#saeyoung x eunji | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gureishi · 2 years

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come on, baby, take me there

✧ — Summary: They talk about friendship. They talk about love. There’s one thing they never say, though—and it’s starting to drive her insane.

✧ — Pairing: Saeyoung x Eunji (CMC)

✧ — Rating: E (m/f sex, bjs, fingering, facefucking, biting)

✧ — A/N: I hadn’t written smut in eleven months, and then suddenly, in May, I felt like trying again. This is my first ever CMC smut, which feels really vulnerable (probably why I only shared it with a couple of close friends until now). But it also ended up one of the bits of fanfiction i’m proudest of, so (after all) here it is!

Eunji counts the things in her life: people she’s loved and the ones she’s lost; stars and clouds and raindrops; steps and eyelashes; boards in the floor and cracks in the sidewalk.

Her mother’s office had black and white tiles, and Eunji would jump from one to the next, careful to always land within the lines. She had good balance, but no child is perfect: when the tips of her toes crossed two differently-colored tiles, she’d cry so hard her mother would send her home.

Her old apartment had a shape on the ceiling that looked like little islands: three hundred and seventy-two of them.

When things are bad, she counts her own movements: two taps with alternating right and left fingers; eighteen blinks as she makes her coffee; eight hundred breaths till she falls asleep.

It took her thirty-eight steps to walk from one end of Rika’s apartment to the next.

She’s never been any good at math—gave it up after high school, still uses a calculator for basic subtraction—but she knows exactly how many cars they’ve driven past today.

That count wasn’t a hard one. The road’s almost empty: they’ve seen just twelve other cars, and he’s driven a little faster each time they’ve passed one.

Now, it’s late enough for the stars to come out, and she tucks her knees to her chest, pulling her sweatshirt down over them: not cute, but almost like a blanket. Saeyoung glances at her, smiling when he sees the way she’s made herself comfortable. He’s got one hand on the wheel, his pretty fingertips tapping along with the music. The corners of his eyes are pink, the only sign he ever shows that he’s getting tired.

“Better?” he asks, using his free hand to pull her hoodie all the way down to her ankles. “You can sleep if you want to.”

She knows this routine. You’re tired, he’ll say, and you’re the one keeping us alive, she’ll remind him. He’ll ask her to sleep and she’ll ignore him—he’ll smile indulgently and turn the music down and she’ll wake up an hour or so later, disoriented and stiff, when he pulls the car into another of his inexplicably undetectable hideouts.

“How long?” she asks. He checks his GPS—not the one on his phone but a funny little contraption of his own invention, which she’s tried (and failed) to understand.

“Forty-four minutes,” he tells her. “I know a place.”

He always does.

Eunji starts counting down, though she doesn’t mean to. She’s actually happiest here, in this neat little car with its soft leather seats, where she can feel the heat from his body and hear the sound of his breathing. She’s never loved driving, but she’s beginning to feel like she could spend the rest of her life in his red Maserati.

She counts minutes and seconds, days and weeks, months and years.

She spent six days in hell, alone—four days in hell, beside him.

And there have been seven days of endless road—seven nights in strange, cramped spaces. One week of holding his hand while he steers with the other, smiling at the sunlit look in his eyes and wishing—for the first time—to be nowhere but here.

They talk. Then they’re quiet. Then they talk some more.

Eunji has always feared silences, which are akin to death. She fills them with meaningless chatter, shatters them with laughter she doesn’t always mean. She asks people questions they don’t want to answer—agrees with the stupidest things just so somebody’s speaking.

And he is the same: scared of death (though he says he isn’t); afraid of quiet (though he was always alone). On the phone, they sometimes talked over each other. It gave her butterflies.

Silence with him is starting to make sense.

Sometimes, they sit in silence for hours: music on, but they’re not really listening; eyes on the road, the rhythm of their breaths making a melody. Other times they talk: about the things they want and the things that frighten them; about where they’ve been and—most tentatively—where they’re going.

He’s told her how it felt to come home to a quiet house, heart racing as he wondered what might have happened while he was away.

She’s told him about everyone she’s ever loved, and all the ways she found to leave those people behind.

He’s told her about the times he’s hurt people—and how he’d hide himself away afterwards, half-hoping no one would find him.

She’s told him how she hates living in her own head. He knows the feeling.

He’s told her about his dreams, too: the long-forgotten wishes he buried a million years ago; the family he’d given up on finding till he heard her voice over the phone.

He’s never said any of this out loud before, and she loves him all the more because she understands what it means for him to be honest.

They talk about friendship. They talk about love.

There’s one thing they never say, though—and it’s starting to drive her insane.

Eunji has liked Saeyoung since the first time they spoke—loved him ever since she saw his lonely, laughing eyes. She’s never fallen in love like this before: so hard and fast she forgot to count the seconds. She’s known him for seventeen days—liked him, loved him, wanted him.

It’s the longest she’s ever gone without getting what she wants.

“Hey,” he says now. “Look down.”

She opens her eyes, not having realized she’d closed them. They’re driving over a bridge, a dark river sparkling beneath them, shimmering with the reflection of the stars.

“Pretty.” She looks from the river to the road—from the road to his hand, from his hand to his shoulder. He’s intuitive and perceptive and brilliant, but he’s got no idea, she thinks—no sense of what happens to her when he shifts in his seat, muscles flexing under her t-shirt as he adjusts his grip on the wheel.

He says something else, taking a right at the end of the bridge, lifting his hips to reach for the phone that’s tucked into the center console. Her stomach flips.

“You’ve got a very cute look on your face,” he says, grinning the way that stirs her up like the center of a storm. “What’s on your mind?”

She sits back so her hair falls over her eyes, pretending she’s sleepy. It’s easier than saying touch me soon, or I’ll die.

He giggles, knowing she’s faking it (not knowing why). With her eyes closed, she really does feel tired—and the rhythm of his car is familiar, the engine beneath her humming a lullaby, and he inhales—exhales—one, two, three, four, five…

“Wake up, princess,” he whispers. “They’ll look at me funny if I carry you inside.”

Her head’s heavy, but skin vibrates as his fingers brush her arm. She never remembers her half-asleep-late-night-engine-purring-car dreams, but she has a strong feeling those hands played a starring role.

She’s not sure how she’s going to survive another night like the last few.

“You’re the princess,” she tells him, tucking her hair into her hood. She pouts till he smiles.

“Good thing you know who you’re dealing with.” He’s parked at the edge of a large, tree-lined lot: unlit, without another car in sight. “Let’s be quick,” he says, “just in case.”

Eunji knows this by now: never linger in a stopped car; never step outside if there’s anyone near. She pulls his backpack from its spot at her feet and he fills it with the same things as always: four phones (three are his); five IDs (none are real); the gun from the glove compartment, which she wishes weren’t here, though she knows why it has to be.

“There’s someone inside?” she asks. Saeyoung nods, handing her a neat roll of bills.

“They know better than to ask anything here,” he says, stepping out into the night. “Still.”

She follows him, the wind stinging her eyes and making her shiver. It’s getting colder every day, and the nights out here are brutal. She pulls her hood tighter: no one who’d want to find them knows her features, but her hair would give them away.

“Be good,” he says, coming around the front of the car to give her a fleeting kiss. “See you soon.”

She knows he means be safe, but her legs still shake. It’s not from fear.

Sometimes they spend the night in abandoned houses—cabins—hideaways. Other times they sleep in mysterious little motels she can’t seem to find on a map. This is the latter.

Eunji relishes the sound of gravel crunching beneath her feet as she walks to the entrance alone. It’s the third time she’s done this, and she’s starting to feel sure of herself. He never said being with him was easy, but she finds she doesn’t much mind.

She locates the short, balding man at the tiny desk in the dark, ramshackle lobby—says “hello” and “goodbye” as she gives him the cash Saeyoung’s already counted—suppresses the deeply-ingrained instinct to smile politely as he hands over the keys.

Saeyoung’s already waiting for her in the hall.

“You’re too quiet,” she mutters, shaking her head as she counts the doors (seven—eight—nine). “Some day, when we’re safe, I’ll teach you how to make noise.”

He chokes, eyes wide in the darkness. Her face burns. That’s not what she meant.

(It sort of is, though.)

She avoids his eyes for the moment, throwing open the door to their room: small and dingy, with shades on the windows and shadows on the walls. The bed takes up most of the space. She wonders how he’ll handle that.

He is already busy, checking the locks on the door and the one on the windows—scanning the corners and floor boards for cameras. She knows this routine by now, though she’s not sure how much is habit rather than necessity.

He checks inside the lamp before turning it on: its light casts a golden glow over the tiny room, doing a dance with the shadows.

Eunji locates the tiny bathroom. She’s carrying everything she needs in one backpack by now, though she hasn’t managed to organize: it takes several minutes to find her face soap and even longer to dig out a hair tie.

She feels more alive once the warm water touches her skin.

When she returns to the bedroom, Saeyoung’s leaning against the window. There’s a little more space there than before.

“I moved the bed,” he says with an apologetic smile. “I’ll sleep over here.”

He’s done it again.

Night after night, he finds a space for himself that’s separate from hers—divides up tiny rooms into sections so he can sleep on the floor.

All the things left unsaid are driving her mad.

“Will you sit with me, at least?” She doesn’t mean to sound sharp, and her chest aches when he lowers his gaze. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

She sinks into the bed, wondering—as she often does in the early hours of the morning—whether she’s only still here because it’s too late to leave her. He said he’d bring her in the first place so he could keep her safe, but he’s sworn since then that he wants her by his side.

It’s hard to believe—harder still when he won’t come close.

One, two, three, four, five floor boards to the door.

The bed springs creak as he sits. Her heart squirms like a too-big fish in a manmade pond.

“How are you holding up, starshine?” His fingers find her face and the familiar calluses and scars make her stomach do somersaults. She twists so she can see him, torn between laughter and tears at the way he perches on the edge of the bed: he’s hardly putting any weight on it, like he’s ready to run away at a moment’s notice.

In the car, everything’s easy, with the console between them and the stars in their eyes.

Here, in this tiny room, on this creaky bed, she doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m good,” she tells him. “I’m tired. I need to stretch my legs. I like the musty smell of this room. I want to kiss you.”

“Oh,” he says. His cheeks are a familiar shade of pink, the tips of his ears bright as his hair, and she smiles. It makes her feel better when he blushes. “Okay,” he whispers.

“Is that your final answer?” She reaches for a strand of his hair, which sticks up in all directions because he runs his fingers through it while he drives. He shifts nervously and the bed squeaks beneath him.

“Kiss me,” he says, his voice hoarse and strange. “Please?”

Please is better than okay. He makes no attempt to move closer so she crawls to him, sighing with longing and lust and days of pent-up frustration when his hand lands on her waist. His lids are lowered and his eyelashes make pretty patterns against his pink cheeks. She takes his face in both hands and lingers for a moment, looking at him.

He’s beautiful.

Gently, she thinks. So he knows he’s loved. So he knows he’s safe.

Her lips brush his (one) and he breathes in deep (two) and his chest is warm (three) and her stomach flips (four) and she forgets the promise she made herself to be patient.

(Five, six, seven.)

Her lips crash into his and she’s got two hands curled in the thin fabric of his t-shirt, wishing he was naked, wishing he was inside her, wishing she could stop time and fall into him forever. For a moment, he goes still—then he makes a sound that’s almost a growl, rough hands gripping her hips, then her waist—roving up her sides, grasping her hair so hard it hurts.

She’s a second from falling apart.

