#yangyang angst | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rrxnjun · 2 years

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I'm not angry anymore (well, sometimes I am) ;; lyy

pairing: liu yangyang x fem!reader starring: singer! lee jeno, drummer! wong hendery, bassist! zhong chenle, huang renjun, lee donghyuck, na jaemin, mark lee, aeri uchinaga genre: band au, guitar teacher au, strangers to friends to not-really-lovers, college au | angst, fluff, slice of life, coming of age wc: 20k (20.481) warnings: the main characters smoke, one mention of drugs, swearing, alcohol, the whole thing is kind of corny, jeno is a bad guy, a mention of sexual intercourse, a lot of pining, unrequited love tagging: @jaynaur bc she asked me to and also because i want to thank her for the support and excitement she shared for this fic<3 playlist: funeral grey - waterparks ; the only exception - paramore ; tantrum - waterparks ; 21 questions - waterparks ; sex sells - lovejoy ; freaks - surf course ; it follows - waterparks ; gloom boys - waterparks ; perfume - lovejoy ; high definition - waterparks ; i'm not angry anymore - paramore

living the rockstar life is not as easy and exciting as it seems-with a frontman that cares more about clubbing than the band, unrequited love for the girl that's, sadly, in love with the said frontman and a huge inferiority complex, liu yangyang finds himself tangled up in the mess of being the guitarist of the next rising local punk band.

FLOAT MY WAY, I’M MELTING FOR YOU

“Are you sure they’re coming?” Yangyang asks, illuminated by the subtle light of the lamp post shining at the end of the neighbourhood. The spot he’s standing in right now is the exact border between the calm, sleeping streets of the place he grew up in, and the rowdy nightlife of the centre of the town. Only a few steps across the road and he’s in the middle of it all– bars scattered all across the corners of the town square, havoc caused by teenagers at the early stages of the evening erupting through your eardrums with a lively sense of freedom.

Liu Yangyang is standing at the border, quite metaphorically, but also quite literally as well. A few steps back into his neighbourhood and he’s back in his parents’ house, ready to go to sleep and waste another evening watching a few more episodes of Netflix Unsolved Mysteries before bed. A few steps back into his bed and he wasted another day of his youth– doing nothing, meeting no new people, having no memories he can tell to his children once he’s 45 and too old for the party life. A few steps to the other side of the street, though, and he’s walking straight to the excitement, straight to a new life, perhaps. The choice is his, and he could turn either way at any moment. There’s only one thing keeping him from walking away from the stoic place at the edge of the neighbourhood, though, and that’s his best friend Huang Renjun and his promising offer.

The thing is, he and Renjun have known each other since middle school. They’ve been through thick and thin together, skipping through their high school years together, and finally, graduating on the same day, in the same class. They’re quite the best friends, and everyone knows that. While everyone thought that no one could ever break these two apart, there was one thing that wasn’t a constant in both of their lives, and that was the fact that while Renjun went to university, Yangyang never even applied. He had bigger dreams, ones that didn’t require a degree, and even though his mother wasn’t happy with his life choices, he insisted on making them anyway.

But with Renjun attending university, there comes a bigger issue that Liu Yangyang didn’t expect to face, and that is the issue of his introverted, short bestie being more sociable than he ever was in high school. Soon enough, the older one had more university friends than Yangyang could count on the fingers of one hand, and while he was happy for him, cheering him on with both his studies and his social skills, he can’t lie, he still feels a bit threatened in the place of Huang Renjun’s best friend.

And that’s exactly why he’s now standing in the same spot at the edge of the neighbourhood for the last 25 minutes– Renjun is going out with all his university friends, and being the nice and considerate pal he is, he invited Yangyang to come with him. And Yangyang, known to have a big fear of missing out mixed with a hint of jealousy whenever his friend had more fun with other people that weren’t him, couldn’t find any other answer in him than to agree and head out with him.

“Of course they are coming! Just… let’s wait for a little more-” the boy cuts himself off when he hears a loud yell somewhere in the distance, making him turn his head around and stare into the space, looking for the source of it, because he’s very familiar with the tones of the voice and the ruckus that’s following each and every one of his friends’ step.

There’s a group of five that arrive, diverse and interesting to look at. Yangyang assumes he’d be intimidated by them if he was to walk past them in the mall, but when he thinks again, he feels like that in this very moment as well– their gazes are sharp and every person looks like cut-out from a magazine or a coming-of-age movie he’d watch with Renjun when they were fifteen and figuring everything out.

Looking at the small crowd, Yangyang wonders how Renjun even managed to be friends with them. They don’t seem like the kind that would be easy to approach, and they for sure don’t seem like they share interests with the young male. When he looks at the fairly tall man wearing a leather jacket that came towards the two of them first, it doesn’t seem like he enjoys art or reading in the quiet of his room at dawn like Renjun does. The other one, even taller and more muscular, seems like he enjoys racing more than he enjoys going to university, and so do the other ones– each one of the crowd is unique, but more intimidating than the other.

Or maybe Yangyang just isn’t used to making friends anymore. Who knows.

“Hi! You must be Yangyang!” one of them announces, smiling and cheerful. His smile makes the ice break, the panic Yangyang felt on his insides stalling for just a minute, before he nods and smiles at him.

“Yeah, it’s me. And you are…?” he trails off, eager to hear the person’s introduction. There’s still faint hesitance in every move he makes, but he figures that he might as well start speaking to the little crowd soon, or he might embarrass himself in front of the cool university kids, and he really doesn’t want that. Three guys and two girls– must be easy. Let’s get it over with.

“Na Jaemin! It’s nice meeting you,” he says, politely smiling at him again and turning around, looking at the rest of the group. The seven of them start walking, the destination not known to the boy, but he follows them nonetheless, okay with not even knowing the rest of their names yet.

“I heard a lot about you,” Jaemin snickers, “Renjun can’t stop mentioning you in conversations. Every time us two are in a Chemistry class, he can’t stop chuckling and saying how you would absolutely despise it.”

Laughing, Yangyang nods. “That’s probably why I didn’t go to university.”

“Good. I regret going, but oh well…” Jaemin shrugs, already getting more comfortable with the conversation. “Anyways, since the rest of the group is totally unhinged and didn’t introduce themselves, I’ll be the nice guy and do it for them,” he grins, pointing to the guy that approached him and Renjun at first, “that is Hyuck. I promise he’s less intimidating than he looks, he just really desperately wants to be cool.”

“Got it,” Yangyang laughs airly, nodding.

“There next to him is Renjun, but I figure you know him… That bloke behind him is Lee Jeno. He’s what Hyuck desires to be, but isn’t. Next to him we have our ladies– to the left, Aeri, and hanging off his right shoulder, finally, Y/N.”

Grateful for the friendly introduction, Yangyang nods with a smile. “Great. Any idea where we’re going?”

Jaemin shrugs, pointing to the convenience store that’s magically appearing in front of them. “My best guess would be there, and then we head off to the skate ramp. It’s empty at this hour of the day, and there's plenty of room for all of us there.”

Yangyang tries his best to pay attention to everything that’s going on around him on his way in and out of the convenience store. He bought himself some Gatorade and Pringles, tagging along with Renjun and Jaemin, yet, he can’t help but ask himself why the rest of the group hasn’t paid any attention to his presence. Perhaps he’s too invisible– not interesting enough to spark a conversation with them, not cool enough to hang out with the rest of the group.

He’s not quite sure if it’s the insecurities getting to him, or if he’s just right about his assumptions. Sometimes, it’s better to not know, though– reality might make him more hurt in the long run.

Finally getting to the skate park, Yangyang makes sure to stay close to the only people he knows how to talk to. Offering chips to Jaemin and Renjun, he manages to listen to the conversation just enough to know that Hyuck and Jeno are talking about some concert they’re going to over the weekend and that Aeri and you are talking about the project that’s due on Tuesday. Quite normal topics for teenagers to talk about, he thinks– the intimidation seeping off them must be a facade, or maybe his lack of judgement. Maybe he should reach out first and talk to someone, he thinks, but as soon as this thought creeps into his mind, it’s taken out of his head when a girl walks into his point of vision and offers him chewing gum.

Seeing him turning the offer down with a smile, you shrug at him and kick the rocks under your feet. “You’re Yangyang, right?”

For the second time that night, he finds himself nodding. The whole scenario looks like it’s cut-out from a teenage drama, the scenery reminding him of an Avril Lavigne music video that he spent his childhood watching religiously. “Yeah.”

“I’m Y/N,” you say, offering him a hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you,” he replies, wanting to be as polite and as approachable as possible.

Looking at you, he finds himself getting intimidated again. He feels like a kid hanging out with upperclassmen in high school– like someone who’s desperately trying to fit in and be mature about everything, waiting anxiously to be made fun of by the cooler kids around. You’re wearing dark clothing, long black pants and a grey hoodie thrown over your upper body, even though the heat of the summer makes Yangyang sweat in every crevice of his adulting figure. You look bold, not in your appearance, but in your aura– and something about you is dangerously pulling him in, leaving him wanting to get to know you better.

You only hum, seating yourself next to him on the tiny bench. Your thighs are touching as you stretch your legs in front of you, leaning back and supporting your body with your hands pressed into the surface you’re sitting on. “So, Yangyang,” you start, “what do you do in your spare time?”

Surprised by your question, and also acknowledging the way his name rolls off your tongue in a way he likes it the best, he shrugs. What does one reply to a stranger asking about their interests? It sounds like a trick question, when in reality, it truly isn’t. There are no wrong or right answers, yet, Yangyang feels like if he doesn’t choose the right one, he failed, and he can no longer hang out with Renjun’s friends and see you ever again.

“Oh,” he hums, “well, I used to babysit, but I realised that I swear too much to be around children,” he replies, earning himself a chuckle from your side.

“I asked what you do in your spare time, not what you used to do for work,” you repeat, catching the boy off-guard with your insistence.

“I- well-” he stutters, suddenly ashamed of each and every interest he has, for he thinks they’re not cool enough, or that they’re not interesting enough to mention to someone like you. Short in time, with his imagination not as good to think of something unique, he spills the truth. “I like music, I guess? I play the guitar and I’m actually teaching guitar lessons to get some money so I can start a band one day, or something…” he explains, bashful.

He feels the heat slowly arriving to his cheeks, a pinch of shame behind his teenage dreams, when he’s met with a hum and a pleased tone of your voice when you reply.

“That’s cool,” you say, “Jeno has a band, actually, but they’re kind of shit,” you giggle. “I bet yours would be better, when you’re good enough to teach guitar, you know.”

“Well, I don’t know about that…” he mutters, not wanting to offend anyone.

“Jeno’s in uni as well, so he can’t really focus on music. You gotta show me how you play one day,” you say, the lightness in your tone making him feel like he’s imagining everything. He wasn’t expecting this outcome, and he for sure didn’t think you wouldn’t find him embarrassing. With your proposition to show you how he plays, even though it might be just a nice gesture from a stranger, he feels on cloud 9.

“And what do you like doing?” he asks, eager to get to know you better.

Shrugging, you point your gaze towards your shoes. “I dunno. I like art,” you say, reminding him of his best friend. Perhaps you’re the one that attends the art class with him, perhaps you’re the one he met first before he was introduced to the rest of the group. In the light-hearted conversation, Yangyang doesn’t find you as intimidating as before, but looks at you as rather approachable, the least scary of them all.

“Well, if I gotta show you how I play, you gotta show me your art sometimes, then,” he says, throwing the ball back to your side of the court. Smiling at his proposition, you only nod as you search the pockets of your jacket, seemingly looking for something.

“Sure,” you say. Yangyang dares to say he hears a spark of interest in you, a glint in your tone from the way your conversation went. He doesn’t want the moment to disappear, desperately needing you to find him cool, to be his friend, because you interest him so much– but at the same time, he fears that with one bad move, he might ruin everything. Talking with you felt like walking on a shattered glass, just waiting to get pricked by the sharp pieces scattered all over the floor.

When you finally find what you’ve been looking for– a pack of cigarettes and a lighter– you open the box and take out one of them, slipping it in between your lips. “Do you want one?” you ask, offering him the box.

Now, Yangyang wants to fit in– of course he does– but at the same time, he has his boundaries. Shaking his head in disapproval, he smiles at you with tight lips. “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.”

Shrugging, you light the cigarette and breathe in the nicotine, letting the smoke captivate your lungs. Blowing out a steady stream of greyish clouds, Yangyang watches you with fascination. He won’t go as far as saying he found you attractive like that– you were still damaging your health– but in his mind, he can’t imagine you without that pack of cigarettes in your hand and without the smoke blowing out of your lungs. It’s like you were completed by that small addictive box, like you two fit together, even though he wishes you didn’t have to. He likes you like that, though, he figures– he might need to throw it all just onto the aesthetics, though.

“That shit’s gonna kill you,” he mumbles, seeing you peek out at him from under your eyelashes.

Smiling, you lean into him, your face dangerously close to someone who you just met a few minutes ago, he feels like he’s melting under your gaze. Shrugging, you blow the smoke into his face, white clouds floating his way in slow motion, a snicker escaping your lips before you move to your initial place, once again putting the cigarette between your plump lips and inhaling.

“Well, now you gotta die too.”

Looking at you, trying to come up with a better comeback, desperately needing to find out when he’s gotten so smitten with you, when you’ve engraved himself into his mind; trying to get you out and forget about you, he finds out, although a little shamefully,

that he’s willing to let you be his best mistake that he’s ever going to make.

AND I’M ON MY WAY TO BELIEVING

Running his hand through his hair, he stops at the doorway of one of the houses in his neighbourhood. It’s only three streets away from his home, and he’s sure his mother would know who lives there, if he managed to ask before leaving, but to him, the people he’s going to meet are a mystery for now. Sighing heavily, he notes that he should get a haircut, since the hair he managed to push out of his face is now back in his eyes, prickling his eyeballs in the most annoying way possible, before he rings the doorbell and waits for someone to open the door for him.

It’s an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, the clock reads 4:25pm– he’s 5 minutes early, just to be sure– and he’s going to one of his paid guitar lessons.

Usually, he has fun in these. Mothers all across the town reply to his insert that he posted on Facebook Marketplace, and some grandmas even send him letters, replying to the advertisement they saw in the local newspaper. The kids he teaches are almost always very polite and easy to work with.

When he arrives, he asks them what they know already, and he progresses from there. He’s not trying to act like he’s a licenced music teacher, because he’s not– everything he knows is all self-taught anyway, from watching youtube videos and playing the same songs with the same simple chords over and over again, desperately wanting to get his favourite songs right, until he progressed up to the point when there’s pretty much no song he couldn’t play after hearing it a few times and taking a look at the chords online. To the local neighbourhood kids, that’s enough– he’s an affordable teacher, and much more approachable one than the elderly men Yangyang’s parents wanted to hire when he was a kid. He refused back then, and he can’t say he regrets it.

Waiting at the doorway, he wonders who will wait for him behind the dark-wooded entrance. Perhaps a little boy– these are always the easiest to work with. They choose the rock, sometimes punk songs they heard on the radio or saw randomly pop out on the recommended page on youtube. Yangyang is happy with that, because that’s what he’s familiar with anyway. It brings him joy to see their faces light up when they get the chords right and when the strumming is similar to the one in the original song, and when he sings along, although a little silly, they even laugh at him and show gratitude with gummy smiles.

He won’t lie. He likes his job.

When the door finally opens, his eyes catch the sock-clothed feet of the person behind it. Eyes going up, noticing that the figure in front of him seems oddly familiar, his breathing catches in his throat and he feels his palms getting sweaty.

“Y/N?” he asks, a little taken aback.

You offer him a tight-lipped smile, an expression you pull when you see another teenager in the mall with their parents, both of you shopping for groceries. It’s the awkward smile that says that you recognise their torture, for you are experiencing the same; that awkward smile that reads don’t laugh at me, because you’re in the same position.

“Hello,” you greet, taking a step to the side so he can get inside.

Yangyang freezes in his spot. His legs don’t move, too hesitant to enter the house you live in, and he suddenly regrets not asking his mum about the residents of this house before he left. Not that he would know that it’s you anyway, for his mum always provides him with the last name and the occupation of the parents, but at least a hint would be nice, perhaps a mention of a daughter his age, even; both of these would let him prepare for the rush of heat in his cheeks and the awkwardness in his visit.

“Um…” he mumbles, scratching the back of his neck, “am I… am I in the right house?” he asks suddenly, embarrassment creeping into his veins. Mentally going back to the address in the text message he got three days ago, checking the house number only a few metres to the right of the front door, it’s as clear as daylight– he’s at the right place, at the right time.

“Yeah,” you nod, furrowing your brows in confusion. “Will you get inside already, or are you going to stand there all day?”

Eyes wide, Yangyang nods hurriedly, finally stepping inside of the house. Taking off his shoes, making sure he takes his sweet time so he can calm his racing heart, he thinks of every possible thing he could say to you to make the whole encounter less awkward. Or is he the only one that feels awkward at this moment? Are you alright with everything that’s going on? You don’t even seem to be surprised, to be fair. Maybe you expected to see him at the door.

“So,” he starts as he finally straightens his back and meets eyes with you, “um… I came to teach guitar, so… where’s your sibling?” he asks, cracking his knuckles in the process.

“Sibling?” you repeat.

Feeling like he’s said something wrong, but continuing in his interrogation, Yangyang furrows his brows. “Yeah. To… teach guitar to?” he says, feeling more confused than ever.

“I don’t have a sibling,” you simply reply, spinning in your place and taking the stairs up, making Yangyang freeze in his spot in hesitance once again. This whole thing feels like a fever dream, and he doesn’t think he can wake up that soon.

A few seconds pass in complete silence, the uncomfortness of it all making Yangyang’s ears ring, when footsteps march through the space and make him swing his head up, seeing you standing at the top of the stairs. “Are you coming? I thought I was paying you for teaching me the guitar, and not for standing around,” you mutter.

Teaching you the guitar? Now, every other person would comply and run upstairs, apologise for being all over the place, maybe even mumble a poor excuse of how they haven’t slept well and that’s why they’re not in their right place today. But this is Liu Yangyang– and you’re Y/N, the girl he met almost a week ago and hasn't been able to stop thinking about since. And that’s why Yangyang only simply stumbles over his own legs and drags himself upstairs, still trying to make his mind comprehend the whole situation and let himself process what’s happening.

He appears in your room in a moment. The journey there has no memory in his brain, for he thinks he acted on auto-pilot, too lost in his thoughts. When the smell of you lingers all around him and punches him somewhere deep in his gut, that’s when he finally wakes up and proceeds to do what he’s supposed to.

The room looks just like he’d imagine it to look. It looks so, so definitely yours; with posters of bands hung all across the walls, stitched between with artwork and polaroid pictures, not one spot left empty in the whole room. The rug in the middle of the space is white and fluffy, the long bristles reminding him of the dog he used to have when he was a kid. There’s not much furniture in your room, and it’s also fairly small, but there’s everything a university student would need in a room at their parents’ house: a big bed, a closet, a bookshelf filled with literature and a desk that’s a little too messy, but still looks oddly organised. The last detail that completes the aroma of you in the room is the easel set in the corner of the room, right next to the guitar stand, like a little pair of necessities that belong together, never to be seperated.

He finds you sitting on the bed, the black acoustic guitar already nestled in your lap, glancing up at him through your eyelashes. The look you give him is unreadable– or he doesn’t know you well enough to read in your expressions yet. Taking a mental note of the urge to get to know you enough to know what you want to say even from a simple look thrown his way, he sits next to you and clears his throat.

“Shall we start, then?” he asks, hearing you snicker.

“I’m waiting until you finally get a grip, you know,” you say, “I’m ready when you are.”

Your words make him feel the heatness in his cheeks again, embarrassment a familiar emotion to feel whenever he’s in your presence. He once again recognises that he feels strangely intimidated by you in this setting, suddenly scared that he forgot all the chords and he doesn’t know how to play anymore, even though the thought of that is ridiculous and unbelievable, since before, he was sure he could play Smells like teen spirit even in his sleep.

“Okay, so…” he starts, “let’s start with what you already know, and then we can progress from there, I guess?” he chooses the tactic he always does when he teaches the neighbourhood kids, but at this moment, everything about the guitar lesson is making him unsure in his skills. This is the first time he’s working with someone his age, and to find you being the one replying to his insert, it makes it all even harder for him.

“I mean… I know the basic chords, but that’s about it,” you shrug, averting your eyes off him.

This is the first time Yangyang notices you shying away from his glance. He doesn’t dare to pin much importance to it, for he thinks it must be nothing, but something deep inside of him makes an assumption already and the air is suddenly lighter to breathe for him. He’s in charge now– he’s the one that knows everything, and you’re the one that wants to listen to him and learn from him. He’s not about power dynamics at all, since it would feel strange to pay importance to that, but suddenly, he no longer feels like he’s less from you, but rather on the same level, only a little more skilled, and that makes him feel more sure in his conversation and more strong in his moves.

“Okay, great,” he muses, “that’s a good start. Do you have a particular song that you would like to learn how to play? That’s usually the best way to learn, I think,” he suggests, glancing at you with curious eyes.

If he tried hard enough, he could maybe make out the song you’d choose by looking around your room and paying more attention to the posters on your walls. He’s quite sure he’ll be familiar with it, your music taste overlapping with his, although there are a few bands he’s not familiar with on the pictures on your walls and he suddenly wants to ask you all about them and let you recommend your favourite songs to him. He’d listen to them all afternoon, making sure to get every detail and search for everything that makes you enjoy them so much, trying to get to know you through your favourite melodies. He knows it’s too soon for a step like that, but he makes sure to keep it in his mind for later, when you two are closer; if that moment ever comes, of course.

“Hmm,” you hum. Suddenly, you stand up with the guitar still in your right hand, searching for something in the mess on your desk. There’s your phone in the grip of your left hand now, and with a few taps to the screen, you offer it to Yangyang, a site with the chords to the song you chose now shining on full display. “This one,” you mumble.

Now it’s your turn to look bashful. Yangyang notices the sudden shift in the atmosphere, liking how the awkwardness is suddenly out of his blood system but rather entering yours. Scrolling through the page, his eyes scan the chord progressions, nodding to himself as he recognises the tune, already playing in his head.

“Great! Let’s get to it, then,” he says.

Nodding, you stay glued in your place at the other end of the bed. Your guitar is still placed neatly on your right thigh, resting against it, waiting to be played. “Maybe try playing it so I can see what you need helping with?”

The suggestion makes you nod, a nervous lick to your lips is made as you take the guitar pick into your right hand and nestle a little in your seat, trying to relax. Not wanting to make you more nervous, Yangyang makes himself not look at you while you play, resulting in letting his eyes roam all across your room, trying to remember the details just in case he’s never invited over ever again.

You start playing in no time. Even a complete beginner could hear that you’re not used to the instrument yet– your strumming is inconsistent, the changing of chords slow and not all strings play when you press them– too weak for the note to ring. It’s okay, though; everyone starts somewhere and this was a good effort. The G chord is played wonderfully, as Yangyang recognises that this one in particular is not an issue amongst his students, but when you get to the D minor, Yangyang suddenly hears a sigh full of frustration as the strums don’t ring and you seemingly get a cramp into your left palm.

The melody, although a little chopped up and wonky, suddenly stops. You look over at your guitar teacher sitting to your right, trying to find help in him.

“Your hand got cramped up?” he asks, voice full of consideration he uses when he teaches the small children. He let it slip unknowingly, but now that he recognised it, he prays you don’t make fun of him for the endearing tone of it.

“Yeah,” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“I see,” he nods, shifting closer to you. He tries to be full of confidence, because then, it’s easier for him to mask the effect you have on him and the growing aspect of it the closer you physically are to him. Taking the guitar softly from your hold, he presses down the strings in the right order, three fingers used for the simple chord, strumming to let you hear the chord out loud.

“What you’re doing wrong is keeping your thumb too far up on the back of the neck,” he says, showing you the way you were playing the chord before, “this way, you have to make more pressure to hold the strings down, and the uncomfortable position makes your hand cramp up. Try moving your thumb a little lower,” he explains, once again showing you.

You hum, taking the guitar back from his hold when he offers it to you. You try to hold the strings down in the way Yangyang’s shown you, but your fingers just won’t comply, too used to the way you were playing the chord before. Watching you with amusement, Yangyang chuckles to himself and unconsciously moves to you, reaching for your hand from behind, and manually moving your thumb closer to the bottom of the neck of the guitar.

The contact of your skin on his burns him a little, even though he was the one that initiated it and touched you first, and he suddenly feels like a teenager once again, hating that the way he feels about you reminds him of the silly crushes he used to get on his classmates and never acted up on them in the fear of being rejected.

Moving back to his initial place, he sees you bite down on your lower lip as you strum down the strings, hearing the chord loud and clear, your hand in a way more comfortable position now. Humming again, perhaps in understatement, perhaps in satisfaction, you look up at Yangyang again, smiling a little. “Thanks.”

He shrugs. “It’s okay. That’s what I’m paid for,” he snickers.

You roll your eyes at him, but your lips mirror a cunning smile. He teases you back with the words you used when he first arrived, making him wonder if you find him more fun now, when he’s relaxed.

Sitting quietly, you try playing the song again, now a little more smoothly. Yangyang finds himself humming along, not daring to sing the lyrics just yet, since he’s not that eager to embarrass himself in front of you with his singing as he is when he teaches the kids. But when you look up at him and grin in amusement, he knows he did the right thing– the atmosphere is lighter now, the weight falling off his shoulders.

“You didn’t mention wanting guitar lessons when we last talked,” he says, going back in time just a week ago.

“Yeah, well,” you stop playing, “I wasn’t really set on it back then yet.”

“I see,” he hums, “what made you change your mind, then?”

Chewing on your bottom lip, you laugh to yourself. Putting the guitar down, between your bodies sprawled out on the bed, you fold your hands on your stomach. “If I tell you, promise you won’t laugh.”

Surprised by your request, for Yangyang thought there’s not anything in the whole world that could ever make you ashamed, he nods and agrees. “I won’t laugh. I promise.”

Squinting at him, as if to see if he’s truly honest with his promise, you breathe in heavily, getting ready to speak. “Well… remember how I told you that Jeno’s in a band?”

“Yeah,” he nods. How could he forget? That dude has everything Yangyang ever wished to be.

“So… his guitarist is kind of a dick,” you start, “he doesn’t go to practices, skips the gigs, shows up high sometimes… so Jeno wanted to kick him out and find someone better. And I kind of wanted to be the replacement, but…” you trail off, not daring to look at Yangyang in fear of hearing his laughter.

“Yeah, well, you’ll have to pay me for way more lessons to be the next lead guitarist of an underground band,” Yangyang notes, not trying to make fun of you– rather just tease you, to lighten up the atmosphere.

“Yeah,” you giggle, “you’re right. But maybe you could join them.”

“Me?”

“You said you wanted to have a band,” you mumble, shrugging, “this comes close, at least.”

Grinning to himself at the proposition, Yangyang shakes his head in disbelief. “You haven’t even heard me play. For all you know, I could be a total fraud.”

You turn your head to look at him, eyes squinting in examination once again. “You’re right, dude,” you mutter to yourself, “play me something, then. I’ll be the judge if you’re the one suitable to be the next lead guitarist of an underground band,” you say, throwing his own words back at him, trying to act out his voice in a teasing manner.

Singing, Yangyang shakes his head at your proposition. You must believe him– otherwise, you wouldn’t have texted him to give you guitar lessons, after all. To fulfil the promise he’s given you back in the skate park, though, he takes the guitar laying between your bodies, straightening his back and sitting in a more comfortable position, he presses down the chords you so desperately wanted to learn just a few minutes ago, before you two got lost in the conversation.

A simple G, D minor, a C major 7. Repeating over and over, a strumming pattern so easy and comforting, it’s forever engraved into his brain. He remembers hearing the song for the first time when he was younger, too embarrassed to admit to Renjun that he likes it, since he was always posing as the emo kid in the town. The band might suit the genre, but the lyrics are as sweet as sugar, so romantic it makes his heart clench.

Caught somewhere in between it all, in the midst of the moment, hearing you silently hum the lyrics to the song you’ve shown him, Yangyang foolishly finds himself dedicating the song to you. This is the second time you two have met, but your whole presence, the way you scrunch up your nose when you laugh, the way you are so genuine and straight-forward, with nothing to hide, he finds himself pulled towards you, wanting to know you deeper, desiring to explore every last crevice of your inside.

He never wanted to be in someone else’s band. He always wanted his own, so he can be in charge of everything, so he can be the leader everyone follows. But if being in Jeno’s band meant meeting you more often, he figures he could try it out. Who knows, he might even like it.

He’s never tried so hard for a girl before. He never really had the urge. Spending his days with blissful carelessness, wasting away his youth by doing nothing, he never really found anyone to yearn for as hard. He swore he was content with loneliness, but perhaps, no one before was ever worth the risk.

Just like in the song he’s playing, you are the only exception.

SO EXCUSE MY TANTRUM, CAN’T YOU SEE I’VE GOT MY HANDS FULL?

Leg nervously bumping up and down, Yangyang chews on his bottom lip as the buildings behind the windows of the car blur into themselves and motion him forward. Hearing a low beep coming from his lap, where he threw his phone after aimlessly checking Instagram for the seventh time today, he reaches for the device and unlocks it.

y/n: are you close yet

Looking around, trying to find out where the hell he’s even going, he turns to his best friend on the driver’s seat. “Are we close?” he asks.

“Who’s asking?” Renjun mumbles, turning on the left blinker and taking a turn towards that direction, pulling up to a street Yangyang’s never seen before in his whole life.

“Y/N,” he answers, checking all the houses, as if to try to see if you show up at the doorstep of one of them, awaiting their arrival.

“We’re quite literally 15 metres away from Jeno’s house,” Renjun mutters, turning down the music playing on the radio. Yangyang hums in understatement, quickly looking back over to his phone and typing a swift reply.

yangyang: we’re here

As the car comes to a halt, parking at the edge of the sidewalk in front of one of the houses on the street– each and every single one of them looking the same, with white walls and a brown roof, creating a homely atmosphere– Yangyang finds his nerves rise even more. It’s not like he’s meeting Renjun’s friends for the first time, after all, so he really doesn’t get the sudden rise in adrenaline. Sure, he only saw Jeno, Jaemin and Hyuck once, but at least him and you are pretty acquainted by now, considering that he gave you guitar lessons three more times since the last time, before he finally agreed on meeting Jeno and his bandmates for a band practice; just to see if he’s fit, nothing more.

Maybe he just really wants to impress everyone. The rest of the band is filled with strangers, so maybe that’s where his anxiety is coming from.

He almost opens his mouth and tries to talk about it to Renjun, since the boy always gets his emotions and tries to help him calm down whenever his overthinking is getting too irrational, but when he jumps out of the car and closes the door behind him, there’s a screech coming from the small gate leading to the property, making his eyes drift towards the source of the sound.

You wave at the two, standing in the open gate, a shining grin plastered onto your face. After Yangyang gets out his guitar from the backseat– the electric one, as you specified in your texts last night– you run up to him and envelope him in a quick, yet, comforting hug.

He didn’t realise you’ve gotten this close, but he welcomes the embrace with open arms. He catches a sniff of your perfume– a mix of roses and vanilla, sweet, but also light. It travels from his nose all the way up to his brain, numbing his senses. If this was the only smell he could feel until the end of his life, he wouldn’t complain.

“Finally! They’re all waiting for you in the garage,” you say, leading the pair towards the house. The gate to the garage is open, revealing a group of people clammered in the small space, leaving Yangyang at least some time to prepare for all of them.

Going up to the make-shift practice room in Lee Jeno’s garage, Yangyang puts on his best charming smile, hoping to seem at ease and not at all awkward. Adjusting the guitar in his hold, he comes up to the group and greets them with undeniable ease.

“Hello,” he says, watching Renjun as he fist-bumps the rest of his friend group and sitting at the old, orange couch in the corner of the garage.

“What’s up, man,” Jeno says as he comes up to him, once again, with a handshake. Yangyang begins to wonder why he always looks so cool– even when he’s wearing simple sweatpants and a Nirvana shirt enveloping his torso, he looks like he’s cut-out from a Rolling Stone magazine. He doesn’t even need that bloody leather jacket to look good. Life truly is unfair.

After greeting everyone, Yangyang finds himself awkwardly leaning against the arm of the couch. There wasn’t much space for him to sit, but that was okay– he was here to play the guitar anyway, he could stand. The garage was filled with people he knew, and also didn’t. It felt weird to have such a big audience. He felt like that time when he applied for the school’s talent show; he almost pulled out the minute he saw the tens of people sitting on the folding chairs in the school’s auditorium, waiting for him to begin playing.

He recognised Jaemin– who warmly smiled at him when he went up to him and greeted him with a rehearsed fist bump– and he also recognised Hyuck, Jeno and you. There was a guy sitting in the corner of the room, who he was told was Mark and he was here to ‘hang out’, and the other two were Hendery and Chenle, the band’s drummer and bassist.

“Want some beer?” you ask, looking at him brightly from your spot next to him. He shakes his head in disapproval– he didn’t really like the taste of it, and much to everyone’s dismay, he was a light-weight and he really didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of everyone sitting in the garage, watching him perform.

Yangyang’s left feeling lonely even in the full room of people. It’s somehow alarming, but also understandable. He’s not close to any of the people here, except from Renjun, and he’s been with him for the last few hours, so it’s only natural for his friend to drift towards someone else now. Looking around the garage, he spots a sign in the corner of the room, a long, white fabric spray-painted with red.

Chucky Tribute, it reads. Finding himself chuckling under his breath, you look over to him, raising your eyebrows to find out what he’s laughing about. Pointing towards the sign, you only roll your eyes with a grin.

“That’s the band’s name,” you whisper sincerely into his ear, “Jeno’s a fan of the Chucky movies.”

Upon hearing this, Yangyang already knows he signed up for a wild ride.

After some more catching up between Renjun and his friends, and some awkward conversation that sparked between Mark and Yangyang after he recognised the anime on his shirt, Jeno turns to him with the true reason for his visit today.

“Okay, so,” he starts, “we could try to play something together, so we can see if you’re the fit to be in the band,” he says. Something about his sentences makes Yangyang feel like he’s looked down upon– as if Jeno was the master of everything, not believing that someone like Yangyang could be good enough to be in his band, however small and underground it might be. Looking over at you in the corner of the room, seeing that you’re a regular at the band practices, gazing at him with a hopeful smile, he complies, though.

“Not that we have any doubts about you, though,” Chenle, the bassist chirps from the other side of the room, “our last guitarist was a stinker anyway, so there’s no way you could be worse than that, really.”

“What they’re trying to say, essentially, is that their standards are low in the first place, so there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Renjun teases from his spot next to Jaemin, earning a laugh and a playful bump to his shoulder from Hyuck sitting on his other side.

“Right,” Jeno rolls his eyes, trying to organise the whole evening at least a little, “anyway. Back to what I was saying… maybe you can try playing something and then we’ll see, I guess… I don’t really know how to go about this anyway,” he shrugs, watching Yangyang with curious eyes.

Yangyang feels his palms sweat, but he gets up from his spot nonetheless, getting his trusty, beloved guitar he got from his mother for Christmas out of its case and plugging it into the speaker. Strumming the strums a few times, as if to practice, he nervously clears his throat and points his gaze towards the neck of the guitar– even though he’s certain he could play it even if he went blind– just so he doesn’t have to look anyone in the eye.

Putting his fingers into their right places, he starts improvising. No one really told him what to play, so he assumes they don’t really want to hear any song in particular, so he doesn’t even try to imitate something or fish for chord progressions to anything in his mind in the first place. Moving fast across the guitar’s neck, he masters a melodic play, something he himself is kind of impressed with, something he doesn’t feel ashamed to play. He gets really into it, momentarily forgetting all about his surroundings, as he often does when he plays the guitar, when a low rhythm of drums flows into his ears and makes him look up, seeing Hendery grinning at him from his place behind the drumming kit.

Not a moment passes before Chenle gets to his bass guitar, completing the rhythmic section of the band. The melody flows through the walls of the garage, making Yangyang smile in joy, because only now does he truly feel in his element, when Jeno picks up another guitar and the whole make-shift symphony makes the audience cheer and yell in amazement.

When the players get tired and the song is done, Yangyang finds everyone clapping, making euphoria run through his veins. Perhaps this is what he was always destined to do– and even the slightest hint of the cheering of an audience, all because of his song, is like a gas fueling an engine, a spark that creates the fire in his soul.

His eyes subconsciously find your figure, standing up from your seat. Your eyes light up and your lips are tugged into the brightest smile he’s ever seen on you, running up to him with much force, arms only dangling by your sides,

before you pass him and he finds himself turning around, watching you envelope Lee Jeno in a fierce embrace.

“That was so good! You did so well, oh my god!” you cheer.

The euphoria fades. Yangyang’s smile drops only a little.

I WISH THERE WAS A SITUATION TO BE MAD AT, OR A PERSON I COULD BLAME

Sitting cross-legged at the edge of your bed, strumming your guitar softly, the sun starts setting and the orange hue makes the features of your face soften. Your room turns into a quiet abode, only filled with the sound of the guitar, mindless chords blending together beautifully as Yangyang continues playing, staring at your face.

“You know you still have to pay me if you call this a guitar lesson, right?” he says, watching you as you lay on your bed, legs pressed against the wall and your head hanging off the edge of the mattrace.

“Yeah,” you reply, “it is a lesson, just so you know.”

“You haven’t picked up the guitar the whole time I’m here,” Yangyang notes, laughing.

“I’m practising listening today,” you mumble, looking at him with eyes squinted from your teasing grin.

“Didn’t realise I was your personal jukebox.”

“Shut up and continue serenading me, won’t you?”

Snickering at your comment, Yangyang continues to mindlessly strum the guitar, wondering how and when exactly he got into this situation. A few weeks ago, he didn’t even know about your existence, and now, he’s locked up with you in your bedroom multiple times a week, giving you guitar lessons and sharing small-talk with you when you invite him for dinner to your parents’ kitchen and feed him dry cereal instead.

He’s not confident enough to sing in front of you just yet, but humming the lyrics in his brain is enough for him in this situation, for they fit the whole scenery with a 100% accuracy; I think I've lost my mind/ blurring the fact and the fiction/whilst simultaneously fixing/myself up with a girl named Panadol.

“Have you ever written a song?” you ask suddenly, not once initiating eye contact with him as your head is still hung down the edge of the bed.

“Not really,” he replies, but if the two of us continue meeting this often, I might start, he thinks. “You?”

Humming, you take a few seconds before you reply to him. “I have.”

Your words surprise him, making him halt in his movements. “No shit,” he blurts out in awe, “show me!”

Awkwardly laughing to yourself, you finally plop yourself up on the bed and sit opposite of him, shaking your head in disapproval. “No. Not a chance.”

“Come on!” he insists. “You can’t expect me to not be curious about it, now that you mentioned it.”

“We don’t know each other well enough for me to show it to you,” you mumble, “not even Aeri knows about it.”

“We meet up multiple times a week, and since I’m your trusted guitar teacher, I think I deserve to hear your music progress,” Yangyang pouts, trying very desperately to get you to show him what you’ve written.

“There’s no use in trying, you won’t convince me,” you laugh, set on your decision.

“What do I gotta do, then?” he snickers. “Play 21 questions with you?”

“Maybe,” you shrug, “maybe I’ll show you after that.”

Knowing damn well that you won’t– because Yangyang knows that it’s not as easy to show someone you don’t know that well something that you treasure so close to your heart– he nods and sets the guitar aside, getting ready to play the stupid game with you, just so he can finally know more about you. Sure, he might just learn some trivia about you; things that barely matter in the bigger picture that is life, but he will get anything he can, because you’re basically his biggest interest in life at the moment, right behind music.

“Okay,” you nudge him with your foot, “shoot.”

“Why do I always gotta start?” he gasps, a little offended.

“Because!”

“Okay, alright,” he rolls his eyes, “what’s your favourite colour?”

Sighing at his generic question, you shrug and point towards your torso, hugged in a grey hoodie. Realising it’s the same one you were wearing when you two first met, Yangyang smiles a little, but resolves into teasing you again. “That’s not a colour, that’s a shade.”

“Don’t disagree with me,” you snap back, furrowing your brows. “It’s a colour.”

“It’s a shade of black, actually, so it can’t be your favourite colour-”

“Fuck, okay,” you roll your eyes at him again, irritated, “fine. When did you start playing the guitar?” you ask, changing the subject.

Searching through his mind for an answer, Yangyang hums, lost in thought. “I think I was like eleven, or something?” he says, sounding more unsure than in his final exams, when he forgot what the topic was about.

“Eleven?”

“Yeah. My mum got me my first guitar for my eleventh birthday. I kind of sucked, but I enjoyed it anyway,” he says, smiling to himself.

“When did you first want to be in a band?” you ask again.

“If you ask now, that means you’ve wasted another one of your questions and I can go twice in the row next time-”

“Just answer the damn question, Yang!” you curse at him, playfully hitting his knee.

“Jeez, alright,” he mutters, “chill out.”

“I can’t chill out if you take the rules of 21 questions this literally!”

“Okay, okay!” he puts his hands up in a defending motion, grinning at the annoyance in your face. Something about pushing you over the edge, making you completely annoyed with his antics, makes a spark of joy illuminate his insides. It’s like he’s doing his job right– getting on your nerves, but still being the tiniest bit endearing with it. “It’s actually kind of funny, you know.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “I was in surgery when I was like… nine? Maybe ten, I’m not entirely sure. And when I was in a coma, I had this dream where I was on the stage performing my most favourite song, and I had the best time ever. So that’s kind of when I decided that this is what I wanna do when I grow up.”

Looking at him with endearance, you laugh at his story. The noise makes Yangyang feel like he’s on cloud 9 again, the state of euphoria you bring him into once again swimming through his veins like he’s on drugs.

“No way!” you giggle.

“I’m serious!”

Laying on the bed, getting more and more comfortable in his presence, you plop your feet into Yangyang’s lap and rest your head in your crossed hands. The sight of you like this, making physical contact with him, comfy and snuggled up in the blanket, Yangyang almost makes his imagination run too far. It almost feels like he’s in your personal space, the only person you let in, it’s like he’s your boyfriend, sitting in your room and chatting about everything and nothing at all at the same time, just enjoying your time together.

“Your turn now,” you say, waiting for his question.

Humming in response, he carelessly rests his hands on your ankles, finding their place there as if they were made to be there from the very start. “What is your song about?”

“Yangyang.”

“What? I didn’t ask you to sing it to me, or to show it to me. I’m simply just asking about it, that’s different,” he explains, a voice of a know-it-all that always got on everyone’s nerves.

“Still! Can’t you ask something else, then? I’ll answer everything, but that.”

“Okay. What’s the name of the song?” he asks, grinning teasingly.

“Okay, that’s it. We’re not playing anymore-”

“Fine!” he stops you, tugging you back to your place by your ankles when you dare to move away, as if you wanted to escape him altogether. “I have another one.”

“I swear to god that if you mention my song again, I will physically-”

“When did you start liking Lee Jeno?” he asks.

Your voice cuts out, the whole moment freezes. He feels like he’s in a youtube video, put on pause, stood in the same motion, holding the same expression. In reality, he’s trying to stay stone cold, expression stale, so you don’t realise just how much he cares about your feelings towards the boy.

You’re shocked, he can see it in your face. Maybe no one’s ever noticed before. Maybe he’s the first one; but the truth is, it’s not that difficult to see when you get so cheerful whenever he’s around, subtly touching him and sending compliments and light-hearted teasing his way whenever you get the chance.

Or maybe it’s not that obvious at all. Maybe Liu Yangyang just pays too much attention to who’s the object of your interest.

Strange, isn’t it?

PILLOWS PRESSED UNDER YOUR KNEES

Grinning to himself, playing the last few notes of the song Jeno and his friends wrote a few months ago, Yangyang finds you sitting at the old couch in front of him, your phone pointed towards the little show. The video of him playing the guitar will soon hit your Instagram stories, and Yangyang will widely grin as he realises it’s him that you’re showing to the whole world on your social media, and not Lee Jeno, as one would expect.

Once the song is done and over, you clap with much excitement and Yangyang smiles at you. The band practice is now over and he moves to the guitar case he left next to you on the floor, hiding his guitar in it so it doesn’t get damaged.

“That was good,” Jeno says, sitting at the armchair in the far right of the garage, getting out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere and lighting one between his lips, “we’re gonna rock that show. It’s good you got the songs so fast, Yangyang, or else we would be fucked.”

“I’m a professional,” he shrugs with a grin, earning himself a laugh from Chenle.

Sitting on the couch next to you, he finds himself enveloped in a weird sense of euphoria and excitement. In a week, he’ll be playing his first ever concert– Jeno said not a lot of people will attend, since they’re not known as much in the town, but it’s still something. A first step towards something, if you will. And Yangyang is happy with taking things slow this time around. Sure, he’d be happier if the band wasn’t called Chucky Tribute, and yes, admittedly, he’d be glad if the songs he played were his and the lyrics were more thought-out and not as surface-level as they are, but he’s happy with what he’s got. Better than nothing, right?

“I better head home soon,” Yangyang mumbles, standing up from his spot on the orange couch. Being around all those people without Renjun still feels kind of awkward, but he concludes that he can work on it some other day.

“We’ll just pack our things and go as well,” Hendery nods, “this was a good one, guys!”

“Man, I would do anything for a spicy McChicken right now,” you mutter, looking around at Jeno, “wanna order and watch Netflix?” you ask him, the question feeling like a knife in Yangyang’s back.

