#kim doyoung au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

In 2020, Tumblr had 29.4 million users in the US.

coffeeew · 2 years

Text

honey

pairing fm reader x kim doyoung (nct127) | enemies to lovers trope | 1.6k-ish words. | not fully edited!!! |

You had had enough.

This little "academic enemies" childish ass thing was getting annoying. You knew this thing wasn't going to end well the moment Doyoung stepped on the cardboard you were going to use for your presentation.

But your proud self wasn't going to let things end like that so you had someone tell you his locker combination and you changed it for a month straight.

Then he did another thing to sabotage your grades and then you did; And then he got higher grades then you did; Then he applied for the atlethism team and so did you; then you participated on a reading competition and so he did, then you won it but then he won the atlethism one.

It was a nonestop cycle of sabotaging and winning and then sabotaging again.

And that could've ended if you just let it be and be happy about your own goals and that you've reached them.

But his stupid ass cynical smile always got you. The way he straightened his back and smiled so proud when he won against you made your blood boil.

"Better luck on the next one, honey."

Honey. Fuck, you hated that lame ass nickname.

It sounded sweet but you just wanted to shove that word into his ass.

"Oh, it's sad you're this pretty but this dumb, honey"

"Losing again? Oh, my poor honey."

“Don't you get tired of losing? honey."

"Think faster Honey.""

"Run faster, Honey."

"Honey, you thought you could win?"

And don't even mention his loud ass laugh.

He sounded so stupid and sophisticated but it annoyed you to a level not even your younger brother had ever in his entire life.

But this time, this time Doyoung crossed the line.

Your art sculpture was crashed by someone. It was totally fine yesterday and in the morning, but considentially after Doyoung's class and the recess, it was totally smashed.

You walked at a fast pase to the place you knew Doyoung was always at.

Your hands pushed the gym doors violently and stood in front of them as they closed.

And there he was, at the last seat of the bleachers. He was lying in between two of the seats with his eyes closed not even daring to turn to look at you.

"Kim Doyoung!"

You started to walk to him on the same fast pace you were before.

You saw how he frowned and opened one eye just to look at you. His alarmed gesture turned into an annoyed one, closing that eye again and turning his face to another direction.

"Oh, it's just you."

"Just me?!"

You quickly started going up the stairs of the bleachers, almost stomping as you walked, making the bleachers shake a little. You only stopped one you were in front of him.

"I thought you were someone important, like, I don't know, a teacher or something."

"You fucking asshole."

Your hands gripped his school blazer to make him stand.

His eyes opened in surprise when you made his whole body shake to make him literally go off his seat.

"The fuck has gotten into you?"

"You are an asshole and you have no heart or empathy for anyone."

You placed a fingir on his chest, pointing at him as you talked.

"What?"

"I didn't have a problem with you competing with me on everything cause I was doing the same thing with you, but breaking down my sculpture? That's fucking low, even for a guy like you."

"What?!"

He started walking away, walking down the bleachers with you right behind him.

"Oh yeah, yeah make it seem like you don't know, yeah sure."

"I actua-"

"Yeah yeah, oh look at me, I'm Doyoung and I'm so fucking perfect and spoiled and I don't know how to draw lines or limits"

He stopped in his place once you two reached the floor. He just stood there for a few seconds before turning his body to you, still having an expression of pure confusion.

"What?"

"You think you're so smart and handsome and nice but you're a fucking disgusting leach, Kim."

"Oh my god, just shut the fuck up! It's not like you're the good girl here."

"Oh, I know I am not, but I didn't brake a sculpture you have been working on for weeks!"

"I didn't!"

"Oh so it is a coincidence that your class was just before the sculpture was broken?!"

"Yes! Like- Oh god just, shut up for a second."

Doyoung frowned harder and shook his head, taking a hand to his hair and moving it around in frustration.

"Why should I? You never shut the fuck up about how great you are, so why can't I-"

"Just shut it! You've been in my mind enough time just for you to just come up with this whole thing up!"

His words didn't really hit you on that moment, still having purr anger and frustration on you. So you raised and eyebrow at him.

Doyoung took some seconds to realize what he had just said.

"Oh Lord, not like that."

I mean, you knew it wasn't like that, but you had to take a chance to make him feel uncomfortable for him to spit the truth.

"Oh, look at you, you must like me so much~"

But Doyoung didn't seem to be having it.

"Oh god, shut up once and for all."

He whined, leaning against the wall and smashing his head backwards, looking at the ceiling.

You crossed your arms.

"You can't make me."

"Oh, I can't?"

"No, I have all the right to expre-"

You expected everything, everything in that moment from Doyoung.

Maybe pushing you away or placing his hand on your face to push it away in the same way he always did.

God, anything! anything but him quickly coming forward and grabbing you by your neck to pull you into a harsh kiss.

You gasped into his lips but your body seemed to betray you the moment your muscles eased up and your lips responded to the kiss.

The feeling of his fingertips slightly digging into your skin and his other hand gently holding the side of your face was something you never thought you could feel for someone like him.

Suddenly his lips moved a little, opening his mouth and closing it as he turned his head a little to the side. And your body reacted on its own, thinking he was pulling away from the kiss, by quickly grabbing into his shirt to pull him closer.

The kiss was a bit long but not enough for you to run out of breath. It was long enough to make you feel butterflies but short enough to make you want more.

His head backed away a bit but one of his hands was still on your neck, and your hand still gripped his shirt.

He was looking into your eyes, not complaining about his shirt being wrinkled by your fist. You stared into eachother for some seconds before he started speaking.

"I've been here the whole day, I didn't go to art class. I legimedately didn't break your sculpture."

His words hit you like a pine of cold water. Right... this was still Doyoung and you had just accused him of doing something horrible... and you were supposed to be really mad at him.

You quickly ungripped his shirt.

"You... you didn't?"

He took a sigh and shook his head before letting go of your neck. But something in you wished he didn't .

The voice that came out of Doyoung's lips. was the most sincere you've ever hear him talk. And even though you didn't quite trust him... maybe, just maybe this time he was being honest.

The confusion and quickness of the situations wasn't making you concentrate on any of the two problems you now had. So you just asked the first thing that came to your mind

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?"

He stayed quiet, he seemed to be thinking.

Then, after having some time to process what happened, you realized. You closed your eyes for some seconds then opened them and shook your head.

"W-wait, you just kissed me, aren't we going to talk about that?"

He stayed quiet again before looking at you with a small shine in his eyes as he snapped his fingers.

"I know who could it be, but it's not good news, come on!"

He grabbed your hand and guided you to the gym doors..

What the fuck just happened?

You stared at the girl inside the principal's office, she was crying, basically in the old man's feet, to avoid getting expulsed.

"So, an ex?"

"Yeah."

You looked at Doyoung with a raised eyebrow.

"Your ex attacked me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I didn't liked her anymore so I dumped her."

You frowned.

"And what does that have to do with me?"

Doyoung let out a dry chuckle before shaking his head and taking a turn to leave.

You stared at the empty spot in where he just was and took some seconds to react and follow him.

"Wait! Explain!"

You started to almost run behind him until you got to him, grabbing his shoulder to make him turn.

"Explain, you ass."

He stared at you.

"Are you kidding?"

"No, why would I?"

He sighed and placed one of his hands in his face, dragging it on the surface of it before looking at you again.

"To be a top student, you are really dumb ."

You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms. There he was, insulting again.

"You can't go out fifteen seconds without pointing out that I'm stupid, right?"

"Not my fault you always call me an ass."

"Well you are."

"And you're dumb."

"I am not."

"You can't even catch a hint!"

"I obviously can!"

Doyoung grabbed you by the shoulders and pushed you against a wall. He lowered his head to look at you dead in the eye.

"It's not even that hard but you're making it seem like it is."

"What are you tal-"

"shhh."

He placed a finger over your lips as he closed his eyes and looked another way

"Just... just think about it for a second, Y/n. We kissed on the gym, I told you my ex broke your sculpture because I broke up with her because I don't like her anymore."

You blinked. Looking at him from this close... he was actually really attractive. His black short hair seemed soft and his skin had small marks and bumps but it still was so flawless. He smelled so good and it only made you wish he kissed you again for some stupid reason.

“Actually, you kissed me."

Doyoung lifted his eyebrows.

“Well... you seemed to enjoy it when you pushed me closer."

“Shut up, let's just leave it like this."

You were about to push him away when he put yo to the wall, again.

A groan came out of your mouth but he looked at you dead in the eye.

"You just have to connect the fucking dots to realize I fucking like you."

You blinked a couple of times when you heard those four words.

"What?"

"Now you're deaf?"

You looked back at him, and that was probably the most sincere and lovely glance he had ever given to you.

"You like me?"

Doyoung clicked his tongue and stepped away to start walking away again.

"Wait, come back!"

"You're still too slow... honey."

“Oh~ come on!"

#kpop #kpop drabble #drabble #oneshot #au #nct #nct 127 #kim doyoung #nct doyoung #nct drabble #nct oneshot #doyoung oneshot #enemies to lovers kpop #nct enemies to lovers #enemies to lovers #kim doyoung drabble #kim doyoung au #doyoung

183 notes · View notes

phoxphenex · 4 months

Note

hi 💖 would you mind doing doyoung? doyoung texts about anything you want is okay 💖 i’m delulu for him right now ❗️

doyoung texts

#scenarios #nct social media au #nct #nct dream #nct texts #nct 127 texts #nct 127 #nct doyoung #nct doyoung texts #doyoung fic #doyoung #kim doyoung #nct kim doyoung #doyoung texts

335 notes · View notes

hannie-dul-set · 1 month

Text

fuck you, aphrodite! [1].

SYNOPSIS. ready, set— let the love games begin! the cupid industry is a competitive business. donghyuck, jeno, and johnny know that very well. right on the cusp of their sweet, sweet promotion (and finally graduating from petty match-making and making sure their assignments finally fucking hook up), the three find themselves in a three-way battle because for their last assignment, the love lottery just had to give them the same person to manipulate into falling in love with their respective assignments— you.

PAIRINGS. kim doyoung, na jaemin, jung jaehyun x fem! reader. TAGS. socmed! au, cupid! au, college! au, org! au, another reverse harem of weird/asshole/loser men! the hannie-dul-set holy trinity of leading men! rom-com, explicit language and jokes.

NOTE. it's been a hot hot minute since i wrote for nct again 😭 and to think it's gonna be a train wreck, hot mess that i impulsively vomited out instead of doing my readings HUAHUHA this is just a fun funky little things so updates will be whenever i feel like it (if any) so pls lmk if you wanna be tagged the future! enjoy!

[part 1] [part 2]

fuck you, aphrodite! © hannie-dul-set, 2024.

#nct x reader #kim doyoung x reader #na jaemin x reader #jung jaehyun x reader #doyoung x reader #jaemin x reader #jaehyun x reader #nct imagines #nct social media au #nct x you #nct texts #jaemin texts #jaehyun texts #doyoung texts

119 notes · View notes

hexonthepeach · 2 months

Text

perfume - k.dy

pairing: f4!nct doyoung x fem!reader (past johnny x reader mentions)

genre: hana yori dango/boys over flowers/meteor garden/f4 thailand reverse harem au (mild allusions and characterization only)

warnings:

bully-to-friends-to-lovers, established relationship, polyamory, dom!doyoung, glucose father adjacent, scent kink, control over food consumption/bathing (for scent kink purposes only), gratuitous use of the l-word by anti-romantics, angst/feelings, flashbacks and history

🔞 edging, cockwarming, orgasm denial, oral (m/f receiving), passionate sex, rough sex, spanking, creampie, bukkake, consensual negotiated kink (degradation, somnophilia), anal play (f receiving)

wordcount: 20k

author's note: this is a doyoung-centered continuation of my ongoing F4 au. it can stand on it's own but i recommend reading Dive for more context. Doyoung's role in the F4 is Sojirou Nishikado/So Yijung/Ximen/Kavin (playboy control freak) so this fic incorporates elements of his secondary romance within the original/adaptations, now with y/n.

read on AO3

fic headers / dividers credit to @ saradika + please do not repost

Freshman year, Kocher International.

Head down in your books at lunch, trying so hard to escape scrutiny from above, you pretend to be no one.

It shouldn't be hard to be nobody, otherwise ignored and immune to whatever social contract deliberates your life. In a better world you'd be invisible. It's a superpower you'd wish for much more over the usual playground answers of super speed or control of the weather.

Let me be unobserved, you'd thought. Let me open a door and not worry about a bucket full of dirty mop water falling on my head or the inevitable posting of a grainy video of it, posted in a Telegram channel to fulfill some checklist made up by bored, rich monsters.

Your four-generation-behind phone with its cracked screen proved useful in some regards; you never heard about these public pillories until some kind stranger sent you a screenshot of them, usually in the context of whatever plans they'd made to torture you again.

Every notification is already a pain, driving splintered glass into the pads of your fingers. Just now you're reading a text message from your father asking you to pick up more cheap instant noodles from the convenience store on your walk home to round out whatever scraps he's picked up from the local restaurant your mother bussed tables and cleaned dishes at when she needed extra money.

"Why is Saint Kim watching you?" your friend asks across the table. She's been looking up at the room this entire time, unable to give you even a moment of her attention or assistance to finish the English homework you'd been working on. You'd been rushing all day to finish it before afternoon class, after a late morning of delivery driving for your family's drycleaning business.

"Are you sure it's not the Devil?" you ask, parsing through the lines of a book you'd bought secondhand, trying to match verse for verse.

"No," she says, shaking her head when you finally look up. "Don't react. He's coming this way."

"Shit," you say under your breath, eyes flicking to your untouched lunch. "I need you to leave now. Take these trays and dump them and I'll meet you outside of 4th. If I make it."

You don't look up from your book as you mutter, but you follow her path and her hesitancy as she internally debates whether to heed your warning or watch from a safe distance.

Your handwriting becomes a scrawl of nonsense you have to cross out in sharp lines. You begin the verse again, holding your breath as you will your entire body and mind back to a manufactured calm.

If you can't be invisible, you can at least play your role. You're copacetic by the time you see the tips of polished black wingtips beside you, before you hear the Saint clear his throat.

“Y/N.”

He drops a familiar, school-mandated clear cosmetics bag next to your ratty backpack. The already embarrassing stash of tampons and old chapstick has a new bounty including a "used" pregnancy test stick with a second line drawn in with pink gel pen jumbled into its contents.

"You left this . . ." he says, not finishing the sentence to indicate where he'd found it. You immediately hear a titter. Your flock of spectators is growing by the second and the useful idiot at its center seems wholly unconcerned.

"Thanks," you say, not bothering to look up or to even hide the bag. You keep writing, blindly, the English words just rounded shapes flowing from your shaking hand.

Their kind fed off attention, your only defense is to starve them of it.

The Saint clears his throat, again. Apparently he’s not just unconcerned, he’s also unwilling to leave.

"Aren't you grateful Doie found it before someone else did?" You don’t have to look up to know it's Miranda who’s asked, glimpsing her manicure as she picks up your bag, green gems shining on perfectly-tipped nails.

"Oh this must not be hers. I didn't think she could afford this."

You think she might be diving into the stash for one of the Lilies' pointed additions but no–you watch in horror as she plucks out the bottle of perfume you'd been carrying with you since your parents had gifted you a single, tiny box last Christmas.

"Chanel?" she says, laughing. "No wonder you smell like my grandma."

"Probably a knock-off," another of the Lilies says. Ginger, by the sound of her grating voice. Her handwriting on the board in homeroom listing out your abortions is as familiar as the pink gel pen script on the extra large foil condom with xoxo slut written on it staring at you through the plastic.

"Definitely a knock-off. You have a nose, don't you, Doie?"

You look up, finally, at Saint Kim. He's alone for once–the other one, the Devil Kim that shadows him is still up on the second level, leaning on the railing over his shoulder. You watch the Saint’s small mouth turn into a moue of distaste, nose wrinkling at the proffered bottle.

"Authentic," he says, capping it before offering it back to you. Your field of vision is obstructed by that veined, pale hand–fingernails as perfectly groomed as the rich girls who surround him.

You reach up to take your most prized possession back only to find he doesn't let go, holding tight when you try to pluck it from his fingers.

"You should know . . . " he says, sniffing slightly.

You look up at him with alarm blazing in your eyes. Every word Kim Doyoung says to you writes your next damnation. You should ignore him, run, anything–but you can't look away once you've met his assessing gaze, his tall frame limned in the fluorescent cafeteria lights like he's carrying his own personal halo.

Even seeing him at a distance every day can't depreciate how ethereally handsome he is. You know better than to swoon at that elegant face, night-black hair pushed away from his forehead. Beneath his family’s charities and his PR-scripted concern you know he’s just another ungodly creation birthed of nepotism and curated genes.

He leans in, carefully, musical voice a whisper.

"You should know it doesn't suit you."

The laughter that follows is deafening.

No, you think. He's just as soulless as the rest of them.

“What do you mean actually sleep?" you ask, coyly, unbuttoning your romper. "Like after we . . . ?"

"I've managed 6 hours of sleep in 36 hours, y/n–” Doyoung seems to hesitate, dark eyebrows raising, hand pushing his hair back from his pale forehead. He snaps his laptop closed, at last, shoving it to the farthest edge of the bedside table.

No–you think–not hesitation.

Frustration.

You've seen this man before.

All work and no play made Saint Kim into a Prince of Hell. He'd spent the first 8 hours of your date day half-present–the other in the 4 hours of sleep he's gotten since some crisis at his family’s headquarters in London that usurped your vacation.

A whole 2 days in which he hasn't held you at all. His rules, his chance, but you can't help but wonder what has him so clenched that he's barely even touched you since your date began at 6 am Bangkok time.

You'd taken two extra strength melatonin and slept like the dead, anticipating his early-riser schedule. Only you and God had to know you'd fallen asleep next to your day tour fit ready to be fucked in it.

You’d made yourself so pretty only to find him in the kitchen hunched over his phone, laptop softly pinging with notifications. Doyoung had still been dressed in the clothes you'd seen him in the night before, ending his conference call to laser in on you hovering in the kitchen.

"Are you upset?" Doyoung asked.

"No," you'd lied, pushing the piece of paper he'd left the staff on the counter, his English handwriting crisp and formal. "What’s this?"

"We have a few dietary restrictions today," he’d said.

"Are you saying I am what I eat?" You’d asked, taking a bite of a plump strawberry. "Is this some kind of prep?"

"It's for the date," he'd said, resigned. "Just be patient with me."

Then he'd smiled, disarming you with a casualness you hadn’t seen on him in a long time, rubbing his eyes blearily under his thick glasses.

"Can we go back to sleep?"

And so you'd settled into his grasp on your made bed, scrolling Insta and waiting for the inevitable alarm–which turned out just to be Jungwoo delivering two iced Americanos in some gambit of checking your progress.

"Missed the floating market opening?" Jungwoo asked, eyebrows raised at the sight of Doyoung face first in a pillow.

You'd silently mouthed your thanks, leaving the drinks to sweat on the bedside table as you changed into your second outfit of the day, occasionally drifting in to check on your sleeping beauty.

It was a rare delight to have him so vulnerable beside you, blanket rucked up beneath his chin and his white teeth visible past the sweet curves of his mouth. Without consciousness your partner for the day is just Kim Doyoung, the gentler side of the same creature who you knew would often choose a couch to watch serial television with you over a day trip if you wanted it.

But this was different.

Now instead of using his precious time to fulfill what you'd felt promised in his casual brushes against your back when you'd finally traveled out, or the way he'd stroked your leg at brunch under the table (every bite chosen by him, of course), you're being railroaded into lying still while he sleeps.

Again.

You continue undressing, letting him drink in the sight of the lingerie set he’d left in your room. You knew it was custom made by the way it lifted each curve he’d already had access to, tailored for you as if every millimeter of your body was to account for.

Doyoung's cheeks are hollowed, lip chewed. He pulls his glasses down and regards you even more as you continue to undress yourself.

"You do know what the word 'nap' means, don't you?"

"I'm not the one who hasn't slept," you say. "At least let me get comfortable."

His stare pierces into you as you turn around, stripping for utility rather than give him a show he clearly hasn’t earned. You check yourself in the floor-length mirror beside the bathroom, viewing yourself through his eyes as you pluck the lace over your curves to sit just right.

“Do you like it?” you ask.

You may as well be speaking to the floor when you turn around, finding him buried in the pillows only by the dark fall of his hair.

“You can’t be that tired,” you say.

You're used to taking a late afternoon siesta in peak summer but you're far too excited to even consider sleep right now. For one, it's sweltering–windows open to allow the noises of hawkers and traffic not far off to drift in.

Second, you've never been more turned on in your life.

You can still feel the tingling in your toes from when he’d slipped his hand up under the hem of your shorts, teasing at the velvety smooth skin on your inner thigh as you tried not to choke on your mimosa.

You make your way to the bed languidly, crawling up the thick white duvet with a teasing smile.

"Just stay on your side of the bed, please," Doyoung says.

"Oh," you say, collapsing on top of the covers beside him. "Well you're no fun."

"And you're impatient and uncouth," he retorts in a way that makes you wonder if he really means it.

"Will you at least hold onto me?"

"Too hot." He rolls on his back, flapping his half-buttoned shirt in the breeze from the fans. You sigh dramatically, collapsing into the pillows in the middle of the bed.

"You should get naked, then.” You say. “Don't be modest on my account."

He opens one eye to glare at you, finding you relaxed and inviting beside him. His throat bobs, gaze flicking to the ceiling.

"That year of celibacy really took a toll on you, didn't it? Two hours. Indulge me."

"Please, sir," you whisper. "I've been such a good girl."

It had been a stipulation of the F4’s latest deal–24 hours for you to recover from your first night before the gauntlet began. Doyoung had been more than strict about the terms, leaving you your own set of instructions including–not surprisingly–not touching yourself.

Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t think about masturbation constantly, at all hours of the day. He may as well have told you to try not to think about a white bear for how powerful the intrusive thought had taken over since then.

"You'll get your reward. Later," he says. He's an impassable wall, stretched out beside you, so you content yourself with staring at his profile. Even under these oppressive circumstances you appreciate the light dusting of freckles on his cheek brought out by the sun, the dark lashes dusting his cheeks over the slight bluish marks of sleep deprivation.

"Yes, sir."

It only takes a few minutes for him to snap at you again.

"Stop that,"

"Stop what?"

"Getting so handsy."

You hadn’t even realized your hand had drifted over the plane of his belly under his white shirt, too absorbed with watching the muscles in his cheek spasm as you inched nearer.

"Can I help it when you're right there?" you ask. "I thought this was your–"

Doyoung rolls you before you can slither any closer, pressing your back into the sheets with his hands on your wrists, knees digging into your thighs.

If the intention was to get you to stop being uncomfortably turned on it has the opposite effect: you let out a moan of pleasure, legs twisting together for friction. He slams them shut between his own, groin pressed into yours.

He's as hard as you hoped, and you lift up into him to let him know you know it.

"If you don't behave I'll have to cancel this," he warns directly in your ear, sounding as choked as you feel. "I thought you were already trained."

"Trained to fight back," you correct, pressing against him with your own strength.

"That's not trained," he says, lifting up. "I'll blame your lack of experience and experienced partners. Nothing we can't work on. Until then you'll follow my rules or I pull you from the game. Understood?"

You let a few beats pass, accepting there's no way out and you don't have anything to throw back at him.

"Yes, sir," you pout.

"Now that's a good girl," he says.

Just as quickly as you were taken down you're let go, inhaling deeply now that you're not being pressed into the soft bed.

"You really don't want to play with me before you sleep?" you ask, brushing your lips against his chin as he crouches over you. You’d be a liar if you didn’t say you enjoyed the way his nostrils flare a bit, working his pink bottom lip between his teeth. Whatever arbitrary rules he’d set for your time together you can tell he’s at least regretting it right now, stiff length brushing against your bare leg as you lift your knee to test it.

“Are you trying to make me punish you?” he asks, voice husky.

"I thought you liked it when I was a brat," you say, cocking your head.

Doyoung sighs, eyes half-lidded. "I do. But not when you're using it to avoid intimacy."

Your throat clenches, a hard knot forming in it you can't seem to swallow as your face gets even hotter.

“What are you talking about?” you ask.

“I think you know what I mean,” he continues. “It’s not like we both don’t have a habit of using sex as a distraction from anything emotionally challenging.”

You gape up at him in disbelief.

Of course you’d never been able to hide that aspect of your last relationship with him when he’d often been right outside the door. All of the F4 knew how many times your arguments with he-who-should-not-be-named-especially-not-while-in-bed-with-his-best-friend had ended in you shutting him up by any means necessary. Not that you didn’t enjoy it at the time–but rather you understood it wasn’t the most healthy template for a relationship.

"I thought this wasn't going to be about feelings," you blurt out.

“Proving my point.”

Doyoung tsks, tapping your cheek with his fingers–nowhere near a slap but just as effective, soothing the spot with his thumb. Soon he’s brushing your tears away when they inevitably spring up and you have to turn to hide their seep into the mass of pillows.

"If I wanted therapy I wouldn't be here, Kim Doyoung," you say, trying to bury your face in the piles of soft down.

“Shh, silly girl,” He gently pulls you out from hiding, soothing you with a warm kiss against your forehead when you stop struggling and let him hold you, releasing that surge of emotion and writing it off to hormones and the sting of rejection.

“You know I’m speaking to myself here, too,” he states softly. “Bear with me, I’m learning.”

"Do you even really like me?" you ask, face pressed into his chest.