She kisses him harder, gripping his thighs—wandering, wondering—and he shudders, his perfect fingers shivering against her scalp, his breath so short she’s sure he’s dizzy.

One, two—

And he’s gone.

Saeyoung stands up so suddenly she almost falls backwards, a wild look in his eyes as he walks back and back till he’s touching the wall.

“Eunji,” he hisses, looking everywhere but into her eyes. “God.”

It’s not the first time he’s done this, nor the second or third. He kisses her like he’s falling then runs like he’s remembered he doesn’t know how to fly.

“Fuck,” she says, because it’s the only thing she can think to say. “Sorry.”

She doesn’t look at him. She knows the drill by now.

He will collect himself, making a joke about nothing and breathing till he sounds steady again. He’ll find work that probably doesn’t need to be done and apologize for ignoring her, waiting till she’s in bed to turn off the lights.

Three, four, five—

He stays where he is.

Eunji throws herself back onto the pillows. It’s the memory of his hands in her hair that breaks her resolve.

“Saeyoung,” she says to the ceiling. “Why don’t you want to have sex with me?”

There’s a silence: too many seconds for her to count.

“You,” he says at last. His voice sounds strange, and for a moment she thinks it’s all he’s going to say. “You think I don’t…”

She hears his ragged breathing, then another groan from the bed as he sits. She can feel his body heat from here.

“Is that what you…” The bed rocks them both as he scoots back to sit against the headboard.

She peeks at him. He looks pitiful.

“Sorry I said it like that,” she mutters. She’s already apologized so many times tonight.

“You don’t need to…”

“Is it a God thing?” She sits up, reaching for the silver chain around his neck (he shivers a little but doesn’t stop her). She untucks the cross from his shirt and runs her fingers over the polished silver. She’s never touched it before.

“No,” Saeyoung says seriously, waiting patiently for her to lay the cross back against his skin. “It’s not a God thing.” He looks into her eyes and gives her a very small smile. “You sure found a cute way to ask that, though.”

“Even if you don’t want to fuck me,” she says, “at least I’m adorable.” She means to tease rather than antagonize, but he’s got a hopeless, miserable look in his eyes.

“Please,” he stammers. “Stop saying I don’t…”

“Do you?”

She’s not an idiot, though she feels like one: she knows he’s got a million more important things on his mind, and she wishes she knew how to be soft and sweet and all the things he probably wants from her.

But she’s neither of those things.

She’s got sharp edges, haphazardly pieced together like a poorly-mended storefront after a burglary, and she needs an answer even though she probably shouldn’t even have asked in the first place.

“My god,” he sighs, shutting his eyes, laying a hand on his heart like he’s praying for patience. “How am I going to explain this to you?”

“If it helps,” she says. “I’ll be fine either way. I don’t need you to rip all my clothes off and totally wreck me. I just wish that you would.”

His eyes fly open and he makes a sound that’s neither a laugh nor a squeak, but somewhere closer to a groan. He takes a long, ragged breath and drops his face into his hands.

“What am I gonna do with you?” he mutters, voice muffled, tips of his ears redder than before. She almost feels bad for him—almost—but the way his hands shake makes her triumphant.

“You’re pretty smart,” she says, laying a hand on his knee (he almost jumps out of his skin). “Why don’t you try telling me how you feel?”

This time, she waits. She listens to him breathing—quickly at first, then slower. She counts to ten—twenty—twenty-five—thirty. He spreads his fingers and peeks at her between them.

He is the one who’s adorable.

“Okay,” he says at last, hands falling into his lap, eyes a tiny bit clearer. “You know how I like…um, chips?”

She should’ve known he’d find an analogy rather than telling her outright. She really loves him a lot.

“Yes, baby. I know how you like chips.”

“So the thing about the chips…” He gestures vaguely and she bites back a smile: an onlooker would never guess that he’s probably the smartest person in the world. “Did you know that it’s actually not so good to eat chips for every meal?”

She giggles and pokes his stomach. He half-heartedly swats her away.

“I knew that,” she tells him. He nods sagely.

“There’s a lot of reasons I’ve never eaten normally,” he says, quieter now. “One is that I’m not used to it. Another is that I really can’t cook. But the other reason is, like…”

She scoots closer so she’s facing him, gently prying his fingers apart to hold both of his hands. She loves the long scar on his right palm and the callouses covering the tips of his fingers—the sharp angle of his thumb and the way he traces the curve of her knuckles.

“It’s just that it always felt like a waste,” he says. “Why make myself eat proper meals when I was never meant to last very long, anyway?”

Whenever she thinks he’s done ripping her heart apart, he breaks it a little bit more.

She squeezes his hands too tight. He doesn’t stop her.

“Know what I thought the first time I saw you sleeping on the apartment floor?” she asks him, searching his face for some sign he thinks differently now.

He gives nothing away.

“What?”

She remembers too well: his head on his balled-up hoodie, his laptop humming loudly beside him, her poor restless heart screaming something she’d never felt about anyone before.

“I thought you were the strongest person I’d ever seen,” she says. “I thought you were beautiful. And I decided I was gonna care of you for the next hundred years.”

Saeyoung looks at her for a second that lasts a minute that lasts forever.

“That’s a really long time.” She lays both hands on her chest, and he leaves them there.

“Luckily,” she says, “I am determined, impossible to sway, and annoyingly in love with you.”

He narrows his eyes, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Before she can say another word, he kisses her swiftly, all hot skin and short breath and shaky hands.

“I love you too,” he whispers. “And I know you are. And it’s a metaphor.”

He’s making it incredibly hard to think straight with his lips so close and his hands on her hips. He smells the way it feels when you lay your bare skin on hot sand: burning and blindingly bright.

“Am I the chips,” she says, “or the food?”

Saeyoung laughs the bright, melodic laugh that made her fall for him in the first place.

“Are you gonna make me say it?” He looks flushed and dizzy and she wants to kiss every inch of his skin.

(She’s starting to think he might let her.)

“Tell me,” she says.

She counts his breaths and his fingers tapping her skin.

“Having sex with you scares me,” he says, “because I was never supposed to feel satisfied. People like me aren’t meant to have the things they want most.”

She knew, though she still needed him to say so.

Eunji thinks of the people she’s left behind because it was easier not to be loved—of the jobs she’s lost, the friends who won’t speak to her, the lies she told so no one would see she was scared of being alone. She thinks of her mother’s office with its black-and-white tile floor.

“It’s too late,” she tells him. “You’ve got me.”

And she kisses him, running her hands up his thighs, pressing his body back into the headboard. He growls, heady and low, and she decides she’d do anything to hear him make that sound over and over again.

His legs shake. She traces the seam of his jeans, grinning against his lips when she finds an obvious bulge straining against the inflexible fabric.

“You do want me, don’t you?” She opens her eyes to find him looking thoroughly wrecked already, pupils huge as he struggles to focus on her face.

“You have no idea,” he hisses. “I’m…all the time…”

She thinks of him in the car. His strangeness seems different now.

All those times she teased him—tickling his side, kissing his fingers, running her hands through his hair—the times he shifted in his seat and turned up the music and drove a little bit faster—

“You poor boy,” she says. “You’ve been falling apart, haven’t you?”

He starts to answer but she palms him again and he utters a string of syllables she can’t understand, hands—usually so clever—grasping helplessly at her clothes.

“I bet you’re uncomfortable,” she purrs, feeling powerful all of a sudden, fingers finding the button of his jeans. “Can I help you?”

He tries again to speak but only swallows, and she waits for an answer. She’ll wait all night if she has to—all year—the rest of her life.

“Help,” he says.

She’s really pleased she doesn’t have to wait forever.

In a matter of seconds, his jeans are undone and pulled over his hips. He groans as his cock springs free, bound only by his underwear. She wants to see it—touch it—taste it. She kisses his tip through the fabric and he makes an inhuman sound, burying his hands in her hair.

“Can I take these off?” She has never in her life been so cautious. His fingers dig into her scalp, hurting her the perfect amount.

“If you do,” he says hoarsely, “I can’t promise I’ll be coherent enough to say a whole lot afterwards.”

She runs a hand along his length, through his underwear—it’s hot to the touch, which makes her want to feel it on her skin.

“And you’re okay with that?”

She presses her lips to his base and he groans, hips twitching erratically beneath her.

“God,” he hisses. “Make me stop talking.”

She’s wanted to for ages.

He releases her hair and grasps at the sheets, knuckles going white as she tugs his pants all the way off, then lifts his underwear over his cock with quick, gentle fingers.

She giggles.

“What,” he hisses, “Don’t—why…”

She brushes his tip with her thumb and he loses the rest of his words.

“I’m sorry,” she says, stroking him gently, grinning as his hips start to shake. “I haven’t seen one of these in a while.” She feathers tiny kisses across his hipbone and his hips jerk upward, questing toward her mouth. “I like it,” she whispers. “Really, really, really.”

He mumbles something incomprehensible and she takes his cock in both hands, smiling at the sight of her colorful fingernails against his skin. He feels almost feverish, or maybe it’s her—there’s hot, desperate desire in the pit of her stomach, and she grinds against the bed, seeking out seams in her underwear for some sort of relief. His eyes are half-closed, but he makes a sort of guttural sound, so she’s pretty sure he sees.

She bends her head, tasting him with the very tip of her tongue. He squirms, gripping the sheets so tight she thinks he’s going to tear them.

She wouldn’t mind being held just like that.

She wants him in and on and around her. She wants him lucid and commanding—long-lost and desperate. She looks into his eyes and says his name and his head falls back, hips already shaking so hard she has to use both hands to hold him down.

“Do you want me to?” She’s afraid her breath against his skin will destroy him, but he’s stronger than he seems. His hands tug helplessly at her hoodie and she sits up to pull it over her head, almost yelling in frustration when it gets caught in her hair. She’s still wearing a tank top and jeans, but she doesn’t think she can make him wait any longer—his eyes are wide and wild and his chest moves with the rapid rhythm of his breath.

The sight of him makes her ache. She straddles one of his legs, rubbing against his thigh, sparks bursting behind her eyes from the friction of her panties and the look on his beautiful face.

She forgets to count the seconds.

“I want you,” he whispers.

It’s enough.

She grips his thigh with her legs and takes him into her mouth, gasping as he shifts beneath her, hips stuttering, thrusting himself deeper without any idea he’s doing it. She uses one hand to guide him and the other to hold his hips, white hot heat building inside her as she suctions her lips around him, increasing the pressure till she’s sure he can’t stand it anymore.

It’s like nothing else in the world.

She has been in love, and she’s fucked, and she’s fucked people she’s loved.

She’s been desperate before, but she’s never needed anything the way she needs to see him undone.

She takes him deeper, releasing his hips—and he’s half-fucking her mouth without meaning to, losing his sanity the way he once promised her he would. Her eyes fill with tears, but they’re wonderful ones—and she gives into the feeling, tumbling headfirst into a soft spot somewhere deep in her spirit, gasping as she realizes she’s got him at last.

He comes hard, and suddenly. It takes every thread of her fractured consciousness to open her throat so she can swallow. She takes short, frantic breaths, fingernails digging into his hips, blinding heat bursting behind her eyes.

It takes a moment—two, three—before he falls back to earth again.

She sits back, wiping her mouth, gazing hungrily down at him: he’s still got a shirt on for some reason, so she tugs at it with fingers that are almost numb from holding her breath. He mutters something, wiggles his hips, then struggles to a sitting position, lifting his arms obediently.

She wonders whether she’s stolen his words from him permanently. He blinks a few times, struggling to focus on her, beautiful eyes blown out and blurry and dark.

Then: “Not fair,” he whispers.