The thing is, you two established that Jeno is the guy you like a few weeks ago, back in your room. Yangyang promised to himself that he’ll try to get over you, but it’s not as easy as it seems when you’re everywhere he goes; your presence is enough to make him like you even more and more, and that’s a fact that feels more like a curse than a blessing.

“Nah, I’m not really feeling it today,” Jeno mutters, not even meeting your eyes as he scrolls through his phone and takes another drag of his cigarette, letting the ash fall to the dirty floor.

“Oh,” you say, the hint of disappointment in your voice is too noticeable, breaking Yangyang’s heart a little. He wonders how Jeno could be so blind, and mentally curses at him for turning you down, because god knows that if he was in his place, he’d never say no to you. “ I- I better go as well, then…”

Paying your goodbyes to the rest of the band, Yangyang finds himself outside of Lee Jeno’s garage, hesitantly scratching his neck with the offer he’s about to propose. “Still up for that spicy McChicken?”

“Hm?” you hum in question, looking at him with big eyes.

“We can drive to Maccies together, if you wanna. I’m starving,” he proposes, seeing something behind your eyes shift– perhaps relief, or hope, from seeing that someone is still up for hanging out with you, even though you’ve been turned down from the object of your desire.

Kicking the rocks under your feet, you shrug. “I mean… I’m down, I guess.”

“Okay, sweet,” he nods, striding towards his little Volkswagen Golf that he got from his father when he decided to buy a new car, “let’s go.”

Your body drags itself into his white car, slumping into the passenger’s seat. The disappointment in you is still very much seen in the slouching of your shoulders and the frown that is ever-so delicately written into your face, but Yangyang makes it his quest to make you feel better. Turning the engine on and turning up the music in the radio, being quite satisfied with himself that he put the Paramore CD in before he left, he drives off Jeno’s driveway and strolls through the city, into the McDonald’s at the edge of the town. The one in the centre is closer, but that one doesn’t have a parking lot– that’s why he’s opting for the safer choice.

When he finally gets there and parks in one of the vacant parking spots with much struggle, to be fair, since this was the part where he almost didn’t make his driving test when he was getting his licence, you follow him outside of the car, a little more stride in your step than before. When you get into the McDonald’s and find your place in the line of people wanting to order, Yangyang’s body situates itself right behind you, looking through the menu. He usually gets the chicken wrap, but just to be fancy, he will get it with fries and a coke today as well.

“One spicy McChicken,” you order, smiling at the cashier behind the pult.

“Coming right at you. Anything else?”

“No-”

“And one chicken wrap with fries. And two cokes, please,” Yangyang orders, catching a glimpse of your confused expression, “it’s on me,” he mentions, seeing you roll your eyes.

“You know, in any other circumstance, I don’t let men pay for me,” you say, “but I also could not care less today, so go ahead. I’ll pay next time,” you promise, seeing him get his card out and paying for your meal.

Once the order is ready and you two take a seat in one of the ugly red booths in the corner of the room, you unwrap your burger and get right to it. Yangyang watches you with undeniable adoration. Everything about you is full of amazement for him– the way you manage to not get the sauce all over your face, the way you don’t bat an eye over the spice in the burger. He studies your face, grateful that you don’t look at him, but rather watch the world behind the window, making him not caught.

“Want some fries?” he asks, offering you the pack and glancing at you. Turning your head to him, you sigh.

“I really wanna get over him, you know,” you start, putting the burger down and pulling at your hair in frustration, “I hate that I’m still so caught up with him. I despise it. But he’s so sweet, and he’s so charming, and I’ve known him since forever! It’s just so hard to let go of him, but I know that I should, because none of this is good for me in the first place…”

“I mean… that’s not what I was asking, but go ahead,” Yangyang mumbles, seeing you crumble in front of him, all frustrated and heartbroken because of his bandmate.

“It would be easier for me to move on if he was a complete dick, you know,” you mutter, pouting a little from the sadness in your heart. The expression is kind of adorable in Yangyang’s eyes, but a little heartbreaking nonetheless, for he knows the frown is genuine and there’s nothing he can really do about it.

“Give it some time, Y/N,” Yangyang finds himself saying, “time heals everything. Don’t push yourself into anything, because that’s only gonna make you feel worse in the long run. Let yourself feel things, you know,” he shrugs, seeing you watching him with eyes big, resembling pools full of emotion he’s not even going to try to decipher.

Taking a bite from your burger, you smile at him with a full mouth, an expression that would look disgusting coming from anyone else, but you. “Wow,” you say, “didn’t think I’d get actual, useful advice from you, you know.”

Gasping, Yangyang acts hurt. “So you’re saying my advice is useless? Haven't heard you saying that when I teach you the guitar.”

“We could argue and say that that’s not really advice,” you grin, kicking his leg under the table, “but no, I’m serious. Thanks. I guess I really needed to hear that right now.”

Smiling at you, grateful that he was able to help you at least a bit, Yangyang offers you the fries again, watching you take one and plop it into your mouth. “I’m glad you understand me, though. Aeri doesn’t help much, since every time I talk about Jeno, she keeps bad-mouthing him and telling me how I’m blind if I like him that much. You should have heard her what she said when she found out that we-”

Raising his eyebrows at you in question, Yangyang hums. “You?”

“We…” you nervously laugh, trailing off.

“You what?”

“I- well… Promise not to tell anyone? I wouldn’t be telling you this at all, but I already started and you seem like a person that I can trust with this, but please, swear to god that this will stay between you and I only,” you say, quite sincerely, looking at him with pleading eyes.

“Yeah, of course,” he nods, “what is it, then?”

“We… me and Jeno hooked up once,” you say, chewing on the inside of your cheek, eyes drifting away from Yangyang’s, “it… it was a while ago, after one of their shows back in July, and I thought it was getting somewhere after that, but Jeno… Jeno didn’t really seem like he wanted something more, so I just never talked about it with him after that.”

Blinking a few times at you, feeling like someone’s just suddenly unplugged his brain, leaving him with no power to gather his thoughts, he stays silent, trying to process everything. His blood goes cold and the food in his mouth suddenly tastes like dirt, his mood dropping instantly, for Lee Jeno had more of you than Yangyang ever will, and all of that while not caring for you near as much as he does.

“Don’t judge me,” you say, awkwardly laughing to yourself.

“I’m not judging.”

“Yes, you are, I can see it on your face!”

“I’m not judging!” he insists, finishing the last bite of his chicken wrap.

“What is it, then?” you push him, stomping your feet under your table. “Your face changed. You’re judging.”

“Yeah, maybe I am,” he blurts out, “not you, though.”

Looking at Yangyang for a few seconds, your eyes soften. Pulling your lips into a tight line, an expression only vaguely reminding him of a smile, you nod and sigh in understatement.

“Yeah. That’s why I’m getting over him.”

I DREAM OF YOU ALMOST EVERY NIGHT, HOPEFULLY, I WON’T WAKE UP THIS TIME

The drums ring all the way from his feet towards his heart, making it bump quicker and quicker as the rhythm changes and Hendery starts playing the opening melody of their last song of the night. Yangyang scans the crowd once more, trying to engrave it into his brain forever, trying to remember all the faces and all of their expressions, their outfits and haircuts, their lively smiles and cheers coming out of their mouths at each song they perform. This is the first time Yangyang is playing for a crowd that seems to be enjoying itself– he never knew that Chucky Tribute could have this many fans.

According to Chenle and Renjun, Jeno is kind of a big deal at their local university. He can only imagine that half of the crowd are his admirers; each girl in a prettier outfit than the other, screaming louder than the other in a non-spoken competition over his heart.

The view of the crowd enjoying the music is a lovely one, for sure. But when Yangyang’s eyes finally land to the very middle of the crowd, the spot he was saving for last, he realises that the sight of you in the crowd, holding your hands high as you jump around to the familiar songs, occasionally taking a picture of the band or recording a short video, that this sight– the sight of you, is for sure his absolute favourite.

“Are you ready to jump? Let’s go!” Jeno cheers into the microphone, the whole crowd that is currently packed in one of the medium-sized bars in the centre of the town listening to him and doing as he pleases– going absolutely crazy, jumping around and screaming when the chorus hits and some of them recognise the lyrics.

A doll with red hair lands on stage, thrown there by a grinning girl in the first row, making Jeno chuckle and take it from its spot on the floor. Yangyang soon realises it’s Chucky– Jeno’s most favourite fictional character, the one he named his band after. It’s kind of funny, the sight of the rockstar running around with the doll in his hands, screaming the lyrics to his song, and he almost lets out a loud laugh when the frontman gets to his new guitarist and makes the doll rest at his biceps, like a newborn baby. The crowd laughs at that, followed by a loud cheer, as they like the sight of their new guitarist and find it funny.

The sense of euphoria that comes with the last chorus is something Yangyang never knew he could feel. Lost in the music, enjoying the melody of a song he didn’t know a few weeks ago, he feels at home. He’s not good with crowds of people, for he always feels like he is watched and judged, examined by a microscope, but right now, he feels like he is in one unity with everyone present– music connects them all, no barriers left.

“Thank you so much everyone, this was Chucky Tribute! Make sure to stream our music on Spotify and Soundcloud, we’ll see you again soon!” Jeno says, moving to the edge of the podum and bowing, leaving the band to follow his lead and wave at everyone as the group leaves the stage.

Running off the stage, still grinning, Yangyang chugs some water in the backroom and once again, packs his guitar. If anyone would see him right now, they’d surely think he won a lottery or something, with how cheerful and genuinely happy the boy looks.

“The best part of playing at bars is the thing that comes after,” Jeno laughs, making Yangyang furrow his brows in confusion.

“Now, we party,” Hendery concludes, shooting a serious look at the newbie.

Once they’ve wiped their sweat off and drank some more water, the small group is heading towards the door to the bar. Now, Yangyang is not usually the one up for a party, but today is a special day. Of course he won’t miss out on the first afterparty with his new band.

You find him at the entrance. Your smile mirrors his, and your eyes only leave him for a second, as Jeno passes by and you greet him with a strange sense of politeness. Once Yangyang is close enough to run towards, you envelope him in a bear hug, jumping around in excitement. He takes notice of your perfume– this is not the first time he’s smelled it, but the light aroma of roses and vanilla always manages to make him feel a strange sense of bliss.

“You did so well! Oh my god, I’m so proud of you!” you yell encouraging words into his ear, making him jump a little from the loudness of your voice.

“Thank you!” he says, jumping around with you and squeezing you harder for a mere second. Something about you being the first one to congratulate him on the first step towards his big goal makes his heart swell, the sight of the light behind your eyes making him feel a tad emotional.

“Now let’s go party! Renjun and Jaemin are waiting at the bar,” you say as you move from him, “Jun ordered you a beer, he insisted that you liked it. If that’s not the case, blame him, not me.”

Laughing as you two disappear deeper into the bar, you quickly find the two at the bar, accompanied with Hendery, Chenle, and who he remembered was Mark, even though he’s only met him once. “Where’s Jeno?”

“Most likely somewhere with his groupies,” Renjun shrugs, sliding the beer closer to his best friend. “You did well, by the way. You looked like a rockstar,” he says, a teasing tone sent his way with a grin on the older one’s face.

“Oh, shut the fuck up-”

“I mean it! Now, have your beer so we can get some shots,” he says, making Yangyang roll his eyes and chug the beer, although not in one go– he’s not a monster. Or an alcoholic. Yet.

Once he’s done with his drink, the group moves to one of the booths in the corner of the bar. It was full just a moment ago, but the group that was sitting there before left, so they were free to take their spot. It was more comfortable to sit on the royal-blue sofas than the tall, lanky barstools, and Yangyang was happy for the support of the cushions under his bottom, if he was about to drink more. His centre of gravity is always a little messed up once he has something to drink, so a tall barstool wouldn’t really help him in this case.

Glancing at you, sitting right next to him, you don’t seem as unhappy with Jeno’s lack of presence. It makes him feel a bit relieved, especially after the talk you two had at McDonald’s a week ago. He knows that one can’t just get over someone in a week, but the idea of you still yearning after someone who was so out of reach was making Yangyang’s head hurt, so he was happy to see that you’re not running after him, or trying to look for him in the crowded bar.

You take your phone out of your pocket, yelling over the loud music as you read out the text shining on the screen of your phone. “Hyuck should arrive here any minute! He says he’s sorry for missing the gig, but he had to watch his baby sister, so there was nothing he could do.”

“It’s okay!” Chenle yells back, taking another sip of one of the cocktails you ordered for him when he was still in the back. He complained about it looking too girly for his current look, but he liked the taste nonetheless, so the argument was quickly settled.

“Yeah!” Yangyang chimes in, “family comes first. And babysitting,” he adds.

“Wait! Didn’t you use to babysit too?” Jaemin asks over the music, pointing his eyes at Yangyang.

“He did!” Renjun agrees with a laugh.

“But they kicked him out because the girl he was babysitting learned the word fuck from him,” you add, laughing as you remember the story he told you once when he was over at your flat.

“That’s not why they fired me-”

“It was! You told me!”

“It really wasn’t, you’re just-”

“Listen. We all know that’s why, every other word that comes out of your mouth is a swear word,” you say, grinning at him as he gets worked up over the small argument.

“I don’t fucking swear-” he tries to argue, when it hits him. He… he just did. Right there.

“Anyways!” Jaemin chimes in to lighten the mood, “I believe it’s time for shots!”

“I-”

“No, Hendery, you can’t skip this round and no, we don’t care that sambuca makes you sick. Now, let’s get to it, lads!”

The shot glasses with the clear liquid are distributed amongst everyone in the circle, all of them taking the shot. Once the glass is pressed against Yangyang’s lips, he catches a telling look from Renjun on the opposite side of the table; a one that asks what is going on between you and the girl you were too shy to talk to when you first met her, but he ignores it and just lets the sambuca shot hit his throat, swallowing. No one is brave enough to not make that disgusted face after taking a shot, but at least no one gets made fun of. Just yet.

With Yangyang’s low alcohol tolerance, he can sense that the teasing is only yet to come.

More and more shots in, he can feel his head spinning and all jokes shared along the group get only funnier. Somewhere along the way, Hyuck arrives, squishing himself next to Mark at the edge of the seat, greeting everyone and congratulating Yangyang on his first ever gig. When there’s a promise to drink to that with him, Yangyang is suddenly tugged by his hand, making him almost fall over as you try to make him stand up from his place.

“No, pretty boy, you’ve had enough for now,” you say, “let’s dance it out, shall we?”

“Probably not the best idea, Y/N,” Renjun notes from the other side of the table.

“We’ll be fine.”

“No, you don’t understand, like, he will fall over. It will happen,” Renjun explains once more, the sureness in his voice not making you even bat an eye.

Yangyang doesn’t even try to advocate himself. There’s no use– Renjun is most likely right, and he will fall over. But he also doesn’t really pay attention to the conversation you’re having anyway, when your hand is still in his, fingers intertwined, and the nickname you used for him, although a little mockingly, is still ringing in his head.

Dragged across the dance floor, you two find your place in the corner, where there’s not that many people around. It’s getting late and the bar is only getting more crowded, leading towards the rush of the night, but Yangyang doesn’t find himself minding as you hug him loosely around his neck and swing with him to the music playing through the speakers.

“Are you alright?” you ask, looking at him with honest concern.

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Do you feel sick? Do you want water?” you ask him questions, all caring and making his heart swell. No one’s ever made sure he was okay when drinking before, so the sight of the frown on your face is making him feel content in your hold, as he dances with you– although not really catching the rhythm, since balance is the thing he’s trying to catch at this very moment.

“I’m fine,” he says, smiling at you, “just a little drunk.”

“I can see that,” you laugh, “are you having a good time?”

He nods. “Are you?”

“I am,” you agree, smiling at him.

Yangyang finds himself pressed closer to you, but it really might just be because of the alcohol, when he talks closer to your ear. He doesn’t have to yell as much this way, and he finds it more comfortable, considering that he would still like to have his voice when he wakes up in the morning.

“Thanks,” he says.

“For what?”

“For… watching me play, I guess,” he shrugs, “and for staying here after.”

“I think you’re forgetting that all those other people are my friends as well, Yang,” you tease him, the tone of your voice making him shake his head in disbelief and roll his eyes at you.

“Okay, well, that’s true. But… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I do. I just don’t know how to articulate myself.”

You laugh at the simple honesty behind his drunken slurs, finding the tired boy endearing. “It’s okay,” you don’t push him.

“It’s just… if it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here tonight, that’s all,” he says, finally, not knowing that he secretly articulated everything he wanted and more, making you smile at him.

One of the hands that was previously clasped with your other one around his neck moves up towards his face, brushing the hair that’s falling into his eyes out of his face. The boy watches you with big eyes, mouth a little agape in shock. This action feels intimate to him, only treasured between you two, tugged secretly in the corner of the club. He feels weak in his knees, and although he manages to hold himself up, he knows that it’s no longer the effect that alcohol has on him, but yours.

“Don’t thank me. You were made for this,” you say, “you shined out there, you know? Give it a few more gigs and you’ll have even more groupies than Jeno,” you giggle, pressing your forehead against his for a brief second, just to be close to him, allowing yourself to be sincere even in the loud atmosphere of the night.

Swallowing hard, Yangyang chuckles airly, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “You should probably stop looking at me like that.”

“What? Why?” you ask, confused.

“Because it’s making it really hard for me to act like I don’t like you,” he confesses, watching your expression shift– the wrinkle between your eyebrows appearing for a second before your palm moves away from his hair and briefly touches his cheek and you move away from him, shaking your head.

“You’re drunk, Yang.”

He is. But even being sober can’t make his feelings for you go away.

“Yeah. I am.”

KISS ME LIKE NOBODY WOULD WHEN I WAS SIXTEEN

When you and Yangyang meet, it’s usually either at your place, in your little room covered by posters and artwork, or in town with all your other friends; going to the skate park, or having boba at the local mall. You rarely have time for just each other alone, and the only times when Yangyang has you all for himself is in your quiet room, where you learn to play the guitar, and he stares at you with fondness when he casually plays you love songs just for the sake of playing something, not wanting you to see the intentions behind his song choices.

Today, though, you’re nestled at Yangyang’s place– at his little balcony, to be exact. His parents were going out to the theatre, they said, so you only met them briefly, but Yangyang is glad for that fact, because he’s almost certain they’d embarrass him in front of you with childhood stories or prying questions, assuming you two were together, and he’s not entirely ready to face that yet.

Alone in the whole house, you tucked yourselves into the small space of the balcony, sat at the floor with pillows under your bottoms, looking out to the hills. Yangyang used to complain to his parents about the placement of the balcony– when he was little, he didn’t understand why someone would want to look outside and see nature, only metres and metres covered in tall trees, when they could look out and see the busy street, people living their lives, laughing and screaming in joy. The older he gets, though, the more he understands why this is so much better; the sight of nature calms him down, creating the balcony into a humble abode, a relaxing spot for him to watch the trees move with the wind. If he’s lucky, sometimes, he can even spot a stray deer, looking out of the forest, tasting the city on its tongue. He subliminaly tells it to come back where it came from, for it’s safer for the animal to be kept in the woods, but he feels like the sight of it makes him appreciate what he has even more.

It’s early November, the leaves of the trees in front of you are starting to turn all the pretty colours of the rainbow, orange hues making the place look ethereally beautiful. You sit next to him, legs crossed, your outfit the most casual he’s ever seen you wear. The sight of sweatpants and the loose hoodie on your frame makes him unconditionally happy, for it means that you’re comfortable with him to the point of not even needing to dress up.

“Why is your guitar so different to mine?” you ask him, furrowing your brows in question.

“Mine’s an acoustic, yours is the classical one. The strings are different,” he notes, seeing you nod in understatement.

Your guitar lessons are not as frequent as they used to be– truth be told, you only paid for an actual lesson a few times. The other times, when you two just laid in your bed and talked about everything, only sometimes taking your guitar into your hands and playing a song or two, Yangyang refused to take any money from you. It would be like paying him for hanging out with you, and that’s not the case here. Sure, he helps you with playing, he shares advice, but it’s not the regular guitar class he gives to the kids in the neighbourhood, and that’s why he’d feel bad to make you pay for them.

“They hurt my fingers,” you scowl, making Yangyang giggle at your hurt expression.

“They’re harder to play, ‘cause they’re steel,” he says, “want me to play instead?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head, “I wanna show you something.”

Opening his eyes wide in surprise, Yangyang only nods, becoming you to start. When you came over into your room, you didn’t say much. Your eyes travelled around the walls, adoring the few posters he hung up above his bed, squinting at the collection of energy drink cans at the top of his wardrobe. There’s a bowl full of guitar picks on his table, which you scanned over faintly, and a hoodie, the only thing he forgot to clean up before you arrived, draped over his chair. When your eyes found one of his guitars– the acoustic one– in the corner of his room, you asked to borrow it, taking him by surprise.

Strumming the guitar a few times, testing it, trying to get to the rhythm and the sound of the new thing, you clear your throat and look at him again one last time before you start. “I practised some more, since your guitar lessons are pretty much useless now, when you won’t shut up for one minute-”

“That’s entirely your fault!”

“Whatever,” you mumble, “but, basically, I think I finally learned that song.”

Smiling faintly, perhaps a little nervously, you start playing the song you requested him to teach you in your first guitar lesson. The chords fall smoothly from your hand now, the strumming rhythmical and exactly like the original, everything falling into its place nicely.

You even start singing, and although your voice is not the prettiest one when you sing, the notes sounding flat and the high-notes a little shaky, although your voice isn’t like from the movies and you’re not a princess that’s good at everything, something about this moment feels truly special to Yangyang. When you notice the seriousness of the whole thing, his examining eyes and the lost expression, your singing turns more silly, purposefully not hitting the right notes towards the end of the song, dragging the lines for longer than you should, making Yangyang laugh.

He thinks that perhaps, he’ll remember this moment forever. When he’s old and the memory of you fades, his brain no longer able to make out the sound of your voice, he’ll go back to this day, to the strumming of the guitar, and he’ll have you back, for at least a second. He’ll remember the way your hair reflected in the golden hour, he’ll remember the sound of your voice when you sang the chorus of the song, he’ll remember the way you smiled at him after, a little proud, but still shy, and he’ll feel the same things he does today, looking at you in real time.

“How was it?” you ask, a hopeful glint in your tone.

“Wonderful,” he replies, and he means it– it’s an easy song to learn, sure, but he knows how much you’ve tried, how much work you truly put in. To work on something so hard and finally get to the goal, must feel fulfilling. He’s proud of you, in a way.

The grin that appears on your face is wider than he’d ever seen, as you put the guitar down next to you and try to battle it, as if you were afraid to show him just how much this moment meant to you.

“Thank you.”

“For what? This was all you, as you said, because I can’t shut up for one minute in our guitar lessons, so…”

“Fuck off, you know I was only joking,” you say, “we both know that I wouldn’t have done this without you. It’s a small victory, but it’s still important to me nonetheless.”

Your body shifts closer to him, a hesitant look on your face flashing for a second before you wipe it off and hug your companion from the side, both of your hands enveloping around his torso. Warmness spreads all through Yangyang’s body, making him wonder that perhaps, it’s the appreciation you are trying to convey, sending it to him through your touch. Your head rests on his shoulder, staying in your position for a few more minutes, just listening to the silence that’s only occasionally ruined by the chirping of birds or the shuffling of the wind in the trees.

Yangyang doesn’t dare to break the silence. He only lets you do as you please, when you pry your hands off him and move so you’re more comfortable, with your head still resting on his shoulder. It’s a simple act, but it means a lot to him– a subtle hint of affection, perhaps, which he treasures close to his heart.

Your hand silently finds his, resting in his lap. Taking it into your hold and playing with his fingers, Yangyang finds it hard to not think about just how much he’d like to kiss you right now. The smell of your shampoo mixed with the hint of your perfume hits his nose, lullying him to sleep.

A little naive, perhaps, he thinks of the paradox– you started playing the guitar for someone you were chasing after, and proceeded with it for someone that was chasing after you.

Or maybe, it was all because of yourself. You just needed someone that would support your little dreams. And with the dreams treasured somewhere deep in Yangyang’s insides, some that no one else but you knows, perhaps you two are a great duo. Nobody else would hold you up just as much as he does.

SO SPIN THE BOTTLE IN YOUR BRAIN AND MATCH THE WEAKNESS WITH A NAME

“If I knew that you’d just be doing your homework, I wouldn’t have come,” Yangyang mumbles as he lays on your bed, looking at his phone. His screen shifts with Tiktoks– the social media is almost embarrassingly too addictive for him not to check up on it once in a while, and now, when he has nothing better to do, he naturally gravitates towards it.

Also, just for the record, that’s a lie. And he knows it– he just won’t admit it. Of course he would come anyway. Even if you told him that today’s activity is staring at the ceiling for three hours straight, he’d come. He’d come for any event you invite him to, because it means that he can spend time with you, stay in your presence. And that’s enough for him.

“Shut up,” you mumble, “I already pushed this assignment back too much, because you wanted to go get boba the other day.”

“So it’s my fault you’re late on assignments?” he gasps, offended, as he puts his phone down to put his whole attention towards you.

“Yeah,” you nod, a little absently, “of course it is. You were distracting me from my studies.”

Scoffing, Yangyang shakes his head in disbelief. Truth be told, he’s happy to be your distraction. That means you gravitate towards him whenever you need to get your mind off things– that means he’s your safe space, in a way. The realisation warms his heart a little as he proceeds to climb off your bed, joining you on the floor.

You’re sprawled out on your white fluffy carpet, with a plastic white tablecloth thrown over the surface, a canvas plopped in the middle of it all, tubs of acrylic paint carelessly situated all over the floor. As an art major, your homework is different to the usual. You don’t write lengthy essays, although the time for them comes every once in a while when you take your Art History class. Your assignments mostly include doing art itself, not only studying it, but experiencing the beauty of creating on your own skin.

“What are you painting?” he asks, eyes scanning the canvas.

It’s not a big one, it’s just the right size to fit on the plastic covering under it, making sure your pure white carpet doesn’t get paint stains on it. He notices the brushes all over the place– one is even thrown under the bed, making Yangyang chuckle as he remembers your sudden outburst of frustration a few minutes ago, huffing through the silence and throwing something to the other side of the room.

“Don’t look. I hate when people look.”

“Why?” he asks, confused.

“It makes me feel watched. I don’t like it,” you mourn, stopping in your process and finding his eyes for a split second, truth mirroring in them.

“I’m not watching you,” he mutters, “I’m just looking. I’m appreciating the art, if you will.”

“You’re gonna judge it. I hate when people judge my art,” you say as you get back to painting, mixing the shades on your pallet and then moving back to the canvas, plopping them on there, creating all sorts of images in the small space, “it makes me wanna cry when they say it’s bad.”

“Isn’t that like… the whole point of art school?” he asks, confused.

“Yeah. Exactly,” you nod, making the boy hum in understatement. “Makes me feel fucking miserable, to be honest.”

Yangyang chuckles. The room falls into silence again, as you let him watch you paint. He feels special, for you said you don’t let people watch you, but even with his eyes plastered on the whole scene– your art, but mostly you, scanning your focused face– you don’t glare at him, you don’t curse him off, you just let him peacefully sit next to you, appreciating you.

After a while, you start to hum a song, seemingly happy with your progress on the painting. Your eyebrows relax and your face doesn’t look as tense, and when Yangyang takes a look at your painting, it seems like you’re almost finished; not a blank space left on the canvas, your hand taking the smallest, tiniest brushes, adding small details to the whole thing.

“What did you paint?” he asks again, making you chuckle.

“Don’t you have eyes?” you ask, making him roll his eyes at your question.

“I do,” he replies, “but I wanna know what it symbolises, you know. Like.. What was the theme you were supposed to paint and shit, that’s what I’m interested in.”

Your eyes meet his for a brief second, smiling. Perhaps no one’s ever asked you about your art in such depth before. “It’s a William Oliver replica. It’s a scene from Much Ado about Nothing,” you say, finally done with your piece, stretching back to straighten your neck.

The painting is a beautiful scenery, Yangyang would even go as far as saying it looks like the original, although he’s never seen it before. It’s a picture of two women sitting on a bench in the woods, one of them looking past her shoulder at a couple walking by, her expression distraught. He wonders why you chose the piece, but before he has time to ask, you’re already giving him the reply.

“We were supposed to replicate a painting that resembles one of our deepest emotions and… I chose this one,” you add, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

Taking one last look at the saddened woman, her expression dark and solemn with the sight of the couple passing by, Yangyang suddenly understands it all, he no longer has the need to ask you what the deepest emotion you have is, because it’s clear as day, right there in front of him, served on a golden plate.

And you might try to mask it, try to hide it from him as hard as you can; perhaps that’s why you haven’t told him the original name of the painting, after all, but he can see it in your eyes, he can sense it in the way you speak about him when he comes to your mind.

Perhaps Yangyang understands your art so well because he deeply resonates. He too feels the way you do, he too looks at a pair passing by, the sight of them together making his heart clench with the feeling you can only describe as Unrequited Love.

I CAN STILL SMELL HER PERFUME, DID IT RUB OFF ON YOU?

“And…” Jeno’s singing suddenly trails off, his eyes shooting towards the ceiling as he searches for the next lyrics in his head, sighing when they don’t come to him as naturally as they always do. The band practice isn’t going well today, and frankly speaking, it’s getting on everyone’s nerves.

Hendery slams the drums with much furiosity, cutting the rhythm off abruptly. Yangyang finds himself following him, his strumming coming to a halt as an angry figure appears from behind him, screaming close to his ear.

“What the fuck, man?” Chenle yells at the leader of the band, sighing. “We have a gig in three days and you can’t even focus on a single band practice?”

Jeno shrugs, pacing around. The frustration smeared all over his face is enough to make the whole group even more annoyed, the tense atmosphere making the air in the old garage feel particularly heavy.

“You come to the practice late,” Chenle starts his little rant again, counting all the reasons why he’s annoyed with his bandmate on his fingers, “and mind you, the practice is at your fucking place. You live here and you’re half an hour late. Then, you’re all over the place; not paying attention to anything we have to say, forgetting the lyrics, playing the chords wrong in the few little songs where you actually have to play the guitar-”

“Are you done?” Jeno cuts him off, the tone of his voice stern and cold.

“I mean, I could go on, but it seems like you don’t really wanna hear it,” Chenle says, pacing towards the sofa and taking a seat on it.

“Glad you caught that,” he scoffs, not meeting anyone’s eye.

Yangyang doesn’t say a word; he’s not the one for verbal or physical fights. Sure, he does have some pent-up anger inside of him, most of it aimed towards Jeno, but he won’t dare to show it. It’s not his place to say anything. He hasn’t been in the band for long, and for all he knows, the frustration he feels towards the boy may as well be because of the unreciprocated feelings you have for him. And now, that wouldn’t really be fair of Yangyang to act on, would it?

So instead, he wanders over to the corner of the room, figuring that it’s time for a break, sitting on one of the old, dusty armchairs.

“What’s gotten into you?” Hendery asks, making the other boy frown.

“I don’t know, man,” he shrugs, indifferent, “I’ve got a headache.”

“Hangover again?” Chenle asks, the tone of his voice ironical and snappy, snickering to himself when the boy doesn’t reply and instead just looks ahead of him, too shameful to answer the simple question. “Of course. I could’ve guessed that.”

“Look, it’s not my fault that you don’t take the opportunities you’re getting into your hands,” Jeno shrugs, grinning to himself. Leaning over to the small coffee table in the middle of the garage, he takes the can of Redbull into his hands and takes a sip from it.

“What opportunities, you say?” Hendery asks.

“Well,” he starts, “the parties, the invitations, the attention…” he trails off, before a snarky look falls to place onto his face, “the girls…”

Chenle scoffs in response, putting his legs up onto the table. “Maybe if you gave more attention to responsibilities, the music and the band, we wouldn’t be still stuck in this fucking garage,” he shrugs and Hendery only hesitantly locks his eyes with him, nodding to show him that he agrees with his point.

“Well, it’s still my fucking garage, isn’t it?” Jeno grins, meeting the others’ eyes.

After another set of sighs, nothing being able to loosen up the atmosphere and make the air lighter, Hendery moves from his spot on the sofa and takes the bag from the floor. “You should probably get some sleep. We’ll practise tomorrow, since you’re pretty much useless today.”

Chenle follows his actions, feet pacing around the garage to gather his things and hide his treasured bass guitar into the case, taking it with him. “See you tomorrow,” he says, turning around to wave at Yangyang, still sitting soundly in the corner of the garage.

With only the two of them left in the dusty practice room, Yangyang feels himself get awkward. The truth is, it’s easier to get on with Hendery and Chenle. He finds them to be more approachable, less intimidating and also more friendly. Yangyang doesn’t recall ever hearing Jeno speak to him with the niceness they always use, and he also doesn’t remember the prideful boy to ever look at him with eyes that would show that he finds him equal. Something about their relationship is always based on a feeling of superiority and however hard Yangyang tries, there’s nothing he can do to make the feeling go away.

Figuring that it’s his time to leave, he stands up and moves towards the sofa, where his bag is.

“I hope you’re in better shape tomorrow,” he mutters, getting closer to where Jeno’s sitting.

“What, you’re gonna give me another lecture? I’ve heard enough, trust me,” he snaps back, making Yangyang furrow his brows in confusion and shock, sighing to himself. Leaning closer towards his bag on the sofa, something lingers in the air, and it’s not the awkwardness or the unsaid rivalry between the two.

It’s the smell of roses and vanilla, the faint aroma of it hitting his nose and making his stomach twist in anger. Suddenly, everything clicks into place– the hangover, him being late and all over the place, the smell of your perfume lingering on him wherever he goes.

“Were you with Y/N?” he asks.

“What?” he furrows his brows, pointing them onto the other boy as he scoffs. “You’re jealous?”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah. Because I can get her whenever I want, and you can’t?” he says, cocky and full of confidence. “Don’t worry, I caught the way you feel about her long ago. Too bad she’ll never be yours, man.”

Gathering his things, hands trembling and his whole body lighting on fire, he finds himself walking off towards the exit. Turning around only once, he finally gets out what he’s been thinking of for the past few weeks.

“You know what? Fuck you, Jeno. You can look for a new guitarist for your next gig now. I hope you find someone that doesn’t find you absolutely fucking insufferable.”

You might be completely his, magically under the rockstar’s spell, but the truth is, sadly, that Lee Jeno can never be truly yours. You’re always gonna have to share him with every single girl at the club, with all his crazy fans that post about him on Facebook. You’re always just gonna be his second choice, the girl he turns to when no one else is around, the girl he uses for his pleasure when there’s no other person willing to get on with him.

And that makes Yangyang perhaps even more furious than if you were dating.

This might be his deepest dream, the thing he’s felt the most happy and excited about in a long while, but still, he can’t find it in him to continue in a band with someone that only finds you when they feel like it, stripping you off of everything, using you to their best and then throwing you out like a piece of trash, not satisfied with you anymore.

He could never go on with someone like that.

IT’S 3:45, THE TAXI’S NOT ARRIVED, I DON’T THINK THAT HE’S COMING

The rain hitting the asphalt does nothing to make Yangyang feel better about everything– truthfully, it makes him feel even worse, as expected with the gloomy weather, as he walks down the street towards the bus stop at the edge of the neighbourhood, the one that is the furthest away from his house, away in the crevices of the roads that he doesn’t know that well, despite living there his whole life.

It’s a little past eleven and he’s gotten your text just about ten minutes ago. The contents of it were simple, just a single sentence asking him to meet you at the bus stop at the edge of the neighbourhood, far away even from your house alone.

You two haven’t spoken in a little over three days. After quitting the band, he’s pretty much sheltered himself from everyone. Even Renjun’s calls were getting ignored, and while the rest of the group just figured to leave the poor boy alone, his best friend made it his quest to walk down to his house and scream at him in person, for the little angry human was worried that his friend was six feet under a long time ago.

Nearing the little glass box, acting as a bus stop, Yangyang already sees your figure sitting at one of the benches, knees up and pressed towards your chest, hugging yourself. The sight of you makes Yangyang’s heart break just the slightest, for he already knows what’s going on just by reading your text message. It would be healthier for him to stay at home and leave you to deal with everything on your own, but he was never the one for good life choices. Somehow, he always has to fuck himself over. His own sweet self-sabotage.

Drenched in rain, droplets of water falling off the tip of his nose, he finally makes his way towards you and sits on the bench next to you. Sniffling a little, presumably from the cold, he waits for you to talk first. It’s hard for him to find words to say to you at this moment. No conflict happened between the two of you, but he’s sure you already know about what happened between him and Jeno, and he doesn’t have it in him to talk about it. He doesn’t know what you think about the whole thing; he also doesn’t know how Jeno explained it to everyone. All he knows is that the uncomfort he felt whenever he was around him is not something he should be putting up with, and that the decision he made was final, and also good for him, in the end.

“Why didn’t you take an umbrella with you?” you ask him, your voice faint in the silence of the night.

Shrugging, he snickers. “Dunno.”

The truth is, Yangyang doesn’t like umbrellas. Walking anywhere with them feels awkward and embarrassing, and he’d rather die than to feel humiliated. It’s a habit of his, to walk everywhere without an umbrella, even when it’s storming outside. The struggle of getting his wet clothes off before he hops into a hot shower is not really worth it, if he really thinks about it, but old habits are hard to break.

Taking the hood off his head, Yangyang runs his hands through his hair, shaking the water out. You lean away from him for just a second, trying to shield yourself from the droplets of water flying everywhere, but there’s no use– you end up getting a little wet anyway.

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he finally breaks off the awkward silence. “There are no buses coming at this hour.”

You nod. “I know.”

“So… why are you here, then?” he asks.

Shrugging, you sniffle from the cold as well, making Yangyang notice the lightness of your clothes. The fabric looks thin, the mesh long-sleeve doing nothing to shield you from the cold, and he suddenly regrets not bringing another jacket with him to keep you warm.

“You already know why, Yangyang,” you mumble, “you already know.”

“What happened?” he asks.

The truth is, Yangyang has a faint idea. He may have quit the band, but he hasn’t forgotten the schedule yet– today is the day of the gig. It’s a special one, presumably, because it’s away from the town. A big bar somewhere in a big city called Chucky Tribute to play on the opening night, so there must be a lot of people there, leading the band to getting more recognition than ever before. Everyone went– the whole friend group, including Renjun and Donghyuck, although the latter always seems to be late everywhere. Everyone went… except for you two.

“Jeno was supposed to drive me,” you say, “but he never showed up. I called him numerous times, sent him lots of texts, but he just wouldn’t reply.”

“Have you tried reaching the others?” he asks.

“I have. They arrived safely, had a great show…. Jeno didn’t mention me… you know, it’s funny,” you chuckle ironically, bitterness behind your tone, “Jaemin thought I just didn’t feel like coming today. They’re all there and now I look like a douchebag that doesn’t want to support their friends. It’s ridiculous.”

“That makes two of us,” Yangyang scoffs, trying to lighten the situation.

Humming, you only resolve to nod. “Then, Jeno texted me saying he’ll send a taxi for me and that I should wait here.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” you faintly reply, shuddering from the cold. “So I’m… waiting, I guess.”

Yangyang smiles to himself. Everything about you screams devastation– the way your eyes don’t meet his, the way you refuse to change your position into another one, hugging yourself to comfort. The makeup under your eyes is a little smeared, but he won’t mention it. You look devastatingly lonely, and something about you texting Yangyang just to battle the feeling makes him feel at least a little valued by you. It’s a sign of something– a sign of your trust, perhaps.

You’re waiting for Jeno’s taxi. It should make him seep in envy, but it doesn’t. Strange.

“You know, I finished my song the other day. I could show it to you sometime,” you say, starting a conversation, “it had a lot to fix and I wasn’t quite happy with it, but I think you’d like it. It’s… it means a lot to me.”

“Sure,” Yangyang nods, scooping himself closer to you. Seeing you shudder from the cold once again, he bites on his lower lip, hesitating on his next question, but saying it out-loud nonetheless. “I know this might sound a bit out of place and as if I’m being stingy by not offering it to you, but I’m really cold as well, so do you wanna share my jacket?”

Looking at him for the first time since he got there, you shake your head in disbelief and break out into a grin. “You’re unbelievable,” you say, “but yeah, sure. Thanks.”

Moving closer, Yangyang takes off one of the sleeves on his jacket, pressing his side flush to yours, watching you as you take his jacket and drape it over your right side. Soon enough, taking the boy by surprise, your left arm moves under the jacket and hugs him around the waist, making yourself more comfortable in the awkward position.

“Thank god for your ridiculously oversized clothing,” you mumble as you sigh in warmness, making him snicker.

Sitting in silence, the time passing without either of you knowing or noticing, the intimacy and closeness of you two occupying both of your minds, Yangyang wonders how he ended up in this mess. Living his teenage dream for a little over a month, playing one show, getting to know you and falling for you harder than he’s ever fallen for anyone before. He thinks he’d rather be unaware of his growing feelings for you. It’s not like they hurt him, it’s not like the idea of not being loved back by you makes his heart break or anything, but he feels like slowly, it’s ripping on his edges and making him feel a little worn-out.

He wonders why your actions towards him haven’t changed since he drunkenly told you that he liked you. You showed no signs of discomfort with him, no awkwardness. It’s like somewhere in the depths of your soul, you were content with the idea of Liu Yangyang being in love with you. What that says about you, he doesn’t know, but it’s sure that it has to mean something.

Your head slowly falls onto his shoulder. The steady rhythm of the rain falling on top of the roof of the glassy bus stop acts like a lullaby, the darkness, only lightly discarded with the yellow hue of the lamppost a few metres away providing you a shield of some sort. The neighbourhood is almost scarily silent, but it’s no wonder due to the late hours of the day.

“I’m glad you came,” you mumble.

“Of course I came,” he replies. The choice of his words is quite obvious– there’s nothing else he could do, but to help you ease the pain of being thrown away to the side by Lee Jeno once again. After some time, it almost looks like he’s getting used to it.

“Sometimes, I wish I loved someone else. Sometimes, I wish that someone was…” you trail off, not finishing your sentence, but rather choosing to start a new one instead, “Jeno doesn’t deserve it. I’m done with him now. For good.”

Yangyang doesn’t reply, leaving your words to sink in. Noticing the familiarity of your sentences, the things you’ve already said to him multiple times ago, he only snickers in half-amusement, half-pain. “Are you?”

Thinking, you shrug. “Most likely.”

“I mean… it’s okay. You can’t really make your emotions go away like that,” Yangyang says. He knows what he’s talking about, after all– he tried.

“Yeah,” you agree, “but I think it doesn’t hurt to try.”

Remaining silent, Yangyang pays attention to the rhythm of the raindrops falling to the ground. Your body hangs off his, holding on to his clothing as if to keep yourself afloat. Somewhere along the way, his arm found its way around your waist, but he doesn’t really remember when it happened. All he registers is the faint movement of his fingers against your skin, trying to calm down the storm you refuse to show him, but he knows too well is going on inside of you at this very moment.

Eyes travelling towards the red neon sign outside of the bus stop, Yangyang finds that it’s 3:45am already and the time he spent with you passed by without him even noticing.

“It’s getting late,” he says.

“It’s been late for at least a few hours now, Yang,” you mumble, the nickname rolling off your tongue soundly.

“Yeah, but I mean… I don’t think the taxi’s coming,” he explains, a bit of hesitance in his voice, trying not to break your illusion.

“Oh, I know,” you muse, “I know. I knew it the very moment he sent the text that he’s gonna call it for me.”

Your statement confuses him, makes him furrow his brows and search for an answer. When you don’t explain further, he gets it, somehow, and the realisation both breaks him and makes him feel content all at once, as most things about you always do.

You already knew you could never trust a word that comes out of Lee Jeno’s mouth. And in times where you most need comfort, you call Yangyang.

You always call Yangyang.

“Let’s go home then, shall we? I’ll walk you.”

I’D LOVE TO BE IN LOVE WITH YOU ENOUGH TO WRITE A LOVE SONG

Looking at you plucking the strings of your jet-black guitar, sitting in your room, Yangyang is enveloped with a strange sense of nostalgia that cuts right through his bones and sits inside of his stomach. You’re sitting at the opposite edge of the bed, not looking him in the eye as you strum an unfamiliar melody.

Nothing much changed since the two of you met for the first time. You’re still the same you that surprised him with a sharp remark as he entered your house for the first time, the same you that he silently adores and watches, paying attention to all details; the freckles on your skin, the calluses on your fingers, the hesitant smile you flash him as you start singing the lyrics to your song almost absent-mindedly. And he’s still the same person you met in the park; the boy with a dream, only waiting to be fulfilled, the boy that tries so hard to find his place in the world. The boy that quietly supports you with each step you take, the boy that fell for you fast and hard, without knowing how to control it.

Your room is still the same shade of white, splashed with colour on the edges, where the posters reach. The comfort and the easiness of the atmosphere is still the same as well.

The truth is, everything stays the same. Time passed, but nothing happened. Ignoring the mess in the middle, it’s like you’ve come full circle, stayed exactly the same, stuck in motion, but progressing nowhere. Yangyang can’t choose if it’s scary or comforting.

But when your eyes meet and you sing the lyric, your voice unsteady, but absolutely, 100% raw and honest, Yangyang thinks that perhaps something changes over time. His feelings for you don’t disappear, not at all, but they progressively grow. They deepen and he starts to understand them, getting in touch with them, welcoming them despite knowing they will never get received and reciprocated.

“I’d love to be in love with you enough to write a love song,” you sing, the easy chords forming a melody, the lyrics hitting the boy in the stomach.

