in two days, let’s sing for him too!”

That is how you spend the evening. It’s different from what you are used to when it comes to parties and this frat house. Not only the time of the day, but everything seems impersonal, cold. Now, watching these boys hanging out together, you start to understand why your cousin loves them so much: they are his family.

If the atmosphere is different, their craziness is the same. You were trying to hold a proper conversation with Mark’s girlfriend, Doyoung and Jungwoo when Donghyuck dragged you to one of his drinking games. He makes sure that you never win so you can take enough shots of vodka to make you feel dizzy.

When you are trying to sober up by eating some of the cupcakes you baked a couple of hours before, it’s Jiwoo’s time to drag you out of the kitchen and place you in a circle in the living room. With both of your hands occupied and your mouth full of icing, you watch Johnny putting on a show just to officially ask your roommate to be his girlfriend. Everyone cheered loudly for them, you including. You are glad that your friends found each other, even though it also means that now they will do everything together, including annoying you.

You are still a little bit too happy when Jaehyun comes to you and hands you a bottle of beer. You haven’t talked to him until then, but it wasn’t like you were avoiding him. Actually, you were preventing yourself from being teased by your friends.

“Wow you look…” he stops for a moment to check you out while sipping his drink.

“What? Too much, right?” you ask, starting to feel self-conscious. "I told Jiwoo…”

“No, your pants look great on you.” he stops you by pointing at you “I was just trying to find the right words. I don’t want to sound like a frat boy, since you keep asking me not to.”

You lower your head and lean on the kitchen counter. So he didn’t forget the previous night conversation.

“I was gonna say that you look hot as fuck,” you can see Jaehyun’s shoes touching yours, warning you that it would be dangerous to look up “and that I was ready to risk our friendship just to make out with you right now.”

You look up and instantly regret your action once you see him up close. Jaehyun traps you between his body and the counter. You feel your heart on your throat and something tingles inside you. You lock eyes with Jaehyun who doesn’t seem to notice your nervousness because he, himself, was dealing with his. Why did he suddenly feel the urge to make a move on you? You are his friend. But friends are not supposed to think about the other in the same way he was thinking about you right now. All he wanted was to kiss you in a way friends should do. He wanted to touch you, he wanted to do things to you that friends definitely shouldn’t do.

“Jaehyun…” the way you whisper his name, so close to his lips, makes him want to kiss you so badly. “I asked you to stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.” he whispers back with his body over yours while looking at your lips.

“I don’t like this game.”

“Good, because I’m not playing.”

You will blame the alcohol later, right now, you are too busy feeling Jaehyun against your lips. He had one hand on the counter behind you while the other circled your waist, bringing you impossibly close to his body. You took no time to place one hand on his neck and the other on his shoulder, helping you to keep your balance. He gently grazes his tongue on your lower lip, asking for permission, and once you grant it, the kiss becomes way rougher than you expected. Jaehyun tastes like beer and cupcakes, bitter and sweet. You smile at the thought of him eating the cupcakes you put so much effort on. His hand that was on your waist, goes down to your lower back at the same time you put both of your arms around his neck and bring him closer. He takes a few steps back, separating you from the counter, just to bring his other hand to your butt, and smirking right after giving it a light squeeze.

He lowers both of his hands to the back of your thighs, suggesting that he wanted to lift you up. Once you lock your legs on his waist, he walks back to the counter, placing you there and staying between your legs. You were feeling hot like you’ve never felt before. Your fingers find their way on the back of his neck, pulling a few strands of hair making him hum in satisfaction.

When you break the kiss, filling your lungs with air, Jaehyun quickly places his lips to your jaw and then your neck. He bites your ear lobe and leaves a trail of wet kisses up to your collarbones. You bring your body closer to him as you feel his lips find a particular sensitive part of your neck. He keeps one of his hands on your lower back while the other massages your thigh.

When Jaehyun tries to find your lips again, you place your lips on his neck, leaving light marks all over it. You feel him tightening his grip on you as your teeth graze his sensitive skin and you smile. When you unconsciously grind your hips against him, the boy feels the urge to rip your clothes off right and then, until your eyes meet again.

Jaehyun looks at your eyes and suddenly he feels his heart clench. He couldn’t be rough with you, he didn’t want to. His heart was beating insanely faster when your lips met for the second time. He slowed down your rhythm, and now, kissing you gently and lovingly, he could properly feel you. Feeling your soft lips against his and your fingers caressing his neck. He could stay like that forever, but forever is a long time to ask for in this house.

Donghyuck enters the kitchen and doesn’t even try to be subtle:

“WOAH, TAEYONG HYUNG, YOUR COUSIN AND JAEHYUN ARE MAKING BABIES IN THE KITCHEN.”

If you wanted to kick his face before, now you were ready to kill him. You quickly detach yourself from Jaehyun’s hold, get off the counter and before leaving the room, you hear Jaehyun say:

“Lee Donghyuck, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

In the living room, no one really seemed to care about the information that your younger friend had just screamed. Only Jiwoo and Taeyong looked at you suspiciously, but you shrug and sit down by his side.

“I’m leaving in five.”

“Why? We’re going to the club after this,” he asks, placing an arm around your shoulder “Are you sure you don’t wanna come?” he raises his eyebrows suggestively before laughing at you.

“I just won't go right now because I don’t want people thinking I’m running away from Jaehyun.”

“You are, though.”

“Yes, I am.”

In the following week, there was no trace of Jaehyun in your life. Your friends were kind enough to not mention what Hyuck had witnessed in their kitchen and you thanked them for that. On Monday, after your Spanish class, the ones who walked you back to your dorm were Johnny and Jiwoo.

You didn’t know how to feel. You missed Jaehyun, a lot. He became part of your routine and not getting any messages from him or not being able to see his smile every day was making you frustrated. At the same time, you were scared of what that kiss in his kitchen meant. Was it the end of your friendship?

It was getting annoying, to say the least. Your mind would often replay the scenes you were trying too hard to forget in the most inconvenient moments. On Tuesday, one of the students had to call your attention because you spent two whole minutes staring at their assignment instead of actually correcting it.

Only on Wednesday, your routine changed a little bit. You had woken up late, almost missing your first class. Then, Mr. Choi finished the class ten minutes later than usual, making you sprint towards the main building to get to the study room as fast as you could since Lucas would be already waiting for you.

Once you entered the main hall and one of the employees scolded you for running inside the building, you started to walk fast, just to bump into the person you were expecting to meet. You as you lose balance, the books and your phone, that were on your hands, fall to the ground. Hendery was fast enough to hold you by your shoulder, helping you to stand up properly.

“Whoa, I guess you’re falling for me, uh?!” he says mischievously and you laugh.

“I almost fell because of you, not for you,” you answer and he grins. “I’m sorry, Mr. Choi took longer than expected, so I had to run and-”

“It’s okay,” he adds playfully “but you had to make up for me. For waiting, you know.”

“Oh, of course!” you nod and start guiding Hendery to the study room “I’ll stay as long as you need to-”

“I meant we can have lunch together, if you don’t mind,” Hendery reaches for your left arm, indicating you to face him.

“Oh,” you exclaim, holding the doorknob “Well if you insist, we can have lunch together.”

Taeyong gets startled when a backpack is thrown beside him, and a tray full of food is placed on the table with unnecessary strength. Johnny and Jiwoo stopped their forks midway, all eyes were focused on Jaehyun’s distressed face.

“What?” he asks, sounding ruder than he intended.

“We should be the one asking you what’s going on,” Johnny says before putting a big slice of watermelon inside his mouth.

“I brought watermelons. Do you want some?” Jiwoo slides one of the bowls in Jaehyun’s direction but he refuses it.

“I’m fine.”

“Who annoyed you?” Taeyong asks, carefully stealing one of Johnny’s watermelons and receiving a glare from the other guy.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles and starts eating the food that was on his tray.

“Isn’t Y/N eating with us?” Jaehyun hears Johnny asking his girlfriend and starts sulking even more.

Jaehyun was sitting with a group of his classmates in the building’s lounge, discussing the next assignment while they waited for their next class. He smiled when he spotted your small figure walking fast around the building, but immediately frowned when he saw you colliding with a male figure. “Jaehyun, what do you think?” one of his classmates called his attention. “Uh?” he asked without taking his eyes off you. “We can start the project on Monday. What do you think?” The guy repeated but Jaehyun didn’t pay attention, too focused on the way the tall guy held your shoulders. “Whoa, I guess you’re falling for me, uh?!” He heard the guy and rolled his eyes at the cheesy pickup line. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” he answered and kept staring at you. When you were about to turn left and enter the study room, the tall guy quickly held your arm and said something to you, which surprised you, Jaehyun assumed by the expression on your face. "Well, if you insist, we can have lunch together.” Now, it was Jaehyun’s turn to be left surprised as he catches what you said. What really made his blood boil is the way the tall guy flashed you a flirty smile and the way you mirrored it. Once both of you entered the study room, he instantly stood up, but his knee hit the coffee table in front of him and spilled water in one of his friends. “What the hell, Jae?” Naeun exclaims, looking at the boy and then follows his gaze. “Sorry, Naeun.” he looks at his friend and helps her gather her things “I wasn’t paying attention.” “What were you thinking?” another classmate sighs and Jaehyun takes a quick glance at the closed door. “Don’t you guys think we should discuss this project in the study room?” He suggests holding his backpack and motioning to the door you had just entered, only to be ignored by the others.

“I’m not sure, she usually messages me about lunch,” Jiwoo says, checking her phone.

“I guess she will be busy,” Jaehyun says, not looking at the others at the table “With that guy, Hendery.”

“Oh, did you see them again? Why are you always the one coming across them?” Taeyong chuckles and pat the boy’s back.

“That’s why you are so annoyed then.” Jiwoo nudges her boyfriend “Yesterday, she told me she misses you, Jaehyun.”

“Apparently, Jiwoo and I bother her a lot when we walk her back to the dorms,” Johnny completes.

The boy doesn’t lift his head from the food, pretending not to listen. But he did, and it kills him to know it because he feels the same. Jaehyun didn’t reach out and he assumed that it was his fault. In his defense, he just wants to give you some space, some time to forget about what you did in Yuta’s party. He felt bad because he knows about the way you feel about him and he never, in a million years, wanted to use your feelings like that. Saying that he is just your friend just to kiss you and raise your expectations when he wasn’t even sure about his feelings was definitely a terrible idea. He wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to talk to him again.

“I was kind of a dick,” he mumbles, and Taeyong sighs. “I know she likes me more than just a friend and I didn’t want to give her hopes when I’m not even sure how I feel. I was drunk, that was stupid of me. She must hate me.”

“I’ve heard the drunk excuse once,” Taeyong whispers, and Johnny holds back his laughter.

“Drunk actions are sober thoughts,” Johnny says.

“You have a steamy makeout session with your friends and you say you don’t know how you feel?” Jiwoo asks, using her fork to tap on his tray, calling his attention to her “Yeah, it must be SO hard to figure out how you feel.“ she huffs in annoyance “You are the densest person I know.”

“Y/N is your friend too,” Taeyong adds.

“She is another d, she is dumb,” the girl replies “At least she knows her feelings.”

“Well, sue me for wanting to give her time and space,” Jahyun retorts and before he can resume his lunch, Taeyong grabs the back of his neck.

“Don’t use her feelings as an excuse. We both know you are the one who wants time and space.”

They leave the boy alone, all of them going to their respective classes, but not too long after, he gets a message from Johnny.

[john - 1:46 p.m]: spanish finishes 30 minutes earlier today

To say you were surprised to see Jaehyun waiting for you outside your classroom was an understatement. At first, you didn’t see him. Then, you thought you were hallucinating. It was only when he smiled and pulled you into a hug that you felt it was real. Your cheeks were burning while he held you way too tight.

“Sorry for not walking you home this week,” he says with his head buried in your hair “I was… busy.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to walk me home,” you reply, breaking your hug and you almost miss the slightly frustrated expression on his face. Almost.

“But you know I want to.”

You are glad that he decides to not mention that eventful evening. You know that, at some point, it can come back on you and mess your whole relationship, but, right now, all you cared about was Jaehyun’s happy smile while talking to you about the mess Mark made on the club on Saturday and how much fun they had with Sicheng.

Both of you were walking slowly, just appreciating each other’s presence and talking about anything that came to your mind at the moment. Once you arrive at your building, ten minutes later than normal, Jaehyun stops you from entering the building.

“I want to apologize for -”

“It’s okay.” you don’t let him finish. Listening to him apologizing for kissing you it will hurt more than pretending it never happened.

“But you didn’t let me finish,” he insists, but you shake your head.

“I know what you’ll say. It’s alright. I forgive you.”

“Y/N-”

"Jaehyun, don’t,” your voice is stern and he chuckles, raising his arm in defense.

“Alright. Then let me take you to the arcade on Friday after class,” he says, his ears getting red as he does “Remember you said you wanted to go there? Let’s go together. It’s my official apology.”

“I said I forgive you, you don’t need to-”

“This is my official apology, you need to come so I can be officially forgiven,” he smirks and you laugh. He was always so smooth to get what he wanted. “Then we can go to the party.”

“What party?” you frown in confusion.

“Our party, this Friday. You need to come,” you groan in annoyance and let your head fall back “Come on, I’m sure Jiwoo is coming too.”

“She will just spend the whole night with Johnny,” you plead him with your eyes.

“Then you can spend it with me.”

And when Friday came, you realized you can’t say no to Jaehyun.

You had an amazing time at the arcade. Even though you only arrived there around four, because of your classes, Jaehyun made sure to show you his favorite games and you even managed to win him sometimes - he will never admit that though, he will insist that he went easy on you. When it was around seven both of you decided to go back, since, now, he finally convinced you to go to the party.

Despite your protests, Jaehyun walked you back to your dorm and gave you one hour to get ready, saying that you shouldn’t be late. You get to your room with a silly smile on your face and spot Jiwoo starting to apply her makeup, but she doesn’t notice you coming in. You notice a dark red dress resting on her bed. It had an insufficient amount of cloth to cover her body on a chilly night like this, but maybe she wouldn’t need to worry about cold weather inside a house full of people dancing.

“I see that you are ready to kill Johnny tonight,” you say loudly, startling her.

“You do this on purpose, don’t you?” she looks at you and rolls her eyes when she looks at your innocent face “Do you like it?” she points at her dress and you nod, “I think Johnny will like it too.”

“Gross,” you joke and she shows you her tongue

“How was your date?”

“It wasn’t a date.” you start humming the first song that’s in your head “Do you think I will look too ugly wearing this?” you ask by placing one of your blouses in front of you.

“Why? Where are you going?” Jiwoo doesn’t spare you a glance.

“To the party,” you place the blouse back into the drawer and take one of your favorite t-shirts instead, “Jaehyun told me I had one hour to get ready,” you mumble the last part and the other girl stops everything and slowly turns her body to face you.

“You can’t be serious right now!” a grin adorned her face while she looked at you holding an eyelash extension. “You are so in love with each other.”

“No, we are not. We are just friends,” you state matter-of-factly “He just said I should have some fun and ended up convincing me to go to the party.”

“You say as if it’s easy to convince you to go to frat parties,” she turns back to finish her makeup. “If you give me fifteen minutes, I’ll help you get ready.”

“There’s no need for that, don’t worry.”

“Yes, there is. Go take your shower. Go, go.”

You sigh and make your way to the bathroom. If you were fast enough, you could avoid Jiwoo and the makeover you were sure she was planning. Every time you go to an event together, she makes sure to doll you up. Suddenly, flashes from last Saturday cross your mind. You definitely shouldn’t let her choose your outfit again. The last time didn’t go well.

After showering and washing your hair, you see your phone light up and Jaehyun’s face illustrating the screen. You hung up the call to finish drying your hair, but he insisted another five times before starting messaging.

[Jae - 8:14pm]: do u hate me???

[Jae - 8:14pm]: pick up the phone

[Jae - 8:15pm]: y/n

[Jae - 8:15pm]: if u don’t pick up imma be sad

[Jae - 8:15pm]: :/

[Jae - 8:26pm]: are u ignoring me????

[Jae - 8:28pm]: talk to me

[Jae - 8:28pm]: plssss

[Jae - 8:29pm]: i know u r reading my messages

[You - 8:30pm]: omg

[You - 8:30pm]: u are so annoying

[You - 8:31pm]: i was taking a shower

[You - 8:31pm]: do you want me to be dirty????

[You - 8:31pm]: what do u want?

[Jae - 8:32pm]: i forgive you then

[Jae - 8:32pm]: r u ready?