She can’t think of one single thing that could possibly be unfair. She brushes his hair off his forehead and tries to memorize the wasted look in his eyes.

“What isn’t, baby?”

He breathes deep, which is code for wait for me, I’ll catch up soon.

Her blood runs hot and cold. She shifts her hips against the sheets again, hopelessly tingly. He runs a trembling hand across his eyes then drops it—and when he looks at her, something has changed: his cheeks are still pink and his lips are still swollen, but his eyes are hard and hot as the very core of the earth.

“Eunji,” he says. He’s not moaning now: he speaks steadily, voice so serious she thinks she might give him the world. “Take off your clothes.”

Whatever’s come over him, it’s stealing the last of her senses. She tugs her tank top off and throws it aside.

“Wait,” he breathes. “Sorry. Was that too—you don’t have to…”

He is everything all at once: firm and strong and steady—sweet and soft and full of wonder.

“I’m getting naked either way,” she says. “But I like it better if you tell me to.”

She’s never loved anything the way she loves him now.

“I’m gonna lose my mind,” he proclaims. “This is the end for me.”

Eunji giggles. She means to put on a show but she’s overeager and uncharacteristically clumsy, stumbling as she scrambles out of her jeans, laughing as he lifts one hand to trace the shape of her bra.

“Are you gonna take this off too?” He sounds irreverent.

“If you say I should.”

Saeyoung swallows, fingertips skimming across her stomach.

“Take it off,” he whispers.

She does, unhooking it and letting it fall to the bed, grinning when his eyes grow comically wide.

“Oh,” he says. “Um, wow.”

She’s gotten pretty good responses from partners over the years, but this is by far her favorite.

“Touch them,” she says.

His warm, rough hands make her feel less jagged than usual—now, she’s dreamy and blurry, growing somehow smaller and silkier as he runs his scarred hands over her soft skin.

“How do I make you melt for me?” he asks, tracing the edges of her body with a fingertip. “Show me what to do.”

She’s only waited seventeen days for him to ask.

For weeks, she’s fallen asleep to the sound of his fingers tap-tap-tapping his well-worn keys. She’d happily swap out her beating heart and warm skin for screens and wires—anything to get him touching her.

“Here,” she says. “Feel.”

She takes his hand in both of hers, guiding him between her legs, pressing his fingers to her panties—sticky and soaked already from the way she’s rubbed against them. He swallows, huge eyes following the curve of her body down, down, down to gaze at his hand against her wet panties.

“Did I make you…” His voice is hoarse and there’s a look on his face she can’t quite read.

“It’s all you, baby.” She wiggles, feeling hot and helpless again. He hasn’t done anything yet, but the way he’s watching her is almost enough to drive her mad.

He meets her eyes and she recognizes, in a flash of delight, the expression on his face.

It’s pride.

“Where should I…how do I…”

“Touch me,” she says. “You’ll know when you get it right.”

“How will I know?” He shifts so he’s got a better angle, crooking his pointer finger and flicking it upwards. Sparks fly like soldering metal and she gasps, squirming beneath him.

“Oh,” he breathes. “That’s how.”

She’s watched him work for days on end but she’s never seen him focused the way he is now: he zeroes in on her, eyes dark and hungry—exploring her underwear, feeling for heat, listening for the subtle differences in sounds.

“Can these come off?” His clever fingers hook over the lacy band of her panties and she lifts her hips, mouthing a yes, lost in the way he’s looking at her.

She’s so raw she’s sure she’ll lose her head before he even touches her skin.

He parts her tenderly, dutifully, and then his finger finds the spot that’s already swollen, white hot and hopelessly impatient, and all of a sudden there’s no more minutes or seconds—no cracks in the sidewalk, no clouds or cars or airplanes, no wishes or dreams or fears.

“Like this,” she pants, making the motion with her own finger against his hip, and he copies her perfectly, the precision she’s seen wreck impenetrable security systems dissolving the very fabric of her existence.

She crooks her finger, brushing the skin of his leg so soft, so fast, and he mirrors her motions till she doesn’t have to guide him anymore, and time has no meaning, and she’s known him for days and weeks and years—an eternity—and she’s never wanted anything more, never lost track of the seconds, never forgotten how many miles she is from home or how many steps it would take to sprint out the door.

She can’t see straight anymore. Her vision’s clouded over and she hears the sounds she’s making like distant music in someone else’s dream, and there are no more numbers or words or rhythms, only the absolute certainty that she is alive.

“Saeyoung,” she says, unsure she’s even making sense, searching for his face through the blinding heat behind her eyes. She wants to say fuck me or you were always supposed to be mine, but the words don’t come and her hands scrabble helplessly at his hips.

Words don’t matter as much as they used to.

“Now?” She feels him shifting, sitting, and his finger’s still moving but he shakes as she grasps at his hands.

“Stay there.”

She scrambles to a sitting position, throwing her arms around his neck, giggling as the air clears and his heart hums and his breath grows shallow. He’s already hard again and his whole body shakes when she runs a hand along his length, gasping as she climbs into his lap.

She looks in his eyes—eternal like the sound of the sea, bright as the summer sun the day she ran away from home—and he nods.

He lived, he lives, he’ll live.

And then he’s inside her, hips twitching as she guides him deeper, his body rigid as he struggles valiantly to stay still. She rocks once, twice, and his fingernails dig into her waist, making her moan.

She wishes he’d cover her with marks the shape of his perfect fingers, dissolve her, devour her.

“I can’t,” he hisses, hips shivering helplessly as he tries in vain to let her set the pace. She grins into his dark, dizzy eyes.

“So don’t.”

All he needs is permission to lose control.

He lifts her off him and she lands hard on the pillows, vision narrowing to a single point as he finds his way back to her, hips bucking erratically at first and then steadier, stronger. His lips graze her collarbone—neck—ear, and when she whines he bites down, teeth sharp and solid—her favorite kind of pain.

“Do it again,” she says.

He bites her earlobe so hard the room swims before her, and she throws her legs around his waist and murmurs a million words that are something or nothing, numbers or letters or the precious sound of his secret name. She doesn’t know if her eyes are open or closed but everything’s bright stars in an endless night sky, pleasure so hot it burns her skin as he fucks her harder, faster, letting go of a lifetime of loathing and waiting and longing and hating.

There’s no need to remember someone who’s been where you’ve been—who’ll go where you’re going.

His hips stutter and she squeezes her legs and they fall together, bodies one single mass of energy hurtling through the sky at the speed of light.

He’s shaking.

Then he’s still.

She says his name once, twice, and his hands are in her hair, his body disentangling from hers, his strong arms wrapping around her waist and holding her tight.

“Fucking love you,” she mutters, lips pressed against his chest, head heavy, limbs like molten lava. He laughs and she thinks it’s the song of the stars.

“Your ears are really red,” he says. His voice is husky so she kisses his throat.

“No, your ears are red, ‘cause I make you nervous.”

She blinks till she can see his face again. He’s grinning.

“Maybe,” he says. “Yours are red because I bit them a lot. Hope that’s not a problem.”

“You can bite my ears all day long.” She smushes her face into his neck and his hands lift her hair, which was stuck to her skin with sweat.

“Right now?” He nibbles her earlobe and she squirms, still tingly all over, desperate and happy and particularly in love.

“You’re not gonna sleep on the floor anymore, are you?”

“God.” He exhales heavily, squeezing her tighter. “How’d I ever sleep before?”

“You didn’t.” She peeks at his sleepy, sweet, satisfied face, grinning at the silly look he gives her.

When she holds him, she imagines a million things.

She thinks of the good dreams she hopes he’ll have now that he’s hers—the happy ending they’re heading toward, because she’ll stop at nothing till he has everything. She thinks of the pleasure of living and the certainty of never being alone. She thinks of a hundred more years of him falling asleep in her arms.

She doesn’t count anything else tonight: not the steady sound of his breaths nor the seconds till she falls asleep—not the shapes on the ceiling nor the shadows on the floor.

Loving him isn’t numbers or patterns, rhythms or music.

It’s quiet. It’s shimmering.

It’s the sound the earth makes when your feet touch solid ground.

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #cmc eunji #saeyoung x eunji #spicy spaceship #fics from my tumblr absence <3

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luxielle · 2 years

Text

Mystictober 2022: Day 7 - Seven x Eunji / Space 🪐

feat. @gureishi & her cutie Spaceboy ✨

#mm_mystictober2022 #mm mystictober2022 #mystic messenger #mysme #mysme saeyoung #saeyoung choi #saeyoung x cmc eunji #cmc eunji #Lux does art #Saeyoungagotchi & Eunjigotchi #don't forget to feed them

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luxielle · 2 years

Text

A very smitten Saeyoung with his very tiny treasure of a girlfriend Eunji ✨

For my most rustic of wives @gureishi, who has somehow been leading parallel lives with me despite living amongst the stars with her spaceboy 🚀⭐️

Love you Grace 😘

#mystic messenger #mysme #saeyoung choi #saeyoung x eunji #eunji is tiny i want to put her in my pocket #you're always just one cabin away from finding your soulmate #this is not my choi but he is a good egg #furry coat came out 39 times furrier than planned oops #thank you grace for writing pretty stories about my pretty boyfriend #and for that one time with the tree #and for staying up until 3am discussing whether identical twins have identical everythings #grace heals the world with the magic of dance & we are all better for it #lux does art

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gureishi · 2 years

Text

already flying through the free fall

Saeyoung X Eunji (CMC) featuring Zen X Lea (CMC)

red universe | Saeyoung’s route: 5th day

If she climbs up on the windowsill and tilts her head back just enough, she can see the sunset from here.

Eunji has been watching sunsets for ages. The house where she grew up had a big oak tree in the front yard, and from the top of it she could see an endless expanse of sky. She wasn’t supposed to climb it, but she did anyway—scurried outside when no one was paying attention and climbed all the way up, careful to tuck whichever (hated) dress she was wearing around her legs so it wouldn’t rip.

She never loved to have her feet on the ground. From the air, she could see neat little lines of pretty rooftops, which covered homes, which covered families. She could see the skyscrapers she loved in the distance—just a short train ride away (but to a little girl, that’s an eternity). When the sun started to set, she’d pretend she was painting the sky all the colors of the rainbow; she’d watch the pinks and purples as they sank below the horizon and imagine she belonged among them.

She’d grip the branches with her knees and lift both hands to the sky and feel like she was touching heaven.

When she was a teenager, she’d climb to the roof of her apartment building, kick off her shoes, tie back her hair, and watch the setting sun amidst broken bottles and painted-over wires and the other trash that covers the roofs of buildings in the city. She wasn’t allowed up here either—never allowed anywhere—but when it had been two days (or even three) since she’d seen her mother, she’d start to feel small. Standing close to the sunset, she was strong, and the sorbet-colored sky sung her name.

She’d imagine herself as a cloud, or a gust of wind—going, going, gone.

It was impossible to get to the roof of the building where she lived with Kate. It was a three-story brownstone, and from their apartment on the second floor Eunji couldn’t see the sunset at all.

During those years, she’d sometimes run out in the middle of cooking dinner, bare-armed in the winter, laughing as she sprinted down the city streets. It was always loud here, and she shimmied her hips to the music blaring from speakers perched precariously on the uneven sidewalk and smiled when she saw the river sparkling in the distance.

She never minded the roaring sound of the highway or the dirty, fishy smell of city water. Over the Hudson, the sky would be red. She’d hug herself tight and imagine falling into it.

Back then, she’d run home, shivering and silly—and nothing felt quite right, but she was always on the verge of leaving. Now, she’s not supposed to go anywhere at all.