It’s horrible to admit this specific insecurity but you can’t help it. Being abandoned multiple times in your life when you’d finally, finally let your walls down would damage anyone’s trust. You’d hoped this day with him would be easy and carefree and light, not dimmed by the shadows of your anti-romantic histories.

"I adore you, actually." He settles partially on top of you, leg wrapped over yours as he props himself up on his elbow. "Which is why I want to start this right. You wanted the F4 boyfriend experience. This is mine."

"Last I checked you’ve never seriously dated anyone," you groan, sniffling.

"Last I checked, neither have you."

Well, that connects. You swallow your fears, relaxing into the cage of his embrace, retreating a little from the vulnerability of being exposed.

"What kind of girlfriend experience were you expecting, then?"

A lazy smile gusts across his features. You can't help but find it a bit sinister after being handled so indelicately.

“I don’t always know what’s going on in that empty little head of yours." He accompanies his statement with a brush of his thumb across your flushed cheek, tracing your semi-parted lips in a way that sends sparks down to your core.

"I’d like to stop guessing and actually get you to let me treat you the way you want to be treated. Have you ever asked yourself what you want?"

You panic a little, considering his words. Living with disappointment had made this question a hard one to even consider.

"I just want a good time. Isn't that what you want, too?"

Doyoung seems to ignore your ask, drifting into a relaxed state against the pillows. His hand traces the hairline at your temple. "You know I worry about you. All the time, actually.”

His voice is lower, a little wistful, and it’s doing just as much as the slight brushes of his fingertips to make you throb all over again. A lack of sleep must have made him delusional, you think. This is not the Kim Doyoung you know.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

"Is that why you're always involving yourself in my business?" you ask, matching his tone in how breathless you are. You expect a quip, not the sincerity written on his face when he swoops in to press a gentle kiss against your lips, too fleeting to be anything but sweet and sincere.

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time? It certainly wasn’t just to get into your pants. I want you. All of you.”

You're taken aback by his honesty. You'd always suspected his constant meddling in your affairs came from a place of interest but you'd never wanted to give him too much of a response–maybe a little afraid his fickle nature and fear of commitment would mean he’d give up on your friendship, too.

Another thing you knew about Saint Kim: he had a tendency to run like a frightened rabbit at the first sign of emotional neediness in his partners. You'd never given him reason to believe you expected anything from him, but you'd also stopped fighting him on giving you what he desired to give.

It wasn’t just presents or expensive experiences, of course. He’d found out quickly those weren’t welcome without some cajoling. No–his art was in knowing what you needed even before you realized it, nudging it across your path.

You’d figured out his deviousness after the umpteenth time someone was charitable at your little florist shop part time job, offering to fix your scooter in exchange for a nice arrangement for a proposal. As soon as you’d seen the fully restored bike outside and the customer didn’t return your texts you’d called Doyoung, completely unsurprised to find he was at the coffee shop next door, waiting to pick up his flowers.

“Stop being so nice to me,” you’d said. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“What makes you think I’m giving you charity,” he’d responded, dropping a department store bag and your own custom coffee order on the counter. “You’ll wear this when I come to pick you up tonight at closing, including the jewelry and perfume. I need you to play your part again. The flowers are a consolation for the heart we’re breaking.”

He’d enlisted you as his defacto “new girlfriend” for the more difficult separations, and though you’d gotten your share of a glass of expensive wine thrown in your face more often than he ever experienced it (his type always went after the easier target) it wasn’t like he didn’t have a replacement dress ready and a nice dinner waiting after you’d cleaned off the Chateau Lafitte Rothschild.

You have to face the fact that no matter how many times he’d treated you like his girlfriend, you’d never actually expected him to want you to be one.

“I’ve waited a very long time for this, Y/N. Which is why I want our first time together–alone," he adds quickly. "–To be special."

It's difficult to believe him but you're spellbound all the same, watching pink dust his cheeks and his ears turn a shade darker as he most likely realizes how ridiculous it is considering him fucking you senseless the other night with the help of two other men.

But you can empathize with his anxiety. Yesterday's Thai massage he'd arranged had helped you work out the flight or fight of anticipating being alone with him. It’s back now, but different. The way he's looking at you makes you feel infinitely naked, infinitely unlocked.

"What do you mean special?" you ask, wary, hoping to see some glimmer of uncertainty or falsehood in his gaze. You want to believe it's a lie or just some artful prank, trying to ignore your heart flip-flopping in your chest.

It’s a mistake to let him see you squirm considering it’s Doyoung’s drug of choice–his lips twist into another menacing grin as he plays with the charm on your necklace. Another of his little gifts.

"Do you think you can handle it?" Doyoung asks, dripping self-satisfaction. “Or are you going to chicken out on me?”

You turn over so he can't see your expression, realizing he’s throwing your own words from the night before right back at you.

"I haven’t decided if I want to date you, yet,” you say.

"Maybe not," he says. "But you'll have to pardon me for wanting to show you this good time you supposedly want while also treating you decently. Unless we're no longer friends?"

"We are," you say, biting your lip, "even if you enjoy torturing me."

"Torture?" He laughs, breathy.

"Metaphorically speaking."

"You have no idea, do you?" You can feel the edge of his glasses as he bites the place where your clavicle connects to your shoulder, his hand snaking around your bare middle.

"You could show me," you invite, mid-gasp, as your body responds to his long-awaited touch. His fingers are almost cool in contrast to the heat in the room, tracing circles in your skin that have you squirming.

"Is that a challenge?" he asks.

Why not?

"We don't have to have sex," you offer. "Maybe you could just–"

"Shh," he says, fingers skimming lower. "My terms. Are you going to stay quiet for me?"

You nod into the comforter, breath hitching as he touches you through the thin layer of your underwear, veined hand flexing as he molds the damp fabric to your body. It's such a delicate pressure but he's already memorized your shape, index finger sinking into your folds, gently rubbing a ring around your throbbing clit.

You're sticky and swelling with each pass, entranced by how good he is at teasing you, cherishing the way he sucks in his breath when he pushes into the indent of your hole.

“Doie,” you whine, leaning back into him, trying to get him to kiss you as he laughs into your hair.

“Quiet,” he reminds you, kissing your cheek and teasing the seat of your underwear where they're soaked the most. "You want to take these off?"

You shake your head, sensing it would be too easy of you to give in.

"That wasn't a question," he says, tugging down the band, leaving them trapped tight around your thighs. "I don't want you to wear them until I tell you that you can."

You feel your core clench at the way his voice cracks, his fingers sliding back up to slowly and delicately draw a thread of moisture from your bared slit. You whine a little when he stops touching you, bringing his fingertip to your lips.

"Taste it."

You let your mouth fall open, let him run it over your tongue, beginning from the middle and swirling over it.

"Describe it," he murmurs. "If I like your answer, maybe I'll indulge you more."

"Salt," you say, immediately.

He tugs your hair, making you meet his eyes.

"Have I taught you anything? I want specific notes. Flavors."

You're transported back to the time he'd taken you to your first (and last) wine tasting. Spitting into a bucket and being lectured about body and tannins and soil conditions was the last thing you'd wanted to do after an hours-long trip to a vineyard but you'd indulged him, allowed one glass of what he considered the only drinkable wine on the premises.

An unrefined palette, he'd called you.

"Fruity and floral," you make up. "A nice lingering finish. Want a taste?"

He looks down at you behind his glasses, equal parts amused and unimpressed. "Did you use the soap I asked you to?"

Your brain glitches at that. Had you? You'd been in such a rush to go out–

You gasp when he palms your breast, squeezing the meat of it through the breathable fabric of your matching bra.

"I'll take that as a no," he says. "I guess you're not ready."

He rolls off of you, leaving you in a lurch as you realize your legs are locked together by your underwear. You move to remove them, taking off your bra as well to avoid the awkwardness of being partially dressed.

By the time you're done you realize he's on his back, the hand that had been stroking you buried in his loose khakis.

"What are you doing?" you ask, more than a little pissed off at the sight of him masturbating as if you aren't ready and willing to assist beside him.

"Getting ready for our date. You can watch. No touching." He cracks an eye to look at you before closing it again. "Either of us."

"Are you edging me, Kim Doyoung?" Your menacing tone is entirely natural.

He hums a bit, working himself at a more punishing pace, knuckles peeking out from under his boxer briefs with each full pass over his length.

"Can't even look at me? Afraid you'll lose control?" You sidle down on the bed, beside his tensed thigh. You can smell a bit of the ozone on him from a morning in the sun, your knees knocking into his calves when you move over him.

"I don't trust you," he says, voice deeper than you've ever heard it.

"Is it touching if you finish on my face?" you ask when he finally blinks up at your presence, hovering over him with your breasts dangerously close to his clothed thighs.

"Absolutely not."

"Not touching–"

"Just. Watch," he orders.

He pulls himself free from his pants, surprising you with how dark and weeping his tip is as his thumb encircles it. Pools of white precum spatter on his lean, pale belly, your head dipping dangerously close–

"I said watch." He grabs at your hair, denied when you bend up again, showing him your dirty tongue.

He groans, fingers clenching air. "You were put on this earth to test me, weren't you?"

Still, he doesn't break his attention on the way you roll the drops you'd licked from his clean skin in your mouth, swallowing once you've fully enjoyed the taste.

"A little sweet you say," teasing him. "Drinking pineapple juice?"

"Brat," Doyoung says, but he's almost gone–eyes dark with desire, gently gripping your skull as you continue to ease in.

You're a master at following his lead, blowing a breath over the spot you'd licked, and then his length until his movements slow, cherishing the way you hold your mouth over his cock.

"If you can't give me what I want, then at least give me a taste," you say, sticking out your tongue in offering. You love the way he responds to the sight, needy and losing it when you hold eye contact, drilling into him.

"No," he echoes, weakly. He's too smart to push into your open mouth, instead driving his hips up to fuck his fist as you watch his glasses slide down his nose, eyes clenching shut.

"You're no fun," you say. "Just a little swallow can't hurt?"

"No. Don't want to ruin it," he says cryptically, making a choked noise as you brush his fingers with your nose and he has to pull you away.

"I promise you it . . . It will be worth it," he manages. His jaw clenches as his movements relax, finally in control of you both.

"It better be," you say.

You lower your lashes as your eyes flick between his cock and his face, stretching out your tongue to the point that drool begins to drip down your chin, splashing on his whitened knuckles and the tight stretch of his balls peeking out from his underwear. He bites his lip, breath holding as he starts to spiral.

The first thick rope of white rockets up his half-bared chest. Soon he's spurting even more, cum reaching his rucked up shirt, a little getting on his glasses.

He's so out of it he doesn't fight as you wrest out of his limp hold. You clean up the sticky mess on his skin with your tongue, his abdominal muscles twitching under the light flicks and drags.

"Want to give me some notes?" you ask, straddling him without resting any weight down, taking off his glasses. This time when you move to kiss him he rises weakly to meet you, lips parting to accept what you haven't swallowed.

In truth, he tastes wonderful. Coffee, a little menthol from toothpaste and a hint of the watermelon you'd shared earlier mix beneath the coat of his spend.

He licks into your mouth until you moan, your body throbbing with unfulfilled pleasure. You follow him as he sinks back into the pillows, enjoying having him at your disposal, your core leaving wet trails on his thigh when you brush against the fabric.

"I'm going to wait until you're asleep and use you if you don't help me get off," you threaten, pressing soft kisses to his slack face. It’s no use. Doyoung has passed out again, lower teeth visible as he snores softly, forehead sheened with drying sweat.

Fuck it, you think.

You ooze off of him to take your second cold shower of the day, and maybe get acquainted with one of the fancy showerheads in his massive walk-in while you use his special soap.

It's not–technically–touching yourself.

Your mystery destination isn't an unknown–it's in every tourist booklet and blog you'd skimmed before your trip, thinking you'd be on your own to find a good spot to traverse to. But it still takes your breath away the moment the car door opens in the sprawl of motorbikes and delivery trucks and Doyoung takes your hand to pull you into Paradise.

Pak Khlong Talat is a bustle of energy well after dark, the time you know its treasures are delivered fresh and unbloomed, wrapped in newspaper and steeped in crushed ice. For as far as you can see the market sprawls along Chak Phet road, but even more overwhelming than the sights and sounds is the scent.

Jasmine, roses, lavender. Thousands upon thousands of blooms strung up and tended to by night owl vendors, delicate arrangements hand-sewed by artisans streetside into garlands so well-crafted Doyoung has to tug you to keep you moving, onwards to some other unspoken destination.

"I was worried you might hate flowers after working with them for so long. I take it you like it?" he asks, indulging you when you ask if you can take his picture at a particularly lovely hang of garlands, the purple-blue light perfect for the film you'd loaded into your father's old camera. Photography had never been your craft, but after your dad had passed you'd made an effort to capture more of your memories, cherishing what you'd taken for granted before.

“It’s perfect,” you say, admiring him through the viewfinder. "But can you look like you're having fun?"

Your model is stiff, mouth a moue as he checks the street for other observers or a possible collision with a laden handcart.

"Fun?" Doyoung asks, and you snap his picture on the offbeat, enjoying his look of surprise.

“Like you've taken your date to one of the most romantic places on earth, after buttering her up with a night cruise of Chao Praya and finally letting her eat real food."

He sniffs at a fall of marigolds, a smug look on his face that you commit to film, right before he sneezes.

"For the record, we're eating after this. Som tam hardly counts as a meal, I just didn’t want that drink going to your head."

You're shepherded through the vast warehouse of the main market, to an adjacent street, and into a non-descript building painted in a funereal white.

"Are we even allowed to be here?" you ask, once the key code is entered and you enter the strange business.

"I called in a favor," he says, taking your hand, leading you up a metal staircase past a simple storefront of dried blooms and shelves laden with boxes and bottles alike.

An apothecary? An alchemist's shop? The purpose of the space eludes you.

"An atelier," Doyoung explains. "One of the most sought out in the world."

There's the distant hum of the city outside and a central air you're unused to in this climate but the upstairs is quiet–by all accounts either an office or a laboratory, or a mixture of both. The central working area is a chaotic but organized space filled with tables of glassware and dried floral arrangements contrasting potted orchids, small beakers of coffee beans littered amidst rows of labeled brown bottles.

"So this is how they make perfume," you say, inspecting a stoppered bottle labeled "Gerianol 10%".

"Not just any perfume. The best. Here." Doyoung leads you to a much less cluttered workstation, the desk arranged with the lights still on, a note detailing some instruction you can barely read before he slips it into the pocket of his slim-tailored pants. Beneath it is a notebook, scrawled with a perfect cursive English you recognize from the cards he’d included in boxes or bags whenever he’d bothered to claim their contents.

"Sit," he instructs. You think he means the comfortable chair but before you can sit down he presses you to the desk, caging you in.

"Sit," he repeats, hands on your hips through your slinky skirt, lifting you to the bench. You scoot back, carefully, the white blooms of some exotic flower brushing against your cheek until he can move the vase a careful distance.

"Do you understand what we’re doing here?"

You can't possibly know what he means, eye level with the graceful column of his neck and his exposed collarbone beneath his translucent button-down, drowning in the melange of scents but most especially his clean, neutral cologne.

"No," you say, honestly, heart beating fast.

He picks up a corked flask from some kind of metal scale, dipping a thin thread of paper into it to waft it a fair distance from your nose.

"Before we came here--before you even agreed to this trip–I sent instructions to my friend for a specialty blend of their creation. It took quite a bit of back-and-forth–I even visited here last month to take a private class and make sure we prepared the base and middle to your standards."

"For me?"

You feel dizzy, reaching out to take the sample and smell it again, his hand capturing your own before you can bring it too close to your nose. He wafts it for you, expectant as you absorb the details.

Indeed, it smells divine–exactly the kind of warm, bright notes that make your heart feel at ease. There’s something floral and citrus worked in, not too heavy, the finish leaving you with an impression of a lazy summer afternoon.

“It’s beautiful,” you say. “Did you make this to match what you knew I liked?”

"Yes.” Doyoung exhales, looking almost sheepish. "I had some references. That cheap shampoo you never stop buying, the Lush exfoliator with the orange blossom, even–" he shudders a bit– "that awful Chanel you doused yourself in, in high-school."

"Coco Mademoiselle," you say. "It's been years since I–"

"It didn't suit you," he says, standing up to sample another bottle from the neat row.

Something dawns on you, a distant memory locking into place.

"It was you," you gasp in realization. "You're the one who got rid of it. I should have known when you tried to give me that bottle of Jo Malone–"

“It had already turned. You need to store your scents away from direct light.”

“It was a keepsake!” There were very few possessions from your youth that you’d been able to hold onto–not only because your parents had been barely able to afford your school uniforms, much less gifts. What little you’d had was lost when your house was destroyed by the men your father owed money to, this small thing neglected in the destruction.

“It didn't suit you because it wasn't made for you," he continues. "You wore it because you thought it would make you fit in, when you should have made what you wore wear you–"

"Please, stop."

You have to bite your lip to the point of pain, remembering how excited you'd been to unwrap that tiny bit of luxury your parents had saved up to buy you, your mother sure the brand name would save you from another day of humiliation. You didn’t have the heart to tell them that the cutout ad from the magazine on your wall was for the model, not the actual perfume, but you felt loved by the gesture all the same.

Hundreds of thousands of won an ounce for it to only turn on your skin, well before afternoons spent on the basketball court under the thankless sun. That memento had aged from pink to a sickly rose unused on your cosmetic shelf, a totem from a time when you imagined yourself belonging. Before it had disappeared, like so many other things.

You can't remember the last time you'd worn anything, had never even gone near that section of a department store after the humiliation of being made fun of for smelling cheap.

“My dad skipped lunches and my mom worked double shifts to get that for Christmas my first year in Kocher,” you say. “Mira was the brand ambassador for that campaign, you know.”

Mira had been your idol even before you won the scholarship she’d established to attend Kocher. Perfect, beautiful, but most of all the first girl in their sphere to show you genuine kindness.

"It must be so easy for you," you say, wiping your face. You rarely cried these days but that memory was particularly painful, a reminder of how often you’d assumed Doyoung found you just as offensive. Not just your scent, you thought, but you.

Something to be tolerated. Below his regard.

"Whatever you want, you can have. Whatever you don't like, you can get rid of. I'm sorry, I don't live in your world. I can’t just throw something away when it’s not useful."

"No," he says, quietly, abandoning his explanation. "That was thoughtless of me. I can replace it–"

“Can you?” You glare up at him. “Is this what you really want? To dress me up like your perfect doll and feed me from your hand so I’m more able to suit you?

Doyoung looks like he's going to be ill, every design in his head unraveling before your eyes. You’d feel sorry for him if you didn't know this was a lesson worth imparting.

"Don't ever offer to replace what you don’t know the true value of," you say, voice trembling.

There's a weighted silence as he considers his next words. You still haven't slipped away from him, choosing to hold your ground. How many times had you been forced to be the antagonist in some fruitless class warfare, unresolved? But then you also had a habit of finding battles in peacetime.

You pluck the newest scent strip from his frozen hand and waft it between you, at the designated distance.

“Thank god this smells nothing like it,” you murmur. You offer him a wry smile, anger fading. “I couldn’t stand it.”

You feel Doyoung’s relief as he collapses against you, forehead against your hair as his arms wrap tight around your middle. You relax after a bit, cheek pressed to his collarbone as you breathe in his unique scent–a little like fresh laundry left out in the sun.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “All these promises and plans and stupid details and at the end of the day I really . . . Don't know what I'm doing."

"I really don’t know what you’re doing, either," you say. "But I like that you try.”

"You do?" The hope in his voice makes your iciness melt a bit. You let your hands twine around his neck, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease with the gesture.

“I know it’s not easy for me to admit but I do appreciate everything you do for me, Doie,” you say.

He doesn’t respond in words but you savor the shift in his demeanor, like a weight has been lifted from him. You think even he didn’t know it was there. You ignore the glassiness in his eyes when he pulls back, choosing to look at his notes instead.

“Are these all the ingredients?” you ask, working out a few of the more familiar words. “What’s op–?”

“First things first,” he says, rolling up his sleeves. "Did you touch yourself?"

"No," you say, surprised by the shift. "I followed your instructions. No products with scents. No underwear."

You spread your thighs to make your point. His hands hike your skirt up, over the breadth of skin to your hips and then to the curl of your belly, his breath hitching as he finds you already glossy.

It had been a bit of a gambit considering your riverside excursion but he'd allowed you a lemongrass-based repellent–the scent of which is still clinging to your bare skin as he kneels down to press a kiss to where his fingers had traced earlier.

You jerk a bit, conscientious of the workspace as he spreads you, just that light touch making your nipples harden beneath your thin shirt and bra.

“Are we allowed to–”

“Shh. Relax and try not to spill anything,” he interrupts, breath cooling your wetness. “I just need some inspiration.”

“What?”

"You’re so good already," he says into your sex, spreading you so he can lightly tongue at your skin. “Perfect little flower just for me.”

After waiting so long, you're torn between begging and shoving his teasing licks away, hand threading through his raven hair as the notebook slips from your hand.

"Kim Doyoung–” you gasp as he spears his tongue through your upper folds, nose nudging the sensitive bud. “–if this is another round of teasing I will murd–”

You yelp as he hunches down to wrap your legs around his shoulders, hands re-occupied by exposing you as you try to stay upright.

“Don’t worry. You can come like this. I want to know if you taste different after.”

You don't know what he means until his mouth closes over your clit, sucking just right. You jolt, pinched on the meat of your thigh until you can relax again, making little mewls as he rolls his thumbs alongside the point of contact.

“I want you inside of me,” you beg, feeling that fluttering sensation that heralds a build-up. “I wanted to come with you inside me.”

“Soon. Just need to be good while I sample you.”

“Sample?” Your hand sinks into his hair in panic, tugging, but Doyoung is too lost alternating between suckling at your sex and palpating you with a circling thumb, his beautiful hands gripping your thighs to keep you spread.

“Drip for me, first.”

“I don't think I can–”

“You giving up already?” Doyoung scoffs, smirking up at you with reddened lips, tongue-tip darting against your clit. Every brush of soft muscle makes you spasm a bit, belly tightening unfulfilled.

You shake your head, panting. “I just . . . Doie I want you inside me.”

“You can relax and take it,” he says, tongue wrapping around your labia, sucking slightly. Your head is buzzing, every stray thought removed by his exploration of you.

“Relax. If you don't I'll just have to try until you're begging for me to stop.”

“No, please, Doie. I'll be good,” you plead. “Just . . . need something inside. Hurts so bad being empty.”

“Hand me a pipette.”

“What?”

“The one that looks like an eyedropper,” he says, hand open to accept like he’s performing surgery. You fight to find the right glassware with his mouth still on you, efforts more focused and intense as your legs tense with each hit. You find the rubber-stoppered glass cylinder, stomach dropping.

“Is this safe?” You ask, gripping his mussed hair tighter when he pulls away for a moment.

“If you hold still, yes,” he taunts. You seize when you first feel the tip slip inside you. The glass is cool but warms to your body heat quickly, too slim to feel anything.

“Good girl,” he says. “You’re even pushing this out, you must be so tight.”

“I am. Too tight,” you groan. “Please don’t tease me anymore.”

He ignores you, focusing on his work, pulling the instrument free when he’s satisfied.

“Not bad,” he says, dropping it on the desk beside you before he’s back on his knees with his nose buried in your cunt. “Bet you can do better than that.”

“No, please, I need you–”

“Then drip for me,” he laughs into your leg, tracing the wetness down the crease in your thigh. You tense your hold on the desk’s edge when you feel his tongue prod at your entrance, muscle breaching your hole to lick into you. He makes a satisfied noise in the back of his throat that has you plummeting just as he resumes stroking your clit through the slippery coat of your arousal.

Finally, you think, feeling the advent of tears for how wound tight you are, how desperate you are to feel him give you just one more point of contact with the ache inside.

“Oh god, don’t stop, please don’t stop,” you repeat, the noises obscene as he drinks you in, other hand on your hip to hold you against his face. It’s not even the stimulation that makes you begin to come but the audible groan he releases as he feels you quake against his mouth, heels snagging on his shirt when the first wave breaks and those little tics inside you turn into powerful contractions around his tongue-tip taking everything you can give him.

He keeps licking you even when you’re begging for him to stop, nose tracing down to catch a stray drop from the back of your knee with a playful dart of his tongue.

“Was it worth it?” you ask, folding over him as he wipes his mouth clean in your drenched skirt. You know it’s just the start but you already feel wrung out and feather-light, wicking away the sweat that’s beaded on your own face despite the cool, dry air of the room.

“Hmm?” he hums a bit, disentangling to stand up and hold your face in his hands. His pupils are blown, sweat beading on his temples, but he looks as satisfied as you hoped he would be, your arousal drying on his slender features.

“All the prep,” you say. “Isn’t that why–do I taste as good as you expected after all that?”

Doyoung looks down on you, amused. Already you feel like you’re heating up again, with how his dark eyes flit to your mouth and back up again.

“You think I prefer you prepped?” he asks, angling his head down besides yours to whisper in your ear. “The next time I eat that perfect little pussy of yours I want it to be filthy.”

He traces the lobe with his teeth for good measure, pulling another moan out of you. “I’ll even make sure to wait until the other two have a go at you, first.”

You feel your heartbeat stutter as he presses his lips to your pulse point, tongue darting past his lips to dab at the sweat there.

“No, precious, I wanted to make sure the perfume we make tonight matches all of you.” Doyoung’s nose brushes your ear as he breathes in your scent. “Every time I wear it I’m going to remember the way you sounded when you first came for me and me only.”

The promise of it has you feeling a different kind of heat, dizzying for how much you want it to last past this night.