[You - 8:33pm]: almost? i need to hurry up

[You - 8:33pm]: jiwoo must be ready

[You - 8:34pm]: and i’m going with her

[Jae - 8:34pm]: nooo :(

[You - 8:34pm]: ??

[Jae - 8:35pm]: i’m waiting for you outside

[Jae - 8:35pm]: walk with me instead

You stare at your screen for some seconds before thinking of a reply. Why did Jaehyun come all the way to your dorm to pick you up? Is he insane? Is he trying purposefully making you fall for him just to crush your heart later? Is that the reason why he gave you one hour to get ready? He barely waited thirty minutes, though.

[You - 8:36pm]: ok..

[You - 8:36pm]: i’ll be down in 5

You run back to your room and throw everything on your bed, not caring about the mess. Jiwoo is finishing her hair and was almost ready to put on her shoes. You throw the wet towel that was in your hair on the floor and take the first pair of shoes you find.

“If you are rushing just to avoid me, forget it. You’ll only leave this room once you look presentable to a party. Look at you!” she scoffs but you barely listen to her

“No, not now. I need to go,” you pant and grab the first lipstick you found “Jaehyun’s downstairs.”

“HE WHAT?” she shouts and screams incoherent words afterward. You were sure the whole floor had heard her. “YOU CAN’T MEET HIM LOOKING LIKE A WET DOG. YOU HAVEN’T EVEN DRIED YOUR HAIR PROPERLY!”

“Stop screaming!!” you plead and try to find a hairbrush “It will dry naturally.”

“NATURALLY?” Abigail punches the wall behind Jiwoo but she doesn’t seem to notice or care about it “Come on, if you don’t want to change your outfit, at least let me dry your hair.”

“He has been waiting outside for a while now.”

“It won’t kill him to wait another fifteen minutes.” she grabs the hairdryer and goes to your direction, but you deflect “It’s either the hair or the outfit. You will have to change SOMETHING.”

You know how stubborn your friend can be, so you just drop the matter without fighting and let her do her thing. While you use the hairdryer, she chooses something from your drawers, while threatening to lock you out of your shared room if you don’t wear her outfit.

You regret not running away while you could when she hands you the same black skinny jeans from last time. You should have burned it last week. She chooses a crop top that was probably hers and throws your favorite denim jacket at you.

“Just so you won’t complain about being cold.”

You rush to get to the front of the building as fast as possible, just to find Jaehyun leaning his back against the lamppost. You can’t deny your heart skipped a beat at the sight. He is there, waiting for you. His head is hung low, eyes fixed on his phone. Jaehyun had the same outfit from the first time you met him at your first frat party: long-sleeved black shirt and black skinny jeans, looking just as good as the first time.

“Sorry, I’m late. It’s Jiwoo’s fault,” you say once you’re next to him.

His eyes scan your body up and down and you see a faint smirk on his face. “I like your jeans,” he adds suggestively.

“I hope I won’t feel cold, Jiwoo chose this crop top to wear at night!” you say to yourself, not realizing what the boy has just implied. Jaehyun was behind you, still checking you out, which if you had noticed, would have made you blush “You gave me an hour to get ready, though. I barely had time to dry my hair, it will look ugly later.”

“I doubt it,” he answers back and rushes to hold your hand in his. “Sorry, I guess I just wanted to see you soon.” He notices how you tense up and smiles at the way you tighter your grip around his hands.

“Stop it.” you warn him “You didn’t have to pick me up though, I could go with Jiwoo.”

“I came to pick you up because I heard creeps are hovering around the girl’s dorm.”

“Who told you that?” you ask, adjusting your hands together. Holding Jaehyun’s hand was more pleasing than you wanted to admit. It felt familiar.

“Johnny.” you laugh at him who looks at you confused “What?”

“Do you seriously believe in Johnny? There’s 24/7 security around our building,” you smile at him who mirrors your expression, showing you his dimples. “He just uses it as an excuse to always give Jiwoo a ride,”

“Well, I guess he just worries about his girlfriend,” the boy gives your hand a little squeeze, making you look at him “Tell me when you’ll leave the party so I can walk you back, okay?”

“You don’t need to,” you turn your head to the front. If you keep staring at Jaehyun while he is being so caring, you’ll collapse there and then.

“I want to, silly. It’s dangerous to walk around by yourself at night.”

“So I assume you will fight whoever tries to hurt me?” you ask humorously, a smile on your face.

Jaehyun tried to stay with you the whole night, but his friends weren’t helping. It all started as soon as you got to the house and Taeyong asked him to carry heavy boxes inside and stole your attention away from the boy. When he finally found you again, you were in a circle with Donghyuck, Taeyong, Taeil, and some girls he didn’t recognize, drinking some weird mixture they made. Before he could reach you, though, Yuta forced him to pair up in a beer pong game.

What he hated the most, though, was when he spotted you in the crowd for the third time that night. You were already tipsy, more prone to smile, and your smile was simply breathtaking to Jaehyun. But you weren’t smiling for him. It was Hendery Wong who was making you laugh and it was the other boy’s arm you were holding to steady yourself in place. Jaehyun hated, even more, all the times the boy would lean his body to whisper something to you and how he took advantage of that position to hold you by the waist, his hand resting on your lower back, bringing your bodies closer. Too close to Jaehyun’s liking.

“Stop staring, hyung,” Donghyuck says propping himself up against the kitchen’s counter. “Or else I will think you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous and I’m not staring.” Jaehyun sips his beer without taking his eyes off the couple.

“Yeah, why would you feel jealous of a funny and hot guy who is clearly hitting on Y/N?” Donghyuck says sarcastically and steals the drink from Jaehyun.

“He is shamelessly flirting with her for ages,” The boy tears his gaze apart from the couple to look at the younger who was drinking his beer. “Do you believe he used the ‘I think you are falling for me’ pick up line with her? And then inviting her to have lunch with him when she usually eats with me- us?”

“Who are we talking about?” Yuta arrives with two shot glasses in hand, filled with blue liquid.

“Take a wild guess.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes and goes to the dance floor.

“Do you want it?” the older boy offers and Jaehyun gladly takes it, feeling his throat burning with the alcohol. “What’s going on?”

“Hendery Wong.” the younger says looking back to the tall guy touching your body the way he wanted to.

Yuta follows Jaehyun’s eyes and hisses at the sight “I don’t wanna get punched in the face but” he whistles and looks back at his friend “I don’t blame the kid, she looks hot as fuck tonight.”

“If you don’t wanna get punched, then close this filthy mouth of yours.” Jaehyun’s expression darkens and Yuta only laughs, tapping the guy on the shoulder.

Jaehyun considered approaching you. Fuck him, every time he saw Hendery touching your hair or smiling at you, he wanted to go there and punch that sly smirk out of the boy’s face. What would be his excuse, though? He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so protective around you, but it was eating him up.

“How’s tonight going, Jeffrey?” a cheerful Johnny appeared beside him “You looked so happy playing beer pong with Yuta.”

“Can’t you see I’m having the time of my life,” the younger one says sarcastically and takes the bottle of beer from Johnny’s hand.

“Your face says otherwise,” the tall one chuckles and glances towards you. “Just go there and ask her to dance.”

“She already has a date.” Johnny smiles and waves at someone “I don’t want to bother them.”

“It’s surprising they haven’t caught you staring yet. Jiwoo and I have been watching you and your jealousy attack for more than fifteen minutes.” He shakes hands with two guys who were passing by and complimented his music playlist for the party. “She likes you, you know? I’m sure she would dump anyone if you asked.”

“Why would I ask her that?” Jaehyun sounds offended. He didn’t want you to dump anyone for him. “She’s just a friend. A good friend. That’s why I want the best for her.”

“And I assume that, in your judgment, Hendery is not the best for her,” Johnny sips his drink and nudges his friend “but you are, aren’t you?”

“Hendery is not the best for her and everyone knows it. He is an exchange student, they start dating and what happens when he needs to move back to China?" Jaehyun crosses his arms in front of his chest, visibly irritated. “I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

“Oh, Jaehyun, please,” the older boy rests his arm on Jaehyun’s shoulder and leans closer to the boy’s ear “Just admit that you like her.”

“I don’t like her like that.”

“Yeah, right, so I guess now you call steamy makeout sessions, friendly conversations.”

“Can you not mention that? I was drunk.” Jaehyun snaps and slaps Johnny’s arm away from him “I only like her as a friend. Stop annoying the shit out of me. You, Donghyuck, Yuta, even Taeyong was bugging me this week. Cut the dating bullshit, for fucks sake!”

“Yeah, you take her on dates, make out with her in our kitchen, and now is jealous of Hendery blatantly flirting with her because you are just friends.” Johnny finishes his drink before placing the empty bottle on the counter “you definitely don’t like her.”

It was probably the alcohol, but Jaehyun was mad. He was so mad that he stormed out of the kitchen before he started a fight with Johnny. Why was everyone pressuring him about jealousy? He was only trying to take care of you. He knew about your little crush on him and that’s why he made sure to tell everyone that you were only friends. And friends care about each other.

He sighs and sits on the sidewalk, away from the party and from the stares. Away from you and Hendery. What was happening to him? He lays his back on the grass and closes his eyes. His mind reminds him of the way you looked so concentrated while watching the boring movie the first time you went out together. You looked so cute, biting your lips and barely blinking. He remembered the way you sang your heart out to all the High School Musical songs and how much he loves making you laugh, just to see your smile. He remembered all the times you tensed up when he held your hands, but after seconds were adjusting yourself. His heart starts beating faster when the image of you sleeping on his bed appears on his mind. The way you were peacefully sleeping beside him and how all he wanted to was hold you and never let go. His skin seems to burn with the memory of the feeling of your fingers tracing his skin, your lips on his and the way you ground against his body last Saturday.

“Fuck,” he mouths.

Lastly, he remembered how unbelievably pretty you look tonight. Damn, Yuta was right, you were hot. You look absolutely stunning and he wants you badly. He sighed thinking about how all of his friends know him so well. How could he keep lying to himself like that? Saying that he isn’t jealous when all he is thinking about is how great it must feel to be in Hendery’s shoes right now.

“What are you doing here?” he doesn’t need to open his eyes to know who it was.

“I’m tired.”

“Then go to your room. This is literally your house!” you hold his hand and try to force him to stand up “Come on, Jae.”

“I’m fine. Just go back inside. Enjoy the party.” he stays in the same position, eyes completely closed.

You huff in annoyance at his behavior. How dare him, tell you to enjoy the party when you only came because he asked you to.

“If you’re not standing up, then I’m leaving,” you threaten, but the boy doesn’t move. Why was he being like that? “Fine then. Once you decide to tell me what’s wrong, text me. Goodnight, Jae.”

You say, walking away from the boy laying on the grass. Five minutes ago Jiwoo came to you and told you to talk to Jaehyun, he looked stressed. Why was he stressed when he was supposed to have fun? You thought to yourself. But you had to admit you were more relieved than sad for not having the opportunity to spend the night with Jaehyun. After what happened the last time both of you drank a little too much, you decided it was risky to be too close to him and alcohol.

You couldn’t stop thinking about his actions, though. Movie dates, the way he always looked after you, he even remembered how much you wanted to go to an arcade and took you there. Your heart was confused. Could it be more than friendship? You cherished Jaehyun beyond anything you could explain, you didn’t want to ruin things with him.

You might have started your relationship weirdly. Looking back to the day you woke up beside him after a party, it felt like years ago. Because that’s exactly how Jaehyun makes you feel like you’ve known him for years. The more you got to know him, the more he seemed to grow on you. He was sweet, caring, and an absolute dork. He never failed to make you laugh and was always ready to listen to what you had to say, either if it was a joke or if you were just complaining about something. He would let you use his expensive pens just because you were curious about how they were. He listened to your messy playlist even though he absolutely hated 70% of the songs you put there. He is interested in you as a person. He makes you feel special and you can’t express how much you are happy to be by his side.

“Y/N, I told you that I would walk you home!” he shouts from behind you. “Wait for me.”

You hate how he could make your heart beat faster just by calling your name

“I thought you wanted to be alone.” you shrug and slow down your pace.

“Why are you walking so slowly?” he grabs your hand and pulls you forward “Just because I’m walking you it doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of someone attacking us at 1 in the morning.” you laugh at his sentence and he can’t fight back the smile that appears on his face.

“What happened to the guy who said he would protect me?” you question him, poking his ribs.

“I’ll only fight people unless it’s completely necessary. I don’t know if you realized, but I prefer to avoid confrontation.” his thumb starts caressing the back of your hand and you feel butterflies flying on your stomach.

“I like this way,” you softly say “I wouldn’t want to see you hurting.”

“Stop saying things like that, it makes me wanna kiss you,” he mumbles.

It makes me wanna kiss you.

Did you hear it correctly? Was he jokingly flirting with you or did he mean that? You didn’t have the guts to ask. The rest of the walk was silent, the only noise coming from your rhythmic steps on the concrete. Once you see the back of your building, informing you you are close to your destination, you try to take your hands away from Jaehyun’s grasp, but he only holds it tighter.

“No,” he pleaded quietly “not yet.”

You hum in response and keep walking beside him, holding his hand.

“Text me when you get home,” you say to him once you are in front of your building. You wait for him to leave so you can get inside, but he doesn’t move. “Are you not going home? Do you need anything?”

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“Can you hug me?”

Your breath is caught on your throat at his sudden request. What was wrong with Jaehyun tonight? You didn’t know he became clingy when he drank. Either way, you comply with his request and circle your arms around his waist and place your head on his chest. Jaehyun was warmer than remembered. You hear his heartbeat increase and smile softly. Was he as nervous as you were?

“Don’t date Hendery,” he blurts out and you frown, not understanding where this came from.

“Why would I-”

“I was so fucking pissed at the way he looked at you and it killed me that I don’t have the right to complain about it because we are just friends,” he says in one breath and you try to get away from his hold to have a look at his face, but he holds you closer “The way he touched you got me frustrated to the point that I had to go outside or I would have picked up a fight.”

“He was just being-”

“I swear to god, if you say friendly, I’ll kill myself,” he says pushing you away from him and you can see him scowling at you.

“He was being too friendly,” you say smiling mischievously and Jaehyun scoffs.

“Weren’t you uncomfortable with the way he was holding you?” he asked in disbelief.

“To be honest, I think you are exaggerating. I was really tipsy, he was just making sure I wouldn’t fall.” you say and Jaehyun rolls his eyes “What? He was basically just hugging me. We hug all the time.”

“You two hug all the time?” he almost screams and you put your hand on his lips.

“Shhh don’t scream!” you say, moving your hand from his lips to his shoulder. “I meant us. You and me. You hug me all the time too.”

“But I’m your friend and he is your student, who is clearly hitting on you, by the way,” he says placing his hands on your hips, but you don’t seem to realize.

“What, Jaehyun, is this jealousy?” you smile as the words leave your lips as a joke

“Yes, this is fucking jealousy.” he snaps for the second time tonight “I am fucking jealous because that kid has been hitting on you since you first started tutoring him and you don’t realize that.”

“Woah, hold on! Stop saying nonsense.”

“You are so frustrating,” he mumbles and brings you closer by circling his arms around your waist. “Please don’t date Hendery.”

“I won’t date any-”

"Date me instead."

You feel someone sliding their hand into the back pocket of your jeans and smirk.

“Stop that,” you nudge his side “frat boy.”

“Why do you keep pretending you don’t like it when I do this?” Jaehyun rolls his eyes and brings you closer to his side “Lunch at 1?”

“It’s good for me.” you nod and stay on your toes to reach for his cheeks. “Shouldn’t you be in class right now?”

“It got canceled,” he says taking his hand out of your pocket and placing it on your waist. “Let me carry those for you.”

“It’s fine, we’re almost there.”

“Let me be a good boyfriend and carry your stuff for you.” he takes the books out of your hands and kisses your temple.

You have been dating for a while now, but every time he reminds you he is your boyfriend, it never fails to make your heart flutter. You smile widely, poking the dimples on his face and Jaehyun pretends to be annoyed, when, in fact, he loved how happy you looked.

Once you arrived at the main building, you thought Jaehyun would leave you by yourself, but he made sure to escort you to the study room. Once you turn down the hall, your boyfriend spots a certain someone waiting for you outside. Jaehyun stops a few meters away and hands you your books back, but before you can thank him, he pulls you by your belt loops and crashes his lips on yours.