It’s familiar, this feeling: she hears sit still and smile echoing in the empty air whenever one of these strangers (friends?) reminds her she’s safest if she stays put. She’s spent her whole life living in other people’s boxes, she thinks—even when she was sure she was free.

Now she’s alone, and this sterile apartment feels more like a hospital than a home, and she realizes she’s never been any good at choosing.

Eunji dims the lights and twists her body till she can make out the horizon beyond the buildings that loom all around, shielding her from most of the sun. She lays her cheek on the window and feels grateful for the shock of cold glass against her skin.

There are streaks of red and gold in the cloudy sky and she wishes she were anywhere but here.

If she thinks too hard about the situation she’s found herself in, she’s afraid she’ll fall apart. There is nothing ordinary about the organization she’s involuntary ended up joining—nothing logical about the party she’s supposed to be planning. If the strangeness of the weeks since she left home (came home) hadn’t made everything a blur of uncertainty, she would have left already.

She should have left already.

She’s not ready to admit to herself why she’s still here.

It’s unfair, she thinks, that he has almost certainly seen every picture of her that anyone’s ever put on the internet and she’s only looked at what he’s allowed her to see. She hates that she’s saved his stupid profile pictures to her stupid phone and zoomed in, trying to gauge the secrets behind his smile by staring too hard at blurry pixels on a tiny screen.

The sky reminds her of his eyes.

Eunji doesn’t trust the person that sent her here. She doesn’t trust anyone who’s assured her that she’s safe. She doesn’t trust herself.

She’s nothing if not bold.

Still staring at the sky—darker now, stars peeking out behind purple clouds—she calls him. It is already becoming habit, her finger hovering over the spot on her screen where his contact lives before the app is even open. She wonders if he ever watches the sunset. She wonders whether he was thinking about her, too.

The phone rings once and then connects. There’s a pause.

“Thanks for calling Seven Zero Seven, genius astronaut, friend of cats. Nobody’s home right now. Leave a message with the color of your underwear and I’ll call you back.”

She giggles. There’s definitely something wrong with him.

“I already know what your voicemail sounds like, silly,” she says. “My underwear’s got pictures of cars on it.”

He chokes. She’s won this round.

“Is—does it—really?”

“You wanna see?” She grins and brushes her hair back off her face, feeling proud of herself.

“God,” he mumbles. “Yes. No! No! Forget I said that. I didn’t say that. Who am I? Who are you?”

Eunji tucks her legs up to her chest so her whole body fits on the windowsill. Of course her underwear doesn’t have pictures of cars on it. Who owns something like that?

“I’m Eunji,” she says. “Nice to meet you.”

He sighs heavily. He sounds weary, or maybe just overstimulated. She wonders how his breath would feel on her neck.

“Why, uh.” God, she loves that she can leave him breathless. She loves that nobody else can hear how his voice sounds when he talks to her. She loves that his laugh is sweet like the color of sunset. “Why did you call?”

She has no idea why she called. She pictures him checking the cameras, wondering if she’ll come out into the hall so he can see her.

“Tell me something about myself, Seven Zero Seven.”

He laughs: high-pitched, nervous. “What?”

“You know everything about me,” she says. “Tell me something I might have forgotten.”

He giggles and she hears him shifting in his chair, like he’s focusing himself. When he speaks again, he sounds serious.

“When you were seven years old,” he says, “you fell out of a tree. You didn’t break any bones, but your parents took you to the hospital anyway.”

Eunji sits up straight.

Of all the things, he thinks of this just as she’s sitting and watching the sunset. She wonders if he can see inside her mind: the things that delight her; the things that frighten her.

She remembers falling. It wasn’t getting hurt that scared her then, but the repercussions of getting caught breaking a rule. She has a feeling he understands about that kind of fear.

“How’d you know that?” she asks. She was sure he’d seen pictures—her addresses—her schools. She didn’t expect him to have already stored details about her childhood in his beautiful, mysterious mind.

He makes a funny sound, like he’s not sure what to say. “Hospital records,” he mutters. “Uh, sorry.”

All her life, Eunji has withheld information from the people she meets, feeling safest if she’s got secrets. She hardly ever spoke to Kate about the years before they met, because it felt good to know that some things belonged only to her.

But: “I don’t mind that you know,” she tells Seven. As she says it, she finds that it’s true.

He giggles weakly.

“What am I gonna do?” he whispers. “You can’t say things like that to me.”

“Why?” She unfolds herself from the windowsill. It’s fully nighttime now.

“Have you ever jumped out of a plane?”

Eunji raises her eyebrows. She’s fast, but he’s faster.

“No,” she says. “Have you?”

“Of course.” There’s a glimmer of confidence in his voice now, and it makes her stomach drop. “Feels like the universe is expanding inside your chest. That’s, uh—it’s how it feels when I—”

“When you what, babe?”

He makes a spluttering sound in response to the term of endearment and she tosses herself onto the bed.

“Whenever I think about you.”

Now she’s the one who’s breathless.

It wasn’t so long ago that she was in love. She remembers being held too close, too tight: the suffocating warmth of someone needing you. She’s used to hiding from people who are kind to her, but right now she feels different.

She finds she doesn’t want to disappear.

“I—” she starts—but there is a commotion in the background, and she gets the sense that he is being scolded.

“Never mind!” he chirps. “I have to go! It’s—ahh!”

There’s a scuffling, and Seven is gone.

Eunji dangles her bare feet off the edge of the bed, head spinning. She wants to run to him.

She sends a text instead.

Hey, she writes. I have to ask you something.

She’s sure that Lea is working—but in this strange new version of reality, there is no one else she trusts.

She’s not sure there ever has been.

Lea often works late, and Eunji doesn’t expect a response right away—but one comes in a matter of seconds.

Hi! she types back. What is it?

Eunji has a million questions, and she isn’t sure there’s a good way to ask any of them.

Does he act like this a lot? she writes, which isn’t a great representation of her scattered mind, but it’s something. She doesn’t have to say who she means.

Lea is typing—then she isn’t—then she is again.

This is Zen, the message says. Eunji laughs, because texting with them is like talking to a very beautiful two-headed creature: she never knows which one she’s going to get. Seven’s a weird guy, Zen writes. But he’s gotten weirder.

Eunji smiles. She tries to picture Seven speaking to someone else the way he’s been talking to her, and her heart aches.

It hasn’t even been a week, and she’s already hoping that she’s special.

Sorry, the next message says. It’s Lea again.

Eunji nibbles her bottom lip and waits for an answer. What, exactly, does she want to hear?

He’s never been in love, Lea writes. If that’s what you want to know.

Eunji lets her phone fall from her hand, immediately disappearing into the unmade bed. She can hear the rattling of her own heartbeat.

Lea answered the question she wasn’t sure how to ask—allayed some of the shadows surrounding all this brightness. She should have known her new friend would already understand.

She tangles herself in the blankets, staring at the ceiling. For her whole life, she’s been gazing at the sky and wishing she could dissolve in it—she’s built a whole career out of her furious desire to transcend gravity.

And Seven says thinking of her is like falling through space, and she sees his eyes in the color of sunset.

She sits up and looks out the window. The sky is inky black, and usually she’s scared of the dark.

Tonight, all she sees is stars.

Banner by the mysterious hacker’s future girlfriend, @luxielle ❤️

#mystic messenger #red universe #cmc eunji #cmc lea #saeyoung choi #zen #saeyoung x eunji #zen x lea #grace and lea collab #saeyoung and eunji route

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gureishi · 2 years

Text

fell apart in the usual way

Saeyoung X Eunji (CMC) featuring Zen X Lea (CMC)

red universe | Lea | Saeyoung’s route, day 9

When Seven tells Eunji she should forget about him, she doesn’t break down.

She doesn’t cry when he raises his voice, and she’s silent and resolute as he builds himself a fortress of laptops and chip bags and tangled cables so she can’t come close to him.

She knows about losing things—considers herself an expert at keeping it together when everything around her is falling apart.

When her parents would fight, she’d hide in her room and line up her stuffed animals by size, and species, and color. She knew better than to come to them crying, pitiful, begging for attention—it was easier to stare at the ground and pretend she was someplace else.

Every now and then, no one would remember to pick her up from school. She’d watch the other forgotten children’s faces falling and feel proud of herself, because she was stronger than the rest of them. And when her parents finally split up and her mother dragged her halfway across the world, she didn’t put up a fight or whine or behave like a sullen preteen, even though she was one.

What was the point of being miserable? She never understood why someone would look at a house that’s burning and throw oil on the fire.

When things are bad, she thinks, her feelings are sure to make them worse.

So when Seven says he’ll disappear as soon as he’s certain she’s safe, she shakes her head and hides her face in her hair and lets him be. For hours that become endless days, he stares at his screens and she makes meals three times a day even though no one is eating them—and at night, she lays in the bed she’s grown to hate and pretends to sleep, the sound of his typing providing the scenery for her fevered not-quite-dreams.

She hears her own voice in the way he scolds her, and she’s angry—at herself, at her parents, at everyone who’s ever tried to love her. She’s not falling to pieces, and she isn’t letting him have his way.

She’s known from the moment she saw his face that they’re the same kind of lonely.

Eunji understands about hating the people who treat you with kindness, because being loved reminds you how little you deserve it. She tells Seven that she doesn’t believe him when he says he wants to go away—and tells him again, and one more time—and she watches his resolve start to waver.

It is only when his eyes have gone soft—when he’s held out a hand and said that he wants her, that he’s grateful, that he needs just a little bit more time—that the feelings she’s pushed down for days crash over her like a river right after a storm.

So she does the only thing she can think of: hides in the bathroom and turns on the shower and cocoons herself in towels and hugs her knees to her chest and sobs.

Eunji is an all-or-nothing cryer. If she is steadfast and silent when the world is burning, she is equally fragile as soon as she feels safe enough to fall apart. She doesn’t get gracefully teary-eyed like she’s seen some people do—instead, she cries with everything she has.

Eunji thinks of small feet in too-tight shoes and the sound of cars pulling into the parking lot—of peering through dry eyes into the distance to see if anyone has come for her.

It’s easy to be forgotten. Being wanted is what frightens her.

She cries like snow that comes too early in the year: harder and faster the longer she lets it go on, feeling numb, feeling nothing, feeling like losing herself. She is safest here, with the cold tile floor under her bare feet and the walls so close she could be underground. She wishes she could enclose herself in bulletproof glass so there would be nothing but her heart and the blood in her veins and her shirt against her skin.

Her body is the only thing that’s hers.

Her tears belong to her, but they also belong to Seven—and to his brother, who was torn from him—and to the friends he said he was going to leave behind, and the family he tries not to remember, and the parents she never understood how to love. They belong to the little girl who watched in silence as her parents screamed, and the woman who never picked up her phone, and the way Seven watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking: like he was already saying goodbye.

They belong to his sad eyes when he showed her the pictures of his twin (smiling—young for his age—golden—laughing).

How long has he been waiting for someone who’ll stay?

Eunji’s phone, which she’s tucked between her feet, buzzes violently. She means to ignore it, but she looks through blurry eyes and sees his name on the screen.

Hey, he says. When you get out of the shower, I have something to say.

Her stomach twists anxiously. She shouldn’t answer him—she’s supposed to be showering—but she is impatient, and desperate, and afraid.

Not actually in the shower, she says. Just listening to it.

And she waits, unsure what she’s hoping for. She’s a miserable little creature, she thinks—hiding on the bathroom floor in her pajamas—and she doesn’t need him to know she’s crying in secret.