“Fuck,” you whisper explosively, eyes clenched shut to stay fixed upright, fisting the thin material of his collar as he pulls you from the countertop and against the hard planes of his body. “I need you. Now. Please.”

“I like hearing you say that,” he chuckles a bit. “But I’m going to make you earn it. You can wait a little longer. You made me wait years, after all.”

You let him guide you into his lap, in the chair, pushed into the desk as he opens the notebook to another page. And another, until you take over and explore it for yourself. In the dim golden light from the street outside you catch glimpses of colors and drawings, notes written of impressions and memories you’d all but forgotten in your haze of grief these past few years.

There’s even photographs taped to some of the pages–ones you know well by the fact that they’d been taken on your camera. Doyoung didn’t have Jaehyun’s artistic training but he did have an eye for capturing candid moments.

November, your first year of college. You’re standing in the first snow of the season, catching flakes on your tongue. You can still feel the burn of them, hear the murmur of the city dulled in a fresh blanket of white and taste the roasted yam you’d eaten, tossing it in your mittened hands until it was cool enough to peel.

Doyoung’s shoulder is off-kilter beside yours, unable to capture himself in the frame for all his long reach. The peek of the striped scarf you’d knitted for him in gray and blue is all that’s visible of him under his peacoat, the mismatched weave of it captured even in this poor exposure.

“Base note: cedarwood,” you read, carefully, eyes hazing a bit with emotion. Evergreen.

“I still have it, you know,” he murmurs against your temple. “I only stopped wearing it because it started unraveling.”

“I’d make you another but I quit knitting after making three scarves,” you say, wryly. “Well two and a half, actually, I ran out of yarn on Jungwoo’s and made him a hat instead.”

“I thought you were just trying to get him to hide that ridiculous military haircut,” Doyoung muses. “Keep going or we’ll be here all night.”

“Now you’re impatient?” you ask, cementing your flirtation by shifting in his lap. You can’t ignore the feeling of his erection folded against the curve of your ass, or the way he grunts when you find a better seat with it nestled between your thighs.

“Sometimes I forget you were put on this planet to vex me,” he says. You’re lifted up by the waist, a hand on your lower back the moment you’ve found the desk for support, face above the book.

“Why don’t you try reading until I’m satisfied you know exactly what you’re getting?”

You don’t fight him, elbows bent as he rucks up your skirt. You feel your face grow warm with blood as you find yourself exposed to him again, locked in by his legs and his groping touch reaching up beneath your shirt.

"Base notes: amber and–" you have to fight to keep your voice steady as he swats your exposed curves, hard enough to sting.

"Ambergris,” he corrects, voice fried with delight.

“Ambergris,” you repeat. “And white musk."

"Good. And?"

"Bisabol–" you begin, corrected with another slap on your ass that hits, hard, glass jingling on the table.

"Did you jump ahead?" He asks, knowing full well your eyes are swimming with tears.

"No sir," you say. “I didn’t think that was a real word.”

"Opoponax." He says, reaching over you to grab a bottle, dropping a thick oil on you and rubbing it into your bruising skin. "Also known as sweet myrrh. Go ahead. Keep reading."

"Source: distilled from resin from ancient groves in Somalia, bought in Mogadishu from a local orchard, all profits to fund schools and clinics for women displaced by civil war."

"Do you believe this to be a charitable effort?" He asks, hand spreading over your buttocks. You think he might be referring more to your arrangement than whatever is written on the page.

"No," you say. Your history and political know-how might be lacking but you've seen the wrong side of kindness. "It sounds like what people write to make themselves feel better about exploitation."

"Clever girl," he answers. You feel his nose brush against your skin, testing the mingling of scent with it. "Keep going."

You turn the page, swallowing back your protests. This spread is rich with text and color, a veritable garden bursting from the page. You fix on the first entry in the upper corner, bracing yourself for another faux pas.

"Heart notes: Turkish rose," you say. "What is this, poetry?"

"Aren’t you familiar with it?"

You shake your head, lips pursed in delight at the scrawl of English. “No.”

You let out a gasp as he bites the flesh nearer your back, the sting of it surely leaving a mark by the way the pain lingers.

"Read it," he says, dipping over you for another bottle. “You’ll remember.”

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows," you dictate, stumbling over every word and yet never punished for it. Instead Doyoung lets a steady drip of the bottle fall down the back of your leg to your knee, his fingers bringing up the rest to mix what he's already poured on you.

"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."

You end your recitation in a whisper, leather binding and paper gripped in your fingers as he massages the oil gently into your tingling skin, careful to avoid where your legs are locked together in arousal. You're heady with scent and sensation, awaiting some reminder that this isn't just a strange dream you’ve wandered into.

"There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, lulled in these flowers with dances and delight," he finishes for you as he paints the rest up your spine beneath your shirt. You let him ministrate on your body as the words settle, as time recedes and you face a version of your youth you’re not sure isn’t just fiction.

That book beside you, the first time he’d spoken to, long forgotten.

“Midsummer’s Night Dream,” you say, turning to face him again, settling between his thighs as he fails to meet your gaze. You lift his face with your fingers, cheeks indented by your gentle hold. “You remembered that, too?”

“It was the first time you ever looked at me,” he says. “And it felt like you saw right through me.”

No, you’re not dreaming. You’re the architect of this moment just as much as he’ll claim to be a cursory observer if confronted on it.

You take in his mismatched eyes–one folding a little more than the other when he smiles at you ruefully. Those freckles you’d never really spent time examining, a happy accident of the time he’d spent with you in the sun. His fingers catching yours for a moment when you weren’t paying attention.

But most of all, the haunted cast where he’d lost sleep managing someone else’s problems. When he’d still been worrying about yours.

“You’re always thinking of how to take care of the people around you, I think you’ve forgotten how to relax and let other people take care of you.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “I don’t think I ever really saw you until now.”

“What didn’t you see?” he asks, expectantly.

Six years of his careful distance from you, that coldness and disinterest just another mask for someone who was as raw and vulnerable and real as you if you managed to pry open their shell. His tendency towards control, towards the knife’s slice of cutting you so cleanly from his life no one would know your name unless he spoke it aloud.

There wasn’t another human being in their right mind who’d last that test, your only grace being that he’d thought you were untouchable. His best friend’s girlfriend, of course. But beyond that, one of his best friends.

No, one of his only friends.

“What didn’t you see?”

It wouldn’t require money or taste or a family name to bring Saint Kim down to earth. Just time and small acts of resistance, like the beautiful shell remnants you’d spilled into his hands on that last trip to Maui together, when it had still been the five of you. Each ground down to a small disc with a perfect spiral at its center, a reminder of the beauty remaining in broken things.

You place the notebook in his hands, curling your fingers around his. The pages it’s opened to are sparsely constructed, besides the photographs nestled between. Only you two know what’s there, buried in black sands and blue waters. You can see his handwriting falter where he’s written the notes for this moment in your shared history, sketches of those shells, and flowers.

A single photograph of you watching the others playing in the surf, his shadow cutting across the stretch of your legs.

Top notes: Jasmine for sensuality.

Orange Blossom for innocence.

Plumeria, for admiration. a new beginning . . .

You recognize the creamy yellow-white flower he’d tucked behind your left ear when you’d fallen asleep beside him. A non-native plant to the island, you’d learned, worn to indicate one was taken. A weed, like you, now prized as a treasure.

“What didn’t you see?”

You pull back to look at him, giving him yourself without reservation.

“That I think you love me . . .” you say. “. . . Like I think I love you, too.”

He looks up at you, astounded, the chair beneath him creaking as he collapses.

For once you regret being beside him when you’d heard the same words spoken to him by other people, pulled into their lives without you ever remembering their names. The difference between you, you once believed, was that they didn’t mean it.

Now, you understand, they just never knew the true cost of losing him.

You watch him collect himself, running a hand back through his hair and curling into his seat, memories forgotten in his lap, bedamned. You’re sure the engines of Hell are running hot for the way he can’t even look at you right now.

He needs a way out, you think. You’d rather be drowned in other women’s wine poured over your head than be on the receiving end of his disregard again, the script already constructed in your mind before you’d found you had the nerve to sleep with him.

"You can be honest with me,” you say. “Tell me it's been fun but you're not interested in a relationship.”

“What?” Doyoung is just as confused as when you’d told him you loved him, as honest as you’ve been in both sentiments.

“Your family will never approve of me. I’m just another fling you happened to take a more lasting interest in. It’s better this way. Cut me off, forget about me and move on.”

It's his turn to balk. You expect his pre-programmed response. Saint Kim's gospel for turning down the interested but uninteresting party: deflect, dissuade, detach.

“No,” he says, face draining of color.

“It’s okay,” you say. “I can handle it. Really. We can still be friends.”

“No,” he repeats, more forcefully.

“What do you mean, no?” you ask. “Isn’t that how this always ends?”

“You stupid girl,” he says, grabbing your face in his hands so you can’t escape, making you look into his warm gaze.

"Don’t you get it? This was always about feelings.”

When his lips crush against yours you don't have to speak to respond, catching his head so you’re not suffocated by the raw emotion you can feel in every movement. You return each kiss until the breath is out of your lungs, until you're drowning in his scent as he forces you back onto the desk.

You’re impatient to feel him, everywhere, aware you’re ripping buttons as you open his shirt to gain access to his smooth chest, trailing kisses as far down as you can go, still unable to escape his tongue sliding over yours.

“I wasn’t going to do this here, like this, but fuck it,” he says once he’s free, fumbling with his belt as he holds you to pepper your face and neck in a steady reminder of his affection. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” you echo wholeheartedly, helping free him out of his clothing, pulling his length to where you’re still slick with oils and cum and ready for him. God, you think you’ve never been more ready to break around him, to show him what he’s brought out of you with this game.

“Please don’t make me wait anymore,” you whisper.

You watch his face, breath held and heart stuttering as he sinks into you slowly, both of you gasping at the way your heat resists each measure of his continuous thrust. It feels like he’s barely in you when he stops, making you moan in dismay.

“Doie, please,” you say, trying and failing to wrap your legs around his slender hips to capture him deeper. You’re half out of your mind with that burning weight inside you remaining still.

“Say it,” he says, taking off your shirt to have access to your skin. He pulls down your bra, nipples tugged between his fingers as he assaults your neck with his tongue and teeth.

“It’s special,” you choke out. “Thank you, please–”

“Say it,” he corrects, twitching inside you but not moving an inch more. He curls down to nip at your breast above the lace, sucking a mark into the softest part. “Without the ‘I think’.”

“No,” you resist, realizing what he’s asking too late. Your nails sink into his half-bared shoulder, head rolling against his. “You don’t get to torture me for that.”

“Don’t chicken out on me now.” Doyoung laughs against your cheek, hand splaying around your hip to still your squirming. “I can do this as long as it takes.”

He thrusts, just a little more, making you cry out in desperation as the contents of the desk tinkle behind you.

“Fuck,” you breathe. “You think I love you?”

“So, so close.” He pulls out, rocking into you again to feel the seize of your entire body when you anticipate just how far he’ll go before denying you. A little more, at least, and you can feel how much it’s taking for him, see the strain in his body as he holds back.

“You love me,” you tease, this time not a question, no you think. “Saint Kim loves me.”

He sheathes himself in you fully, gripping your nape to kiss you as you clench involuntarily around him, protests in the back of your throat muffled by his tongue sliding across yours. He tugs at your bottom lip when he breaks free, fully smiling now like he isn’t buried completely in your cunt just warming himself instead of chasing his own bliss.

“What did you call me?” he asks, leaning over you to retrieve something.

You take advantage of his distraction to snake a hand between you, slipping beneath your skirt before it’s grabbed, tight, and brought up to his lips.

“Don’t cheat,” he says, wrapping your fingers around the cap of a bottle.

“You never heard anyone call you that?” you murmur, opening it.

You smell spring flowers and delicate citrus before it’s taken away, set aside when you nibble and suck at his sensitive ear to make him twitch, hands drifting across his ticklish belly down to his hipbones. He reads your intent again, stopping whatever silly task he’s doing beside you to lift your wrists to his shoulders.

“The name is a little ironic, isn’t it?” you say, squeezing him experimentally with your thighs as you stroke his nape with your nails. You flex other muscles too–earning the grunt he makes as he feels you squeeze around his girth.

He angles your head, pressing something wet and soft to where your pulse flutters in your neck. You’re immediately permeated with a light, airy, sweetness, the different scents revealed like a melody that ends in that richer, warmer scent from earlier.

“Is that my perfume?” you ask.

“An anointment,” he says, blowing across your skin to dry it and sending a shiver down your spine to where your bodies are locked together, that fullness and muted pleasure of him radiating down to your toes.

“I do seem to have a demon inside of me,” you sigh into his neck as you rest your head against his shoulder. “Do they do that in exorcisms?”

“Blessings,” he corrects, adjusting with another grunt. “We’ll find out if it worked in about an hour.”

“An hour?” you grumble. “You think you can keep torturing me that long?”

“I think I gave you the key to your own cage,” he says, checking his watch. “About five minutes ago. Does it feel like longer?”

You mumble something into his rumpled collar, making him laugh beneath you. Even just that tiny movement has you involuntarily gripping him, abdomen clenched.

“What’s that?”

“I’llsayitifyoumakemecome,” you repeat, embarrassed enough to hide your face in the crook of his neck again.

“You think this is a negotiation, Y/N?” Doyoung’s hands are back on your breasts, thumbing the areola in slow circles that are very much a reminder of his touch earlier on your throbbing clit. You whimper, trying to stay still so he doesn’t figure out that if he continues to do that you might have a chance–

“You trying to make me come squeezing me like that?” he asks, breath ragged. “That seems like a quick way to end this.”

“You . . . you could just fuck me,” you wheeze, feeling the way he teases your pebbled, hard nipple with lighter brushes, his mouth quirked where it’s pressed to your forehead.

“What if I want to make love to you, instead?” he asks. He inhales sharply at your body’s response.

“Fuck, you liked me saying that, didn’t you?”

You nod, unable to speak, holding onto him in desperation as the combination of his words and soft strokes make you melt into the pleasure of every small motion of him inside you. You realize he’s unconsciously pushing into you, too, unable to keep his hips from pressing into yours.

Overstimulation is making you hyperaware of the scratch of his unzipped jeans against your burning thighs, the random brush of his open belt against your belly. Time seems to disappear as he holds you quietly, letting you soak up the fragrant, radiating warm reality of him.

“I can wait all night for it,” he threatens, even just his lower register making you quiver a little around him. “Count every time you twitch and moan on me until you break.”

You’d felt him flag a little while he worked but now he’s fuller inside you, stretching you wide as he twitches to life. It’s even hotter than all of this build-up, you think, knowing he can act a menace but that the idea of you surrendering to him is what’s really getting him off.

Of course, you think, mentally steeling yourself like you’re preparing for war. In a way this is something like it, up against as formidable a foe as he is.

“Doie,” you whisper, threading your hands in his hair as you nuzzle for his lips, kissing him softly and intimately, like it’s your first time. “When did you know?”

“What?” He goes a little rigid against you, unable to hide his rapid heartbeat with how close you’re pressed to him. You blink up at him, expectantly.

“When did you first know you loved me? Really?”

He smiles, shyly, but you see the hint of anxiety on his features beneath his arousal. There it is, you think, having to hide your own satisfaction.

“Is this a trick question?” he asks, warily, eyelashes half-lowered.

“Not if I know the answer,” you say, smoothing his kiss-swollen lips with a touch. “I don’t think it’s in that book, either.”

“Really?” He’s intrigued, a tentative rock of his hips against you making you dizzy. “Tell me.”

You shake your head, just as playful.

“I’ll tell you later,” you say. “After.”

He sighs explosively, nose wrinkling. “You don’t know.”

“Want to bet?” you ask. It’s always a little thrilling seeing Doyoung presented with an opportunity he can’t resist. He fumbles for the notebook beside you, almost slipping out of you when he has to reach even farther for a pen.

“Write it down,” he says, smug as a cat who’s caught something small and easily toyed with.

“Only if you do, too,” you say.

His answer is a pained sound of agreement, adjusting himself against the desk.

“No peeking,” you say, flipping to a page in the back.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing the book before the nib of the nice pen touches the creamy paper. “What are the terms?”

You ponder for a moment, feeling a grin slide onto your lips. “Doesn’t our perfume need a name? Whoever is right, gets to name it.”

You can practically taste his delight as he leans in to kiss you, forcing you to pull your page closer to you. You make him wait, filling the blank space as best you can with detail as he fidgets between your legs, sending small shocks of pleasure through you both.

“Thank you,” he says in earnest once you’ve handed him it open to a new leaf, his hand and the notebook shaking a little as he tries to write mid-air, finally resting it awkwardly atop your head in order to scrawl out his own answer.

“My eyes are closed, Kim Doyoung.”

“You’re a cheat,” he says, shushing you with an added thrust of his hips.

You settle back on your elbows, already enjoying your victory as you feel the tiny pressure of his handwriting, hear the scratches of his sketch. You're more emboldened than ever when the leather binding snaps shut.

“Now tell me,” you say, looking up at him coyly.

“Can’t I just show you–”

You snatch the book from him, turning to your entry. Then, to his horror, you rip your page free and fold it shut, tucking it into the pocket of his open shirt.

“Tomorrow morning,” you say. “You had 24 hours, right? I’ll give you my answer tomorrow morning.”

Doyoung looks as if he’s tasted something sour. “You won’t tell me.”

“I’ll tell you that you won,” you say, looking down at his page. You trace the fresh ink with care, admiring his tight script and explanation. “February to April? How could I have guessed an entire season?”

“Did you at least guess the year?” he asks, looking a little better for your affirmation of his win.

You nod, finally feeling the discomfort of your position and resting your head against his warm chest. There’s nothing awkward about being wrapped around him like this, the late hour and strange, still space making it easier to forget the world outside.

“Hard to forget,” you say. “I thought for sure I’d never see you again after that winter holiday.”

Another break with Johnny, of course–but this one had been your choice. You’d finally felt the crushing weight of two years of contempt from the people around him, the Suh family matriarch at the center of it all, doing everything in her power to crush not only you but the people you loved.

And then, when you’d needed him the most, Kim Doyoung had walked away from you, too.

“I didn’t think I’d see you, either,” he sighs. “It was the first time in a long time you weren’t with us. With me. And it was my fault for pushing you away when you were just trying to–”

“It’s in the past now,” you cut him short with a finger pressed to his lips.

The memory is painful, still–and you don’t want to sully this moment with it. You appreciate that even in his roundabout admission there’s a clear understanding for all you’d been through. You’d hoped he remembered that time from the past, when you’d first peered between the cracks in his carefully-manufactured facade.

Now you could be sure of what it meant to him. You feel like your own walls are crumbling, the light shining through.

“So you chose the period of time when we didn’t speak to one another, at all?” you muse. “Not just one day?”

“You know what they say. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he says. “You were on my mind every minute and every hour of those three and a half months.”

He pauses, sigh warm against your brow. “I couldn’t tell you when I knew, for sure. I certainly couldn’t admit it, then, even to myself. But sometime then, I realized I cared more about you than a friend.”

You’d never doubted he was capable of it, never doubted it might be true. But hearing him admit it, now you know why he wants to hear it from you, too.

“Say it,” you say.

He finally looks at you again, tired but alight with amusement.

“You first,” he says.

“Who knew three simple words would be so difficult for Saint Kim?” you tease him.

“Alright. Come here,” he motions, slipping out of you with a shared groan. He pulls you to a couch under the shuttered window, settling down and forcing you to straddle him. In this position he can’t stop you from immediately taking all of him, his eyelids fluttering when you bottom out.

“You feel like heaven,” he murmurs.

“You’re not going to last,” you laugh, delighted by the way his nose scrunches when you clench around him.

“Says the girl who’s sucking me in like you never want me to leave.” He grabs on to your hips to roll them against his own, fingers tightening when you wriggle against him. “You’re gonna say it first even if I have to fuck it out of you.”

“Whoever comes first, then?” you offer.

“I can live with that,” he sighs, head resting back on the couch.

You rock on your knees slowly, satisfaction warming you throughout as you force him all the way inside you. You let him hear how he makes you feel, pleading sounds and whispers every time he hits that place in your upper walls, curved inside of you perfectly. It doesn’t matter if you're in control you can’t help but hunt down that lovely rush of pleasure in your belly, twining your arms around his shoulders to steady yourself.

“Good girl,” Doyoung praises, watching you in awe through half-lidded eyes. “You’re so beautiful. I always wanted to know what it would look like when you lost yourself with me.”

His words make you shiver, brushing his lips until he holds you against his mouth to show you how he likes it, less exploratory and more confident. It’s maddening how good he is at this, making you feel every single sweep of his tongue across yours, hand on your neck keeping you from escaping.

“Don’t you want to–” you protest as he helps you to lay flat on your back across the length of the wide loveseat, settling between your thighs.

“Oh god, Doie,” you whimper when he takes over, finally, finally, beginning to fuck you. It’s just as slow but at least he penetrates you fully before pulling out almost all the way, shoulders quaking as he holds himself up.

“Promise me you'll let me dote on you for the rest of your life,” he says, not waiting for your response before driving into you again. His movements are barely controlled, grunts escaping the back of his throat when his hips snap into yours again.

“I promise,” you hold onto him, back arching off the cushion to meet him, blissed out in the relief of each, careful stroke against your fluttering walls. That crescendo is happening whether you want it to or not, every overworked knot of muscle threatening to snap loose.

“Promise me that no matter who you fuck you’ll always let me treat you right,” he says, voice breaking. “You’ll let me show you how I feel even when I can’t say it.”

“Yes, Doie. Yes.” You pull down on his shoulders, trying to move for you both, kissing his jaw and throat.

“Stop fighting me and take it,” he says, moving more easily with the thick coat of your cum, establishing a gentle rhythm.

His voice has always made it hard for you to pay attention to anything else but he abuses that power now, murmuring guidance into your neck that has you tightening around him as he fucks you deep and slow.

“That’s my girl,” he praises. “You’re taking me so well. Take all of me.”

You feel shivers up and down your body, nipples hardening tight as they brush against his chest, his hair tickling your forehead as he blindly kisses and licks at your mouth and chin.

You’d thought he’d be concentrating on something else in his head to keep from losing himself but instead it’s you who's floating, breath captured in your lungs when he adjusts on top of you to pin your hips down, pressing your leg wide to bury himself to the hilt.

“You feel so perfect. I could really do this all night, you know,” he smirks down at you from where he’s supported on his elbow. “Is that what you want?”

“No, fuck, please,” you whine. There’s no thoughts in your head besides just how much you want that ache inside of your cunt to melt into real pleasure.

“You want me to stop?” he asks, feeling how you begin to pulse around him as he swirls his hips up into that most sensitive part of you, his flat belly grinding into your clit. You gasp, leg locking around his, helping him work you apart.

“No no no,” you beg, face hot. “Just . . . just kiss me through it, please.”

Doyoung’s smile grows wider. “Say what you already told me.”

You twist your head against the cushion, earning his hand on your jaw as he makes you look at him while you break, kissing you between panting breaths. His confidence is written in the cocksure grin remaining on his mouth, more cruel when he bites at your bottom lip, hard, before licking the pain away.

“Say it,” he breathes, slowing down on purpose.

“I . . . ah,” you cry out, “I love . . . please don’t stop.”

“What’s that?” he asks, pace punishingly slow. Your legs lose feeling, vibrations starting in the back of your thighs and tremoring down to your feet.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” you repeat, nearly tipping off the edge, “I’m coming, I’m finally–”

He slows down right as you hit that crest, making you cry out in frustration.

“Doie, I’ll kill you–”

“Say it,” he says into your lips, pulling out–too far–

“Iloveyou,” you exhale, seizing around him in time to your wildly beating heart.

“Louder.” He slams into you again, merciless.

“I love you, you stupid bastard,” you say, hanging on to his shoulders. “I love you!”

“Good enough,” he says, drilling into you until he can feel you break, orgasm sustained through the painful pressure of him losing himself in your throbbing heat, finding your mouth again, finally, to silence the repeated mantra on your tongue.

You kiss him fiercely, unloading everything words aren’t enough for, legs tied around his waist to keep him locked inside you until he’s fighting back, fucking you so hard the sound of it fills the quiet room.

“I love you,” you repeat a final time for him, just to watch the way it makes him break, jaw slackening when he loses control, finally.

He stutters into his own orgasm, teeth scraping against your locked lips, forehead pressed into yours as he empties inside you for what feels like forever, finally collapsing on top of you with a whimper when his arms give out and he’s as limp as his cock inside you.

You scrape your nails across his scalp, soothing him. You don’t mind his weight, or the way you’re still pressed together with sweat and your combined spend.

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” he rasps, eyes dazed as he looks up at you.

“No,” you say, shaking your head tightly. “Not for me, at least.”

“You’re not mad?”

You know he means his inability to say the magic words but you crack a smile, just as pleased with yourself.

“About the bet?” you ask. “No.”

Oh, it’s delicious seeing realization dawn on his face, little glimmers of surprise and horror bubbling up from his afterglow.

“Fuck,” he says. You’re grateful he doesn’t deny it, rolling to the side in defeat.

“Who told you? ‘Woo?”

You laugh softly, rolling over to pin him down with your leg, trapping him against the back of the couch.

“You did, right now,” you say, relishing having him where you want him. “I had a hunch. And I know you, you’d never beg for someone to say something during sex–”

“I didn’t beg,” he corrects, grimacing.

“What was it? The first one to get me to say it? Bonus points if it’s on your cock?”