It’s like they’re addressed to him the same way they were addressed to yourself. A silent confession, opening yourself up to him completely, because after all this time, he’s the only one you can get yourself to fully trust and let see everything. The truth is, he deserves it. After being so patient; after being so calm and caring with you and your emotions.

When you’re finished with the song, putting the guitar aside, Yangyang can’t help but grin at you.

“Us two could make a band, you know,” he smiles, seeing you roll your eyes at him.

“Don’t think the rockstar life is for me, dude,” you say, moving closer to him, but still keeping your distance. That’s how it works between the two of you all the time, in a way; you always somehow get closer, but the pit between the two of you never really disappears. Maybe, it never will. But that’s okay.

Yangyang is okay with that.

He’s not angry about it anymore. The truth is, some situations can make him truly furious; seeping with jealousy, cursing at his fate for making him feel the things he does, asking himself all the what ifs and why me questions. But after taking a step back, Liu Yangyang can finally recognise what he found and what he learned, and appreciate the anger for being there, for it’s an emotion as well and he has to let himself feel it, and finally let it go.

Maybe, he’ll never have a band. Maybe, he’ll never be the same as Lee Jeno. Maybe, he’ll never have you.

But he’s not angry about it anymore.

Your body slowly shuffles next to him, putting your head on his shoulder. Something about the gesture makes him feel all warm inside, a slight smile creeping up his lips at the sight of you curled up to his side.

And once again, he thinks that perhaps, he’ll remember this moment forever. When he’s old and the memory of you fades, his brain no longer able to make out the sound of your voice, he’ll go back to this day, to the strumming of the guitar, and he’ll have you back, for at least a second. He’ll remember the way your hair reflected in the golden hour, he’ll remember the sound of your voice when you sang the chorus of your song, he’ll remember the way you smiled at him after, a little proud, but still shy, and he’ll feel the same things he does today, while looking at you in real time.

And that’s okay for him. Sometimes, even a glimpse of someone is enough.

When you cuddle up with him in the bed later that day, watching Netflix like the old times; when a kiss lands into his hair and makes him shy away from your touch, he wonders if he’ll ever live up to Lee Jeno and if he’ll ever get loved by you the same way you loved him before.

He’s not angry anymore.

Well, sometimes, he is.

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disclove · 9 months

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[21:25] "you say i don't care about you, but that's a damn lie. i care about you, you're really the only person i've ever cared about so much," she reads, midway through the letter that yangyang had dropped into her bag days ago—that she hadn't found in the mess of her bag until just a few hours ago.

"i don't just like you. it's not just a crush. i really, really care about you."

tears began trickling down her cheeks. and it wasn't the silent type of crying either. it was the type of crying where your lower lip starts trembling, forming a deep frown as your vision blurs, where your nose fills with snot and you suddenly feel like you can't breathe.

if only yangyang knew that she had liked him too. she wanted to scream, knowing that it was her fault for being so distant to everyone emotionally.

but he was on a plane to germany right now, and she knew that there was a big chance she'd never see him again, and that she'd never meet someone quite like him again.

#nct timestamps #wayv timestamps #yangyang timestamps #nct angst #yangyang x reader #wayv angst #yangyang angst #wayv drabbles #nct drabbles

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k-rising · 2 years

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Yangyang as boyfriend

Romantic aspects

yangyang would be your romantic, empathetic, optimistic and caring boyfriend

when you two first meet, he will be very daring and flirty with you

this dude values sharing and protecting in his relationships and, even if you don't believe it, he likes being surrounded by love

he's also very charming and will probably leave a good impression to your loved ones

if you ever feel uncomfortable about something he did or say, yangyang will take responsability of his actions and will apologize. he's very polite!

even though he likes spending time with you, this guy also wants to have some time for himself and will also respect whenever you want to have some time for yourself

security, devotion and comfort are key for him to get in a relationship with you… ngl, it will take some time for him to make the decision and be finally yours

this boy wants to have a long-lasting and passionate relationship

I also feel that sometimes you will wonder if he really likes you, cause he's the type of person that one day he will express his feelings openly, and the other he just doesn't message you at all. so yeah, it can be hard for him to be consistent… but that doesn't mean that he lost interest in you, cause yangyang loves in a very intense way!

he loves talking to you and he also likes when you teach him different things!

this guy is very observant and he will always pay close attention if you ever cut your hair or you do your makeup differently

when you're feeling down, he will always be there to help you out and give you advices

something that can be a bummer sometimes is that he can be quite idealistic and may have high expectations towards you and, when you don't meet them, he gets disappointed :/

When he gets angry

he doesn't get angry very often… but he does get irritated easily, cause he has a short temper

when arguments arises, yangyang gets super passionate and sometimes quite aggressive when he stands out for his opinions…

he can also become very defensive and his emotions can cloud his perspective

this dude can speak before thinking and can also be quite critical

since he fears being perceived as weak, he can be quite argumentative and selfish when he's at his worst… he can also manipulate you emotionally!

jealousy and obsession can be presented here as well

if he gets betrayed, yangyang is able to hate as much as he once loved

#yangyang #liu yangyang #wayv #nct astrology #wayv astrology #yangyang astrology #nct imagines #wayv imagines #yangyang imagines #yangyang angst #nct #nct angst #wayv angst

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njmverse · 2 years

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if the shoe fits | nct ‘00 line

a choose your own path series ft. nct ’00 line!

A horrible turn of events puts you jobless, in debt, practically homeless, and right in front of Seoul's most prestigious corporations with an offer that's nothing short of saving grace and a deal straight from the CEO of a high-rise building in this city. What hides under the upper crust of the city's most famous and sought-after family-owned empire, is a mess of unkempt familial relations and an even messy—almost nonexistent—bond between the potential heirs of a real estate share of property worth millions. Oh, and a grandfather who just wants his grandkids to get along and not end up like their fathers (and his sons) did.

“so…you want me to babysit a bunch of young men?”

✧ genre: fluff, angst, some comedy (?)

✧ themes: rich kid!au various aus and tropes included will be specified in the respective fics

✧ warnings/rating: PG-15, swearing, toxic family relations (ig?) more to be added once the stories get posted!

NOTE: this series is inspired by the kdrama series, Cinderella and the four knights! (I have not watched the series at all akebskzj) titles are subjected to change and are not permanent but we'll see how it goes. also the fics aren't exactly connected to one another and can be read as standalones but they're set in the same universe, though you do need to read the preview to understand a few things and what's going on in the story! this basically works like an otome game where you choose ur own story hehe

This is the story where Cinderella has ditched the glass slipper and buckled up with her much more convenient and practical shoes to save a few knights who seem to be in a relatively big mess and also in great distress.

But remember, you've got more than one role to play around here. Which path will you tread into first?

↳ the deal. (preview) to be posted soon

The Untouchable (jaemin's story)

pairing: pilot! jaemin x fem! reader

genre: fluff, angst

themes: fake engagement!au, richkid!au, strangers-to-lovers!au, jaemin is basically mr. perfectly fine here and he does not care...or does he?, I only like you and no one else dynamics

warnings will be added once the story gets posted!

Head Pilot and newly titled nation’s heartthrob Na Jaemin already has everything he wants and needs in his life: his dream job and an ideal life-work balance. He doesn't want anything to do with the ‘next heir’ shenanigans and fake family bonding time with his cousin brothers that his father is forcing him into, he's only here because he had no other choice. The last thing on his mind and schedule is having to play house with his other brothers while living under one roof with them, but things take an interesting turn when the very existence of his work-life balance is completely flipped over and is in shambles for the whole world to witness. Now, he finds an additional responsibility of someone else's life mixed with his and a ring on his fourth finger that was never meant to be there but alas, you can't always navigate your way in life like you do on an airplane, can you? Jaemin didn't want to test that theory himself, but life seemed to tell him that he was about to. Was someone finally able to snatch the nation's newly found heartthrob and put a ring on him? Or was this all just another tabloid scam? Either way, Jaemin never signed up for this.

The Archer (jeno's story)

pairing: bodyguard! jeno x fem! reader

genre: fluff, angst

themes: strangers-to-lovers!au, yearning, lots of push and pull (literally), yes you can hold my hand or whatever/walks on the side of the road dyamics, denial of feelings, hyuck making jeno’s life harder

warnings: mentions of childhood trauma, more to be added once the story is posted

If ‘a man on a mission’ had a living representative, it'd be Lee Jeno in all his white ironed button up and sleek black coat glory. All his life, Jeno has only ever known to do one thing right; and that was to protect Lee Donghyuck no matter what at all costs and at all times. He's been trained to handle the worst of crazy fans and the most horrendous of airport crowds so that Donghyuck always remains without any harm near his way—or even 5 miles away from him. Jeno knows he has a duty and duty comes above everything else to him, there's nothing else to look forward or past to in his life except for getting up two hours early before Donghyuck does to update him on his schedule, wake him up, get him ready for the day and make sure that he is safe at all times. He always knows about people around him and is trained to think ten steps ahead of every possible situation. He is a man of order and anything out of it makes the alarm in his head blare off, so why does he feel so relaxed around you? Jeno doesn't know why he's so worked up yet the most relaxed he's ever been whenever you're there but what he does know is that he's not about to go and find out why you make him feel like this. Or maybe he already has, who knows? Jeno certainly does not.

The Starlight (donghyuck’s story)

pairing: celebrity! donghyuck x fem! reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

themes: love at first sight au-ish, idiots to lovers! au this is low-key just an idol!au but not really because things are different around here, i can and will make a stupid excuse to hold your hand anytime dyamics, Hyuck is kind of a spoilt brat here, im sorry 😭

warnings: flirting will be mentioned once the fic is posted

Spotlight and the stage are the two things that are constant in Lee Donghyuck’s life, or more popularly nicknamed as Haechan for his bright personality and charisma reflecting that of a dazzling sun. Donghyuck is used to the fame and what comes with it, he knows his way around the industry as a superstar pop sensation but that means he knows very little about the way of life for an ordinary being trying to survive daily life. He can name off top class brands or iconic stages from over a decade but he doesn't know his way around the local market in town—a cost to pay for the life of glamour and having the spotlight shine on you that Donghyuck has to pay. So when the opportunity to actually bond with his brothers with the same bloodline came up, he was ecstatic to be meeting and hanging around them each day. What he didn't expect was the shattering of his rose tinted glass dreams and a harsh slap of reality of the cruel, cruel world he lives in and is a part of, but he can't find it in himself to hate this arrangement as much as he'd want to because of another new constant in his life that he isn't ready to label or let go off yet. And maybe, just maybe, Donghyuck likes this change of events in his schedule more than he'd like to admit.

The Haunted (renjun's story)

pairing: fashion designer! renjun x fem! reader

genre: angst, fluff

themes: rich kid!au, muse!au, mutual pining but both of them are stubborn and refuse to accept it, renjun is a meanie, tsundere!renjun (?) also idiots to lovers but angsty, bane of my existence and the object of my desires dynamics lmfao

warnings will be added once the story is posted

For someone whose life revolves around colour palettes and shades of several bright patterns in colour, Huang Renjun was a man who had opted to live a muted and monochrome life of dull grey colour in plenty. Being one of the most renowned fashion designer across the continent and with an upcoming event that showcases the best of his abilities to the whole world, Renjun had found himself struggling to find the motivation or inspiration to finish off the main showcase design that was his responsibility to create—a huge deal when your design is chosen to be the main thing in a show. Initially, he wanted nothing to do with this family melodrama set up the most out of all the others, but a change of mind and much convincing from Yangyang, he decided that a change of scenery and surroundings might even help him with the spark of inspiration that had been dimmed lately. But what he received in return as soon as he stepped foot into the place was a bad first impression of his extended family and an uninvited guest who keeps getting on his nerves. Renjun wasn't the type of person to associate the colours in his palette with certain feelings, but perhaps it was time he realises how it feels like to witness the world with a whole new pair of tinted glasses he never knew he could. Would he finally find a muse this time around or was this unplanned arrangement going to paint him blue…forever?

The Renegade (yangyang’s story)

pairing: ice skater! yangyang x fem! reader

genre: fluff, angst

themes: slight enemies to lovers!au, yangyang is both frustrated and frustrating here, ice prince yangyang <3, you keep annoying me but I like having you around dynamics

warnings: mentions of injuries, more to be added as the story gets updated

Yangyang has grown up spending half of his life on the ice—it's all he's ever known to do. He always thought that ice skating was his passion, the only thing that kept him going when the going went rougher than one can expect it to, so as he approached the possibility of a retirement in a few years, Yangyang doesn't know how to survive without what he once thought was his only passion in life. Being on the ice satisfied him with a thrill like no other but lately even that rush of the cold prickling at his skin didn't manage to spark the joy it used to within him. With the opportunity to prepare for another tournament being held at Seoul, he accepts the offer and the condition that his parents put in front of him about living with his so-called cousin brothers for a while. Yangyang had no intention to entertain any of their conditions and rules and was fully expecting to spend his time away and out of the house full of his brothers because there's only one person in that house that he would tolerate by will, except he finds all his plans coming undone by some force of nature and a headache that refuses to leave him alone. Was fate trying to test his patience or preparing him for something that he hasn't accepted to confront yet?

The Treacherous (shotaro’s story)

pairing: dance choreographer! shotaro x fem! reader

genre: fluff, some angst oh boy

themes: best friends to lovers!au, i can lie to everyone but you dynamics, so many secrets omg, mutual pining yes, shotaro best boy™

warnings: to be added once the story gets posted

Every wildcard comes with its own special trait that makes it stand out yet blend in with the others without any trouble. Osaki Shotaro was no exception. Coming all the way to Seoul from Tokyo with a mission on his mind to find his origins was something he had planned out all along but the way everything else planted him right inside a messy family gathering arrangement and a place to stay for the rest of his time in the city, he couldn't have asked for more. Except now he has five skeptical eyes on him at all times and a secret that changes everything about the lives of all five people in the house; as long as nobody finds out, he's safe. And that's easier said than done when he finds himself growing fonder for the supposed housekeeper and the newfound best friend he's managed to make. If there's one thing that his mother had taught him, was that lying has never brought any good to anyone in life but does it still apply when you're lying for everyone else's good too? There's only so much time left on his hand before the truth comes out and he finds the answers to all his questions. Lying to your best friend has never gotten this complicated.

header pic used: x

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karatficrecs · 2 years

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yangyang special :)

hey guys! anyone notice there’s a shortage in yangyang fics? i’ve compiled my favourites , so please enjoy them !

(also happy late birthday yangyang :D )

iced matcha by @nsheetee - college student!yangyang x barista!reader, coffee shop au, fluff

yangyang is a regular at the cade, but the first time you meat him, you accidentally mess up his order. yangyang is too flustered to form words whenever he looks at you, so he doesn’t say anything about your mistake. but when you remember his incorrect drink every time he comes into the cafe, he can’t help but speak up.

royal!au by @nsheetee - [wc: 4.4k] prince!yangyang x princess!reader, fluff, angst

yangyang is not pleased about being forced to marry you, the princess from the kingdom over who is widely unliked. yangyang never expected to fall in love at first sight, and never expected to fight to the death for you either.

troublemaker by @wincore - [wc: 6.9k] yangyang x reader, badboy!au, fluff [warnings: language, mentions of juvenile things, possible character inaccuracies]

your first mistake was to assume liu yangyang was shy.

the lab partner by @princekunge - [27 parts] smau, college!au, yangyang x reader

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you make my heart race.

#yangyang #lee yangyang #yangyang x reader #nct #wayv #wayv x reader #yangyang fluff #yangyang angst #yangyang fic #wayv fics #nct fic rec #wayv fit recs

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deedeekpop · 2 years

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Summary After being stranded in the middle of nowhere, famous rapper Yangyang’s only hope is the one person who hates him more than anyone.

Word Count 5k

Genres Fluff, crack, angst, enemies to lovers

Pairing(s) recluse!reader x rapper!Yangyang (gn reader)

Warnings swearing, allusions to sex, Yangyang is an entitled asshole

A/N Trying to be more active. Pretty happy with this. Let me know what you think :)

Masterlist

It’s always strange how the most opposite of people end up in the most similar of situations. You and Yangyang couldn’t be more different as people, yet the world seemed to force the two of you together. Almost like fate itself wanted to see how the story would unfold.

At the time, Yangyang was doing incredibly well for himself. In the past two years he had fought from the shadows, only to emerge as one of the most successful rappers of his generation. In those years he released two exceptionally successful albums, in which all singles had reached number one on the billboard top 100. He had just come off a rambunctious world tour in which he had partied in places regular people could only dream about, so to put it bluntly, it had all gone to his head a little.

What used to be a hard-working humble guy, indebted to those who had supported him when he could barely pay his rent, was now a boastful asshole who liked to belittle other people for fun. He spent most of his free time buying flashy items to show off on social media and wooing a large spread of people.

In fact, that was currently where he was going. A couple of nights ago, Yangyang had met a pretty irresistible woman and had a wonderful night of fun with her. That morning she left with his number, and had invited him over to hers for a repeat of that night. The only problem was, she lived on the other side of the country, in a town without an airport.

So, doing what any sane man would do, he got into one of his several flashy sports cars and began driving to her house. He passed through the bustling city of Seoul, with its skyscrapers and lights, to an ambling and deserted countryside. For what seemed like miles, there was only grass, and then it turned to forest. It was a good thing that he wasn’t stopping here because he would definitely get lost.

Except that was exactly what was about to happen. Averting his gaze from the view to the inside of his car, he realised that he was low on diesel. He could only hope to power through, and somehow reach a petrol station, but if not he would definitely need to call someone. Then again, could he really give them directions when he had no idea where he actually was?

He carried on driving until the car slowed till it stopped, sputtering in disbelief. He swore he had filled up the tank this morning, but then again he couldn’t be so sure, he had been in a hurry. He pulled out his phone, no signal. Opening the door, and locking it behind him, he began waving it around in the air, hoping for anything, but was only left with the cold breeze wrapping around his ankles.

With no other way, he began walking down the road, with any luck he could hitchhike a ride to the nearest city, but if that wasn’t an option, he needed to find some other signs of life. It took him two hours of walking to get to the small cottage where you resided, and he wasn’t about to get a warm welcome.

Your life had always been a stark contrast to the rappers, whilst he thrived in the attention of others, you struggled. It wasn’t that you didn’t like people (well not some people), you would just rather spend your time alone. It was much more productive that way, and you did meet up with your friends and family a couple of times a month. In reality, you had become somewhat of a recluse.

That was why it was such a surprise when a knock sounded at your door, after all, living in the middle of nowhere was built for you to get no disturbances. Sure, every so often you had some lost foreigners, or maybe someone in need of directions, but that was often few and far between. Also, they usually weren’t this persistent, the banging on the door was almost desperate.

You let out a huff, before storming to the door and ripping it open, leaving the man puzzled mid-knock.

“Can I help you?” You weren’t being helpful, there was pure frustration dripping from the question.

“Order me a tow truck.” He demanded.

“I’m sorry,” You say, slightly stunned that he would be this rude when asking for help.

“Don’t you know who I am? I have better places to be than here. If you can’t call a tow truck, you’ll be fixing it yourself.” The entitlement poured out of him.

Now that he had mentioned it, he did look familiar, like a rapper that you liked, but you weren’t going to let him know that. Especially if it was going to stroke his already massive ego.

“I have no idea who you are, and if you’re going to talk to me like that, I’m not helping you at all.”

“Do you live under a rock, or do you lack good taste? Either way, if you don’t help me now, you’ll be in a lot of legal trouble later.”

“Oh yeah, how’s that going to work? How are you going to contact anyone without my help?” You smirked, going to close your door, before his foot in it. His eyes were wild, suddenly realising that you were his only hope.

“Look… I do really need to call someone. It would cause a lot of publicity if I went missing.”

You sigh, he wasn’t wrong, people could think he had been kidnapped or something else out of pocket. Still, you didn’t want this entitled brat to think he deserved any of your respect. So you were doing this the hard way.

“If you want any of my help, you better shut the fuck up and listen. If there is, even so, much of a complaint that comes out of that mouth, there is no chance I will help you. Understood.” You say sternly.

“Understood.” He says, recovering from the shock.

“Good. Now show me where this car is.”

Seeing that eyesore of a sportscar did not brighten your mood whatsoever, it was completely drained of fuel. Luckily for you, you placed orders for your fuel, mainly because the nearest petrol station would actually use all your fuel to get there. Despite his promise to stay quiet, Yanyang hadn’t stopped whinging, claiming that the fact that people lived like this was insane.

“It might be insane to you, because you have a phone addiction. You’ve checked it ten times since you’ve entered my house.”

“It’s not my fault you live like you’re still in the 1920s. I bet you don’t even have a phone, I won’t even be able to charge mine.” He sulked.

“I have a phone, I just don’t feel the need to use it every second.”

“I need to get home.”

“And with no signal, you have no way to contact anybody. You’re lucky I’m letting you stay here until the fuel delivery comes.” You weren’t a monster, despite the fact that you were moments away from pushing him out of your second-story window.

“I could do with some relaxation.”

You scoffed, he thought he’d be relaxing. “There’ll be no relaxing if you’re staying here. You’ll be earning your keep.” After all, living as a recluse meant that you were self-sustainable, only ordering some freezable food every month.

You essentially had a little farm, with some sheep and cows, and a modest garden. That meant it needed upkeep, and whilst you did treat yourself to a lie-in during the weekend, you were up at 7 am every weekday.

“What?” Once again, he seemed shocked that he had to do anything he didn’t want to.

“You’ll be up bright and early, helping me keep this place running. It’s either this or you try and hitchhike your way to the next town with a signal, and I’m sorry to break it to you but that’s unlikely. And it’s a ten-hour walk alternatively.

He was quiet for a second, seemingly weighing up his options, until he finally came to an unfortunate conclusion. “Alright, I’ll do it. It can’t be too hard. Better than dying trying to escape.” Seems like he was also overdramatic. Great. This wasn’t going to be annoying at all.

At least you’d have some extra help, right?

Right.

The next morning, you wake up and begin your chores, you bang on the guest room door and urge Yangyang to get up as well. One hour later, there is still no noise or sounds of movement coming from the room. You sigh, looks like you were going to do this yourself.

After doing your morning’s worth of chores, you sit in the kitchen indulging in your lunch. Only then, does Yangyang walk in, rubbing his eyes and with terrible bed hair. He doesn’t acknowledge you, beelining towards a chair where he then proceeds to try and access his phone. He curses at the lack of signal.

“What’s for lunch?” He asks, without looking up from his phone.

Ignoring his question, you get straight to the point. “Where were you this morning? I told you that you’d have to work if you stay here, I’m not a bed and breakfast.”

He chuckles to himself, almost in disbelief, “I didn’t think you were being serious, I don’t do this sort of thing. I have people to do this for me.” His voice dripped with entitlement.

“I am not your ‘people.’ I am spending money looking after you here. I am giving you free petrol, which costs quite a lot nowadays. The least you could do is help around the place.”

“If you need money, I’ll give you money at the end. It’s not like I’m short of it.”

“That’s not the point, Yangyang. The point is that you said you’d help, and then lied to me.”

“Oh, get over it. So what, you can’t just kick me out, and I’m not going to work for you for free.”

You let out a bout of sarcastic laughter. “So you’re happy to take what you want from me, but then you’ll give nothing else in return. How selfish can you fucking be?”

“I don’t really care about your opinion, you’re some freak who lives in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah and this freak offered you their home, free of charge.”

He just shrugs, opening your cupboards and rummaging through them for food. That was the last straw. You charged upstairs, entering the guest room where Yangyang’s suitcase remained unpacked. You pick it up, before storming downstairs and throwing it out the door.

Having heard the commotion, Yanyang follows you outside. “Are you fucking insane?

“Leave. I don’t want you here anymore, you’re not worth the stress. I live alone to relax.”

“You can’t just kick me out!”

“Try me. Don’t come back until you’ve sorted out your attitude.”

And with that, you slam your door behind you, bolting it shut.

It takes a while for you to get to sleep that night, with you stewing with rage in your room for hours before you finally dropped off. However, you weren’t the person up the latest that night, Yangyang’s car (no matter how expensive it was) was not a good substitute for a bed. The fact that it had been pushed into your drive made it all more taunting for him.

However, for what felt like years, he was finally alone. With the rapid rising success of his career, he hadn’t really had much time to sit and think about his actions. He went to bed thinking about music, and woke up thinking about music. To put it simply, this was one of the first times his mind had wandered away from that topic in two years.

This was mainly why he had gotten so entitled, this distance had also meant he’d hardly really thought of his family, and in connection, the values his family taught him. The long he led in his car, the more his mind wandered, until it fell onto one topic. You.

You were infuriating. You didn’t seem to care about his fame at all, you seemed to want to work him to the bone, and just needed a pawn to do it. But when he stripped all that away, he realised that you had been quite selfless, lending help free of charge, and somewhere to sleep. Even the fact that you didn’t know who he was, was no longer an issue. Now that he thought about it, it had been quite refreshing being surrounded by a person who didn’t constantly kiss his ass. It really gave him something to think about.

The more he looked back on his actions, the guiltier he felt, realising how much distress he had put you under, especially when you didn’t have to help him. He wondered how he could apologise, but it wasn’t like you would care about a signed album. Except there was one thing you cared about, getting all your work done.

The lights were off, you were asleep. Was there a chance that he could possibly sneak in? Exiting his car, he looks for a spare key and eventually finds it under a plant pot. Looks like he was going to do some of your chores until he fell asleep, it’s not like he was going to anyway. Luckily for him, you were quite a heavy sleeper, so he had all the time in the world to get it done.

The next morning you wake up to the sound of a pan sizzling downstairs. You were worried and confused, had you forgotten to turn off the stove last night? But then the aroma of food frying quickly told you that there was someone else in the house. Yangyang. How had he gotten in? Had he found your spare key? You didn’t know why you kept it out there anyway.

Trudging downstairs, you were ready for a barrage of demands, but instead, you were greeted with a cheery ‘good morning’. You were startled.

“Who are you?” You half-joke, genuinely confused as to why he was acting this way.

“I’m sorry. I had some time to think, and I realised that I’ve been really shitty. I promise to come at this from a different attitude. Please just don’t make me sleep in that car.” He pleaded, “I made food.” He shoves a bowl of stir-fried rice in front of you.

Seeing that he put so much effort in, you had to admit that there was some sense that he was serious about this. You relented.

“Fine, but if you suddenly change this attitude, there are no more chances. Now let’s see how you cope with these chores.”

The next week is bliss (if you call slaving all-day together bliss), and soon it’s only five days before the petrol arrives. You got so much stuff done, you could focus on some of your books (your tbr being embarrassingly long), and even managed to get around to doing some of your renovating. Your storage room finally getting painted.

Beneath all the entitlement that covered him before, Yangyang was just a cute guy with a goofy sense of humour and a penchant for trouble. He was deceptively quite a hard worker, which made sense granted his career in music. You didn’t really expect him to be this way, then again you hadn’t really known him before.

“We’re down to our last tub of paint,” Yangyang grunted, hauling in the heavy tub. You had chosen a light cream colour and had taped tarpaulin over the floor. So far it had been quite a messy occasion.

“Just be careful when you’re pouring it onto the tray. It’s heavy and I don’t want you to spill it all over the floor.”

“Yes, boss!” He salutes you mockingly.

“Don’t act like you aren’t super clumsy. You’ve dropped and broken three plates since you’ve been here.” You playfully chastise him.

“It’s not my fault that they don’t like me.” He pouts.

“The plates aren’t people, Yang.”

“How do you know that?”

“Doesn’t it make it more sadistic, of they are? You essentially killed them with your logic.”

“Okay, I take it back. I’m too young to be a murderer.”

You eyed him as he poured the paint into the tray, you could see his grip slipping as he struggled to hold on with his clammy hands. Three. Two. One. SMASH! The tub clattered into the tray, springing it up and essentially all over you. You spluttered in surprise.

“Sorry,” Yangyang calls apologetically, before turning and seeing your grumpy expression and cracking up.

“You don’t seem so sorry.”

“You just look like a grumpy reverse-dalmatian.”

You raised your eyebrow at him.

“What it’s a compliment, dalmatians are cute.”

You blush at the mention of that word. It seemed innocent enough, but you couldn’t help but think that it was too sweet to be an offhanded compliment. You were probably just confused, you hadn’t really spent an extended time period with a man in months, obviously, that was the only reason you were attracted to him. It’s not like it would lead to anything anyway, he was leaving in five days.

This was just some silly phase, you’d get over him soon enough.

It’s the final night before Yangyang leaves, and for the first time in your life, you were sad that a visitor was leaving. Despite your rocky start, Yangyang could be a really nice guy when he wanted to be, and honestly, you’d miss the company. It’s been a while since you’d hung around with someone, and maybe this was a sign to hang around with your friends more often. This didn’t mean that you didn’t enjoy your solitude, however, it was less complicated.

To celebrate his last night, you had brought out two bottles of wine, that you hadn’t drank for over a year, ready to let loose for the first time in a while. Yangyang wasn’t much of a wine drinker but he wasn’t the type of guy to say no to free alcohol either, so there the two of you were giggling like teenagers having drunk a full bottle of wine.

Now onto the second one, you were getting a little more than tipsy.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you.” You started, taking a long sip of your newly poured glass.

“Uhh… Okay. Just let me think of something.” His face twists into a thoughtful gaze, and you internally squeal at the cuteness. “Uhm, I actually play the violin, that’s something you don’t know.”

“Wait, like are you good?” You were extremely blunt when drunk.

He chuckled, “I’d like to think so, I have been playing for quite a while. Though not very recently.”

“You should start doing it again, it’d be cool to hear violin in some of your music.”

“I thought you’d never heard any of my music.” Shit. You were busted.

“Well, I might not have told you the entire truth. I may have… listened to both of your albums.” You admit, bashfully.

“Wait you’re a fan. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, when I met you, your ego wasn’t the smallest. Didn’t want to add to that.”

“What’s your favourite song of mine?” He was getting a little giddy (it was probably the wine).

“Oh, undoubtedly Leonidas. You did a really good job with it.”

“Not what I was expecting… but thank you.”

“I imagine that’s what you’re going to be doing, once you get out. Writing your music.”

“Well, this whole experience has given me a lot to write about.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re going to write about me, does it?”

“Well, maybe, you’re a pretty unforgettable person, Y/N.”

“Oh.” You went quiet, you weren’t expecting that. Tension had risen, so thick that you could cut it with a knife. There was only one thing you could do to break it, so you downed your full glass of wine for courage. Then you kissed him.

It was short, just a peck, and you immediately regretted it. Pulling back and covering your face in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry,” You ramble, “I should have asked you. You probably don’t even like me, that was an awful mistake-.”

“Y/N.” He interrupts the long-winded paragraph you were about to say. You turn to him, he gently cups your face and kisses you. His lips were gentle against yours, his fingers playing with your hands and lacing them together.

Finally pulling away, you grinned, slightly flustered.

“I like you too.” He grinned back.

You both leaned in again, the alcohol fuelling your interaction. Soon you were straddling his waist, the wine long forgotten. Your fingers threaded through his hair (which was surprisingly soft given how much he dyed it). The kisses had gotten a lot deeper, and soon Yanyang’s hands begin fiddling with the buttons on your top. You both momentarily stop.

“Are you sure about this?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Very sure.” You say, pulling off your shirt.

Soon the two of you are pulling off various articles of clothing, before disappearing into your room, only to be seen the next morning.

Yangyang woke up before you, at around 6 am, to a knocking on the door. You were fast asleep, clinging onto him from behind. He smiled, before untangling from you and putting on some shorts to answer the door. Being a heavy sleeper, you merely grumbled before falling back asleep.

Answering the door, it was a man delivering the petrol, Yangyang signed for it and placed it in the hallway. He needed something to drink. Making his way into the kitchen, Yanyang got himself a glass of water before sitting down at the table. Then it hit him, what the hell had he done?

He had slept with you, that wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was to leave and never see you again, after getting his petrol. He couldn’t be in a relationship, what about his career? Why did you have to be so wonderful? Why couldn’t he just resist you for a little bit longer?

So he stuck to his plan, he took the canister of petrol, poured it into his car, grabbed his bags, and drove off not looking back. It was about three hours before he finally got service, immediately called his manager.

“Yangyang, how’s my main man! How was your week, eventful?” Yangyang could practically hear him smirking.

“It was fine. I’m coming back now. Working on my new music.”

“Sounds great, we’ll be rolling in the big bucks as soon as you get back.”

Then he realised what he was doing. He was driving back to a group of kiss-asses that used him for money, and leaving a person who grounded him and cared about him behind. What had he been thinking, sure he loved his music, but it was stressful working with them. He could make music anywhere.

He thought back to the song you mentioned, it was the only song he had sole credits on, that couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? He had to go back to you, he had to know the answers, he had to know what you could be. But he didn’t know it would be too late.

You woke up an hour before he returned, feeling the emptiness beside you. You had an awful hangover, and it wasn’t made easier by Yangyang’s departure. To put it simply, you were crushed. One of the only men you’d opened up to in a while, only to run away as soon as you become intimate. You felt used.

You had heard stories, of him sleeping around. But you didn’t know the lengths he would take, was all of this just an act to get with you before going? All you knew was that he wanted nothing to do with you, so you wanted nothing to do with him. So you got on with your day, repressing the disappointment as though nothing happened.

You get a knock on the door, an hour later. It was him.

“What do you want, Yangyang?” You were immediately hostile.

“I’m sorry I left, I shouldn’t have.”

“I think you made your choice when you packed up all your stuff whilst I was asleep. I can’t believe I trusted you. I’m such an idiot.”

“Y/N, can we please just talk? I can explain everything.”

“What is there to explain? You slept with me and then ran off. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. Just go. I don’t want to see you again.”

“Y/N, please, just listen to me.”

Without giving him a word, you slam and bolt your door. There was no way he was getting in, you had your spare key. You didn’t want to talk to him now. In fact, you couldn’t think of a time when you wanted to talk to him. You were better off without him.

Yangyang had almost given up, but he knew you wouldn’t warm up to him all of a sudden. So he devised his time thinking of ways to get you back. So far, he had deemed them all failures, with flowers and money not seeming like the right way to persuade you that he regretted his actions. All he had to do, was convince you that the night you shared together meant something important to him too. Except how was he supposed to convince you?

He spent days thinking about it, until he finally realises what he should be doing. He still hadn’t released a new single, wallowing in self-pity, and you were a fan of his music. You were a fan of his music, surely, even if you were mad at him, you would still listen to his new releases. So he knew what he had to do, he had to write a song about you.

It wasn’t hard, to write lyrics about you. It came easily to him, and he finished the lyrics within an hour. When it came to composing the song, it took longer, but he made sure to include the violins that you had mentioned, eventually creating a chill r&b rap song all about you. He was proud of it, the second song he had made all by himself.

Once it had been refined he released it, hoping that you’d hear it and give him some sort of sign, any sign that you’d be open to forgiving him. That you’d realise how much you truly meant to him and welcome him back into your life.

You hesitated for a few days before listening to the song. Part of you wanted to forget him entirely, but you finally gave in and decided to listen. Maybe this song was the push you needed to get over him. Boy were you wrong.

By the end of the song, you were in tears. It wasn’t the pretty cinematic kind either, it was full-on, puffy eyes, snot running down your face tears. You didn’t know what to think. You were happy, that he had written about you, with obvious references to wine, and the inclusion of the violin. But there was also this more cynical part to you, that believed that he was just teasing you, and that this song wasn’t necessarily about you. He doesn’t mention you by name. So you leave it. He would forget that his visit ever happened in a few months, anyway.

Yangyang waits a month to give him some sort of sign, any sort of hint that you understand. But it’s radio silence. The song does incredibly well, charting number one on most platforms and having records for the number of streams within the first week of release. Yet he couldn’t care less about that, all he could care about was your reaction to it. And so was the rest of the world, every tabloid was raving about the mysterious individual who inspired the song. Everyone wanted to know who you were.

After two weeks, he became impatient. So he did the most irrational thing he could think of, he drove all the way to your house in the middle of nowhere again. In fact, it was such a spontaneous decision that he forgot to fill up his petrol tank, and when he arrived, he realised that he didn’t have enough petrol to get back to the city. He hoped you forgave him, because if not, he was in for a long week.

Clambering out of his car, his hands began to clam up as he reached the front door. But he couldn’t give up now, not when he had driven all this way. Hesitating a little, he finally knocked.

You were surprised to see him, when you answered, your eyes widening a little when you saw him. You no longer looked angry, just a little sad. He hoped this meant that you could be easily persuaded.

“Hello, Yangyang.” You sighed softly.

“I wrote a song about you. Did you listen to it?” He was upfront, he could have you turning him away again.

“I did, though I wasn’t sure if it was about me or not.” You admitted quietly.

“Who else could it be about? All I could think about when I went home was you.”

You sighed again, deeply. “Yanyyang, you should just stop. Even if I took you back, do you really think that this relationship would work? I live in the middle of nowhere, it’s not like we can see each other often.”

“So what? I drove here easily enough. I can do it again. I’m not going to let something as stupid as distance end us.”

“I’m being realistic, Yangyang.”

“So don’t be. Being realistic is boring, can we not just enjoy our time together? I like spending time with you, it makes me feel a lot freer than when I’m at home.”

You buckled under his sweet words, maybe he was being sincere. And if he was willing to give it a shot, why should you? So what if it was against the odds, you needed some spice in your life.

“Ok, you’ve got one last chance. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Warn me all you like, I’m going to ignore it. You’re worth travelling the distance.”

@crazywittysassy @yoontaedotin

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theficblog · 2 years

Text

NOW AND THEN

LIU YANGYANG

Prologue: Yangyang has been your on-again, off-again boyfriend for quite some time, but there is always one last hope.

Genre: Fluff + Exes to lovers

Wordcount: 1,129

Prompts: “When was the last time we had a real conversation.” + “Being in love with you is scary… not that you’re scary, of course, but that I’d fuck this thing up,” + “If this is your way of flirting, you’re doing a terrible job at it.”

Warnings: Mild Language

This afternoon was beyond dreary. The sky was bland, almost white or whatever other colour it was. You could not bear to look up at the scorching sun. The streets were nearly empty. People were either inside their homes, being all comfortable and escaping the heat, doing whatever pleased them. The other ones were like you, who had by now seen all that Netflix had to offer and still stupidly opted to go out.

You came to the nearby café to delight yourself with some brunch. It turns out that there were a lot more idiots out there, including you, because the place was nearly filled. The din of customers' conversations, the sizzling sounds from the kitchen, and the Rock and Roll music playing in the background. Everything was going swimmingly, just the way you intended it to.

You continued looking for a place to sit upon lifting your meal tray from the counter. On regular days, you had a reserved spot, which was an advantage of being a regular visitor. You didn't want to bother the middle-aged mother with her three petulant children to spare you your seat today.

Thank heavens, you were able to take the last available spot before anyone else. Someone seemed to be seated at your now-shared table, but you had no choice. It wasn't necessary to talk to strangers anyway, your sole focus was on your food.

Random thoughts continued to take over your mind in the meantime. You couldn't restrain yourself from overthinking. Your new job, the house party you attended last weekend, the global population growth rate, and your best friend's goldfish, which her cat devoured. You contemplated everything and anything.

"Y/N" You hear your name being called in a much more familiar voice. Fuck, why did he have to be here? You mentally cursed yourself for coming out today, let alone taking up this spot.

You looked up and elevated your sight to the man. Still clad in black from head to toe despite the scorching weather. His hair was now studded with golden highlights, which was a novel look for him. He stood there with his phone in his hands. You had no option but to confront him.

It was Yangyang.

He had been your on-and-off lover for about three years now. No, you were not a celebrity couple, but complicated relationships were a phenomenon that did not discriminate between the two halves. There were times when you cherished him like Romeo cherished Juliet, and perhaps other times when you despised him like a war enemy.

You drew your gaze away from him and back to your meal. Walking away right now would be a sign of weakness. You weren't weak, and even if you were, you'd despise it if it came through. This was a question about your ego, which was never being compromised with. So what if you had blocked him from all your social medias? So what if you never picked up his calls? So what if you both had been dead to each other since the last four months?

Yangyang too, probably thought the same as he took the chair right in front of you. He waited for a minute or so for you to utter some words, or at the least, take a look at him, but gave up soon.

"This steak is quite bitter. Over time, their flavour has deteriorated." As he fed himself, he made a random remark.

"Yeah, I guess so." You gave him the dullest response ever.

Silence reigned once more as you reflected on your last breakup with Yangyang.

"I don’t really care but I am moving out, my job and my career are way more important than a man. Do you think I am some Damsel in Distress? I can take care of myself!" You raged at him. This was one of the many reasons for breaking up with him. Of course, you had to let your ego win at all costs.

"You see that guy, we attended the same school. People change, I think he owns that silver car. At school he was never the type to-"

"When was the last time we had a real conversation?" You questioned him, cutting through his useless words. Maybe this could be another contributing factor to a relationship that kept on failing over and over again. None of you were ready to listen, and the things you talked about did not make much sense either. The most serious thing you and he ever talked about was probably planning a vacation for Christmas.

He stopped with his random comments, not even eating anymore. His eyes were fixed on the rusted wooden table, suggesting it was the stillness before a storm. He had something to say.

"Being in love with you is scary… not that you’re scary, of course, but that I’d fuck this thing up." He expressed.

"We have fucked this thing up more than quite often." You defended yourself. You were not going to buy his opinion that easily.

This was certainly not the first time you both had a conversation like this, you both were aware of how things would take a turn.

"Yes I know we have fucked more than quite often." Yangyang implied, knowing exactly what he was saying.

Your face was still emotionless, as you went down the memory lane again. Maybe you missed him. Maybe it was not a break up but just a prolonged period of fighting. Maybe it was you and not him.

It was hard to let go of someone, no matter how toxic they could get at times.

"Listen, Yangyang, I guess I am sorry." This was your way of admitting your wrong doings.

The boy, on the other hand, was very well aware of this, as he still continued to chew on the steak. "That’s alright." He said.

"We, anyway, have always been a couple, haven’t we?" You try and win his attention, and heart back. Trying the best that you knew of.

"If this is your way of flirting, you’re doing a terrible job at it." Yangyang gave his trademark wide smile.

"Why would I flirt with you?" You revert back immediately.

"Okay then unblock me, at least." He suggested. You gave him the ‘I’m so done with you expression’ as you picked up your phone, unblocking him.

"Yangyang, we are still in love right?" You questioned fearfully, what if it was one sided? What if it doesn’t end well again this time?

"We never fell out of love." He reassured.

Yangyang was your fate. You were destined to stick with him. Yes, your relationship was no less than a rollercoaster, but this time, you were confident that in the end, you both would land safe, together.

LET ME KNOW YOUR VIEWS + ALSO SEE : MASTERLIST

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hwxnghyynjin · 2 years

Text

Dystopia

Pairing: yangyang x reader, wayv x reader Genre: zombie apocalypse!au, horror, angst, suggestive Warnings: one (1) sex scene (not graphic), character death, zombies, blood, gore, swearing Words: 7,263

You don’t know how it happened. One moment, everything was calm and then the next, there were people screaming and running all over the place. Apparently people on the news were calling it a virus outbreak of some sort. All you know that you had to do was, survive.

3 hours ago

“Hey, yang, do you think I can get this in Kun’s hair if I throw it far enough?”, you whispered to your boyfriend, holding a piece of popcorn. You were sitting side by side on one couch while Kun was on the other, fast asleep. Yangyang smirked and nodded at you, before you threw the piece of popcorn.

You expected to get it in his hair so when it hit him in the face, you let out a snort, trying not to laugh. Kun woke up, confused, while you and Yangyang just burst out laughing. “What are you lovebirds laughing at?”, Ten asked as he walked into the room. “y/n tried to throw a piece of popcorn in Kun’s hair, but it accidentally hit Kun in the face”, Yangyang managed to get out between laughs, holding his stomach. “Ok kids, calm down and let’s watch the film now”, Ten said as you two managed to calm down after a while.

2 hours ago

“This film is boring”, Hender said as he let out a loud sigh. He leaned into Xiaojun, squishing him into the armrest of the couch. “Yo, what you doing? Get off me”, Xiaojun pushed Hendery and it suddenly turned into a shoving match.

“Stop it, you idiots”, Winwin said, throwing a sock at the pair. They continued squabbling like they normally do, interrupting others from watching the film. “Ok, I can’t deal with this. I’m out of here”, you said and left the living room, walking into Yangyang’s room. Yangyang followed you and closed the door once you were in his room, you sitting on his bed.

“I’m sorry about them”, Yangyang said, sitting down next to you, a frown on his face. You held his cheek, making him look at you. “It’s ok, they’re just being boys”, you said, a soft smile on your face. Yangyang smiled widely, glad that you’re not weirded out by his friend’s behaviour. “I love you”, he said softly, placing a kiss on your cheek.

1 hour ago

You and Yangyang were trying to be as quiet as possible, keeping your moans quiet. Yangyang was buried inside you, his hips moving in circular motions as he hits your g-spot. “Y-yang, what if someone walks in?”, you moaned out, worried that someone might walk in. “Oh baby, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?”, he placed a kiss on your neck and he continued thrusting in and out of you.

You clench around him, nearing your climax. “I-i’m gonna cum”, you let out a moan, not caring about staying quiet anymore. “Cum baby, be a good girl and cum for me”, Yangyang felt himself twitching inside you as you reached your climax. A high pitched whine left you as you came, gripping the bedsheets under you. Yangyang soon came afterwards, his seed filling you up.