You get surprised at his sudden action but kisses him for a little while after pushing him with your books, whining about being in public. Jaehyun finishes by giving pecks on your neck, jaw, and cheek. Before you can ask why he did that, you spot the long haired Chinese boy in front of library's the study room. He is clearly avoiding looking at your direction. You hit your boyfriend’s arm with the books on your hands.

“I can’t believe you were putting on a show with Hendery standing right there. You are so childish.”

“Yet, you love me the same,” he snickers, giving you one last peck on the lips “I just want to make sure he knows you’re taken.”

#nct fluff #nct drabbles #nct scenarios #nct x reader #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun fanfic #nct fanfic #jaehyun imagines #nct imagines #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 fanfic

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gffa · 3 months

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I've been a little slow on getting out new STAR WARS fic recs out, but in my defense it's because I've been reading a bunch of longer fics lately. In the spirit of "there's a special feeling to those fics that consume you and make you stay up until 3am because you can't put them down", here's a list of some of the ones I've loved or am in the middle of reading and they are haunting my thoughts and I need to inflict that on everyone else. Whether you're looking at a long upcoming trip and need some good reading material or avoiding your feelings by sinking into fic or just because you like reading, I hope you'll find something here! Including a bonus underrunning theme of throwing in a bunch of Jedi-loving fic to continue my agenda of making Jedi-centric fandom a more fun place to be. 30k+ is the minimum and this isn't all of my favorites, but it's a great list of "I have a week off to kill and I want to be in a fic coma by the end of it".

STAR WARS FIC FOR WHEN YOU NEED TO KILL ABOUT TEN HOURS WORTH OF TIME AND WANT TO HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT FICTIONAL PSYCHIC SPACE WIZARDS WHILE YOU'RE AT IT:

✦ Out with Lanterns by SkyeBean, mace & ahsoka & plo & shaak & cast, 312.5k In another universe, Jedi Masters Plo Koon and Depa Billaba decide a Padawan could do Mace some good. It takes a while, but he eventually agrees. When he takes Ahsoka Tano as his Padawan, Mace knows that he's broken through a Shatterpoint and changed the course of a life. How, he doesn't know. ✦ Reprise by Elfpen, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & yoda & anakin & cast, time travel, 558.9k wip Ben Kenobi dies aboard the Death Star in the year 0 BBY. He wakes up shortly thereafter in the Jedi temple in the year 41 BBY. Haunted by memories and regret, Ben must forge a new path for himself in the Jedi Order of his youth while navigating the murky waters of time travel. Crafting a better future from bitter experience is hard, but learning to heal is even harder. ✦ Take it from the top and try again by mauvera, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & padme & mace & shmi & dooku & cast, time travel, 112k wip Five years into his self imposed exile on Tattooine, Obi-Wan Kenobi is gifted the chance to go back and bring hope back to the galaxy. With hindsight on his side, he fully intends to save his master, save his padawan, make some new and old friends again, prepare the Jedi for a war they’ll hopefully never see and begin to pull apart all the many tangled threads of the Sith Lord’s plans. Should be relatively easy. Right? ✦ Post Order 66 Exile AU by Livsy, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 46k Alternatively: after a failed order 66, in which many Jedi still died but the Sith were defeated, an exiled warrior and a boy wander a distant planet and attempt to get along. ✦ Remedial Jedi Theology by MarbleGlove, obi-wan & anakin & jedi & cast, 51.3k Let us consider the fact that the Jedi Order is a monastic religious organization based out of a temple, with five basic tenets of faith. ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & yoda & palpatine & bail & dooku & mace & quinlan & vokara & ahsoka & cast, 124.5k wip By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. A Senator from a less prominent planet has had enough of Chancellor Palpatine's incompetence and calls for a Vote of No-Confidence and the installation of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi as Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This one action becomes the catalyst that changes the direction of the galaxy. ✦ What We've Become by Vinyarie, vader & ahsoka & cast, 82k Darth Vader and Ahsoka’s fight on Malachor takes a different path, and Ahsoka actually is able to save her master. Or rather, she’s able to convince him to save himself. Diverges from canon in the last few minutes of Twilight of the Apprentice and goes increasingly AU from there.

✦ time to change the road you're on by wreckageofstars, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & luke & leia & han & ghost crew & cast, time travel, 93.6k wip The end of the Clone War is near - the fall of the Republic even nearer. Anakin Skywalker, caught up in the events that lead to the rise of the Empire and the loss of everything he holds dear, finds himself sent nearly two decades into the future. Ahsoka Tano, still coming to painful terms with the true fate of her former master, is - not exactly happy to see him. But the Force works in mysterious ways - and the future is not nearly as set in stone as they've been lead to believe. Multi-chapter AU, Rise of the Empire/Rebels-era. ✦ narrower than a razor's edge by bereft_of_frogs, obi-wan & dooku & qui-gon & anakin & sidious & cast, 30.2k Dooku tips his hand ten years earlier because he can't stand the thought of his former apprentice's murder, and that might just be enough to save everyone...if it doesn't get them all killed first. ✦ soften every edge by gigglesandfreckles, obi-wan & ahsoka (& anakin), major character death, 48.1k "Rejoice!" the galaxy says, in the wake of war and the dawning of peace. "How?" Obi-Wan asks. "No," Ahsoka says. (or: Obi-Wan & Ahsoka learn to live on.) ✦ hunting toward heartstill by blackkat, mace/cody & plo & fives & shaak & obi-wan & anakin & rex & cast, 207.2k Plo has an idea. Mace agrees, and everything snowballs right into hell from there. (Or: Mace and Cody get married in order to give the clones citizen status. Before they can focus on that, though, they're going to have to deal with ancient Sith artifacts, evil prophets, plots to overthrow the Supreme Chancellor, lost planets, monsters warped by Sith alchemy, inconvenient , and Darth Sidious turning his eye on a potential new apprentice. Just...not in that order.) ✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & waxer & cast, 63.1k wip For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him. ✦ Unexpected Awakening (The Rewrite) by Rhiw, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & feemor & bruck & jango & cast, time travel, 135.1k wip The life of General Kenobi is cut short at the hands of his Padawan, but the sight that greets his eyes upon awakening is not that of blinding light of the Force, but the Jedi Temple he knew when he was still a youth. As he struggles to understand the path laid out before him, Obi-Wan unwittingly captures the attention of a singularly unusual Temple Guard, and that of a reluctant Qui-Gon Jinn.

✦ Knightrise by deviantaccumulation, obi-wan & ahsoka & satine & yoda & cast, 89.4k wip There is no battle on Mustafar or in Coruscant's senate building. Instead, a small but still alive Jedi Order rises from its ashes on Mandalore. ✦ Fire and Ice by Yesac, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 111.9k Anakin wins the duel on Mustafar, but doesn't kill Obi-Wan. Along with Padme, Obi-Wan finds himself living in a chaotic world where the man he thought he knew has become the thing he swore to destroy. Can Anakin be turned back? If so, what then? ✦ Better That a Millstone by Icarus_is_flying, obi-wan & luke & anakin & leia & cast, 86.7k Vader discovers Luke and Obi-Wan on Tatooine when Luke is one year old and attempts to reclaim the family he threw away. Obi-Wan is less than pleased, and Luke and Leia? They have their own ideas about how their future should play out. ✦ Bloodlines by KCKenobi, obi-wan & anakin & dooku, 35.8k When an explosion traps them in the same doomed escape pod, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Dooku are stranded together on Tatooine. The goal is simple: cooperate long enough to survive, and not a second longer. But a shared past has a way of connecting the people we think we know—and bloodlines run deep. [or: your classic family road trip across a desert planet, except your grandpa is, you know, a Sith Lord. And now he's sort of starting to bond with your Jedi dad. And that might be an issue.] ✦ When Darkness Seems to Hide This Place by IllyanaA, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 136k wip After killing three of the Jedi Order's best and brightest, Palpatine's fight with Jedi Master Mace Windu goes shorter than expected. Afraid he's lost his chance at recruiting a new apprentice, Sidious unleashes Order 66 across the galaxy, but, per their programming, the Clone Army is not to harm Anakin Skywalker. After witnessing the most painful loss he's ever experienced and injured at the hands of his captors, Anakin is ready to die like the rest of the Jedi, though not before getting his vengeance. ✦ Precipice by shadowsong26, obi-wan & anakin & padme & luke & leia & bail & ahsoka & rex & cast, 253.6k An AU in which Anakin Skywalker does not follow Mace Windu and the others to Palpatine’s office after they leave to arrest the Chancellor. As a result, he doesn’t get that final push over the edge, and doesn’t Fall. ✦ Averting Galactic Destruction by kj_feybarn, obi-wan & anakin & quinlan & rex & cody & fives & dogma & wolffe & plo & shaak & dooku & sidious, time travel, 44.3k AKA The Time the Force Sent Obi-Wan Back in Time and Quinlan Vos kept him from Going Kamikaze because let’s be Honest, Being Forced to Come Back in Time Would Suck.

✦ Into the Archives by skygawker, obi-wan & anakin/padme & palpatine & cast, 104.9k wip After hearing the legend of Darth Plagueis the Wise from Palpatine, Anakin decides that his best chance to save Padme is to break into the restricted Holocron Vault of the Temple Archives to search for information about Plagueis. Predictably, all does not go according to plan. Revenge of the Sith AU. ✦ Live To Fight Another Day by raemanzu, spica_tea, cody & rex & jesse & kix & obi-wan & anakin & fox & cast, 396.9k wip Clones have their place in the universe, beyond the schemes of Palpatine. Events conspire to place Rex on the path of a new fate, one which will affect the future in ways not even the Jedi could foresee. Loyal to source material and characterizations. Canon-divergent. Starts between seasons 5 and 6 of TCW and explores Rex’s reaction to Fives’ dying words and subsequent events building toward Order 66. Variety of canon characters. No ships. Very Ace and Aro. Strong focus on certain friendships (Rex and Cody, Jesse and Kix, etc) with those friendships playing major roles. Thematically about how the clones navigate loss, trauma, the concept of their enslavement, their identities, etc amongst the larger active plot threads. Content warnings for war-related PTSD, trauma, combat injuries, and all around war-related angst etc in later chapters. ✦ Life and What Comes After by Ibelin, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme & cast, 177.2k wip Obi-Wan dies on Jabiim. Anakin blames himself, doesn't know how to go on and yet - he does. Maybe the Force rewards that kind of thing, or maybe he just gets lucky, but when a mission lands Anakin on a vaguely familiar planet, he gets a second chance to do what he knows he should have done in the first place: save his master. (And maybe a chance to save the galaxy, too.) ✦ Knight-Errant by zinjadu, anakin & ahsoka & obi-wan & padme & rex & jedi & clones, 315.8k AU - The Jedi Who Knew Too Much. Rex decides to stay "in pursuit" of his Commander; he jumps. Now, with backup, Ahsoka navigates the lower levels and deals with Ventress. Meanwhile, Anakin takes the Order to task, finds a little more support, and things turn out a little differently for everyone. And this is just the beginning. ✦ the massive machinery of hope by Killbothtwins, obi-wan & qui-gon & anakin & shmi & jedi, time travel, 150.1k After the end of the war with the Empire, Obi-Wan wakes up in his twelve-year old body. Now all he needs to do is convince everyone he's psychic, trick his Master into taking him on before he's sent to Bandomeer, redeem a few bad guys, and try not to have a nervous breakdown. Pretty easy. It's not like the Sith are lurking on the horizon, waiting to devour the Jedi Order.

✦ The Exchange by MissLearn, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & ahsoka & padme & cast, time travel/body swap, 120k The Daughter has a bad day and it irrevocably changes the fate of the galaxy, twice over. Or; ROTS Obi-Wan and Anakin are swapped with their younger, TPM, selves. It changes things, in both parallels. ✦ In All The World by Kjellarnen, obi-wan & anakin & cast, 144.8k wip The story of how Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi tamed each other, from Naboo to Anakin's early days at the Temple. ✦ In Another Life by KCKenobi, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & padme, time travel, 52.3k Eleven years after the rise of the Empire, a favor to a friend sends Obi-Wan traveling through the multiverse. He encounters different versions of the galaxy and of himself—including one in which Anakin never turned to the dark side. Obi-Wan and this Light Anakin are forced to work together to stop the creation of a disastrous Empire weapon. But as they move through different versions of reality, the timelines become more and more twisted—and the harder it is to distinguish who they are from who they might have been. And—to find their way home. ✦ The Intruder by Hollyoakhill, obi-wan & original clone characters, 82.5k When a vicious attack from a strange, indestructible monster traps them on a derelict star destroyer, a young clone trooper fresh from Kamino join forces with Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi to find a way to escape. ✦ Conceal Me What I Am by Himboskywalker, obi-wan/anakin & padme & yoda & mace & palpatine & quinlan & cast, omegaverse, NSFW, 108.3k Separatist Propaganda is turning the Republic against the Jedi Order and the Senate sees no choice but to join in a political alliance to fight dissent on a unified front.An alliance is proposed through an arranged marriage,between a Jedi Knight and Republic Senator. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are chosen as representatives of the political union by Darth Sidious, meant to bring ruin to the marriage and the public's support of the Jedi,for Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the Beta he claims. But even Sidious does not know of the secret Anakin Skywalker keeps, that he is not the Alpha the galaxy believes him to be. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 95.9k During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone.

✦ Invictus by Himboskywalker, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, 40.3k "He is the balance, the other half, the completion to Skywalker’s soul, a perfect dyad in the force. But while Kenobi is a simple answer, the force also sees the difficulty of the pair coming together in balance. The foundations of the galaxy they exist in pull at them, threatening to intervene in their unity. But this is also a simple problem, for the force is far greater than the foundations of a single galaxy, for it is the foundation of all. So the force enacts its will, to bridge the pair over a span of moments, of years, of eternities, and Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi will fall in love, have fallen in love, and are falling in love." ✦ Neutron star collision by thedunesea, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, 121.2k wip In the aftermath of Order 66, Anakin Skywalker's miraculous survival after his confrontation with the new Sith Apprentice Darth Vader ignites a sparkle of hope in the remaining Jedi, in the fledgling rebellion and, above all, in his former Master, who thought he had lost everything to darkness. But darkness is generous, and it is patient. ✦ Lex Talionis by intermundia, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & dooku & rex & cast, NSFW, 187.1k The ancient Galactic Republic is dying slowly—an ugly death of corruption, sprawl, and decay—with the sin of slavery hanging over its every triumph. The beleaguered Jedi Knights are too few to adequately patrol and police the entire Republic, and are faced with complacency and greed at every turn. Born into a crumbling and stagnant galaxy, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are faced with the greatest challenge of all: themselves. Obi-Wan likes rules and control. When the galaxy around him stops playing by the rules, what is a Jedi to do? Anakin needs rules and restraint. When the galaxy around him conspires to set him loose, what is his Master to do? Falling slowly or falling fast, falling through lust or falling through wrath—it all leads to delusion and moral decay. What can be born from the ashes? ✦ Atlas of Our Ruin by Ripki, obi-wan/anakin & cast, NSFW, time travel, 230.8k Both the past and the future casts long shadows. Obi-Wan and Anakin learn that the hard way, when a mysterious holocron flings them backwards and forwards in time, forcing them to confront painful truths. But the time-travel is only the beginning… ✦ Seed by bell (belldreams), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 44k When Anakin falls prey to a lethal poison, Obi-Wan has no choice but use all his resources to heal him-- no matter how reluctant he is in administering the antidote.

✦ wicked thing by imaginarykat, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, nsfw, sith!obi-wan, 124.2k wip There are rumours of yet another Sith Lord hiding among the Separatists. The Council sends Anakin to investigate. Anakin has a bad feeling about this. or, the story of how Anakin exists in a perpetual state of intense embarrassment, Obi-Wan is enjoying it a little too much, and everything is, generally speaking, a gigantic mess. ✦ Rulebreaker/Wildheart by chapstickaddict, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & luke & leia & barriss & cast, NSFW, 230k Darth Vader, the strong arm of the Sith, held loyal to his Order since they took he and his mother from slavery in the deserts of Tatooine. Until he became convinced they killed his wife. He abandoned his Order and disappeared in the chaos of the Clone Wars, presumed dead by all sides. That young Skywalker is known around town as a widower and homesteader; a Nabooian who emigrated to avoid the trade blockade; a father of overly-energetic twins and warding a Togruta war orphan; a decent mechanic if your farm equipment or maintenance droid is acting up. Anakin is a paranoid, over-protective hot mess doing his best to raise his weird pack the way Padmé would have wanted. How the hell is he supposed to do that when his kids and not-apprentice make him haul a half-dead Jedi Master home like a lost pet? ✦ more than a candle by jenmishe, obi-wan/anakin/padme, NSFW, 50.3k "The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars." Or, a few thousands of words of how Anakin, Obi Wan, and Padmé realize many things, which include, most notably, how they feel about each other and how to handle said feelings. Oh, and in the meantime, they deal with a megalomaniac Sith Lord. ✦ Anamorphosis by avocadomoon, obi-wan/padme & anakin & mace & corde & qui-gon & cast, 33.5k noun, plural an·a·mor·pho·ses [an-uh-mawr-fuh-seez, -mawr-foh-seez]. A distorted or monstrous projection or representation of an image on a plane or curved surface, which, when viewed from a certain point, or as reflected from a curved mirror or through a polyhedron, appears regular and in proportion; a deformation of an image.