There’s a small, selfish part of her that wants to find out what he’ll do if he sees.

She pictures him crouched in his corner (right where she left him), eyes darting between his phone and his laptop—agonizing, deliberating, desiring.

Eunji’s been in love twice, but neither of her partners ever saw her cry.

There’s a knock on the door, and she jumps—she couldn’t hear his footsteps over the sound of the shower (she never can, anyway).

“Eunji,” he calls. She can’t remember the last time he said her name. “Are you, um—can I…?”

“You wanna know if I’m naked?” She masks the sob in her voice with the artificial confidence that’s always charmed him.

Seven makes a strange sort of squeaking sound, and she wipes tears from her eyes with furious fingers.

“Are you naked?”

She couldn’t be any further from naked. She’s got a too-big sweatshirt on over her oldest pajamas, and there’s a towel around her shoulders and another across her knees. She gets cold when she’s sad—like feeling too much saps all the warmth from her skin—and even under all these layers, she’s still hollow.

“Come and find out,” she says. She thinks she does a pretty good job of sounding sure of herself.

This, she thinks, will certainly scare him off. For days now, he’s turned to face the wall (hood pulled low over his eyes, hands—for some reason—covering his ears) whenever she’s come out of the shower, as if he’s afraid of seeing her when she’s recently been naked.

So she is challenging him—or trying to frighten him—or wishing he’d wipe her tears.

He opens the door.

Eunji sees Seven through the steam: tousled hair, frantic eyes. He’s left behind his hoodie and his headphones: his armor, it seems, is off.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re…”

She gazes up at him, knowing just how she must look, and he’s hesitating—no, staring at her—no, crossing the room on quick, steady feet and sinking to the floor at her side.

“Hi,” she whispers. Now that she sees him, she’s crying again.

“God,” he mutters. “Oh god. You’re—why are you…?” He lifts a hand like he’s going to brush a tear from her cheek and freezes. The bravado of 707 is nowhere to be found—and neither is the cold resolve of the man who’s been living with her lately. This person—neither 707 nor Luciel, she thinks, but someone else entirely—takes in her tear-stained face with wide, timid eyes.

She’s not sure how to explain why she’s crying—doesn’t know how to express what she needs. She wants to take his beautiful, frightened face in both hands and kiss him till he sees stars.

She grabs the towel from her knees and hands it to him.

“First rule of the bathroom floor,” she says. “You have to wear a towel.”

He looks at her for a moment too long, a serious look on his face, and then he nods.

“You’re the boss,” he says. He swings the towel around his shoulders and twists the ends together, knotting it around his neck like a cape. She sort of laughs, but it sounds thick like syrup.

For a second, neither of them speaks. Eunji stares down at her own feet and worries the towel between her fingers and wishes he’d tear the words from her lips so she doesn’t have to figure out how to form them. He clears his throat.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I never should have spoken to you the way I have been.”

Eunji shakes her head so hard her hair flies into her face. She doesn’t need another apology.

“You found out everything you ever believed was a lie,” she says slowly. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”

He grunts in frustration and she looks up at him, startled. He’s waging a whole war, she thinks, inside his mysterious mind.

“I was never angry at you,” he exclaims. He sounds miserable. “All I’ve wanted for the last nine days is to see your face from up close. I’d understand if you never want to be near me.”

She’s not enclosed in glass, she thinks—she’s made of it. She swears she hears the sound of shattering as she sobs silently, staring at him. There’s no gravity in this strange space: nothing but the sound of the shower and steam and her shaky heart.

He says her name again, and this time it sounds like a prayer. “I would do anything in the world,” he whispers, “for you.”

“Don’t need the world,” Eunji says. And she doesn’t: she’s never needed a whole lot—needs so much—needs nothing—needs him. “It wouldn’t be so bad—” (she breathes) “—to be held.”

“My god.” He opens his arms: face flushed, eyes wild. “Come here.”

The thought of touching him has driven her mad since the first time she saw him. He smells like sweet honey and chili spice and soda and the body wash they’ve apparently been sharing and she is crashing into him, cheek to his chest, arms weaving around his waist, hair falling everywhere and steam making her eyes sting.

He inhales sharply, like he’s seen a star fall. She knows the feeling.

For a moment, they are frozen. He doesn’t breathe. She hears his heart.

Then the pieces fall into place—like a lock clicking, a gate swinging open—and his arms are around her, hands in her hair, molding to her body like he’s been waiting to hold her all this time.

“Got you,” he says. “I’ve got you now.”

Eunji swears she can feel her skin buzzing as it comes into contact with his—even through his t-shirt and her pajamas and the towel cape that’s somehow gotten twisted up between them—and she’s crying all over his chest, and he tucks her hair behind her ear with such tenderness she feels she may fade away.

“I never meant to make you cry,” Seven says. “I’m so sorry, starshine.”

Something shifts in the fabric of time. Eunji sits up.

“What did you call me?”

He coughs, face flushing. He’s still got an arm around her waist and a finger to her cheek and the tips of his ears are as red as his hair.

“Um,” he says. “It’s something that I—I mean, I’ve been thinking—uh, not that I was thinking about—only, in my head—”

“Is that what you call me in your fantasies?” She’s got goosebumps, and the fluttering she’s been feeling in her chest for days has reached a fever pitch.

He swallows hard and looks at her. She’s never seen him like this before: his eyes are blazing; she feels like they might burn her if she stares too long.

She wouldn’t mind.

“I imagine myself falling through space a lot,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Lately I see myself plummeting through the emptiness, like always, but then all of a sudden something’s different.”

“What’s that?” She can count a million shades of gold in his big, beautiful eyes and he’s so close she can feel his breath on her neck.

“The stars,” he says. “They catch me.”

Everything Eunji wants is right in front of her now—and he told her never to dream about him, but he’s the only thing she thinks about when she can’t fall asleep. In her imagination, she sees him standing in the sunlight, beckoning her closer, smiling when she runs to his side.

Here, on the bathroom floor, his hands are rough on her skin.

“Oh my god,” she says. “Are you going to kiss me or aren’t you?”

For a second, Seven is struck silent. His body tenses like a tightly coiled spring: moments from pouncing (or running away).

But he’s been running forever, and he seems to have skidded to a stop in her arms.

“Oh,” he whispers. “Can I?”

And maybe you’re supposed to fall in love somewhere beautiful and kiss for the first time under a starry night sky, but Eunji doesn’t see it that way. She plucks his glasses from his face and folds them neatly on the cold tile floor and thinks, for one fleeting moment, that she’d follow this sweet, strange, lonely man to the ends of the earth.

“Hurry,” she says.

Seven is scared until he isn’t. His calloused hand cups her cheek and he shivers as he shuts his eyes—and she tastes him before he touches her, feeling the floor fall away.

His first kiss is a ghost, a whisper, a smoke signal.

“Hah,” he pants, pulling back, peeking at her through lidded eyes—cheeks flushed, hand dropping to her waist. “That’s—”

His second kiss is something else entirely.

She’s in control, and steady, and sure, and then all of a sudden she’s none of those things. His fingers are tangling in her sweatshirt and he’s kissing her wildly, fiercely—and he’s a little bit clumsy, a shade naive, but she’s never experienced anything like the way he wants her.

She buries her hands in his hair, too breathless to register that she’s touching it at last, and he makes a strangled sound against her lips. She’s dizzy, scrambling, towel falling from her shoulders, climbing into his lap and kissing him harder when she hears his breath hitch.

If keeping him at arm’s length was excruciating, kissing him is a different sort of pain: it’s as desperate as it is satisfying, as sharp as it is soft.

She takes his bottom lip between her teeth and feels his whole body shudder. The room is tilting sideways and her blood is singing in her veins and there’s a humming in her ears.

A loud, repetitive—

It’s her phone. Her phone is ringing.

Seven realizes it the same second she does, and he groans, grasping her hips with helpless hands.

“Don’t answer it,” he whispers. She giggles and presses a finger to his lips.

“We’re literally in an emergency situation right now,” Eunji murmurs, head swimming. “We have to—”

“Yeah, yeah.” He sighs and shuts his eyes and she takes him in: messy hair, pink cheeks, kissed lips.

“I’m gonna—” Eunji reaches for the phone—but she’s still in his lap and her legs are tangled around his waist, and he gets there faster.

“Eunji’s phone,” he says before he’s got it all the way to his ear. “She’s very very busy right now so you can just—”

“Seven?” Eunji’s close enough to hear the voice on the other end of the line clear as day: it’s Zen, and he sounds suspicious.

“Oh, uh.” Seven meets her eyes and grins wickedly. “Yeah, hi.”

She feels her heart make a perfect pirouette. It’s the first time she’s seen his smile for real: not in a picture, but up close and shining and real.

“Is something wrong with her?” Zen is asking. “Why are you picking up her phone?”

Eunji raises her eyebrows and holds out her hand. Seven bites her finger.

“She can’t talk,” he mumbles around the finger in his mouth. “She’s, um. Answering emails.”

Eunji can hear hushed voices and she’s certain Zen is consulting with Lea. Oh, how she wishes she could get Lea alone just long enough to describe the situation she’s in. She has a feeling her friend—her greatest cheerleader lately, the strongest advocate for her feelings—would be proud.

They could all use something to celebrate.

Swiftly, Eunji dips her head and presses her lips to the crook of Seven’s neck. He makes a sound like a small animal suddenly being lifted high in the air and she swipes the phone from his hand, winking as his eyes go wide.

“Hey, guys,” she chirps—knowing Lea is listening anyway, knowing she sounds breathless, knowing Seven’s about a second away from retaliating (god, she wishes he would). “How are you?”

It’s a legitimate question, and there’s a pause after she asks it. For a moment, the safe, steamy bathroom has felt like a haven, separate from all the frightening things they’re facing—but even in here, the world’s still moving forward.

“We’re okay,” Zen says quietly. “I called to check on you.”

Eunji feels like crying again.

It is too much for her one small body to bear, she thinks: the shock of discovering she’s been living under perilous circumstances, and the misery of being shut out by someone she’s only just begun to cherish, and the thrill of his breath on her neck, and the incredible kindness of new friends she’s never even met in person—the air is too thick, or maybe she’s just forgotten how to breathe.

Do these people know how little of their affection she deserves? Do they know that she’s careless, and easy to anger—that she’s hated everyone who’s ever been gentle to her and run at the first signs of softness?

She realizes she hasn’t said anything, and Seven’s watching her with worried eyes—and then she hears Lea’s voice through the phone.

“It’s okay,” Lea says, “to be scared.”

Oh, she is falling apart at the seams: her friends are too good, and Seven is too sweet, and she’s never coped well with sympathy. She shakes her head at Seven silently, unable to speak.

He seems to know it’s his turn to be strong.

He tightens his grip on her and takes the phone, and she lets her head fall to his shoulder.

“We are scared,” he says quietly—and it’s the first time she’s heard him admit this, and there’s such a sense of security in the softness of his voice. “I’m the reason things got this way, and I’m sorry that I lied about it. I don’t really have a great track record of thinking things through.”

“You’re not the only one who lied,” Zen says. Zen and Lea seem to be sharing the phone now—Eunji imagines them sitting on their bed, entwined together—and she’s soothed by the image of them staying so close.

Nothing is quite as frightening when you’re with the person you love.

“I know.” Seven pets her hair, parting her curls with his clever fingers, and she breathes in his scent and feels steadier. “I’m acting alone from now on instead of taking orders from anybody. And I swear I’m going to protect her with everything I have.”

There’s a pause, and then Zen chuckles.