“AYO, WE’RE STILL HERE, YOU KNOW? WE CAN HEAR YOU FUCKING”

Present

Kun was scrolling through tv channels, trying to find something to watch. He opted to watch the news, seeing if there was anything interesting. All that was on there was about an explosion in a lab, which caused outrage surrounding the area.

“What do you reckon caused the explosion?”, Ten asked him, sitting on the other couch, not intrigued in watching the news. “I’m not sure, gas canisters maybe? Chemicals? Experiment gone wrong? I have no idea”, Kun replied, watching the commotion happen on the screen.

You suddenly ran into the living room, panic written all over your face. “y/n? What’s wrong?”, Kun asked, concern evident in his voice. “Uhhhh you might want to look outside”, you said, running to where the balcony was.

Kun followed you and looked outside, seeing people running in different directions. Suddenly, another explosion happened in the distance, sirens whirring from different directions. “What the fuck?”, Kun asked, running back into the living room. “Have you seen what’s going on outside?”, Kun asked Ten, Ten too busy looking at the TV. “I think we found out what’s going on”, Ten pointed to the TV and you grabbed the remote, turning the volume up.

In the last couple of hours, something happened in this lab behind me, something we don’t know for certain, but something caused an explosion to happen. As you can see, it’s causing outrage in the surrounding area and- wait, what are you doing? Sir get away from me, sir- *screams*

“Oh god”, you covered your mouth at the scene happening on the screen, the news reporter getting attacked by something. “What, so is there some virus outbreak now? Cause I ain’t dealing with that”, Lucas said, standing in the doorway to the living room.

Everyone was sitting in the living room now, thinking about what to do. “So, what shall we do then? Cause we can’t stay here, can we? It might not be safe”, Kun said, resting his head on his hand.

“We can’t exactly do anything if we just sit here. We need weapons and clothes and literally things to survive”, Xiaojun said, his survival instinct kicking in. He ran out of the living room and it seemed like everyone else agreed with him as they all ran out too. You were the last one out, following Yangyang to his room.

“How are we going to survive out where with only these?”, Hendery asked, holding up a knife and pepper spray. “These are going to do jack shit. Unless you want to blind someone you hate and stab them in the knee”, he put them back in his bag and threw the bag over his shoulder.

“I don’t know, maybe we can steal a gun from somewhere”, Yangyang suggested, earning a glare from Kun. “No, Yangyang is onto something. I mean, it’s literally chaos out there, I don’t think people would care, since it’s literally about survival”, Ten said, everyone agreeing.

“Ok fine. Let’s go and… not die”

-------------------------------

It has been months since the virus outbreak started in South Korea, and everything is about survival: kill or be killed. Kun drove through abandoned streets, people lying dead on the floor from either being shot or eaten by zombie-like things they call “Runners”. The pickup truck's engine rattled as it soon came to a stop.

“Fuck!”, Kun hit the steering wheel a couple of times, feeling frustrated. “Don’t tell me it broke down, again”, groans were heard from everyone as the truck broke down for the third time that day.

“Fuck it, I can’t be bothered to fix it again. Let’s just get out and walk”, Kun sighed and got out, slamming the door, putting his bag on his back. Everyone else followed suit and they walked along the dusty road.

As you were walking along the road, the sound of gurgling and moaning was heard, a Runner coming into view, hobbling along. “What should we do?”, Ten whispered, trying not to make a noise that would attract the deadly creature. You were about to speak up when something caught your attention.

Xiaojun got out his shotgun, and it looks like he’s about to use it.

“Xiaojun, no, don’t”, but it was too late. The once quiet surrounding area was now interrupted by the sound of the shotgun, which caught the attention of other deadly creatures. “Xiaojun, you fucking idiot. RUN”, you yelled, all of you running as fast as you could, a bunch of runners chasing after you.

Unfortunately, Winwin wasn’t as fast as you guys and he was trailing behind, the Runners getting nearer to him. He suddenly tripped, falling to the ground with a thud. Lucas turned around to look, seeing Winwin on the ground.

“WINWIN”, he shouted, the sound of Winwin’s gun going off as he tried to aim at the Runners. The creatures caught up to him, grabbing at his body. He screamed, trying to crawl away as quickly as possible. Fingers dug into him, screams of agony leaving him. The zombie-like creatures surrounded him, tearing into his flesh, ripping his insides out. His screams abruptly came to a stop, his body going limp.

“WINWIN, NO”, Lucas cried, Hendery grabbing him to stop him from running towards the swarm of zombies. Everyone carried on running, trying to get somewhere safe.

“Hey, in there”, Kun pointed towards an abandoned building, which looked like a school. Everyone rushed inside, Kun and Ten closing the doors, barricading the door with a piece of wood lying around. “Why didn’t we stop and help Winwin? We all just continued running when he needed our help”, Lucas yelled, not caring if he’s making a lot of noise. “What, you don’t think I and the rest of us feel like absolute shit with what happened to him? Huh?! HE WAS A FRIEND TO ALL OF US, YOU KNOW”, Hendery yelled, which was a rare sight to see. “You did absolutely NOTHING for him. All you did was piss him off. No wonder he didn’t like you that much”, his words cut like a knife, pain written all over Hendery’s face. “You fucking-”

“STOP! Fighting isn’t going to resolve anything so shut the fuck up and walk, otherwise I’m going to throw you guys out myself”, you said, pissed off by them fighting. You walked on ahead, checking in rooms to make sure no one is hiding. You wouldn’t actually throw them out, you just said that out of frustration.

Graffiti along the walls, painted with various colours. All that was heard was the sound of your footsteps along the floor and the sounds of your breathing. You soon came across a gymnasium, moss growing out from different directions.

“Are you sure we’re safe in here? I mean, what if those things are hiding? I ain’t dying in a school”, Yangyang said, clutching onto you. “Before you said that, I was fine. But now I’m panicking”, Ten said, looking round the room.

“Hey, are you two going to make up or do I need to bang your heads together?”, Ten said as he saw Lucas and Hendery glaring at each other. As Lucas and Hendery were about to open their mouths to apologise to each other, a loud roar was heard in the distance. “What the fuck was that?”, Kun shouted, the roaring getting closer by the second. Suddenly, a door crashed open, a swarm of about ten zombies came running in.

The sounds of gurgling and groaning from the zombies mixed in with the sounds of gunshots, gunfire rapidly going off. “There’s no way out”, you shouted over the sounds of gunfire.

“Up there. We can get out through that window”, Yangyang nodded his head towards a window in the corner of the room, but the only problem was: they had to get close to the zombies to be able to get to it.

“I have an idea but it’s stupid”, you said, putting the safety on your gun and put it in your pocket, taking out two knives instead. “y/n, if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, don’t you fucking dare”, Yangyang said, looking at you. “Unless you have a better idea, it’s the best one I have”, you said, before you ran towards the swarm of zombies ahead of you.

You slashed and sliced, striking each one successfully, knocking them to the ground. You managed to get through without getting grabbed, reaching the window. You climbed up to the window, trying to get it open. “FUCK it won’t open!”, you struggled, pushing as hard as you could. “Break the glass”, Xiaojun suggested.

You steadied yourself and put your boot on the window, before kicking at it. It broke after the second kick, making a loud crashing sound, which accidentally caught the attention of more zombies. “Shit, hurry!”, you panicked, hurrying the others to get to safety.

The first one was Xiaojun, grabbing your hand as soon as he reached you, pulling himself up. Next was Hendery, then Kun and then Ten. Yangyang jumped up and grabbed your hand, but ended up slipping and fell on his back. “Yang!”, Lucas helped him up, pushing him up towards the window. He managed to get out, his breath rapid as he tried to calm down. Lucas climbed up, but was unfortunately too late as a zombie grabbed his leg, digging into the flesh, while another zombie dug their teeth into his other leg. He screamed out of agony, his fingers slipping as he almost fell but luckily, you grabbed him, with the help of Hendery.

-------------------------------

Everyone sat in an abandoned bus, which luckily, was out of sight from zombies wandering around. You just hope that doesn’t change. Lucas and Hendery were sitting next to each other, seeming like they’ve finally made up. “How’s your ankles?”, Hendery asked him, Lucas leaning into him. Lucas rolled up his pants up his legs, revealing an indentation from where he was grabbed, along with a bite mark on his other leg.

“Fuck, I don’t want to turn into one of those things”, Lucas whimpered, tears falling down his cheeks. Everyone looked at the two as Lucas threw himself into Hendery, wrapping his arms around him as he cried into his neck.

“What are we going to do?”, Hendery asked no one in particular, thinking the worst. “What do you mean ‘what do we do’? I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m not taking the risk of turning into one of those things”, Lucas said and grabbed his gun, putting it to his head. That caught everyone’s attention, everyone trying to stop him. “Lucas, please think about what you’re doing”, Kun said, trying to get through to him. “I know exactly what I’m doing. If I don’t do anything, I’m going to turn into one of those fucking monsters, and I don’t want that. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything”, Lucas said through tears, his finger toying with the trigger. Everyone went into panic mode but it was too late.

Lucas pulled the trigger.

Blood, along with brain matter, splattered everywhere as Lucas’ body dropped onto the floor. You screamed as his body drops to the floor, terror written all over your face. You hid your face into Yangyang’s chest, his arms going around you. “FUCK”, Kun shouted, storming off the bus. Ten followed him, leaving the four of you on the bus.

Kun wasn’t the one to show emotions. He usually kept his emotions bottled up, letting his tears flow when he’s alone. So for Ten to see Kun completely break down hurt him. “I should have protected them, for fucks sake. They should both still be alive. WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS?!?!”, Kun shouted, letting out his frustration, anger and pain. He soon regretted that as a roar was heard, which got closer.

The four of you were crying on the bus, as you suddenly heard a roar in the distance. You all went into panic mode, getting off the bus quickly. You saw Kun wiping his eyes, noticing the redness around them. The roaring and moaning got closer and closer, zombies coming into your vision. They came from different directions, surrounding you.

“Shit, we’re surrounded”, Xiaojun said, panic written all over his face. Everyone looked around to see if there was anywhere you could go, and you saw an opening on the other side of the bus. “Hey, we can use this ladder to climb over the bus”, you grabbed the ladder from the top of the bus, pulling it down. You climbed up quickly, everyone following you. You jumped down onto the other side, waiting for the others to follow suit.

What you didn’t expect though was the zombies to start climbing. “What the fuck?!”, you all started running as fast as you could, not looking behind you. You didn’t dare stop, using all the energy you have. You all came across an abandoned house that looked empty, and you ran inside, barricading the door behind you. Luckily the windows were boarded up so no one could get through them.

“Well, guess we'll stay here for a while”, Kun said, walking into one of the rooms and placing his bag down. Luckily, there was still some furniture in the house so you didn’t need to sit or lie on the floor.

Everyone gathered around on separate couches, getting out bags of food that they managed to ration. They’ve hardly eaten, due to having to ration their food. Stocks of food in shops are starting to run out due to the outbreak, people stealing food and water for survival.

You were eating a protein bar, chomping on it slowly. You felt so tired about everything: losing Winwin, losing Lucas, this whole outbreak. You’ve hardly slept the past couple of months, you can’t remember the last time you had a proper good night's sleep. You suddenly felt eyes on you, looking to your right to see Yangyang looking at you with a concerned look on his face. His face contorted into something else, something you recognised.

The expression on his face meant ‘are you okay?’ and you were far from okay. You didn’t realise you were crying until Yangyang wiped tears from your face, bringing your body into him. You buried your face in his chest, letting your tears flow as he tried to calm you down.

You managed to calm down after a few minutes, Yangyang’s hand running up and down your side. He kissed the top of your head, wrapping both of his arms around you, pulling you into his lap. “Guess it would be a good idea to get some sleep”, Kun said, getting up and heading upstairs. Everyone followed soon after, apart from you and Yangyang.

“You two coming?”, Ten asked, looking at the two of you still on the couch. “We’ll sleep down here if that’s ok”, Yangyang answered, his hand running up and down your back still. Ten nodded and headed upstairs, leaving the two of you alone.

Once Ten was out of sight, Yangyang pulled the both of you down so you were lying down on the couch. Your back was to his front, snuggling back into him. “Try and get some sleep baby, ok? I love you”, Yangyang said into the crook of your neck, placing a small kiss on it. You closed your eyes, soon falling asleep in Yangyang’s arms as he fell asleep not long after.

-------------------------------

Screams. Bloodbath. Death. Everything is just surrounded by darkness. Strange images run back and forth. Winwin on the floor, surrounded by zombies, tearing into his insides. Lucas’s dead body dropping, blood dripping from his nose. Pictures that can haunt you forever. The sound of a gun going off was the last thing that was heard before everything went black.

Kun woke up, sweat covering his body. He found that he was on the floor, Ten hovering over his body. “You ok? I heard a thud which woke me up. I tried waking you up but I couldn’t”, ten said, helping him up. “What time is it?”, Kun asked, rubbing his eyes. “I’m not sure, probably early morning? The sun looks like it’s about to rise so I suggest we should get going soon”, Ten said, grabbing his back. Suddenly a scream was heard from downstairs. They grabbed their stuff and ran downstairs, seeing the door about to be knocked off its hinges.

“What the fuck happened to you?”, Hendery asked Kun, seeing the state he’s in. “Nightmare. Is there any other way out of here?”, Kun said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “I saw a back door in the kitchen”, Hendery said and as soon as he finished his sentence, the door came crashing down, zombies piling in. Everyone ran through the house, towards the back door. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t budge. “Stand back”, Xiaojun said and got his shotgun, aiming it at the door. Everyone moved out of the way before Xiaojun fired the shotgun, smashing the glass into tiny pieces.

You all began running out the door, freedom meeting you outside. The only person who didn’t follow was Xiaojun, aiming his shotgun at the oncoming zombies. “Nope, you’re coming with us”, Yangyang said, pulling Xiaojun’s bag, making him nearly trip over, and dragged him outside. Everyone started running again, making sure to stay alert for other deadly creatures running around.

An abandoned building came into view, which looked like it used to be an office building. Everyone ran towards it, climbing on top of old, rusty vehicles to reach an open window, since that was the only way in (some of the building had collapsed so the door was barricaded). Everyone made it inside, Xiaojun the last one in. He turned around, aiming his shotgun at the zombies that were beginning to climb, and fired it.

“Xiaojun, there’s no time for that, come on”, Yangyang said, dragging him again as they all continued to run through the building, the sound of rumbling above you. The zombies went to chase you as they got through the window but luckily, part of the ceiling came crashing down on top of them, blocking you from them. Everyone stopped running and started walking instead, thankful that they’re safe. At least for now.

The sound of talking caught your attention, making you aware that you’re not alone. The voices got louder as you walked closer to the room they were coming from, everyone standing in front of a door that’s slightly ajar.

One voice started talking, and Xiaojun’s eyebrows furrowed. You looked at him with confusion. “What?”, you whispered, making sure the people in the room didn’t hear you. “I recognise that voice. No- it can’t be, she’s dead. We watched her die”, he answered. “Xiaojun, you need to be more clear than that. Who?”, frustration was evident in your voice, sounding more harsher than you anticipated.

“My girlfriend, Yoonah”, as soon as he said that, he ran into the room without warning. His presence was known, startling the people in the room. Yoonah stared at him, aiming her gun at him as he did the same. “Xiaojun? What are you doing here?”, she asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “I can ask you the same question. I thought you were dead”, he replied, everyone looking back and forth at them. “No, you left me for dead. If I knew you were going to do that, I should have dumped you when I had the chance”, her words were making Xiaojun frustrated, his finger getting closer to pulling the trigger. “You know, I never actually loved you, I only dated you cause I felt sorry for you”, tears were streaming down Xiaojun’s face at this point, tears of anger and hurt. He didn’t even think and he pulled the trigger, blasting Yoonah backwards as the bullet went straight through her chest.

Everyone was shocked as Yoonah’s lifeless body laid there, blood surrounding her. A guy who was covered in tattoos roared, lunged at Xiaojun, throwing his body towards Yoonah’s lifeless body. Xiaojun got up but soon got knocked down again as he got punched in the face. “Stop!”, you yelled, trying to stop the guy from hurting Xiaojun. The guy didn’t like that and he pushed you, making you stumble, twisting your ankle, causing you to let out a scream of agony.

The two kept fighting, throwing punches at one another. They got closer towards the open window, the sound of wind blowing in their ears. Xiaojun punched him in the gut, the force making him go over the edge, falling out the window. Xiaojun turned around, ready to walk away when a hand grabbed him by his jacket, making him fall backwards.

It’s like everything went in slow motion as he tumbled over the edge, Kun running to try and grab him but it was too late. He fell over the edge, his body hitting the ground as his back broke. Blood dripped down his nose as his body twisted into an unusual position, his legs bent.

Kun screamed, the scream full of hurt and frustration, as he fell to the ground. Everyone was in tears as they saw yet another friend die in front of their eyes. “Why does this keep happening?”, Kun yelled, getting up and stormed out of the room. Ten followed him and then Hendery, leaving you and Yangyang alone in the room. “Yang? My ankle hurts”, you cried, not being able to move your ankle without it hurting. Yangyang bent down so you could climb onto his back. You wrapped your arms around his neck, being careful not to strangle him, and Yangyang picked you up, putting his arms under your legs and walked out the room.

“Is there any way out of here?”, Yangyang asked as soon as he joined the others. “I think the only way we can go is up”, Kun said, wiping his face with the sleeve of his t-shirt. Everyone walked through a door which led to the staircase, walking up it.

They managed to find a way out, going out a window and climbing down the fire escape stairs. Yangyang was the last one down, with you on his back. “Hey, drop y/n so you can get down. Don’t worry, I’ll catch her”, Hendery said, putting his arms out ready. “It’s ok Yang, I trust Hendery”, you said, a sigh leaving Yangyang’s mouth. He let go of you, your body dropping down as Hendery caught you in his arms. Yangyang climbed down the ladder, jumping down onto the ground. Yangyang put you on his back again, wrapping your arms around his neck.

-------------------------------

You’re not sure how long it’s been, but the sky has gotten cloudy and dark, rain starting to pour from the sky. You rested your head on Yangyang’s shoulder, leaving kisses on it every now and then. The rain got heavier, rumbling heard in the distance, meaning a storm was on the way. A loud crash of thunder was heard, along with a flash of lightning, lighting up the dark sky. Everyone had their gun out, staying alert for any zombies. Your ankle was throbbing, but you didn’t want to say anything to worry the others, so you masked your emotions.

Suddenly, you all heard gunshots and yelling, making everyone walk faster towards the sounds. “Wait, why are we going towards it? We could be walking to our deaths”, you said without realising what you were saying. “Honestly at this point, I don’t care if I die anymore”, Kun said, tired about everything.

You got closer to the yelling, and saw a group of people shooting at a swarm of zombies. “Should we help them?”, Ten asked, looking at the group ahead of them. “I mean, it would make me feel a bit better if we helped them so, let’s go”, Kun said, running towards the group, shooting at the zombies. Ten, Kun and Hendery helped the group by shooting at the zombies while Yangyang took you inside the derelict looking pharmacy, putting you down on a table as he grabbed the first aid kit he found.

“Take your shoe off for me babe”, he said softly, which was odd considering the situation you were currently in. You listened to him anyway, trying to take your shoe off but wincing as the smallest movement causes pain. Yangyang helped you, gently taking your shoe off. He placed the shoe next to you, grabbed the cream from the first aid box and gently applied the cream on the swollen area. You whimpered, tears falling down your cheeks, while Yangyang reassures you that it’s ok. He then grabbed the bandage, wrapping it around your ankle. He made sure it was on properly before putting your shoe back on gently.

He turned around in front of you, putting you on his back before leaving. When you guys left, you saw that the zombies are dead and the group is ok. “Is everyone ok?”, Kun asked, looking at the group they just saved. “Yes, thank you for saving us. We don’t know how to repay you”, one of them said, a man who looked to be in his early 30’s. “It’s fine, you don’t need to do that. Anyway, we’ll uh, let you get on your way now”, Kun smiled a little, letting the group go.

Everyone started walking away from the group, thinking everyone was safe. But they thought wrong. A gunshot went off, scaring everyone. “What the fuck?”, everyone turned around, seeing Hendery standing there, frozen. “H-hendery?”, Yangyang stuttered, you got off him, hobbling next to him. Hendery dropped to his knees, gasping for air. Everyone ran to him, blood soaking his shirt. He fell to the floor, his face splashing into a puddle. Yangyang turned him over, his back now on the ground.

“Hendery, stay with us, please”, Yangyang cried, putting pressure on the bullet wound, causing Hendery to scream. More zombies started surrounding you, coming in different directions. “Fuck, we’re surrounded”, Ten shouted as he fired his gun at the creatures, hitting them square in the head. Kun, Ten and you shot at the zombies while Yangyang stayed with Hendery.

“Y-yang?”, Hendery managed to get out, blood spluttering as he coughed. Yangyang looked at him, tears streaming down his face. “T-thank you for always b-being there for me, especially w-when I was at my lowest. I love you”, more blood spluttered out of his mouth, Hendery a coughing mess as he was gasping for air. Hendery held Yangyang’s bloody hand, squeezing it. “T-thank you for everything”, was the last thing he said before he took his last breath, his whole body going limp. Yangyang let out a sob, and then a scream. He got up and grabbed his gun, shooting at the zombies coming at him.

All the zombies surrounding them were now dead, the four of them standing there as the rain continued to pour down, bouncing off the ground. They all looked at one another, as they all cried silently, seeing Hendery lying there, motionless, blood surrounding him.

-------------------------------

It’s been a couple of hours since Hendery had passed, and it’s stopped raining. Clouds covered the sky, some stars peaking through as the night started. “How far are we from Busan?”, Yangyang asked, wondering how far they had to go until they reached their destination. “If we’re lucky, we might be able to reach Busan in three days”, Kun said, lying down on a couch in another house they found for the night.

You were lying down on a bed, tossing and turning, trying not to put pressure on your ankle. You couldn’t seem to fall asleep, the haunting images of Xiaojun falling out the window, Hendery lying on the ground, surrounded by his own blood, Lucas’ lifeless body lying on the floor of the bus, Winwin’s body getting torn apart by zombies. You decided to give up on sleep, sitting up and went to get out of bed, but tripped and fell, a yelp leaving you.

Yangyang came running up the stairs after hearing a thud, seeing you on the floor. “I thought you were sleeping”, Yangyang said, helping you up off the floor. “I was trying to but I kept seeing the others in my head. It’s haunting”, you sniffled, hugging Yangyang, wrapping your arms around him. Yangyang hugged you back, kissing the top of your head. He rested his chin on the top of your head, swaying you back and forth.

All of a sudden, you felt yourself being lifted off the ground as Yangyang picked you up bridal style, placing you softly on the bed, getting on top of you. He leaned down, kissing you softly, resting his hands on your waist. Your lips moulded together, like they’re a match made in heaven, they fit perfectly together. Yangyang’s lips trailed down your neck, sucking on your sweet spot. You moaned softly, tugging on his hair. He kissed along your jaw and across your cheek, lastly kissing the tip of your nose, smiling down at you.

He rolled off you, lying on the bed next to you. He pulled you into him, wrapping his arms around you, carefully tangling his legs with yours. You rested your head on his chest, the sound of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep. The last thing you heard before you fell asleep was Yangyang saying ‘I love you’ in a small voice, followed by a yawn.

Kun and Ten were downstairs, talking about what they will do once they get to Busan. “All I can think about is getting as far away from these things as possible”, Kun said, yawning loudly. “We should get some sleep”, Ten suggested, Kun nodding as he closed his eyes. Ten just laid there, staring at the ceiling for god knows how long. He couldn’t seem to fall asleep, no matter how hard he tried.

Before he knew it, the sun started coming up, meaning Ten had been awake the whole time. He let out a massive yawn, getting up and woke up Kun, who was sound asleep. He shook him awake, Kun opening his eyes slowly. “Let’s go”, Ten said, grabbing his bag and going upstairs. He saw you and Yangyang fast asleep, cuddling up to each other. He cooed at how cute you looked, but decided to wake you up. He shook the both of you, eyes fluttering open. “Come on, it’s time to go”, Ten said, giving you your bags.

The four of you left, continuing your long journey to Busan.

-------------------------------

It had been about three long days, and the four of you were nearly in Busan. You hobbled next to Yangyang, your ankle feeling a little better, but it still hurts. As you got closer, you saw people holding machine guns, in full armour. “Shit, hide”, the four of you hid behind a car, out of sight from the army wandering around. “What do we do?”, Yangyang asked, wondering how the four of you are going to get past them.

“Why don’t we surrender?”, you suggested, everyone looking at you. “And why would we do that?”, Kun asked, furrowing his eyebrows at your suggestion. “Just watch me”, you said and stood up, walking towards the soldiers, holding your arms up. You limped as the three behind you watched your movements.

The soldiers aimed their guns at you. “Ma’am, please stop there”, one of them said. The three stood up from behind the car, watching the commotion happening. “You three over there, come forward”, the soldier said, watching the three walking forward to stand beside you. “Before I even think about letting your kids pass: are any of you infected?”, the soldier asked, looking between the four of you. You all showed that you aren’t infected, rolling up your sleeves and pants to prove it.

“Ma’am, are you ok? You’re limping”, the soldier asked, and you replied saying that you twisted your ankle. “Sir, they seem fine to me”, one of the other soldiers said, putting his gun down. What you assumed to be the leader, put his gun down and let the four of you through.

You all walked through the large metal gates, the gates closing behind you. Knocked down buildings came into view, along with overgrown grass. There were people wandering around, walking in groups. You felt safe for once, seeing everyone smiling. “Welcome to the safe zone”, someone said from behind you, turning around to see someone around your age, a smile on his face. “I’m Jake. Let me show you around”, he said, leading the four of you around the camp.

-------------------------------

It had been five days since the four of you arrived at the safe zone, and everything had been going fine so far. No zombies invading you, getting a good night's sleep and eating proper food. You just wished the others were here with you.

You were talking to Jake, laughing at something he said, with Yangyang back hugging you. Yangyang kissed your cheek before letting go, walking off somewhere. He was about to walk inside a little cabin when suddenly, he felt himself flying backwards. There was a ringing in his ears as the sound of screaming was muffled, people running around. He felt someone grab him, lifting him up. He saw who lifted him up, revealing Kun. “What the fuck happened?”, Yangyang said after the ringing in his ear stopped. “We’re under attack”, Kun said, panic written all over his face. Yangyang turned around to go find you, when another blast hit the camp, a group of angry looking men ran in.

Yangyang found you lying on the ground, groaning in pain. “y/n!”, he ran to you, lifting you up. People started shooting from different directions, Yangyang shielding you with his body. You both got up, running to cover. You found Kun trying to lift a wooden beam up, and that’s when you realise who’s under it: Ten. “Oh shit”, you said, running to help, along with Yangyang.

You all managed to lift the beam up, Ten crawling out from under it. He coughed a couple of times, before getting up. You saw a machine gun lying on the ground in the corner of your eye, picking it up immediately. You ran outside, seeing the chaos unfold before your eyes. You aimed the gun and fired it, screaming at the top of your lungs. You didn’t care who it hit at this point, anger surging through your body.

Yangyang yelled your name, but you were too angry to listen as you ran through the crowd, seeing the man that murdered Hendery. You got closer to him, hitting the gun in his face, knocking him backwards. You kicked him in the knee, grabbed your knife out of your pocket and stabbed him in the arm, a scream leaving him. He kicked you back, making you fall backwards as a zombie came running at you. Before it reached you, the zombie was shot down.

You were picked up off the ground while Ten lunged at the guy, punching the shit out of him. You watched him as Ten threw punches. You started panicking as everything was getting too much, zombies running round and people either getting shot or attacked by the creatures. Your breathing got heavier, tears pooling in your eyes as he gasped, falling to the ground.

A loud sob left you, holding your chest while you sat on the ground, moving your hands to grip your hair. You wanted all this to stop. The fighting. The zombies. The constant running. The death of loved ones. You just want all this to end.

While you were having a panic attack on the ground, the others were fighting against the people attacking them. Ten was still throwing punches at the guy, dodging the punches aimed at him. Suddenly, it was like everything froze as a knife pierced through his skin, hitting him right in the stomach. The knife twisted, earning a yell from Ten, and the guy pulled it out of him. Kun saw the scene happening, and immediately ran over with a scream. He caught Ten before his body hit the ground.

Ten’s breathing got faster, as he continued losing blood. Kun pressed on the wound, earning a cry from Ten. Yangyang didn’t know what was happening until he heard Kun scream, looking over at what was happening. He saw Kun holding Ten’s body, stopping what he was doing and ran towards them. He saw someone aim a gun at Kun and went to warn him, but it was too late. Kun was shot in the head, his body dropping on the ground. Ten continued to lose blood as Kun’s lifeless body laid next to him, a scream leaving him. He wanted to keep on fighting, but he was too tired at this point, so he took one final breath, until his body went limp.

Yangyang screamed, seeing the two dead on the floor. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to find you. He soon found you sitting on the floor, gripping your hair. He ran over to you, holding your face in his hands, making you look at him. He saw his face, and something inside you switched as you finally calmed down. You threw your arms around him, hugging him as he picked you up. You let go of him and that’s when you saw Kun’s and Ten’s lifeless bodies on the floor, letting out a piercing scream.

You couldn’t deal with this anymore so you just ran. Ran as far away from the camp as possible. This was supposed to be a safe zone, but of course nothing can be safe for long. You didn’t care that your ankle still hurts slightly, you just kept running. Thankfully Yangyang managed to catch up to you, the both of you running.

While you were running, you didn’t look where you were going and you tripped over something as you fell to the ground. You went to get back up, but something grabbed your leg, seeing a zombie crawling towards you. You screamed, Yangyang helping you up, but the zombie bit you in the arm, a scream leaving you. You managed to get up, Yangyang holding your hand as you continued to run.

-------------------------------

You don’t know how long you’ve been running for, but the sun had started to set over the horizon and your whole body felt like it was on fire. You rolled up your sleeve, seeing the bite mark on your arm. “Y-yangyang?”, you whimpered as you looked up at him. He turned around and saw the mark on your arm, his eyes filled with tears. “Do you remember the promise we made at the start of this outbreak?”, you said, reminiscing the conversation you had. “Yeah. If one of us got bit, the other had to kill them. But I can’t bring myself to do it”, he cried, not wanting to kill you, but he also didn’t want you to suffer turning into one of them.

“I know it’s hard babe, but you have to. Please”, you were full on sobbing, your whole body aching. “But-”

“KILL ME”

Your sudden yell scared the both of you. Yangyang pulled you into him, crashing his lips on yours. You could taste the saltiness of your tears through the kiss, whimpering. The kiss was full of emotions: sadness, frustration, anger, and love. Yangyang pulled away and grabbed his gun, aiming it at your forehead.

His hand shook, tears blurring his vision. “It’s ok baby”, you reassured, a sad smile on your face. “I-i love you”, Yangyang said through his tears, you whispering an ‘I love you back’ before you closed your eyes, ready for impact. Yangyang closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. The sound of your body dropped to the floor as Yangyang opened his eyes slowly. He saw your lifeless body lying there, a broken sob leaving him.

He just stared at your lifeless body, dried up tears on his cheeks. He sniffled as he turned to the sound of oncoming zombies, just standing there holding his gun. He held the gun up to his head and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry”, and he pulled the trigger, his now dead body dropping to the floor.

#wayv imagines #wayv scenarios #wayv angst #wayv horror #wayv x reader #wayv #yangyang imagines #yangyang scenarios #yangyang angst #yangyang horror #yangyang x reader #yangyang

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neocoffeecafe · 4 months

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broken glass | home | writing masterlist | fic rec library

includes/warnings just super angsty, fem!reader

wc .9k

a/n oops i almost forgor to post this

the only sounds in the house were the sounds of your metal utensils clinking against the dinner plate you ate from. his dinner plate was sat across from you in his designated dinner spot, but he was absent.

you lift up the paper napkin to gently tap on the corners of your lips where the alfredo sauce missed your mouth.

your exhausted eyes scanned the room, eyeing the several pots and pans and dishes you fought with to make this meal. the meal that the both of you talked about trying, the meal that the both of you promised to eat together tonight, the meal that the both of you wanted to work on together.

part of you had hoped that he’d be here before his food got cold. but you felt cold in the low dress you picked out to surprise him with. your shoulders on display and the necklace he gifted you for your three year anniversary shined in the dim light of the candles that illuminated the table. you felt cold as your alfredo was no longer steaming, but cold and sad as you ate slowly. part of you hoped that the slower you ate the faster he would arrive. but no.

the clocked ticked. thirty minutes. thirty five minutes. forty minutes. you didn’t want to cry. you had worked so hard on this makeup for him. you eye the fragments of the red lipstick on the napkin, eyes glossed and blurred with tears. the red looked like blood. like the blood that surged through your too-sad-to-be-angry veins.

there were just a few bites of your meal left on your plate. several were on his.

sadly, you lift the fork to your mouth and finish off the final bits of food on your plate. that's when you hear the door unlock. the fumble of keys against the door. the fumble of keys and hands trying to open the door as fast as possible.

you do nothing to help him as you stand up and make your way to the kitchen. sighing at the sight of piles of dishes of your hard work and labor for him tonight for him to only miss it.

the door swings open.

“you look so beautiful tonight, baby. what's the occasion?”

with a loud clink the plate falls from your hand and into the sink. in the house nothing can be heard besides the sounds of the running water and the faintest of music that you had played for the both of you to dance in the kitchen to after your meal.

“baby?” he asks, and you hear footsteps as he approaches you from behind. you feel a warm hand on your shoulder before you jerk away, turning the water off and going back to the table. “baby, what's wrong?” he called for you.

you’re still silent as you pick up your phone and dial an all too familiar number that you’ve never memorized. not until the number of fights between you and yangyang climbed. not until the number of late nights and broken glasses climbed. not until you cried yourself to sleep because you didn't know what to do. not until you woke up every day, wondering if maybe, just maybe… something can go right for once.

“baby, answer me.” you can faintly hear him over the sounds of your phone ringing and the new voice on the line as renjun. the one person who stuck by your side after every disagreement. the one who would sing you to sleep to dry your tears away. the one who soothed and reassured you and brought you ice cream when you were supposed to be having “ice cream tuesday date night” with your boyfriend. the boyfriend you spent countless hours fantasizing and dreaming of a wedding, wondering what he had in store for you when he’d get down on one knee and ask you those four little words every woman wants to hear.

renjun knew when you called late at night you needed him. “pick me up.” the words he hated the most. he always thought the worst of the worst. he was always scared something got too physical. he knew yangyang wouldn’t intentionally hurt you… but he still feared the worst.

“you’re leaving again. i just got home.”

“and that's why. you’re falling out of love with me, aren’t you?” you ask. you don’t hang up the phone.

“what?”

“when was the last ice cream tuesday?”

he opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something. nothing comes out of his mouth. you want to throw your phone. slide down the wall, let hot tears continue to roll down your face. you can hear the faint sounds of keys rattling and renjun hanging up.

“i asked, when was the last ice cream tuesday.” your question wasn’t a question any longer. but a demand. “when was the last fucking ice cream tuesday.”

“i don’t remember.” he brings his hand to his neck, scratching it slowly.

“seven weeks yangyang. seven weeks in counting.” you wipe snotty tears as both liquids roll down your face, ruining your makeup. he reaches a hand to wipe it clean, but you flinch once more. “don’t touch me.” the words hurt you to say.

“baby…” his arms fall to his sides in defeat.

the uncomfortable silence is broken with the doorknob twisting and turning when your best friend slips inside, nothing but anger on his face.

renjun approaches you and takes your hand in his. you silently vow to not come back to your apartment, not until he can make things right.

@neocoffeecafe

#✘ 【 nct 】#✘ 【 nct angst 】#✘ 【 wayv 】#✘ 【 wayv angst 】#✘ 【 nct yangyang 】#✘ 【 wayv yangyang 】#✘ 【 nct yangyang angst 】#✘ 【 wayv yangyang angst 】#✘ 【 yangyang 】#✘ 【 yangyang angst 】#⋆ divider ★#yangyang angst

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neowinestainedress · 1 year

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© neowinestaindress; all rights reserved. do NOT repost, modify, or translate any work from this blog on any other platform and claim it as yours. you can find my works on ao3 (neowinestaindress) and wattpad (winestaintedress_; currently inactive).

LONG FICS

into the woods ; 11k — inferno event | werewolves (feat johnny, kun, jaehyun, jeno) [s] — ‘don’t go in the woods, past the first two rows of trees.’ It’s a simple rule, planted in every kid’s mind in the village since they are born. Nobody knows why, but nobody dares to question why. But pride leads to do dangerous things and what’s supposed to be a silly bet to prove something, gets you lost a bit too far into the scary forest. And those who seem to be polite strangers turn out to be something they’re not.

do you want to play a game, detective? ; 10k — ghostface/scream!au [s] — in these past months your only goal is to find the killer that is terrorizing the town of Woodsboro, but when you get close to him and feel like you finally have the upper hand, Ghostface turns the game around again. Or, Ghostface wants to play with you but not like he does with his victims, and you let him.

SERIES

₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. fireplace ashes ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.

DRABBLES

₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. fireplace ashes ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.

BLURBS / HARD HOURS

₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. fireplace ashes ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.

#nct fanfiction #yangyang masterlist #yangyang smut #yangyang fluff #yangyang angst

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rrxnjun · 2 years

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just saying ;; lyy

pairing: liu yangyang x fem!reader genre: college au | comedy, fluff, angst wc: 11.6k (11.602) playlist: just saying - 5 seconds of summer ; 21 questions - waterparks ; maniac - conan gray ; perfume - lovejoy ; i want u bad - r5 ; gloom boys - waterparks warnings: swearing, a mention of cheating

you got a new boyfriend. in yangyang’s eyes, he’s a total loser, and all your friends tell you that he’s got no future. they all like him, though... and so in a desperate plan, jealousy takes over and liu yangyang executes his masterplan: he has to make you two break up. all because he could treat you better than him. just saying though...

i. you got a boyfriend and he's a total loser

Slurping on his banana flavored boba, while making a noise that has successfully annoyed everyone at the table– Renjun the most, it seems, by the way he glares and kicks the other boy under the table with much force– Yangyang looks around the sprously-crowded study room and clears his throat, as if his presence wasn’t well-known already.

“So,” he starts, making sure at least someone’s eyes are on him before he proceeds and asks the crucial question– the question that’s still keeping him at this place, the question that’s been burning at the tip of his tongue for the past 20-or-so minutes. “Is Y/N not coming?”

Your best friend looks up from her textbook, the same one she’s been aimlessly staring into for the past 20 minutes, rolling her eyes at him and heaving out a heavy sigh. Yangyang doesn’t know if the sigh is addressed to the stupidity of his question or not, but he’s willing to find out as he only jabs more and raises up his eyebrows in question, making Ryujin answer his question faster.

The answer is a simple ‘No’, followed by a tight-lipped smile sent his way as the girl looks back to her textbook again and furrows her brows with much despair. Yangyang doesn’t blame her, because from the look of it, it looks like Ryujin is trying to cramp some Physics into that bleached head of hers, and even though Yangyang is a linguistics major, he can only imagine how annoying and difficult all those numbers mixed with letters can be to memorize.

The reply he was given is not enough for him, though. Don’t get me wrong, it would be more than enough for anyone else– for anyone normal, it seems– but Yangyang doesn’t even want to attend the study group he’s sitting with right now. The truth is, he’s only going because you’re there. And if you’re not there, then the whole purpose of sitting in the small room at the very end of the college campus is a waste of time for him– a waste of time he’s not willing to spend when he has one more season of Tokyo Ghoul to rewatch now that he has Netflix. Yes, it’s the account he stole from Dejun. But still. A free Netflix account is a free Netflix account…

Liu Yangyang knows you as the resident smart girl. That’s not all, though– it’s simply the way he got to know you, and it’s hard to peel that sticker off now. You were the only person that replied to him in the class group chat when he asked if someone could tutor him on the last topic of his Math exam last year– he quickly dropped the class the next semester, but he really needed the extra credit back then. Since then, you two have been meeting every Wednesday in the same small room at the end of the plain-white corridor in the Biology building– the only one that’s free at this time. Yangyang quickly fell into liking you. It wasn’t hard at all, if you ask him; you’re lively and confident, you always have something to say, and most of all, you always laugh at his jokes. Yangyang just can’t not like someone that laughs at his jokes. It strokes his ego just right, since the amount of disses he gets for his jokes from his roommate Dejun is just the right amount to keep him humble.

Yangyang likes to think he lured you in with the weekly dose of strawberry chocolate he always brought you as a payment for your tutoring services; because as soon as he dropped the class and told you he didn’t need the tutoring anymore, you brought up the idea of him attending your small study group– which, essentially, is just your group of friends hanging out every Wednesday with textbooks in their hands, pretending to study for the exams together.

Yangyang doesn’t know your friends and he’s sure as hell that he won’t be able to learn anything if you’re sitting in the seat next to him, but it’s you who we’re talking about.

Of course he said yes.

And so when on one Wednesday, when he’s sitting with all your friends, that are somehow now his distant friends (he wouldn’t really call them his friends, still. He hasn’t embarrassed himself in front of them that many times just yet), and you’re not there to be his eye candy, he doesn’t see the purpose of it all anymore. He’s a curious guy by nature, though; and he’s always curious about you.

“Why?”

Now it’s Renjun’s time to sigh and roll his eyes. Yangyang is starting to think that it’s at him, but when Lia snickers from the other side of the table and mumbles something under her nose, he’s enlightened with an information that hits him right in the gut and makes him want to throw up and scream.

“She’s with her new boyfriend,” Ryujin replies, making all of them murmur in agreement– or is it disagreement? Yangyang isn’t quite sure anymore.

“...boyfriend?” Yangyang repeats, as if he wasn’t sure if he heard your friends right.

“Yeah,” Renjun nods, “he’s a total loser, though. I can’t believe she passed on her stupid study group on Wednesday just because he insisted on a date today.”

“Just for the record, I wouldn’t even be coming if I didn’t have a test tomorrow, that’s now disgusted with her actions I am,” Lia mutters, making Yangyang widen his eyes in surprise.

“Who even is he?” Yangyang asks.

“I dunno,” Ryujin shrugs, closing her textbook shut– a sign that she’s fully immersed in talking about your boyfriend behind his back now, “he dropped out, apparently? He’s got no future. I think she met him like three weeks ago and they’re already dating, can you believe that? I don’t like him at all. The last time I saw him, he didn’t even say hi back to me. Like I wasn’t even there!”

Yangyang gasps, shaking his head in disbelief. Why would you date anyone like that? Where did that guy even come from? As far as he knew, he was one of your closest friends– why wasn’t he notified about a new guy in your circle?

“That’s ridiculous, dude,” he mumbles, furrowing his brows.

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” Lia shrugs, “and to think that we all literally had a bet that she’s gonna date you in a few…”

“Huh?” Yangyang opens his eyes wide, gulping down his built-up saliva. Did he hear her right? Dating? You two?

“Yeah,” Ryujin shrugs, “you just randomly appeared! We totally thought she had a crush on you, and don’t get me wrong, we were all for it, but it seems like we… were wrong.”

Yangyang hums, nodding. He didn’t know that everyone thought this about you two… Well, he can’t say he doesn’t like it, no– he very much adores the fact that your friends thought you had a crush on him, but it stings even more now when he realizes that your friends liked him enough to accept him into their circle, while your new boyfriend hasn’t even tried.

He’ll ignore the bet part for now.

“Yeah, seems like it,” Yangyang agrees, “what’s that guy’s name anyway?”

“Hyunho, or something?” Renjun replies, a look of disgust written on his face, “we stalked his Insta for a bit. He’s got a profile full of cringey gym pics and pics from when he went fishing.”

“Fishing,” Yangyang repeats.

“Yeah man, we told you it’s bad.”

Shaking his head in disbelief and putting his head into his hands, Yangyang lets out one of many sighs shared around the table, biting his bottom lip. He’ll make sure to stalk that guy when he comes home– just to see if there’s anything your friends didn’t mention that is a walking red flag. Who knows, maybe… maybe he still has time to talk you out of it.

Maybe.

ii. he barely takes you out and if he does he's late

Trying to catch his breath as the crowd finally leaves the café he works at– the time period between 2 and 2:35pm is always the busiest– he hangs his head low and curses under his breath. Only god knows just how much Yangyang despises his job as a barista in the campus café; and that’s only because he won’t admit it to anyone that dares to laugh at him and make jokes about it. Yes, he comes to work every day with disgust coating his senses, but at least he gets paid. And he really needs that money.

A cheerful voice breaks him out of his slumber, a voice he would, on regular circumstances, want to strangle to death, making him look up again and switch the glare for a fake smile.

A fake smile that quickly shifts into an honest one, when he realizes who’s standing in front of him in their full glory.

“Can I get the usual?” you grin, making him shake his head in disbelief.

“Y/N, you don’t have an usual, this is like the second time you’ve been here,” he notes, battling the grin that’s wanting to settle onto his lips. It’s easy to smile for him when you’re around, but he caught his jaw being in pain the last time you two hung out, and he’s not willing to live through that experience again, since it sure was humbling.

“Well, I’m making my last order my usual, then. That’s how it works, doesn’t it?” you smile, making him mockingly roll his eyes at you.

“Sure, whatever you say.”

Yangyang could lie and tell you that he doesn’t remember what you ordered the first time you were here– it was right after his exams and you were too impatient to wait for him to tell you if he passed them or not, since, and this is an indirect quotation, you have to be there for him just in case he failed and needs mental support. He passed his exams and your visit only added to his euphoria, as he chatted away with you until he had to close the café and walked you home. So, Yangyang could lie and tell you that he doesn’t vividly remember that day up to the smallest detail, but he’s not that much of a good liar, after all, so he won’t even try.