#lumi.txt #star wars #obi wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #ahsoka tano #mace windu #qui gon jinn #jedi order #fic recs #star wars fic recs #long post #really long post

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miraclewoozi · 11 months

Text

DON'T SWEAT IT. - l.jh

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

pairing; lee jihoon x fem!reader. content; fluff / gym crush au / strangers to lovers / kinda idiots to lovers / smut towards the end (MINORS DNI). w/c; just a breezy 18k- and some change? warnings; swearing, this is only proof read once because if i read it again i was going to lose my mind. please let me know if i've forgotten any. smut tags under the cut ( not sure that this counts as a warning but a heads up: the gym weight units, whenever mentioned, are in kilograms not lbs because i’m british and the metric system, am i right? sorry if there are any other british-isms, i try really hard to avoid them/catch them on a proofread but there are inevitably some that have slipped through the net. )

note; gym-selfie jihoon, you will never not own my ass. ( screaming internally this is the first fic i've written since my dan + phil youtube era. i don't know what i'm doing. this has been in my wips for about two months. it's a bit all over the place. that's. literally just me. bon appetite. <3 )

smut warnings: making out, grinding, fingering (f rec), oral (f rec), blowjob started/implied (at the end), protected sex (be safe out there gang), little bit of biting, no huge power dynamics? reader & jihoon are both switches (and simps), some use of pet-names (good girl/baby).

—————

He first sees you around lunchtime on an otherwise unassuming Sunday.

As you walk in, the gym is wonderfully quiet. A handful of regulars mill about, making full use of the rare freedom of the machinery. One of the club’s personal trainers is marching an impossibly steep incline on a treadmill. It could just be any other weekend session in this criminally over-equipped and under-used gym: the town’s worst kept secret. But when the door slams shut behind you, his head jerks up; it, in this moment, is the loudest sound in the room. It’s sort of the only one he hears at all.

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you as he sits with dumbbells rested against his thighs. He catches his breath as he wonders who you are, if you’ve ever been to this gym before, why he doesn’t recognise you. Are you a new potential regular, maybe? Or just visiting the area and making good use of the cheap pay-as-you-go rates? Maybe, he considers, lips turning downwards in thought… maybe you’ve been coming here for a long time and he’s somehow just always been so in his own head that he’s never noticed.

The last, he thinks, is sort of unlikely. No. He would definitely remember a face like yours.

His heart rate slows more than he usually lets it as he finds himself watching you fill up your water bottle at the fountain, taking a long sip on your way over to one of the stairmasters. His brain blanks out when he realises that he’s not just looking anymore, he’s sort of staring, and swallows the saliva on his tongue hard, looking back at the mirror. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He isn’t that guy – he just got distracted by the loud noise, and this is exactly why he checks the damn battery on his headphones before he leaves the house.

The only problem is that now, he can’t remember how many sets he’s done. He lies back and stares straight into a slightly sketchy light-fixture, neglecting to pick up the dumbbells that he put aside for his next set of pushes. Jihoon adjusts the position of his shoulders against the bench, arches his back off it slightly, digs his heels into the spongy floor beneath them and pushes the ones still in his hands until failure.

Today, he finishes his routine and leaves the gym without allowing himself so much as another glance your way.

He neglects to notice that your eyes are avoiding him right back.

—————

You smile at him for the first time on a Tuesday. Not the following one – a week and a bit later.

Seungcheol is with him tonight. Jihoon prefers to train alone nine times out of ten: this is a truth widely acknowledged, accepted and respected among his friends. Gym time is his down time, his equivalent of movie marathons and comfort food, of face masks and glasses of wine. But it’s not a hard rule: occasionally, someone will ask to tag along and use one of his guest passes, and Jihoon very rarely says no. There are two reasons. One, he isn’t actually rude, contrary to approximately eighteen running jokes in the group-chat. But also, it adds a little bit of variety to his otherwise very set-in-stone regimen, and mixing it up doesn’t hurt. Like tonight, for example. Seungcheol is pulling him into the studio off the main gym floor, his own gym bag packed with boxing pads and gloves for them to play with.

Variety.

Jihoon grumbles a little at the idea, at first. He has a very love-hate relationship with cardio, favouring a simple steady-state run over everything else, and it just feels a bit against his moral code to use gym time for something like this. However, he comes to discover very quickly that smacking Seungcheol’s hands is very therapeutic; Jihoon knows he’s maybe getting a little too into it when his friend asks if they can switch around, grimacing and shaking out his wrist after a particularly beefy punch.

He agrees, albeit reluctantly, tugging off the gloves he’s wearing and pulling on the pads instead.

This half of the activity is considerably less enjoyable for Jihoon; he starts to cool down and loses his flow almost straight away and after about thirty seconds, his breathing is back to normal and he feels ready to go again. Even so, he does what he needs to do to be a good workout partner, and goes one step further into ‘good friend’ territory as he allows Seungcheol to vent about the bad day he had at work in-between hits, offering murmurs and looks of disgust when it feels appropriate. Suddenly, the impromptu request to come to the gym tonight makes much more sense, as does the slightly bizarre choice of activity, but Jihoon tries not to ask about it in too much detail.

They swing at each other for a few more rounds apiece, working up a healthy sweat and getting out a few frustrations as the hour wears on. On the last set, Jihoon switches out Seungcheol’s hands for a punching bag, putting a lot more of his weight behind every hit and really tiring himself out. By the end, his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks have flushed bright red; he only stops when he gets that weird, metallic taste in the back of his mouth that says he’s probably overdone it. Again.

“Hit the shower?” Seungcheol asks breathlessly as he finishes his last set of Russian twists and lies down flat on the floor, equally sticky and flushed all over.

Jihoon pats his face dry with his towel, shaking his head. “You go ahead. I’ll have one at home.”

He doesn’t give Seungcheol much of a chance to respond, already cleaning down anything he’s touched or managed to sweat on and riding out the high of the endorphins flooding his veins. Secretly, he hasn’t had a cardio session this high energy or this satisfying in a long time. He isn’t going to readily admit to that though.

“Nah, I’ll do the same,” Seungcheol agrees. He starts packing the gear he brought with him into his bag and they leave together after, heading towards the exit.

That’s when he sees you again.

He doesn’t notice at first; you’re stowing your things into one of the higher lockers, and you have your headphones slung around your neck as he walks past. It’s the sound of a song he vaguely recognises through your speakers that makes his head snap over from the conversation he’s in the middle of. They walk past at the moment you drop down from your tiptoes, and you flash a small (but insanely pretty) smile at Jihoon.

By the time he manages to process this fact, he’s already walked past you and you’re headed over into the main gym area, so even though he turns around to try and catch your eye, all he sees is your retreating figure. He stumbles over his own feet, not looking where he’s going, and just barely catches himself on Seungcheol’s upper arm before he actually does fall over. His older friend glances down at his bicep before he adopts a look that Jihoon has seen many, many times before: just never directed at him. His cheeks heat up further and he looks away.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, one eyebrow so far up his forehead that it’s disappeared almost entirely under his soggy hair. He looks so smug, so incredibly entertained. Jihoon wants to smack that expression off his face, immediately.

“Nothing,” Jihoon rushes, managing not to act on the violent thought even though he wants to. He clears his throat. “No-one. I-... they’re new, I think. I don’t know.”

Seungcheol lets out a soft laugh, pushing the door open for them both to leave through. “Yeah,” he scoffs, eyes glimmering with something Jihoon doesn’t think he likes the look of. “Nothing, my ass.”

—————

Three days later, he hears you speak for the first time.

Granted, you aren’t speaking to him – at least, not at first. But that’s not really what matters.

It’s late, and it’s a Friday night. Fridays are usually Jihoon’s days rest days, but sitting around his apartment had him feeling impossibly twitchy, with far too much energy to burn and no way to do so without leaving the house. And he knows that he needs to take days off, now and again. He knows that they’re good for recovery and that it’s healthy to take time to himself that involves not lifting weights. But what he also knows is that if he doesn’t manage to shake the weird buzzing feeling in his muscles, in his joints, in his veins, he’s never going to get to sleep. So, here he finds himself at almost 10PM, walking down the street to get to the gym.

To begin with, he doesn’t know (or really care) who it is that’s coming up behind him. He can hear quite clearly that the mystery person is on the phone, and that they’re in the middle of what seems to be a rather heated argument: his brain latches onto occasional words, phrases, curses. Every now and again, their voice drops to a deep, frustrated mutter and he cringes slightly, making a point to keep his eyes forward and down so as not to draw attention to the fact that this presumably private conversation has become everything but.

He touches his entry fob to the sensor on the door as he arrives and pushes it open. Jihoon uses the opportunity to stand still, to glance back at whoever it is that’s walked behind him for the past four and a half minutes, and his eyes come to land on you. He falters, noting how your eyes are a bit glassy and your cheeks are stained with what he can safely assume are tear-tracks. In this moment, he wants to run; he doesn’t want anything to do with that, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear any more of your call. It’s none of his business, and he feels plenty weird enough already with what he has overheard. But, for some unknown reason, he stays in place.

“No – no, you don’t get to-...” you hiss into your phone. “It was our fucking anniversary, you asshole.” Jihoon’s face tightens at that, lips drawn between his teeth and his eyes blowing slightly wide. You pass through the door in front of him, flashing a small smile as you go. Another smile, he thinks to himself, but he’d be an idiot to compare them in any way; this one is so dramatically dissimilar to the first, he thinks it could almost have come from a totally different person.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘insanely pretty’ about it this time. Your smile is tight-lipped and exhausted, slightly apologetic. Maybe even forced. He does try to return a warmer one to you, but he doesn’t know if you notice.

“Look, I’m at the gym – we’re not doing this right now. I’ll call you later.�� You hang up the phone with the kind of sigh that groans in the back of your throat.

A small part of him wants to take this moment and use it to ask if you’re all right, but an even larger part of him doesn’t. It isn’t because he doesn’t care. In a weird way, considering this is only the first time he’s clearly heard your voice and he knows absolutely nothing about you, he does care. But there are a few things that stop him. Not only are you a near-complete stranger, not only would he have no idea what to say to you if the answer happened to come out as a ‘no’, not only is he already coming over a little bit clammy at the thought of having a conversation with you… Jihoon isn’t stupid. He knows from the sound of your voice and the way you’re rather aggressively typing a message into your phone that it’s a ridiculous question.

You’re walking into the gym at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, your eyes literally brimming with tears. Of course you’re not all right.

He’s still standing in the open doorway mulling all this over, but Jihoon only realises when a gust of wind slaps over his calves and sends a draught not only through the reception area, but up the length of his spine. He comes inside fully as you close the locker you’re using – he notices, but he isn’t sure why, that it’s the same one as last time – and throws his things into the one he always uses. Two below and one to the left of yours.

It’s quiet tonight: just the pair of you and one middle-aged guy. Jihoon recognises him as the friendly man who seemingly knows everyone who comes in here – including you, apparently, judging by the way he strikes up a short but energetic conversation. When the other guy walks away, you clamp your headphones back over your ears and return to what you were doing before, occasionally bobbing your head or moving your lips in time with whatever it is that you’re listening to. Jihoon steals little glances at you now and again when you’re in-between sets, watching how you breathe deeper, how your skin glows with sweat as you tap your fingertips against your thighs.

He almost drops the bar he’s holding when you catch his eyes in the long line of mirrors. He turns away, swallowing hard, completely missing how your own gaze lingers.

Jihoon becomes so obsessed with not being caught looking at you again that he doesn’t even notice when you disappear off the gym floor completely. It’s only when he pulls his headphones off at the end of his session and glances around that he registers your absence: your third companion is long gone, and he assumes you must have snuck out without him noticing too. He settles the speakers back over his ears before pulling on an old zip-up, flicking the hood over his head to shelter him a little better once he gets outside. But he’s in no rush to get home so he takes his time, resting his bag between his abdomen and the lockers, replying to a few messages and clicking his tongue at some of the nonsense being spewed into the group-chat.

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s standing there for, but he does know precisely what pulls him back to the world outside of the device in his hands.

To begin with, he doesn’t notice you approach, lost completely in his screen. He doesn’t hear your footsteps, or the way you politely clear your throat to announce your presence so he can move out of the way. He misses your moment of realisation that he’s listening to music and has no idea that you’re standing three feet behind him. He doesn’t even see you walk up next to him, your hair still damp from your shower and sitting loose over your shoulders.

It’s only when you try to reach over him to grab the last of your things that he snaps out of his trance. The fragrance of your body wash hits him first, and oh boy, does it hit him. Sweet, and delicate. Then, he gets something beautifully fruity: it’s not a perfume (it doesn’t smell like a perfume), but it’s you. Your shampoo, maybe? A conditioner? He can’t tell. Whatever it is, the combination of fragrances has him feeling like he’s been slammed into by a damn freight train. He drops his bag to the floor, freezing for a second, and then finally moves away just as the little door swings open.

“I’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly, tugging his hood down and pulling his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even think you were still here.” He can’t shake the smell of you, nor the feeling of your warm frame leaning so close to his own. God, why is his heart pounding like he’s just finished a round of sprints? Why can’t he breathe?

“No – hey, no, don’t be,” you rush, shaking your head. You finally succeed in pulling your coat free and start trying to get it on; Jihoon wonders if you often struggle to find your sleeves like this, if you’re always chasing them around like a puppy after its own tail. He does it too, sometimes. He gets it. It’s cute. “It’s okay. I was trying not to disturb-... I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” he tells you. For the first time, he’s able to smile back at you properly.

Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden? Do they shut off the air conditioning after hours or something? He’s breaking out in a sweat.

“Call it even?” you suggest shyly, extending out a hand now you’ve managed to get both arms through your sleeves. He looks down at your fingers for a second before reaching to shake your hand once, a semi-firm grip securing the ‘deal’. (He feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted after, but he tries not to make that too obvious).

It goes awkwardly quiet for a moment then, and Jihoon wishes deeply that he had it in him to say something. Anything. But his brain has gone completely empty and apparently, all he knows how to do is stand completely still like a fucking statue. He shifts his gaze from you, to the wall behind you, to the carpet beneath his shoes, all the while tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt as if it might bring him a tiny breath of fresh air. The gentle sound of you clearing your throat has him looking back at your face again though; he assumes for a second that this is maybe you about to announce taking your leave. All the while, he’s cursing himself out in his own head for being totally inept, and he’s not entirely sure that it isn’t written all over his face.

“Alone, today?” you ask, idly fiddling with your zipper and succeeding in taking him by surprise. He really didn’t think you were going to continue this. And yet…

“Hm?” he questions.

You swallow before answering. “You… the last time, you were with a friend?” you explain, and now it’s your turn to look away. He wonders if you’re a little warm too, if he’s right in what he was thinking about the air-conditioning.

“Oh. Right.”

He nods. An annoying train of doubt in his mind wants to know why you’re asking about Seungcheol; if maybe it was him that you smiled at the other night, even though he knows your eyes weren’t looking up at the man he brought with him. He thinks maybe he should be used to these turns in conversation by now – you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to ask if one of his friends is available, after all – but somehow, he isn’t, and he has a slightly bitter taste in the back of his mouth as he goes on.

He really didn’t have ‘you being interested in one of his best friends’ on his bingo card for tonight, that’s for sure.

“Yeah. I think he’s with his partner, or… I don’t know. I don’t really bring other people, often. That was a one-off.”

You nod silently and Jihoon can’t quite get a read on what that means. He wonders if you’re upset at the revelation of Seungcheol’s partner, or maybe that he doesn’t tag along to every session. Or maybe, maybe, you were just being polite, and you don’t really care what his friend is up to that means he isn’t here. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, you do far too good a job at hiding it; he’s suddenly very overcome with the desire to run, again, except this time he might just bury his head in the sand too for good measure.