“Ah, well,” he says, perking up despite the fist pressed to his forehead in embarrassment. “Then you don’t know.”

“I’ll find out soon enough, Jaehyun wouldn’t–”

“You’re really not mad?” he asks, painfully reticent as you pull his hand away from his face and twine your fingers together.

“Not if it means I can use it as leverage,” you say, kissing his knuckles.

That doesn’t seem to surprise him, at all.

“Good girl,” he says. “What do you want?”

A few years ago, give or take

You’re a little too happy, an awful fact considering how much he'd missed seeing you this way.

Lately you’ve been sleepwalking through your life, all those tiny fractures and bruises finally having the time to mend–but healing is a painful process in itself. Doyoung had returned from his family’s formal Chuseok gathering in Singapore, eager to check in on you after receiving sparing responses from you via text.

You didn’t have a friend he could check in with instead any longer–not after that one girl had fled the country, the other ghosting you after their father was mysteriously laid off from a company he well knew did business with Suh International.

He’s worried about you long before that, terrified that one last straw would break you even if by all indications you were strong enough to take it. After you’d had Johnny arrested and solicited a no-contact order you’d cut your ex off completely, moving to a tiny apartment far from where you’d grown up, changing your number.

Only Jungwoo knew about it, and it was he who’d reluctantly offered your whereabouts to him after a few glasses of whiskey in their usual club.

“She asked me to keep her info on lockdown. Got that hacker kid, what’s his name–Haechan? Wiped her socials off the map, so he can’t find her. He did good but you know Suh.”

Doyoung nods. They hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, probably because the idiot was combing through every civic office and apartment building in the city. Hell, he’d probably driven around until he found her by sight alone, knowing that animal wouldn’t rest until he knew her whereabouts, as stubborn about chasing her down as he was about refusing the F4’s help.

“His mother called me to ask if the place he bought in cash was for her,” Doyoung says, knocking back his drink as he receives a text, heart sinking that it's not you. “Did you help him buy it for her?”

Jungwoo sighs. “No. I just got her rent halved with some coercion, you know? But then he goes and buys a unit in the same building with whatever stash he thought the Old Tiger didn’t know about.”

The Devil Kim leans back, long legs akimbo as he gestures towards the server for a refill. “He’s waiting for her to go back to Chicago before he moves in. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I did not,” Doyoung affirms, turning away from the group of women at the bar sending looks towards their private table. “Let’s plan for when Madam Suh leaves. I can have her pull him into the London offices, considering he’s failing his courses.”

“Stone cold,” Jungwoo says, smirking. “Glad I’m not on your shit list.”

“Just don’t fuck with her,” Doyoung says. “Or fuck her.”

Jungwoo laughs into his glass. “Even I’m not that stupid.”

He’d thought he wasn’t, either.

Not until you’d called a few days later, your speech a little slurred. He couldn’t have told you if what he was doing was important even if he was in a meeting, showing up to find you picking at a bowl of bar snacks in what he thought might be one of the nicer bars in your shitty part of town. Not as shitty as your old neighborhood, but it wasn’t a competition.

“Saint Kim,” you’d heralded him, raising an empty glass still smelling of watermelon and hibiscus.

“You shouldn’t be drinking alone, here,” he’d said.

You were dressed in one of your few nice outfits, a little on the revealing side for his tastes, but those had been Johnny’s you’d conformed to–animal print and thin straps, tastefully tasteless.

“I wasn’t,” you say, hiccuping. “Alone.”

For the first time in a long time fear spikes his blood pressure into overgear. Were you drugged? Was he going to have to fend off another predator who'd found you vulnerable?

You deserved the chance to move on but there was a real threat in what would happen to anyone who approached you without their permission. Johnny’s, yes, always, but the F4 had also agreed to look out for you well before your last incident at a club.

“Who?”

“She left,” you say. He feels instant relief, reaching out to adjust the thin coverup slipping off your bare shoulder.

“You make a new friend?”

You shake your head. “She’s nice. Met her in one of the ikebana classes work is paying for. Thought we were hitting it off but I must have said something dumb because she ran out of here, fast.”

You look up at him cautiously, too inebriated to realize he can recognize a set-up before it begins.

“You didn’t just talk about your ex, did you?” he asks, settling beside you at the bar. He orders something less ridiculous than whatever you'd been drinking, while you scroll through an Instagram feed, finger trembling over the screen.

You look up at him, color-stained lips curving in an easy smile. “You want to see what we’re working on?”

Doyoung finds himself looking through a grid that is immediately obvious is not yours. His mouth goes dry, seeing rows of beautifully-staged floral centerpieces, the backgrounds as familiar as the back of his hand. You don’t seem to notice, going to the user’s story and tapping in vain to find the picture she’d posted.

“She deleted it already. Huh. Well, she texted me the picture–”

“Stop.” Doyoung places his hand over yours, his palm damp from the immediate flood of adrenaline.

“So you do know Mona,” you say. You look up at him, expectantly, eyes glassy with the brand of hopefulness and naked curiosity he’s seen you charm everyone else around you with before.

“She’s the one, isn’t she?”

Doyoung pulls cash from his pocket, not caring how much he puts down except that he’s sure it’s enough to cover the amount he’d like to drown himself in right now. Enough to go blind and burn out the phantom of that face he’d put behind him years ago.

“Put your coat on,” he says. “I’m driving you home.”

“But I’m not–”

“Now,” Doyoung says, grabbing your wrist. He’s barely ever touched you in the years that you’ve been friends, and it sickens him when he feels you freeze in fear and confusion, that trauma response buried so deeply it's in your bones.

He wants to be kind, he wants to be patient with you. He just doesn’t have it in him to be anything to you right now.

“What’s wrong, Do–?”

“We’re leaving,” he says, dragging you out into the bitter cold evening, the streets slick with sleet, your heels catching on the pavement as you stumble in his wake.

“Stop,” you yell at his back, trying to yank your arm free from where he’s bruising your skin with whitened knuckles. “You’re hurting me–”

“You’ll live,” he says, pulling you to where he’s parked his car, the engine roaring to life the moment you manage to close your door. He can barely look at you, realizing too late that your crestfallen expression is making him more upset than the lightning strike of seeing her name again.

“You didn’t ask my address,” you say, quietly, met with his silence as he drives much more dangerously than the weather permits. He's forced to speak with you once he's slammed the brakes at an intersection, red light shading you through the windshield.

“Tell me one thing,” he says. “Did you try to set us up by having me come there?”

You’re petulantly silent now, an answer in itself.

“Answer me,” he orders, hands gripping the wheel.

“I thought you’d want to–”

“Do you think we have the kind of relationship where you can just do whatever you want and get away with it?” Doyoung’s voice is calm but he sees you flinch at his words and tone, your shoulders moving under your jacket as you begin to quietly cry.

It drives him deeper into anger, hitting the gas with a roar of the engine the instant the light turns green.

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself for this one, Y/N,” he says, already regretting every word tumbling out of his mouth. “You fucked up.”

“I just thought you could both have some closure after that–”

The car jerks as he brakes in the side lane of the service road, cars roaring past them honking their horns. Your sobs are barely audible over the idling engine and the blink of the hazards he turns on while he tries to find calm, your face turned away from him.

“You thought that interfering in other people’s personal lives would make you feel better,” he says. “No wonder you don’t have any real friends.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see your full body shakes still, can feel as that armor encasement you’d put together piece-by-piece over years of dealing with loveless reality falls back into place. And, years later–no, even hours later–he’ll remember how at the time he was stupid enough to think it was the right thing to say.

You needed a reality check, he’d thought. A reminder that all the wishes and hopes in the world wouldn’t change the bleak architecture of it, uncaring by design and much easier to navigate without them. That moving on was the only path to this idiot’s dream of closure, something you knew nothing about for how often you’d let them pull you back into their world, blinded by sunk-cost and loneliness.

All the things he wished he believed for himself, but without the benefit of your optimism.

“Fuck you, Kim Doyoung,” you say, opening the car door and slamming it shut without so much as a glance behind you. He’d waited to make sure you reached the nearest bus stop before driving off, calling Jungwoo to let him know you were here–crying in the cold.

He'd seen you in passing.

His best friend knew a lie when he’d heard it, most especially from him.

He wouldn't hear from you again until spring.

Kim Doyoung can’t sleep.

He’s not allowed to.

He can’t move either, arm going numb beneath your curled body, your breathing finally easing for the dozenth time since his trial began. You have horrible sleep habits–kicking off the covers, stealing the pillows–but tonight you’ve passed out with that same bone-deep tiredness he’d felt earlier, face beatific in the slivers of light piercing through the slatted shades.

It’s close to dawn, he thinks, the cacophony of insects and birds outside transitioning from a quiet chorus to a full orchestral suite. Soon it will be too loud to sleep deeply.

“Y/N?” he whispers, tentatively, not daring to move.

You don’t respond, relief rushing through him. It’s not that he’s desperate to join you in slumber but that he’s waited for you to finally surrender to REM. He needed you down.

And you needed it, too.

He’d negotiated with Jaehyun when you’d been in the shower, earlier, sacrificing precious moments of shared time exploring your skin and the new taste of you under the water to supplicate himself to his best friend and worst enemy in this moment.

“It’s a charter,” Jaehyun said, blinking sleep from his eyes but awake enough to be angry. “You’re not finding another one short term.”

“I emailed you the tickets. Cattle car but first class, at least,” he says. “Jungwoo agreed to give you his day, he doesn’t want to take her out until after dark, anyway. You can sleep in tomorrow.”

“Fine.” Jaehyun had slammed the door shut in his face, but he hadn’t missed the budding smile on his friend’s face. At least one person was rooting for him.

That’s how he’d earned another morning with you. As always, making up for lost time.

You’re half out of the covers, one leg sprawled over the duvet as you sleep. You’d put on one of his softer button-downs, inhaling the smell of it after he tried to steal it back.

“Please let me wear you,” you said. “I want to dream about you.”

Being around you like this is more comfortable than he imagined, as if you’re being slotted into a position he didn’t even know there was an existing space for. He’s woken up to women in his bed but you’re the first who’s ever asked him for this, particular experience.

“I used to have this fantasy, you know, whenever we crashed at your apartment.” He’d watched you go sheepish recalling, dates omitted for a reason. “Sometimes I’d lie there and touch myself thinking about you crawling into that guest bed–maybe a little drunk or you’d forget which room. Or maybe, you just wanted me to think that. I’d be awake but I’d pretend to be asleep while you . . . used me.”

He experiments by tracing his fingertips up your bare leg, the peek of your lace underwear beneath the hem of his shirt maddening for how it curves into the crest of your ass, presented for him. A treat dangled before him, the command to partake only that you wanted him to make it slow–you wanted to wake to it.

He sucks a breath in, erection in his sweatpants hard against the band already from just watching his sleeping beauty. He finds every mark on your leg, every fine hair, thanking Heaven above you aren’t overly sensitive or ticklish like he is when his hand slips beneath his shirt to your belly.

He slots himself against you, carefully, as if adjusting in his sleep. He has to wait for your breathing to even out again, slipping his free hand up to your breasts.

“Used you? Did you not get off in this scenario?”

“I mean, yes. But it’s mostly about you. You wouldn’t say anything at all, you’d just fuck me full of your cum and then you’d leave me leaking it on your sheets and go back to your room. Or sometimes I’d crawl in your bed, if you were alone, and you’d cover my mouth so the others couldn’t hear it. And the next day it would be like nothing happened, you wouldn’t even bother to ask how I’d slept.”

He loved how much of a slut you were, when you felt comfortable enough to share that side with someone. Johnny had certainly never appreciated the subtleties of your nature–too blinded by adoration to even consider degrading you on purpose.

No, Doyoung had known for awhile you pushed the boundaries with him to see if he’d break.

Your nipples harden even though he’s barely handling them, discovering what shape your breasts make in repose as he tries desperately not to rut into the swell of your ass. Warming himself in you earlier had been one of the hardest challenges he’d faced but it had been worth it to learn you inside and out, to know how to make you grip his cock with that delicious little cunt of yours with just a kiss or a word that pleased you.

You don’t wake but he knows he’s gotten through to that little lizard brain of yours when your legs rub together unconsciously, pushing back into him so his cock is settled between your buttocks. The friction from the lace is like the proverbial pea under a mattress–rubbing against his cock through the layers, catching on the veins and scraping the underside of his cockhead.

It’s already a nice ache, one he ignores as he adjusts to better continue plucking and teasing at your body beneath your shirt, until you’re used to his touch enough to truly fall back under, once more.

You're so vulnerable, completely at his mercy as he brings his hand down to test the patch of moisture growing in the fabric, that lace sticky with your dreams of him.

Use you, he thinks. You have no idea what he wants.

Doyoung can play with the fantasy of you crawling into your boyfriend’s best friend’s bed while he’s passed out in the other room, determined to be punished for waking a sleeping monster . . . but it’s not what he's fantasizing about now.

He takes time in stroking you, a single finger digging in between your lips through the fabric, listening intently for your breathing to change. You sigh, one of those full exhales one does in their deep sleep, but you arc back a little, into his touch, leg falling forward crooked so you’re a little more spread.

Doyoung wishes he could move down there and use his nose to push you apart instead of his hand but that’s not your fantasy–not this time. You didn’t want him to spoil you anymore, completely underestimating his love for it. True, he didn’t often eat other girls out, too personal or just too much of a chore to figure out what they liked, but you weren’t ever going to be with him and not come from that first.

Just the thought of tying you up so he can spend hours fucking you on his tongue is making his cock pulse, too hard to be ignored. He quietly pulls down the drawstring of his sleepwear, freeing himself so he can replace his finger with the much wider tip of his cock, biting back a groan as he rubs into that damp, soft lace he’d known would suit you the moment he’d touched it in the display box brought to his private buying room.

You'd never know he’d already fucked himself with it before ever giving it to you, that errant fantasy of touching you finally realized as you whimper a little in your sleep at the soft push of him between your legs. He finds where your clit is getting just as swollen as the rest of you, bouncing against warmth and the promise of unspooling that need with his help, again.

Just his precious little cocksleeve, spoiled and worshiped, showing your gratitude by begging for it even when you’re unconscious. He tests the waters of the scenario by slowly pulling the seat of your underwear to the side, easing in between the fabric and your folds.

You twitch against him, sheets rustling. He holds still, cock jumping and balls tightening with a little anxiety.

He only has this one chance.

Outside in the dark and quiet of the house sleeps the man everyone knows you’re really with, the one who doesn’t have to fight for an I love you to pass your lips. You’d never understood what it felt like watching you climb into Jaehyun’s lap whenever the whim took you, pretending you didn’t know what it did to him or the other two of them watching you.

Your breathing is shallow and your hand flexes a bit, against the pillow, but that’s it. Within a minute he’s grown more confident that you’re still asleep.

He reaches over you, pressing the pads of two fingers against the front of your underwear while he slips a little deeper between your legs, eyes almost rolling back in his head at the contrast between the satiny slide of you and the rougher cling of your panties. It’s a relief as he loses himself to it, rutting from the back while he applies constant pressure to your bud.

“Mmm.” You make a soft noise, but he doesn’t pull free, choosing instead to keep a hypnotizingly steady pace fucking against you. Your hips twitch against him, seeking out more contact, but he doesn’t rush–pressing his head against the back of yours and melding with you in the softness of the pillows and sheets.

You’re so wet you’re soaking his pants, everything he collects tickling down to his balls pressed into your ass. He’s going to stuff your mouth with his fingers, when you finally open it, make you gag on them while he fills you full from behind.

You moan now, voice syrupy with sleep. He doesn’t care if you’re still down, not with you gently pushing back, trying to get release.

Not yet, you little harlot, he thinks, hips going still again. He’s burning at the wait, your cunt continuing to glide against him as you act out whatever is going on in your dreams, the movement making him insane for how closely it adheres to his desire to have taken you back when you were innocent, his little virgin weed learning what her body wanted, seeking it out in his bed.

“Treat me like one of the girls you don’t really like. Use me.”

Such an unending fantasy of yours that he never wanted you, almost sweet for how dumb you are–or just willfully ignorant. He’s always liked the second one better–your little game played out that you were one of them. Dressed in that school uniform, kicking your skinned knees, sucking on a piece of candy while four college-age idiots hid their bathing-suited boners under their robes, fighting or fucking around in front of you so you could keep up that precious little illusion of immunity.

“Johnny,” you murmur in your sleep.

It should make his blood run cold but as with all twisted-up and tangled desires it only makes him feel ignited, pulse pounding in his head. You’re still asleep and thinking of someone else, someone not even in this house, the guilt of it passing over him faster than a cloud on a breezy day.

He rocks back into you, this time pulling out enough that he can find your soft hole, already tight again–the only part of your body not relaxed as he forces his way past the flutter of your opening, cockhead sensitive enough to sense the more textured g-spot where he knows you’ll come fast and easy if he fucks into it.

“Shh,” he says, finally trailing his mouth against your jaw, pushing into you softly. “Go back to sleep, baby.”

“Mmhmm,” you reply, nuzzling into the pillow, curling into him. He pushes a knee between your legs, folding you into the bed beneath him as he begins to fuck you, finally taking you for himself and himself alone.

You’re so warm inside, body adjusting to take him easily for how boneless you are, kitten-like mewls muffled by the pillow. It turns him on hearing the edge of pain there, the way you struggle when he pulls your underwear up so tight it sticks between your folds, clit rubbing against it the way he’d stroked himself to completion with it tied tight around his cock.

“Stay quiet or I’ll stuff your mouth full instead,” he whispers against your shoulder, feeling as always a little stupid but losing that internal cringe when you choke on a moan.

“Is that what my little slut was dreaming about? Gagging to tears on another man’s cock?”

He feels you tense at a bit at the suggestion, letting him use you in spite of the rougher handling.

“That’s right. You said another man’s name in your sleep. Do you think that's acceptable?”

You shake your head, whimpering.

“Such a whore you can't keep track of who's dick is inside of you. Tell me, who's fucking you right now?”

“Doie,” you say, music to his ears. He'd always hated the nickname until you started using it. You were the only one–you were always the only one who made his chest burn with unsated desire when you said his name.

“Who owns this tight little pussy?”

“You do,” you gasp out.

“Are you going to forget me? Maybe I need to fuck you so hard you only think of me when you spread your legs for another man.”

Doyoung feels electric at how easily you begin to crumble with just a few words, squeezing his dick so tight when he says something you like, even more when he makes it hurt.

“Sleepy baby going to let me stuff every one of your holes until I’ve had enough? Use you like my own little doll?”

You nod, no longer capable of speaking except in a plaintive moan when he leaves you to shuck off his pants and pull down your ruined panties, pillow pulled beneath your belly to force your ass up. In this position he can drill into you deeper, burying you into the mattress with each thrust.

“That’s what you get for crawling in here,” he says, fingers digging bruises into your hips to hold you down. “Keep your mouth shut and take it.”

The pleading, almost scared noises you're making have him hard and pulsing, two steps away from coming himself but in no hurry to. He pulls your hair to bring your head back, shoving his fingers in your mouth.

“You like that?” Your cunt can't hide it, sucking him in. “Get them wet for me.”

You drool over his knuckles, gagging as he fucks your mouth with them in an awkward rhythm to his merciless rutting. He spits into his hand when he's satisfied, fingers swirling around the tight rim of your ass so quickly it makes you buck.

“Don't scream,” he murmurs, giving you two fingers at once. You make a noise through the pillow you're biting, gripping him tight. He's gentler with this, slowing, letting you adjust to take him.

“This is my favorite, right here,” he groans. “Feeling my cock inside you with my fingers. I'd fuck this tight little ass again but I want to feel you come like this.”

He begins to stroke you harder, deeper, wet and sticky when his balls slap against your abused cunt. He keeps his fingers buried in you, scissoring you open as you take it.

“Come for me, Y/N, grip me good so I can fill that pretty mouth of yours.”

It's a beautiful feeling when you begin to throb, contractions in your ring of muscle letting him know when you hit your peak. He fights the tingling in his balls, the urge to come with you painful for how long he's been holding it back.

He talks you through it, instead.

“Such a good little hole,” he says. “You're coming so hard, baby, can feel it so well.”

You moan, loud, as you break, loosening almost immediately, flooding him with sweet, hot warmth. He makes sure the last of those tics is gone before pulling out.

“Roll over,” he says, straddling you with a hand on the headboard, delighted by the sight of your flushed face and starry eyes. You already know what to do, tongue lolling and uvula exposed as he guides himself into your mouth, soft tongue swirling around his tip.

God help him he's been thinking about this since yesterday, pushing deep enough to gag but not choke, fucking your mouth and the hot tightness of your throat when he hits it. It’s the sight more than anything that drives him to spill hot white ropes of cum into your mouth, pulling out to milk the last few splashes on your parted lips and delighting at the sight of you licking them with your spend-covered tongue.

“You’re so perfect,” he says, dropping down and kissing you, finally, tongues stroking each other until you finally pull free to breathe, blinking up sleepily at him.

“You do taste different,” you tease.

“I taste like you,” he says, pressing soft kisses all over your face. “My sweet, sweet girl.”

“Did you like that?” you murmur.

“I loved–” he pauses, watching the smile spread on your wet lips.

“I love you, you know,” he finishes. You reach around his neck, comforting him out of instinct, but he doesn’t need it.

“I love you,” he repeats, testing the words on his tongue now that they've flown out so easily, the tightness in his chest easing as you rise up to kiss him.

“It's beautiful to hear you say it,” you say. “But you're right, I know.”

“I think I even know the exact time and date,” you say, reaching between you into the pocket of your shirt to pull out that torn and folded art paper scrawled with your words and an amateurish sketch.

Tomorrow morning . . .

[Unknown number] [Tomorrow morning April 13th dawn is at 6:17] [I have something to show you. Meet me on the roof of the East Wind Hotel]

Doyoung looks at the text message again, hand hanging over the railing of a dance floor, conversation with the woman by his side forgotten. With the blur of a late night and a trip to a different hotel room, with a different woman, he'd almost missed it.

Probably one of the innumerable flings he's had, Jungwoo recruiting him to get every last lick of enjoyment out of Seoul before he enlisted. His friend snatches the phone from his hand.

“No business,” Jungwoo slurs, eyes bloodshot as he focuses on the text. “I thought you weren't working hospitality anymore.”

“It's not . . .” There's something nagging at him, like a bird pecking at his skull in time to the drone of the EM, the buzz of conversation. A sense of deja vu so strong he's forced to cycle on it.

“Pfft. I know you don't bring girls back to your kingdom,” Jungwoo says. “Stop working and party.”

Doyoung doesn't know why he feels compelled to see the cryptic message through, doesn't know why he races across town at 5 am, reeking of whiskey and another woman’s perfume, doing his best to sober up as the designated driver talks about the change in weather, the cherry blossoms in full bloom outside the window.

The morning commute is already surging and the destination central to the city so by the time he makes it he's out of breath from running two blocks away from a jam, head pounding.

“ . . . restricted for non-guests,” someone is saying, voice recognizable as an intern he knows from his leadership program, still stuck on night front desk duty.

“I just need a few minutes, please. I need to take a picture–” He'd recognize that voice in a hundred years if he hadn't heard it, not just a hundred days.

“What's going on here?”

You freeze, shoulders stiffening as you turn to face him. Not much has changed–a new haircut, same ratty old sneakers–but you look different. No longer a ghost, but just as untouchable for the skittish way you hold when he approaches, only the barest relief on your beautiful features.

You don't smile, don't even say hello.

You're scared of him, again, just that thought making him spiral.

“You came,” you say, exhaling. “We need to hurry. We need to get to the roof.”

Doyoung turns to the staff. “Is the roof access still shut down?”

“Stair access only, sir.”

Your eyes go wide at the interchange, something like embarrassment passing over your features as you begin to laugh.

“Of course this is your hotel,” you state, smacking yourself on the forehead. “Of course, why didn't I think to check that. God, I'm an idiot.”

“We didn’t change the name when we acquired the chain so it would be unlikely for you to have guessed that,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“There's no time and it's easier just to show you. We need to get to the roof, now,” you say, grabbing his wrist and tugging on it towards the stairs.

“Y/N,” he says, holding you fixed and pointing at the elevator. “We can take it up as far as we need to.”

You're still laughing maniacally twenty floors up. “I was going to cry if I had to go up another flight of stairs.”

“Are you really taking pictures?” He asks, gesturing at your camera.

“No, but I started carrying it the first time someone called the police on me thinking I was going to jump,” you giggle, wiping away tears. He feels delirious from lack of sleep, so maybe you are, too, but it doesn't seem to be the case as you spring out the doors, forcing him to guide you when you're lost in the executive suite hallways.

“I managed to sneak in last time, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten this far. I'm glad you came just in time, I think they were going to kick me out.”

He's surprised at how easily things have snapped back into place between you, no mention of anything that's happened as you race up the stairwell to the roof access.

“Will you tell me–”

“Oh thank god,” you say once your through the heavy doors and collapsed on the green helipad, growing impatient when he props the door open out of habit. He's been up here many times, nothing remarkable about the space besides the legacy sign on top, view crowded by other buildings at varying levels.

“Stand here,” you say, pushing him into place, turning him by the arms. “Do you see it?”

“I don't even know what I'm looking for,” he says, beginning to grow annoyed.

“Look over there, at the People's Bank. Relax your eyes, it will only take a minute.”

He feels increasingly foolish but he does what you ask, cool morning breeze clearing his muddled head. The sky is washed in a pink and blue haze, the sun cresting the more mountainous region of the city behind you to bathe the city in solid gold.