He remembers your order down to the chocolate shavings on top of the whipped cream that’s decorating your favorite iced caramel macchiato, and so he wastes no time in turning around and preparing your drink as you sit at the tall bar stool and wait for him to get it ready for you.

“You always work. I had to run over here just so I could hang out with you,” you mumble, a teasing pout sitting at your lips that Yangyang catches when he briefly turns around to peek at your face.

“Yeah, well, my rent is not gonna get paid by itself, so,” he shrugs, swirling the whipped cream on top of your drink, getting ready to sprinkle the chocolate shavings delicately to the peak of the white, cloudy mess. He briefly imagines putting a cherry on top, just because you distantly remind him of cherries, in a way, before he mentally cringes at his thoughts and shoos them out of his lovesick brain.

“I get that,” you note, “but do you even have time for yourself?”

“Of course I do,” Yangyang snickers, finished with your drink now, bringing it to you. He does have time for himself, of course– and so what if it’s in the deadly hours of night and on Wednesdays. If he’s lucky, he’s free on every other Friday too, depending on if Chaeryeong is free to cover his shift. And he’s free on weekends! That’s plenty of time.

“You’re always locked up here.”

Yangyang rolls his eyes at you. “It has its privileges.”

“Like what?”

“Like… if I wasn’t here as often, Johnny would kick my ass if he saw me chatting away with our customers,” he shrugs, seeing you snicker. That, and he also gets to study when the café isn’t as busy. They take turns with Hendery when he’s around, but he mostly just slacks off in the back, pretending to ‘stack up on coffee beans’.

“Okay, then,” you absently nod, taking a sip of your drink. A blissful expression overtakes your features, hinting that Yangyang did his job right and your caramel macchiato is surely one of the best things you’ve ever tasted. He wonders if it’s addicting enough to make you visit him at work more often– he wouldn’t be opposed to it even on the busiest days of them all.

“What brings you here?” he asks, leaning on the counter. His legs are starting to hurt from walking around so much– damn Mondays; they’re always the busiest.

“What, I can’t visit my friend at work?” you gasp, acting offended by his question.

“You can, you can,” he brings up his hands into the air in a defensive act, “you’ve just never done it before.”

Taking another sip of your drink, you look almost guilty as you nod and sigh. “That’s true,” you nod, “but… I’m kind of… waiting for someone?”

Already preparing for the impact of your answer, Yangyang curls his toes in anticipation. “For who?”

“Hyunho,” you smile, “my boyfriend. We’re going on a date, and I figured that we could stop by to get some coffee first, and since I know this café is famous for its good coffee,” you note as you point towards Yangyang, as if to praise the boy for doing his job right, “I invited him here.”

“Oh,” Yangyang nods, subconsciously pulling away from you, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

A knowing look is sent his way, making shivers run down his spine as you snicker. “You were with Ryujin and Renjun on Wednesday. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t know.”

“Okay, so maybe I did know, but all I’m saying is that I didn’t know before. It’s… kind of sudden, you know,” he mumbles, trying to sound the least suspicious he can. It’s not every day that you talk to your crush about their new boyfriend; Yangyang never thought he’d live to the day when this happens (not that you’re not pretty or interesting enough to get a boyfriend. He just somehow always assumed that you’re gonna be single and free for him to simp over forever), but here we are.

“Yeah, well,” you mumble sheepishly, “it just kind of… happened.”

Yangyang hums in response, nodding. What else is there for him to say? He feels like all the vocabulary in his head– in all 5 languages he knows– escaped his brain and is standing somewhere in the corner of this café, laughing at him and pointing their fingers at just how embarrassing the whole situation is.

“How did you two even meet?” he asks, playing with the stack of plastic cups to his left, as if the action was meant to mask his over-interest in the topic that is your new boyfriend.

“At a party,” you say.

His eyes scan you up and down. By the way your eyes avert to the side when your eyes meet, you look a little ashamed of your answer. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about going to parties, and Yangyang would never judge you for getting loose and letting your inner party animal shine, but you and parties just… don’t go together. And you know that, by the way you quickly jump into self-defense.

“You know Mark, right?” you start blabbering, not even sparing a second to let Yangyang absently nod in agreement, “well, it was his party. And Hendery was invited, and you know my friend Yuna is into him, right? And since she didn’t want to go alone– and I don’t blame her, parties are fucking scary for adolescent girls– I, as her good friend, offered that I’ll go with her! It was only a one-time occurrence. But as I was there, this guy talked to me in the kitchen as I was waiting for Yuna to come back from the toilet, which, just by the way, she didn’t– she met Hendery on the way back and they made out in one of the rooms on the second floor– and I was so bored and it was still too early for me to come home and I was supposed to drive Yuna home, so I flirted with him,, and… and… here we are,” you complete your little storytime with an overly-exaggerated hand movement.

Quickly taking your drink into your own hands, as if to occupy yourself as you wait for your friend’s answer, you peek at him from under your eyelashes and blink a few times in anticipation.

“Hendery made out with Yuna?” Yangyang repeats, mouth slightly agape in shock.

“That’s all you got from this conversation?”

“I- I mean that’s… that’s really great for you, yeah, but Hendery and Yuna? In what universe do these two belong together?”

Hendery and Yuna just… aren’t the best combination. It’s the one Yangyang wouldn’t even think of creating. It’s like chocolate and pickles. Where Yuna is the sweet chocolate and Hendery is the weird, crunchy pickle. And even though Yangyang has tried this combination before, he for sure didn’t like it– just another sign that these two do not belong together under any circumstances.

“This universe, apparently,” you shrug, sighing, “anyways, it all happened really quickly. I didn’t even have time to tell you that I was seeing someone, I’m sorry.”

Yangyang only hums. Well, what else is he going to do? Be mad at you? For… what, exactly? For not telling him about your new find? For not telling him about going to a party? That would be stupid. The only person he has every right to be mad at is himself, because even after hearing your story and seeing the stars in your eyes light up at the mention of your boyfriend’s name, Yangyang just can’t seem to feel bitter in his chest and just a little bit envious of the position that Hyunho is in after 2 weeks, while Yangyang has been pining over you for at least the last 6 months. It’s not fair.

“It’s okay,” he mumbles, “I’m happy for you.”

The smile that overtakes your features is one that would make even the shittiest of days feel like a fairytale. The slight tug of your lips upwards and the little scrunch you do with your nose is a sight Yangyang’s seen multiple times since getting to know you, but even after all this time, he feels like even a baseball bat could not hit him harder than this.

No, he can’t be bitter that you got a new boyfriend that’s not him. At least not in front of you.

“Thanks,” you grin, “you’re actually the first one to say that, so… it means a lot to me.”

He freezes. It hasn’t occurred to him before just how much the words of others could affect your relationship. In the bottom of his heart, he thought that just being in love with the person is enough to be happy– but it seems like the opinion of your friends and family matters too.

So Yangyang decides to support you, even if he might be the only one in your circle to do so.

“Where is he? He’s like 15 minutes late,” you mumble. Yangyang furrows his eyebrows at you, shrugging.

“There’s a lot of traffic around this time.”

You purse your lips, looking at the time on your phone screen– which, just by the way, is still decorated by a picture of your friend group all out on the fare, which makes Yangyang happy to see– and finish your drink. Yangyang assumed you were going to take it with you to your date, since you rarely drink more than one coffee a day.

“Do you want another one?” he asks, still.

“No, I’m just gonna wait for Hyunho to arrive,” you tightly smile.

Minutes slowly pass as Yangyang cleans the counter and throws out the plastic cup that was used to hold your drink, making coffee for the lonely couple that came a few minutes after you ordering two iced americanos. He doesn’t want to pay much attention to it, he really doesn’t, but the clock sitting right above his head as he scoops the ice into the two cups reminds him of time passing.

Three minutes, five… seven… fifteen.

Another fifteen minutes pass before the door opens with a subtle hum of a ring, revealing a man in a leather jacket passing through the entrance without a single word, nearing the tall barstool you’re sitting at. Yangyang can only assume it’s your boyfriend by the way he wraps a protective arm around your waist and greets you as silently as he can, as if he didn’t want to disturb the other customers.

“Where were you all this time?” you ask, and Yangyang can only faintly hear the subtle disappointment in your voice before you’re cut off by your boyfriend’s low voice.

“Traffic.”

“Okay,” Yangyang sees you sadly smile from the corner of his eye, a cheerful grin overtaking your features when your eyes meet, “do you want to order anything? This is my friend-”

“No, I’m fine. Let’s go somewhere else,” he says, not even meeting eyes with who you meant to introduce to him, tugging you off the barstool instead.

Yangyang doesn’t have much time to say goodbye to you before you disappear behind the entrance, only earning himself a wave as you hop by your boyfriend’s side and attentively listen to what he has to say.

Yangyang thinks that it might be harder to pretend that he’s happy for you now. And it’s only getting started.

iii. all your friends tell you that he's got no future, but they like me

“Can you believe that? He literally dragged her out of the café! I legit wanted to run after him and throw an americano down his back,” he rambles, aggressively wiping the counter with a smelly cloth that should have been washed like a week ago, “and when I asked her the other day after class how the date went, she went oddly quiet. If that’s not suspicious, then I don’t know what is.”

Throwing the damp cloth down to the floor– to the right corner, far enough to not make anyone trip over it behind the counter– Yangyang looks up to find Dejun and Renjun, the two Juns of his nightmares, as he likes to call them, staring at him with blank eyes and disbelief written all over their faces.

Sure, no one liked your new boyfriend. No one’s gotten as violent with their thoughts about him just yet, and Yangyang fears that he might just have gone too far.

“Okay, well, I can see why you’re so furious about it, but… it’s her relationship,” Dejun shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee, “why do you care so much?”

“Because she’s my friend!” Yangyang gasps, mouth hanging slightly agape from shock.

“Yeah, and? We’re friends, but I wouldn’t give two fucks if your new girl was toxic or some shit. That’s all your decision, mate,” Dejun shrugs and fully enjoys the taste of the hot beverage on his tongue. Dejun is the only person Yangyang knows that likes their coffee hot, even if it feels like a sauna outside. He never really grasped why he’s like that, he figures Dejun might just be a psychopath of some sort; but seeing him now with his blank white cup steaming into his face, Yangyang feels the utter masculine urge of splashing the contents right into his face. Or his own. Either one works.

“Well, thanks for looking out for me, I guess,” Yangyang furrows his brows and rolls his eyes in irony, “Renjun, can I get any support in this topic? You care about Y/N just as much as I do.”

“Well, I don’t know about that-” Renjun mutters under his breath, making the younger boy (even though it’s only a few months; Renjun likes to mention their ‘age difference’ every time he wants to take the upper hand, though, so it’s now kind of fixated in Yangyang’s brain as well) scrunch up his face in question.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” he peeps, “but yeah, that dude’s a lost case. I overheard Y/N telling Ryujin that he invited her to sleep over at his house on Friday,” Renjun mutters, making Yangyang fume even harder with built-up frustration.

“Who does that after a month of dating!”

The brutal gaze he is sent by Renjun is one that could make anyone’s back shiver with terror. The little one can get scary sometimes, it seems. “Oh, so you’re conservative,” he sings, voice almost imitating Kris Jenner in a conversation with her dearest daughter Khloé about the wearingness of thongs in public.

“Excuse you, I’m not,” Yangyang defends himself, putting his hands to his hips in a stance quite similar to his mother’s back when she used to nag him for not washing his dishes after eating when he was younger.

Dejun’s eyes drift slowly from one person to the other, enjoying his friends’ heated debate over a man he’s never once seen in his whole entire life, feeling very much like in an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians.

“Well, I think it’s reasonable. They’re dating,” Dejun mumbles, testing the waters with his remark.

Like a sleeping volcano, Yangyang suddenly erupts, arms waving in the air and all, looking almost comical with his animated screeches. “That means they’re gonna fuck! And what if the condom breaks? Oh no. Worse. What if they don’t wear it at all and he doesn’t pull out fast enough and then she has to carry his babies?!”

The shriek of horror is followed by a fit of laughter coming from the other side of the communication canal; the only one not finding the whole situation funny is Yangyang, though, heavily thinking of how even your pretty genes won’t outlaw the weird asymmetry in your boyfriend’s face. He quickly catches himself and rolls his eyes on his own snarky comment, forcing it out of his own head– he has no right to judge a man that’s, admittedly, a few heads taller than him and broader in the shoulders.

“You’re overthinking it.”

“Well, you have to be prepared for every possible outcome!” Yangyang mumbles, noticing new customers arriving through the glass door of the café.

One last glare is sent to his friends’ direction as he spills out his last comment, the discomfort he feels with the whole situation very much apparent on his face. “You’ll stop laughing when the day comes and I’ll be the only one that can say ‘told you so’, you fuckers.”

The smile he offers the customers standing behind the counter is so different to the expression he had before, one would think there was a shift in reality.

Thank god Yangyang is a good actor.

iv. got a big house, he says he lives alone

Liu Yangyang is not a stalker. He’s not stalking your boyfriend. That’s not at all what’s happening when he sees him at the grocery store one day and eyes him the whole journey to his car, silently following him with the bag of groceries buckled in to his passenger seat, driving down the block and praying to god that your boyfriend doesn’t see him in the rear window, or worse– notice that it’s him that’s, coincidentally, following his every turn.

That’s not stalking… right?

He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to prove here– surely, he can’t know much about your boyfriend just by simply staring at him from his car window. He can’t tell what he’s listening to on the radio– although, he can tell it’s not Nicki Minaj, for he’s not vibing as hard as Yangyang is when he almost forgets to take a turn left when your boyfriend’s car disappears out of his view for a split second. He can’t tell if your boyfriend is worth trusting behind the wheel either; Yangyang isn’t even worth trusting behind the wheel anyway. He’s got his driver’s license recently and already forgot what some of the road signs mean. He’s no judge in that.

Yangyang doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove– to anyone, but mostly to himself– when he follows your boyfriend home one day, but you could say there’s something in the universe that desperately wants him to win, in some way. A silent hint of intuition running through his bones, a spark of hope that lights him up as he feels tingling in the tips of his fingers, anticipation finally reaching the top as he sees your boyfriend park in the driveway, slowing down and waiting at the end of the street.

He goes unnoticed. Your new boyfriend must be blind, Yangyang wonders, silently chuckling to himself as he silently spectates and watches the scene in front of him unravel.

Hyunho walks out of the car– seemingly, an innocent act. The man himself walks over to the trunk, taking out the bag of groceries he’s bought at the store not too long ago, smashing the car door shut with such force that it makes Yangyang wince in terror. He surely hopes he’s not this harsh when he operates with your body, though, he doesn’t like to think about his touch on you, so he bats that thought away with a blink of his eyelashes and focuses on his investigation.

Angels, spirit guides, god… someone must be on his side today. He’s not crazy. He doesn’t usually follow people home. He’s not saying that it’s not fun, of course– it’s just something he’s never picked up before, preferring to focus his time on other, much more interesting hobbies. There must be a reason why he’s here– and the reason is unleashing right in front of his eyes.

The eureka moment suddenly hits him with much force, his lips parting, as if to scream a winning “Ha!” at the top of his lungs.

He is a good listener. Well, most times, that is– when it’s you he’s listening to, though, he’s quite sure his memory is writing down each and every single word that comes out of your mouth, paying attention to detail and punctuation. He’s your number one fan, after all.

And with that in mind, he remembers you telling him trivial facts about your boyfriend.

That he’s strong (Yangyang’s definitely stronger), that he doesn’t like his coffee hot (one of the only normal things about him, it seems), that he’s super sweet, honest and loyal. You’ve also told him that he lives alone– in a small house with a brown roof, identical to the one he’s standing in front of right now, with the bag of groceries in his hold.

Here he goes– the thing he’s been sent here for, the fact that he was supposed to acquire in this quest.

Out of the house, a middle-aged woman strides her way forward, hair an identical shade of brown to Hyunho, who is only pointing an annoyed look at her through his dark eyes, the shape similar to the woman’s. She takes the groceries inside as your boyfriend locks the car, both of them disappearing in the comfy-looking house.

The ending seems anti-climactic, sure. Yangyang’s learned something about your boyfriend right now, though– something he’s sure he can use against him, if he really wanted to.

“Hyunho lives alone, in like, a super pretty house just a few blocks away. Can you believe that?” your voice rings in his head, making him dryly chuckle and shake his head in disbelief.

That’s not true– his mum was home– and your boyfriend is a cheeky, little liar.

v. you should leave him, 'cause it really makes me sick

In another one of many meetings with his only friends– Renjun and Dejun– Yangyang complains. It’s the thing he likes the most, and it’s also the thing he’s the best at, so no one can really blame him for taking the time off his day to add every single, most unnecessary comment to each thing that’s just slightly annoyed him for the last week. It’s his second nature. A human instinct, even.

Most of the topics he brings up when he complains, though, include your boyfriend, in some way. It’s been a few months since you two started dating, and everyone’s gotten used to it by now, it seems, but Liu Yangyang is a one pretentious fucker– he can’t let things go as easily.

Not when you’re still, pretty much the only topic of his interest.

He should really get some new hobbies.

“And so- And so I drove past his house, and his mum was home! He’s a total liar. Can’t believe how Y/N can stand him-”

“You stalked Hyunho?” Renjun cuts him off, pointing a concerned look towards his friend, eyebrows all furrowed and bottom lip trapped between his teeth. He surely knows how to make someone feel bad about their actions– Yangyang should learn how to make that look the next time Renjun’s over, to be honest.

“I didn’t stalk him, come on. I just happened to see where he was going, and I just so happened to follow him and see his mum walk out of the house where he supposedly lives alone!” Yangyang rages, throwing his hands up into the air.

“She could have been there for a visit, for all we know…” Dejun mutters, opening a can of coke and sitting with them at the kitchen table. He chooses to sit opposite Renjun, because with how furiously Yangyang operates with the chopsticks in between his fingers, there’s a high chance that the take-out might end up in Dejun’s hair. And he really doesn’t want that. He washed it yesterday.

“Nah, bro, I’m telling you. He’s a bastard.”

With a roll of his eyes, Renjun sighs. “Just because he lives with his mum? It’s okay to live with your mum.”

“Do you live with your mum?” Yangyang argues, raising up his eyebrows.

“I don’t, but I’m just saying that if I did, it wouldn’t be such a problem-”

“It’s not just that, though! There’s so much that goes beyond the surface. One, he lies about who he lives with. Two, he always makes Y/N wait. Trust me, she’s been to the café at least 3 times now, waiting for him, and every single time, he arrived at least 30 minutes late. Three, he always makes her pay at the restaurant-”

“How would you know?”

“Ryujin told me. Y/N told her after she promised not to tell anyone, but I got it out of her,” Yangyang quickly answers, seeing Dejun widen his eyes in surprise and disbelief.

“So much for girl code…”

“Four! He hasn’t hung out with us once in these months they’ve been together. Five. I don’t like his eyebrows. He looks like a prick-”

“That’s not a valid reason,” Renjun sighs, making Yangyang roll his eyes.

“Okay, sure,” he admits, chewing on the last bite of the take-out he brought home after ending his shift at the café, swallowing before he starts talking again, desperate to prove his point, “all I’m saying is that Y/N doesn’t seem happy with him. Think about it! When was the last time she’s hung out with us? When was the last time she laughed so hard she cried? Huh? The last time I checked, it’s been a few months, and before that, it was an everyday occurance,” Yangyang shrugs, proving that he’s right– he always is.

“And neither of you like him anyway, so I don’t get why I’m the only one getting crucified for voicing my opinion!”

“Well, just speaking about it with us won’t do anything. What do you even want from this? You want them to break up?” Renjun barks, pointing his chopsticks towards Yangyang, an annoyed expression sitting at the top of his face.

“I mean…” Yangyang mumbles, averting his gaze from them.

He won’t admit to it. No, never in a million years– it’s enough that his friends still haven’t noticed the clear obsession in his eyes whenever he speaks about you. He truly cares about you, he does! And he means everything he’s saying about your new boyfriend. It’s not just jealousy shining through; even though he feels his blood boiling every time he sees you two together and his heart breaks a little every time you smile at him with just the right amount of lovesickness.

He can’t admit that he’d be much happier if you were single again– because that would mean that he could at least have a little bit of faith in himself, the smallest hint of hope that maybe, maybe if he tried hard enough, maybe if you suddenly woke up one day and magically liked him back, you could be his.

This way, though, he knows he’s hopeless.

And he feels like a played-out love song every time he sees you with Hyunho (where you laugh at his unfunny jokes and he doesn’t meet your eye contact), but Yangyang knows that he could treat you so much better than your current boyfriend ever has.

“You know, if you really want them to break up, maybe you should do something about it,” Dejun shrugs, meeting Yangyang’s eye.

Something clicks inside of his brain, gears finally finding their right place in his pea-sized brain; magically looking like a squirrel high on caffeine when he chuckles under his breath, Liu Yangyang has a masterplan he needs to execute.

Only if he knew that his actions have consequences– much bigger than he’d ever imagined.

That’s a problem for another evening, though.

vi. you don't need him, I'll help you get over it

Yangyang despises hipster cafés. Not only are they much different to the cafés he is used to– the one he works at, in particular– but the amount of plants surrounding him while indie music plays in the background surely can’t be enough to match the prices in the cheaply-made menu sitting at the top of the table.

There’s no rush. No screaming of the orders. No weird smell coming from the back. This is not the campus café he is employed at, and even though he should be glad he is enjoying coffee somewhere else just because he simply can, there’s something inside of him yearning for the comfort of something he knows so dearly.

You’re sitting in front of him, a sad face painted on your features. Of course you’re here– he wouldn’t be coming into a stupid hipster café if it wasn’t for you inviting him. The plants hanging above your head decorate your aura perfectly, though, and Yangyang simply can’t imagine spending his time with you in the half-empty, half-assed café at the very edge of your college campus anymore. This is where you belong, truly.

“What’s with the frown?” he asks almost a little too hesitantly, kicking you lightly in the shin under the table. You look up through your eyelashes, pointing your gaze towards him, a sad smile finding its way onto your face. Yangyang desperately wants to kick it away from its place– in his head, you’re only supposed to be smiling. There’s no place for a frown.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” you chuckle, though the sound doesn’t seem as light-hearted as you meant it out to be.

If there’s one thing about Yangyang, it’s that he’s annoying. Not in the bad way– he’s just that type of friend that constantly calls you when he wants to hang out, or endearingly keeps poking your sides when he wants your attention in a crowded place. He’s the one that keeps teasing you even though you’ve had enough. That can get a little overwhelming at times, sure, but in times like these, Yangyang chooses to put his annoyingness for a good cause.

He keeps lightly kicking you under the table, a childish pout sitting at his lips. “Tell me.”

“I’m alright,” you roll your eyes, shaking your head in disbelief.

“I promise I won’t tell anyone. Come on! We’re practically best friends at this point, and we all need someone to listen to us at times. Spill it out,” he keeps nagging, adding a victorious poke to your hand sitting at the top of the table as well, as a bonus.

Your eyes point towards one of the many plants in the café, the nervousness making you slowly crack the knuckles of your hands. “Fine,” you sigh, looking him dead in the eye, “but promise me you won’t tell anyone else, because god knows what they would tell me if they knew. I trust you with this, so don’t be a dick about it, okay?”

A quick nod of his head and a fast nestle in his seat after, you’re taking a deep breath in and biting on the inside of your cheek as you open your mouth to speak.

“So… There’s something worrying me… about Hyunho.”

Yangyang almost hears a siren ring inside of his ears, red flashing in front of his eyes as he nods, trying to gain his composure. Of course the problem is your boyfriend. If there wasn’t a problem with your boyfriend, Yangyang wouldn’t be here right now, sitting with you in a café. That’s the thing– you’re slowly starting to lose time for anyone else. Not that Yangyang’s salty about it…

“What is it?”

“We were supposed to hang out yesterday,” you peep, averting your gaze from him, “and sometimes he comes late, that’s fine… I’ve gotten used to it by now, but… yesterday, he didn’t come at all. I tried texting him, ringing him, I tried everything, but he’s just ignoring me,” you ramble, a worried undertone coating your words as you chew on your bottom lip and look for comfort in Yangyang’s eyes, “and I know he’s fine because he sent out a stupid Snapchat streak this morning.”

Yangyang finds it hard to look for words that would comfort you right now.

Sure, he hates that guy with everything he has in him, he hates his new haircut and he hates his voice when he hears him call you baby, but even with coming late, dropping out of college, lying about living alone and being ignorant to your friends, Yangyang never thought it would go this far.

All this time, he just thought he was blowing it out of proportion because of his teenage jealousy.

But now, when you’re clearly distressed because of his actions, he feels like the stupid plan he had in his mind back when he hung out with Renjun and Dejun isn’t as crazy anymore. If it’s gonna help you in the long run, he’s gonna do it– and not think about the consequences.

“I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, chewing on his bottom lip, “I- I don’t really know what to say…”

“It’s fine,” you nod, “maybe I’m just too dramatic-”

“Oh don’t you dare say that,” Yangyang cuts you off. There’s no way he would let you think that your emotions aren’t valid. “Actually, there’s- there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Panic flashes in front of your eyes. He would even say it’s okay for you to panic– with what he has to say next, he can only prepare for the worst outcome. You’re already becoming him to talk with a hesitant nod of your head, and he can’t back out now, can he?

“I… He’s cheating on you, Y/N.”

The world falls silent after his words. Your lips part in shock, your eyes get glossy. Yangyang can’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. Did he really get this desperate? Is he really such a dick?

Surely, he can’t be worse than the guy that left you hanging for a whole day… right?

“Are you- are you joking? Is this serious? Don’t prank me right now, Yangyang,” you mourn out, your bottom lip trembling.

What else is there to say? With just an ever-so-honest nod of his head, Yangyang confirms the lie he made up in his sick, twisted mind– all because he can’t stand to look at you with someone else that isn’t him.

What’s even worse is that even though you’re in pain, he secretly enjoys the way you curl into his chest when you cross the distance between the two of you and sit next to him in the booth, quietly sobbing into his shirt.

He really fucked up, didn’t he?

vii. he says he loves you, but it's all an act

“You did what?” Dejun stares at him in disbelief, mouth apart in shock.

The thing is, Yangyang can’t deal with his emotions alone. Also, when he does something bad, like, really really bad, there’s no way he can deal with the despair that comes with the unbelievably heavy weight of guilt alone. Liu Yangyang also loves to overshare and complain. He won’t miss his once-in-a-lifetime chance now.

His first victim? His own roommate– Xiao Dejun. He could go to Renjun, but he figures that might be too dangerous. Dejun doesn’t know you too well, so he’s not that interested in the whole case, and Yangyang’s quite sure that the fierce short boy would ignite like a match if he told him what he did, and even though he’s tiny, he can do a lot of damage. Yangyang can’t afford to get a black eye from Renjun. God knows, he might get it from Hyunho instead.

“Yeah, well-”

“Are you out of your mind? Why the fuck did you think this was a good idea?” Dejun bursts out, even forgetting to pause the TV show he’d been watching when Yangyang came into his room.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea, per se, I just thought… I-” he mumbles, shooting his arms into the air in defeat, “I was just trying to do the good thing!”

Dejun looks at him with stone cold eyes. The laughing track coming out of the laptop’s speakers does nothing to lighten up the situation; Yangyang feels chills run down his spine as the reality of everything slowly sinks and his hands turn ice cold with misery.

“No, Yangyang,” Dejun shakes his head.

Raising up his eyebrows, Yangyang blinks at his roommate. “...what, no?”

“You weren’t trying to do the good thing here, you were just doing it for yourself,” Dejun mutters, sighing. There’s disappointment coating his words and Yangyang can’t believe how scolded and defeated he feels under the weight of his roommate’s words. He doesn’t take them seriously most of the time, so this argument only proves that he should really reflect on his actions.

“How could I be doing it for myself? It’s not my relationship we’re talking about,” Yangyang rambles, shaking his head in disapproval.

“Yeah, and that’s the thing. It’s not your relationship, so why are you acting like it is? It’s not your place to lie about someone, however shitty they might be as a person, just to get them to break up! Again, you didn’t do this for her, you did this for yourself!” Dejun says, finally closing the laptop shut so the background noises don’t disturb the seriousness of the conversation.

Yangyang feels as if he is being scolded by his teacher for cheating on his exam. It feels even worse, to be exact– and he didn’t think there could be a bigger humiliation than that.

“What do I gain from this, then? If I’m doing it for myself, as you keep repeating,” Yangyang rolls his eyes in irony, chuckling at the whole situation. If it’s getting to him, he won’t let it show to Dejun. For all he knows, he didn’t care until now, so what’s changed?

Shaking his head, the older boy rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to see them together anymore, and that’s enough for you. At least your little, jealous heart will be happy now.”

“I’m not-”

“Yangyang,” Dejun cuts him off, like many times before, “do you really think nobody noticed by now?”

viii. 'cause I'm better than him, just saying

Sitting around in the park, his friends chatter away as he’s lost in thought and picks at the skin of his cuticles. Ryujin and Lia try to get his attention by talking about the new anime they’ve been watching, but there’s no use as his unfocused eyes only go through them and the smile he offers them is nowhere near an honest one. Renjun tries to drag him into a conversation by gossipping about Hendery and Yuna’s strange, but blossoming relationship, but he only chuckles at the news as his eyes drift away into the distance.

You’re not around– much like many times before, hidden away in the shade with Hyunho– but this time, Yangyang feels as if he’s the reason why you didn’t pay them a visit. It only takes a few days, hell– maybe even hours– to find out that he’s been lying, and the moment you get ahold of this information, it’s all going to get even harder for him.

Pointing his gaze towards his beaten-up converse, he plucks the grass from its place under his body and twirls the stems between his fingers, head lost in all the possible scenarios that could occur when he sees you next.

You could slap him. He would even dare to say that he deserves it; he doubts he’d be mad at you if you tried to beat him up and curse at him in front of everyone. Maybe the shame would outdo the great mistake he’s made.

You could scream at him. Truth be told, most of the possible outcomes include you screaming or cursing at him. You’re not even a violent person, but he guesses there’s no other reaction that could be the outcome of this whole situation, and he doesn’t even blame you for that.

Because Dejun is right. He did it for himself.

There was no way he could help you with this, in any way, shape or form. All he did was cause you pain.

“Yangyang?” a voice above him calls his name, causing him to look up. His heart beats wildly in his chest, heat rising to his face in anxiety; you look at him with stern eyes and lips pursed into a thin line. “Can we talk?”

Nodding, he stands up and follows you a few meters away from your group of friends, ignoring their excited waves and questions of how you’ve been and what’s up. Yangyang feels like he’s nearing his death– and from how fast his heart is beating, it could very well mean he’s close to the end by a heart attack– you stand in the shade of another tree (the one you always hang out under with your boyfriend), crossing your hands at your chest.

“What’s up?” he asks, voice low and full of shame. Even if you had no idea, now is the time you’d find out– he would gladly tell you everything, if it meant you wouldn’t get mad at him for it. That’s not how the world works, though, and so he awaits your outburst, looking like a scared dog with its tail hidden in guilt.

“Why did you lie to me?” you ask. Your voice is steady. He would even go as far as saying that you practiced this conversation with yourself in front of the mirror– you’re not a coward though, he is, and the reality must be miles away from this statement. You’ve always been good at getting your point across– no circling around the topic, edging towards the point. You go straight for it, ready for the battle. That’s what Yangyang’s liked about you perhaps the most.

“I can explain-”

“Well, that’s why I’m asking, isn’t it?” you chuckle under your breath, the bossy attitude very much in its place.

“I- I kind of panicked? In a way? All I tried was to protect you,” he desperately gets out, sweating under your gaze.

“Panicked?” you repeat, disbelief shining in the tone of your voice. “You lied to me about my boyfriend cheating on me because you panicked? Yangyang, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid I’m not quite following,” you furrow your brows at him, your sentences worthy of a lawyer’s degree.

“Look,” Yangyang sighs, pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose in hopelessness, “I couldn’t stand looking at you two together. He’s not being a good boyfriend to you, Y/N, and it hurts me to see how you get treated, when you deserve so much more!”

“That’s not for you to say!” you argue back, the scene already nearing the images he had in his brain.

“Well, who else was supposed to say it! No one cares as much as I do!”

“Yangyang!”

“That guy keeps lying to you, he keeps arriving late! Hell, he makes you pay all the time. You didn’t even know him well before you started dating him. Did he remember your anniversary?” he asks, the empty look in your eyes being enough of an answer to him, “See? Thought so. You never hang out with us anymore, he always ignores us… He stood you up and ignored you for multiple days, Y/N, for god’s sake!”

He feels the eyes of everyone on his back right now, the tone of his voice louder than he intended it to be. There’s no time to feel embarrassed, though– not when he’s trying to save his relationship with you.

“And so what, Yangyang? That’s not your shit to worry about,” you shake your head, “you hurt me. You really hurt me with your words, you know that?”

“It was necessary!” he grunts, helplessly shaking his head at your stance.

“You hate to see me with him that bad? That’s not what a good friend does, Yang,” you chew on the inside of your cheek, waiting for the last arguments that could come out of his mouth.

His heart shakes in his throat, palms sweating as his brain turns into autopilot. Fuck it, he thinks; he can’t save this anymore, so he might as well go all out. Maybe then, you’ll understand where he’s coming from better. Maybe you won’t hate him as much.

“Fuck, Y/N, that’s because I don’t want to be your friend! I could treat you so much better than he ever did.”

He doesn’t know what he expected with his words. He doesn’t know what reaction he wanted to get after his unprompted confession. Truth is, he didn’t think this far– even his wildest imaginations and scenarios he made up in his head never got to the point of him breaking and telling you how he feels.

Also, he never wanted it to sound as ‘second lead in a cliche, overplayed drama’ as it did. What is he, a Shawn Mendes song?

The reaction you give him kicks him in his gut, slaps him across the face, hits him with a full fist right into his nose. This is where a fragment of his imagination comes true. He could even be a psychic, who knows.

“Fuck you,” you spit, tongue poking the side of your cheek in pure anger, “you’re so, so unbelievably selfish.”

ix. when you change your mind, I'll be waiting

Days that come after are not much different from the weeks before. You still don’t talk to him or his friends, but the reason behind your silence is completely different now. It’s not you being busy; you no longer send an incoherent train of messages into the group chat with apologies of not knowing about the hang-outs sooner. Now, it’s because Yangyang stabbed you in the back and when he goes down, all your friends go down together. Not willingly, of course– you just knew all along that no one is happy with your new boyfriend. And that is enough of a reason for you to stay mad.

Yangyang feels numb. Drifting apart from your friends is natural. You can’t really do anything against it– bending yourself over for something that is no longer beneficial for both of the parties is never an okay thing to do. Sometimes, you just have to watch that person slowly disappear out of the reach, walk away from your life forever.

Drifting apart from your friends is natural, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt.

It hurts. It hurts so much that Yangyang chooses not to think about it any longer, because the truth is, you weren’t just his friend– you were his first love, as silly as it might sound.

Sure, he had crushes before– like on that girl in kindergarten or on that girl in middle school; the small devil that set his hair on fire in Chemistry class. It was never quite the same as the feelings he had for you, though. The nervousness and anxiety disappeared out of his body, the butterflies in his stomach not as panicky as with other girls in his life before. You made him feel calm. He didn’t have to worry about what you’d think of him when he was truly himself around you. He didn’t have to pretend to be someone he’s not– he knew you liked him as he is, and that always made him so, so uncontrollably happy. He would even say he was your favorite; over time, you started acting so– but when that place in your life was suddenly taken out of his hands, with no time to prepare, he was left empty-handed and confused.

He was so, so fond of you. At times, it looked even simple– that’s how he knew he was in love with you. Love was supposed to be simple, after all, wasn’t it?

He spends his days at the café. It’s been a few weeks since you appeared at the door with your boyfriend, getting iced coffee together and then disappearing once again, on another one of your usual dates. He does his work on autopilot, his head somewhere completely else.

Exams pass as fast as they come. He is surprised with himself to still get a decent grade– although he thinks he would’ve done better if you studied with him instead. The trip to the McDonald’s with your friends and Dejun to celebrate the semester ending seems empty without your cheerful voice filling the room and he can’t get himself to focus on a single word that comes out of his friends’ mouths.

The last day of school is filled with emptiness in his stomach. It’s not that he’s not excited for summer break, but something tells him that it won’t be as exciting if you’re not there to drag him to the beach, or watch him skate around the town and fall down and scrape his knees. He was the main character of your Instagram stories last summer, and he was proud of being so. Not that he gained any new followers out of it, no– he just enjoyed the world seeing that he spends a lot of time with you.

Poking the food around on his plate, his head is hung low and his brows are furrowed into a worried expression. He doesn’t like sitting alone at lunch in the cafeteria, for it’s always filled to the brim with people and it makes him feel lonely, but all his friends are in class or at home, still, waiting for the last class of their semester to start after lunch break. He’s left alone– he’s quite getting used to it, though, so when the sound of a plate hitting the table across from him startles him from his slumber, he’s more shocked than ever before.

Looking up, he’s met with the state of you. It’s a sight that shakes him down to his core. Truth is, he wasn’t used to seeing you face to face anymore; not saying that he forgot what you looked like. He spent countless hours stalking you on social media, after all. Now, though, you look different than before– your hair looks less taken care of and your outfit looks like you put less effort into, resulting in wearing oversized clothing rather than carefully matched pieces completed with accessories. Today, you look simple, yet, even that was enough to make Yangyang’s eyes wide and lick his lips in anticipation.

“Can I sit here?” you ask. Yangyang feels himself eagerly nod, putting the fork in his hand away, as if to brace himself for the impact of your words.

Your body slungs itself into the seat in front of him, placing your arms onto the table and nestling a little in your place. Yangyang would even go as far as calling you nervous, from how your eyes hesitantly meet his figure and kick your leg up and down under the table.

“What’s up?” he breaks the silence, because he thinks that if you sit with him without a word much longer, he’s going to explode.

Shrugging, you tightly smile. “Not much. How did your exams go?”

The question catches him off guard. He surely didn’t expect such causality from you, after everything that’s happened between the two of you. “They went well,” he shrugs, “yours?”

You nod, the smile on your face growing even tighter. “Yeah, they went okay, I guess…” you mumble, “could have gone better, but… given the circumstances I was in, I’m glad I could even focus on writing the answers down, to be honest.”

Yangyang wants to ask you what happened. Surely, the fight you had couldn’t be the reason why you couldn’t focus on your exams. You were the top of the class, the best student; you never had any problems with studying. There must have been something else going on that made you be out of it. He almost opens his mouth to ask you about it, when you cut him off and ask another question, desperately wanting to keep up with the conversation.

“Do you have any plans for the summer?” your eyes light up when you finally open your mouth and take a bite of the food sitting on your plate, waiting for your friend to answer as you chew on the sandwich.

“...not really,” he shrugs. He had plans before; he wanted to take you to the beach again, but this time, you’ll have a sandcastle contest. He also wanted to go camping, and there was this latino party scheduled for the fourth week of the break he wanted to take you to. He also wanted to invite you to his hometown, because his mother wanted to see you. And somewhere along the way, he wanted to confess to you… but that plan clearly failed.

“Hm,” you hum, swallowing before you speak again, “I was wondering if you wouldn’t teach me how to skate this summer. You know, since I was too scared to try last year.”

Yangyang hesitantly meets your eyes again, licking his lips with nerves. What is it with you suddenly having plans for the summer with him? For all he knew, you never wanted to see him again after his blatant lie a few weeks ago.

“But that’s gonna have to wait a few weeks. I… I have to go home to visit my mum. She’s been on and on about how I never come home nowadays, and that I should just spend the summer break at home this time and that I need to get out of this town, but I…” you trail off, shaking your head, “all I’m saying is, I’ll meet you in three weeks. And then, we can do whatever you want.”

He stays quiet. The whole conversation is strange, the situation making his stomach twist and anxiety sit in his bones. This is not how he’s used to feeling next to you, so it’s all new to him, but just the fact that you’re talking to him, seemingly not mad anymore, is making him fill with courage as he moves closer to the edge of the seat and cracks his knuckles, preparing himself.

“Y/N…” he trails off, in a sudden loss for words.

“You were right,” you get out, a tight smile plastered on your face, “I broke up with him,” you say, nodding to prove your point.

Nothing in the world could prepare him for the words that came out of your mouth. He’s not even sure how he should feel– does he get happy? Does he feel sorry for your failed relationship? How does a man, who’s coincidentally, still kind of in love with someone, feel when that someone breaks up with their toxic boyfriend?

Is it relief? Joy? He’s not quite sure.

Perhaps he hasn’t grown enough as a person to feel worry for you at first. After a few heartbeats, though, it settles in, and he finds himself uttering out the words.

“I’m… I’m sorry to hear that, Y/N.”

“Yeah, it’s- it’s okay. I should have listened a long time ago. But that’s not important right now-”

“What happened?” he asks. The change is sudden, for sure. You seemed like you would never break up with that dude, no matter how many valid arguments you got from your friends. So what changed your mind?

“He cheated on me,” you say, chuckling a little in irony, “maybe you should be a psychic, or something, because with how accurate your predictions are, you would have a secure place on the market. Maybe I’ll get you tarot cards for your birthday, so we have more to work with-” you ramble on and on, until he doesn’t compose himself and cut you off, saving you from your misery.

“I’m sorry Y/N. You didn’t deserve that.”

You bite on your cheek, nodding. He must admit, you look down. Yes, he did want you to break up with Hyunho, but never in a million years would he really want you to hurt as much as actually finding out that he cheated on you.

“Thanks, Yangyang,” you mutter, smiling– except this time, the smile looks genuine, “so… we don’t have to talk about all of that. Let’s just… leave it in the past,” you giggle, taking another bite of your sandwich.

Your friend nods, suddenly feeling lighter. The weight of shattering the friendship you two had is no longer sitting on his shoulders, and although it’s shitty, he’s glad he has you back. He never knew just how much you could miss someone until he didn’t get to the point of missing the one person he claimed to be the most important to him.

“I had a few plans for summer, actually,” he says, smiling, “we could do them all after you arrive.”

“Really?” you light up, kicking him lightly under the table.

“Yeah! I wanted to go to the beach, since you like it that much.”

“You don’t even have to plan that, you already know I’m dragging your ass over there every third day of the summer,” you laugh.

“And we could go camping,” he mentions, “with everyone. I know Renjun has a tent he could lend us, and Dejun is learning how to play the guitar recently, so we can exploit him a little and invite him just so he can play some tunes while we start the bonfire,” he grins.

“Amazing. Anything else?”

“Hmm…” he searches in his brain, the schedule he made in his phone a few months ago opening in front of his eyes as a hologram, “there’s a latino party the week after you come back.”

“I hate dancing…” you mourn out, seeing him laugh at you.

“That’s not true!”

“It totally is.”

“Well then, I don’t care. I’m dragging you with me, because there’s no way you will get through this summer without seeing that those hips don’t lie,” he giggles, suggestively wiggling in his seat, making you burst out with laughter.

“Okay,” you nod, rolling your eyes playfully at your friend. Something in the air suggests that you both missed this– useless ideas shared at the lunch table, careless laughter flowing through the space. It’s like the universe is back aligned again, because you two are in each other’s lives, content with each other’s company. “Any other plans that need mentioning?”

“Well…” Yangyang starts, the checklist in his phone app he made before you started dating your ex boyfriend materializing in his thoughts, the last paragraph loud and clear in his mind.

4. confess or whatever; it says at the very bottom. Yangyang despises that he remembers it so clearly.

“We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll come up with something,” he says, seeing you smile widely at him, finishing the last bite of your sandwich.

Standing up from your place, he follows you as you escape the cafeteria. The hot air outside slaps both of you in the face, but neither of you care as you bathe in the sunlight, enjoying the first day of summer break together. You’re leaving for three weeks, and Yangyang’s sure he’ll miss you; but the few days are nothing against the weeks of silence he got from you when he messed up in the past. He’s sure he can live through it. At least now, he’s sure you’re coming back.

“I’m excited to spend the summer with you all,” you say when you sit outside.

“Me too,” he smiles. The sun hits his eyes, making him squint, but even that can’t make him hate the feeling of incoming summer that visits him with a promise of adventure.

And when you put your head on his shoulder, relaxed and comfortable, looking up to meet his eyes with eyes full of familiar glimmer, Yangyang almost promises to himself to confess to you again, when the time is right and you’re both ready.

Who knows. It might even work next time.

#nct #wayv #nct fluff #nct angst #wayv fluff #wayv angst #yangyang fluff #yangyang angst #nct fic #wayv fic #yangyang fic #yangyang x reader #nct x reader #wayv x reader #nct imagine #wayv imagine #yangyang imagine

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disclove · 2 years

Text

HEARTSIGH . hrj (ft. lyy)

PAIRING / HUANG RENJUN X YANG NANA (FT. LIU YANGYANG)

WORD COUNT / ~15000

SYNOPSIS / everyone was in love with huang renjun, right? the student council prez with perfect grades that every parent would kill to have as a son-in-law. but not nana, and she had a good reason. but would she change her mind after a drunken dare that she'd stupidly agreed to? or would it end terribly?

GENRE / COMEDY, ANGST, PINING, BET AU, RICH KID AU, HIGH SCHOOL AU.