“How much were you deadlifting, just then?” you ask in the lull, just as he thinks he might have perfected the best way to say goodbye that doesn’t make him come across as even more of a tool than he probably already has. It throws him off kilter, but somehow, he manages to answer you in reasonable time.

“Oh, God… uh, one… 160?” He says uncertainly. “That’s not… I can do heavier-...” In his mind, he slaps his forehead. “Wait, no, that’s-... I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean-...”

You bite back your smile as he talks himself in a circle but Jihoon is too flustered to notice, convinced that he now sounds like every arrogant gym rat on the planet. God, he’s given himself the ick.

“I guessed you could,” you say.

Oh boy, this freezes him. Mid-thought, mid blink, mid-breath: he’s completely stuck. What does that mean? What does that mean? He only just manages to unstick his now suddenly dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, looking at you with surprised, confused eyes and parted lips. There aren’t any words on them, though. Like a deer in headlights, he just… stares.

“I mean, okay. Come on.” Your eyes visibly drop as you look him over, gaze lingering at his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. “You can get another twenty on that at least, right?”

He doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening to him, but if he thought he was burning up before? It was nothing compared to this, now. And there’s no way you haven’t noticed how everything from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears has suddenly started staining scarlet. He bows his head and pinches his lips tight, wrestling away the train of thought that appears as you drag your bottom lip between your teeth momentarily, still eyeing his arms. God, he’s never felt so overwhelmed in his life.

“Something like that, yeah,” he strains. He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, even though he knows all of his personal bests by heart. Deadlift, 195kg. He hit it a few weeks ago: a couple of days before he first saw you.

“Mm. You can tell.”

Jihoon tries to shake off the compliment, but he fails. In equal measure he wishes you’d stop (he doesn’t know how much more blood can rush to his cheeks before he keels over) and never wants you to stop talking. It’s all going straight to his stomach, though, and he doesn’t remember having felt this specific brand of nervous and excited and stupidly shy since he was in high school.

He can hardly keep up. This is the danger zone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea that he says the next thing that comes into his head in a desperate attempt to change the conversation away from how much he can pull. But somehow, his voice doesn’t break when he asks, “are you parked far away?”

What? It’s dark outside, and this part of town isn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens and pretty flowerbeds.

“Oh,” you say, eyes a little wide. “I’m-... just staying close-by. I walked here.” The space between his eyebrows must crease a little too quickly because you immediately hurry to speak again. “Really. It’s like… not even ten minutes. All main streets. It’s nothing.”

“Ten minutes longer than I’d walk around here at night on my own,” he says lightheartedly. In tone, at least. He’s actually completely serious.

You laugh at that; he lets out a chuckle, too. Now, Jihoon doesn’t believe in fairies but he thinks that if they were real, they’d giggle just like you do.

With a smile still on your face, you say, “what? A strong guy like you? Come on, now.”

Do you have to keep doing that? Fuck, he’s absolutely done for.

He tilts his head forwards, eyes closed, trying so hard to stop the muscles in his cheeks from lifting in a grin that it becomes a workout in and of itself.

“I mean it,” he says, taking what he hopes is a subtle breath to settle the fluttering in his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s leaning one shoulder against the lockers, a little reminiscent of every douchebag in every teen movie ever made. If he doesn’t think about it too much, he won’t cringe into oblivion until he gets home and replays this interaction over and over in his head instead of going to sleep. “Maybe I’ve just lived here too long. I might be jaded, but it’s still true.”

“How long is too long?” you ask.

“All my life,” he tells you.

“No way?”

“Mm.” A beat. “What about you?”

“I’m just staying with a friend, right now.”

“Oh, right.” He falls quiet again as he remembers the first time he saw you, remembers making the list in his head of all the possible reasons he hadn’t seen you before. The second was true, then.

Why does that feel like the worst possible scenario? He decides not to unpack that here.

“Maybe-...” you start, glancing down at your hands, which have been twisting in front of you for a few seconds now. Your chest inflates, filled with the words you’re about to speak, but only a breath comes out when you shake your head instead of saying them. “No, don’t worry. Scratch that.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, because he thinks that whatever you were about to suggest, there’s not much he would have said no to. He feels like it’s only fair to give you another chance to say it.

But you don’t.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” You pause. “I… should probably get going.” He glances over your shoulder at the clock mounted on the far wall, squinting to see the time. 11:45.

“Shit. Yeah, me too,” Jihoon agrees. He didn’t realise it had gotten so late, so fast: he’s hardly ever out at this time. Lord, he already knows it’s going to be an open inquisition when he gets back to his apartment. His neighbours, Soonyoung and Seokmin, are about to have a fucking field day.

But it’s already long past the time he usually goes to bed, so he asks his next question anyway. He still can’t shake the thought of you walking back on your own at this hour. “Do-… you need a ride?”

He’s not sure if you actually consider it, or just wait a moment before you answer just to be polite. Either way, you end up shaking your head.

“It’s okay. I’ve-… got a call to make, so.” Your voice is a little quieter, lips tweaking up into a regretful half-smile, and Jihoon curses in his own head. How had he forgotten about that? “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just… get back safe.”

You smile and nod, taking a step towards the door and Jihoon does the same. He reaches the exit first and holds it open for you; when you’re both out in the street, he suppresses a shiver and looks in the direction of where he left his car earlier. Feeling the full force of the cold, it crosses his mind to ask again if you’re sure about walking home, but you’re already pulling a beanie down over your still damp hair and tapping something into your phone, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you around, uh-…” you start to say, only looking back up when you falter, realising that this is the first time you’re about to use his name and it occurs to you both, at the same time, that you haven’t done this part, yet.

“Jihoon,” he introduces himself, lips quirking into a side-smile. His gaze is expectant and you respond to it perfectly.

“Y/n,” you introduce yourself.

“See you around, y/n.”

You split off in the opposite direction to where he’s heading. Before he clamps his headphones over his ears for the short walk up to his car, the last thing he hears is the retreating sound of a dial-tone.

—————

He doesn’t see you then for two whole weeks.

For the first couple of days, he only idly notices; it’s not a big deal — it’s not like you’re always there when he is, and he’s sure it’s the same vice versa. But he notices your absence, nonetheless. By the end of the first week, he casually wonders if you’ve had a change in schedule. Maybe you’re on a different working pattern, something that means you can’t be there on Monday and Thursday evenings and at 11:45am on Sundays.

It’s not weird. He only knows this because prior to that first conversation, acknowledging you as you crossed paths by the free-weights became part of his routine. It’s fine that he sort of misses those little interactions, isn’t it?

Maybe you’ve decided to start training ridiculously early in the morning instead? He tried that once. Never again. It then occurs to him, in the middle of a self-enforced rest day as he sits in the dark nursing a headache, that perhaps you’re not well. He sort of wishes he’d had the guts to ask for your number the last time he saw you, now: he thinks he’d check in, see if you were okay, ask how work was going or something.

Deep down he knows he’d probably actually just be staring at a blank text thread with a ‘casual’ message typed, tweaked a few hundred times, and ultimately unsent. But that’s fine. It’s the thought that counts.

The next time he sees you isn’t even in the gym, at all. It’s a Sunday afternoon — he finished his morning session, went home, showered, and headed back out into town after some lunch with a few errands to run. He finds himself spoiled with the luxury of a spare few hours to kill and dips into his favourite coffee place, thrilled beyond belief to find that it’s not obnoxiously busy and that there’s only one other person in the queue waiting to be served.

Oh, he thinks when he looks up from his phone and sees a vaguely familiar set of headphones sitting on top of a definitely familiar mane of hair, standing right in front of him. Oh, shit. It’s you.

Jihoon goes back and forth with himself over it but ultimately decides he probably doesn’t know you well enough to just say hello out in the wild like this, so even though the urge to do so strikes, he holds himself back. It’s agonising, though. He really wants to.

You step forward to order and he’s typing out a reply to a message in his, Seokmin and Soonyoung’s three-way group chat, in which he’s literally been fighting for his life as of late. He made the mistake of mentioning you in passing a few days ago and ever since, he’s had to vehemently deny that he has developed his first gym crush, insisting that actually, he’s just made a friend. They don’t believe him, because of course they don’t. That would be far too reasonable. Seokmin says that Jihoon wouldn’t be blushing just from saying your name if you were really ‘just a friend’. Soonyoung argues Jihoon wouldn’t have mentioned you at all.

“I’m so sorry — bear with me, just-…” your voice is quiet but Jihoon hears you apologising to the cashier in front of you, and it snaps him clean away from the tiff he’s having with the men who live in his building. He glances up and you’re elbow-deep in the bag over your shoulder, red in the face with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. He turns his head slightly and sees the small hand-written sign that says the card machine isn’t working, and they’re cash only, today.

He can hazard a guess at your predicament.

After another few seconds of you trying to find whatever it is you’re looking for in your bag, he starts feeling bad for you. This, right here, is his own worst nightmare. Should the roles be reversed, he thinks he would’ve just turned around and walked out. It’s exactly why he doesn’t bother with backpacks and satchels day-to-day: if it doesn’t fit in his pockets, he doesn’t take it out with him. The system isn’t perfect but it has saved Jihoon a decent amount of public distress.

But the roles aren’t reversed, and he has his wallet already in his hand, so… he only gives himself a few seconds to wonder if it’s appropriate before he does the stupid thing anyway.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got it,” he says, stepping around you, pulling out the cash to pay for your order. You’re dumbstruck when you look at him, head tilted to the side. The person stood behind the counter glances at you, then at him, and back at you; you don’t see this, however, because your eyes haven’t left Jihoon’s face since he appeared — as far as you’re concerned — out of thin air.

“I can’t ask you to…” you start to protest, but your hands have stopped fishing around and he’s moving the cash further towards the barista, who hesitates just a second longer.

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’ve got you.” He says this with such finality that you quite literally can’t argue with him. The lady behind the counter accepts the cash and you nod, shyly, mouthing a thank you. He orders his own drink — an Americano, nothing exciting — and you both go to stand at the other end of the counter while you wait.

“Hi,” you finally say, and Jihoon can’t help but give a small chuckle.

He doesn’t have anything hugely witty or creative in his arsenal, though, so he comes back with a matching, “hey.”

“How… have you been?” you ask.

“Can’t complain, really,” he says. “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.” Oh, God — the second the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. Why did he have to add that last part? Why didn’t he just leave it at the question?

“Yeah — about that,” you breathe, ducking your head to conceal the heat that’s spreading over your cheeks. “You know how I said I was staying with that friend?” He nods, and you continue. “I was waiting for some stuff to get sorted out with an apartment and it all finally got resolved, so… I’ve been moving my stuff over to a new place.”

Jihoon feels his heart sink for a moment, but he keeps his expression pleasant and engaged. His fingers threaten to give him away as they fiddle with the aglet on the drawstring of his sweatpants.

“Sounds tiring,” he says lightly, and you laugh again, nodding. It’s odd, having his heart taking residence low in his stomach and somehow also in his throat, all while hammering away at a mile a minute. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t have this effect on him. “Is it going okay so far?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It’s a process, but… it’ll be worth it.”

The barista behind the counter announces herself by clearing her throat and slides your drinks across the marble surface with a little glimmer in her eye. Jihoon picks them both up, extending yours out to you. There’s a pause (in which he swallows a large helping of self-doubt) as he glances to the door, working through several combinations of his next words in his mind before he looks back at you.

“Do you… maybe have ten minutes to sit with these?” He asks. You light up immediately, not even checking the time on any of your devices, nor the wall clock behind your head. He doesn’t let himself think about why it makes him giddy that you’re accepting the offer, just like that.

“Yeah — yeah, sure.” You smile, walking through the lines of tables and sliding into one of the big, comfy chairs by the window. He unzips his jacket and slings it over the arm of the other chair before settling in himself, his long fingers wrapping around the to-go cup. The drink warms his perpetually cold palms and he sighs sweetly.

“You must be excited to get into the new place, then?” he asks after taking a sip, letting it heat him up from the inside. It could be argued that this job is already being taken care of, but Jihoon is not about to go there.

“Oh, God yes.” You nod, relaxing back in the seat with your own cup. Jihoon subconsciously leans a little forward in tandem. “It’s been fun staying with my friend, but…” You pause, lips slightly parted, before going on. “Okay, a warning: I’m a terrible person for this, I know. She’s done me a huge favour, letting me stay there — but I can’t deal with how untidy she is. It’s driving me nuts.”

A chuckle bubbles in Jihoon’s chest, cheeks starting to ache as his smile grows and grows. It hasn’t fallen since he sat down opposite you, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, any time soon. “That bad?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” you groan, covering your face with one hand. He wishes you hadn’t — he thinks you look quite lovely when you’re all lit up like this. “She doesn’t clean her dishes after she eats — she piles them up in the sink for like, three days. I don’t think she’s used the vacuum the entire time I’ve been there. I keep finding wrappers and packets and mismatched socks everywhere —”

His snort of laughter rolls off the back of his throat rather ungraciously and he settles back into his chair. You gently bump his ankle under the table with your foot, beaming at him. “I’m serious! I can’t live like this, Jihoon. I can’t!”

The more you speak, the less he can control the fits he’s descended into, and his abs start to ache after a while; there’s desperation in your voice but it’s just wrapped up so cutely in your lighthearted frustration and decoratively tied together with your sunshine smile… he can’t help it — he’s in pieces. It’s okay though, because you’re laughing too: it makes him think of fairies again, and he can picture you with dainty, intricately patterned wings under the soft lighting in the café. He wipes the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand as he starts to calm down, taking a few deep breaths all the way into his stomach.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” he says.. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d be a clean person, too,” you say, sipping at your coffee again. “I mean… I’ve never seen you use the gym showers, so I wasn’t sure, but…”

“Hey,” he says, mock-defensively. “I don’t trust the locks, okay? I shower at home!”

Your cup is lifted to your mouth and he can only see you from the nose upwards, but by the creases at the corners of your eyes, he knows you’re concealing a smile behind it as you nod back at him.

Ten minutes turns to twenty and then somehow becomes thirty — Jihoon starts feeling like you’re someone he’s known for years, and not just the person he accidentally ended up paying attention to in the gym just a couple of weeks ago. He bounces off you and you bounce off him. Both of you have long-since finished your drinks, too: there’s no real reason for either of you to still be here.

Except the obvious.

“So, the apartment,” Jihoon says, leaning forwards again with his elbows resting on his knees. “Is it…?” He makes a few circular gestures with his hands with which he tries to imply something to the effect of ‘local’, or ‘nearby’, but he can’t quite bring himself to say that out loud. You seem to catch on though. Somehow.

Then again, you did say — a few subject changes ago — that Jihoon is on your wavelength. Maybe that’s it.

“About… a fifteen minute walk from here? Give or take,” you say, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead so fast it’s like they’re on strings, being controlled by someone else. He doesn’t realise for a few seconds, by which point he isn’t even sure how to relax them.

“No way?” he says, trying to feign nothing more than an idle interest. Obviously, he’s soaring.

“Yeah. I’ll want to get back training soon, too, so there’s some incentive to get this done quickly. I miss it,” you tell him.

Jihoon comes out with what he says next without thinking. His mouth is moving before fully engaging his brain. It’s the coffee jitters. Apparently.

“Well, if you need any help with anything, I’ve got a car.”

“You’re too sweet,” you say. “I really couldn’t put you out like that, but…”

“You wouldn’t be,” he assures you with a shrug. “If I’m not working or in the gym… I’m never really that busy. It’s up to you, but-… I’d be happy to.”

You bite the inside of your lip for a moment, apparently mulling this over, before wiggling in your seat to pull your phone out of the front pocket of your jeans. You unlock the device and hand it over on a ‘new contact’ screen.

Jihoon goes completely stupid: he thinks his brain stops functioning as he takes it to put his number in — for a moment, he’s staring dumbstruck, struggling to even remember the order of the digits now he’s under pressure, but it comes back to him eventually. His thumbs dart across the screen and he checks, double checks and triple checks that he’s typed it right before placing it back in your waiting palm.

His fingertips brush against yours and it tickles, sending small shockwaves up his arms and straight into his chest. You smile down at your phone before glancing up at him.

“You need an emoji,” you tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Huh?”

“Everyone in my contacts has one — I’ve been doing this since I was in high-school. You need to pick one, too.”

“Oh, uh-…” Jihoon swallows, and for some reason he’s completely forgotten every single little emoticon option there is. He draws a blank. “I can’t — you pick one for me. I don’t know.”

You narrow your eyes at him for a second, pouting your lips as you seem to scroll through the endless options. Now and again, you look up at him, as if trying to see what best fits him before you continue your search. He waits. And waits. And waits. He’s about to throw in an admittedly useless suggestion of some sort of boring animal when you turn your phone around to show him what you’ve chosen.