“There,” you breathe, letting out a little sigh.

“What?” All he can see is a few birds passing over the vista of crowded advertisements and neon.

“Do you see the light?” you ask.

“There's tons of lights–” he begins, cut short by the blinding catch of the sun's reflection on one of the characters, then another. He spells it out slowly, guided by your hand holding his to each one.

The bank: Sa.

The next building over, also burning brighter with the touch of the sun: Rang.

Then an advertisement that has been up long enough most of the original message is lost. Hae.

“How did you find this?” he asks, knowing it would be impossible for him to have ever seen this without knowing the trick of the light.

“I didn't find it. Well I did–I had to search some buildings for it.”

Later he'll find out you climbed close to fifty flights of stairs in the last two months, had spent every waking moment not working or in school breaking into buildings before sunrise to find that exact spot, forever amused at the thought you hadn’t checked his family's flagship hotel first.

“You don't remember getting the same message from someone else?” you ask. “I was worried you wouldn't come, again.”

Again. Something tugs the memory up from the oubliette he'd locked it into, Mona teasing him about sleeping in and missing their appointment.

Mona.

His stomach falls, checking back behind him at the door as if that particular ghost will return to haunt him.

“She's not here. I wasn't trying to set you up,” you say, recognizing the dismay he can't hide. “Honestly. And I know whatever closure you find is yours and yours alone. You were right about that, too, I'm sorry.”

You twist your hands in front of you, suddenly overwhelmed with anxiety. “I did this for me. Because I wanted to know what she tried to tell you, even if she couldn't say it aloud.”

You don't look at him, can't in order to continue. Doyoung feels like a live wire, exposed, two months of painful loneliness and a lifetime's worth of avoidance of this fact all surging through him in this moment.

As much as he would prefer to leave he's not going to run like he did back then, when he'd ignored the hard parts to pretend like a friendship wasn't something more. Not with the stakes of losing this one.

“You once told me you were just friends, even if you couldn't be one anymore for her after you realized you loved her. How it broke you to be with someone you couldn't be with, who wanted something different.”

“Now you know. She didn't want to stay one, either,” you say. You look up at him nervously, regaining your confidence.

“I just wanted you to know that you were loved, Kim Doyoung. You still are.”

You turn away towards the door, pretending not to have seen the tears dripping down his face under his glasses. He ignores them, too, not knowing what to say or do to make sure you never leave him again.

The spot never mattered to him, the word and it's confession forgotten in time. What changed that day was having you in front of him after so long, the way you were a reflection of him so many years ago, fighting to be by the side of someone who didn't know how to love you back, the right way.

He'd promised himself than that even if he couldn't say it, he'd show you.

“Thank you for coming. I'm sorry for interfering with your life, but that’s what friends do.”

You'd almost made it to the stairs when he'd wrapped around you from behind, the first ever time he'd held you in an embrace, unsurprised to find you shaking like a leaf as he rested a wet cheek against your hair.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “Thank you.”

You relax a little, squeezing his hand. In that small gesture everything is reset, everything is okay again. They won't talk about this for the next few years, even when Jungwoo asks how you'd come back into their lives so suddenly and without any indication that things had changed.

But they had. Deeply.

“You can make it up to me by buying me breakfast,” you say, smiling up at him, wiping his cheek with your sleeve. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

“Did I win?” you ask.

Doyoung can only laugh, giddy, as you burrow into his side to smother him in kisses and teasing. You were put on this earth to challenge him, after all–always right there to match him in stubbornness and competition.

He presses his nose to your neck, inhaling the remnants of the scent you'd made together, one bottle for each, though you didn't have to know his formula was just a bit different.

“‘Tomorrow Morning’ has a nice ring to it, I suppose. It lingers well.”

“It was my answer, actually. I needed to see if I could break Saint Kim's vow of romantic abstinence before I made up my mind,” you say, smug as you move to get up. “Glad you were able to find out before your time was–”

You shriek as he pulls you down again, pinning you to the bed.

“I still have a few hours,” he says, voice dangerous. “I'd like to hear you say it again.”

#kim doyoung x reader #kim doyoung fic #kim doyoung smut #nct smut #doyoung x reader #doyoung smut #doyoung fic #nct x reader #nct fic #nct imagines #nct fanfic #nct djj fic #nct dojaejung fic #nct djj smut #nct dojaejung smut #nct f4 au

131 notes · View notes

00127am · 5 months

Text

"it's a wonder how you don't have girls falling at your feet," "i have you,"

@ notyourmalelead top of his class, hallway crush kim doyoung isn't very interested in his semester long partnership with sailor moon obsessed, popular vlogger: you. until your larger than life crush on him is revealed. then he's much more interested in proving that he's not your male lead (and subsequently wishing he was).

@ information [🦀] class president! kim doyoung & afab! vlogger! reader genre smau, fluff, comedy, uni au, enemies to lovers, crush at first sight, mutual pining, lots of sailor moon references warnings dark humor (kys jokes), sexual humor/innuendos, cursing status updates every monday and friday @ 9AM ⤷ taglist always open!

@ masterlist @ ♡♡♡♡ @ soundtrack

follow others like this! playlists. yn ⟢ doyoung profiles. taeilenators ⟢ doyoung fan club ⟢ assorted

user notyourmalelead's posts C01. pretty sailor soldier meets her tuxedo mask C02. practically dating (give or take) C03. get an inch take a mile C04. chiba marmoru! or not... C05. in defense of usagi tsukino ⟢ new years special C06. on the dark side of the (sailor) moon C07. one step forward ten steps back C08. coming soon!

🧾 © 00127am 2024

189 notes · View notes

yeoosaangg · 6 months

Text

Die For You || Kinktober - Day 23

pairing ▸ kim doyoung × f!reader

now playing ▸ die for you - the weeknd

⤷ ❝the distance and the time between us, it'll never change my mind 'cause baby, i would die for you.❞

genre ▸ idol au, established relationship, smut

warnings ▸ dacryphilia, fingering, hair pulling, marking, wall sex, breeding kink

--------

Doyoung drags his feet into his hotel room, feeling super exhausted from the concert they just had. He saw you in the crowd cheering him on, but you never went backstage to greet him.

It made him a little sad.

He found it a little weird Taeyong went to go sleep in Jaehyun and Johnny's room, but he didn't have the energy to ask what's wrong.

Y/n: Hey there, handsome.

He snaps his neck too quickly at the sound of your voice. He closes the door and rushes into your arms.

You giggle when he spins you in the air, hugging you so tight.

God, you've missed him.

Doyoung: I thought- Why didn't you come backstage?

You give him a kiss on the lips before answering.

Y/n: As much as I love greeting you in front of your friends, I prefer our first meeting in four months to be more private.

Doyoung: I love you.

You giggle and kiss him all over his face.

Y/n: I love you, too.

Doyoung kisses you more deeply, turning the moment into a much more heated and needy one.

His hand slips into your shorts, sliding his fingers around your clit.

Y/n: Mmm, fuck.

Doyoung: I see you've missed me just as much I've missed you.

You moan into his mouth before he trails kisses down your cheek to your jaw, then your neck. His fingers slip inside you, making you moan.

This is an ideal scenario for you whenever you meet your long distance boyfriend.

Instead of telling him just how horny he makes you, you'd rather have him stick his fingers inside you to feel for himself.

And you are soaking wet.

His fingers work you open so good, his mouth leaving hickeys all over your neck and chest.

His hand comes up to pull at the roots of your hair and hold your head back so he can have more access.

He pushes you until your back comes in contact with the cold wall. Your breathing becomes more labored the closer you get to an orgasm.

Doyoung: Go on, baby. Make a mess for me.

You moan loud, cumming all over his fingers as they continue to pump inside you. He pulls them out and you open your mouth to suck his fingers clean.

Doyoung: Bet you taste delicious, love.

You bring your hips forward to grind against his growing cock. Both of you are so impatient to just fuck already, so you help him with his belt.

They stay just beneath the curve of his ass and you take off your shorts.

Doyoung: Jump.

You wrap your legs around him, dick stretching you as he presses you into the wall behind you.

Doyoung: My cock's missed fucking you like this.

You've missed getting fucked by him.

You move your hips to signal that you're ready and he pounds into you mercilessly. You scream as the motion of your bodies makes noise against the wall.

Y/n: So good!

He leaves more hickeys wherever there was an empty space on your body, cock being swallowed by your swollen cunt.

Doyoung can't keep his moans to himself, usually he's so composed. He can't help it since it's the first time in months that he's seen you, let alone fucked you.

You feel tears streaming down your face at how good he was making you feel.

How good his cock makes you feel.

He growls at the sight, rutting into you faster. The fact that you're crying out of pleasure gives him the need to fuck you more.

It boosts his ego.

Y/n: Doyoung!

And now his name falls from your swollen lips, his dick twitching inside you.

Y/n: I'm cumming!

You fucks you through your orgasm.

Doyoung: Gonna get you pregnant, love. Fill you up with my babies. You want that?

Y/n: Please, please, please! Want you to fill me up.

Amd who is he to say no to that?

He thrusts a few more times before spilling as deep inside your womb as he can.

He kisses all over your face and carries you to the bed, cock still inside you.

Doyoung: Can we stay like this? I love having you this close to me.

Y/n: Yeah.

---

a/n: meh. i think writing lots of fics in the span of two days with little sleep has drained my creative juices. thanks for reading ‹𝟹

p.s: i forgot to schedule the rest of these fics, so my bad (╥﹏╥)

212 notes · View notes

mochamamii · 6 months

Text

mafia!nct: how you meet.

▹ a/n: hello loves, wow two uploads in a day? are you proud of me ? 🤭 it’s been so long since I wrote in the mafia universe! I hope you enjoy this, have a great day or night gorgeous 😘💕

▹ pairing: mafia!nct x reader

▹ triggers: mafia!au, crime, manipulation, violence, light smut

Taeil first meets you at your job. Taeil owns a plethora of companies, both small and large, and all used as a cover to launder and legitimize his behind the scenes criminal activity. You just happened to be a regular girl working at one of these companies, only working in an entry level position at a front desk you would’ve had very low chances of running into someone like Taeil at work. That was true for the most part, it had been at a company wide holiday party nearly two years working at said company before your paths finally crossed. You were tipsy and flirtier than usual that night, completely ignorant to the fact that you’d been chatting up your boss for the better part of an hour. Taeil was intrigued by your forwardness and wanted to keep seeing you. It was fun and exciting for you too, Taeil seemed like such a puzzle to you, he gave you very few details about his life and even fewer about his career. It’d be months after your secret rendezvous begins before Taeil reveals to you he owns the company you work for, and it’d take years for him to ever share that he runs a criminal organization under the table, if he ever actually did, because if he can get away with not telling you he won’t.

“Why do you always ask so many questions baby? Why don’t we just enjoy our time together and we can talk about my job another day…”

Johnny meets you at a nightclub. Because of the dangers involved in his line of work he’s become a shut in more or less, only going out when it’s absolutely necessary. He’d take drinking at home with friends over a noisy club but his associates and him had been having a string of successful pushes in the expansion of their clan. There was much to be celebrated. You were there with a group of friends also that night, out to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Johnny took notice of you right away. Shameless in his ogling of you, his eyes were fixed on you alone in the sea of bodies on the dance floor. He approached you with a pep in his step to offer you a drink which you accept, afterwards you offer him a dance which he accepts. On the dance floor your hands eagerly grip and squeeze at each other’s bodies. You two spend the night together that first night, a fairly brief and passionate situationship ensues after night one. For months your relationship with Johnny feels purely sexual, there’s not much about him or his life that you really know and he never seems eager to share. Johnny drags his feet on cuffing you officially for fear of involving an innocent person in his life.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve always had serious feelings for you. The only thing stopping me was wanting to keep you safe.”

Taeyong meets you after one of his associates dragged you into his warehouse. Apparently, you had been the witness to his crew “taking out the trash” as some would say…Instantly upon seeing you Taeyong realized you really were just an innocent girl who had been in the wrong place at the right time and not a secret spy from a rival. He pitied you. You had seen his face and plenty of the others faces’, releasing you could be risky but keeping you here was tiresome and more of a chore. Taeyong decided he would give himself a few days to decide what he wanted to do with you, he let you go home, under heavy surveillance of course. He needed to know if you were going to try and run to the police and snitch on anything you’d seen so far. Taeyong starts visiting your home in the evenings, he told himself it was a strategic intimidation tactic to keep you from calling the cops. Truthfully, Taeyong just wanted to be near you. He’d become really drawn to you, his visits getting longer and longer as he gets to know you better. It’s a nice slow burn before your relationship turns romantic. Taeyong is actually grateful he had met you in the manner he did, it was refreshing to start a relationship and wonder whether he should tell them about his career. You knew from the start, and that made courting you a guilt free indulgence for him.

“You know more about me than most people do. I like that and I want it to stay that way, I promise there’s nothing I’ll ever keep from you.”

Yuta meets you during the middle of a heist of all places. In his crew he was the go to man for high intensity missions like bank heists, and assassinations occasionally. You were on your way home from work when you made a stop to deposit your paycheck into your account. Your corporate slave job had yet to transition to the twenty first century and go digital with their payroll system. You were stuck with paper checks for now. Your interaction with the bank teller across from you was almost done when you jumped due to the fire alarm suddenly going off. The alarms went off followed by the sprinklers on the ceiling, creating a heavy downpour, drenching you and everything else. Yuta and his gang strolled in confident as ever, heavy machine guns in tow. They were the picture of frightening nightmares. Yuta made it known he was clearly in charge, barking orders at his crew, all of them moving in harmony. They cleared the bank’s reserves in minutes, sweeping the vaults like they knew the floor plan by heart. Yuta floated over to you as his crew began piling the bags of cash into their van. Yuta caught you hiding under a table near the back. He thought you were absolutely adorable the way you looked at him in fear. He pulled you from under the table to get a better look at you, he gave you a quick two second once over before nodding with a content hum and tossing you over his shoulder. You squealed and squirmed to get down but he only held you tighter spewing out nonsense like he had decided to keep you for a little bit.

“Stop squirming so much bunny…I’m not that scary am I?”

Doyoung meets you through a match maker interestingly enough. Doyoung was born into an infamous crime family, arranged marriages between associates was a common practice for families like Doyoung’s. As Doyoung begins to take the reigns from his father he knows a marriage is on the horizon he’d need to find a match from another strong clan to join forces with. You happened to be the daughter of not a fellow mob boss, but a wealthy man who earned his wealth legitimately.. As an only child your parents were eager for you to settle down and give them some heirs so you went to a matchmaker for help. By fate you and Doyoung had been paired together, he was introduced to you as your average successful businessman. The attraction was there immediately and a relationship between you two quickly blossomed. It was easy, you both had similar ambitions and goals. You fit together perfectly from the start. Doyoung isn’t sure he’ll ever reveal to you his real job, why should he when things are already great between you two?

“I never thought I’d meet someone this way, but I’m glad I did. I’m glad I met you, my other half.”

Jungwoo meets you through a mutual acquaintance. He was in the market to buy a second property, it would be a safe house for himself and other people close to him. He had a friend who recommended Jungwoo contact you. He was a busy man who needed a realtor to find the perfect location for him, that’s where you come in. You’d sold a number of properties to Jungwoo’s friend already who made sure to give him a stellar review of your work. Jungwoo was running out of time and his friend had convinced him well enough so he called you. Upon the first meeting in person Jungwoo was struck by your beauty. He forced himself to remain professional not wanting to be distracted. You’d begun working for Jungwoo for months at this point, sending him several properties you’d found throughout the week. It didn’t matter what you sent him, he always seemed so unimpressed and displeased with what you’d shown him. You were growing annoyed and worried that you’d never find a property he would close on. Truthfully, Jungwoo loved nearly every listing you showed him, he loved spending time with you even more. He wasn’t ready to close on something quite yet, he wasn’t ready to stop spending time with you, he liked talking to you. Jungwoo’s crush on you grows more every day, eventually he has no choice but ti confess his feelings after you nearly threatened to quit if he refused to finally close on a property.

“I just needed any excuse to be close to you, that’s where I’d always rather be.”

Mark meets you at the hospital. You were working an overnight shift. You were in your third year of residency, working under the guidance of your seniors. That night was like any other night until the doors of the receiving dock flew open and paramedics quickly wheeled a wounded man on a stretcher inside. You were among the staff called to attend to him. You learned from the paramedics that he had been in some kind of shootout. You helped assist the surgeons during surgery as they removed any bullet fragments still remaining. The man remained in the hospital until he was well enough. During this time you cared for him everyday, cleaning and dressing his wounds, checking his vitals, etc. Mark recovers quickly, he’s upset with himself for caving and going to a real hospital, it was a risky move but his clan’s only private doctor was preoccupied and the severity of his injuries definitely called for medical attention. The only good thing that came out of risking getting his identity exposed was the cute nurse who was in charge of caring for him. He was attracted to you and it wouldn’t be long before he asked to take you on a date. You say yes to his offer and the rest is history. Mark won’t outright admit to what he does over time you come to find out on your own.

“You don’t need to know everything about me just yet, I don’t want to scare you off so soon…”

Haechan meets you at a restaurant. He’s having a celebratory dinner with his clan, at the restaurant you waitress for. As luck should have it you were the one picked to serve the loud rowdy bunch of drunk men. Surprisingly the bulk of them left you to do your job without any pushback from them. All except one. The one who sat himself at the head of the table, Haechan. He couldn’t keep his eyes and hands off of you all night. Every time you walked by he’d wink at you from afar and when you were close enough he’d try to pull you into his lap. You were used to serving drunks of all kinds and had your fair share of customers trying their best to flirt with you, Haechan was the most aggressive customer you’d ever had. Haechan was diligent and persistent, he didn’t press further that night and made sure you were tipped well. You thought you had seen the last of Haechan but you were so wrong. Haechan came in almost every day after he first saw you, always requesting you as his waitress. You were uninterested and ignored his advances every time but Haechan could appreciate a challenge.

“That’s fine, ignore me now…I’ll come in every day until you respond beautiful.”

#nct yandere #yandere nct #lee taeyong #yandere kpop #kpop yandere #kim jungwoo #lee haechan #kim doyoung #johnny seo #yuta nakamoto #nakamoto yuta #yandere nct reactions #mafia nct reactions #nct reaction #nct 127 mafia au

240 notes · View notes

mins-fins · 12 days

Text

SKYLINE HIGHLIGHTS

❝ look carefully, it's a shame.. ❞

in which. you are only looking to work at the titular skyline highlights for two reasons. one: the pay is exceptionally great for your position, and two: it's your shot to prove to your family that you can actually do something productive with your life, but oh you're such an idiot, because you weren't exactly sure what you were getting yourself into. if you knew this company could potentially be haunted, your bosses were weird freaks, and your coworkers were the most impulsively stupid people in the world, would you have taken this job? absolutely not. but you guess you needed some sort of thrill in your life.

𖥻 pairing nct 127 x male reader

𖥻 genre modern au, paranormal horror(?), office workers!127, also kinda ghost hunters!127, written series, fluff, comedy, some angst, also some horror, mainly unserious, based off that little agency 127 skit they did during ay-yo era 😭, romance, slow burn, pining

𖥻 warnings swearing, explicit language, sexual humor, toxic family dynamics, mentions of toxic workplace environments, mentions of death, ghosts and shit, fighting, mentions of alcohol consumption & smoking

𖥻 status coming soon.

𖥻 soundtrack

❝ if this moment that will pass by.. ❞

──── ⭒ INTROS reaching for the skies!! 𖦹 the rest of the clouds

──── ⭒ TABLE OF CONTENTS i. wait THATS the new guy!? ii. cubicle gossiping iii. THIS IS WHY NOBODY LIKES YOU!! iv. the girls are fighting…… v. ghosthunting is the new romantic segway more chapters tba..

𓏧 taglist open! ↳ if you'd like to be on the taglist for this fic, you can simply send me an ask or comment on this post!!

#☆ skyline highlights! 일이칠..#nct 127 #nct 127 au #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 drabbles #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 series #moon taeil #johnny suh #lee taeyong #nakamoto yuta #kim doyoung #jeong jaehyun #kim jungwoo #mark lee #lee donghyuck #nct 127 x male reader #𑁍 ࣪˖ 𓂃 isa's works!

54 notes · View notes

mymoodwriting · 21 days

Text

13.2k, vampires, witches, magic, threats of death, blood, cocky behavior, teasing, workholic, abuse, workplace abuse, verbal abuse, lack of sleep, stress, work related stress, fluff, near-death experience, character death & resurrection, blood drinking, biting (@starillusion13 @peanutpinet)

“We should get a Queen?”

“What?” Johnny questioned. “Why all of a sudden?”

“I mean, there are a lot of benefits to having a Queen.”

“We’re doing just fine.”

“I’m just saying… it would be kinda cool.”

“Then go tell Taeyong.”

“I don’t know if he’d like the idea. It’s a whole thing, and we’d have to find a witch willing to do the spell. I doubt it’d be cheap too.”

“What wouldn’t be cheap?”

Doyoung walked into the living room, taking a seat on one of the couches and letting out a relaxing sigh. Blood still stained his lips, but he was quick to lick away the remains.

“Haechan was saying we should get a Queen.” Johnny stated. “And it definitely wouldn’t be cheap.”

“Why would we get a Queen? We don’t need one.”

“But it would make our lives easier.” Haechan remarked. “And we’d be more powerful.”

“It’s dangerous.” Doyoung reminded. “Although it’s not entirely a bad idea.”

A moment later the door opened and the others piled in. They just had dinner and now needed to let the blood settle down.

“Taeyong…”

“Hm? What is it, Haechan, still hungry?”

“I… kinda… but I was wondering… wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a Queen?”

“Wait, why would we need a Queen?” Yuta asked. “What’s that all about?”

“A Queen can be very beneficial for a nest. A source of power and blood.” Taeil explained. “With one we wouldn’t need to hunt as much, and our hunger would be better satiated. We’d be able to blend in with humans a lot better too.”

“That sounds great, so why don’t we have a Queen?”

“Well as you can see a nest doesn’t just have one. We’d need a witch to perform a ritual, and that itself is dangerous.”

“Well, I like the idea.” Jungwoo admitted. “I’m down to give it a shot.”

“I second that.” Mark added.

“Did you all not hear about how this is dangerous?” Jaehyun reminded.

“How dangerous can it really be?”

“We can wind up dead if this doesn’t work.” Johnny said. “Why do you think it’s not a common thing among vampires? Whole nests end up dead in pursuit of a Queen.”

“Shouldn’t we at least take a vote on this?” Doyoung questioned. “It doesn’t seem like everyone is opposed to this deadly idea.”

“Sure.” Taeyong agreed. “We can do this anonymously.”

The boys wrote down their choice on a piece of paper and added it into an empty glass. Taeyong was the one to count the votes afterwards. Lucky for them their numbers were odd so there would be no tie.

“Before I check the votes, are we all going to be okay with whatever the outcome is?” Taeyong questioned. “We could potentially end up dead.”

“Considering we’re immortal beings.” Mark said. “The threat of death seems more like a challenge than something to fear.”

“I swear, how did I end up with you guys?”

Taeyong pulled out the pieces of paper one by one and showed the others, placing it in one of two piles. In the end, the majority voted yes to embarking on this dangerous endeavor. The first step would be finding a powerful witch. Fortunately Taeyong knew of one, so they could at least deal with that hard part. The next night they made their way to a witches coven. It wasn’t common for both their kinds to meet, or to be friends, but Taeyong was an outlier.

“Irene, it’s so good to see you.” Taeyong embraced the witch in a hug. “How are the girls?”

“We’re doing well. I was quite surprised by your message though. What could you possibly need from me?”

“My nest and I want a Queen.”

“Ah, you’re serious?”

“Yes. Is that something you could help me with? I understand if-”

“It’s your nest on the line. If you’re serious about this then I won’t stop you. Besides, what other witch can you trust with such a spell.”

“Thanks.”

“Come on now. You’re all invited in.”

The boys entered the house, being mindful of their surroundings. Irene led them down to the basement where she had all her ingredients and the space for performing spells. While Irene gathered her ingredients, and had her girls help, she spoke of what came next.

“Do you know what this spell entails?”

“No idea.” Haechan answered.

“But you are aware of its dangers, right? You could end up dead.”

“Since this isn’t common, we don’t know much about it.” Jaehyun said. “I wouldn’t mind you enlightening us on the situation.”

“Of course. You see what makes this spell so dangerous, and the whole Queen thing in general, is that you are bonding your very being to another. The spell basically fractures your soul and in order to complete it you must find a Queen. If you don’t, well, you end up dead.”

“How long do we have?” Taeil asked. “Once the spell is done?”

“About a week.”

“Seriously? That’s not so bad.” Mark commented. “How is it that a nest winds up dead because of this?”

“Oh, you think it’s easy? You better get that idea out of your head or you will end up dead.”

Irene had one of her girls draw symbols on the floor while she began to mix ingredients. She had the boys sit down in a semi circle.

“And you’re all sure you want to do this? Cause once I cast this spell there is no undoing it. Even once you find your Queen, you can never remove her.”

“We understand.” Taeyong confirmed. “There is no going back once we do this. So you can proceed.”

“Alright. First, I need you all to spill your blood into this bowl.”

One of the girls handed over the bowl with a knife, and the boys passed it down the line. It wasn’t exactly sanitary, but with their healing capabilities it wasn’t an issue.

“As I mentioned before, this spell will weaken you. The first day or so you won’t feel it, but afterwards you will. Your hunger will disappear, and sunlight will be more of an issue for you. What you need to do within that week, before you lose all your strength, is to find your Queen and feed her the potion that is created as a result of this spell.”