WARNINGS / there's a lot... umm ... mentions of self-harm, depression, anxiety, smoking, a lot of toxic behavior, nana and renjun are both assholes (lowkey), violence, manipulation & kind of gaslighting?? not sure if i missed anything

PLAYLIST / OKAY - CHASE ATLANTIC, MODERN LONELINESS - LAUV, I HATE U - SZA, YOU WON'T BE THERE FOR ME - SLCHLD, BYE MY FIRST - NCT DREAM.

NOTE FROM TAOJUN / hello! this is a repost from my old account NEOWAVES (& nana is an oc). this is part of my HIGH SCHOOL CLICHE series and dedicated @njmverse from the neosecretsanta collab! like and reblog if you enjoyed, and please send any feedback in my askbox!

TAGS / @ankathi-a, @nct-writers, @kflixnet, @ficscafe !

NEW BLOG, NEW TAGLIST - FORM HERE!

i. the face of a bitch, who never rests

“I should’ve known better than to trust a bitch that doesn’t even go to this school,” Nana scowls, throwing an empty glass bottle down from the roof. A smirk grows on her face as the ear-splitting sound of the glass shattering on the concrete echoes through the air.

“Gosh, I fucking hate him. Can’t believe I fell for such a bitch, but I probably never liked him anyway.”

Yangyang grabs her hand before she reaches for another glass bottle. “Stop. You’ll get in trouble.”

“Do I look like I give a single shit?” she snaps, with a cigarette sticking out of her mouth, prying his grip off of her as she hurls the next bottle down the side of the building.

“I told you he was bad news,” he sighs. “His facade was too perfect to be true—”

“Mhm. What— you’re gonna tell me ‘I told you so’? Thanks for the moral support,” she sneers, taking the cigarette between her fingers and pulling it out of her mouth.

“Yang Nana. You can’t just let all your self-esteem break down over a piece of fucking trash,” Yangyang glares at her. “You always said you’d never let anyone break you, and yet here you are, smashing shit to stop yourself from crying.”

She grips a broken glass bottle, feeling the glass shards dig into her skin and pierce it, yet she barely registers the pain.

“Everyone in my life is a fucking liar,” she sneers, watching as the glass cuts into her skin and blood flows down her fingers, stomping the fire out of her cigarette under the soles of her boot. “and I hate him.”

“Nana,” Yangyang scolds with a sigh, prying the glass from her palm and grabbing her injured hand, lightly picking a few glass shards out. “We’re going to the nurse. Stop doing this to yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and pick your confidence back up. Don’t let him take a single thing from you by leaving.”

With that, he grabs her non-injured hand and leads her down the stairs, away from the rooftop with a crate of glass beer bottles with the blood-stained glass shards on the ground.

“Why do you resort to self-harm every time?” Yangyang sighs as he watches the blood drip off of her fingertips and onto the ground, leading her across campus to fix up her hand.

Nana stays silent, and Yangyang just shakes his head, knowing she was too stubborn to listen. His gaze hardened when he saw Renjun walking out of one of his classes, already heading in their direction. But before he could lead Nana out of the impending argument that was inevitably going to happen, Renjun already saw them from across the hall, and was walking towards the two of them.

“Hey, Yang Nana, what happened to your hand?” Renjun asks in mock concern, his eyes lingering on the blood dripping down her hand. “Lost your temper again?”

She scowls at the bitchy tone of his otherwise sweet words. “None of your fucking business, kiss-up.”

“That's no way to speak to the student council president,” he tsks, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Calm down, I was just asking. Sometimes I think you hate me for no reason.”

“Yeah, you’re only student council president to build your resume because your grades are trash,” she snaps. “And because only two people ran for president. Get your head out of your fucking ass, bitch.”

“Last time I checked, I’m number 4 overall in the school for grades. You’re just two places higher because you fucking cheated,” Renjun sneers back.

“Wow, the perfect boy knows how to curse,” she gasps sarcastically, before addressing his accusations. “And no, I didn’t cheat. Just because I’m smarter than your dumb ass doesn’t mean I cheated. I don’t care about my image and status being perfect as much as you do, you conceited bitch.”

“Oh, really? Why don’t you tutor me then?” he suggests with a smirk on his face, raising an eyebrow.

“Mhm… no, go kiss your chemistry teacher’s ass. Maybe Dr. Ou-Yang will pity you and give you a chance at being valedictorian… that is, if you can beat Huang Xinyi… or me,” she retorts.

Renjun hesitates for a moment, and Nana takes this chance to stick her middle finger in his face and brush past him, Yangyang’s hand still firmly in her grip.

“God, he’s such an annoying shit,” she scowls. “Pretentious ass.”

Yangyang sighs, unconsciously repeating Renjun’s words. “Sometimes I think you hate him for no reason.”

She stops in her tracks abruptly, turning to look at him sharply. “I have very good reasons to dislike him, in fact. You of all people should know this.”

He holds in yet another sigh, nodding as he walks Nana into the nurse’s office. The student who was taking Dr. Li’s place during his break, Guo Yifeng, glances at Nana and her bleeding hand and frowns— while suppressing a smile at the sight of her hand firmly in Yangyang’s grip.

“What happened, Nana?” Yifeng asks, cocking her head in the direction of her injured hand.

“Glass shards,” Nana responds plainly, not caring to elaborate further.

Yangyang lets go of her hand and pushes her slightly towards the seat next to Yifeng, causing her to fall into it ungracefully.

Yifeng gently takes Nana’s hand, inspecting the glass puncturing her skin with a sigh. She turns away to grab a bottle of disinfecting alcohol and a few cotton balls, dampening the cotton with the alcohol as she speaks.

“The glass cut pretty deep into you, so I’m going to need to use tweezers to pick them out,” she explains as she lightly wipes away the blood near the wounds on Nana’s hand. Grabbing a tweezer, Yifeng looked at her closely. “It might hurt, but I don't have enough time to take you to a hospital. We can’t let the glass go in any deeper, or it’ll never come out and keep cutting you internally, causing a lot of internal bleeding.”

Nana nods indifferently, sucking in a breath as she feels Yifeng’s tweezers pulling a glass shard out of her hand. With her other hand, Yifeng immediately grabbed a cotton pad to press against the blood rushing out from the open wound.

After extracting a few more pieces and bandaging her hand carefully, Yifeng breathes out in relief.

“You’re lucky there weren’t that many small pieces that went underneath your skin, but make sure to let your hand rest for about a week. Change bandages everyday, and if you don’t have enough of them, you can always come back to get more,” she says with a smile. “Try not to get injured so much in the future, okay?”

But her words went ignored as Nana grabs Yangyang’s hand again and exits the nurse’s office.

“Where do you want to go now?” Nana asks. “God, this means that I can’t work. Fuck it, I’m working anyway. I need the money.”

“You should rest. But before that— let's go beat up your ex.”

“But… ” she starts, a little apprehensive— but brushes off her concerns quickly, slightly scared to ruin her reputation by turning Yangyang down. “Never mind. yeah, let’s go.”

They approach Yangyang’s motorcycle, Nana climbing on directly behind Yangyang.

Though he looked composed, all of his thoughts masked behind his indifferent facade, Yangyang shakes with rage under his calm expression. Nana has been the only person he’s ever trusted, and he became extremely wary when she started dating Jaemin.

Yangyang was so suspicious of his perfect facade, and the way they even met— Jaemin lived in Korea, for fuck’s sake. He visited China every few weeks only when he didn’t want to attend school, until he graduated. He moved to a university near their school in China, yet turned down her multiple offers to meet up, despite the significant decrease of difficulty to just walk a few blocks down to meet his girlfriend.

And a few days ago, his fling had texted Nana and apologized, explaining what had happened. She had hooked up with Jaemin multiple times without knowing that he had a girlfriend.

Instead of wanting to kill Jaemin like he had expected, she had only sent him a “fuck you” text and blocked him everywhere she could.

Yangyang knew that Nana was broken, yet she pushed him away— and there was nothing he could do about it.

Once they got to the back of Jaemin’s university, Yangyang dialed his number, making sure that his number remained unknown to Jaemin.

“Back of your school,” Yangyang snaps angrily. “Square up, you fucking asshole.”

“I’m surprised that Jaemin didn’t hit you back,” Nana sighs as she bandages Yangyang’s wounds. “but holy fucking shit, Jeno is strong as fuck.”

She had only gotten a punch in the nose by Jaemin’s friend Haechan, but Jaemin pulled him back, unable to help Yangyang while Jeno had, quite literally, beaten Yangyang up.

“Don’t remind me,” he groans, as he hissed out in pain when Nana’s alcohol wipes brushed over his open wounds. “God, I had no idea Jaemin’s friends were assholes too. I thought they’d be mad that Jaemin cheated, but they’re sticking up for a motherfucker like him? Wow. I am absolutely fucking speechless.”

“I know, I can’t believe it either,” she sighs, while turning to glance at the clock, gasping as she reads the time. “Shit, it’s already 4. I need to go to work.”

“Not with that,” Yangyang eyes her bandaged hand, with a raised eyebrow and a pointed expression on his face.

She just rolls her eyes at him. “You can’t stop me.”

“Well, I’ll still be at your house when you get back. We’re going to a party at night,” he sighs out, knowing that he couldn’t change her mind, being the stubborn person she was.

ii. truth or dare? that’s boring, let’s play dare or humiliation!

True to his word, Yangyang was still sitting on her couch nearly six hours later, scrolling through his Netflix account that he logged into on Nana’s TV.

“Oh, you’re back,” he yawns, blinking his drowsiness away as he sat up. “Just finished binging The Untamed. Gosh, I forgot how much it fucking sucks.”

She makes a sound acknowledging his statement while rubbing her eyes, setting her bag down on a chair.

“God, just came back from three shifts,” she sighs tiredly. “And I’m barely making enough to cover this month,”

Yangyang frowns at his friend’s tired state. “Nana… I told you that I can help you pay it off, I have too much money anywa—”

“No.” She interrupts sternly. “Ma would’ve hated that. She hated owing people money, and I’ll just feel bad knowing that you paid off Ma’s hospital debt, which should’ve been Ba’s responsibility. But he’s gone too, so it’s my job now. I’m not going to let you offer me your whole allowance to cover this.”

Yangyang sighs. “But you literally work, like, 30 hours a week on the weekdays and an extra 20 hours a week on the weekends! You need a break, I’ll just cover one month for you—”

“Stop it, Yangyang. I said no.”

He just pouts. I can’t ever do anything nice for Nana without her getting upset.

“Fine. Let’s get ready, the party is in half an hour.”

“What party?” she asks in confusion. “I’m fucking exhausted, I’m not in the mood to party.”

But he just ignores her words as he pulls out an outfit for her from a bag that he had placed inconspicuously on the floor a few hours ago. “Put it on, I’m waiting!”

“When did you even buy this?!” she gapes, her eyes widening as she reads the designer brand name and the price tag of each piece. Her jaw drops upon reading the huge number. “Yangyang, this is literally enough to cover two months of the hospital debt!! What were you thinking?! This is so fucking expensive I-”

“It’s not important… put it on!” he says, cutting her off successfully.

She exhales a breath steadily, and goes into her room to change, with the outfit in her hands. Yangyang had chosen a pair of high-waisted ripped straight denim jeans, a Gucci belt, and a black ribbed tube top with sheer sleeves, leaving a small section of skin exposed above the waistband.

Nana sighs, feeling bad for accepting all of the extravagant gifts Yangyang buys for her— at this point, he could honestly pass for her sugar daddy. She pairs the outfit with more jewelry that he bought for her; a simple gold chain choker, and a few rings— a twisted silver one on her right index, a simple rose gold one that she placed halfway on her right middle finger, a bronze chain one on her right index, a thick jade ring that she got from her grandmother (the only one that wasn’t from Yangyang), which she placed on her left middle finger, a gold one with a crescent moon on it halfway on her left ring finger (which was from a matching set with Yangyang), and a claw ring that started from the base of her left index to adorning the tip of her finger.

Grabbing a pair of purple tinted glasses to, hopefully, complete her look, she walks outside of her room. “Yangyang, you really need to stop buying me shit… you’re literally being a sugar daddy at this point,” she jokes.

“Oh? Do you want me to be your daddy?” he smirks, and Nana’s eyes widen slightly at the innuendo, but she just scoffs, a disgusted expression on her face.

“You wish.”

Yangyang snickers at that, and casually grabs a pair of heeled sandals out of the same bag as before. “Shoes.”

Nana sighs. “Literally 90% of the shit I wear is bought by you, Yangyang, you really need to stop.”

But her words go ignored by Yangyang, who places the shoes into her hands.

“Let’s go,” he smiles as she finishes fastening her new shoes, taking her hand and leading her out of her apartment, back onto his motorcycle again.

Nana wrinkles her nose at the already overwhelming scent of alcohol in the air as she enters the party with Yangyang. She mentally freezes in anger as she realizes whose party this is, seeing Renjun — who’s already drunk and complaining about something (probably Nana) to his friend Chenle—from across the room.

She turns accusingly to Yangyang, but he was already gone; he knew better than to stick around and get yelled at by Nana.

With a sigh, she walks into the kitchen, grabbing a mixed drink on the table, grimacing at the initial taste.

“Fancy seeing you here,” a voice says behind her. She smirks as she turns to meet his eyes.

“Guanheng, what the fuck did you put in this drink?” Nana snorts as she takes another sip.

“Ah… it’s my new special, the one I’d like to call Drunk In My Bed,” he snickers. “How is it?”

“Terrible,” she jokes. “I think I’ll Puke In Your Bed instead.”

He frowns, clutching his chest in mock pain.

“How rude of you, Nana,” he gasps out playfully. “That’s my favorite creation!”

She smirks while downing the rest of the drink. “When are we playing beer pong?”

“Any time you want, babe,” he flirts, raising an eyebrow with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Are you playing with me?”

“Only if you don’t suck, sweetheart,” she plays along. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make better drinks. You need an upgraded bartender.”

With that, she grabs the tequila, vodka, Sprite, mango juice and orange juice from his fridge, along with a drink shaker and a few syrups he has stashed in a cupboard.

She shakes up an array of drinks, making Guanheng hand them out, who promises a round of beer pong after everyone is drunk enough.

Nana rests her arm on Yangyang’s shoulder as she hands him a drink. He takes it and drinks it, humming in approval.

“What’s happening now?” she asks.

“Nothing interesting,” he shrugs. “Just Renjun shit-talking you, but I didn’t expect anything more from that snake.”

She sighs in response. “Let’s beat him up later, we’re playing beer pong first.”

Just as she finishes speaking, Guanheng claps his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Hey everyone, we’re playing beer pong, so join me in the room with a partner if you want to play or watch— there’s a total of three tables to play on.”

“Let’s go,” Nana smiles, taking Yangyang’s hand and leading him to the beer pong tables. “You want to play?”

“No, I’ll just watch you and Guanheng argue,” he smirks.

“I heard my name,” Guanheng winks as he joins Nana at one side of a table.

“Who wants to play against the godly beer pong duo?!” Yangyang yells out loudly.

The party goes silent for a moment, before Renjun (who is already nearly bat-shit drunk) yells, “Me and Chenle-ya will do it!”

“You’ve made a bad decision, Renjun-ah,” he mumbles out to Renjun with a smirk on his face.

“It’s okay, he was a bad decision,” Nana smirks. “Bring it on, losers.”

Before Renjun could open his mouth to retort, Yangyang pushes them to the other side of the table. And suddenly, the two other beer pong tables look empty as everyone huddles around the center table with Nana and Guanheng against Renjun and Chenle.

“Let’s fucking go, Yang Nana!” Siyuan yells out loudly, already almost batshit drunk. Chenle and Guanheng fill their respective cups with beer as Renjun and Nana stare at each other.

“Bring it on, Mr. Perfect,” Nana snickers.

Renjun grabs a ping-pong ball and aims it at their side of cups, but it bounces off the rim of the center cup and onto the table.

“Darn, your aim sucks,” she taunts as she grabs herself a ball, easily tossing it into the cup closest to Renjun. The crowd of students go wild as she cocks an eyebrow at him. “Drink up, prez.”

He mutters out complaints while tossing the ball back to their side, taking the cup of beer and drinking it all. Chenle grabs another ball, resisting the urge to facepalm at the obvious tension between the two, and easily gets it into the cup closest to the center.

Guanheng sighs as he grabs the cup, tossing the ball back to Chenle, who hands it to Renjun, and downs the beer— so quickly that it leaves a burn in his throat, which he grimaces at, before grabbing their ping-pong ball.

He manages to get it into the cup in the corner, and Nana lets out a small breath of relief as Chenle drinks all of the liquid in the cup.

Renjun squints at cups in front of him, his vision already getting a little blurry with the alcohol in his lightweight system.

Surprisingly, he manages to get it into the left cup in the second row. Nana grabs it with a scoff, taking out the ball and throwing it at Renjun’s head before pouring the whole drink into her mouth, throwing the cup behind her.

She grabs the ball in Guanheng’s hand, staring closely as she aims it at a random cup, and it lands in with a splash. Renjun lets out an audible groan as he grabs the cup, rolls the ball towards the other side, and drinks it all.

It’s Chenle’s turn now, but he misses, and Renjun nearly screams in frustration.

“Chenle, you fucking suck,” he whines, and Nana doesn’t even suppress the laugh bubbling up within her.

“You also missed one,” she smirks. “Therefore, you also suck.”

Guanheng grabs the ball and lands it into the cup nearest to the center, and Chenle grumbles an insult at Renjun as he drinks it.

“All your fucking fault for making me play with you,” Chenle tsks. “I should’ve just ignored you.”

Renjun just shrugs as he attempts to throw the ball into another cup. But it fails, bouncing on the rim of two cups before landing on the table— but by now, mostly everyone has dissipated from the crowd, disappointed in Renjun’s and Chenle’s lack of skill. Nana just gives him a mocking pity smile as she tosses the ball into the right cup in the second row.

“Looks like you’re the one who fucking sucks,” she snickers, watching as he downs the cup of beer with a pout on his face.

“Shut up, you’re only good because you have nothing better to do,” he snaps.

“That’s a bad way of coping, assuming things just because you’re bad at it. You’d be bad at this even if you did it every single day,” she says disapprovingly with a click of her tongue. “You just don’t know how to do anything except be a nerd. Is this your first time tasting alcohol, goody two shoes?”

Chenle interrupts their argument with a cough, getting his ball into the middle cup closest to the other side. Guanheng exhales air through his nose as he drinks, slamming the cup on the table as he consumes the whole cup. He grabs the ping pong ball, focusing on the last cup standing on the other side.

“You better get this one, or I’m never playing beer pong with you again,” Nana whispers threateningly.

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” he smirks back as he bounces the ball on the table, and into the last cup.

Renjun groans as Chenle finishes the last cup on their side, whining about Chenle making them lose.

“As customary to our version of beer pong, you guys also have to split the last three cups of beer too,” Nana winks as she leaves the room.

Siyuan drags Nana to the group of people playing their version of Truth or Dare.

“Siyuan, Truth or Dare is the dumbest game in the history of dumb games,” Nana deadpans. “For the last time, I am not playing.”

“Hey, hey,” Guanheng pipes up from the circle. “We’re not playing Truth or Dare. That’s boring. We’re playing Dare or Humiliation!”

Nana raises her eyebrows.

“Come on, just one round, please?” Siyuan pouts, and she groans, obliging with a few “fine, okay”’s falling from her lips.

Siyuan spins the bottle in the middle to choose the first victim player.

And it lands on Siyuan. Nana smirks as she senses Siyuan’s grimace.

“Tang Siyuan,” Nana says. “Dare or Humiliation?”

“Hm… um, I’ll pick Dare,” Siyuan sighs.

“Wise choice,” Guanheng winks at her, and spins the wheel of dares on his phone, which everyone in the circle contributed to.

“Mix Lao Gan Ma, soymilk, mung bean ice cream, sesame paste, orange juice, salted egg crackers, that 5-day old jasmine milk tea with brown sugar boba and coconut jelly in Guanheng’s fridge, and yogurt in a blender and drink it,” he snickers, but it fades and a terrified expression grows on his face as he reads the rest of the dare. “And then… kiss Guanheng. I- wait, what? What if I got this one? Would I kiss myself?”

The two victims cringe at the sound of the monstrous dare.

“Now, who came up with this?!” he cries out in terror.

“Me,” Yangyang says casually. “Great dare, right? I was kind of hoping that Siyuan would get this one.”

Siyuan scowls at him as everyone else in the circle excitedly gets up to make her the gag-guaranteed drink.

Soon, Nana approaches her again with the demonic concoction of a drink— chunky and revolting— with a shit-eating grin on her face as Siyuan reluctantly accepts the cursed cup of disgusting foods.

“Drink up, darling,” she smirks at the scowl on Siyuan’s face.

Plugging her nose and quickly pouring the mixture into her mouth, she swallows with a grimace on her face.

“Oh God, that was nasty. Guanheng, come here,” Siyuan says with a cheeky grin on her face, grabbing him by the neck. She connects her lips with Guanheng’s, making sure that she slides her tongue into his mouth— forcing him to taste the gag-worthy drink, too.

He pulls away as soon as she lets go, coughing and choking at the taste.

“I’m getting water to wash that shit down,” he gags, as she follows him to get some for herself as well.

Siyuan sits back down in the circle, spinning the bottle again a little too eagerly.

It lands on Yangyang, and he groans out “Dare”, as Guanheng spins the wheel again.

“Kiss the person closest to you,” he reads. “Simple enough. You and Meng Xiyun.”

Xiyun cringes slightly at the dare, but stays in place as Yangyang pecks her on the lips, an indifferent expression on his face as he grabs the bottle to spin.

About ten rounds go by before the bottle lands on Nana.

“Dare,” she shrugs.

“Shit, we’re out of dares,” Guanheng sighs as he looks at the zero at the top of the “New Dares” list. “Anyone have a dare for her?”

Siyuan perks up, a little too eagerly as she downs the rest of her Tsingdao beer bottle, slamming it onto the floor as she yells out drunkenly, “MAKE OUT WITH HUANG RENJUN!”

Everyone in the circle goes silent. Nana’s eyes flick to the side of the room, where Renjun is still shit-talking someone (presumably, her) to Chenle, who looks extremely exasperated, but unable to stop his friend from complaining.

She hesitates for a few moments, but smirks and lets out a scoff as she processes the dare.

“Sure, I’ll do it,” she said indifferently, grabbing Yangyang’s half-empty beer bottle and chugging the rest of it before slamming it down on the ground again.

“Nana, what the fuck,” Yangyang deadpanned.

“Bitch, I’m not doing this sober.”

Everyone’s eyes widen in complete shock as she stands up and makes her way towards Renjun.

He loses his train of thought as he sees Nana walking towards him, and Chenle takes this as a cue to leave. She smirks at his pathetic attempt to back away— completely backing himself into a wall instead.

She slaps her hand to the wall beside him as she looks him up and down in disgust. She raises an eyebrow, exhaling heavily through her nose.

“Hey, student council president,” she scoffs. “Don’t you know it’s rude to talk shit about other people? Especially if they can hear you?”

He lets out an audible gulp as her hot breath brushes across face, making him look even more flushed on top of his drunken red glow.

“I— uh, yeah— but—” Renjun stammers, but before he could get an excuse out, she leans in even closer and his eyes blow wide as she connects her lips to his.

He doesn’t know how to react. His lips stay completely frozen as hers move against his passionately. Out of all the things he expected to happen, getting his first kiss as a makeout session from the person he hated the most was absolutely not one of them.

Renjun loses it when her tongue glides over his bottom lip, gasping into the kiss as her tongue slides into his mouth. He closes his eyes, kissing back as he moves his hands up to her head, pulling her even closer to him. He nearly moans into the kiss as her fingers find their way onto him, running through the hairs at the nape of his neck as her tongue explores each and every crevice of his mouth.

But just when Renjun was debating whether to slide his tongue into her mouth as well— something that had never even crossed his mind before, let alone considered— Nana suddenly pulls away, blowing out a breath against his lips before walking away, throwing a wink behind her shoulder at him before joining the circle again.

“I told you it was easy,” she states nonchalantly, like she definitely did not just have a heated makeout session with someone whom she hated more than her father (which was truly an impressive feat).

The rest of the group was still shocked, staring at her like she just entered the room from the ceiling.

“You— Renjun— that—“ Siyuan sputters out in disbelief, the shock from watching that probably sobering up her mind. “You actually did it?! I was joking, Nana. And I was drunk!”

“Don’t pretend to be innocent,” Nana rolls her eyes. “I know that all of you wanted to see that.”

A wave of embarrassment hits Renjun after he hears the conversation, as tears well up in his eyes.

Of course she isn’t interested in you, Renjun, he thought bitterly to himself. You were a fucking asshole to her.

And his eyes widen at the thought of thinking of her that way and he spins back to look at Nana’s expression, which looks uncannily similar to the Cheshire cat’s.

Don’t I hate her? Why do I even care?

His thoughts were nearly visible on his face.

Oh, sweetheart… that’s only what you want to believe, Nana thinks to herself, the shit-eating grin plastered on her face only growing.

iii. step one: try to make him like you— well shit, step one failed.

Nana wakes up in Yangyang’s bed to a massive headache and around fifty text notifications blowing up her phone.

Rubbing her eyes and yawning, she sits up, blinking her eyes as she regains consciousness, drinking a glass of water on the table beside the bed she was in.

She unlocks her phone, her eyes widening comically as she reads the texts guilty of blowing up her notifications for the past few hours.

siyuan idiot 🤺 — 01:04babe i know you’re batshit drunk right now but i think it’s a good idea to text you this so you DO know even though i’m right next to your drunk ass right the fuck now don’t kill me pls but i dared you to makeout with huang renjun and your dumbfuck ass DID… i- I’M SORRY FOR THE DARE ??? BUT I I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE ACTUALLY GOING TO DO IT ?@?1)*;&2(#1%$?!/ 😭😭 NANA PLEASE DON’T KILL ME ;A;

guanheng aka devil 👹 — 01:47 YANG NANA YOU DID NOT YOU FUCKING MADE OUT WITH HUANG RENJUN ??? IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AT MY PARTY???? OH MY GOD I NEVER KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME LMFAOO i am ACTUALLY WHEEZING btw i recorded it ;) Attachment: 1 video i’m sending this to everyone LMAOOOO

guanheng aka devil 👹 — 09:31Renjun’s at mine rn and he’s having a breakdown bc i told him what happened BSHKDSMSN help i’m trying not to laugh but it’s nOT WORKING

yangyang fake tsundere 😇 — 10:26you’re at my house rn (in case your hungover ass forgot <3) i just left to go buy you breakfast ok? do not call 119 today bc i’m not there :) i did NOT abandon you

Her face pales.

She kissed Renjun last night? The Huang Renjun who she claims to hate so much?

Nana’s cheeks flush upon watching the video.

Oh God. I’m fucked.

“Siyuan, this is all your fucking fault,” Nana whines, back at her favorite spot (or the rooftop). Her legs dangle off the side, and she kicks her feet around like a child as she frowns in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, Nana,” she apologizes for the umpteenth time, handing Nana a cup of her favorite drink: roasted oolong milk tea with brown sugar boba, light sugar and no ice.

Nana begrudgingly accepts, taking a sip and smiling at the taste. “I’ll forgive you after you buy me… hm, another twenty of these.”

But her smile soon fades again, remembering all the memories that she associated with the drink.

“Nana? Earth to Nana,” Siyuan says, snapping her fingers in front of Nana’s face.

Hearing the loud sound, she snaps back to reality and blinks away the memories, turning to face her friend.

“What?” Nana asks.

“I said,” she smirks. “Maybe you can use Renjun to get over Jaemin.”

She subconsciously flinches at the sound of his name.

“I… well, I mean,” Nana stutters. “It’s not a bad idea?”

“Exactly!” she grins. “You hate him anyway. No strings attached, you know? What’s the worst that can happen— you guys hating each other more?”

Nana forces a grin onto her face. “I’ll… I’ll think about it, yeah.”

Why am I hesitating?

“Why think? You have such a good opportunity. If only you saw his face yesterday after the kiss… oho. He was staring at you like you were some angel,” Siyuan snickers. “Angel, my ass. Devil is more like it.”

Despite the pile of excuses lying on the tip of her tongue, Nana blurts out, “I’ll do it.”

Siyuan’s eyes widen comically, not expecting Nana to accept her poorly thought-out plan so easily, but she brushes it aside.

“Step one,” she smirks. “Pair up with him in History today, and try to get him to like you. We have group projects starting today.”

“How do you know?”

“Hello? Did all that alcohol yesterday make you dumb?” Siyuan jokes. “I just had History first period.”

Nana gasps. “WAIT… Did you pair up with… with Guanheng?”

Her cheeks dust with pink at Nana’s accusation. “Well… maybe.”

Nana lets out a cackle. “I fucking knew it. I fucking knew it.”

“Shut up, Yang Nana!” Siyuan fumes in embarrassment.

“Make me, Tang Siyuan!” Nana retorts with a smirk on her face, but it dies as she realizes a very important detail that could make her plan go very wrong. “Wait… but Chenle is in Renjun’s class! Won’t they pair up?”

Siyuan lets out a sharp exhale of mock offense.

“I already have that sorted out, babygirl,” she rolls her eyes. “Who do you take me for? An idiot?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Nana teases.

Siyuan pouts. “Hey! Sometimes?!”

“Nah, I changed my mind,” Nana says, with a shit-eating grin on her face, and pauses for good measure before continuing her thought. “All the time.”

Just as Siyuan opens her mouth to retort, the school bell rings loudly.

“Gotta go— I have to go implement step one,” she snickers.

Throwing a teasing wink in her direction, Nana opens the door to the stairwell as a teacher yells from down below, “Are you guys on the roof? During school hours?”

Taking that as a cue to leave, Nana kicks the door open. The teacher to the entrance of the building as the two of them race down the stairs and exit through the back door of the building— just in time as they hear loud footsteps rushing up the staircase.

They collectively let out loud exhales of relief, before Siyuan gasps.

“Nana, our bags are up there!”

“... Shit.”

They collectively groan, but Nana convinces Siyuan to go to their math class first.

“It’s fine, I’m always in detention,” Nana grimaces. “Just tell the teacher I have, uh… period cramps.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but before she could get a single word out, they hear sounds of footsteps coming back down the staircase, and Nana shoves her away.

“Go!” she mouths at Siyuan, who frowns but runs to class.

She heads back into the building, only to be confronted by her old biology teacher.

“Yang Nana,” he sighs. “Why am I not surprised?”

She doesn’t respond, keeping an emotionless expression on her face.

He let out another sigh. “You just earned yourself a week of detention.”

“Cool,” Nana deadpans, before brushing past Mr. Han and walking up the staircase.

Mr. Han just blinks in confusion at the disrespect he had just witnessed— which, to be fair, was probably one of the only disrespectful actions he had ever seen from a student— but before he instinctively yells at her, he just shakes his head, lets out a sigh of disappointment, and exits the building.

Nana scrambles up the staircase, completely out of breath by the time she reaches the top, panting as she grabs the two backpacks and races back down.

“Pair up, everyone,” Mr. Yao announces lazily. “Find one person to work with— absolutely no groups of three.”

Renjun glances at Chenle, but he looks back at Renjun apologetically. “Sorry, I’m pairing up with Yifeng.”

He shoots Chenle a death glare, while scanning the classroom to find someone else who didn’t have a partner.

And his stomach drops when he realizes that the only other person who seemed to be alone was Yang Nana— the devil incarnate.

“You’re such a traitor,” Renjun sighs dramatically to Chenle. “You owe me so much for this.”

With that, he walks over to where Nana is sitting in the back corner of the class. He tries not to blush as memories of the previous night flash before his eyes.

“Oh wow, you’re voluntarily pairing up with me,” Nana deadpans, raising a singular eyebrow. “Class president got no friends left?”

Renjun resists the urge to fight back.

“So you’re back to being a bitch after making out with me,” he blurts out.

She lets out a mix of a scoff and a laugh at that, raising her eyebrows at his comment.

“Oh darling, did you think I did that because I like you?” Nana snickers. “Too bad it was just a dare, then.”

Ignoring the completely dejected look on Renjun’s face, she pushes herself out of her chair and leaves the table to take the assignment from Mr. Yao.

Step one: failed, she sighs to herself. Nana clenches her jaw in annoyance. Why do I even need him to like me?

“Can I have your WeChat username, at least?” Renjun sighs as she returns with one packet of instructions, haphazardly tossing it onto his desk.

“What, you want to take me out?” she smirks.

“In your dreams,” he manages to retort. “No, you idiot, it’s for the goddamn project.”

“That would be in my nightmares,” she scoffs. “I’m starting to think you purposely made your friend pair up with that girl so you could pair up with me.”

Renjun sputters out indignantly at her sarcastic jab, and Nana just tuts condescendingly as she grabs his open phone and punches her WeChat username into his phone harshly.

As the sound of the school bell pierces through the chattering noises in the classroom, she drops his phone into his lap indifferently, grabs her bag, and is the first to exit the room.

iv. alexa, play any random song. wait— no, NOT PPAP

huang renjun — 15:28hi it’s renjun when are you free to work on the project together

Nana scoffs at the notification, but as soon as she picks up her phone to respond, her coworker, Dejun, tells her to go take the order of the new customers.

Stuffing her phone into her apron pocket, she stands behind the cashier table.

“Hi, welcome to Wei Shen Cafe— oh, it’s you,” her fake smile disappears in an instant as she glowers at Renjun and Chenle standing across from her. “What do you want, nerd? Are you following me?”

“You wish,” Renjun snaps back. “This is one of the most popular cafes around here, you aren’t fucking special.”

“Hurry up and order,” Chenle groans.

But Renjun just ignores him, and continues pestering Nana.

“Aren’t you rich, Yang Nana? I wouldn’t think you’d be working at a cafe like this,” he prods, trying to get a reaction out of her.

But luckily, before she could open her mouth and cause a huge scene in the cafe (and maybe get fired if her boss comes out), Dejun comes to her rescue.

“What would you like? As you can see, there’s a long line behind you,” he tells Renjun plainly. “Please leave or order now.”

Chenle sighs in embarrassment, pushing Renjun aside as he orders two drinks hurriedly, pulling him to a table to sit down at.

“Thanks,” she mutters to Dejun, and he gasps mockingly.

“The Yang Nana? Saying something nice to me??” He gapes teasingly. “No problem. He was being a jerk anyway. Like, who does he think he is?! Commenting about you and what you do with your money like that? What an asshole.”

“You can say that again,” Nana sighs, resisting the urge to spit in the matcha latte she was making for Renjun.

huang renjun — today at 16:03when do you get off your shift

Nana just rolls her eyes, changing his name in her WeChat.

now watch me na(e)na(e) has changed huang renjun’s nickname to bitchboy extraordinaire

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 16:07none of your goddamn business, bitchface

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 16:07i’ll ignore that nicknamei’m fucking waiting for you right now when do you get off

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 16:12oh, you’re waiting? how sweet. i literally get off at 1am let’s see how long you can wait

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 16:13what…. doesn’t wei shen close at 10 ?? you’re fucking lying

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 16:20what’s it to you? we don’t need to see each other to work on this project anyway fuck off. go do it yourself you don’t have 8 hours of work like me every day

With that, she slips her phone into her back pocket and ignores the notifications buzzing from it.

Days pass, and the only thing on Renjun’s mind is her. The only thing he can think about is Yang Nana, that fucking stupid kiss, and the way his heart feels like it's about to beat out of his chest when he even catches a glimpse of her anywhere.

He’s fallen for her, and he hates it. Renjun knows that Nana doesn’t give a shit about him, so why does he still like her?

And why did she even hate him?

He feels like he’s going insane. He malfunctions every time she talks to him, and all of their flirty teasing is starting to get to him. His face fires up whenever she calls him darling, whenever she even smirks at him.

Renjun’s infatuated with her, and there’s nothing he can do but forget about it, and hope it’ll go away. Or confess, and inevitably get his heart broken.

“Fuck you, Yang Nana,” he mutters to himself.

Shaking his head and sighing at himself, Renjun goes back to studying— only to be interrupted by another notification, and his eyebrows raise, seeing that it’s from Nana.

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 11:51okay it’s a saturday so i don’t have that much work since you’re so fucking annoying, when do you want to work on the stupid project

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 11:53 have you ever considered that i might be busy

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 11:54 no if you’re “busy” then go do the damn project yourself

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 11:55have i ever mentioned that i hate your guts

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 11:57 yes many times like i said you can kiss my ass. i don’t give a shit.

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 11:58fuck you

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 11:58i know you want that anyways show up at 2pm at my house, or i will commit arson on your ass whenever i see you next

Renjun is left choking on his own spit at her very obvious sexual innuendo.

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 12:01 i don’t even know where you live

But his message goes ignored, and he sighs out a deep breath of annoyance.

Yang Nana, stop fucking with my head, will you?

Two hours later, Renjun receives a message with her address, and he looks down at Nana’s message and the apartment building he found himself in front of.

Floor 12, he reads. Room 7.

“No elevator?!” he cries out, his eyes staring at the dusty blue stairs with paint peeling off of them, the worn-out wood, and the rusty handlebar.

I guess I’m climbing twelve flights of stairs, he sighs to himself,

By the time he reaches the top, he feels like he’s done his brother’s leg workout, wiping sweat accumulating on his forehead. He pants out in exhaustion, taking his water bottle out of his bag and gulping down half of it to quench the sandpaper consistency his throat had started to resemble.

Finding Nana’s apartment was also a challenge, since there were no room number labels on the walls; and he finds himself knocking on her door at 2:20 pm.

“Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t find your place,” Renjun blurts out, mentally cursing himself for even bothering to apologize. “And why are there no elevators in this big ass apartment building? Are you really so poor that you need to live at such a worn-down—“

He doesn’t finish his thought before Nana grabs him by the collar and pulls him into her apartment harshly.

“Have you realized that not everyone is as rich as you?!” she snaps angrily. “Why are you even here if you care so much? If you didn’t want to work with me, you wouldn’t have even come here. So what’s your fucking problem, Huang?”

He falls silent.

“I’m— I,” he stumbles over his words. “I was just surprised, sorry. I didn’t know you were… you were… ”

“Poor. I know, I’m pretty fucking poor,” she sneers, rolling her eyes as she grabs his wrist and leads her towards her room.

He tries to stop asking so many questions, but when he notices the empty house, he opens his mouth to speak again.

“Yes, I live alone,” she snips tiredly.

His mouth closes.

“What happened to your parents?” Renjun asks.

He knows that he shouldn’t, but he can’t help but be curious— realizing that there was a lot he didn’t know about Nana than he had thought.

But she remains silent, and he takes that as a cue to stop talking.

Stupid, they both think, but for different reasons.

“Alexa, play any random song,” Nana says to her Amazon Echo that Yangyang had gifted her a few years ago.

“Generating a random song,” Alexa says, shuffling a list of songs. “Playing: Pen Pineapple Apple Pen, long version.”

Nana resists the urge to unplug and throw the device against the wall, as the man sings, “I have a pen, I have an apple… uh. Apple Pen. I have a pen, I have pineapple… uh. Pineapple P—“

“Wait—” she groans out at the sound. “No, NOT PPAP. Alexa, shut the fuck up.”

”If only it were that easy to get an Apple Pen,” she mutters.

Renjun lets out a snicker at that.

Around three hours of bickering, arguing and yelling later, Nana stands up.

“I need to go to work— good luck with the rest,” she informs him, closing her laptop and standing up to open her closet to grab her work bag and supplies. “I did way more work than you, since you were arguing with me and staring at me for most of the time, so… it’s not my work anymore. Go research about that stupid guy, and finish the presentation.”

Renjun raises his eyebrows at her clothing collection as she opens the door.

“If you’re so poor, how do you have Gucci—” he starts, but he’s cut off by Nana.

“Gifts,” she sighs out in frustration. “So many goddamn questions, you fuckface. Stop being so nosy, will you?”

With that, she grabs his laptop, shoves it into his backpack, and pushes it into his chest.

“Get out.”

As soon as they exit her apartment, Nana turns around and locks the door behind her.

“How do you get down to the lobby?” he asks.

“With the stairs,” she deadpans.

Renjun groans at the thought of going back down the stairs. “It’s not that bad. I used to live on the 20th floor.”

“What happened, though?” he asks again, as they begin down the stairs.

“Why do you need to know?” she retorts.

“Because…” he starts, fumbling over his words. “Because, I… I want to know. I think we didn’t start off too right—”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she snaps. “I don’t think we’re that close to justify me spilling to you my whole life story, though.”

“Maybe another day, when I don’t find you an asshole and a half,” she finishes.

He mutters something under his breath, but Nana doesn’t hear it— nor is she interested in knowing.

“Where were you from 2pm to 5pm, young man?” his mother questions as soon as she walks into the house, locking her Tesla and sitting down to eat dinner— a very late dinner.

Renjun freezes at her angry tone, sitting in front of his now cold food. “I was working on a project with a friend.”

“Chenle?” she asks. “He says that you weren’t at his house.”

“Not Chenle,” he replies. “Another person in my class.”

His mother tsks. “Show me the work you two did.”

He obliges, bending down to unzip his backpack and show her the presentation.

She scoffs (probably at the lack of criticism she can give).

“Why has your school ranking dropped from number 3 to number 4?” she snaps angrily. “What did I tell you about staying in the top three, huh?”

“Only getting an 89 on your chemistry test,” she seeths angrily. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?!”

Renjun’s eyes prick with tears upon the mention of his perfect brother.

“Your brother was so much better than you,” she yells. “He was so perfect. Everyone loved him, he was both popular and smart, getting everything he ever thought about having.

“What about you?! You just managed to snag the title of ‘Student Body President’, because there were no good candidates to choose from! You don’t get good grades, your teachers don’t love you as much, why are you such a failure?! I pay for your tutoring, your extra classes, and you still can’t do well?” she screams. “Why are you so useless? Wasting my money— I knew it was a mistake to have another child.”

Renjun’s tears drip into the broth of his noodles.

“Stop crying, you fool!” she barks at him. “Does that solve anything for you?!”

He sniffles, slamming his chopsticks down onto the table as he grabs a tissue to wipe at his tears.

“Why do you do this to me?!” Renjun sobs. “I try so hard to please you, and yet you’re still not happy.”

His mother swallows, sighing as she realizes she went too far.

“I was missing your brother,” she sighs. “I’m sorry, Renjun— I have been going to therapy, but nothing stops the anger.”

But Renjun was done with her excuses. “That doesn’t mean you can just release it all on me. I’m not your punching bag, Ma.”

He glances at the clock but ignores how close it is to midnight— grabbing his coat and phone.

“Going out for a walk,” he mumbles, running out the door and out into the neighborhood.

He tries to ignore his mother’s stupid words, wiping at the stray tears falling from his face.

I try so hard to be perfect for you, Ma, since Ba left and Ge stays at university, Renjun sighs to himself. Why don’t you ever see it, though?

He checks his phone, sighing as he realizes that it’s already past midnight.

Oh well, I can always go to the 24-hour convenience store, right?

He approaches the store, the bells on the dore jingling as he enters.

“Hello, welcome go 24/7— wait, what the fuck are you doing here?” a familiar voice speaks with annoyance.

Renjun looks up from the shelves, staring incredulously at Yang Nana, working behind the cashier table.

“I’m… why are you everywhere?!” he snaps.

“Why are you stalking me?!” she retorts.

“I’m not fucking stalking you! I just left to get some fresh air, and you’re everywhere I go!” he yells. “Forget it.”

But his red and puffy weary eyes don’t go ignored by Nana. Before he can leave the store, she walks around the cashier table and grabs his wrist, pulling him back in and shutting the door behind them.

“What’s wrong.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement.

He gulps. “Why should I tell you, when you never tell me anything?”

She exhales harshly through her nose. “That’s besides the point. Why were you crying?”

“My mom,” he manages to utter out, and the tears begin welling up in his eyes again. She tosses him a pack of tissues, while choosing a ramen flavor for him as he speaks.

“She’s never been the same since my parents divorced,” he manages to explain.

And once he starts talking, everything spills out of his mouth.

“My brother is two years older than me,” he explains. “He left the country to the United States for university, and he hasn’t come back to visit since. But because he isn’t here anymore, my mom starts to think so highly of him. He was an average child, but now, in her eyes, he was perfect. He was perfect, because for his whole life before college, my parents were together.”

“Today, she was just spewing lies about how good my brother was, that just weren’t true, and making me feel like shit,” he sniffles, as hot tears run down his cold face. “Like I don’t try hard or something. Like it’s easy to be in the top five student grades.”

By the time he’s done explaining, Nana’s already prepared two bowls of instant ramen and two cups of boba milk tea.

“I’m sorry about that,” Nana says, and that’s the first kind thing that Renjun’s ever heard Yang Nana say to him.

“You’re… you’re being nice,” he gasps, clearing his throat and sniffling as he presses tissues to his leaking eyes.

Nana rolls her eyes. “No, I’m only capable of being mean,” she deadpans. “Here, eat the ramen. And the boba milk tea.”

He thanks her as he opens his bowl of instant ramen.

“Salted egg ramen?” Renjun gapes. “How did you know that was my favorite?”

“I didn’t. It’s my favorite.”

They sit across from each other and eat instant ramen together.

“Why are you working so late?” he asks.

“I need a lot of money, Renjun,” she smiles wryly. “If school is a third of my day, work is the second third of my day. I study at night, and I get up early for a shift before school. I live off of caffeine.”

He gasps at her hellish schedule. “Why, though? Why do you need so much money?”

“Because I don’t have parents anymore.”

The words take a few moments to sink in.

“Oh, God. That’s why you hate me,” Renjun sighs. “I’m… Nana, I’m so sorry.”