Jihoon, the contact name reads. And there’s the little angel face next to it.

“Oh, come on,” he says, blushing deeply. “You can’t be serious.”

“I totally am,” you say proudly, turning it back and pressing to save it. He hides his face in his hands. “If you won’t pick your own, you get what you’re given. You did this to yourself.”

“Wow,” he chuckles weakly, sliding his hands up into his hair and raking it back off his face. Your eyes move quickly across every inch and boy, does he notice. You shrug in response and test it, sending the same little emoticon to him. He blushes harder when it comes through and he saves your number into his own phone before placing it face-down on the table.

More than an hour after buying your coffee, Jihoon stretches his arms above his head and checks the time on his watch. He frowns slightly, not sure how the afternoon got away from him so fast, and lets out a sigh.

“I think I need to get going,” he says reluctantly. Leaving you is absolutely the opposite of what he wants to do, actually. Alas, “I have some friends coming over tonight.”

“Yeah — yeah, of course,” you smile, leaning to one side to pick your bag up off the floor. “No worries.”

You both move to stand up and he throws his coat over his arm, leading the way out. He holds open the door for you to leave first, then follows you outside into the afternoon sun.

“It was really nice to see you,” you say, turning to face him.

“You too,” he agrees. “Text me if you need anything, okay? But actually do. Don’t just say you will?”

You laugh sweetly. Fairies. His ears might have actually caught fire this time. “Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll text you — thank you.” There’s a pause, but only a tiny one. “And for the coffee, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists, waving it off. You shake your head. He thinks your hands are twitching when you stuff them into your pockets but he can’t be sure. Your breath definitely stutters, though.

“No, really. Um… next one’s on me?”

He blinks, and blinks again. Next one? The next one? He feels like he’s malfunctioned and been forcibly rebooted. The next one?

“I-…” he starts, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” You nod, smiling with — what he doesn’t realise is — relief. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah — I’ll see you, y/n.”

—————

Jihoon has no choice but to admit defeat to the group chat that night when Seungcheol and Jeonghan come over for a takeout.

Within minutes, his oldest friend is asking about the girl from the gym — he’s been just as relentless as Seokmin and Soonyoung in quizzing Jihoon, except it’s slightly harder to deny to Seungcheol because he did witness, first-hand, the way you had his friend tripping over his own feet with a single smile. At first, Jihoon tries to shrug it off. Play it down. Change the subject. He doesn’t mention that he’s actually spoken to you since he and Cheol trained together, or that he accidentally bumped into you and paid for your coffee, or that you stayed talking with him for as long as you did. He definitely doesn’t say that you exchanged phone numbers.

He absolutely won’t confess to being smitten.

All Jihoon willingly admits to is that from what he’s seen of you around, you seem nice, and with a roll of his eyes he does agree that he thinks you’re attractive. He gets a bit of a glare later in the evening when Jeonghan asks if he’s thought about where he wants to take you on your first date, and Jihoon tells him to stop asking stupid questions and eat his chicken before he eats it for him. But all in all he thinks he evades the worst of it pretty well. For now, anyway — he knows their pestering isn’t going away any time soon.

Especially not when, on their way out, Seungcheol leans close and whispers that whatever is going on with his gym crush, it suits him. Jihoon jabs him on the arm and the two men leave, laughing brightly.

It’s about an hour after his friends have gone home, having washed the dishes and cleaned up his apartment that Jihoon is sitting on his living room floor doing a few lower body stretches before he turns in for the night. He finds himself tapping into your text thread — not for the first time this evening — and skimming over the short conversation you had earlier. You messaged him when you got back to your friend’s place to thank him for the third time, and Jihoon replied back telling you that if you didn’t stop being silly, he was never going to respond to you again. Your reply came in the form of a “:(“ and his was a simple “:)”. That was it, but he’s been thinking about the exchange ever since.

He’s not sure why. Nor is he certain what about that has him looking down at the messages and grinning like a fool in his apartment, alone, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. He could probably take a stab in the dark at what it means, though. He rubs at the back of his neck with one hand as he changes conversations and types out a short message with the other.

jihoon: fine. you’re right.

seokmin: ?

soonyoung: probs true, does need context

jihoon: about the gym girl. you’re right.

soonyoung: OH

seokmin: Hahahahahaha

seokmin: Yeah, you’re definitely the last to know, dude

soonyoung: fr even chan and hansol know atp lmao

jihoon: they what?

jihoon: how do they know?

jihoon: they don’t go to my gym! i haven’t seen them in weeks!

soonyoung: because we told them?????

seokmin: So, we might have told everyone

jihoon: blocking both of your numbers immediately.

seokmin: Hey! We’re just glad you’ve accepted it

seokmin: When do we get to meet her?

jihoon: blocked.

Well, great, Jihoon thinks as he fights the urge to lay face down on the floor and let the laminate cool his searingly hot cheeks.

At least he’s admitted it now.

He’s vaguely confirmed in writing that maybe he has a bit of a thing for you — it’s out in the open and at minimum, two of his friends know that it’s real. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Fingers. Whatever. No doubt by morning, all of his friends will have found out. The point stands that he hasn’t confessed to something like this since he was approximately sixteen years old, so whatever you’re doing to him, whatever this… is, it matters.

So, he asks himself, standing up off the hardwood floor and stretching his spine, arms locked behind him and pushed back as far as they can go. He turns off all the lights, checks the front door, goes through the motions to get himself ready for bed. So… what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

—————

Come Monday evening, he’s about ready to hit the roof.

As far as bad days go, Jihoon thinks he’s in the running for one of the worst ever. He slept awfully, tossing and turning through the night despite the usual winning combination of freshly washed bed sheets and his white noise machine drowning out the occasional disturbance from the street below. He wakes up two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, only to discover he fell asleep before plugging his phone in to charge overnight, and it’s sitting at a very risky 13%. The gel he uses to keep his hair off his face at work has gone weird and only does half a job, strands tumbling back in front of his eyes the second he goes to leave his apartment, very nearly forgetting his keys. Then, to really put the cherry on top, he sees that — at some point between getting home yesterday and now — someone has scraped his car while parking up next to him. There’s a large scratch right down the passenger side, with no note nor reliable CCTV in his apartment’s parking lot to confirm who it was, and of course, the space is currently empty.

All this before he even gets to work.

He fundamentally knows that starting the week off with a bad attitude will only lead to a really shitty remainder, but when Vernon sends his routine ‘Monday Motivation’ booster message — “you’re going to have a great day, today!” — into the group chat, Jihoon responds with a crude photo of his middle finger, right in front of the massive scuff on the bodywork of his Hyundai. Jeonghan replies with an ‘oof’, Wonwoo with a ‘yikes’, and Joshua, ever the comedian, sends a picture of Garfield lying face-down captioned ‘Mondays’ that nobody replies to. All responses feel kind of appropriate. But he pockets his phone without sending anything else, sighing again; he locks the car and checks the handle just in case before he finally heads into the building.

It’s going to be a long day. He just has to get through it.

Things don’t necessarily improve. He ends up in and out of meetings all day, so when 5 o’clock rolls around and he’s on his way out the door, he’s feeling a bit like he’s done nothing of actual value. Just, for some reason, thinking about you and tapping out a catchy beat on the top of his desk as he pretends to pay attention to useless presentation after useless presentation. But it’s still somehow been exhausting on his brain and on the drive back to his apartment, Jihoon feels so drained that he contemplates skipping the gym altogether and going straight to bed. This internal argument takes up most of his journey, but it does keep him occupied during the rush-hour traffic if it does nothing else.

Nothing has ever been fixed by ruining a perfectly good routine, however — so no sooner than he’s back in his apartment, he changes out of his button-down and trousers and into his regular gym gear. His protein shaker is ready on the counter for when he’s home again, the lights are off, his bag is on his shoulder and the door is locked. He pushes against it a few times, checking out of habit, despite the fact that his only neighbours on this floor are Soonyoung, Seokmin and an elderly couple with a cat they’re not technically supposed to have. Nobody tells, though, because Boots has become everyone’s emotional support animal. The only actual security threat is Seokmin maybe stealing something from his fridge, but he’s only ever satisfied after the third test anyway.

A quick warmup and a few easy stretches later, Jihoon sets about his business. Mondays are for training legs (and often, as a result, incapacitating himself for the rest of the week), and these workouts are always some of his most intense.

So intense, in fact, that he’s sweating buckets and cherry red when he steps away from the squat rack, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt to dry his face, a brief flash of his toned abdomen on full view. He’s just about catching his breath when he glances in the mirror, and his knees nearly give out when he sees you walking in. You lock eyes and smile at him in the reflection as you start to walk towards him.

It’s not just any smile, but he’s way too flustered to notice.

He spins around to face you, mortally embarrassed that you definitely just saw that, but in a weird way… kind of elated? You drop your headphones to sit around the back of your neck to greet him as you get closer. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and tries to act as cool as he can, but Jihoon suddenly becomes incredibly aware of everything about himself in this moment: his posture, how his arms hang by his sides, the exact positioning of his feet. The fact that he’s breathing pretty deeply, that his pulse is so loud in his ears that he can see your lips moving but can’t quite hear what you’re saying.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit — you’re talking. Focus. He needs to focus.

“Sorry — what was that?” he asks, eliciting a soft laugh from you.

“I like your shirt,” you repeat, a fraction clearer. Jihoon glances down at himself, at the same sweatpants and tight black workout top he wears in here several times a week, and looks back at you with a raised eyebrow. God, he lets himself think for half a second, entertaining his own stupidity with the idea that you’re finding this as hard as he is, too. Maybe I’m not alone in this.

“Oh?” he says. “Um — thank you?”

“How’d it go with your friends last night?” you ask, hardly skipping a beat, and he’s a little thankful that you skim over his poor attempt at gratitude for a compliment he isn’t sure he deserves. Instead, his confusion wraps itself around the fact that you actually remembered what he was doing last night. Hell, even he’d forgotten in the heat of the day he’d had, but you remembered. He’s sweating over it a little and briefly wonders what the chances are of the gym floor opening up and swallowing him whole.

Slim, he decides. But not zero.

There’s hope.

“Yeah — yeah, it was nice,” he says, internally kicking himself for overthinking this so much that he’s apparently lost his ability to speak. In the space of 24 hours, he’s gone from giggling over coffee with you to completely weak just at the sound of your voice. It should be easier here, if anything — this is home turf for him. His comfort space. He supposes the tight fit of your gym clothes accentuating your hips and thighs isn’t helping matters, and neither is the wide neckline of your own t-shirt exposing your throat and a collarbone. But still. He’s not a teenager. He should be able to handle a little bit of skin.

He clears his throat, rolling his head side-to-side. Focus. “Sorry — I’m-… I just didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. “I-… couldn’t stay away. Missed it a little too much.”

“I get that,” he concurs, willing his eyes not to drop down your frame to a newly exposed area of skin just around your waist, your t-shirt riding up as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “It’s good to-… have you back, anyway.”

“Good to be back,” you agree. “Hey — can you leave that set up for me, when you’re done? I’m on legs today, too.”

Jihoon doesn’t want to say that he knows Mondays are your leg days, as well, so he doesn’t. Even if it is true. He wonders if you would find it odd that he’s remembered. “Sure,” he says with a small smile, which you return. Just as you’re about to walk off to drop your things into a locker, he pipes up again. “I mean — hey, if you wanted a spot, or to-… do, you know… anything…”

“Are you asking me to train with you?” you ask, eyes bright and smile wider than he thinks he’s ever seen it. This is torture. He’s not even lifting anything and his heart is about to burst out of his fucking chest — God, maybe this was a bad suggestion.

“I-…” he starts, but he lets the breath out of his lungs and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah. I am.”

“Give me two minutes,” you agree, hurrying off to put your stuff away and fill up your bottle.

He manages to squeeze another set of squats in before you get back, which is sort of a miracle seeing as how his knees have gone completely weak ever since you arrived. He’s scrolling through his playlist as you cross the gym floor on your way back to him, but he looks up and smiles as you approach.

“You go ahead — I’ve just finished.”

He knows he’s really fucking done for when, after the first round, you add plates onto the bar to out-lift him. All before he’s even positioned himself behind you to be a good spotter.

Jihoon doesn’t go down without a fight though, and things get a little competitive from there. Both of you throw some of your favourite (see: most agonising) exercises into the mix over the course of the hour, taking it in turns on the equipment and creating a session that just about has him able to move by the time you’re finished. You talk to each other when you’ve got the breath to do so, otherwise focussing on your workout with more intensity than either of you remember training with for a long time.

And so what if he has to turn away from you once or twice to compose himself when breathless whines spill from between your lips on your last few reps, the sheer effort of the movements pushing your muscles to their absolute limit? So what if he feels his entire body run a thousand degrees every time you sweetly encourage him to manage just one more? So what if his palm stays tingling for fifteen seconds every time you high-five him for a set well done?

You slide out of the hamstring curl machine with a deep breath and legs like two sticks of jelly at the end of the session, and he holds a hand out to steady you as you regain your ability to weight-bear.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, patting what’s exposed of your chest and neck with your towel.

“Yeah. Yeah — just… fuck.” You laugh, laying your hand over the top of his and squeezing. Only for a second — not even, only for a breath — and really just to let him know that you’re okay to stand on your own, but Jihoon feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted straight up his arm all the same. “You don’t come to play, do you?”

“Says you,” he scoffs, only now moving his hand from your upper arm. “I was wrong about you — you’re insane. Clinically insane.”

Using the paper towels he went to gather while you were finishing up, he wipes the machine clean as you stretch out your now slightly exercise-swollen thighs.

“I was just gonna finish up on one of the stairmasters,” you tell him, taking a long sip of your water. His eyes widen to the point of comedy, eyebrows high on his forehead. You snicker at his horror, the rim of your bottle hovering tantalisingly over your bottom lip. “What?”

“That’s-… got to be a form of masochism,” he says, exhausted just at the idea of marching up the never ending staircase even for a minute. You almost choke on your mouthful of water, only just swallowing it in time before a sudden, uncontrollable laugh erupts from your chest.

“How?!” you ask, covering your mouth with your hand. Just like yesterday, the urge to pull your arm away, to reveal your hidden smile strikes him. He doesn’t act on it, but he wants to.

“What do you mean, how? Why would you put yourself through that after what you’ve just done?” It’s completely lighthearted, and the rush of heat on your cheeks intensifies at the cocktail of shock and awe in his gaze.

You shrug your shoulders once. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just better than you.” The way the tip of your tongue teasingly sits between your teeth as you grin at him sends bullets of adrenaline through his veins and Jihoon runs his hand over his face.

For about three seconds, he tells himself he isn’t going to take the bait. He’ll lose, he’ll admit it — he’ll put his hands up and say you’re absolutely, definitely better than he is, if it means he doesn’t have to push through a round of cardio after surpassing every single one of his physical limits. But God, he thinks you look completely irresistible standing there challenging him like this, your hands on your hips. His eyes don’t leave yours and yours don’t leave his; both of your chests stutter, just a little bit, and he can see your smile grow in his periphery.

How the fuck is he supposed to walk away?

“Ten minutes,” he concedes, matching your footsteps as you start to walk backwards towards his least favourite line of equipment in any gym, ever. “And you’re definitely getting the next coffee, now.”

——————

That Friday, you finally text him again.

His muscles have just about returned to a working state and Jihoon is quite proud to say that he has regained the ability to sit down without needing something to hold onto. He got home from work, showered the day away and has just settled down into the sofa to start on the book Wonwoo has been on his ass about reading when his phone vibrates on the side table. He reaches over for it, trying to figure out which of his friends might be trying to get hold of him early evening on a Friday, and already going over excuses in his head as to why he can’t go out to do whatever they’re inviting him to. But when your contact name flashes up on the screen, every single thought disappears from his brain.

y/n: hey :)

y/n: just out of interest, how good are you at assembling furniture?

He furrows his brows at this. There’s a very obvious answer, which is that he’s not. He doesn’t want to reply saying so, though, so he goes for what he thinks is the next best thing.

jh: well…

jh: what are you trying to put together?

y/n: a bed :(

y/n: today’s your rest day, right?

y/n: can i bribe you with dinner after? :)

Oh? His brain stalls, fingers hovering over the keypad. He can literally see your face forming a little pout before growing into a hopeful grin in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t see how he could ever say no.

jh: apparently yes, you can.

jh: text me the address? i’ll leave in 5.