“Why do you make it sound like it’s so difficult to find a Queen?” Jungwoo questioned.

“Because it is. You can’t just pick any random person to fulfill the role. They must be compatible with you, all of you.”

“Oh.”

“Which is honestly the most difficult part of all of this. Once the spell is complete I can point you in the right direction of your Queen, but unfortunately I cannot give you a name or address. Time is of the essence, and you must be swift.”

“If you can’t give us a name, then how exactly are we supposed to find our Queen?” Yuta wondered. “This sounds like a wild goose chase.”

“I’m afraid I don’t really have an answer for that. I’m not a vampire with a Queen, but from what I’ve heard you’ll know when you find the one.”

“Pretty vague, don’t you think?”

“If you don’t wish to attempt this, I can stop here.”

“No. We continue.” Taeyong stated. “Now that we have more details of the dangers, we’ll make sure to act accordingly.”

“Very well.”

The bowl was returned to Irene and she mixed up the contents once more. When she finished she had it placed between her and the vampires. The girls sat beside her, and Irene began the spell.

“Last chance to back out.” Irene commented.

“We got this.”

“Okay. This will hurt you as we begin, so bear with me.”

The candles that had been set up were suddenly lit and all other light sources were turned off. The girls began chanting, and when they opened their eyes there was nothing but a white glow. As far as they knew nothing was really happening, that is until they began to feel a pain in their chest. It felt like someone was ripping out their heart, but there was no way to stop the feeling. The fire from the candles grew in size, beginning to combine with the other flames. For a moment they were all blinded by the light of the fire, and then it all seemed to travel to the bowl, burning the contents into ash. Or at least that’s what they thought.

Once the fire was gone the candle light went out, and all the other lights turned on. The boys could take a normal breath as the pain in their chest began to subside. Irene paid them no mind as she took the bowl and poured its contents into a small vial. She swirled it around for a bit before placing it in a small box and grabbing the bowl, returning to the others. Her girls pulled out a map and set it down on the floor. Irene lifted up the bowl and cast another spell before pouring out the remaining contents onto the map. The strange crimson liquid stained the map for a moment before it began moving. It created a small circle on the map and spelled out the name of the marked location.

“That is where you can find your Queen.” Irene held out the box to Taeyong. “When you do find them, they need to drink the contents of this vial, and then you need to stop their heart.”

“What?”

“What? Did you think your Queen was going to be human? No, no, they need to become a vampire like you, and you know how that process works. Once they turn, you must all drink from them in order to complete the ritual. All this must be done within a week. Understood?”

“Yeah, we got it.” Taeyong took the box. “I guess we should get going.”

“Indeed. And one last thing, Taeyong.”

“Hm?”

“Don’t die.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

🖤

For the time being they felt no different than their usual selves, although the clock was ticking. The trip to their destination wasn’t a long one, but they lost half a day. Vampires wouldn’t burn in the sunlight, unless they were exposed to it for too long. Thankfully they arrived during the night, not having to worry about anything but the task at hand. They found themselves in a small little city, a few skyscrapers painting the skyline. It was a beautiful place, but the size was a bit concerning. Their Queen was here, but they had no idea where to start.

“So, what should we do first?”

Haechan was the first to step out of the car, stretching his limbs and getting some fresh air. The hyungs had already picked out a hotel to stay at, getting the penthouse suite, now they just needed to check in. Haechan took in the sights, enjoying the view around him, and thus not aware of his surroundings. As he took a few steps back he wound up crashing into someone. Papers scattered to the floor, and both parties fell to the ground.

“Fuck, watch where you’re going.” Haechan hissed.

“Sorry, so sorry, you’re not hurt are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Haechan noticed a young girl frantically picking up the papers. She didn’t even look at Haechan as she apologized. This pissed him off, but before he could make a comment the girl winced, grabbing her hand and revealing a small paper cut. He saw a dot of blood bloom on her finger, and then he caught a whiff of her scent.

“Oh…”

“I’m so sorry, but I really have to go.” The girl sucked on her finger for a moment before scrambling to get all her papers and stand up. “Sorry again.”

Haechan watched as the girl rushed into the hotel, disappearing from view. He was still on the ground, staring down the path she had gone. Mark soon came over and helped him get back on his feet.

“Are you okay?”

“It’s her.”

“What?”

“That girl… she’s the one…”

“What girl?”

“The one that just went into the hotel… she’s our Queen.”

“What nonsense is he spewing now?” Johnny said. “We just got here.”

“Listen to me, it’s her.”

“How do you know?” Doyoung questioned. “Or are you just jumping to conclusions?”

“I’m telling you, it’s her. Whoever she is, her blood, her scent, it’s calling to me… I have to go after her.”

“Easy there.” Taeil came over to grab Haechan. “You were just a rude prick to her, so I doubt she wants to see your face. And I’m pretty sure you’re just hungry.”

“Our hunger is practically nonexistent now. I’m not entirely hungry for her blood, but for her… although I wouldn’t mind a taste either.”

“Well, you’re not going after her.” Taeyong stated. “Some of the others can follow this lead of yours and the rest of us will check in.”

“But-”

“I’m not going to repeat myself.”

The boys all got their things and made their way into the hotel. Although Haechan was more focused on following the sweet scent. He wandered off just a bit before Johnny grabbed him, but it did provide answers. A sign in front of the hotel ballroom stated that there would be a fashion show there in three days. People were coming in and out of the room, meaning things were getting set up, and Haechan was certain the girl he had run into was in there.

“She’s there. I know it.”

“If you say so, but you don’t get to go.”

“Please, please, I’ll behave.”

“Taeyong already told you no. Now come on.”

Johnny informed the others about Haechan’s discovery, and his theory. With all that said Taeyong decided he’d investigate this, taking Yuta and Jaehyun with him while the rest checked in and took their bags upstairs. The trio made their way over to the ballroom entrance, sneaking inside when no one was looking. Once inside they could see that the stage was being set up, along with the tables and chairs. No one paid them attention, at least not at first. Since they were just standing around it was assumed they hadn’t been given a task yet.

“You three, what are you doing?”

“Oh, don’t mind us dear.” Taeyong compelled. “We’re just looking around.”

“If you’re not here to help with the show, then leave.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

“The person in charge of this show. Everything has to be perfect, so if you’re not going to help, leave.”

“I-”

“Now!”

The girl snapped, startling all of them, and pointing at the door. That’s when they noticed the bandaid on her finger, confirming she was the one Haechan had spoken of. Although what had Taeyong and the others perplexed was her immunity to their powers. It could just be a side effect of the spell, but they couldn’t be sure that was the case. She started ushering them out when another voice spoke up.

“Y/n, what are you doing!?”

You quickly turned around to face your boss, Vevee, with a big smile on your face. She walked over to where you were and you began to explain.

“I was just kicking out these intruders. Everything is still going according to schedule, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Is that so?”

“You must be in charge.” Taeyong spoke, stepping up to introduce himself. “I’m Taeyong, I was hoping to meet you.”

“And you are?”

“Here to help. I see you’re having a fashion show, and I have some wonderful models for you.”

“Do you now?”

“Yes. Let me introduce Jaehyun and Yuta.” Taeyong gestured to the other two. “Of course I have a few other models, but they’re up in the penthouse.”

“Ah, so you’re the one who stole the penthouse suite from me.”

“Apologies, but I need the best for my models.”

“Vevee, we already have models for the show.” You interrupted. “We don’t need anymore.”

“A few more won’t hurt.” Taeyong compelled. “Right?”

“… you are right, why don’t you bring down your boys tomorrow morning. It will be easier to see if they’re any good once the stage is set and they can walk the runway.”

“Of course. I’ll return in the morning.”

“Vevee.” You said. “We-”

“That’s enough. This is my show, now get back to work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Vevee offered Taeyong a smile before returning her attention to the stage being set, giving out some directions. You were glaring daggers at this Taeyong guy with his dumb models. He only gave you a smirk in return. Things may have worked out for him, but you knew you were gonna get an earful about this later.

“I’ll see you later, y/n.” Taeyong smiled.

“Fuck off.”

Taeyong left with the other two in tow. It wasn’t until they were in the elevator going up that they questioned what Taeyong had done. He said he’d explain once they gathered with the others. It seemed the rest were settling in well, and Taeyong gathered them all in the living room, gazing out at the skyline while he waited.

“So, how did it go?” Haechan questioned. “Did you find her? Was I right?”

“Maybe…”

“Yes!”

“Wait, what?” Johnny stated. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, but there was something about this girl. My compulsion didn’t work on her. I thought maybe it was because of the spell, but my power did work on her boss.”

“Don’t forget to tell them about the other thing.” Yuta mentioned.

“What other thing?” Doyoung asked. “What did you do?”

“Tomorrow morning you’re going to walk the runway, see if this lady likes you for her show.”

“What! Why!?”

“This y/n girl is working the show. So if we’re a part of it too, it will give us a reason to be around her. I’m not sure if she is the one, but we need to get more information. Even if it’s not her, participating in this fashion show will allow us to mingle with many other individuals in the city, making it easier to find our Queen.”

“I always wanted to walk a runway.” Jungwoo commented. “I’m down.”

“Then we’re in agreement. You all better be on your best behavior.”

“We will.”

🖤

Come morning the boys made their way down to the ballroom. The boss was nowhere to be seen, but they quickly found you as you were glaring at them from the stage area. Taeyong merely smiled and waved, deciding to help himself to the snack table with the others. He knew it would be best to socialize with all the other staff members, but before he could say anything he began to overhear some gossip.

“Did you hear what y/n did last night?”

“No, what happened?”

“She was trying to kick out these guys, and said this was her show.”

“No way.”

“Right? I mean, she’s not technically wrong. She does everything for Vevee, this practically is her show.”

“Sh! If the boss hears you-”

“Vevee won’t be here until, like, noon. Besides, she won’t take it out on us. You know Vevee blames y/n for everything. She got scolded over not getting the penthouse suite, and then for trying to get rid of those potential models. I swear, I don’t know how that girl puts up with such a boss.”

“I guess the pay is good.”

“I don’t think any amount of money is enough for being Vevee’s personal assistant.”

“That’s true. Let’s get back to the green room, those models should be here soon, and I heard they’re hot.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to meet them.”

After overhearing that Taeyong glanced back over to the stage, seeing you give direction on light placement, speaking into a headset as well, and then answering the questions of the other employees that came up to you. If he didn’t know otherwise he would think you were in charge, especially since the real boss was nowhere to be found.

“Ya! Mr. Intruder.”

Taeyong didn’t realize you were talking to him until you walked down the runway to get closer to him, yelling and waving your arms around. He put on a cocky smile and walked over.

“Yes?”

“Get your boytoys to the green room for hair and makeup. There are some test outfits they can wear, so I want them ready to go in twenty minutes.”

“And where is your boss?”

“Upstairs sleeping. Any other stupid questions?”

“You don’t like me much, do you?”

“What made you think otherwise? Now go. You’re down to nineteen minutes.”

You gave Taeyong a fake smile and got back to the others, continuing where you left off. Knowing Vevee her alarm was probably going off, so she would be down soon. You still remembered how she fought you about staying at the hotel, especially since it wouldn’t be the penthouse suite. You had to put your foot down though, knowing she’d be hella late if she was at her own place, and at least like this you knew where to find her in case of emergencies. Or you could easily get her out of bed yourself. For now, you’d give her the benefit of doubt and hope she came down on her own.

🖤

Taeyong gathered his boys and went to the green room. There were plenty of others around, but he paid them no mind. A few of the stylists around took the boys, starting to get their measurements and figuring out what outfit to put them in. One almost got him, but he wasn’t a model for the runway. He wandered around a bit, taking in the other models, and looking at the official outfits for the show. Last night he had done a bit of research, getting more information about this Vevee. The lady had quite the reputation. Her work was widely praised, although it wasn’t easy to get kindness from her, even if it was fake. Taeyong might not have gotten the chance to be here if not for his powers. Which reminded him.

“You, pretty girl, get me an iced americano, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

He needed to test his powers a bit more, just to make sure if last night was a fluke or something. A while later he returned to the others, finding them seated as they were getting the last few touches of makeup.

“Alright, models, please make your way to the stage for the test run.” You came to the green room, barking out orders. “Let’s move. This isn’t the big show but you all better act like it.”

“I was wondering where you were.” Taeyong commented. “I wanted you to do my hair and makeup.”

“I’m not a stylist.”

“Are you sure? It seems like you can do every job here.”

“Just get your guys to the stage.”

“Of course.”

You didn’t hang around the green room for too long, returning to the main stage and feeling relief upon seeing Vevee present. You quickly went to get her a coffee before approaching.

“Where are the models?”

“They’re backstage right now. Shall we start a test run?”

“Yes. I need to see who actually knows how to do their job.”

“Of course.”

You spoke into your headset to give backstage the green light on starting the test run. The lights went down and the first model walked down the runway. You stood by Vevee’s side, examining the models as well to make sure everything went smoothly. For the most part you knew who was on stage as you had worked with these models before, but when you saw Taeyong’s boys you were a bit taken aback. You didn’t care much for them, but now that you were really seeing them, you were quite stunned by their beauty. This wasn’t even rehearsal, but they were good, and you hated it.

“So, what do you think Vevee?”

“Get them all on the stage, now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Through your headset you told backstage to have the models come onto the stage. Vevee looked them over, pointing at the ones she wanted gone. All the new boys remained on stage to your disappointment.

“Alright. I want outfits fitted for them.”

“Yes, Vevee. I’ll grab a handful for the promotional shoots as well.”

“Might I volunteer my boys.” Taeyong suggested. “Some new faces should draw attention.”

“I’m against the idea.” You stated. “It’s better to stick with models we’ve used before as people recognize them and trust them.”

“On the contrary. Something new will entice others to come. Besides, you have to admit all my boys are quite the face card.”

“Vevee-”

“That is an excellent idea. Y/n, have the boys prepped for the shoot.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. I’m off then, I have a lunch engagement. You can handle everything here, right y/n?”

“Yes, Vevee.”

“I’ll stop by tonight for a proper rehearsal.”

“We’ll see you then.”

You only threw a glare at Taeyong before ordering the models back and following them. A few things needed to be changed, and you needed the stylist to prepare the new boys. Taeyong stayed with the boys, but then he got curious as to where you were, so he went off to find you. He asked around, being told you were in one of the green rooms. He knocked before entering, going to a few rooms before finding the one. He found you leaning against the wall, the smell of coffee in the air.

“I see you finally got a break.”

Taeyong didn’t get a response, figuring you were ignoring him, which wasn’t a first. He approached you, placing a hand on your shoulder when the cup of coffee suddenly fell from your hand. It spilled to the floor and you started to slide down the wall. He quickly caught you, seeing that you were passed out.

“Y/n?”

“Hm… what the fuck!”

You opened your eyes and came face to face with Taeyong. You screamed and shoved him away from you. For a moment you lost balance but were able to catch yourself.

“What are you doing here!?”

“I was looking for you.” Taeyong explained. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You-”

“What do you want?”

“I… are you okay? Looking at you now, you seem exhausted.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“You were sleeping standing up.”

“A quick power nap.”

“Did you even sleep last night?”

“No, I pulled an all-nighter to get things properly set up for today. Then I had to be back here for the final touches and to make sure Vevee woke up on time. I swear, she drives me insane sometimes. She kept fighting me about staying at the hotel, but I needed her to be here since she couldn’t possibly be late if she was so close to the event space. And- why am I even telling you all this. Are your boys done with hair and makeup?”

“How are you even functioning right now?”

“I’ll take that as you don’t know, so now I gotta go look into it myself. Move.”

“Y/n.” Taeyong grabbed your arm. “Go to sleep.”

“Fuck off!”

“How… you’re only hurting yourself if you keep doing this! Vevee-”

“Took me in after I graduated, when I had nothing! She gave me a job and helped me build myself up from scratch! So don’t you dare question me! You’re working for her too now, so we’re in the same boat.”

“But-”

“Don’t act like you care about me or something, you’re just here for a paycheck. Now leave me alone. Gosh, I’m gonna need to get someone to clean this room now.”

You pulled yourself out of Taeyong’s grasp and left the room as you called for maintenance to clean up the spilled coffee. You checked the time, needing to check on the models. Taeyong stayed put, once again left in shock over how his powers didn’t work on you, but also worried about the state he had found you in. He didn’t even notice until now how much you actually did, and how you weren’t really credited for any of it. He was just having fun by teasing you, but maybe he needed a different approach.

“Is everyone almost done?”

You went to the green room where the models were, glancing at each one to make sure they were ready. The photography crew would be here soon and you would have to focus on them while they set up so the models had to be ready. Everything was still on schedule, so you were at least grateful for that. You told the stylists to bring the models out to the stage once done. You then ducked out to make sure the photoshoot area was set up and met up with the crew once they showed up. You made sure everything was set up well, and then took note when the models arrived. They were quite intrigued by the new faces, but of course whatever Vevee wanted, she got. Although the photographer didn’t seem to mind the new boys.

“How do I look?”

Haechan couldn’t help but approach you, feeling exceptionally handsome today. You only rolled your eyes at the question.

“Presentable, now pay attention.”

“To what?”

“The shoot. You’re new models, I doubt you’ve done this stuff before.”

“I’ve never been a model either, but I’m a natural at it.”

“What?”

“Don’t you agree.”

“I swear you’re all just trouble.”

“Only to you.”

“Honestly. So if you’re not models then- Ya!” You ran over to Yuta, taking the drink out of his hand. “What are you doing!?”

“Huh?”

“You just got your makeup done, why are you drinking?”

“It’s just water.”

“Yeah, and now I need to touch up your fucken lips. None of you are professionals.”

You went over to one of the stylists lingering around, dragging Yuta with you. The stylist handed over the kit they had and you found the match for Yuta’s color. You immediately began to touch up his color.

“Is there something you can’t do?”

“Keep you all in line apparently. Don’t fuck up your makeup again, got it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“So, can I buy you a drink later?”

“No.”

“Please. When do you get off work?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Huh?”

“Go on now, you’re next.”

You dragged Yuta over to the shoot area, watching from the sidelines. Now you could take a breath cause being so close to that boy was making your face burn. Usually you kept yourself composed around the models, you had worked with them before, but all this new talent, it was taking you back to when you first started. It had been so fun to work alongside Vevee, setting up shows, taking part in every aspect so you could handle any emergency. Now everything was just a job, and it was exhausting. Still, seeing the final product was worth it.

“You know, I don’t think you actually had that coffee earlier.”

“So?”

“Here.” Taeyong held out a cup of coffee. “Maybe you can have some now.”

“Thanks.”

You didn’t want to accept anything from him, but the caffeine wouldn’t hurt. To your surprise it was your order, but you weren’t gonna ask how he knew that. Instead, you might as well get some information.

“May I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Who are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“None of your boys here have any experience as models, so you’re definitely not some sort of agency. I know Vevee only let you participate cause they’re good looking and-”

“You think my boys are good looking?”

“Why are you here? Cause as far as I’m concerned you somehow talked your way into this show, but it was never your intention to be a part of it.”

“Perceptive, aren’t you?”

“So I’m right.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why are you here? What do you get out of this?”

“My boys and I came here looking for something.”

“Well I hope you find it, and fast, so you can get out of my life.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very much.”

“When I find what I came for, I’ll let you know.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Y/n.” Jungwoo came over. “Can you touch up my makeup?”

“Go ask one of the stylists.”

“But I saw you fix up Yuta.”

“So?”

“Please, I want it to be you.”

“So you can do makeup.” Taeyong commented. “You’re a true ace, aren’t you?”

“Shut it. Jungwoo, go ask someone else.”

“But-”

“Let her drink her coffee, go on now.”

“Fine.”

You rolled your eyes when you saw Taeyong’s smirk. You wished you could walk away but you had to keep watch of everything. Once the shoot was over you were relieved, finally able to get away from the boys. Everything was done for the day, but you still had work to do. All the other employees checked in with you before leaving for the night. You were back in one of the green rooms, working on your laptop and going over the pictures from the shoot. You needed to pick the best ones to send over to marketing. The goal was to have the promotional period out by tomorrow morning, so it was going to be a long night.

🖤

“She doesn’t like us very much.” Jaehyun commented. “Are we sure it’s her?”

“We’re not.” Doyoung reminded. “But it seems likely.”

“Your powers still work on others, right?” Taeyong questioned. “I’ve had no problem compelling people today, but it never seems to work on y/n.”

“Oh, that’s a first.” Johnny mentioned. “Unless she has anti vampire measures.”

“I doubt it’s that.”

“We should take her out to dinner.”

“Didn’t you already get rejected, Yuta?”

“Shut it.”

“You gonna try again?” Mark teased. “I doubt she’ll say yes.”

“Maybe not one-on-one, but all of us, like some company dinner.”

“She’s already suspicious.” Taeyong mentioned. “So I doubt she’ll wanna be near us.”

“Suspicious?” Taeil questioned. “Of what?”

“Us. She knows you’re not models, and is questioning our reason for being here.”

“Well, we don’t plan to stick around for long.” Jungwoo said. “So it’s fine.”

“It’s not considering she’s most likely our Queen. We need to get along with her, it’s in our best interest.”

“We need her to survive.” Haechan remarked. “We’re gonna turn her anyway.”

“And don’t you think it’d be better if we were on good terms before then. Or perhaps we can get her to agree to all this.”

“Oh, that would be good.”

“Exactly. So be nicer to her tomorrow, understand?”

“Yes, sir!”

Only a few actually slept that night. Vampires were mostly nocturnal creatures but things had been different the last few days. Taeyong stayed up, staring at the city and the night sky. Every day that passed was dangerous, but he was certain of his choice, he just wanted things to go well. Before sunrise Johnny and Jungwoo decided to head down to the ballroom to look around the show area before everyone else showed up. They messed around on stage for a bit before heading to the back. The outfits they had worn the other day were just for practice, so they were curious if the ones for the show were around somewhere. As they searched they came across an interesting and concerning sight.

“Y/n?”

The boys wound up finding you passed out at one of the tables in a green room, sleeping on your laptop. They carefully went to your side and shook you awake, accidentally startling you and making you jump out of your seat.

“What time is it! How did you get in here?”

“Easy, easy, we were just looking around.” Jungwoo explained. “It’s barely like five in the morning.”

“Five… good.”

You exhaled and sat back down, turning on your laptop to make sure you had finished everything last night. You had, which meant everything was still on schedule.

“What are you doing here so early?” Johnny asked. “Didn’t you go home last night?”

“No, I was busy.”

“Are you serious?”

“You didn’t answer my other question though, what are you two doing here? Rehearsals don’t start til eight.”

“Just curious, but since we found you, how about breakfast?”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Okay. I wasn’t really asking. So either you come with us to have breakfast, or we’re gonna mess around rehearsal.”

You glared. “I’d call your bluff, but you guys don’t know Vevee, or care. So fine, but we can get the hotel breakfast, that way I’m not far from here.”

“That works for me.”

You really were reluctant to share a meal with these guys, but you couldn’t trust they’d behave today unless you did this for them. The three of you went to get breakfast, although when you tried to get coffee they didn’t let you, saying you had been drinking enough caffeine as of late. You complied and got some food. Even if you sat and ate with them you had no intention of making conversation, but it was hard to keep quiet.

“How many hours did you sleep?” Jungwoo wondered.

“Enough.”

“You should have at least slept on the couch. Probably more comfortable.”

“I’ll sleep after the show.”

“That’s not exactly better.” Johnny said. “You’re compromising your health.”

“And you care because?”

“It’s concerning.”

“I’m fine, so no need to worry.”

“Vevee runs you into the ground everyday, how can you-”

“I’m not talking about work with you.”

“Fine. In all honesty though, you do an amazing job.”

“What?”

“Seriously. You’re pretty talented all on your own. I’m sure today will go smoothly. I promise we won’t be trouble.”

“I’ll keep you to that.”

You were caught a bit off guard by the compliment, but you just wanted to finish eating and get back to the ballroom. You finished up first and excused yourself, ditching them and heading back to work. Once other staff members began to arrive you had them begin setting up and get ready for the models. Eventually Taeyong and his boys came down and you directed them all to the green room.

“Another busy day?”

“It’s always busy.”

“Did you have breakfast?”

“Yes, your boys blackmailed me.”

“What?”

“Forget it. Do you need something?”

“No, but if there’s anything I can do to help. I know rehearsals are important.”

“Oh… uh…”

“If you need anything from me just let me know. I’ll be with my boys in the green room.”

“Alright.”

You really weren’t expecting a one eighty on these boys, but maybe they weren’t entirely unprofessional. Still, you weren’t gonna dwell on that and just continue with the task at hand. You hoped everything would go well, but when you got notice that one of your stylists called in sick you knew things were gonna get complicated. You didn’t have any other choice, so you went to the green room and got a list of who still needed work done. Of course it had to be some of Taeyong’s boy. You could see all the smiles on their stupid faces when you grabbed the makeup but you didn’t say anything, they would.

“Ya, y/n gets to do my makeup.” Haechan cheered. “Best day ever.”

“Quiet down.”

“Yes ma’am.”

You focused on the makeup, occasionally stepping away when others asked for direction, but for the most part you were keeping on schedule. The boys complimented your work, glowing over the fact you had gotten them ready.

“Y/n.”

“What?”

“Is everything alright?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Well, you said you’re not a stylist.” Taeyong pointed out. “Yet you’ve been here.”

“One of my stylists called off today, and I don’t have anyone else.”

“Ah, sorry. Can I help in any way?”