She manages a pained smile, resisting the urge to punch him as she remembers the bitter memory. “It’s… fine.”

“But it’s not. I had no idea, Nana,” he says apologetically. “When did it happen?”

“Seven years ago.”

He gasps. “You… you were only ten.”

She only lets out a forced laugh.

“And my dad left when I was twelve. He claimed that I caused him too much pain because I look almost identical to her.”

Renjun lets out a noise of indignation. “How could he?! Just leaving a child like that?!”

“Because my mom died of cancer, there’s a shit ton of hospital bills to pay,” she scoffs. “And because my dad’s gone, I have to pay them now. I watched as the bills were mailed to our house month after month, with a stupid amount of debt printed on each sheet. Given that we already weren’t rich at all, it was nearly impossible to pay it off… I know my dad left because the debt was too much.”

He scoffs at this. “How could your father feel okay with leaving a child by herself?!”

“He thinks it’s fine, because he covers the rent for my apartment,” she seethes. “What about food? What about the debt? He didn’t care. As long as I had a place to stay, he thought it was fine. So I had to leech off of neighbors for three years, until I was legally allowed to work.”

She takes a long sip of her drink afterwards.

“You’re the second person I’ve ever told,” she admits. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you.”

Renjun smirks suggestively. “Oh my, is the Yang Nana warming up to me?” he gasps mockingly. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Nana raises a single eyebrow, the expression on her face unreadable. “You wish.”

And before he could ask what she meant by that, her coworker comes in for his shift, and Nana tells him that she has to leave. Taking off her uniform and grabbing her bag, she leaves the store, and gets onto her bike to go home.

v. huang renjun, master of the claw machine (yes, i’m kidding. he fucking sucks)

“You invited Renjun to your apartment yesterday?!” Siyuan and Yangyang collectively gasp scandalously.

“Oh my God, Nana, why didn’t you tell me? What did you guys do?” Siyuan gapes, nearly quivering with excitement.

“Nothing interesting,” Nana rolls her eyes. “We just… worked on the History project.”

“You need to take him out on a date,” Siyuan declares, taking a sip of her strawberry slushie that they had gone to buy during the second class of the day.

Yangyang clicks his tongue apprehensively, mixing his mango slushie. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to have a rebound after Jaemin and do it to Renjun on purpose.”

“No, it’s a great idea,” Siyuan interjects. “You don’t understand. After getting some dick, Nana will be happy again. “

Nana cringes at her in disgust, as she takes a sip of her lemon slushie. “Well… I do find it kinda rude to just play with Renjun’s feelings like that, but maybe talking to him will get That Dickface off of my mind.”

“It’s up to you, Nana,” Yangyang says. “Don’t feel pressured just because Siyuan changes boys every other day and clearly doesn’t care about any one of them.”

“Hey! I just sleep with different boys,” she defends herself. “They know what they’re getting into. So… erm, yeah— maybe it’s not a great idea to be an asshole to Renjun.”

“But one last dare, Nana,” Siyuan continues, her eyes sparkling. “I dare you to take Huang Renjun out on a date. Last dare, I promise.”

Nana tsks. “That’s easy, the boy’s already infatuated with me.”

And as a teacher yells at the three of them yet again for being on the roof without permission, the trio speeds down the staircase and split up in different directions to their respective classes.

Nana runs into her history class, grimacing as she realizes the only available seat is next to Renjun in the front.

Gives me the chance to ask him out, though, she smirks to herself, waltzing up to the empty seat and settling in, around 30 minutes late to the period.

“Yang Nana, do you realize that you’ve missed about half of class?” Mr. Han reprimands.

She just shrugs, unfazed. “Yeah.”

With that, she stuffs one of her wired earbuds into her right ear, pushing the end of the cord into her phone with too many scratches and cracks on the screen to count.

Starting a random song from her playlist, she lazily watches Mr. Han’s lecture, not even bothering to take notes— not that she could’ve, given she didn’t even bring anything school-related in her bag, besides her laptop.

“You’re all dismissed,” Mr. Han smiled amicably as the bell rang. As everyone stands up and begins chattering amongst themselves, Renjun turns to look at Nana, who surprisingly had not bolted out the door yet.

“You’re here,” he observes.

“No shit,” she deadpans.

He smirks. “Waiting for me?”

“In your fucking dreams,” Nana scoffs, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the class, as the rest of the people in the room gasp at the scene— utterly shocked, considering everyone knew of their hatred of each other. Renjun flushes with embarrassment, a grimace on his face.

“Don’t do that,” he whines. “Now everyone thinks we’re dating!”

She stops abruptly, turning to face him with a smirk on her face.

“Then let’s make their thoughts a reality,” Nana raises an eyebrow, sending him a wink. “Huang Renjun, do you want to go on a date with me later?”

Renjun swears that he felt his heart stop, as she notices his cheeks flush every shade of pink.

“Uh,” he says intelligently. “Um… ”

Nana presses a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’m taking that as a ‘Yes, Nana, I love you— I mean, I’d love to!’”

He freezes as her lips meet his.

“I’ll text you,” she winks, and with that, Yang Nana walks away from him.

“Fuck, I am in love,” he groans, as his worst nightmare comes true.

But is it really a nightmare?

“Ooooh, did I just see Yang Nana ask you out on a date?” Chenle gasps, a shit-eating grin widening on his face as he appears out of nowhere, slinging an arm over Renjun’s shoulder. “You like Nana?? I thought it’d be Yiren.”

Renjun wrinkles his nose in embarrassment. “No, I hate her, dumbass. That’s why I said yes.”

“You didn’t say yes, though,” Chenle observes. “But you didn’t say no, either… I was trying not to laugh when I saw you just fucking standing there without responding. Ha, I’d take that as a yes if I were Yang Nana too.”

Renjun cringes. “Whatever, we’re going home.”

“No we’re not,” he smirks. “I’m taking you shopping because you need to look HOT for the date. You have zero fashion sense, my boy… I’m going to need to buy you some better clothes. C’mon, I’ll tell my driver that we’re going shopping!”

That’s all Renjun hears before Chenle drags him away to the parking lot in an attempt to find his chauffeur— he’s nearly shoved into the fancy Tesla car with chicken-wing-looking car doors.

“Mr. Teng, we’re going to the mall,” Chenle informs his driver.

His chauffeur glances at Chenle from the rearview mirror and nods, before leaving.

Renjun’s phone vibrates with a notification, and he unlocks his phone to see a new message from Nana.

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 16:32 meet me in an hour at neo arcade

A lovesick grin spreads across Renjun’s face, and Chenle snatches his phone.

“An hour?!” Chenle squawks, looking at the time and addressing his driver. “Fuck. Mr. Teng, how far are we from the mall?”

“About twenty minutes,” he responds.

“How far is the arcade from the mall?” Chenle mutters to himself as he opens his Maps app. “Okay, only ten minutes. But we still only have an hour… Renjun, search up the store list, we need to have a good outfit in mind.”

A little less than sixty minutes later, Renjun enters Neo Arcade in the best outfit out of the choices that Chenle presented him with.

Taking his phone out of his pocket, he messages Nana.

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 17:28 i’m here

He half hated the way his heart pounded at the almost instant reply from her.

now watch me na(e)na(e) — today at 17:30be there in 2

When did two minutes, or 120 seconds, feel so long? Renjun fidgets with his jacket, stares expectantly at the door, and scrolls through his Weibo— but nothing successfully distracts him in the time he waits for Nana.

He forgets to breathe when he sees Nana walk through the door; although casual, she still looked stunning.

She had a black bucket hat on her head, a thick silver chain around her neck, wearing a leather jacket over a white tank top, red jean shorts and a pair of heeled white lace-up boots that went halfway up her calf.

When her eyes meet his, his mouth is still open but he closes it, walking towards her.

He doesn’t notice her eyes raking up and down his body, internally screaming at his new outfit; a green bomber jacket on top of a beige and brown striped tee, and a belt holding his denim jeans up.

Since when did Huang Renjun have such good taste in fashion?

“Wow, you look decent,” she manages to say. “Someone help you with your outfit?”

Nana doesn’t glance at his expression, looping her arm through his, but his cheeks are stained red with embarrassment.

Was it that obvious?

Noticing his silence, she erupts into laughter. “I’m just kidding. You look great.”

Renjun tries not to let out a breath of relief.

“You look good, too.”

Nana snickers. “You just noticed? Do I not always look good?”

Before he can respond, she drags him to the racing game, sitting onto the seat.

“Let’s race. Loser has to get a stuffed animal from the claw machine,” she smirks.

“Hey, I’m not good at these!” Renjun protests, and it only makes Nana’s cheshire-like grin grow wider.

“Even better.”

“Didn’t know that Yang Nana, a certified bad girl, would like stuffed animals, but okay.”

She gives him a pointed look. “Everyone likes stuffed animals,” she responds seriously, turning her car to the right to crash into Renjun’s, and his car falls down the edge of the trail, causing him to restart.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” he protests, a pout on his face as he drops to 10th place in the game.

“Nothing’s fair,” she snickers as she corners the person in front of her into the cliff, cheering as she ends up in first place.

“You owe me a stuffed animal, and I get to choose.”

Sliding off of the chair, she extends her hand to Renjun, who begrudgingly takes it and steps off.

“So you’re bad at racing games and beer pong,” she tuts sarcastically. “Disappointing. What a red flag”

Before he can retort, Nana pushes him lightly towards the claw machines.

“Okay, fine. What type do you want?” Renjun sighs.

“Squirtle.”

Renjun grimaces, walking towards the claw machine full of Squirtle plushies.

Inserting a few coins into the machine, his eyes narrow in on a specific Squirtle, and he moves the claw hand to the right via the controller. He squints at the aim as he presses down on the button, the claw reaching down for the leg of a specific Squirtle.

Unfortunately, the Squirtle drops from the claw, and Renjun slumps in defeat.

Nana just lets out a snicker. “Try again, babe.”

The tips of his ears involuntarily turn red at the pet name, but he sighs and inserts another two coins into the machine.

Nana silently takes out her phone to record this, silently laughing at his effort— and he visibly deflates at the failed attempt.

Determined to win Nana a Squirtle and not look like an idiot, he wastes more money and moves the controller, focusing on the biggest squirtle— hey, a bigger Squirtle means more area to hold, right?

No luck. The claw grabs the poor Squirtle by the neck, but it ultimately drops, and Renjun’s ears grow redder by the second.

“This stupid machine,” Renjun frowns, pushing yet another pair of coins, while Nana does her absolute best to not erupt into laughter, her camera still directed in his direction.

After a few more failures, his face lights up as he thinks of a new strategy.

“Maybe I should go for the tag,” he smiles as he presses down on his controller, causing the claw to reach down onto the back of the Squirtle’s neck, where the stuffed animal’s neck-piercing (... neck-ring?)— in the form of a tag— lay.

Renjun’s face lights up as the next Squirtle victim is dragged across the pile of other Squirtles.

He’s about to push over the claw machine in frustration when the claw rips the tag off of the plastic loop on the neck cleanly.

But Renjun lets out a cry of excitement as he realizes the stuffed animal had landed headfirst across the collecting tunnel, ultimately tipping over into the slot down below due to the imbalance. His cheeks dust with embarrassment as other people in the arcade cast judgmental looks towards him.

Nana stifles a laugh, stopping the stop button on her phone as she discreetly stuffs it into her jeans pocket.

“Only wasted 10 yuan too,” Renjun grins as he pulls the Squirtle out of the machine, handing it to Nana with a proud expression on his face.

She looks thoroughly impressed.

“Wow, so maybe you’re not bad at everything. Kinda bad, though,” she teases, grabbing the Squirtle from Renjun’s hands in one hand, and taking his hand in the other.

“You get to choose the next game.” Nana offers generously.

“Basketball,” he smirks, pulling her towards the basketball hoop game.

She visibly cringes.

“Shit.”

“Loser has to kiss the other person,” he raises his eyebrows.

“What about the winner?” Nana scoffs.

“Well, uh… they get the kiss?”

“Darn, so anti-climatic.”

And Renjun presses the “START GAME” button without warning, causing her to sputter out in disbelief.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Nana protests, grabbing a basketball and surprisingly making it into the hoop.

“You cheated earlier too!” Renjun retorts, as Nana manages to get a few more in.

“Did not,” she grumbles, missing a ball, staring at her pathetic score of “8” and at Renjun’s “16”.

She pouts as she misses yet another hoop, and another. The ding of Renjun’s scorekeeper display— signaling that he got another ball in— only lowers her confidence as the game ends, with her at a measly 23 points while Renjun stood at 32.

Nana scoffs at her clear loss.

“So… looks like you owe me a kiss, sweetheart,” he smirks as he leans towards her, a suggestive grin on his face.

“You can get one any time, loverboy,” she smirks. “You don’t need to impress me…. you just have to ask.”

His eyes widen, and so does her smirk as her hot breath tickles her face.

She pushes Renjun against the nearest wall, pressing her lips against his.

His mind goes back to their first kiss at that party as her lips move against his, and his eyes flutter shut as he kisses her back.

But she pulls back before a makeout session starts, and he whines at the absence of her lips on his.

“Gotta win more games to get another one, hm?” Nana cocks a singular eyebrow, grabbing her Squirtle and moving to another game, leaving Renjun behind in a daze.

Again.

vi. dumb and dumbass. renjun’s the dumbass.

It had been a whole month since Renjun and Nana had (un)officially started dating, yet Nana had refused to put a label on it.

Even though Nana was saved as “nana gf 🦋” for Renjun, he was still saved as “dumbfuck 🔪” and she had a tendency to dodge every personal question that he’d ever asked— that is, since the time they opened up to each other a little in the 24/7.

To be honest, he was jealous of her. He admired the way she could mask her pain and become so indifferent— stoic, even— to everything, and wished that he could be that way.

Renjun wished that instead of being so easy to crack open, like an egg, he could hide away. It didn’t take much for him to open up to others, while he couldn’t even pry another sentence of information from her.

But he hated it. He hated the way Nana seemed not to care.

Does she even like me?

“Nana, can we hang out again?” Renjun asks, while Nana walks with him out of History.

“Hmm,” Nana hms. “Maybe next week.”

She doesn’t miss the way his face falls. “I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work.”

Renjun pouts. “Fine,” he says childishly and leaves her side to enter his own classroom.

She watches as he leaves, and sighs as she continues on her way to the rooftop, a hand reaching for her lighter and cigarette, and her other reaching for her phone with earphones plugged into it.

Nana climbs the stairs with regret as she lights a cigarette, knowing that her time with Renjun was limited.

“Gosh, I’m so stupid,” she grumbles. “This is just stupid— literally the plot to a shitty coming-of-age movie.”

She was so closed off to others that no one really knew what was going on in her life. Not Siyuan. Not even Yangyang. And she hated it. Nana despised the way she pushed everyone away from her.

She was consumed with the consequences of her bad decisions, and she knew that one day, she wouldn’t be able to hide.

Nana’s so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn’t even notice a familiar motorcycle passing by.

“Yang Nana, we meet again, at last,” a cold voice utters out, letting out a sinister chuckle. “You won’t be able to run again. We need the money.”

She freezes at the sound of the voice, and her instinct is to run— but he’s right. She can’t; not with a gun pressed to the back of her head.

“Money, Yang,” he hisses, pressing the cold metal even harsher against her head.

“I— I don’t have it on me.”

“Then let’s get going, hm? To your house, shall we?”

“Only if you let the gun go. Someone’s going to call the police if they see this.”

Squinting at her, he reluctantly lowers his hand— falling directly into her trap as she kicks her leg up high and strong, the tip of her boot hitting his jaw.

He spits out a mouth full of blood, a hand cupping his jaw as he winces.

“You— Yang Nana!” He screams, lifting the gun again, but she swiftly grabs it by the barrel and turns it onto him.

“Oh, looks like you’re going to need some help, hm?” she tuts.

“Yang… you will pay… ” he croaks out, but she only scoffs, grabbing him by the forearm and twisting it backwards, socking him in the gut with the gun.

“We’ll see about that,” she sneers, watching as he falls to the ground, and kicks him in the ribs for good measure.

“Say hi to your boss for me,” Nana smirks, dropping his gun down the sewer.

“I am about to gag at you two,” Siyuan cringes at the sight of Renjun and Nana holding hands.

“Me too,” Yangyang says in disgust.

“See you later, Renjun,” Nana waves as he turns around to walk home.

Yangyang raises a brow at the sight. “You’re not walking him home?”

“I don’t need to spend every minute with him,” Nana deadpans. “Also, I have work.”

The smile on his face drops upon hearing her words, but he doesn’t turn around.

Yangyang scoffs. “That’s a little harsh.”

“You and Renjun— literally dumb and dumbass, except Renjun’s the dumbass,” Siyuan sighs. “You’re supposed to spend more time with him, idiot.”

Renjun walks home from school alone, a frown on his face while he ponders about Nana.

Why is she so confusing? I never understand her, he thinks to himself with a sigh.

But when he’s a little more than halfway home, he feels the sensation of being followed. Renjun panics, his heart pounding against his chest, as he grabs his sunglasses from his backpack, to see three people unsubtly trailing him, all dressed in different variations of a beanie, leather or denim jackets and ripped jeans.

Yikes, scary, he gulps to himself, trying to walk faster, but the people behind him notice and run to catch up with him.

Before he could try to get away, they pass him and stop abruptly, turning back to face him.

“You?” The one in the center scoffs as the other two corner Renjun against a fence. “Wow, Nana really moved on with a fucking loser.”

“You know Nana?” Renjun asks in confusion. “Wait, who are you guys?”

“What do you think, you idiot?” he hisses. “I’d beat you up so bad, but that’s not really an option… Nana would just come and beat me back.”

“I’m Jaemin, the one with a red beanie is Haechan, and the other one is Jeno,” Jaemin introduces plainly.

He nods and gives a small smile as a welcome, but none of them return it.

“How— how do you know her?” Renjun croaks out, intimidated by Jeno and Haechan’s glares blazing into him.

“We dated. But she broke up with me,” Jaemin scoffs. “All because my fling decided to text her. What an idiot.”

Renjun’s jaw drops. “How is she an idiot?! She was doing the right thing by telling Nana!”

“Oh, of course you’re sticking around for that girl, loverboy,” Jeno sneers. “You don’t know even a smidge of what she’s hiding underneath, boy. Can’t you tell that she’s bad news? What’s a dork like you doing around her?”

Renjun flinches at the same nickname that Nana had called him at the arcade.

“We— we’re dating,” Renjun stutters out.

“Are you now,” Haechan drawls out with a cocked eyebrow. “Nana does move quickly, hm?”

“Shut up, you idiots,” Jaemin snaps angrily. “Let me fucking talk.”

He pushes past Jeno and Haechan and stares directly into Renjun’s eyes.

“You don’t know Nana. I’m doing you a favor here— she’s a thief, a liar, a manipulator. She’s not what she seems, and she’s involved with criminals, Huang Renjun. You need to run, or they’ll get you before her.”

Renjun’s eyes widen. “What— how do you know?”

“What do you think?” Jaemin sighs. “We broke up a month ago. And I was once captured by them. I’m saying this for your safety. Renjun, get as far as you can away from Yang Nana, because the people she’s with are dangerous. They can ruin your life, like they did to mine.”

Tears begin to well up in Renjun’s eyes as he’s struck with betrayal.

“Nana— she wouldn’t,” he says desperately. “Nana can’t be like that, she… ”

He trails off. As much as he hated to admit it, Jaemin’s claims somewhat lined up with Nana’s behavior— her refusals to spend time with him, her being “busy with work” all the time.

No, she couldn’t…

“And I know why she even went after you,” Jaemin adds, to add salt to the wound. “I was at a bar the other day, and hooked up with her friend Siyuan— who’s such a whore— and guess what? Siyuan told me the plan they came up with. Renjun, the truth is that she only dated you to get over me.”

Those words impale Renjun’s heart, and he’s left broken and confused.

“Nana… no, this can’t be… ”

“I’m only trying to help you, Renjun. Please consider it,” Jaemin says with a fakely apologetic smile, and motions for Jeno and Haechan to follow him as they leave.

Leaving Renjun in tears.

“That was a little harsh, Jaemin,” Haechan grins as soon as they’re out of earshot from Renjun.

“Just need him away from Yang Nana,” Jaemin smirks. “She’s not allowed to be happy. Not without me.”

vii. can i set his dick on fire? please?

Nana flips her phone over near the end of her shift, pressing the pad of her finger to the fingerprint sensor to unlock her phone.

A smile grows on her face, eager to see the message as she sees that it was from Renjun.

bitchboy extraordinaire — today at 00:07 you’re such a fucking liar i never want to see you again

Blood drains from her face as she frantically picks through her memories, trying to remember what she had done wrong.

But ultimately, she didn’t remember what she had done.

Nor did she respond to his accusation, deciding to finish her homework, and passing out on her bed immediately afterwards.

Nana had no idea what she had done wrong.

Why did Renjun get so mad?

She kept thinking about what could’ve happened, yet she still came back empty-handed, unable to find anything she had lied to him about.

During their lunch break, Nana waits outside of Renjun’s classroom, making sure she could corner him and ask.

Sure enough, he comes out a few minutes later, but attempts to run once he sees Nana standing near him expectantly.

Nana easily corners him into a wall.

“Renjun, what did I do?”

He gapes at her incredulously.

“You’re asking me?! You’re trying to ruin my life!” Renjun exclaims angrily.

Nana only stands there, staring at him in confusion.

“I don’t know where you got that from, but I promise you that I do not take pleasure in ruining lives. Nor do I have the power to do such a thing,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t lie to me,” he snaps. “I know everything now.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Please, enlighten me. What knowledge have you acquired to make you hate me this much?”

“I ran into your ex yesterday,” Renjun blurts out, and Nana’s stare turns icy.

“Oh no, he didn’t,” she mutters. “That fucker.”

“Yeah? He told me that you’re using me. He told me that you’re involved with a lot of criminals that will find out about me and ruin my life. And that you got a bet to date me,” he accuses, getting more and more emotional as he reveals all the information. “From Siyuan, to get over Jaemin.”

“That fuckface,” Nana sneers, and Renjun swears that he’s never seen her so angry. “If you really believe the words of a fucking liar, a fucking manipulator and gaslighter, go ahead and believe the words of that fucking asshole.”

She backs away from him, allowing him to scramble away.

“But I will tell you the truth once,” she says. “I was only involved with criminals when I couldn’t make enough money, and they have never bothered Jaemin before. He only knows because I told him.”

“And, maybe it was a stupid dare to Siyuan, but it’s a shit ton more to me.”

With that, she walks away from Renjun with a heavy heart.

He just watches her shaking form as she leaves his side, the regret hitting him in a huge wave.

When Nana reaches Yangyang, he looks at her expression in concern.

“What happened, Nana?”

She swallows the lump in her throat, hesitantly spilling everything out to him.

Yangyang’s expression contorts from worry, to confusion, to rage.

“He did WHAT?!” He yells out loudly. “Oh my God. The next time I see his pretty face, I’m going to smash it in so his face is concave—”

“Yangyang, no,” Nana sighs, her head in her hands. “That’s…. ”

But she couldn’t find a good reason to reject his proposal, knowing she’d do the same if someone else had done this to Yangyang.

“Can I set his dick on fire? Please?” he frowns. “I am not going to stand and watch two assholes ruin your life. No. That’s not going to be okay.”

Nana’s eyes fill with tears for the first time in what seemed to be an eternity.

“Nana, no—” Yangyang panics, reaching through his bag to look for a tissue, but unable to find a single one.

Taking off his hoodie, he lets out a breath of relief knowing that he had washed his hoodie the day before, dabbing the sweatshirt sleeves at her eyes.

“It’ll be okay, Nana,” he says, wrapping his arms around her shaking form. “Don’t cry— that goody-two-shoes ain’t worth your tears.”

“But he is,” she cries, feeling her heart crush with all the pain. “He’s the first time I’ve felt love in a very long time.”

“And he’s a fucking dumbass,” she adds after a moment.

“Hey, Na Jaemin!” Nana yells at him. “I hope you choke on a fucking stick!”

Jaemin turns around with his signature fuckboy smirk. “Oh hi, Nana, long time no see!”

“I’m not interested in formalities,” she spits at him, decking him in the face without a second thought.

They both hear a loud crack coming from Jaemin’s face, and he winces in pain. He clutches his nose as blood trickles out of his nose, staining his hands, and dripping onto the ground.

“I think you broke my nose,” he grunted out.

“I think so, too. I’m glad. That’s the least I could do after you ruined my life, twice. Go eat shit,” she snaps, kicking him in the stomach without remorse, and Jaemin crumples at the impact.

“Nana, I just wanted you back,” he croaks out. “Please, give me ano—”

“Another chance?” Nana sneers. “Not after you cheated on me, dickface.”

She squats down in front of him, relishing the sight of Jaemin in such pain. Nana offers him her hand, and he eyes it suspiciously, but takes it despite the hesitation.

“Oh, you thought I was going to help you up,” she coos. “How cute.”

And she bends his arm backwards, earning a pained howl from the boy.

“I hate you, Jaemin, and I will hate you forever. Stop meddling with my life and go fuck yourself.”

That’s the last thing Jaemin ever hears from her before blacking out.

viii. oh you’re keeping me hostage ?!

TWO YEARS LATER.

Nana doubles over in laughter at something her friend, Aiyun, said.

“Please, that’s hilarious,” she shakes with laughter, wiping tears that spring from her eyes.

Just as Aiyun opens her mouth to say something, a boy their age taps on her shoulder.

“Sorry, could I talk to your friend for a little bit?” He asks.

“Oh, go ahead,” Aiyun smiles, backing a few steps away.

Nana looks up to see his face— and her spirits drop. Her gaze hardens at the sight of him, and the previously wide smile on her face drops immediately, replaced with a straight line. The sparkle in her eyes fade, and she looks him up and down in disgust.

“What are you doing here?” Nana snaps.

“I just—” he sighs.

“Stop it. Just go,” she says.

“Wait!” Renjun exclaims as she turns away, and Nana swivels her head to look back at him.

“Huang Renjun, what do you fucking want?”

“I’m sorry.”

Nana remains expressionless for a few moments, before she forces out a laugh.

“You’re about two years late for that.”

“No, wait!” Renjun says, instinctively grabbing onto her arm as she turns away from him again, but this time, he’s met with an icy stare.

“Let go, Huang Renjun.”

He obliges, wincing at her tone, but before he can get another word out, Nana stops him.

“I’ve moved on, Renjun. A long time ago. Now there’s someone that loves me without doubt. We would’ve never worked out, Huang Renjun. You’re a fool who believes the words of strangers before even trying to know the whole story.

“I don’t want to see you anymore. And the party is ending, I’m leaving,” she adds.

“Nana! There you are,” Yangyang says, making his way over to her, slinging an arm over her shoulder.

And he, too, glares coldly at the sight of Renjun.

“What are you doing here?!” Yangyang scoffs.

“I transferred here,” Renjun responds. “Are you guys… dating now?”

Nana just shoots him an empty stare.

“I have no obligation to tell you anything.”

The two of them walk away from him without another word.

“Why didn’t you tell him that you’re doing a lot better than before?” Yangyang murmurs to her. “And that we’re dating?”

“I just hate his guts,” she shrugs. “But I can tell him we’re dating to make you feel better.”

Yangyang scoffs. “Like I care.”

A smirk grows on Nana’s face. “Aw, you’re jealous. That’s cute.”

Yangyang pouts, turning to the side to face her.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

A cocky grin spreads onto Yangyang’s lips as he places a chaste kiss on her lips, effectively shutting her up.

“I wish I dated you instead of Jaemin and Renjun.”

“Me too, but you’re mine forever now.”

Nana gasps in mock horror. “Oh no, you’re keeping me hostage?!”

“Shut up.”

#ficscafe #ankathia #kflixnet #nct-writers #nct scenarios #renjun scenarios #nct dream scenarios #renjun angst #renjun imagines #nct angst #nct dream angst #yangyang scenarios #yangyang angst

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glitxhwayventeen · 2 years

Text

The Half-Blooded One

Yangyang

Characters: Yangyang x female reader

Warnings: complaining, pain/soreness/injuries, mentions of crying, mentions of war, hints of depression, implications of being a soldier, car accident scene, plane crash scene, mentions of death, mentions of blood, family/sibling issues/ten being a bad brother, some swearing/cursing. I think that’s it but lmk if i missed anything pls!

Author’s Note: Ahhh this took me forever to finish I’m sorry. I know there wasn’t much of Yangyang with the main character but believe me when i say there’s more in store for these two🤐

Please remember that all of these chapters and the content within them are a work of fiction! They’re just for fun/entertainment!

Watch It All Burn Masterlist

The Half-Blooded One: Part 1

Bold- Dialogue Italics- Thoughts Pink- Foreign Language Use

🥀 with a little ☁️ at the end

Surprisingly, Ten wasn’t really all that mad at him. He was shocked honestly. He figured he’d have to run away and hide for a few days until the Thai boy’s anger subsided. But Ten didn’t even seem to flinch at the thought of the two of you one day being together once he got past the initial shock of finding out that fate was throwing you together.

In fact, he seemed to be rather… sorry that the pup of the pack was gonna end up going through what he’d have to go through to be with you.

It had been two days since you showed up all but bleeding out on their doorstep. Those two days had been some of the best, yet worst, days of Yangyang’s life.

On one hand, he was unbelievably happy to know that he had actually found his mate, that he was now able to hear, smell, and feel you nearby. But on the other, hearing your deafening screams of agony as his packmates did their best to keep you alive and breathing when you were so close to death crushed him.

He knew virtually nothing about you and, if your body gave out, he may never find out more. With you passed out, the only person he’d have to get any knowledge of you was your brother.

But Ten was remaining tight lipped and almost unbearably silent, two ways no one in their right mind would’ve ever thought to describe him as the older boy was known to cause havoc and mischief wherever he went.

The only other person in the pack who seemed to know even a little bit about you and your situation was the alpha, but he didn’t seem too keen on sharing about your private life without your permission.

So Yangyang had no real way of getting anymore information on you until you woke up. And according to the resident doctor and nurse of the pack, though it did look as though you may arise rather soon, it didn’t look like you’d be too coherent for a while.

“I think you need to accompany us,” Sicheng commented to your brother in thinking that this time you could actually wake to some form of consciousness based on how you reacted to them changing your dressings the previous night, “It’ll be easier with you there.”

Yangyang watched as the older boy shook his head quickly with a gulp as everyone in the living room stared at him for an answer, “Believe me, I’m probably the last person she’d want to see right now. You’re better off going up there alone.”

While the question of why your brother seemed to have thought you hated him so much was on everyone’s mind, no one thought it the appropriate time to bring it up into conversation. It was easy to tell that he was a nervous wreck who spent all his time worrying about you.

Sure everyone could tell he never tried to go near you in your current state if he could help it, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t continuously ask the healing couple about your condition and if there was anything he could do to help you.

He was your family after all. And he may very well have been your only family still left as far as anyone knew.

“If you say so,” Daiyu shrugged, getting ready to pull herself off the leather loveseat she was sitting on to stand on her feet.

She was about nine months pregnant now and looked as if her water would break at any minute, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she could to help the newest addition to the pack, “But for the record, I think you’re making a big mistake. If I was gonna wake up in a foreign country with a bunch of strangers picking at my exposed nerves, I’d want whatever family I had there holding my hand. Regardless of what could’ve happened in the past.”

And with that, Yangyang watched as the couple made their way down the hall to your new resting place with Sicheng letting his mate hold onto his elongated arm for support as she walked beside him.

It wasn’t long before they all once again heard your ear curdling wails emit themselves from your bedroom door. Even though Yangyang had tried to distract himself by helping braid Yueguang’s hair, he still couldn’t help the barely audible whimper that bubbled out from the back of his throat at your pain. And it was only just beginning.

But instead of hearing your normally high pitched scream become a series of begging and pleading that no doubt had tears behind it, they heard multiple thuds, bumps, and a small yelp before the ever so loving couple made their way back out of the makeshift hospital room.

Sicheng stumbled out holding the side of his face while Daiyu stormed out in a steam of anger beside him, never letting her growling frown falter.

“W-what happened?” Yangyang stuttered out, doing his best to maintain some semblance of composure to save his own image.

Though everyone already had correctly guessed that you being in such a vulnerable state was beginning to take a heavy toll on him.

The pregnant girl plopped herself down on her original loveseat spitefully, “She fucking punched him!”

Yangyang gulped, “W-wait so- you meant she actually- she-”

“Punched him? Yes! Can you believe it?!?” The mate seethed.

Suddenly, a hearty laugh began pushing itself from Ten’s lungs as he crumbled over in amusement, “Of course she did,” he airily replied as he wiped the thick tears that had started to pool under his eyes from overdoing his chuckling.

“You KNEW she’d do that?!?” Daiyu expressed in fury, pushing herself to get in a pouncing position as her eyes widened.

“I mean….” your brother scratched the back of his head with a chuckle, “She’s done it before for a lot less. So I kinda figured some strange dude she’s never met suddenly poking and prodding at her still open wounds was bound to gain some sort of volatile reaction.”

You were probably scared out of your mind, of course you reacted badly. Your mate reasoned that any rational person would’ve freaked out in some manner. He couldn’t blame you for hitting his packmate.

But hell, there’s no way he could blame you even if you didn’t have a good reason to throw a punch anyways. You were still the love of his life, even if he didn’t know anything about who you were or what you’d been through.

“You’re insane! SHE’S insane!” The pregnant girl now completely stood from her position as if she was ready to lunge on the boy before her mate quickly pulled her back.

“Dai my love calm down,” Sicheng rubbed her stiff shoulder in an attempt to ease her, seemingly forgetting about the pain in his cheek, “It’s okay.”

Before, Yangyang would’ve fake gagged at whatever coupley things his brothers and sisters did with each other. Now he could only wish one day he’d be able to do such cute things with you.

“It is absolutely 100 flavors of NOT okay! She hit you!” She fumed, “You got hit! You’re hurt!” She turned to face the pointy eared boy with sudden watery eyes.

Yangyang watched as the monotoned boy kissed her on the forehead for the first time in front of nearly the whole pack, “She’s a wounded kid in an unknown place with excruciating injuries,” He reasoned softly, “She did what any of us would’ve done out of pure instinct, not malice. It’s not her fault,” He finished by sweetly stroking the side of her cheek, “I’m just glad you weren’t the one in the line of fire.”

The girl that all but had steam coming out of her ears moments ago seemed to relax herself after a few moments and then buried her face in her mate’s chest. It did take the pack back a bit as the couple usually wasn’t so touchy. Though Yangyang took note that, even though it was a new experience for them all, no one seemed to mind.

“But that situation is EXACTLY why I wanted you to go with us to see her.” Sicheng rolled his eyes, his arms wrapping themselves around the tiny girl in front of him to comfort her.

Ten sighed as he spoke to his younger brother, “If i went with you-” He started, noticeably biting his bottom lip, “She would’ve most likely jumped at me and hurt herself even more. And it probably would have made you have to work twice as hard to fix her. I did you a favor.”

And it was those exact words that seemed to reignite the coal inside the smaller Cantonese girl.

Daiyu quickly spun herself around and out of her mate’s loving arms to face your brother, “You call this-“ Dai gestured to the welt beginning to form on the tall wolf’s face, “a favor?!? She hit him so hard he’ll probably have a bruise. Do you know how hard someone’s gotta hit you assholes to actually LEAVE a bruise!?!?”

The room watched as Ten began to laugh to himself once more, “The bruise is NOTHING hon,” He brushed her off, “Just be grateful it’s her left hand wounded and not her right. If she had her dominant hand and had used her full strength, she would’ve KO’d his ass!” He snorted.

While the living room sprouted to life in debate over whether the second oldest had truly done anyone a favor in his sly maneuvering, Yangyang couldn’t help but smile softly.

You were left handed. At least the previous conversation had given him one thing he now knew for sure about you. That was something.

You woke from your tiring slumber with a sharp pain running down your arm. It felt as though hot knives had suddenly dug themselves into your skin and had begun peeling each layer off.

You felt your heartbeat pick up and your breathing begin to accelerate to an alarming point. It stung like a bitch.

So you soon found yourself popping your eyes open in surprise, quickly feeling tears brimming the waterlines as your body seethed in its place.

Once you managed to steady your pain by breathing deeply in and out, you blinked back your tears of agony so get a better look at your surroundings.

That’s when the florescent lights above you burned into your corneas. And, since you weren’t an idiot and knew that looking at such a powerful light would only made things worse, you decided to feel out the environment around you instead of the vibrant color directly in front of you.

As your eyes tuned in and out of focus while they readjusted, you could make out what was a poster of some sort on the wall below you by your feet. That was weird. The barracks didn’t even have walls for posters to hang. You must’ve been moved. But to where?

Shifting your gaze away from the wall, you looked looked to your right for a possible weapon or escape as it was what you were trained to do in questionable settings. You were met with what you could only assume was a gaming table with many different electronic devices and screens scattered about it. The rainbow lights it admitted from beneath it’s flat surface made your eyes strain.

No. You were in a house… But not just any house. A house that had the luxury of having overhead lighting and the internet. You Definitely were not back home.

“Oh… you’re awake.” A deeper male voice spoke from your left, making you jump in place and sending another shooting pain through your body, this time down your side and thigh.

Because of how sudden the jolt was, you couldn’t stop the small hiss that vocalized itself from the back of your throat.

“Sorry!” The guy said as he tried to stabilize your now contracting wincing torso, “I thought you knew I was here.” He reasoned in mandarin, calmly taking his hands off your middle and placing them back to their original place as he cut off a final piece of gauze to lay on your arm.

He must’ve been changing the dressing on your forearm. That made sense. But who was he?

As the man was a literal stranger to you and you couldn’t get away even if you tried, you figured your best bet was to do what you were taught to do in similar situations: stay quiet and give away nothing. So that’s exactly what you did. Nothing.

Seemingly sensing that you were remaining guarded because you didn’t know him, he decided to introduce himself, “I’m Sicheng. I dont know if you remember or can even understand me, but your fist and my face were well acquainted the other day.” He tried to ease the tension with a joke.

Your mind flashed back to a very hazy memory of another time you felt such seething throbbing.

You weren’t sure what was happening or why you were having such a hard time seeing or opening your eyes at the time, but you knew you smelt something foreign. Something that smelt just shy enough of your brother’s smell to be familiar, but just unknown enough to send your instincts on high alert.

You barely remembered flying up and punching the nearest intruder closest to you. Well, you actually thought you hadn’t really done it since the image had such a dream like appearance to it. But you quickly realized it wasn’t something your mind made up because the person on the receiving end of it was speaking to you.

“Oh… yeah r-right…” You let out hoarsely in your second language, from what you figured was only a day or two of not speaking, much to the older boys surprise, “I understand you. S-Sorry for clocking you dude. It wasn’t intended.” You continued honestly, doing your best to brush off any of the embarrassment you had felt for making such a mistake, “I don’t know where I am or who anyone around me was and Y-You were just the closest target.”

The boy, Sicheng, gave you a kind lazy smile as he tied off the final bandage on your arm, “It’s alright. Worse has happened to me, trust me,” He gave a small chuckle, “You’re in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar people and when you realized that you reacted out of instinct. I would’ve done the same thing if i was in your shoes,” He forgave you, way easier than you would’ve had you been the one hit.

“Though do me a favor,” He continued, giving you a look as he moved down your body to your leg to ask for your approval, something you gave without even thinking, “Next time you feel the need to go all swing happy,” He smirked as he peeled back the old wrap on your cut up leg, “Give a guy a heads up so the next one’s directed at your brother yeah?”

Your brother. You remembered now. You weren’t very conscious the last few days, but that didn’t mean your supersonic hearing and senses hadn’t picked up what was doing on around you without you knowing it.

Canton, your best friend since you were babies and one of the only friends you had had left, stepped out of the barracks tent to make a phone call after yet tip came back that there would be another raid the next day. The next thing you knew, you had a needle being shoved into your neck and you were seated on a plane. But it wasn’t the kind you were used to.

It was a commercial flight, one destined to land in Korea apparently. You would’ve smacked him for bringing you to a new country when your own was in shambles, but you were too drugged and out of it to even keep your eyes open.

When you had landed and Canton had finished carrying you out of the plane and airport, you heard a voice that you hadn’t heard since you were a little girl.

It was your brother. In all your confusion and blood loss you had forgotten that he had moved to the land of the Koreans to study. It made you want to burst out in tears knowing you were in the same place as him after so long, but again, you were too fucked up to notice.

You realized on the drive that you were being taken to his home. Well, his and his pack’s home. You had never met any of them before, you wouldn’t have even heard about them before if it weren’t for your Chinese grandparents who constantly tried to update you on your elder brother’s life, but you assumed it was to have you stay with them because your remaining family and friends didn’t want to see you die. Which you more than likely would have if you stayed back in your home country since the medical care available to people was all but non-existent now.

Korea had more to offer you in terms of life. If it had been up to you, you would’ve chosen the fate of staying and perishing rather than leaving and living. You loved your people and you were determined to fight, even at the cost of your own life, to help take back your land. But you couldn’t protest, you couldn’t even speak or stay fully awake. You were stuck and you were dying.

Though just because you were stuck and dying didn’t mean that your once cold and distant brother would suddenly turn into the loving and caring brother you had once known decades ago.

That’s why you weren’t shocked when you realized you hadn’t sensed him near you since the day you arrived. And that’s how you knew that, even in the present time, your brother would positively be no where to be seen nor had any plans of coming to you.

“Yeah well,” you cleared your throat with a hiss when Sicheng began applying some weird ointment that burned to your leg, “I’ve been here I’m guessing nearly a week now and he hasn’t visited me even once. So i doubt that’s feasible.”

Your words caused the tall wolf to cease his healing tactics in total confusion, “Wait, How do you know he hasn’t visited you?”

“I- I just do.” You stuttered, turning your head to the opposite side so the boy wouldn’t see the water building up in your eyes as he continued the torturous task of applying the firey ointment.

“How’s she look?” Yangyang impatiently bombarded his older packmate as he made his way into the common area.

He was eager to see how long it would be before he could actually try to see you in person. He wondered if you knew what was going on or what had happened. He questioned whether you even knew about wolves in the first place or what mates were. But mostly, he was worried for your health and well-being.

“You know you can just go ask her yourself right?” Sicheng questioned with a raised brow as he exhaustedly plopped himself down on the living room couch.

As much as he loved the thought of being able to go to you and just start the rest of your lives together, even HE wasn’t that naive. There were a great number of steps he had to take before he could just start showing deep concern and love for you to your face. And he knew that he would never be able to hide his obvious feelings for you if he saw you face to face. He had to be more thorough. He had to be patient and plan it through.

“She doesn’t even know who I am,” The pink haired boy reminded with a sigh, “How could i possibly do something like that without seeming super weird to her?”

“Well,” Dejun snorted, “If she didn’t want to be around someone super weird, the universe sure as shit fucked her over!”

“Oh haha. Very funny.” Yangyang rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in the direction of the usually quiet one of their family, “And what about what’s her face? You think SHE really got the best deal ever getting stuck with YOU as a mate?!”

The day after you were brought to their house, Dejun finally worked up the nerve and told the pack about a girl from one of his classes. He figured it was a good time to confess to everyone where he had been and explained that he, like the pup of the pack, had imprinted on a… less than easy person. Now, it was being thrown back in his face and he wasn’t loving the situation.

“She’s none of your business jackass!” He seethed, failing miserably as he tried his best to not let his anger get the best of him, “At least I have a shot with my mate, there’s a chance yours won’t even see next week!”

Yangyang couldn’t help the sudden urge to leap up from his spot and snarl at his brother for saying such things about you. Did he know that there was still a chance you might not HAVE a chance? Of course he did. Contrary to what everyone believed, he wasn’t that stupid or naive. But that didn’t mean he wanted to have the thought voice aloud. It wasn’t Dejun’s place to say shit.

Just as the two young wolves looked as if they were about to start a bloody fight, the eldest decided it was probably best he speak up before things got out of hand, “All right all right!” He waved, placing himself between the angsty boys, “Let’s put our claws in and settle down before we say more things we’ll all regret tomorrow yeah?”

The older of the two mumbled something in what Yangyang recognized as cantonese before he huffed and threw himself back down to where he was previously sitting with a smirk, knowing full well he visibly got under the pups skin with his last comment. It wasn’t that he had anything against you or Yangyang imprinting per say, he just didn’t like it when people said anything about his own complicated mate. So he just had to push the younger one’s buttons right back. It was just how werewolf instincts worked when it came to mating. He couldn’t help it.

It took a moment, but after a few deep breaths to cool himself, Yangyang finally backed down and sat himself on the chair opposite to where Dejun situated himself in the holes that the distance would make him want to punch the smug asshole less. Surprise surprise, it didn’t.

Once he noticed that the children of the group settled, he turned his attention towards the healer to focus on a more important topic: you, “How IS she really doing Sicheng?”

“Well, Daiyu and I changed her dressings again which was a challenge in itself since she’s still pretty in and out, but a good majority of her wounds still aren’t even trying to close up.” The pointy eared boy replied, also wanting the attention to be put back on you, “Even though a portion of them are actually relatively shallow. I think she’s got some debris still embedded in the tissue that’s not letting her heal properly and it’s gonna need to be taken out.”

Yangyang felt his heart all but fall to his stomach in guilt. While he was busy arguing with his packmate, he lost touch with what really mattered: You weren’t getting any better.

Why weren’t you getting fixed up? Were they just not trying their best to save you? Could you just be so bad off that the power couple couldn’t help you? What on earth was he gonna do if they couldn’t get you better?