He changes out of his basketball shorts and hoodie in record time, abandoning Wonwoo’s book on his couch in favour of attempting to look at least somewhat presentable for you. He tugs on a pair of jeans that he hasn’t touched in about 6 months and one of his nicer t-shirts instead, even going as far as to spritz aftershave on the column of his throat. You’ve sent him your address and he makes to leave, doing his regular essential item pat-down on his way out the door. He puts your new apartment into his phone as he crosses the parking lot, stupidly delighted to discover it’s only 7 and a half minutes away from where he lives, and settles into his car with a series of deep exhales.

The breathing exercises don’t achieve much. His head is still spinning when he parks up in the street by your new place and lingers just outside the building. He sends you a text to say he’s arrived and you reply saying you’re on your way down. You appear in the lobby just a few minutes later.

“Hey,” you greet him warmly, crossing the space and putting your arms around him in a hug. He goes limp for a fraction of a second before his arms slide around you, too. God, he hopes you can’t feel his heartbeat right now. He thinks that the effect you have on him should be considered dangerous. But whether you can or not, you tighten your arms to squeeze him once before you unwind them from around his neck and step away.

“Hi,” he says, feverish from the tops of his ears all the way down to his toes. His hands find his pockets as you take a few more polite steps back.

“Thank you so much for this.” Your bottom lip finds temporary home between your teeth before you’re nodding back towards the stairwell. “I’m on the third floor. Follow me.”

He does. He walks up the stairs behind you as you ask about his day at work, and he tells you that he thinks today has probably been one of the best he’s had in about 2 months. When he asks how your day went, you turn your head back to look at him and stumble on the next step, gently laughing and saying that you think you’re at your tether’s end with D.I.Y, but it’s been pretty good otherwise. By the time you reach your floor, his thighs are aching, a bit of residual fatigue from your session earlier in the week making it a little harder than it ought to be. He can’t imagine how you’ve coped every day since then; if his own building didn’t have an elevator, Jihoon thinks he’d have been sleeping in his car.

You give him a little tour of the apartment, and he stands next to you at the window as you point out where you were staying with your friend a few blocks away. He thinks the view is seriously pretty in the evening light, enchanted by how he can see the tops of the slightly lower buildings and the street below, lined with neon storefronts and currently alive with shoppers and bar-goers, but… He cringes at himself for thinking it, but the view through the glass is nothing compared to the one he has inside.

You’ve started to put up a few decorations and knick-knacks around the place too. He doesn’t know you very well, but he still thinks it’s very you — all of it, and he likes them. Even with the room full of boxes and half-unpacked cases, there’s so much personality in it already. Charm. He brushes off your attempts to apologise for the ‘mess’, as you called it, despite everything being neatly pushed out of the way of the main space. It’s easily tidier than any other mid-move apartment he’s ever been in.

“Did you want a drink?” you ask him, walking over to the refrigerator and resting a hand on the door. “I’ve got wine, or-… anything, really.”

“Just some water would be great,” he says appreciatively, and a few seconds later you’re handing him a bottle, turning another one over in your hand. “I really wouldn’t be much help after a couple of glasses, trust me.”

“Does this mean you are good at it, then? Before a drink?” you ask him. Is it hope in your voice? Or do you somehow know how hopeless he is, and are you teasing? He can’t tell. Regardless, clearly his evasion earlier wasn’t quite as successful as he hoped it would be.

“About that…” He chuckles, taking a sip from the bottle and glancing sideways at you. “I’m sure between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“My knight in shining armour,” you say with a laugh, closing your fingers around his wrist and leading him through the door to your bedroom. You’ve managed to separate all of the individual pieces, but you haven’t made any real progress otherwise. He settles himself down on the floor and reaches for the assembly manual, pursing his lips as he looks at the little baggies of screws and bolts and various other things he doesn’t know the names of.

“Okay.” He frowns, looking back up at you where you’ve kneeled down a couple of feet away. You’re grinning innocently back at him, but Jihoon’s lips are more aligned with a pout. “You maybe should have mentioned that the instructions are in Swedish.”

——-

Ignoring the fact that you can’t understand the directions printed on the flimsy little pieces of paper, you get to work. It’s… an interesting process, but somehow between the pair of you, you successfully manage to assemble the bed in just under two hours by mostly following the diagrams (and having to backtrack several times because Jihoon managed to miss a few steps). At three minutes to nine, you’re both finally standing up off the floor, stretching out stiff joints and tight muscles; the bed is fully assembled and made up with your sheets in the centre of the room, headboard against the back wall, the lamp you set on the dresser casting a pleasant orangey glow on every surface.

“We did it,” you say, a little in shock, a lot exhausted, and absolutely starving. At least, that’s what he assumes you’re feeling, because it’s what he is. “We actually did it.”

“I mean, you did most of it,” Jihoon says. It’s true; at a point, he was just handing you the pieces you asked him for and holding parts steady so that you could fit them together. But if you want to call it a joint effort, he isn’t going to stop you, and the roll of your eyes tells him that you do want to call it that.

“Shh. You helped,” you scold him, bumping his upper arm with your elbow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“If you say so,” he chuckles, taking another sip of his water. Jihoon isn’t sure he believes you, but the way you’re challenging him to argue further with your tongue pressed against the inside of your cheek scrambles his brain. Any remaining argument dies on his lips. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” you agree, expression shifting into a shy smile, bumping his arm again, your elbow lingering against him for a second longer. “Come on, I think I promised to feed you, too. What are you in the mood for?”

A movie has been playing in the background for about an hour by the time your food arrives and you’ve eaten everything. Jihoon relaxes back against the cushions of the couch and you’re settled comfortably next to him: there’s plenty of space on either side of you both, so there isn’t really any need for you to have your upper arm basically pressing against his, but Jihoon is too comfortable to say anything and you certainly aren’t making any attempts to move away. You shift your legs after about ninety minutes, bringing them up underneath you so your thigh is pressed against his now, as well, and you’re twisted slightly so you’re physically facing him but your head is still turned towards the TV.

Everywhere your clothed body touches him is scorching, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve worn a thinner t-shirt, or at the very least something a little less heavy on his legs. His jeans, slightly tighter around the thighs than perhaps would be their peak level of comfort, are clinging to him everywhere and he’s so aware of himself, so aware of you, of your sweet body wash, your fruity shampoo, every single one of your breaths… He’s cursed people out for breathing too loudly around him before, but he thinks he could replace his white noise machine with an eight hour track of just this and he would sleep like a fucking baby.

One of your elbows is propped against the top of the cushions behind you and you’re resting your head in your palm, and (not for the first time this evening) he glances sideways to look at you. They’ve been fleeting glances thus far, only stealing fractions of a moment before he turns his attention back to the TV. But this? This is the wrong moment. Entirely the wrong fucking moment because as his head turns, so does yours, and you catch him in the act. Fuck, if he thought he was burning up, before? He’s pretty sure he’s somehow just descended straight to the second circle of hell, greeting all the other lusty sinners like old friends. Several of his thoughts tonight have been considerably impure, and in this half second of blistering eye contact, they all come rushing back.

The universe is really testing him this evening, and Jihoon is stumbling. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to explode.

He straightens his spine and looks back at the TV, trying to force his eyes to focus even though he’s completely swallowed by the feeling of your arm straightening across the back of the couch, your fingertips grazing over the skin at the bottom of his hairline. He can feel your eyes still on him, your gaze burning into his cheek, no doubt following as his tongue darts out subconsciously over his lips. But he can’t quite help himself, can’t get the image of how sweet you looked out of his head; he clears his throat quietly and looks over at you again, coming over almost completely blank the second he notices the glimmer your eyes hold when they’re trained on him.

Any. Fucking. Minute.

“Jihoon, I-…” you start to say, and he turns himself a little bit so that he’s facing you better, completely forgetting about the movie now. That’s not a great loss: he couldn’t explain the plot even if he tried. “I don’t know if-… you can tell me if I’ve read you wrong…”

“You haven’t,” he hurries. Relief starts to ease the tension between your brows, before you scrunch them again and cock your head to the side. “I’m sure you haven’t, I mean.”

In this new position, one of his legs is bent and sitting up on the couch beneath him and you’ve adjusted your own posture to accommodate. Your knee sits just over the top of his, more of your impossible body heat radiating through his clothes, and he glances down at the site of contact before he looks back at you.

“I just-... I don’t know, I think I knew I was interested in you from the first time I saw you, but the last few weeks especially…” You’ve been rehearsing this. He can feel it. It’s written in your eyes, holding the weight of the words you’re struggling to say, and behind them he can see cogs turning as you try to get the words in the right order. (He knows how that goes, because he’s been trying to figure out how to tell you, too.) He nods, urging you to keep going.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I really like you.”

He short-circuits, then. Even though part of him knew what you were going to say, hearing it out loud flips a switch inside him and he stops functioning. Blinking at you slowly, lips parted, heart racing – he feels as if his brain has been sucked clean out of his ears and is floating somewhere way above his head. Way outside of a contactable range, way beyond any level of rational decision-making. Jihoon knows what he wants to say, of course – he knows that he wants to say that he likes you, and that he has for a while, and that maybe you should let him take you out on a date or something, but all of that sits just behind the barrier of his teeth, so…

He leans forward and kisses you, instead.

He almost can’t believe that he’s only wanted this for as short of a time as he has; it feels like it’s been building inside him for so much longer. Relief floods through his veins, the emotional dam finally breaching. It only lasts a few seconds, but with his lips pressed to yours and yours pressing back, the static in his brain goes quiet, the movie falls silent: everything stops, except you. He thinks you could’ve been carved from stone around each other — he thinks something just feels so inexplicably right. Your hand tightens in his hair and he gasps softly as he pulls an inch back, eyes heavily lidded and looking straight at you through his lashes. You move forward, leaning your forehead against his, and the feather-light hold he has on your chin slides up to your cheek instead.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to-…” he says after a long, long moment of remembering how to breathe, how to blink, how to exist in your space without combusting on the spot. He still isn’t sure he knows how to do any of those things, especially not now he can see every single line of your face this close. He’s trying, though. “But — shit, I’m crazy about you.”

You kiss him, then, harder than before, colliding in a mess of half-finished breaths and bumped, stinging noses. His other hand comes up to sit against your rib cage, yours pressing into the material of his t-shirt over his chest. He smiles and parts his lips as yours move against them, your tongue gently sweeping into his mouth, finding his own; a soft, low moan tickles the back of his throat, his fingertips curling slightly to tighten his hold.

Jihoon isn’t sure how you end up on your knees, straddled astride his legs with one of his hands tucked between your thigh and calf, the other on the curve of your ass — he just knows that he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re warm and comfortable, the arch of your back pressing you into him deliciously. He’s kissing you like his life depends on it (he really fears that it might), and you’re doing the same back, licking against his tongue and rocking slightly with every separation and reconnection of your lips. He feels your fingers brush at the hem of his t-shirt and slip just underneath at the same moment as you pull away from him, and he’s so dazed, so fuzzy, so lost in you that he can only tilt his head back to stare up at your face. In your current position, you’re towering over him. It’s easily the best view he’s ever had.

“Can I-…?” you ask breathlessly. The new roughness to your voice goes straight to his cock and he has to restrain himself from bucking his hips upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward slightly to try and aid you. Your hands tug at the bottom of his shirt and peel it up over his chest: he raises his arms slightly and soon, you can toss it to the unoccupied side of the couch. He shivers slightly as he relaxes back, both at the chill in your unheated apartment and upon noticing the way you’re staring down at him. It’s addictive.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, jaw a little slack, smoothing your hands over his shoulders to feel every ridge of hard-earned muscle. You travel down his arms, over to his chest, down his stomach… Jihoon sucks in a breath, your warm hands absolutely searing against his skin, and his abdominals tighten beneath them. Tilting your head, you press a line of kisses down the side of his neck, your lips brushing against one almost unbearably sensitive spot when you continue. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

He smiles bashfully, rolling his head to the side and giving you all the access you want. Your lips tickle euphorically against him as he tugs you flush against his chest, both his hands now tightly pressing against your ass, fingers kneading the muscle concealed by your pants. You’re sitting right over his clothed cock and he’s reasonably sure he can feel your pulse between your thighs, letting out a soft grunt when you roll your hips deliberately down into his own. Your kisses travel to the swell at the curve of his shoulder before moving back up to his lips, where he meets you with a fire that he’s never kissed anyone with, before.

“Says you,” he murmurs into your mouth, your teeth clashing, his hips pushing slightly up off the couch. Just enough to make you sit back from him, just enough for Jihoon to open his eyes and look at you. His hair, thoroughly scrunched up and pulled around by your desperately gripping fingers, fans out at all sorts of angles and his chest has taken on a rosy hue since you last looked at it. With swollen, shiny lips, glossy eyes, breathing deep, he looks completely blissed out, like a man who could unravel beneath you if you moved just right. All from a little tongue action. He’d usually feel embarrassed, but it’s hard to when you’re the person on top of him; to be honest, neither of you would mind much if he did.

You’re pushing yourself up and off him before he can really get his bearings and an audible whine of despair parts his lips at the loss of your weight against his cock. Fuck, these jeans were a bad idea: he’s straining against the denim so much that it hurts, and there’s a near perfect outline of his hard-on. He stops pouting the second you take hold of his hand and tug him upright, though, your eyes dark and determined and intense. He thinks he might faint, actually: from standing too fast and feeling as though all the blood in his body is pulsing through his aching dick, he has to take a moment to stop the edges of his vision going dark before you’re pulling him through to your bedroom.

Something flips inside him the second you have him there. Jihoon, who was more than happy to sit beneath you and let you take all the control in the living room, is pushing you back onto the mattress by your shoulder and slotting himself between your parted thighs the moment the door is closed behind him. He’s past the point of wanting you, now: he needs you, and he needs you to need him, too.

And God, do you. You prop yourself up on one elbow, staring at where he’s now leaning over you with wide eyes and your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. He bends down and kisses along your jawline in response, nipping gently just below your ear. Your back arches up and in a flash, one of his hands is beneath you, snapping open the clasp on your bra with a few slides of his fingers.

“Wh-…” you start, giggling and panting at the same time. He smirks against your pulse point.

He flattens his tongue against you and licks a salty bead of sweat off your skin. “What?”

“Had no idea you could-…” You’re cut off by a gasp as one of his hands slides under your sweater, slipping beneath the garment he just unfastened. His fingertips graze over your breast and a pleading sob escapes you. His smile grows even wider. “You were so…”

“So what?” he prompts, pinching your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Another one of those beautiful sounds breaks the air above you. He does it again, massaging your breast with the palm of his hand. “Come on… talk to me.”

“So good,” you gasp, lying down flat and tilting your head back against the pillows. He rocks forwards to press his cock against you again and your thighs tighten around his hips, one leg hooking around his to keep him there. “So-… fucking good.”

You’re so impossibly irresistible to him, especially like this, and he sits up, settling on his knees to look down at you. Jihoon doesn’t even get the chance to move his hands towards the hem of your sweater to tug it off you though: you’re already grabbing it yourself, crossing your arms to pull it over the top of your head. He can see your bra now, and hell, it’s pretty even if it is just hanging off you. Baby pink and lacy. He thumbs over the material as he helps you pull it down your arms, briefly letting himself wonder if-…

“If only you’d been patient enough to see the set together.”

Oh, so you can read his mind now, too?

You glance down to the small space between your bodies and his eyes follow, lips slightly parted, a heavy sigh on his breath. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck — he wishes he had. Even imagining it, he’s throbbing.

“You wear all this for me?” he asks, hands creeping up the insides of your thighs. You nod up at him and he smiles down at you. “Fuck. I bet you didn’t even need my help tonight at all, did you?”

You’re bucking your hips now as his thumb brushes, agonisingly slowly, over your clothed cunt. One arm has come up to cover your face: for the first time, he acts on his impulsive need to see you shy, see you needy, and leans over you to gently pull it away and pins your wrist down against the mattress. He kisses you, his fingers on the other hand pressing slightly more firmly to where he’s pretty sure your clit is.

“Y/n, you’re so pretty. Let me see you.”

“I didn’t,” you admit, voice wobbling as he works you up so much you’re actually soaking through not just your pretty underwear, but the leggings you’ve had on all night, too. He can feel it against the pad of his thumb and he raises his eyebrows for you to continue. “Just… really wanted you to come over…”

“Mhm. I know,” he soothes, bending low again and kissing down towards your chest. His lips purse over one of your nipples and he sucks it up into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the bud. He releases your wrist with the hand currently taking most of his weight and leans on his elbow, teasing your other tit with his fingers. The weight of it in his palm has him murmuring soft praises against your skin, telling you over and over how good you feel. You push up onto your elbows to try and press him closer — when his teeth tug just slightly, you’re about ready to beg.