“No, you just…”

You didn’t want to ask him for help, but you also knew it wouldn’t be the best idea to just take on extra tasks. You really hoped he just didn’t make a fuss with you later.

“Actually, the catering service should be arriving soon. Do you think you can have them set up in the same area as yesterday? You know where that is, right?”

“I do.”

“Cool. I’m on channel four if you have any questions. Just borrow a walkie from someone else.”

“Thank you.”

You could mentally check off that task and just continue with what you were doing. When another staff member brought up the catering team being here you just told them Taeyong had it handled but to check on him and let you know if you were needed. You didn’t hear back so that was a good sign, and you could rest assured knowing your staff could get some food.

“When did you learn to do makeup?” Doyoung asked. “You’re good.”

“Just something I needed to know to help Vevee.”

“Have you ever thought of being a stylist?”

“My job is more than that.”

“Yeah, but having a solid career choice isn’t bad.”

“I guess, but right now I need you to be perfect.”

“It’s just rehearsal.” Jaehyun remarked in the next chair over. “You don’t need to be perfect.”

“If you have that kind of mentality about rehearsals you’re not gonna make it as a model. Every show is important, and you need to treat it as such every time. That way when it really does matter, you’re not stressed but doing something you’re confident in. So please, treat today as if it was the actual show.”

“Wow, never thought of it that way. Is that how you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll do my best today, promise.”

“You better.”

By the time you finished with makeup the runway was ready for rehearsal. You checked in with tech to make sure they knew their marks and then told everyone to be ready in ten. As you stepped out to the show area you saw Vevee sitting by the stage with a coffee in hand. She was chatting away and seemed to be in a good mood. You took a breath and made your way over.

“Hi, Vevee, glad you made it.”

“Ah, there you are. Is everything ready?”

“Yes. We’re gonna-”

“Then let’s start.”

“The team is-”

“Now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

You called to those backstage to start everything in the next handful of seconds. You knew they were all probably gonna scrambled for a moment but then the lights went down and the models began to walk the runway. You paid attention to them, making note of where to improve while also making sure Vevee was content. If she had any notes she’d let you know afterwards. You went through the whole show in silence, thankfully the music playing made things less awkward. While you seemed focused on the models, Taeyong kept his gaze on you. Despite everything you were still working, you didn’t even take a seat for this. Once the show was over Vevee got up to speak with you.

“The models need to exude more confidence and pride. They’re wearing Vevee originals, this is the opportunity of a lifetime for them.”

“I will let them know.”

“Tell the marketing team to send out more promos in the morning, and don’t use the same pictures twice.”

“Got it.”

“Very well, on another note, what were you thinking!?”

“I’m sorry, what-”

“You had Taeyong working! He’s just a representative of his company and you thought-”

“It was no trouble at all.” Taeyong cut in. “I offered and-”

“I’m so sorry about that. Y/n should have no problem managing on her own. There was no need for you to step in.”

“I-”

Taeyong noticed you desperately shaking your head and trying to tell him to stop talking. He wanted to defend you, but seeing the worry in your eyes made him step back.

“Apologies. I don’t mean to worry you.”

“Let the girl do her job, no need for you to break a sweat.”

“Understood.”

“Good. Now y/n.”

“Yes Vevee.”

“I want another rehearsal tomorrow before the show.”

“What? If we do another the staff would need to come in before sunrise, and it would have to happen along side-”

“I don’t care for the details, just do it.”

“Of course ma’am.”

“Alright. My work here is done. I have to get ready for tomorrow.”

“We’ll see you then ma’am.”

You gave Vevee a bow and didn’t move until you knew she was gone. Taeyong took a step towards you and then saw your legs give out on you. He quickly caught you and held you up. For a moment you allowed it before getting yourself together and pulling away from him.

“I’m fine.”

“Sorry about earlier, I thought-”

“It’s fine. We need to run the show again.”

“Again? But we-”

“I need to incorporate Vevee’s notes. It won’t take long.”

“Fine. But you need to eat first.”

“What?”

“You nearly fainted just now, and it’s lunch time for your staff too anyway.”

“Right, right…”

“Come on, you need to take a break too.”

“I said-”

“I’m not asking. Please, if you’re not gonna take care of yourself then let me do it.”

“I-”

“Let’s go.”

Without asking Taeyong took your hand and led you over to the food table. He got in line with you, still holding your hand. He made you hold your tray while he placed food on top of it, asking what you wanted and getting his own food in the process. Afterwards he sat down with you, getting you some water and telling you to ease off the caffeine. He even took your phone from you so you could actually eat. You didn’t say anything to him, and he didn’t pry you to talk. The rest of his boys eventually came to the table too, but you didn’t make conversation with them either. You just wanted to finish your food and get back to work. Although you knew Taeyong had a point. It was lunch time, no one besides you would be working.

After you finished eating you excused yourself, and thankfully Taeyong let you go. Once everyone was back you had the models get touched up and had staff prepare for another run. When Taeyong came over to you he asked where he could help but you just threw a glare his way. You weren’t gonna ask him for help again. Still, he stayed by your side as you ran the second rehearsal, talking to the models and the backstage crew. Taeyong had to admit you were quite good at being in charge. Everything went smoothly and everyone seemed to be having a good time. You were a bit ahead of your own schedule which was great, but next came the hard part. You gathered everyone and informed them that they needed to come in early for another rehearsal before the actual show.

The complaints came rolling in, but it was what Vevee wanted and there was no going against it. Since everyone had finished up early, you let them know that once they packed up their things they were free to go. They all seemed a bit upset, and you really felt guilty for it. You checked over everyone’s stations and then dismissed them. In the end it was just you, or so you thought. Taeyong and his crew were still hanging around, some up on the runway messing around. You were glad to see them smiling and having fun, but the day was over.

“You guys can go home, you know.”

“We know.” Taeil said. “We were waiting for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Dinner and then we can take you home.”

“I’m good, thanks. There are still somethings I-”

“Nope.” Johnny cut in. “Tomorrow is the big day, you should eat well and then get some rest.”

“It’d be a waste to go home considering how early I need to be here in the morning.”

“Are you gonna sleep here then?”

“…”

“You’re kidding.”

“You guys can go.”

“You’re coming with us.” Mark stated. “You can’t stay here.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Easy now.” Taeyong spoke up. “It’s really not a good idea for you to stay here, especially without eating.”

“I’ll order something in a bit.”

“How about I propose something else.”

“Like what?”

“Well, my boys and I are staying in the penthouse suite. So why don’t you come up with us, we can get room service, and you can crash on one of our beds. That way you can get some good sleep and not worry about being so far from the ballroom. How does that sound?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to be well rested. Tomorrow is the big day. I’m just trying to help.”

“Fine, but if any of your guys try anything I swear.”

“We’ll all behave. Promise.”

“Alright. Let me just grab my laptop.”

The prospect of sleeping in an actual bed was really too tempting to pass, so you went up with the guys to the penthouse suite. You were stunned by the view, heading over to the window and looking out at the city. It seemed to be alive in its own way at night, and you had never seen it like this before. Taeyong brought you over a menu and you ordered yourself something, getting to work in the meantime. You ate as you worked, glad you were left alone as well. When you finished up you decided to take a shower, staying in a dress robe afterwards.

“Ready for bed!?”

You yelled as you stepped out of the bathroom, seeing that Yuta had been waiting outside for you. He quickly apologized for startling you.

“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Cool. We have a room set aside for you. It’s all clean, so if you need anything else just let us know.”

“Thanks.”

“Sleep well.”

“I’ll try.”

🖤

To your own surprise you had no trouble falling asleep with a bunch of strangers just outside the door. Although to be fair you had locked the door just for your peace of mind. You woke to the sound of a knock at your door, getting up still half asleep. So when you opened the door you were a bit surprised to see Johnny. That startled you awake, and the boy apologized.

“I didn’t want to wake you, but I’m sure you’d give me an earful if you were late.”

“Yeah, I would. Thanks.”

“No problem. Breakfast is on the table. Come by and eat before you head down, okay?”

“I’ll be at the table soon.”

“Good.”

You dressed in your clothes from last night, planning to change when you went down. You left your show outfit there since you didn’t think you’d be going home at all, and you were right. Once dressed you joined the others at the table, greeting them. You were still a bit sleepy, but you ate nonetheless and then excused yourself. You reminded them what time you expected them down and then left. Today was the big day and everything had to be perfect. Of course you were the first one down there, starting to go over your checklist and preparing what you could. The staff knew what they had to do, so all they did was check in with you before going to work.

By seven the models began showing up, getting prepped. You had no time to chat with Taeyong or the others, and they knew not to bother you too much. Then came the decoration staff and you had to direct them. While you did that you also made sure to check with the tech crew as they set up the lights and everything. You needed them to be ready to run another rehearsal before nine. No one was really happy to be here early, but that was the job. Soon enough you ran through the whole show. Any notes you had for the models you mentioned then and there. Honestly you wish there wasn’t one last rehearsal causing all this made you anxious.

Once that was done you made sure the final bits of decoration were done and then greeted the wait staff. The drinks and food needed to be set out and staff had to be given directions as well. You knew what kind of people came to these events, so one had to be mentally prepared for the type of things they might overhear. Somehow you were managing all this without a break. You didn’t know that but someone had been keeping an eye on you all day. When lunch time rolled around Taeyong came up to you, taking your hand and dragging you over to the food table. You knew arguing with him was pointless, and you would have most likely skipped lunch if not for him.

You ate a bit, not wanting to get too full and feel sleepy later on. After this the final preparations needed to be done, and it would soon be time to start welcoming guests. Vevee wouldn’t be here until show time, but until then you were in charge. Meaning that as the host you would need to greet everyone that came through to make sure they were on the guest list and tell them about the night’s event. You got dressed before then, doing your own hair and makeup. You made sure you could hide a walkie on you and anything else you might need while still looking presentable.You’d be representing Vevee and her company, so you needed to be at your best.

“Wow… you look amazing.”

“Huh?”

You were in the back, stepping out of one of the empty green rooms when you heard a voice. You looked over to see Jaehyun a few steps down the hall.

“Oh, yeah, thanks. You look good too, Vevee dressed us both.”

“Vevee picked your outfit?”

“Yeah. Not my first choice, but it’s nice. I gotta go, so behave and break a leg.”

“Thanks.”

Jaehyun watched you go for a moment before going off to find Taeyong. He found his hyung in the green room with the others. The event of the night has already begun and he probably should have mentioned this sooner but he has to be sure. Now he was.

“Taeyong.”

“Hm?”

“I can’t hear anyone’s heartbeat, except y/n’s.”

“What? When did you notice this?”

“When we got down here. Although I wasn’t sure what was going on since I was focused on getting ready and the rehearsal. Just now though I followed the only heartbeat I could hear and it led me to y/n.”

“Now that you mention it.” Taeil added. “I’m not picking up anyone’s scent. Although I am getting a faint whiff of y/n off Jaehyun.”

“What’s happening?”

“It’s the spell.” Taeyong reminded. “We’d lose our power as time went on. We’re close to death and it seems the last of our abilities are leading us to her.”

“Then it’s for sure her.” Haechan said. “Y/n is our queen.”

“Yeah.”

“Are we gonna do it tonight?”

“We don’t have much time left. Tonight would be good. Although we need to make sure the show goes well, understood?”

“Got it.”

As much as Taeyong might want to stay with his boys, he couldn’t. With their powers dwindling he was worried for them, but then again they didn’t have much of a bloodlust either. With guests beginning to arrive he had to be out with them, he was the representing face of his boys. While he made some light conversation he’d always glance your way, seeing you up front greeting all the guests and offering assistance to anyone who needed it. Now that he was really able to see you, even from afar, he was quite mesmerized by your beauty. For the first time in a long time he could look upon someone and see them as they are, and not food. You were his regardless, but this was an added level of amazement.

Once the lights got low you were on stage making the announcement that the show would begin soon and for everyone to take their seat. All the important guests had their assigned seats and so did the photographers. Taeyong was in the front row noticing he’d be sitting next to Vevee, although he didn’t see a seat for you. As the people began to settle down he couldn’t see a place for you. It was upsetting but at the same time he understood you were running the show, so you probably wouldn’t actually be able to enjoy it like everyone else. The show started and Taeyong believed it went beautifully. All those present seemed to be enjoying themselves, and he made slight conversation with Vevee about the models, including his own.

Not once did he see you, but he could hear your heartbeat, knowing you were backstage. The end of the show was met with roaring applause, all the praise going to Vevee for her amazing designs and all her work. It left Taeyong with a faux smile and a butter taste knowing there was someone else who deserved more credit if not all of it. He wanted to go find you afterwards but he was dragged into conversations as other people wanted to work with him and his models. He has no interest but he couldn’t just disappear now. He had to wait until the very end, when everything was getting cleaned up. He found you then up on the runway, watching over the clean up.

“Great show.” Taeyong said as he walked the runway to you. “It was wonderful. You did a great job.”

“Thanks.” You smiled. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

“Are you finally gonna sleep?”

“For like a day at least before I have to get back to work.”

“What? You don’t get some time off after this?”

“Not really. There’s always something else going on.”

“That’s not really fair.”

“It’s the job.”

“Then how about dinner? No, wait, it’s really late and I’m sure you won’t be leaving soon, so how about breakfast, the day after tomorrow that is. Before you return to work.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Cool. I should probably give you my number so that way we can keep in touch.”

“Sure. Here you go.”

Taeyong took your phone and added his number in, sending himself a message to make sure he had your number. He handed it back to you, giving you a smile.

“You know, there is something I need to talk with you about.”

“What is it?”

“Not here, but in private. I’ll save it for breakfast.”

“I never said I would go.”

“But I hope you will.”

“I-”

“What’s this?” Vevee walked down the runway. “Having a private conversation I see.”

“Nothing like that Vevee.” You assured. “Congratulations on another successful show.”

“Of course it was a success, you know I’m the best.”

“Precisely.”

“Y/n did a lot to help prepare the show tonight.” Taeyong mentioned. “She deserves some time off.”

“Taeyong.”

“Ah, so is that it?” Vevee questioned. “This whole time you’ve offered to do her job for her, and now you’re even trying to give her credit for my show and get her some time off? Are you trying to take y/n away from me?”

“Vevee, I would never-”

“You can have her.”

“… what… Vevee-”

“If she needs help to do her job, and has to have someone else fight battles for her, then she’s no longer as good as she used to be. So if you want something old and worn go ahead, I won’t stop you.”

“Vevee…”

“Go on now, do as you please.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. After everything you had done, your boss was so quick to discard you. This didn’t make any sense, but for Vevee the conversation was over. You followed her as she turned back, fumbling with your words and trying to figure out what to say. Taeyong intended to do the same, realizing what he had done only to have you throw a death glare his way and make him stop. That would be his mistake.

You kept trying to talk to Vevee about this but she wasn’t listening. Without really meaning to you grabbed her arm, pleading with her, but your actions upset her. Instead she wound up shoving you away, which in turn had you stumble back towards the edge of the runway. Taeyong could see what was about to happen, intending to use his power to get to you, regardless of him exposing himself, but when he took a step he realized he couldn’t move fast enough. Instead he could only watch as you fell off the runway, crashing into the chairs below. Soon enough the smell of blood, your blood, hit him.

“Y/n!”

“Oh dear, she must be drunk.” Vevee remarked. “Useless girl.”

Taeyong ran over, jumping down and noticing the blood pooling around your head. He was panicking, and soon enough the rest of his members came over, the smell of blood calling them. You felt dizzy, and you could barely make out your surroundings. The voices around you sounded far away, but you could feel someone holding you.

“What happened!?” Doyoung questioned. “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t me, it was that bitch.” Taeyong explained. “She pushed y/n off the runway.”

“Her heartbeat is slow.” Yuta mentioned. “We need to get her to a hospital.”

“Right… right…”

Taeyong picked you up in his arms, Mark using his jacket to cradle your head. They all made it to the elevator, intending to go down, but Johnny merely shut the elevator doors and kept them that way.

“Johnny, what are you doing!?” Haechan said. “She’s losing blood.”

“We can’t take her to the hospital.”

“What?”

“If we take her to the hospital the doctors will take her from us, and we’ll have no way of reaching her. What if she dies? Her life isn’t the only one on the line right now.”

“We don’t know that she’ll die.”

“Even if she lives, we don’t have that much time left.”

“You-”

“He’s right.” Taeyong interrupted. “I… I watched her fall… I couldn’t reach her… none of us have much time… Johnny, take her.”

Johnny did as he was told, hitting the button for the penthouse suite before taking you in his arms. Taeyong pulled out a small box from his coat pocket, getting out the vial that contained all their blood. He couldn’t be gentle with you in this state, forcing your mouth open and carefully pouring the contents of the vial down your throat. You choked on it a bit, but it was important you drank it all. When the elevator chimed they were in their suite, completely alone.

“What do we do now?” Mark questioned.

“We make her comfortable.” Taeyong stated. “This could drag on or be over in a few minutes.”

“… it’s cold…” You mumbled. “… it hurts… my head…”

“Sh, sh, it’s going to be okay.” Jaehyun cooed. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

“… hm…”

Despite knowing you’d survive, it still hurt them not being able to do anything to help. Johnny took you to the bedroom, laying you down. A moment later Haechan and Taeil came in, doing their best to clean you up and keep you comfortable. You didn’t seem to be in much pain, which was a relief, but they all kind of felt guilty. Truth was you had to die in order for them all to live, but this wasn’t how they imagined things to go. It was the last step, but so much had gotten in the way. They had to be better once you were back. They took turns tending to you all night, but by sunrise the penthouse was quiet. No one could hear the sound of your heartbeat.

“How long… until she wakes?” Yuta wondered. “What do we do until then?”

“We wait.” Taeyong stated. “This will be like any usual transition. It’s different for everyone. I do need some of you to get her some clothes, and others to run a warm bath to clean her up properly. She’s gonna be disoriented when she wakes up, and we all need to be on our best behavior.”

“Got it.”

They were all a bit awkward, never having cared for someone in such a manner. Jaehyun got a warm bath going, making sure they had the necessities to properly prepare you. Three of the others examined your clothes for sizes and went off to get you some new things. Two others went off to get the food you would need. By now they had about a day left before they’d meet their own end, but they were all more concerned with you above all else. They had cleaned up the room you were in, and carefully dressed you in some comfortable clothes. The hours really dragged on, but they just had to be patient.

🖤

You inhaled softly, your eyes fluttering open. There was a dryness in your throat, and a low ringing in your ear that was starting to get louder. You groaned as you sat up, wanting to get out of bed. At the moment your memories were hazy, but you needed to get something to drink. You managed to get your legs under you, although you were unsteady with every step. You leaned against the hall when you got out of the room, although the noises around you were getting louder and louder. You fell to your knees, placing your hands over your ears but it did little to help.

“Y/n! You’re awake.”

Doyoung found you curled up on the floor, glad to see you were up, but also worried upon seeing the state you were in.

“What’s wrong?”

“Loud… everything’s so loud…”

“Yeah, that tends to overwhelm you the most. Just focus on one thing for now, like your heartbeat. Try to drown everything else out except for that.”

You did your best to follow Doyoung’s directions as he kept chatting with you. It was difficult at first to really hone in on your own heartbeat, but slowly you managed, all the other sounds fading away. Although, once you really began to listen you realized how slow it was beating, and that was scaring you.

“Y/n, what’s wrong?”

“My heart… am I dying…”

“Uh, well… it’s complicated… do you remember the other night? After the show?”

“The show… I… I was…”

You didn’t know when the tears started falling, but they were present as a bunch of memories came rushing in. You screamed and grabbed your head, looking for the injury, the blood, but there was nothing. You seemed to be fine, but that was far from the truth. Doyoung wasn’t sure what to do at the moment, but he pulled you into his arms, holding you close and trying to sooth you, not wanting you to hurt yourself. By now you had attracted attention, and the others came by to see what was going on. Everyone was glad to see you up, but not in this state.

“Y/n, it’s okay, everything is okay.” Taeyong got down to your level. “You’re just fine.”

“She… she…”

“Sh, sh, you’re not hurt. Everything is alright now.”

“No… no… what happened? What’s going on? Everything… everything’s wrong, it’s wrong!”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s so loud… and my throat hurts and… and… I’m supposed to be dead… aren’t I?”

“Y/n…”

“Please, just tell me what’s happening…”

Taeyong sighed. “You are dead, y/n.”

“… what…”

“You died the other night, you bled out. You wouldn’t make it to the hospital… so we brought you here instead… and we saved you…”

“Saved me…? Ha… how? You… you said…”

“I know it’s a lot but I can explain.”

“Why… why would you… why me…”

It was hard to accept the words you were being told, and it was getting difficult to breathe. You had lost focus, starting to get overwhelmed by all the sounds around you. It wasn’t long before you wound up passing out, making them all worry.

“Y/n!” Taeyong yelled. “Y/n!”

He gently grabbed your face, placing a finger under your nose to make sure you were breathing. Everything he had said probably got to you.

“Get her back to her room, and someone get her some food. She’ll wake up again soon.”

Haechan and Yuta went off to find you some food, and the others all got you back to bed. No one left the room, everyone waiting around for you to regain consciousness. The silence was driving them all mad, but upon hearing your whimper they grew still. You opened your eyes, seeing that you were in the same room as before. Nothing had changed, so this most likely wasn’t a dream. You slowly sat up, a bit startled when you saw all the other boys in the room.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Johnny asked. “Better?”

“It’s still loud…” You took a deep breath to focus your hearing, but your own heartbeat was still making you uneasy. “I’m… I’m really dead…”

“You died.” Jaehyun corrected. “But you’re not actually dead.”

“Then what am I…”

“Do you believe in vampires?”

“They’re not… real…”

“We very much are.”

“So… are you all…” You looked around the room. “… vampires… am I…?”

“Yes.” Mark confirmed. “You’re just like us.”

“… why…”

“What do you mean?”

“Why me… why did you save me? I… I don’t understand…”

“Because-”

“Let me be honest.” Taeyong cut in. “It’s always been you.”

“What?”

Despite everything being so new to you Taeyong wanted to be honest from the beginning. You had eternity together, and if not, you’d all go to the grave as one. He sat down at the edge of the bed, gently reaching over to take your hand in his.

“Remember how I told you we came here looking for something.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, that something was you.”

“… why…”

“You can call it destiny. We came to this place in search of a better life, and our journey led us to you. I honestly should have known from the start. A girl with fire like you, I don’t think I’d want anyone else.” Taeyong chuckled. “Truth is, we’re all connected through you now. We needed someone so we’d be reborn as something better, just like you.”

“Me…?”

“You are my queen now.” Taeyong kissed your hand. “Of course things are more complicated than they seem, but we’re here for you, and we will take care of you.”

“… a queen…”

“Just like a bee hive. We’re here for you. I really wanted to explain all this to you before but… we couldn’t just let you die, especially since we’d die with you.”

“What?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but there is still something else. In order for everything to be alright, we do need to drink your blood.”

“My… my blood?”

“Yes. I understand this is all still new to you, and the idea probably seems crazy, but as you get used to all this you’ll see that you’re far stronger than you can imagine. Stronger than us even.”

“… and if you don’t?”

“We’ll definitely die, and I’m pretty sure you will too…”

“Oh…”

“You don’t need to decide right now, but I do need-”

“Here.” You held out your wrist. “Let’s get it over with.”

“If you’re not-”

“I don’t want you guys to die.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Alright, but this is gonna feel… weird.”

Taeyong grabbed your wrist, placing a gentle kiss on it before exposing his fangs and biting you. A loud gasp escaped your lips followed by a rush of euphoria. Your eyes were wide and you had your head thrown back a bit. You didn’t even realize when Taeyong had pulled away, not until he was reaching up to caress your cheek.

“How do you feel?”

“Definitely… weird…”

“I thought so, but you’re okay, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. You think you can do it again?”

“Sure.”

You were still a bit out of it, but you certainly felt another pair of fangs dig into your wrist. That same pleasurable feeling coarse through you again, and you wound up laying back on the bed. You felt a hand on your head, seeing Yuta smiling down at you.

“You still okay?”

“Hm…”

“You do need to eat too.”

“I’m not hungry…”

“You said your throat was dry earlier.”

“Oh yeah…”

“Come on. Let’s get you back up.”

Yuta helped you sit back up, making sure you were leaning against the headboard. You saw him bring a thermos to your lips. A strange scent hit your nose. It was something unfamiliar, but it smelled amazing. Yuta carefully tilted up the thermos, letting you get a taste of strange liquid. As soon as you had a drop on your tongue you grabbed the thermos and drank it all. It felt refreshing and invigorating. You wanted more, but the thermos was empty.

“Easy, easy. We have plenty more.”

“What is it?”

“What do you think, you’re a vampire.”

“Ah… blood… tastes better than I thought…”

All the boys seemed to laugh, and their easy going vibes were certainly putting you at ease. Everything was so new to you, but having them there made you feel better. You still didn’t quite understand this connection they mentioned, and what was in store for you down the line, but at least you weren’t scared. You had some more blood, and the others took turns biting you. Each one still felt just as amazing as the last. Afterwards they let you rest and you certainly slept the day away. You were a bit surprised to wake up later to find yourself alone, but you could hear noises just outside the door. The others were around, so you weren’t truly alone.

You carefully got out of bed, feeling a lot stronger than before. You managed to walk out of the room and made your way down the hall. As you stepped into the living room you noticed the sun shining in. It caught you a bit by surprise, but before you could really take it in you heard someone scream and then you were on the floor. Mark had tackled you to the ground, keeping you close while the two of you laid behind the couch. You had no idea what was going on and you were a bit too scared to ask. After the initial attack Mark was doting on you, making sure you were alright.