“Wow,” he says. “You could still use a lesson or two, but that was kind of cool.”

The tension breaks. Eunji feels an enormous weight being lifted from her shoulders.

She twists her head sideways so she can be heard over the phone.

“If you think that was cool,” she purrs, “you should’ve seen what he was doing to me when we answered the phone.”

It’s a tease more than anything else, of course—but it gets just the reaction she hoped it would. Zen splutters and Lea squeals and she looks at Seven just in time to see his face going red again.

“What,” Zen is shouting, “was he doing to you when you answered the phone?!”

“See you!” Eunji sings, hanging up before the situation can escalate. Seven opens his mouth and then closes it, and she thinks proudly that she might have broken him at last.

“I’m dying,” he whispers weakly. She grins and kisses him, and he shudders when she shifts in his lap.

“You’ve got work to do,” she says. “Remember?”

He sighs heavily and strokes her cheek with a shaky hand.

“Will you stay with me?” he asks. And she knows he means while he’s working, but the look in his eyes says he means something more than that, too.

Eunji smiles at him: this stranger-turned-friend-turned-something-much-more-serious who’s promised to protect her.

“I will,” she says.

Eunji knows how to lose—to be lost—to forget—to be forgotten. Being wanted is harder; being found is frightening.

She looks at the beautiful boy with stars in his eyes and decides that it’s time she belonged to someone.

Banner by my rustic-wife-turned-cult-queen-turned-sister-in-law @luxielle

#mystic messenger #red universe #cmc eunji #saeyoung choi #saeyoung x eunji #cmc lea #zen #zen x lea #grace and lea collab

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gureishi · 3 years

Text

I’ve never gotten a commission in this fandom before, but how could I pass up the chance to get a Saeyoung and Eunji sticker from @askingthe-rfa??? I couldn’t possibly.

LOOK 👏🏼 AT 👏🏼 THIS 👏🏼

I swear Alix is an actual goddess who has descended to earth to bless us with her talent.

And now I have the coolest water bottle in the world.

Commission Aliiiiiix! And check out her Etsy shop! ❤️❤️❤️

#mystic messenger #saeyoung x eunji #gujwvjkwkfkeke thank youuuuuu I love you #💖🥰💞😘❤️😍✨

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gureishi · 3 years

Text

wait so long

Saeyoung X Eunji (CMC)

@welookateachotherandlaugh (my darling love) asked me a question about Saeyoung and Eunji’s history, and I had feelings, and then I wrote a fic 😘

The first time, it’s a clear day in the midst of a month of storms.

The little boy with hair the color of a summer sunset stands out in the bustling crowd of busy adults. Everyone is in a hurry, here in the market: vendors talk fast and buyers shake their heads and haggle and move on. He’s the only child here by himself: others cling to their parents’ sleeves and bicker with their siblings and suck on cheap candies bought in a rush to placate them.

The boy stands alone, staring up at a display of brightly-colored melons. He’s never wanted anything so badly in his whole life.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and paces back and forth, his bright eyes tracking the melon vendor’s feet. He knows how to steal: pieces of bread and sweets and even vegetables small enough to hide behind his back. He sees the angles and patterns between people’s bodies, and he understands how not to be seen.

The melons, though, are too big to hide—and he could buy one, only he hasn’t ever stolen money before.

He’s stepping back in defeat as the shaft of light he’s standing in shifts. He jumps at the sound of footsteps. He’s been caught—no, he’s been found.

“Hey,” says a voice that’s too full of life to belong to a grownup. “Are you alone?”

The boy turns, taking in the villain who’s intercepted his plan. He takes a step back, caught off guard.

“Your hair,” he says slowly, staring with wide eyes. “It’s like mine.”

The girl—older than him, certainly, with neat pigtails and an outfit that doesn’t look at all comfortable—beams.

“We’re like twins,” she says. He shakes his head, staring at the ground.

“I already have a twin,” he mutters. He doesn’t know why he feels mad.

“Oh.” The girl doesn’t waver. She puts her hands on her knees and bends over to look into his eyes. “Where?”

He kicks at the dirt and prepares to lie, like he always does: He’s sick today or he’s at school or he just didn’t want to come.

“He’s not allowed to go out,” he says instead. He’s never told anyone this before.

The girl tugs at the ends of her braids, but she doesn’t laugh, and she doesn’t chide.

“Are you getting him a melon?” she asks. She’s still looking at him like she can read the story of his life on the stubborn lines of his small face, and it makes his stomach feel strange.

“No,” he says. He knows he’s being petulant, and he should be scolded for it. The girl tosses her head and pulls a little purse out of the pocket of her skirt.

“I’m getting one,” she says (too loud, like she has something to prove). “Maybe I’ll get two, instead.”

His heart races. He should stop this funny little girl with stormy eyes and brand new shoes from buying him something, but he doesn’t remember how to speak.

“Okay?” she sings, strutting around him awkwardly (she stands too straight, like someone has told her she isn’t allowed to slump). “If I get two you can have one, but you have to make me a promise.”

“What is it?” he asks, curious in spite of himself. She smiles.

“That you’ll tell me your name.”

The boy looks at this strange, stiff girl, and almost says it.

“I’m—” he says. But a cloud shifts in the sky and the sun goes into shadow and he remembers who he is—who he isn’t.

His face burns. He spins around. And he runs.

His too-small shoes kick up clouds of dust as he sprints through the marketplace. He knows the rules: don’t be seen, don’t be heard, don’t be found. He runs so fast lightning seems to burst before his eyes, and he tries to erase the girl with hair like the first star after the sun goes down.

It’s never done him any good to remember.

————————————————————

The second time, the night air has the taste of fall.

He’s never been here before. The campus library looms tall and dark, and when he lays a hand on the marble, it’s ice cold. He is supposed to go straight back to the room that’s been given to him—here in this new city, an ocean away from home—but tonight he doesn’t want to.

His footsteps echo in the silent halls of the building he’s never dared enter, and he tries not to stare at the ornate ceilings or shelves lined with millions of words he hasn’t read before. It’s been a long time since he’s felt so small.

He runs a finger across a row of books and checks the dust. He’s been learning to do things like this: gauge—from textures and sounds and substances left behind—the qualities of a place.

The books are old. He’s not sure what else he’s supposed to know.

He’s thinking about this as he turns the corner—and he stumbles when he sees there’s someone there.

He should’ve already known.

Shaking his head (hating himself), he turns to leave—but the someone sitting on the floor amidst piles of dusty books lifts a hand.

“Hey,” she says. She speaks too loud for a place like this and he wants to shush her, but instead he stares and shuffles his feet and forgets how to speak.

“Are you taking kinesiology or are you just here by mistake?”

“Um,” he says. “What?”

The girl—woman?—has hair that’s big and wild, falling all over her shoulders and covering part of her face. She’s wearing denim overalls and looking up at him like she thinks he’s an alien.

He sort of thinks so, too.

“Did you just happen to wander into the somatics section?” She laughs, rising to her feet with the sort of strange ease of an alley cat. She peers into his face, squinting in the darkness and giving him a quizzical look. “Are you even a student here?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. Perhaps this is why he isn’t supposed to speak to anyone: it’s too obvious that he’s years younger than everyone here, and he always seems to end up in places he doesn’t belong.

The girl raises her eyebrows.

“Are you Korean?” she asks—in Korean rather than English this time. He hates that she seems to be one step ahead.

“Yes.” He answers in Korean automatically and then wishes he hadn’t. He’s meant to be speaking English all the time, now.

“Thought so.” She puts a hand on her hip and looks him up and down. His insides squirm strangely. “You’ve got an accent.”

“So do you.” He realizes it’s true as soon as he’s said it: she’s got an accent whichever language she’s speaking (almost as though neither of them is really hers).

He knows the feeling.

“You just felt inspired to read some dance books tonight, huh?” She gestures at the shelves all around and he almost smiles. He didn’t know people wrote books about dance.

“Uh,” he says. “Not really.” It’s too dark to make out the girl’s face, but he finds his feet shuffling toward her. She reminds him of melted honey.

“Too bad.” She sticks her tongue out—like a child!—and sits right back down on the floor, opening the book on top of her teetering stack. His training tells him to turn right around but his mouth moves of its own accord.

“What’s, um.” His palms are sweaty. “Who…are you?”

The girl looks up at him with dancing eyes, and when she laughs he swears it makes the books look a little bit more loved.

“My name’s Eunji,” she says. She’s speaking English again. “You?”

He should’ve known better than to ask a question to which he didn’t even know the answer.

He’s got a bunch of names, and he doesn’t even know which one to use for himself in his own head. His mother made the first a secret and the woman who rescued him told him not to share the second. The third isn’t even really a name, and he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to say it out loud.

He wants to say I don’t know, which feels like the closest thing to the truth, but his lips are heavy. He tries to laugh but it comes out strangled.

“Hah,” he says. “Bye, then.”

He turns and walks with legs that feel like lead—down the aisle, through the lobby, out onto the street where the breeze cools his flaming cheeks.

He doesn’t know when he became a secret—but he stalks down the street and avoids catching his own eye in the reflections on the sides of buildings and wonders if he’s anyone at all.

————————————————————

The third time, it’s after midnight.

Seven stretches his arms above his head and fiddles with the too-stiff cuffs on his too-neat sleeves. He’s happy in a hoodie or a gown, but he’s never felt good in a suit: he feels itchy and constrained and his shirt keeps coming untucked.

But tonight, he’s security. He’s meant to look like it, anyway.

He sighs louder than he’s supposed to and regrets it immediately when there’s scolding in his earpiece. He knows: be quiet, be still, don’t be seen.

He’s bored.

Seven edges his way along the carved wooden wall and peeks into the space beyond. He was supposed to be excited about this assignment—“Try and enjoy the girls and boys in leotards, at least,” his supervisor said, like fieldwork was supposed to be some sort of treat—but he finds he doesn’t much care. It’s the sponsors of this performance he’s supposed to be watching, not the dancers—and being wedged into a corner beside the backstage area isn’t exactly a prime spot for spectating.

An assignment like this is a punishment, more than anything. His agency knows he’d rather stare at his screens than carry a gun, but apparently he’s had the wrong attitude lately—and so here he is (and he’s hating it).

Seven undoes the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie and wonders how long it would take for someone to notice he’s left his station. Just as he’s contemplating experimentally tugging at the door labeled “Do not open: performance in progress,” it swings open all on its own.

He falls back against the wall and twists his face into a serious expression. His tie is crooked.

Proceeded by a cloud of hairspray and sweat, a small person barrels toward him, a length of white fabric trailing behind her. Ah, he thinks. They’re in leotards, after all.

“Hi,” pants the intruder. She thrusts the piece of fabric at his chest and he catches it automatically. “Hold this.”

Seven blinks rapidly as the girl in the leotard lifts long, bright red hair off her shoulders and weaves it wildly into a knot.

“Don’t you belong on the other side of the door?” he asks. His eyes drift down the woman’s body to her totally bare thighs and his chest constricts. Huh.

“It’s—my fucking—hair—it keeps…” She wraps a length of ribbon around the pile of hair she’s made on top of her head, but locks of it are already springing free.

Behind the door, the music swells. The dancer curses again.

“I have to…”

In the earpiece, somebody sitting at a screen hisses at Seven to stay quiet. He ignores them.

“Here,” he says. “Let me.”

He drapes the fabric over his shoulder and holds out a hand for the piece of ribbon. For the first time, the dancer looks him in the eye.

“You know how to do hair, security boy?”

He laughs. The skepticism in her voice gives him goosebumps.

“Better than you do, apparently.”