“Jihoon, please,” you murmur. He short-circuits, again. Goes blank. His name has always sounded so much sweeter on your tongue, but this? This? Oh, he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to recover. That sound is going to stick in his head for days, months, forever, if he has anything to say about it. But even if his brain isn’t working, his body moves on autopilot: he sits up and hooks his fingers under your waistband, pulling your pants down your legs and discarding them onto the floor.

He’s staring between your thighs with zero functioning brain cells and literal galaxies in his eyes, trying to figure out what cosmic miracle brought someone like you into his life, how on Earth he’s ended up between your thighs. The question is so overwhelming in his mind that he barely notices that you’re moving, at first. Jihoon doesn’t know what causes you to try and bring your thighs together — if it’s shyness or arousal, desperation, a search for friction? — but he stops you as soon as he realises, laying a hand on each of your legs, pinning your knees down now, instead.

“Keep your legs wide for me?” he asks, to which you punctuate a nod with an assenting hum. “Good girl.”

You’re so wet that when he strokes two fingers over your covered pussy, pressing the fabric of your panties into your heat, they come away thinly coated in the arousal that’s seeped through them. He brings his fingers to his lips then, eyes fluttering as he licks your slick off them. You taste otherworldly and he doesn’t hesitate to tell you so with a groan.

“God,” he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of your panties with his other hand. His eyes ask if you’re ready — if you’re sure, and when you nod down at him, he pulls them off completely too. His middle finger slips between your folds, collecting the wetness dribbling out of you, and he drags it slowly upwards towards your clit. He repositions himself again, leaning down over you with his head at your neck, the heel of his hand resting against your lower abdomen. He draws small circles over the bud, laying open-mouthed kisses at your collarbone and listening to the gorgeous sounds you make, learning what you like, following each gasp and moan and chasing as many of them as he can draw out of you.

At the same time as you start rocking your hips up to meet his hand, your nails scratching gently against his scalp again, Jihoon slips his finger down from your swollen clit to press it inside you. You gasp, high-pitched and needy, your cunt spasming around his finger and pulling it in deeper. He’s only in up to his second knuckle but the way you keen for him has him pushing further until it’s buried inside your pussy completely.

“S’this okay?” he asks, but he knows your answer thanks to your vocal responses to him already slowly easing his finger in and out, in and out. You nod your head almost aggressively as he glances up at your face, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw tense, throat bobbing as you swallow hard.

“More — please,” you say not long after. A breath hitches in your throat when he does exactly what you ask, pressing the heel of his hand against your clit and positioning another finger at your entrance. He flexes his wrist slightly to get comfortable, pumping both fingers into you now, and he curls them upwards at just the right time to make your back arch off the bed. “Fuck — mhm, just like that—…”

He moves down your body slightly, reattaching his lips to one of your nipples as he fingers you deep and slow. He’s in no rush: Jihoon thinks he could do this all day and just deal with the RSI later on. You look so unbelievably hot with your face scrunched in pleasure, your thighs quivering as you fight to keep them apart like he asked you to, with your hips twisting down against his hand to try and get his fingers deeper and faster. When he lowers himself all the way down, settling completely between your thighs, he flicks his tongue out over your clit and your back arches up off the bed with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, all high-pitched and rushed, both syllables merging into one hurried sound. “Fuck, fuck — please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to,” he murmurs, keeping pace and rhythm as he works you towards your high. God, he thinks there couldn’t possibly be anything in the world more sexy than watching you come undone from this angle. Your chest rising and falling in stuttered breaths, your hips rocking down against his hand, your pussy right on his mouth. Just the thought of it has his cock jumping in his boxers. “You gonna come for me, huh?”

“I-…” you start, releasing your death-grip on the bedsheets to bring a hand to cover your face. He clears his throat deliberately — perhaps it’s sort of closer to a growl than a cough — and he thinks maybe you really can read his mind, or maybe you’re learning that he wants to see every inch of you (especially like this), because a second later, it’s tangled up in his hair and holding him in place. “Y-yeah, fuck, I…”

“Good girl,” he coos again, and that breaks you. Your pussy tightens around his fingers and you feel yourself convulse, muscles clenching and releasing as you go over the edge with a cry. He eases you through your climax, tongue laving over your clit, fingers slowing but not stopping inside your cunt until your thighs close around his head in your oversensitivity. He takes the hint, then, and he slowly pulls away, sucking his fingers clean of your arousal while you take a few breaths to recover.

“Oh, my God,” you sigh as he moves back up and starts pressing small pecks over your chest and collarbones, your fingers lacing through his hair again to pull him up to kiss you. You groan softly at the taste of yourself on his lips, and can’t blame you. He still isn’t over it, either.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he tells you in-between kisses, one hand supporting the back of your neck to keep you close. “So pretty. So sweet. So good.”

“Shh,” you giggle, but he doesn’t. Just about every adoring adjective Jihoon has in his arsenal is murmured against your lips until you’ve gathered enough strength to get up on your knees and push him back onto the mattress, fumbling with the button of his jeans.

He groans at the relief as you tug them down over his hips and thighs. “We don’t have to do anything else if you’re—”

“Shh.” This one’s a little more insistent, and he makes a show of clamping his lips back together. “You wore the tightest jeans on the planet, had your cock on-fucking-display for me all evening, and you think I wanna stop now?”

His jaw falls slack at the words that come out of your mouth. The incredulous way with which you say them has him involuntarily bucking up into nothing. Your expression matches his when you finally get his jeans all the way off and his thin, black boxer-briefs are the only barrier between you. The outline of his cock strains against them, tenting the fabric: Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you lick over your lips before glancing up at him through your eyelashes. It’s your turn to give him the look, now, asking that this last part is okay, with your fingertips hooked underneath the elastic waistband. He nods feverishly up at your heavy gaze.

“Please,” he groans, lifting his hips so you can pull them off. His length springs free the moment they’re pulled low enough, slapping back against his abdomen, sitting pretty against his toned muscles, thick and veiny and red-tipped. Desperate. His underwear joins the pile of clothes down the side of the bed as you throw one leg over him; sitting across his thighs, you take his cock into your hand, giving it a few gentle strokes. He fucks up into your palm when you squeeze your fingers around it.

“I need you so fucking bad,” you murmur, head spinning, and Jihoon isn’t in much of a better state himself; he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to keep his breaths coming. He sits upright, one arm behind him for support, and kisses you hard as you continue to tug at his length.

“Need you, too,” he breathes, shifting so he has both arms around you. In a swift movement, muscles rippling, he lifts you off him and turns you over so he has you sitting on your now impossibly scrunched comforter.

He finds home back between your legs as you reach over into the drawer at your bedside and fumble around for a few seconds. He hears a little clatter and a rustling and when your hand resurfaces, you’ve pulled free a small foil square. You don’t even give him a chance to lean forward and take it; you’re ripping it open and looking up at him with the biggest doe-eyed stare he thinks he’s ever seen. He nods at the silent question, a grunt tumbling free as you roll the condom down his length. This is the most pathetic little bit of contact and he’s fighting demons.

“Okay?” he asks, shuffling back a little and giving you space to lie down flat on your back. You nod up at him, already wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“Mhm, just-... take it slow?” you ask him, anticipation rendering you already a little breathless. “S’been a while.”

A grin blooms all the way from his lips to his eyes and he leans down to kiss you again, positioning his tip at your hole and pressing forward just enough to tease.

Your thighs tighten around his hips and he pushes himself further inside you with a stuttered groan, agonisingly slowly, inch by inch. He stills every few seconds, both to give you the time to adjust and so that he can take a steadying few breaths and not collapse at how good you feel wrapped around him; he stops pressing his hips forward before he’s fully sheathed inside your pussy and you let a whine slip, the stretch slowly easing.

“You can move,” you tell him, laying a kiss to his chest. “I’m okay.”

Jihoon gives a soft laugh. Oh, he wishes this was just to be polite, but no. He’s in real danger of losing control any second. “Yeah, this isn’t for you, baby.”

“Oh?” you ask. You clamp around him and he gasps at the tightness, hips jerking forward until he’s buried up to the hilt. Fuck, there’s a bruised cervix if you’ve ever had one; a high-pitched whine erupts out of your lips and he ducks his head down to your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You just-... fuck, you feel so good.”

“Mm, says you.”

It’s another moment before he thrusts with intent, though. But when he does? When he pulls out halfway before sliding all the way back inside you, losing and regaining the feeling of your heat enveloping him entirely, hearing your gasps against his collarbone? The invisible reigns holding him back unravel and he settles into a slow but intensely deep rhythm, guiding your legs around his waist. You hook your ankles behind his back and somehow, you suck him in deeper still, your bodies touching everywhere they possibly can, so impossibly close.

The arm not holding his weight slides beneath your hips and raises them just a little. Now, at this angle, every time he rolls into you he grazes against your sweet-spot and you’re reduced to an incoherent mess within a few minutes. Good, he thinks, because he’s not doing much better, himself.

You hug him tighter after one particularly well-angled thrust, sinking your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder. He hisses at the sting, and your lips part as if you’re about to apologise but he doesn’t give you the chance to; he bumps your nose with his own to ask you to lift your head slightly, before he bends down and kisses you hard.

“Do that again,” he gasps, almost all of his weight against you as the hand not around your hips comes up to rest on your cheek. When your brows tighten, he swipes his thumb over your spit-covered, swollen lips. “Please. ”

So, you do.

Maybe not as harshly as the first time, but your teeth find his collarbone and you suck a bruise into his skin, drawing from him the highest pitched sound you think he could possibly make. He squares his jaw, ducking his head back down, biting on his bottom lip before he has no choice but to speak.

“I’m close, y/n,” he confesses, fucking into you slower, trying to stave it off for a few more seconds, his hips stuttering. “Can-... can you give me one more…?”

You nod, the knot in your stomach already growing tighter and tighter with every movement he makes, and when one of your hands unwinds from around his back to slide between your sweat-slicked bodies, he moves slightly away, letting you reach down.

It’s the sight of two of your fingers finding your clit and rubbing your favourite movements out on yourself that takes him past the point of no return, his cock sliding in and out of you messily, desperately, chasing the high that he’s right on the brink of. He kisses and nips just below your ear, breathy groans tickling your neck, and your high-pitched whine tells him you’ve hit your orgasm just as he starts to spill his into the condom, gushing around him, your walls fluttering and milking him for all he’s worth.

—

You offer for him to shower first – an offer he gratefully accepts. While you’re taking your turn afterwards, Jihoon hunts down a fresh duvet cover in your room; he changes it, grabs you a glass of water for when you’re done, and sits on the edge of his bed with just the towel wrapped around his waist, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with a bright grin as the door opens and you emerge through it in your pyjamas, glowing from the light behind you, stray droplets of water clinging to your arms.

You pause gently rubbing your hair dry with the towel, eyes brightening when you see him. “You didn’t have to do all this,” you say, and he pushes a hand through his own still damp hair with a laugh.

“It was the least I could do,” he counters. You raise your eyebrows at him, crossing the room to sit opposite him. He drops his phone down onto the mattress. “I couldn’t leave and make you change them yourself.”

“Leave?” you ask, picking up one of his hands and playing idly with his fingers.

“I mean, it’s getting pretty late, so…” he says. “I probably need to get going at some point.”

“Or…” you say, tongue darting out over your lips. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jihoon looks down at your hands, then back up at you. Are you suggesting what he thinks you are, or has he still not quite come back to himself from earlier? It’s hard to say if the look on your face is hope, or something else.

“Are you… asking me to stay?” he asks.

“Only if you want to,” you tell him. He lifts your hands up, pressing a kiss to one of your knuckles, then using it to tug you closer to him until he can plant one on your own lips. “I’ve probably got an old t-shirt you could sleep in.”

“Of course I want to.”

So you slip away from him to go rummaging through your drawers, trying to find the promised article of clothing. The whole time, he’s awestruck. Jihoon can’t take his eyes off you.

——————

He wakes up next to you for the first time on a Saturday morning. His sleep-fogged brain registers lying on an unfamiliar mattress, tucked beneath new bedsheets, eyes fluttering open to take in a room he doesn’t quite recognise at first. Part of him wonders if he’s still dreaming. When he rolls over onto his side, and his eyes land on the curve of your shoulders, the fall of your hair down your back, he has to ask himself the same thing again.

All of last night must’ve been a dream, he muses, smiling shyly to himself and watching your frame rise and fall with every slow breath you take. There’s no way you really told him you liked him, too. There’s no way any of it could have really happened.

“Y/n?” He asks in the gentlest of whispers, only wanting to stir you if you’re awake already. When there’s no response, he moves a tiny bit closer to you, hesitating before he slips his arm around your waist and settles with his chest pressed against your back. A wildly insecure part of his brain tries to argue that just because you wanted what happened last night, that doesn’t mean you want all of this now. Maybe you only wanted to sleep with him, or maybe you’ll have changed your mind somehow now the sun’s come up. He considers moving away again, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling until you wake up and he can have a real conversation about where both of your heads are at with everything, but he barely gets a chance.

Those thoughts are silenced almost immediately, his brain falling quiet the second you roll over in his arms. You bury your head in the valley between his pectorals, tucked away from the world beneath his chin. His arms tighten around your sleep-warmed body.

“What time is it?” You ask. He contains a shiver at the softness of your voice, bliss running the length of his spine. Jihoon thinks that he could get used to this.

“I don’t know. Early, I think,” he murmurs, and you whine softly, burrowing deeper against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not if you’re awake,” you say. He’s not entirely convinced you can stick to that promise, though, with the way you yawn and he feels your eyelashes fluttering.

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells you, the tips of his fingers ticking against your side. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to your hair. A soft hum rumbles in your throat and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads over his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

True enough, you fall back asleep curled up against him and Jihoon, to the sounds of your slowing breaths, drifts off too. A few hours later, at a far more reasonable time, you wake him up with a press of your lips to the tip of his nose.

Innocent, exploratory kisses grow heated in the warmth of the sun that streams through your blinds. Hands start to travel, sleep clothes get discarded, and you have him lying on his back, pressing kisses down his chiselled stomach when his phone starts to vibrate on the floor next to the bed.

He groans at the distraction, again as you shuffle up to sit on your knees and look at him expectantly.

“Are you gonna answer that?” you ask, the tips of your fingers grazing his thighs. He shakes his head, no. “Come on, Jihoon. It might be important.”

“Not important enough,” he sighs.

“At least see who it is,” you laugh. Despite a huffed protest, he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over the side of the bed and glancing down at his phone screen.

Seungcheol.

The arrangement to go for a run this morning comes rushing back to Jihoon, who slaps a hand to his forehead and reaches down to grab his phone off the floor, looking at you apologetically.

“Give me two seconds,” he says, and you grin wickedly up at him, ducking low to press a kiss to one of the lines that disappears down into his boxers.

“Take all the time you need.”

He answers the call frowning, flopping his head back against the pillows.

“Hey, look – I’m really sorry,” he starts to say, but Seungcheol’s voice cuts him off almost straight away.

“Jihoon, where the hell are you? I got to your apartment and your car wasn’t here, and Seokmin said he didn’t hear you come home last night. We all thought you’d died,” he hurries. Jihoon can picture the expression on the other man’s face perfectly, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as how you’ve moved to start palming his hardening cock through his briefs.

“I stayed out,” Jihoon says, a little wobbly. “I can’t make the run, someth-... shit.” You press an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of his length, the heat of your breath through the fabric sending him into overdrive. “Something came up-...”

The line goes silent for a second, and his breath stutters as you do the same thing again. Each press of your lips is euphoric agony, and he’s really not hiding this as well as he wishes he could. One look down at you tells him that you’re very proud of that.

“Dude,” Seungcheol gasps, snickering suddenly. “Tell me you’re not with a girl right now.”

“Shut up. Go away,” Jihoon grunts. “I’ll call you later.”

“Oh my God, is it gym girl? Did you finally-...”

“Bye, Cheol,” he hurries, hanging up before his friend can say anything else. He drops his phone onto the mattress, fake-glaring down at you and shaking his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah?” you ask, pulling at the waistband of his briefs to tug them down his legs. “Let me make it up to you, huh?”

#woozi smut #svt smut #seventeen smut #lee jihoon smut #woozi x reader #lee jihoon x reader #??? how do i tag anything lmao #running away now it's nearly 2am lmao BYE #j writes.#*

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