“You okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine… why did you…”

“You’re still a baby, the sun can hurt you.”

“The sun? It didn’t hurt though…”

“It didn’t?”

“No…”

You carefully pulled away from Mark, getting on your knees. You slowly lifted up your hand above the couch, feeling the sunlight against your skin. There was a bit of a tingle, but it definitely didn’t hurt. Mark was a bit stunned, getting up and helping you to your feet as well.

“I guess you’re a lot more powerful than I thought.”

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“You were just worried and looking out for me. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. You hungry?”

“Kinda…”

“Then let’s get you some food.”

You sat at the dining table as Mark got you some food. A few of the others joined you later on, Mark getting scolded once they learned about what he did. You assured everyone you were fine and there was no need to yell at the boy. Although, since they had your attention, there was something to discuss.

“Y/n.”

“Hm?”

“I know you’re still adjusting to everything, but it would be best if we took you home.”

“Home?”

“We only came here to find you.” Doyoung said. “And now that we did, it’s best we get you somewhere better suited for you as you start this new chapter with us.”

“I see…”

“It won’t be easy to just let everything go.” Jaehyun added. “But you have time.”

“I might, but not everything else.”

“We can stay a while longer, but it’s best we leave.” Taeyong mentioned. “We need to pack your things and-”

“I need to see her again.”

“No.”

“You don’t even-”

“Who else would you want to see at this point? I know who you’re talking about, and the answer is no.”

“You said I’m your queen, so you listen to me.”

“It’s our job to do what’s best for you, and seeing that bitch isn’t it.”

“I’m not gonna do anything. I just… I just want to see her one last time… please.”

“Fine, but not alone.”

“I understand.”

It kinda felt surreal, going back to your own place and packing your things. Your life had drastically changed in a matter of hours, and there was no going back. Even though it had been a couple of days since the whole incident, you knew exactly where Vevee would be. She wasn’t one to change her schedule, especially for someone like you. So Johnny, Haechan, and Taeyong accompanied you into a restaurant. Vevee always enjoyed her brunch meetings, if you could actually call them that. You didn’t worry about reservation or staff, you just walked in knowing the boys would deal with the other things.

“Vevee.”

It wasn’t hard to find your former boss, and you just walked up to the table. There was a lot you wanted to say, but in the moment you kinda locked up, and of course she spoke her mind.

“Ah, finally put yourself back together I see. Have you come to apologize? You left a mess at-”

“Are you fucken serious right now?”

“Language. You-”

“Shut up! You fucken killed me and you don’t even care? I guess your pathetic brain can’t even comprehend your actions.”

“Excuse me?” Vevee got up. “Watch your fucken tone with me.”

“Fuck you! You’re a terrible person, and you can’t do anything on your own. After that last show, I’m done. I quit.”

“You quit? Just like that?”

“Goodbye.”

Vevee scoffed. “You are never going to work in this industry. I-”

“I don’t care. I’m not even sure I want to, but if I ever do, I’ll do so over your dead body. Have a nice life.”

You walked away without another word, not caring to hear anything more. You may not have said everything you wanted to, but at least you made your peace. The boys were waiting for you, offering you comforting smiles. You followed them out to the car waiting. As you drove off you couldn’t help but look out the window and watch the city pass you by. This place was once your home, you gave it a lot of you, and now you were leaving. You didn’t think things would go down this way, but it wasn’t really a goodbye. You could come back here someday, but you’ll be very different, and the city itself might be different too.

“Are you alright?” Taeil asked. “Is there something else you need to do?”

“No, no, I’m just… I’ll be okay… right?”

“Of course. We’re here for you.”

“Thanks.”

85 notes · View notes

scarletwinterxx · 3 months

Text

and you knew what it was, he is in love - doyoung scenario

hiiii ~ i'm a mess right now and i literally cried while writing this for no reason at all😭😅 also, requests are noted just give me some time🥺😊 for now here's a cute doyoung scenario, hope you like it!!!

if you have a request or scenario you want me to do, just send me a message I'll see what I can do😊💌

For my other works you can check them out here, and for my other story series’ you can check them out here.

(gif not mine, credits to rightful owner)

There's this phrase from a book you've read a long time ago that stuck with you, somewhere along the lines "I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once".

That's exactly how you would describe the way you fell in love with him. Little by little, like you were floating away then all at once you realized he's the one.

It's all the little things he did and still does that makes your heart flutter. How attentive he is, he knows when you're in the room shooting you a smile and saving a seat right beside him.

He'd tell you stories and ask you about your day. He asked about all the things you liked hoping he could one day be a part of that list.

He remembers you love your iced coffee in the morning so for you he'd get up early even though he's not a morning person. It doesn't matter though, not when you smile at him so brightly you might as well replace the sun as the center of his universe.

He pays attention to you, even when you don't know it. You always forget to bring a hair tie, so a lot of times you have to brush your hair away from your face sometimes he does it too. An action so simple yet it was enough to leave you a blushing mess.

Then one day just another day of you forgetting to bring your hair tie, but before you could brush your hair back he holds you by the shoulders making you stand in front of him. He gathers all of your hair with one hand and gets the tie with the other, he watched so many video tutorials on how to do this but he's still so nervous afraid that he might hurt you. But then you turned to face him with a confused but amused look on your face.

"Where'd you learn how to do that and where did you get the hair tie?" you asked

"I got it at the convenience store the other day, I got like a bunch of them for you. As for the learning, I'll you some other time"

You blinked at him, there it was again that thumping on your chest you get whenever you're with him. "Thank you" you tell him and he smiles back at you, like knocking the wind out of you.

Then that moment you knew he was someone you'd love for a long time. It's normal for the two of you to spend the day even outside of campus, he's the first person you'd call if you need someone to hang out with.

"Why are we getting ice cream when it's so cold out?" he asks you, but he didn't even stop you from choosing the ice cream on the freezer. Noticing you pick his favorite before getting yours.

"Because I want it" you tell him, walking towards the counter to pay. When all of that is done, the two of you sit outside. The cold breeze hitting your skin making you shiver.

Of course he notices this, but instead of getting the usual nag from him he just shrugs his jacket off catching your attention

"What are you doing?"

Once it's off, he pulls you up and throws the jacket over your shoulders. He pulls your arm that wasn't holding the ice cream through the sleeve before making you do the other one, "You're cold" he answers, gesturing for you to wear it properly while he eats his ice cream. Then he makes you hold his treat, stepping closer to you.

The wind is cold but you can feel your palms getting sweaty from feeling nervous. He closes the jacket, zipping it up enough to make sure you're warm.

"All better?" he asks you

"Do you like me that much that you'd rather be cold so you give me your jacket?" you ask back

"I like you so much, I can't stand the wind whirling by you" he answers back rendering you quiet.

You stayed quiet the whole walk back to your place, he doesn't say anything too. Letting you have time to yourself.

Then you stop walking, turning to face him

"Why do you only say it now?"

"What?"

"That you like me? I thought you didn't see me that way" you mumble, in return you hear a chuckle from him then you feel his finger under your chin making you look up at him.

"I tell you all the time, I give you the first bite of my food always. I watched that movie you wanted even though we've seen it like 10 times before. I have your favorite snack in my bag always, my mom even brought extras for you. Do you think I do that for people I don't like?" Doyoung asks you, caressing your cheeks with the tip of his finger

"That's not telling me, you never said anything" you pout at him, "Do you want me to tell you?"

"No, now I feel like you're only saying it because I asked"

You stepped away from him, acting like you're walking away when he stops you. Holding your hand back making you halt your steps,

"You know, I was scared at first I admit. In my head I went 'Oh no I'm falling in love with my bestfriend' then I see you smile and every time you do I just think 'Oh I'm in love with my bestfriend'"

"I'm your bestfriend?"

"That's all you heard?"

Then you're grinning, smiling so big it might hurt. You jump towards his waiting arms, holding him close. Closer than you ever did. "I confess my feelings to you and you just bestfriend zone me?" Doyoung jokingly mumbles against your cheek

"I love you too, you dummy" you tell him, he puts you down but kept you in his embrace. To you there's no warmer spot than this.

"I just want you to know my feelings are sincere, it took some time to say it but I've been trying. I'm better at showing it to you, I could be better. I'll be better for you"

You shake your head, holding face in your hands, "You are the best there is for me, there's nothing better than this. Keep loving me the way you did, but this time I'll do it with you. I'll take care of you too, like you always do for me"

He smiles at you, taking in your appearance. Memorizing every detail of this moment so he'll never forget. In the silence of his mind he screams, he's in love.

#story #fic #nct #nct au #nct 127 #nct doyoung #nct imagine #nct fic #nct fluff #nct scenario #nct one shot #doyoung imagine #doyoung scenario #doyoung fluff #doyoung au #kim doyoung

90 notes · View notes

phoxphenex · 5 months

Note

HIHIHI I just read your Renjun Bff Angst! ITS SO GOOD AND CAN I ASK FOR TAEYONG VER PLS ?

IM JUST AN ANGST ENJOYER 🥹❤️‍🩹

bff taeyong angst texts

#scenarios #nct social media au #nct #heart emoji #nct dream #nct texts #nct taeyong texts #nct taeyong #taeyong #nct doyoung #nct doyoung texts #doyoung #best friend taeyong #lee taeyong #kim doyoung #taeyong angst #bff taeyong angst

143 notes · View notes

hannie-dul-set · 1 month

Text

fuck you, aphrodite! [3].

PAIRINGS. kim doyoung, na jaemin, jung jaehyun x fem! reader.TAGS. socmed! au, cupid! au, college! au, org! au, another reverse harem of weird/asshole/loser men! the hannie-dul-set holy trinity of leading men! rom-com, explicit language and jokes, mentions of violence and hazing.

NOTE. there's supposed to be a written bit at the end but i decided to throw it into the next part becaise i was alr abt to hit to photo limit HAHAHAHHA i got too carried away with the jaemin moments 💔💔💔

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

TAGLIST. @grassbutneo @anothershorthuman @n0tprettybutt1red @totatite @ebebesstuff

#nct x reader #kim doyoung x reader #na jaemin x reader #jung jaehyun x reader #doyoung x reader #jaemin x reader #jaehyun x reader #nct imagines #nct social media au #nct socmed au #nct texts #doyoung texts #jaemin texts #jaehyun texts

102 notes · View notes

chocojae · 11 months

Text

𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐒 — kim doyoung

summary ▸ seven signs you are in love according to not so love expert, kim doyoung ft. a tired and frustrated kun

genre ▸ doyoung x female reader | pure fluff | university au

word count ▸ 3.2k

warnings ▸ none!

luna’s note ▸ hello @beautifulchris ! I am your author for the exchange event held by @kflixnet! i enjoyed writing this piece and really hope you will like this ♡ since the event’s main motive was to be friends, i hope we can get to know each other!

ONE: YOUR DAY STARTS AND ENDS WITH YOU THINKING ABOUT THEM.

Doyoung’s eyes widen as he notices the words he just scribbled on his notebook. He was spacing out in the lecture hall, and guess what he wrote? Your name, once again.

It astonished Doyoung when he realised just how much he has been thinking about you these past few days.

When he got to learn that you have a (secret) crush on him, all he did was think about you and notice your likes and dislikes. From him eating his breakfast and getting reminded (out of nowhere) that you love cats to him putting on an outfit of your favourite shade because you like that colour, his life was suddenly revolving around you.

It bugged him that it was you who occupied his mind 24/7 when it should have been his studies. Lately, he gets on his bus every day thinking if you would attend today or not and can’t help but get a little disappointed when he notices your absence.

Something is wrong with him, but what? It’s the question that messes his mind the most. Doyoung angrily stabs the paper with frustration, his mind running a thousand miles per second, trying to figure out what could be the possible cause of his sudden curiosity and then his face suddenly drops. A tiny voice in his head whispers: You couldn’t like her back, could you?

Doyoung shakes his head violently, trying to shush the tiny voice. Through the corner of his eye, he looks at you for a split second. Right, there was no freaking way he possibly could.

Fine, Doyoung takes back whatever he said a few hours prior. There might be a possible, tiny, tiny chance that he might like you, romantically.

He stares at your laughing figure for a little longer than he would before tearing his eyes off you, gulping soon after. God, why wasn’t he able to look away? Sure, you are attractive and kind but does he really like like you? Like as in a boy liking a girl? That type of like?

He presses his lips into a thin line and steals another glance, soon feeling his cheeks burn up. Shit, have you always been that pretty?

“I don’t think this tragic piece of literature is supposed to be making you blush, Doyoung.” Kun squints his eyes at the younger male sitting beside him, noticing how Doyoung looked completely taken aback by his comment.

Wait, Doyoung was blushing? BLUSHING? Now, that was unexpected. Doyoung cleared his throat, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I know. It’s just the weather. You know how hot it can get in summers here.”

Kun squinted his eyes, not satisfied with the so called answer. There was no way he was buying the “reason” Doyoung was beetroot red. It was a white lie. Sure, he agrees that summers are hot in here but with all the fans and air conditioners present and just a simple black t-shirt thrown over him, Doyoung couldn’t possibly be reddening because of it.

“Are you sure you were not checking out someone and blushing?” Kun asks with suspense laced through his words, crossing his arms and giving a look that indicated he was ready to hear the tea.

“Jesus, no!” Doyoung responds immediately. Hey, it was the truth. He wasn’t checking you out or something, he was just glancing at you. Glancing. There’s a difference, okay?

“Sure.” Kun shrugged, not convinced and continued his explanation, hoping Doyoung would get whatever he was trying to make him understand. Doyoung slumped down on the table, Kun’s words becoming white noise to him. With his head resting on his arm, he dragged his eyes towards you. Hell, you look absolutely breathtaking—

Here he goes thinking about you once again, not like he could help it.

TWO: YOUR EYES ALWAYS SEEM TO SEARCH FOR THEM.

Considering that he thinks about you most time of the day, it should have been natural for Doyoung to accept that he likes stealing glances at you. It would have been easy if that was the case. But it’s not.

Every single time he is reminded about you or glances at you, Doyoung tries to convince himself that he does not like you. It is tiring, very tiring since he thinks about you so much that it makes him frustrated.

If he would tell someone about this train of thoughts running through his head, he is one hundred one per cent sure that it would conclude he likes you.

The thought that he might have harboured feelings for you, for unacceptable for him.

He chose to ignore those confusing feelings, shoving them aside. But what he couldn’t control was the way his eyes always gravitated towards you, taking his time to adore you like you were his love interest in some cheesy romance novel.

You looked so ethereal in his eyes, so beautiful that he believed you were the most beautiful person to exist.

He sneaked glances at you now and then and most of the time, you were already looking at him. So when he looked back to admire you out of nowhere, you both were caught off guard and turned away in a beat at being caught.

Kun, who observed this quite often, found it pretty cute and enjoyed teasing Doyoung about this. Doyoung would shake his head, saying he was just spacing out and it was not what Kun thinks. But Kun could see how just two seconds after calling him out, Doyoung’s gaze was fixated on you once again.

THREE: YOU RANDOMLY START PICKING UP THEIR HOBBIES.

Seriously, painting and Doyoung?

Doyoung looks around helplessly in the room filled with what seemed like skilled and passionate students. They all seemed so focused and determined, unlike him who stood there awkwardly, face laced with confusion.

Doyoung should have been studying in the library for the upcoming exam, or doing his laundry that has stacked up for about two weeks now. He should have been anywhere but here, occupied with the set of brushes he has no idea how to use.

Painting never once intrigued Doyoung, so why was he here? Answer: For you.

Through his secret source obviously Kun, he found out you liked to paint in your free time.

To Doyoung, painting was something uninteresting but since you liked it, he was adamant to try it out as this would mean him finally having a common topic to start a conversation with you.

In the past two months, Doyoung got so frustrated with himself that he accepted he liked you, and yes, romantically. He disclosed this to Kun, who didn’t waste a single second to tease Doyoung by revealing he already figured out his “secret” long ago by the way he gawked at you.

And the more Kun teased him, the more Doyoung’s feelings grew and so did his desire to get to know you.

He wanted to start a conversation multiple times but the blush on his cheeks whenever he was with you prevented him from doing so. Doyoung did draft the convo scenes with you in his head, preparing different things to say based on your supposed replies in his imagination.

But to actually start a conversation with you was hard. His mind just goes blank whenever he decides to start a small talk with you, and the script he had prepared for weeks in his head, gets blurry. He stammers, and he blushes.

You too, wanted to talk to him and spend some time together but you didn’t have the courage to. He made you feel so euphoric, it was hard to focus on anything else, including your words.

FOUR: YOU GET FLUSTERED AROUND THEM.

Doyoung’s standing behind you. You are standing in front of him. The proximity is so close that Doyoung could catch the faint smell of your perfume lingering over him.

Kun nudges Doyoung from behind, leaning in and whispering. “You are red like a tomato. Don’t be this obvious.” Doyoung nods. He could feel the loud thumping of his stupid heart and is doing everything in his power to avoid looking at you, not because he doesn’t want to glance at you, but because he knows his heart will beat louder the more he will look at you.

What Doyoung didn’t notice was the way you were being a mess too. Eyes roaming everywhere in nervousness, cheeks painted pink and your friends passing you a teasing look.

You are so sure that Doyoung knows you have a little crush on him, and that didn’t bother you— until now. Because he is behind you, just behind you. The prettiest and kindest man (with utterly attractive hands and a honey like voice) you have ever known is behind you. Your freaking crush is behind you.

It feels awkward, nervous and exciting all at the same time and the adrenaline rushing through your system makes you go numb. Do you look good? Is your hair alright? What about you back? Oh, you should have taken your roommate’s advice and done some back exercises so you weren’t regretting right now. And what about your perfume? Is it still there? What if Doyoung doesn’t like scents?

The train of thought was never ending, and Doyoung could relate too. He should’ve worn something more presentable. The tray in his hands was shaking. Why the hell did Kun pushed him to stand next to you?

“I hate you, Kun.” Kun raised an eyebrow at his words, a small smirk adoring his face as he answered back. “But you also love me for this.”

Doyoung bit back a smile. Kun just knows him too well.

FIVE: YOU GET (UNNECESSARILY) WORRIED ABOUT THEM.

Doyoung has no right to worry about you but it’s the third day he hasn’t seen your pretty face and it’s making him nervous. What if something happened to you? Or what if you left the university?

Millions of baseless thoughts ran through his head, his body stiffening. You couldn’t have gotten sick, right?

But what if you did? Cold sweat broke out on his forehead at the mere thought. Doyoung’s ears perked up hearing the giggles of your friends and he looked at them curiously.

Maybe he should ask them, but wait, wouldn’t it seem extremely suspicious when he would randomly ask about you? Screw it, he says to himself and marches towards your friends.

“Hi.” The sudden appearance of Doyoung made their giggles come to a halt and they were visibly confused. “So, I was saying that..” Shit, he can’t do it.

“Do you have the notes from the previous lesson? I forgot to jot down mine!” He passes them an awkward smile, hoping they won’t catch his unusual behaviour.

“Sure” One of the girls, which he vividly remembers seeing by your side the most, takes out a notebook from her bag, handing it to Doyoung with the same expression as earlier. “Here,” Doyoung mumbles a quiet thank you before completely disappearing.

The girls, confused, shrugged their shoulders and decided to not think much, later joking about how you should have been there.

Doyoug gave Kun his best puppy eyes. “Please.” Kun sighed and asked, “Why can’t you do this?”

“Because it would seem weird.” Kun raised an eyebrow at the reply. “And it wouldn’t when I will?

“No, because even if it will do seem that way, you are not me. That’s why.”

“Your logic is so…….baseless.”

Doyoung clung onto his arm, swinging it in an attempt to persuade him. “Oh come one, please, please.”

Kun closed his eyes. “I am deaf, I can’t hear anything.”

“Please, only you could save me from this misery.”

“Misery? Misery? You not being able to find out why Y/N has not been coming for three days has driven you into misery?” Kun’s voice was laced with sarcasm followed by an eye roll. “And FYI, I don’t even talk to Y/N that much.”

“Well, you can ask just out of curiosity. I am sure they would understand.”

“Then why can’t you do it?”

“Because it feels weird!”

“Just say you are shy.”

“I am not!”

“You are.”

“I am not, okay!?”

“Liar.”

“So?” Doyoung asks in anticipation, eyes full of hope darting at the tired Kun. “She is at her grandma’s. No big deal.”

“That means she is okay, right?” Kun slumps down beside him. “Yeah, I guess.”

Doyoung glares at him. “What do you mean you guess? You didn’t ask?”

“Obviously dude, I am not her boyfriend or something!”

“You had one job. One.”

“Not again.”

SIX: YOU PICK UP THEIR HUMOUR.

caution ▸ cringy dad joke ahead

Doyoung has been observing you every single time so it wasn’t long before he picked up your humour. You were the dad jokes type and while Doyoung wasn’t interested a bit in them, the humour grew on him and now he has made Kun’s life a little harder than it was before.

“Wanna hear a knock joke?” Doyoung grins at the annoyed Kun.

“It’s not like I have a choice.” He mumbled. Doyoung cleared his throat, “Knock Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Nobel.” There was still that grin on his face when Doyoung waited for Kun to respond. “Ask Nobel who?”

Kun rolled his eyes. “Nobel, who?”

“No bell so I just knocked.” Doyoung bursts into fists of laughter and smacks Kun’s shoulder. “Be real, isn’t it funny?”

“It’s not—” Kun pauses sensing a glare thrown at him “It’s so hilarious, I can’t even laugh!” Kun sends Doyoung a small, scared smile and releases a sigh of relief when Doyoung takes the comment as a positive one.

If Kun is going to stick around Doyoung who will find humour in dad jokes because of you, you both better get married for his unthinkable sacrifice.

SEVEN: YOU IMAGINE A FUTURE WITH THEM.

Doyoung grasps the bouquet of flowers tight in his hands. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and calming his nerves down.

You can do this, Doyoung! He says to himself, glancing at the flowers in his sweaty palms. He is finally doing this, Kim Doyoung is finally asking you out. Seems unreal, right? For Doyoung too.

He had never imagined he would ask you out, but here he is.

He was smitten over you, everyone knew. You were referred to as his crush but that label soon was ripped away when Doyoung started seeing you in a new light. When everything about you seemed more lovely than it could ever be. When your flaws, which he had previously ignored seemed so perfect to him. When instead of getting all nervous and excited, he felt warmth and comfort from your presence.

The tag of a crush got removed and replaced by the one called love.

He imagined doing everything with you, going out on dates, meeting your family, late night celebrations, unexpected calls and what not. It become clear Kim Doyoung was in love with you.

He had finally mustered up the courage to ask you out, for real. His heart was beating a thousand miles per second. He doesn’t know if you were ready for this, or even if you still had feelings for him but he was going to do it. It’s now or never.

Doyoung had called you in a cafe near by, and as much as you were puzzled, you were internally screaming. You were attracted to him, no doubt. He was kind, he was cute. He was everything you looked for in a man. So when you met Doyoung with a bouquet of flowers in his hands and cheeks flushed red, your heart beat synced with his, uncontrollable and messy. Your palms become sweaty as you sat down opposite him.

“Hi, how have you been?” You asked, a smile spread across your lips. The talk started off great. It seemed so pleasant and comfortable with Doyoung and you wished you could stop time. The moment felt surreal.

Doyoung cleared his throat before scratching the back of his nape. “I don’t know how to say this, but I um….I…..like you.” Wait, he what??? “What?”

“I like you.” Your eyes were about to pop off. Are you dreaming? Doyoung noticed your reaction and was quick to say, “We will pretend this never happened if you are not comfortable.”

“No—. Well, I— oh, god. I like you too.” Dooung blinked a few times. Okay, what should he respond with now?

“Here,” He handles the bouquet with utmost gentleness and care. His cheeks you red, and so were yours.

“What I was saying is…..how about we get to know each other first? This would help us to decide if we want to become official or not.”

“Like, get to know each other on ‘dates’?” You asked with a broad smile.

“Yeah, small dates.” he smiled back and finally made eye contact and was washed over with the warmth that spread through his entire body. His shoulders relaxed and leaned in, ready to hear all about you. “So tell me about yourself, Y/N L/N.” You chuckled, the smile never leaving your lips.

You both were over the moon, and the memory easily become your and his favourite.

Doyoung smiled as he closed his diary. Reading his old entries, he felt nostalgic and happy. He glanced at your sleeping figure beside him. One thing that he had never ever regretted was loving you. He was grateful to have you by his side.

You were his first love, and now, his wife.

The diamond ring on your finger sparkled every so slightly in the dim light of your shared bedroom. Doyoung lay down on the bed beside you, staring at your sleeping face with a silly grin on his face.

It was your third wedding anniversary today and you being all excited and proud drank a little too much than you could handle, knocking out soon after. Doyoung, being a smitten man for you found it hilarious, and adorable.

He tucked a strand of loose hair behind your ear and continued to look at you with fond eyes over flowing with love. He kissed your forehead. He loves you so much, and nothing can ever change that.

links ▸ navigation | masterlist | works in progress

luna’s note ▸ congrats for making it to the end of the story, i hope you enjoyed reading! thank you for taking out your time and giving a chance to this work ♡ as always, feeback is much appreciated! please share your thoughts as a a small feedback can change my day for the better and give me motivation to bring more of such stories to you.

you can find more of my posted works here and fic ideas here!

236 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

ditto831

Wild or Mild

agaskarth

now danswank

nmr1203-blog

題名未設定

karenfordonte

Caring For Donte

mars-gifs

Mars Gifs