Pouting, the girl gives him her ribbon. Her cheeks are flushed and he notices there’s glitter clinging to her eyelashes. He tries—god, he really tries—not to touch the smooth skin of her neck as he sweeps her hair up on top of her head.

It’s almost the same color as his.

Seven twists her thick hair into a knot and secures it with the piece of ribbon. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s work with his hands—and he grins proudly as the woman steps back, staring up at him with fiery eyes.

“Is it gonna fall?” she asks. He hates that his supervisor was right about the leotard: it hugs every curve of her body, and the leg holes are cut high enough to expose the triangle of shadow between her hip bones and thighs.

His throat is dry.

“Try me,” he stammers.

The dancer raises her eyebrows and then bends her knees, swinging her head in a wide arc through the air. She moves like a river just after it’s rained, he thinks. His stomach twists.

“Oh,” she says. She looks at him and smiles and he feels almost feverish. He should—he’s supposed to— “Good job, babe!”

“Ba—” he stammers. “Um…”

The dancer grins and gives him a rakish salute. He tries to wink, but it definitely comes out as a sort of twitch.

“Wish me luck,” she chirps. Before he can say another word, she’s tugged open the door and darted through it.

She leaves him with a sun-soaked heart: it’s melted all over his insides, and he can’t feel his lips.

It’s new, this feeling. He runs a hand through his hair and waits for his heart to beat slower.

It’s new, and it isn’t. He shuts his eyes and tries his best to remember.

————————————————————

Seven knows everything.

He knows what each one of his friends ate for breakfast every day this week, and he can name every bone and muscle in the human body. He knows how to take a computer apart and put it back together so it’s better, and faster, and knows how to sing you a lullaby.

When a stranger appears in his chatroom—the only place in the whole world that’s ever been his—he knows what to do.

He’s finding her before she’s said so much as two words—and his friends are chatting and speculating and he’s hunched in his chair (in his dark room, in his empty home), tracking her down.

It doesn’t take him long.

He almost laughs as the information comes up on his screen. If this person is a hacker, they’ve done a horrible job: he’s already got her name and her last address and her birthplace and her childhood best friend’s name.

He spins around in his chair for dramatic effect before he reads. He’s good at his job, after all.

Who are you? he thinks, skimming the lines of code that tell him who’s made their way into his online home. His fingers dance over the keys—not typing, just moving for moving’s sake—and he reads what he’s found.

Eunji. That’s her name.

He skims the rest: her parents; her childhood; her job. He hesitates for a moment at her school, because—impossible—but plenty of people travel from Korea to study abroad (at that school—in those years—at that)—

She is a dancer.

Seven skips ahead to the photos. The stranger has hair as bright as his, unbound and wild in almost every photo. He sees her laughing at a bar with friends—curled in the lap of a pretty girl with dark eyes—alone on a stage, one hand on her hip and the other arm thrust high in the air.

He should’ve eaten something today, probably. He feels dizzy.

Seven drags his focus back to the messenger. The stranger—she—Seo Eunji, the dancer who went to school in New York—has demanded to know who everyone is.

Seven’s fingers hover over the keys and his heart beats out a rhythm of crowds and old buildings and running away, summer storms and heavy lips and wild eyes.

Saeyoung, he wants to type. I’m Saeyoung.

His heart races like a child’s. The last time he thought of that name, he was someone else entirely.

But still, he remembers.

He remembers.

He never forgot.

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #cmc eunji #saeyoung x eunji #cmc #requests are coming this week i promiiiiiseeee <3

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gureishi · 3 years

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paper moon, make-believe stars

✧ — Summary: Eunji never dreamed of weddings or promises or eternity, but Saeyoung did—and at the precipice of forever, she remembers a long-forgotten wish. It’s not too late to see the stars.

✧ — Pairing: Saeyoung x Eunji (CMC)

✧ — Rating: T

✧ — A/N: I wrote this for the @nostringsdetached zine, and I’m honestly prouder of it than just about anything else I’ve written. Eunji isn’t me, but there’s a lot of me in her—and so I feel like the fic is intimate and personal in a way that’s new for me. I’m so excited to be able to share it!

Check out the absolutely stunning artwork by Vacorn that accompanies this fic here.

Certain moments, Eunji thought, were suspended in time—as if everything that had led up to them, and everything that would follow, spread out in all directions around her like ripples on clear water.

If she were a different kind of person, tomorrow would be one of these moments: an inflection point in the trajectory of her life. But Eunji was who she was—and because of this, she was focused not on the day that was coming but the day that was already here.

For her, it was never the thing itself that felt important, but the moment before the thing arrived. It was about the fire in someone’s eyes right before they tell you to get out; the silent air in advance of a storm; the heart-shattering stillness that always seems to precede a kiss.

She felt it then, standing in the middle of the unreasonably large kitchen for which she’d developed such an inexplicable fondness: the sensation that time had stopped; that her past, present, and future were all somehow converging into one single moment of transience.

“Huh,” she said out loud.

Her voice echoed strangely off of the industrial appliances and stone countertops; she’d frozen, she realized, in the middle of brushing sauce onto the filleted fish spread out on the cutting board before her. Shaking her head, she drew a knife from the rack beside her and started to slice a lemon into neat, juicy wedges.

Just then, she heard a familiar knock: two gentle taps on the wooden door frame that connected the kitchen to the even larger living area. He had started doing this ages ago, when she’d told him she couldn’t stand the way he was always appearing at her side without warning. He was silent without meaning to be, for the very same reason that Eunji was alarmed when he took her by surprise: when you’ve lived your life one way, it is not so easy to make changes. It takes time; it takes compromise.

The knocking was one such compromise. He could not, perhaps, re-train himself to make more noise as he moved around the house—but he could let her know when he was coming. Still holding the lemon slices, she turned halfway to peer over her shoulder at him.

Saeyoung stood in the doorway, a lopsided grin on his face, one hand positioned to knock again. There was something about him—a sort of buzzing on the very surface of his skin that told her that he, too, felt the coalescence of time. She set the knife aside and opened her arms; he catapulted himself into them, nuzzling her shoulder—begging to be petted.

So she obliged him, tangling a hand in his disheveled curls. He made a low humming sound that was almost a purr.

“What are you making?” he trilled, his breath warm on her neck. With a hand that was still slightly sticky from the lemon juice, she brushed his bangs off his forehead and kissed the skin just above his eyebrow. He did taste a little bit like lemon, now.

“Who knows?” she said, shrugging—and she felt it in her whole body when he laughed. “I’m experimenting.”

“Only you,” he murmured. He drew back to look at her, and his hands fell automatically to her waist. She inhaled deeply, letting the familiar spicy-sweet scent of him envelop her.

“Only me what, baby?”

“Only you’d insist on doing the cooking tonight,” he said. “We could’ve gone out, or—” He leaned around her to eye the sauce-slathered fish spread over the cutting board. “It looks delicious, though. Whatever it is.”

She laughed and pushed him gently out of the way; he whined as she turned her attention back to the fish.

“It makes me calm,” she said. He chuckled and wrapped both arms around her waist, his scarred fingers skimming over her skin.

“What about the thought of everybody we know all in one place is making you not calm?” he teased. Eunji sighed, arranging the sliced lemon on top of the pieces of fish. He rested his chin on her shoulder and she wiggled her lemony fingers in his face.

“Never thought I’d see my mom back in this country,” she said, feeling a familiar rumble of anxiety, like a little beast crouching behind her ribcage. The beast was always there—but since she’d picked her mother up from the airport three days ago, it had felt bigger and fiercer than usual. “I’m trying to imagine her—and my dad—and all of our friends…” She shuddered, taking a fistful of the spice blend she’d already made and dusting it over the fish. She was over-seasoning, she thought, but the anxious creature in her chest insisted that her hands needed to be busy. Saeyoung’s fingers tapped insistently against her hips, and she wondered if she’d picked this habit up from him: the need to be constantly in motion, her hands active when her heart was troubled.

“I know,” he said. He held her a little tighter.

And this was one of the very first things that she had loved about him: Saeyoung never offered platitudes—he wouldn’t say don’t worry so much or everything will turn out fine. Eunji had spent her whole life striving for a sort of perfection—in her behavior, her work, her relationships—that was not only unattainable but also harmful. Saeyoung never asked this of her.

He knew what it meant to rifle through endless versions of yourself till you found one that fit—to create a phantom that you barely even recognized in order to fill the expectations the world had set for you.

Eunji twisted in his arms so she was facing him, holding her spice-soaked hands out to the side so she wouldn’t get them both covered in seasoning. There was a special place on his chest for her head: if she turned to the side, her cheek fit just right, and she could hear his heart. She felt it echoing—somehow as much inside her own body as it was in his.

“What are you scared of?” he asked.

Merging, she thought. Existing in a space with people who knew different and almost irreconcilable versions of her. Navigating the perilous waters of family (old and new and found). Giving this beloved boy the kind of day she knew he’d dreamt about (even before he knew he was allowed to dream).

“Not scared, really,” she said—a half-truth (and the way he huffed, breath ruffling her hair, showed her that he knew—as he always did when she told a lie). “I never fantasized about things like getting married and having a wedding. But you did.”

Saeyoung laughed in the quiet way that still, after all this time, she was the only one who got to hear.

“If you’re worried about fulfilling all of my fantasies…” He pulled back so she could see his face and wiggled his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes and kissed the tip of his nose, and then she left his side—went to the big cabinet by the stove where the pots and pans were stacked perilously high (chaotic, always on the verge of falling apart). Just like me, she thought.

She pulled out a big roasting pan, and Saeyoung hopped up onto the counter, somehow making space for himself among the ingredients. Eunji almost scolded him, as she usually did when he got in the way of her cooking.

But he had a funny look in his eyes—that sort of strange sheen that told her there was something he wasn’t saying—so she let him be.

“My parents,” she said, “haven’t seen each other in ten years and might literally kill one another tomorrow.” She shook her hair back off her face and wiped her hands on a paper towel. It wasn’t fear of her parents’ animosity that had put that look in his eyes, she knew—but she wasn’t going to press him to tell her what he was thinking. He would say it when he was ready.

This was another thing she’d learned long ago: if she pushed too hard, he would hide himself away—if she was patient with him, he would always get around to telling her what was on his mind. It was a delicate tower made of tissue paper, their honesty: new to them both, fragile and pieced together with promises kept and broken—with secrets whispered late at night and a patience that was born of deep, unwavering devotion.

“That would be memorable,” he said. In a moment of inspiration, Eunji grabbed the aluminum foil; Saeyoung raised his eyebrows. “What, are you gonna make armor?”

“Armor wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she told him. “But it’s for the fish, goofball.”

She wrapped each piece of saucy, soupy fish in a little boat of foil, lining the edges with slices of lemon. He watched her attentively—as if committing it all to memory: the way she folded the foil over the fish, the way she nibbled her bottom lip as she arranged the food in the large roasting pan. He did this often: gazing unabashedly at her as she did unremarkable things—like he was capturing each moment and filing it away in the recesses of his magnificent mind.

“Was that something you always wanted, then?” she asked. He hummed curiously as she put the pan in the oven and set the timer—a tiny little robot hamster (his design, of course), which perched on the edge of the stove and squealed when the time was up. “A wedding slash battle,” she clarified. He giggled.

“I’m not opposed to it.”

Eunji went to the sink (Saeyoung dropped a kiss to her shoulder as she passed him). It was as she was washing her hands—steam and suds rising all around her, forming soap bubble spirals before her eyes—that she remembered.

How could she have forgotten?

“Saeyoung,” she said slowly. She felt him spring to attention beside her.

“Yes, princess?”

She watched the steam from the hot water unfurling before her: twisty-turny. A whirlpool, she thought—or a spiral galaxy.

“Do you remember what you said to me when we’d only known each other a couple of days?” “I said a lot of things to you back then,” he said, laughing. “Did you have something specific in mind?”

God, it felt like a lifetime ago.

She’d been more alone, back then, than she’d ever been before: she’d felt like a stray animal, sleeping curled around herself and hissing at anyone who got too close. And how was it, she wondered now, that she’d known right away that this strange, silly, brilliant boy was just like her? She’d heard it in his voice the very first time he’d called her: oh, she’d thought. He’s just looking for somebody to hold his hand.

“You wanted,” she said (letting the hot water rush over her hands, loving the way it sounded—like rain, or wind, or a heartbeat), “to get married in space. Do you remember that?”

For a moment, he didn’t say anything. So she turned the water off; let her hands drip; looked at his face.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “I, uh…I was thinking about that too.”

Of course he was.

Eunji felt, as she looked at him, that she could see the ghost of the child he’d been once: painfully bright, full of fantasies of the future he believed he could build for himself. And she could see the boy he’d been when she’d met him, too: ready to run away without looking back; obsessed with finding a place where no one could reach him.

She also saw the man he was now: every bit as bright as the child he’d once been, and just as full of fantasies as the boy who she’d fallen in love with in the first place. The Saeyoung she knew now was strong—but the small boy who’d dreamed of flying through the stars was there, too.

She could do this for him, she realized. She couldn’t possibly control how tomorrow would unfold—but this she could do. She could do it with her own two hands.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “Let’s get married in space, baby.”

Saeyoung peered into her face like he thought he could unravel her mind if he just stared hard enough.

“I may be a genius,” he said slowly, “but even for me, twenty-four hours isn’t enough time to figure out how to get us onto the space station.”

Eunji went to him (still sitting on the counter) and laid a hand on his thigh; he squirmed contentedly—delighted, as always, simply to be touched.

“Not literally,” she told him. “Trust me.”

Suddenly, she felt full of energy. She darted from the kitchen and Saeyoung padded patiently after her; she led him down the long, dim hallway to his office, turning on the overhead light as she threw open the door.

This room was wonderful, she thought: full of him. There were odds and ends on every surface: diagrams and broken pencils and gears and wires and a half-built bird robot that screeched when she got too close. If she didn’t know him better, it would’ve been hard to find what she was looking for—but she understood the pattern of his chaos.

“Ta-da!” From beneath a precarious stack of metal sheets, she pulled a bin of colored paper: something she’d never once seen him use, but which she knew he’d acquired at some point for a project he’d either never started or already finished. He waited, eyes wide, as she dug through the desk drawer; there was tape here, and string, and wire in various shapes and sizes. “Help me!” she said at last—and he sprang into action, a wide grin spreading across his face. He’d caught on, she thought—as she’d known he would.

“Got it, commander,” he sang, giving her a breezy salute.

And before she knew it, he was piling the strangest assortment of items into her arms: long bits of wire and scraps of metal and tangled cords.

“Saeyoung!” She could hardly see over the pile of mismatched objects; he laughed at the sight of her and scooped most of them back into his own arms.

“That’s enough,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before your oven timer goes off.”

Eunji’s heart shivered. He never hesitated; she adored this perhaps most of all.

“Lead the way,” she said.

So he led her back to the kitchen, and they sat side by side on the floor, their strange pile of tools spread out around them. Saeyoung took up a length of wire and began bending, twisting, shaping; Eunji looked around at the items they’d gathered.

She couldn’t imagine how to use most of these things—but she knew what she could do. Grabbing one of Saeyoung’s pencil nubs (always nubs—she’d never once seen him use a whole, new pencil), she started to doodle star shapes on a piece of thick, shiny paper. She wasn’t particularly good at drawing—but she’d spent enough time staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling above their bed that she could make a reasonable approximation.

For a while, they were quiet. Eunji cut out her paper stars; Saeyoung was using pliers now, doing something Eunji didn’t understand with the piece of wire and an electrical cord. Eunji doodled Saturn—it was a little lopsided, but she thought it looked alright.

“Do you wanna know,” Saeyoung said suddenly (in that quiet voice he used occasionally—the one that meant this is just for you and me), “why I thought about all that stuff so much?”

“What stuff?” Eunji cut out her little Saturn and taped a string to the top of it. She held it up to the light: it dangled like a mobile; if she squinted, it almost seemed to shine.

“Going to outer space,” he said. He had done something to make the wire in his hand light up—it was glowing a warm gold, and it reminded Eunji of the way the stars looked out here: soft and almost impossibly close. “Running away to the farthest galaxy and never coming back.”

“Yeah,” she said. She decided to make a full moon (and perhaps it would just be a white blob, but she would know what she meant by it). She traced a circle on a piece of cardboard. “Tell me why.”

Saeyoung stood. She waited as he crossed to the living room and returned with one of his laptops. She waited as he booted it up—waited as he typed, too fast for her to follow. From amidst the pile of items, something started to shine.

“I thought,” he said slowly, “that I wasn’t made for this world.”

Oh, Eunji remembered this: the way his voice had sounded in the early days when he’d called her late at night. He had spoken, with counterfeit cheer, of how undeserving he believed himself to be—and even then, she’d wanted to rip the stars from the sky and give them all to him.

“The only time I felt safe,” he continued—calloused fingers flying over the keys (the glowing orb in the middle of the room changed color, casting glitter across the ceiling)—“was when I closed my eyes and imagined myself in another galaxy. Somewhere I couldn’t do anything bad, and no one would ever find me.”

Eunji could still picture how he’d looked the very first time he’d allowed her to hold him: eyes wide as the full moon she’d just cut out of cardboard. You look like no one’s ever held you before, she’d told him, shaking her head (tearful, heart full). He’d laughed an empty laugh that had told her more than he ever could have said in words. She’d squeezed him tighter.

“I used to fantasize about floating on my back on the ocean,” she told him now. “In my imagination, I’d close my eyes and drift farther and farther from shore. Then I’d open them to find there was only water on all sides: no land, no people, just me all alone in the waves.”

“That’s a much scarier fantasy than mine,” he said. His typing paused, and she glanced up at him: the orb he’d been programming reflected glimmering specs of light onto his face. He looked, she thought, almost otherworldly like this—sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, his body covered in sparkling wires.

“It’s the same,” she said. She crawled to him; he set his laptop aside and opened his arms, and she folded herself into his lap.

“When you told me you wanted to take me to the space station, was that your way of making me part of your fantasy?” she asked.

“You’re too smart for your own good,” he said, chuckling. No, she thought. You are.

Eunji remembered the very first time she’d realized he didn’t want to run away anymore. She’d woken in the middle of the night and gazed at his sleeping face on the pillow beside her: his breathing had been slow, and he had been smiling.

“Let’s hang the stars,” he whispered in her ear.

So they did. Saeyoung climbed back onto the counter to drape his glittering wire over the cabinets; Eunji passed her paper stars up to him, and he taped the strings to the ceiling—perching precariously at the very edge of the countertop, cackling as she watched him with wary eyes.

“Don’t you dare hurt yourself today,” she warned. Her arms were full of cardboard planets.

“I may not be in the kind of shape I was when you met me, but I can still take care of myself,” he crowed; he was crouching on top of the refrigerator now, hanging his glowing orb from the tallest shelf. It cast light over the entire room; the paper stars seemed to spring to life.

“If you say so, danger boy.”

Saeyoung leapt to the ground. Eunji winced, but he landed—as always—on the balls of his feet.

“Your turn,” he said.

And then his hands were on her hips and—before she could protest—he was lifting her; she stretched a hand up to reach the ceiling, and the cardboard moon swung from its string like a pendulum.

“Don’t drop me,” she gasped.

Saeyoung laughed. “I’ve got you, starshine.”

Eunji hung the moon in the very center of the room.

Then: a shuffling of footsteps in the hall; a heavy sigh. Eunji tried to twist in Saeyoung’s arms, but he held her too tightly.

“What,” said a quiet voice, “are you doing?”

Saeyoung turned, setting Eunji on her feet. Just as she had suspected: Saeran was standing just outside the kitchen, his expression unreadable as he took in the mess of glittering lights and paper stars.

“We’re making space!” Saeyoung declared. He spread his arms wide, as if to say be proud of me.

“I can see that.”

Eunji took Saeyoung’s hand and smiled an apology for his exuberance. Saeran, she thought, would surely retreat to the other side of their massive home—shaking his head, perhaps, at the idiocy of trying to turn the kitchen into a planetarium.

But he didn’t.

“We’re getting married right now,” Eunji said quietly. Saeran raised his eyebrows.

“I get that neither of you has any sense of time,” he muttered, “but you’re getting married tomorrow, actually.”

Eunji laughed—she couldn’t help it. She was sure that she saw a hint of a smile on his lips: he was teasing them, she thought. That was new.

Saeyoung must have noticed it too, because he had stopped breathing.

“We’re doing it now, then again tomorrow,” Eunji said. “Wanna come to our first wedding? You’re the only one who’s invited.”

Saeran didn’t answer her right away, but he took a few halting steps into the kitchen. Under the artificial moonlight, the brothers looked more identical than ever, Eunji thought: tousled red hair and star-bright eyes.

Saeran leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.

“If I have to,” he said. Ah, but there it was again—a ghost of a smile on his pale face. Eunji grinned.

“Saeyoung,” she said, turning to him and lifting a hand to his cheek. “Our family’s here. Marry me now, okay?”

He looked into her eyes and she thought she saw the whole galaxy reflected back at her: effervescent and endless and expanding.

“I’m ready,” he said—in that quiet, breathless voice that was just for her.

“Sorry we couldn’t do it in space for real.”

“I don’t wanna go to space anymore,” Saeyoung said. His voice was hoarse; he squeezed her hands like they were the only thing tethering him to this planet (and they were—they had been). “Not when everything that matters is here.”

“On earth?” Eunji asked. Saeyoung shook his head.

“No,” he said. “In this kitchen.”

Eunji threw her arms around his neck. The paper planets danced overhead; his heart seemed to echo the song of the stars.

“Love you,” she whispered; his hand was in her hair, and he was drawing her close; she tasted the future in the still air just before he kissed her.

“I will love you,” he said solemnly, “until the end of the universe.”

“And after that?”

Saeyoung beamed.

“Then I’ll just love you more.”

He kissed her. And Eunji had always loved the moment before—had preferred dreams to reality, anticipation to satisfaction. But the thing itself, she thought now—whispered words, or the wind in her hair, or a kiss so tender the world stopped turning—was not nothing, after all.

Saeran made a sound and time moved forward again; Eunji turned to look at him and was surprised to see a certain quietude in his eyes.

“Are you married, then?” he asked.

Eunji looked at the bright cardboard moon—at her silly lopsided planets—at Saeyoung’s eyes, which held a fire brighter than all the stars (real or make-believe).

“Yeah,” she said. “I think we are.”

Saeyoung took her hand—but he was looking at his brother.

Merging, Eunji thought again. Coalescing.

She had never dreamed about marriage. She had been scared of its permanence—terrified of the togetherness, the tenderness, the very idea of forever. And Saeyoung had pictured fleeing into the emptiness of space: a fantasy of infinite solitude.

But here they were, with the family they’d fought for. Time spread out in all directions around them.

The paper stars shimmered overhead.

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #eunji seo #saeyoung x eunji #cmc #oc #no strings detached zine

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