“It’ll need to be soon.” Sicheng interrupted the pink haired boys thoughts, “The longer we wait, the more likely there’ll be some serious infection we won’t be able to get rid of that could...” He drifted off his sentence, even though everyone knew where it was going.

They didn’t know you, but you were still their brother’s little sister. Most of them hadn’t ever spoken to you, but you were still their packmate’s mate. No one wanted to think of the possibility of you not making it. It would be a devastating reality to their small pack that they just weren’t prepared to face.

So everyone in the room went silent. Everyone stopped what they were doing out of almost respect for your situation. Everyone was too anxious and too terrified to continue on with their current activities they were working on.

In an effort to break the pin dropping quietness that was seemingly so thick you could cut it with a knife, the alpha tilted his head towards your brother, “Ten, are you sure we can’t just take her to the hospital?” The eldest quizzed, doing what he could to stay within his bounds as someone who wasn’t related to you while also trying to keep his dominance as head of the pack, “You heard Sicheng, she’s only gonna get worse and, even though he’s the closest thing we’ve got to one, he’s still not technically a doctor.”

It took less than a second for the devilish boy to reply to his alpha, “No. She can’t go.”

A rather annoyed groan came from the heavily pregnant girl who had been helping you, “Okay seriously I get that you guys have some issues and all,” She declared, “But is this really the time for you to be taking whatever it is that’s wrong with you out on your sister? This is literally life and death Ten. She could really die.” Daiyu worried.

Sure she was upset with you for punching her mate in the face out of no where and scaring the shit out of her personally. But just because she didn’t particularly like you at the moment didn’t mean that she didn’t want you to survive the brutality you’ve had to face. She used to be in a similar boat and the pack still did all they could to save her. So how could she not do the exact same to help you?

“Yeah Ten, last time i checked on her she didn’t look so good,” Yueguang interrupted, trying her best to shake the thought of your scorching fevered skin from her mind, “Maybe it’s best if we just-”

“You guys don’t get it!” Chittaphon cut them all off loudly, “This isn’t some siblings rivalry or whatever it is you guys THINK you know about my sister and I’s relationship. She physically cannot go to see a medical professional here. No matter her state of health.”

It seemed like once again the whole room had paused to give him their whole attention. You were human and you were hurt. So why couldn’t you just go to the doctor like a normal person would when they were injured?

“Well Why not?” Daiyu questioned, beginning to get pissed off at her brother for being so difficult for seemingly no reason.

“For the same reason you haven’t gone for your unborn baby,” He rolled his eyes as if the answer was so obvious, “Or why we didn’t go the time Hendery accidentally pushed Dejun off the room and collapsed his lung. Or why none of us go when we get a pretty gruesome wound,” Ten continued, “She can’t go for the same reason the rest of us can’t: if they run any test on her, any test AT ALL, they’ll find out her secret- OUR secret!”

But that didn’t make sense. Sure you didn’t necessarily smell the most human, but the pack attributed that to the fact that you weren’t doing so hot health wise at the moment. According to Sicheng, you also didn’t grow any fangs when you were screaming in pain as they changed your bandages. Your eyes didn’t change color when you nearly knocked him on his ass when you first woke up and felt threatened. You clearly weren’t a wolf by any normal standard. So why would they be able to find out the secret everyone worked so hard to keep.

“But you said she’s not-” Yangyang tried to point out, doing his best to poke holes in your brother’s logic so he could get you the best care available.

But it seemed that no matter what anyone said or would do, the nimble wolf wouldn’t back down on his stance of you not going to the doctor, “I know what I said!” Ten blurted, aggravated at the situation entirely.

His brother’s sudden outburst scared the pink haired boy more than it probably should’ve. He understood that your brother was just doing what he could to protect everyone as that was part of his job as second in command. But Yangyang couldn’t help but fight the thought of you not being able to go to the hospital. You were his mate. How could he not at least try to give you your best shot at living?

“Look kid, I get why you’re worried, I do. She’s my sister and I… care a great deal for her too,” The tone of his voice began to morph into something rather comforting once he saw the panic and pain in the pup’s growing red eyes, “But just because she doesn’t shift, doesn’t mean she’s human. Whatever she is- whatever’s pumping through her veins- IS NOT gonna turn out normal on a blood test. Trust me.”

“Just cause she smells kind of like a werewolf, doesn’t mean that if she goes to the hospital they’ll figure it out. She could just smell like that from being around them so much. She’s probably just a normal human.” Yueguang rationed, thinking that it was worth the risk since they weren’t 100% sure you’d make it with just the power couple’s help.

“Yeah we can probably take her and she’d be fine.” Chimed Dejun in agreement, honestly just wanting the conversation about your health to be over already.

Everyone was thinking that their arguements were pretty valid and that your own brother was bound to listen to logic since he would’ve wanted to do everything possible to keep you alive. But before Dejun could even fully finish speaking, Ten broke out in anger once more, “You guys don’t fucking understand!”

Chittaphon was always known as the cool headed one, the jokester of the pack that only ever messed with the people around him lovingly. So seeing him bust into a sudden fit sent a small shiver even down your own mate’s spine, someone who your brother secretly treasured to no end.

“What is it that we don’t understand?” Kun quizzed, “You said it yourself, it’s not like she can shift. So what’s the harm in taking her to get patched up at an actual medical facility?”

“That’s not what I meant! Did you not even hear the part where I said ‘she’s not normal?’!?!” Ten aggressively snarled to his pack, though most so towards his alpha, “When i say she’s not human either, I fucking mean she’d be no better off than the rest of us if we went!”

Yue pinched the bridge of her nose in agitation, “Ten, you’re being ridiculous! Her injuries are seriously life threatening.”

At that point, everyone was beginning to think he was being pretty unreasonable. Sure Ten had a reputation of being a head strong asshole when he wanted to be, but how could he just dismiss the possibility of your getting critical life saving care without at least taking the time to consider what it meant to forgo said care?

“If Sicheng said she’s gonna just get worse, we need to just take her to the hospital for her own sake.” Kun flatlined, instinctively going over to put himself between his mate and the now fuming wolf.

“I dont know Kun ge.” Sicheng interrupted the eldest boy and his mate to put his two cents in for the first time since the conversing started, “As much as I hate to admit it, I think Ten Hyung might be right.”

Did Yangyang hear that right…? Did the wolf that said you’d all but be dead without proper medical care really say that your brother had a point? Was he being serious? Was he just still pissed at you for punching him or something and this was his cruel way of getting back at you?

“What do you mean he might be right?” Yangyang whispered just loud enough for all those in the room to hear.

Truthfully, he was scared about what the observant wolf would say about you. And He wasn’t sure which to hope for at that point, he just knew he didn’t want you to die. He couldn’t let you die.

“I mean I’m pretty sure normal humans don’t need to have their bones rebroken because they healed too quickly days after what should’ve been a fatal accident like her,” Sicheng reasoned with a shrug, “Not to mention the fact that she even survived such a horrific trauma like that when no one else survived, she’s definitely something that wouldn’t be considered human. Even if she’s not a wolf like us and can’t phase, I’d say she’s at least got more than a few of our genes, genes that would, like Ten said, show up on hospital tests. It’s the only thing that really makes sense.”

The solemn male did have a point. Yangyang wasn’t exactly sure on what had happened to you still, but he knew based on what everyone said that it should’ve killed you immediately. The fact that your heart was still beating was kind of damning evidence that there was something different about you than the average human.

“And I’m pretty sure the skin surrounding her injuries shows signs of cauterization.” Daiyu added, trying to back up her mate and your brother’s case of your origin with facts.

Considering how fast his sister was to continue Sicheng’s point, Yangyang began to wonder if the mated couple had actually spoken about the topic of your species before.

“Exactly. I think when I get close enough to her, I’m about 90% positive I smell freshly burnt silver. I think that’s why she’s becoming septic. I think she’s allergic to the silver like us and it’s still stuck inside her.” The tall wolf tailed, “Even if we don’t know for sure what’s going on with her gene pool, I’m certain if we took her to an ER, we’d all end up on some scientists metal slab getting tests ran on us once they saw that bit.” Sicheng finished with his head looking down at his feet.

Everyone could tell that even their healer knew keeping you away from the hospital could be deadly. But if he thought that it was a good idea to keep you home to prevent you from becoming a human Guinea pig, how could they fight that? And it wasn’t just for your own good. It was for everyone’s own good, not that knowing that stopped an unsettling pit from forming in the pups stomach.

“So… she stays…?” Yangyang hesitantly let out into the air, part of him wishing he didn’t have to think about what it meant to keep you back home.

Ten nodded his head at the maknae in confirmation, “She stays.”

Once your brother declared his decision aloud, there was another question at hand that needed to be discussed. One Yangyang knew would make him sick because he couldn’t stand to hear you in anymore pain. But he knew if the answer was yes, that’s what would be coming.

“Do you think you can get all the silver out?” Yueguang wondered to your current caretakers.

It wasn’t that anyone really questioned the couples ability to care for you the way you needed. It was just that you were truly that bad off and no one was sure if anyone, let alone people who weren’t actual medical professionals yet, could fix you.

“We can try.” Daiyu determined, using whatever courage she could muster to give the youngest wolf a sad smile of reassurance to ease him.

But nothing could help him. Because they weren’t even sure if anything could help you. They couldn’t even confidently tell him that you would make it through the removal process alive. Without you, he didn’t even want to live.

That’s why, despite his older sister’s best attempt to soothe his aching heart, Yangyang couldn’t help but let a small whimper radiate in his chest and the tear that had begun to bubble through his vision at the skeptical words fall down his cheek.

“I’ll do my very best.” Sicheng affirmed his mate’s hope as they started their way towards your room again.

But just after Dai went through the door and before the third oldest could do the same, he turned and fixed his eyes to meet the pink haired boy, “Just stay close in case she works the same way we do and having her mate around does help her heal and I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”

And with that, the couple once again went to your room to try and save your life for what seemed like the hundredth time that week.

“Fuck!” You hissed in pain as Sicheng pulled yet another large shard out of your leg.

He gave you an apologetic smile to compensate for his harsh actions, “Sorry. You’ll get used to it after a while and then it won’t hurt so badly.” The monotoned elder boy spoke softly.

Though you couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort you with that fact or if he was indeed just stating a fact to you. Either way, it still stung like a bitch.

“Is that supposed to like- help me feel better- or something?” You questioned aloud, doing your very best to distract yourself from Sicheng’s ever digging tweezers searching through your skin.

“Uh-“ He withdrew his actions at your comment and thought for a moment.

Everyone knew you weren’t doing that great. And he knew that nothing he could ever say or do would ever be able to make up for the fact that you’d more than likely never have the full use of your leg again. But, what else could he really have said? “Y-Yeah. I suppose it is.”

Thankfully, you didn’t have nearly as much shrapnel left as he originally thought. Unfortunately however, the pieces you did have left were relatively bigger pieces. Which was why it hurt you so badly every time one of them touched you or tried to take them out. They were like little icebergs, when they thought they found a little chunk of one, it actually ended up being a substantial section the size of a grown man’s finger.

As he finally sat the final piece of what he could see onto the tray beside him, he let out a sigh of relief, “Alright. That’s the last of it. For now at least. You should rest. You’ll need your strength. We both know this won’t be the last time this has to be done, and I’ll need you to be as strong as you can be to be sure you’ll survive it next time too.” Sicheng gave you a look of what you could only describe as torment and pity.

Then again, you knew if you saw any of the others that they’d most likely hold similar emotions in their eyes…

“Yeah…” You tearfully accepted his words through a harsh swallow.

By the time Sicheng was done, you were evidently exhausted and ready to pass out. The shooting pains radiating around your body also had you feeling lonely and like you wanted to grab a teddy bear you didn’t have and curl up into a ball as you begged for your dearly departed mother or like you wanted to cry yourself to sleep. Since you couldn’t do either of those things because one, your mother was dead and two, crying that hard for that long would only make your suffering worse later, you settled for the next best thing.

“Y-Yeah okay. But before you go- C-Can you… can you just hand me my jacket please?” You asked him with as best a smile as you could muster up in hopes of easing some of the guilt you could tell he felt for foraging through your skin for the past hour and a half.

To say your jacket was special to you was a bit of an understatement. Not only was it one of the few items you actually had with you from your homeland still, but it also contained memories of your family. The jacket itself was something that your grandfather had passed to your father, and when your father died he passed it to your eldest brother. One by one it was passed through your huge lot of siblings when the previous had fallen. And after all the others were gone, it eventually landed with you.

When you were younger, you used to hate it because it meant someone else had to go to fight a fight that wasn’t theirs to fight. But once you gained possession over it, you realized it wasn’t a symbol of war. It was a symbol of family. And now it truly was all you had left of yours. It was safe. It made you feel like you had them with you even though they’d never be with you again.

“Of course.” Sicheng smiled, quickly moving from your side to fetch the jacket that had been sat on a gaming chair when you had first arrived from a cross the room.

“Here you go!” He beamed, happy he could at least do something that wouldn’t hurt you before handing it to your still useable hand, “Do you need anything else before we let you sleep for a while?”

You shook your head weakly, “Mmm mmh. I’ll be alright. But thanks.” You lied and rolled over onto your good side, trying hard to pretend that you were going to go to sleep as you knew as soon as he was out of ear shot you’d most likely let the ever bugging tears stream down your face.

With a quick nod and a small bow of his head, he began to gather up all the used medical supplies he had brought with him and shut off the lights so that your tired self could ‘rest.’

Though just as he had finally gotten out of the door and was preparing to shut it behind him, he could’ve swore he saw you pull something out of one of your jacket pockets and slip it under your pillow. But he didn’t question it or call you out on it. If it was important or something concerning, he’d just deal with it another time when you weren’t in need of some serious understanding.

“H-How is s-she?” Yangyang asked his brother in what seemed like less than a second after he fully closed your bedroom door.

You had just gone through yet another gruesome debridement session, but if Sicheng hadn’t known better, one would’ve though the pup of the pack was the one he had been poking and prodding all day.

His once lively and bright smiley face was now streaked with dried up salty streams of despair and misery. His eyes looked as if they were sunken deeper into their sockets because of the ever darkening bags under them. Even his originally olive toned color had all but been drained from his body, leaving behind a cold grayed shell of his former self.

He looked terrible. He looked miserable. Then again if the roles were reversed and he had been the one to sit outside the door while he listened to his mate scream and cry for hours, he was certain he’d look just as bad if not worse than the poor maknae.

In the hopes of lessening the boy’s worry of you, he decided to hide the amount of metal shards he had taken from your body and focus on the positive, “I gave her something for the pain. She’s asleep now.” Sicheng got down to his brother’s level and patted him on the back in comfort.

“S-so she’s… she’s still alive..?” Yangyang asked as he stuttered and wiped away some new tears that had begun to form.

He didn’t sleep anymore. He stayed up most nights to be sure he’d be there in case your heart stopped beating. He didn’t go to school anymore. He switched to online courses so he could always be home and close by your room so you’d have a better chance of healing. He didn’t really speak anymore either, except to ask about how you were or what your condition was.

Hell, the only reason why he even ate a little bit of food now and then anymore was because he knew your chances of survival were higher if your mate was alive and healthy.

“Yes Yangyang, she’s alive. Just resting so her body can try to jump start her healing again.”

The second the words left his packmate’s mouth, Yangyang started bawling. He knew he could still hear your very faint heart beat, but when he actually heard from another person that you’d made it through yet again, he couldn’t help but start crying. And it wasn’t just the usual hot tears rolling down his face either. It was hard thick gasping sobs that shook his whole body.

He wasn’t even sure if part of it was because he was so weak from the lack of care to hisself or if part of it may have been because he didn’t have to be tortured with your cries anymore. None of it mattered because you were still breathing and were now resting comfortably in the sanctity of his bed behind the wall he was now using for support. And for that, he couldn’t thank whatever being that was out there that kept the universe afloat enough. You were still alive.

“I- T-Thank you gege.” He managed to quietly express once he calmed himself down and began to breathe properly again.

“Any time little brother.” Sicheng chuckled to the younger boy as he rubbed up and down his arm to relax his shaking, “Now come on. Let’s get you something to eat. It isn’t healthy for a growing boy like yourself to go so long with nothing in their stomach. And you both need for you to stay strong.” He hoisted the both of them to their feet and navigated their way to the kitchen.

You woke to a dulled throbbing sensation that almost felt like it had your left arm melting. The pain came to you so quickly and was so different than any pain you had felt so far, you couldn’t help but to jet your eyes open wide and growl out a loud “holy shit” at the harsh new hurt.

“Oh goodness, You’re awake!” A girl kneeled beside you squealed in in Cantonese urgently as she retreated her hands from your body in surprise, causing what you eventually made out to be a male from the corner of your eye to come darting to her aid.

Once you realized the new boy was forcefully nudging the sweet sounding girl out of the way thinking you were going to do something rash, you rolled your eyes in annoyance. She must’ve been one of the mates in your brother’s pack and the guy must’ve sensed his love in danger. He was being stupid in your eyes though. As if you could really harm anyone in your current state.

You shook your head gently, letting any and all air escape from your freshly healed lungs out with a shakey puff of hesitation as you replied to her in the same language she used to speak to you, “yeah. I wish I wasn’t.”

The only time you ever got any peace or calmness was when you were asleep. Sure you still had the nightmares, but you didn’t feel any of the shooting jolts you did as when you were awake unless you tried to move a lot. But at that point, you had all but trained your body to stay as still as it could while you were resting to save yourself the trouble.

“You speak Cantonese? I didn’t know you could do that! But I’m Sorry for disturbing you!” The high pitch voiced girl declared, seemingly showing a layer of watery gloss in her eyes.

You figured she must have genuinely felt bad that she had woken you doing… whatever it was she was doing so close to you, “H-How do you feel?” She stuttered to change the subject in Mandarin. Or maybe just to get your mind off the now seething pain you felt.

“Is that a trick question?”

You could tell the girl next to you wasn’t much of a threat. Her Bambi like eyes and rounded Mochi cheeks told you that. Some small part of you even remembered hearing her talking kindly to some of the others downstairs during some of your more conscious moments.

But you couldn’t stop your sharp tongue from slicing through. It was a running joke between you and your friends that you had been born as sarcastic as you were unlucky. So it was a bit fruitless for you to act like something you weren’t. You figured it was best you let everyone in the house catch a glimpse of your true personality now rather than later anyways, for their own sakes.

“Well… um-no…” She thought carefully, doing her best to pull who you could now only assume was her mate to her side so she could hold a proper conversation with you, “I just- well I wasn’t sure what else to say.” She answered honestly.

She was really just shocked you woke up at all. But now you were having a full on conversation with her in two different languages she wasn’t sure five minutes ago you even spoke. She was trying to absorb it all.

While the girl’s red eyed nostril flaring guard dog made the hair stand up on the back of your neck, you found yourself oddly endeared to the female.

She was dressed rather too brightly for your own taste, wearing a pleated pink skirt with a white lantern sleeved shirt and cutesy little barrettes in her medium length dark brown hair. She looked like the little china dolls your mom used to bring you after she got back from her trips back home, though you could tell based on her more solidified features that she was probably older than you. You decided to forgo your previous decision to keep your snarky wits about you and went for a slightly calmer demeanor than you normally would’ve.

“…How about an introduction…?”

“Of course!” The girl beamed with a giggle, “Sorry! I forgot that you haven’t met most of us yet. My name’s Yueguang! This here-” She gestured to the older male still glued to her side in protection, “-This is my mate Kun. Oh wait- do you even know what mates are…?” She wondered aloud with a head tilt.

You couldn’t help but let out a dry chuckle. Now was THAT supposed to be a trick question?

“Yes. Yes I know what mates are trust me.” You replied, letting an amused smile settle on you face after a moment, “It’s nice to meet you both I suppose…”

It wasn’t that you minded meeting the rest of the pack. It’s just you didn’t like that the wolf, Kun, still had his defenses up against you. It made you feel the instinctual need to do the same.

But you had already mentally agreed with yourself to try to be nice to the girl taking care of you. She didn’t have to do whatever it was she was doing for you after all. None of them did. They were just doing it because you were their packmate’s kid sister. They weren’t obligated to help you and since you weren’t able to do much for yourself at the moment, you thought it was best to play as civil as you could. Even if it was only to the select few you found sincerely innocent in character or caring for you.

“The pleasure’s all ours!” The girl, Yueguang exclaimed, giving you a smile as she asked you with her eyes if she could continue with what it was she was doing to do before you woke up.

Since you figured whatever she was doing was necessary for you to get better, you gave her a tiny polite nod and she began to dab some rancid smelling rag against the burns on your arm. Even though it still stung, you found that if you were watching what they were doing to fix you whenever they did it that it wasn’t so bad. So that’s what you did. You stared at the cloth as it pressed against your scattered tattooed skin and started taking mental guesses as to what it was she had been tasked to do to you this time.

Within a minute or two, the stalking wolf broke through the comfortable silence with an uncomfortable question, “What’s your name?”

It was bad enough he caught you off guard with actually speaking for the first time, but the question wasn’t one you really wanted to answer.

“My what?” You played dumb, trying to express confusion while internally feeling your heart beat faster for some reason.

It shouldn’t have been a hard question. And you guessed for most people it really wasn’t. But to you, someone surrounded by a bunch of people who assumed you’d give them your Chinese name because they at least knew you were half Chinese, it was.

Yueguang sent a glare of warning over at her mate. You guessed it was probably because he spoke so suddenly and because the question no doubt caused a physical reaction that showed your discomfort, “Your name sweetheart. We just wanna know what to call you. I mean, we know Ten’s mentioned your name was Minnie, but we figured that was a nickname and not your real name, like Ten’s own name.”

So your brother had really brought you to his pack’s home in the dead of night, had them care for you and patch you up with no reward or familial obligation in sight, only to have left them completely in the dark with something even as simple as to your actual name? Yeah, that seemed like something he would do.

“Y-yeah it’s a- it’s a nickname only he calls me,” You didn’t see any point of lying about it.

It was true, only he called you that. He had since you were kids. One would’ve assumed that after everything that… happened, he would’ve reverted to calling you one of your more formal names. But even in your severely fractured siblingship he still used it.

“That’s so sweet!” It was more strange of him to do if anything. Maybe even a bit morbid of him in some twisted ‘it’s all your fault now here’s a daily reminder’ sort of way. “So you probably want us calling you something different huh?” She supposed.

“Probably, yeah.”

Part of you wondered if the paired couple could tell you were purposely being as vague and as blunt as you could. But another part of you, the part of you focused on saving yourself because you were so used to it, refused to care because they said nothing further about it in the moment if they DID notice something was up.

“So what’s your given name then?” Yueguang pressed, finally letting the evil rag fall to the ground as she started the long and grueling process of reapplying the dressing for your wounds.

“Well, I doubt you could pronounce that name.” You joked, soon realizing they wouldn’t be able to articulate it as soon as you realized the two people in your room were Chinese, “And my Chinese name is- well… it’s a bit embarrassing and I don’t like going by it.”

Once again, you were just stating a fact. Your name you usually went by back home was far too complex in tone for even native speakers of your language to pronounce right.

And your Chinese name was beyond stupid in your eyes. By the time you were born, your mother had long decided that your name would rival your brother’s name, thinking it would ideally cause the two of you to become closer having names that complimented one another. Boy, was she wrong.

“Alright. So what would you LIKE us to call you?” The stuck up boy raised his brow to you.

As much as you wanted to wipe the growing soured frown off his face, you knew you had to give everyone in the pack SOMETHING to call you. So you settled on one that was familiar enough for you to recognize if called by it, yet easy enough for it to flow off a Chinese speakers tongue as it was technically a Chinese word.

“___.”

Yueguang couldn’t help but tilt her head to the side in curiosity, “___? Is that like a shortened name of your original name?”

“Not exactly…”

“Then why that?” Kun questioned with a scrunched nose, making you wish you had forgone your previous decision to not punch him in the face.

“It’s… it’s what my other brothers and friends used to call me. Because my skin’s always been so much lighter than theirs on account of me being half chinese.”

You didn’t see a point in lying behind the origin of your name, they’d see your dark humor eventually. If the reason you had the nickname upset them, so be it.

The innocent looking girl took a noticeable pause to respond to you, “Well that’s… certainly a bit… different…”

“Yeah.”

Well, you had been fully conscious and aware of your surroundings for less than two days and had already gotten some of the pack to dislike you. That’s a new record.

“Kind of a warped sense of humor no?” Kun raised his brow at you as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Warped sense of humor? Me? Sounds about right.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle a short little laugh out. They clearly didn’t know a single thing about you. Chitta had really fucked them over in having them help you when they didn’t know a thing about how you acted.

Yue cocked her head to the side almost childishly, “What do you mean?”

You calmed your giggling session so you could answer her seriously and respectfully, “Oh nothing. I’ve just- I’ve always just had a bit of a dark and twisty personality I guess.”

“Well alright then dark and twisty girl ___-” The male wolf gave you a discrete eye roll probably not wanting to alert his mate to his annoyance, and went on, “Since you seem to be in more of a coherent state today, you mind giving us a bit of background on what happened to you? Your brother’s been-”

“Half brother.”

You couldn’t help but correct him. You knew your brother would. He always did. He seemed to hate the idea of people thinking you were full siblings. You always figured it was because in his eyes full siblings were real siblings that you had to love and half siblings were fake and could be hated when it was convenient.

After a deafening silence, the boy spoke again, “Right… Your HALF brother’s been literally zero help up until this point. So it’s been a serious case of the blind leading the blinder here.” Kun explained the situation as he ran his hand through his hair.

Was that why he seemed to naturally dislike and distrust you so much? Or could it have been because your brother let you stay with them and didn’t tell him or give him a choice?

“It all’s just… been coming back in pieces.” You answered him honestly, still not completely sure of the whole situation yourself, “I don’t remember a lot… and what I do remember doesn’t- doesn’t always make sense.”

That’s another reason why you preferred to stay asleep. The longer you slept, the more your brain seemed to want to try to put together some of the scene that had cost you a good portion of your body’s function.

The girl beside you seemed to pick up on the fact that you were having trouble understanding it all yourself and opened her mouth to speak with a kind smile, “We’ll take just about anything or any information you’d be willing to share with us at this point. Even if it’s just where you’re from ___.”

You found yourself liking Yueguang the more she spoke. She seemed like she really thought about how to word things well before she said them aloud and she gave off the sense that she cared about you. Based on how uncertainly she talked about the subject, you could tell she knew the situation was something you were still struggling to come to terms with yourself.

“Okay well- um…” You sighed lightly as you tried to explain the earliest memory from the day you got hurt, “I remember sitting in my Forger above the clouds. But I don’t really remember the original reason we were sent out, probably because our scouts spotted some bandits… but who knows?”

Yue chimed in quickly after you finished your last sentence, “Forger? What’s a Forger?”

“O-Oh,” You gulped, completely forgetting that you were in a new land that probably didn’t speak the same lingo you did, “I-it’s- um it’s a type of aircraft that-” You attempted to inform her, only to have her cut you off before you could continue.

“Aircraft?!? Like the kind that goes in the air and that they use to drop bombs and stuff!?!” She quizzed with widened doe eyes, much to your confusion.

Next to her, you noticed even Kun had a surprised look on his previously serious resting face.

“Uh…” You deadpanned with a bit of amusement behind your voice as you looked between them, “Yeah. S-Something like that I guess. Anyways- why do you- why do you sound so shocked?”

You didn’t get it, did they not have to do the same thing? Weren’t they all from China? Didn’t they have to deal with the war too?

The older girl’s face was still plastered with bewilderment as she put reason behind her concern, “It’s just- I mean- you’re so- you’re so young. I just didn’t think you’d be doing stuff like that is all.”

Young? Did they consider you… young? But you weren’t young. At least, back home you wouldn’t be considered young. Maybe in Korea you wouldn’t have been…?

“I-I started out doing that stuff pretty late compared to everyone else where I’m from actually…”

You really weren’t sure of your theory, you didn’t know the customs of your refugeed land or even of your Chinese heritage for that matter. When your mom died, you were raised by your father and ten went with his. You never really got to learn things from her because you were so little and didn’t have much of a comprehension back then. Maybe that’s why they were being weird. Maybe they considered what your people do strange for their people.

“And where’s that exactly?” Kun added, or rather jumped, in.

“Where’s what?”

He exhausted a tired sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Where you are from.”

Oh yeah. You forgot your brother was a jackass and didn’t tell them a thing about you for a second as you reminisced about your culture.

“Somewhere you’ve probably never heard of because it’s been under Russian rule for forever.”

An awkward tension filled the air, whether it was because their country was allied with Russia instead of fighting them now or because they didn’t know Russia had started another war to begin with, you weren’t sure. But it got so still around you could’ve sworn someone with normal hearing unlike you could’ve heard a pin drop.

To break the uncomfortableness, Yue decided to reroute the subject to something that could end with a better outcome, “So you fly planes?”

“I fly-” You stopped yourself, remembering that that was in your old life. You wouldn’t ever have that life again, “I- I mean I used to fly jets.”

You hated that you had to correct yourself. You hated that you weren’t back home helping. You hated that you were now laying on… someone’s bed instead of sitting in your usual cockpit fending off the invaders who were doing all they could to annihilate your people and the others like your people. It left a bitter taste in your mouth you weren’t certain you’d ever be able to shake.

Noticing the water forming in your eyes, Kun tried to stay on subject hoping it would keep you from crying and making your injuries hurt worse, “If the country you’re from is so unheard of, how did you manage to get your hands on a fighter jet from the Soviet era?” He broke you from your thoughts.

Fighter jet? Soviet era? You didn’t say either of those things exactly to the couple, though they were both true. You were just curious as to how he knew they were true…

“H-How’d you know that-”

Yueguang interrupted you before you could ask what you wanted to ask, “Kun’s got a thing for planes. Knows everything there is to know about them really. He even just got his pilots license!” She beamed a proud smile as she looked up at her mate with love, who in turn softened his face and gave a small grin back.

“Uh huh. Well- uh-” You cleared your throat due to the shock of someone actually knowing what you were speaking on in the country and because you weren’t really used to seeing such public displays of… whatever the hell it was that those two had going on. “T-The soviets left us their old scraps when they got their newer toys, probably thinking we were too primal in nature to even know what they were.” But you were wondering why your heart ached with a small hitch when you saw their eyes meeting with such emotion towards each other, almost as if they missed or wanted the same feeling with someone you loved. Almost. “But my father revamped their original outdated designs to a more modernized efficient form. He practically had us strip them down to their skeletons and, in doing so, gave us a militia capable of defending and taking back our lands.”

The incredulity was evident on Yueguang’s face as she spoke through your words, “Your dad managed that? He must be pretty smart!”

Your dad made inventions so out there and creative, he would’ve had any inventor of previous “technology” roll around in their graves. Yet he never let all the masterminding and working get in between his time with his kids.

Hell, sometimes he’d even bring you with him to his shop and explain how everything worked saying that you’d ‘need to know it all one day’ to continue his legacy anyways. He always called you his little protégée princess and had you helping him make his latest designs to showcase to the others in your village or unit. Though many knew him as a man that prided himself on his brain, family was what he truly treasured.

After your mom died, he always made sure to spend extra time with you so you’d know you still had a parental figure who was there for you. Hed take time out of his busy schedule to help you with your homework or listen to you spout off about some crazy idea that had accumulated in your head. He never raised his voice, even when times were tough and he got frustrated. He was the world’s biggest goofball who loved playing pranks between projects and was always looking for new ways to put a smile on your face.

You loved your dad with all your heart. He was just the best dad a girl could ask for.

Was the best dad a girl could ask for…

“Yeah. Yeah h-he was. But even the biggest brain in the world couldn’t stop a Uragan.”

You let your voice fall as you remembered him and what happened. It was unfair. He was brilliant and they took him away from not just you, but from your people who depended on his craft to survive. They robbed your country of the light at the end of the tunnel they so desperately needed. You hated them.

Tears began to spill out of the outer corners of your eyes and slid to the curves of your ears just as Kun tried to ask “What’s a Ura-”

If you explained anything any further, you’d cry. You’d never stop crying. The only thing that ever helped was when you were fighting to get back at the monsters that killed him. But you couldn’t do that anymore, you weren’t even in the same country anymore. Even if you managed to find your way back, you’d never be the same. You blinked away the heated water and tried to regain your composure.

You had to be strong. He’d want you to be be strong. You had to hold it together. For him.

“Annnywaaays, back to what happened” You broke his sentence apart before he could piece it together and shatter your already unevenly beating heart, “I was in my jet and then there was someone on my tail. I knew I had to lose him, but i realized my guns weren’t functioning and could see that everything below me was lighting up.”

You did your best to tell the story you saw every night in your dreams to them in a way they would understand. You remembered flying and seeing gunfire glisten against your crafts glass windows. You remembered gripping your steering with all your might and trying to fire to not avail. You remembered your pulse going through the roof and that your time was running out. You remembered being scared for the first time since your mother died. You remembered feeling trapped.

“So what’d you do?” Yueguang wondered out loud as she listened in horror.

“I did all I could do: I went higher.” You could still see the nose of the Forger going up as you did all you could to keep steady when the cockpit began to shake, “I went higher than I should’ve, I think I capped at 30,000 ft but i dont know for sure. Everything started to get… blurry pretty quickly after that.”

The girl next to you, who looked as if she was listening to some sort of action movie about to hit its climax, suddenly changed her expression to one of curiosity as she listened to you tell your tale, “But Why did everything go blurry?” She probed, obviously trying her best to tread as lightly as possible into the subject out of respect.

You couldn’t blame her for questioning everything. You realized neither of the two Chinese people next to you probably had to deal with war the way you did.

But you didn’t have a choice but to join the resistance. Once the grown adults of your nation began to fall too fast to even bury, the government had no other option but to send out the next set of individuals capable of shooting a gun with little recoil. And that group just so happened to include you and your friends.

“G-Loc, right?” Kun affirmed with you with an unreadable expression. You assumed he was attempting not to show you he was just as immersed in the whole thing as his mate was.

“Alpha boy’s probably got it.” You confirmed with the smallest of nods, “Gravity’s a real bitch.”

You still felt the shift of pressure in your head. That, topped with your heart still thinking it needed to speed up to compensate with the trauma you were going through (at least that’s what you chalked it up to), made you start to feel more nauseous than you should’ve, “I tried to descend as fast as i could. But I must’ve been losing consciousness because I started falling. And i must’ve fallen hard based on the silver shards stuck in my crushed side too.”

“How does silver have anything to do w-” You couldn’t help but cut Yueguang off because she asked what you considered to be a dumb question.

You didn’t want to be mean, but you also didn’t want to tell the story forever. As you started saying it all out loud you soon realized that it was only gonna make you feel like shit. You just hoped you could tell it the one time and that they’d tell the others (or that the others could hear for themselves if they were home) and you’d be done having to tell it. You just wanted it over with already.

“It’s what the outer shell was made of. The inner cockpit was specifically designed with copper to be sure it wouldn’t kill half my squad on impact if we crash landed. It was no secret over half of them were shifters so we had to watch the materials we used to forge our gear,” You illuminated what you meant to the mated pair, “Based on the simple fact that silver has a higher density and would’ve only crushed in on a heavy impact once molded and alloyed with a heavy duty metal like platinum or titanium, and that taking into account that my skin literally burns like I’m being scorched with a branding iron just sitting down-” You hissed through your teeth as you tried to reposition yourself slightly, only to have Kun and Yueguang help maneuver you more to your liking so you wouldn’t hurt yourself more or reopen your injuries, “-It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the fragments still lodged in my body probably happened because my seat didn’t punch out like I was meant to. Which would’ve only happened if i hit the ground too hard in too much of a hurry.” You finished, waiting for anymore questions to appear out of either of their mouths so you could answer them swiftly.

When you received none, you took that as the go ahead to add the last remaining parts to what happened, “Next thing I knew, I was looking up at the night’s sky through some of the rock and sheet metal, trapped, doing what I could to concentrate on the stars above to stay awake until help arrived. But it eventually all went black too.”

After a beat of silence, and after giving each other concerning looks, Yueguang spoke just above a whisper, “…That’s just-”

“Awful.” Kun alleviated her words with sorrow dripping through his voice.

If you weren’t so strangely made genetically, you honestly wouldn’t have even heard him. He spoke in what you could call a hardly audible whimper. Once you looked up to see his face, the only thing you could see was hurt. His heart hurt for you.

When you looked over at Yueguang, you saw just how shiny her previously joy filled eyes had become. They both felt bad for you.

Yue instinctually sat her hand to rest on your lowered forearm in comfort as she sat next to you sniffling back a sob.

You didn’t want either to feel so bad over something that wasn’t their fault, so you gave a weak smile, “It’s not all bad-” You lightheartedly chuckled to show them you were alright, “I do remember taking at least one of them in my fall zone down with me.”

You could tell that, while you comment seemed to snap the alpha back into his defensive reality of you, Yueguang was unconvinced.

“So it sounds like you’ve killed before then?” The older boy sneered with snap. But you couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he was wanting to play his feelings off with a dark joke you were well affiliated with.

Instead of smacking him like he half expected you to, you laughed at him. It was a genuine laugh that you hadn’t expressed in the time you had been with them too.

Kun wasn’t even sure what to think of someone that would respond to an insinuation the way you had. Most people would be offended, but you just laughed. You laughed like you had heard the funniest joke of your entire life despite your wounds that no doubt must’ve been aching at you to stop. But he wasn’t getting the joke, “What’s so funny?”

“A killer judging a killer. That’s a little hypocritical dont you think?” You breathed with a sigh, wiping away tears of hilarity that had trickled their way down your eyes with your less dominate, uninjured hand.

Kun narrowed his golden eyes at you in suspicion as he looked you over. And, one again, you couldn’t tell if he was just trying to find a way out of the situation or if he was genuinely ready to pounce on you.

But through gritted teeth, he growled out “Touché” before his eyes began to spot back to the crimson color they had when you first woke up and scared his mate.

Nothing the change in her mate’s attitude, Yueguang seemed to make it her mission to get him leave the room to cool down and used the excuse of you being broken to accomplish her quest, “OKAY! How about you got make her a little something to eat so she can attempt to get her strength back up baby?”

“…Alright,” Kun eventually agreed with a huff, “Call me if you need me then my love.”

With that, he pushed himself up to stand and walked out your bedroom door, closing it a bit harder than he probably should’ve given your state.

“Sorry about him.” Yueguang apologized for her mate’s attitude, “He doesn’t mean to pry or seem so…” She trailed, searching for a word in mandarin to explain what she meant and failing miserably.

So you decided to give her one you thought worked best instead, “Fucked?” You snorted as you rolled your eyes.

“Language!” She squawked in a scolding tone, only making you feel more pride in your choice of words, “But… yeah i guess. He’s just concerned is all. We all are. This whole situation was completely unexpected. I mean we didn’t even-”

“Know I existed?”

The fact that you already knew where she was going with her sentence seemed to puzzle her, but she still answered you nonetheless, “Um… y-yeah. We only-”

“Knew about Tern?”

Now you could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out why it was you seemed to just know you brother wouldn’t even tell his own pack about you, “Y-Yeah.”

“Yeah. That’s about right too. My brother never tells people he has another sister. He hates me.”

“B-But why?” The girl stuttered, her eyes starting to get noticeably glossy again.

You figured she must’ve been a very sensitive person. Or maybe you had just numbed yourself to the whole situation with your brother either way, you saw no harm in being honest with her. She just seemed worried for you.

“Because he blames me for our mom’s death.”

This time, she gave you a reaction that bordered disbelief, “W-Why would he do that? That’s out there even for him.” She declared with a scoff.

“Because… it is my fault that she died.”

Yangyang had been sitting outside your door all day. His ass was practically glued to the same wood floor slot he always sat on at that point. He stayed by in case it could help you feel better. But staying close by you didn’t necessarily make him feel better.

At least, not while he listened to you and his sister having the conversation you were having anyways.

“What did you mean by it was your fault your mom died last time we talked?” Yangyang heard Yue quiz you from behind the wood door of his (your) bedroom.

Yangyang was there for that conversation too, you just didn’t know, he didn’t think you knew anyways. He heard you explain what happened to his alpha and his mate. He listened as you explained the situation in your home country. He cried silently as your pained voice explained how you nearly died. He knew about it all.

He just couldn’t tell you he knew or help cuddle your sad self because you didn’t even know he existed as far as he knew. The whole situation both confused and aggravated him to know end. But he couldn’t do much about it so long as you were still unable to leave the room he had given you. So he just sat and tried to absorb as much knowledge about you as he could in the hopes that it would help him get to know you as a person.

“I meant exactly what was said.” You informed her easily.

That was one thing he had learned about you from staying so close: you were very honest. Probably too honest. You didn’t seem to care what others thought nor did you care if the truth hurt someone’s feelings. In a way, Yangyang admired you for that. He’d never have the courage to do even half of what you’d said or done that he knew of.

He already knew that Yue was standing at you stunned as he listened to your skin sizzling quietly under whatever antiseptic they had been trying to cleanse your wounds with recently, “But how can that be? I don’t understand.” She stated as she pouted more of the liquid.

Yeah, he didn’t either. Then again, with how you spoke about your brother in the select few days you had been awake, he wasn’t too shocked to hear it anymore. You acted as if he wished you dead. Like he hated the very idea you even drew the same breath at him.

But as Yangyang could practically feel your heart beating next to his own, he knew how much it pained you to say such things aloud. He knew you loved Ten and cared for him more than you did yourself. Even if he didn’t love you back the way you wished he would.

“W-well… I-It was my fifth birthday. My party had just finished and I- I didn’t feel very good. I was having trouble breathing,” You spoke just above a whine, “It was late and everyone was tired, including my mom. But she was worried for me because I was getting worse.”

Before you came around, the pack had all thought that Ten’s stepmom was his mom. It wasn’t until you told everyone just how it was you two came to be related that they knew you shared the same mom. He never spoke of her and flatly refused to. But Yangyang realized the only family member you were usually comfortable speaking about was your mother.

He wasn’t sure why that was. Speaking of your dad and other brothers or family was never your favorite thing to do. The nerves would always skyrocket inside Yangyang’s chest whenever they got brought up, signaling that that reaction was probably being mirrored from you. Based on how you spoke of your mother though, she passed when you were little. So he figured maybe a decent amount of time had passed for you to have mourned properly and we’re capable of remembering her fondly.

When you brought her up into conversation, you typically had a stable heart rate and your mate couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face. But when you started speaking of her now, it felt like someone was jabbing a knife straight through his rib cage. It hurt you.

“I didn’t want to go.” Yangyang heard you stifle a sniffle as your voice cracked in an almost pleading tone, making him want to burst through the door and throw his arms around you. But he couldn’t. He had to both hear and feel your heart break and was unable to do anything about it.

You let out a sad dry laugh, “Even when I was little I-I knew that I would probably stop breathing if I didn’t go within a short window. It was getting so hard to breathe. But I didn’t care about it.” You emphasized nonchalantly, “I had a bad feeling.”

“A bad feeling?” Yue questioned through your story.

“Yeah.” You answered her, “I REALLY didn’t want to go. But she insisted. She always worried herself sick over us, that time was no exception.”

Yangyang knew that too. You made it seem like both of your parents would’ve rather have died than let anything happen to you or your brothers, he gathered you had more than just a couple. He knew if he were ever lucky enough to be a parent, he’d probably feel the same way. So could understand why your mom wouldn’t listen to your begging to stay home.

“So she put me in the car and drove towards the hospital. But-” You choked, clearly catching your throat on the cries you were holding back as you remembered what had happened, “But just as the light turned green signaling her to drive forward, a-another car came a-and T-Boned her side of the car.”

“Oh no.” Yueguang exclaimed in horror at the same time as Yangyang let out a defeated, “Oh fuck.”

You were in the car with her when it happened, presumably alone. You were just a scared little sick kid. The more Yangyang learned of you, the more he wanted to hold you and never let go of you to protect you from having to deal with anything bad ever again.

“We flipped. A lot. In the end we were upside down. Somehow I managed to get my car seat undone and made my way towards my mom b-because I was scared.”

You were a toddler who wanted her mother in a terrifying situation so bad you actually pulled yourself out of your car seat and did everything you could to reach her. He couldn’t even imagine what that must’ve been like for you.

“But when i found her, s-she was losing blood. Too much blood.”

If you were gonna say what he was praying you weren’t gonna say, he would lose it. No child should ever have to go through that. No adult should ever have to go through that.

“I tried to stop it. B-but I just couldn’t.” Yangyang listened as you worked your best to hide your stuttering, but he could hear how close you were to just giving in to your sorrow and bursting into tears, “I was too little and she was too hurt.”

You weren’t even trying to hold back your tears now. Yangyang thought it was because you hadn’t actually told the story in full like that in a long time, maybe ever.

“By the time the ambulance came, she was gone.”

Then he heard Yueguang let out a whimper from deep within her chest, much like he figured she would as the most emotional one in the pack, “Oh honey.”

As much as it pained Yangyang to not be there to hold your hand through your pain, he was glad you at least had one of his sisters with you to comfort you the way he knew she was doing in that moment.

“I didn’t even get to go to the funeral. Turns out I had walking pneumonia. If i hadn’t gone to the hospital when I had, the doctors say i would’ve probably died. But instead, my mom did,” He didn’t like what you were insinuating with that comment, “I traded my mom’s life for my own.”

Your mate’s heart ached for you. You were just a baby. You couldn’t help what had happened. And for your brother to blame you for something like that, for you to blame yourself for something like that, was just 100 flavors of fucked up.

“But that’s not true ___.” Yangyang listened as Yue began lecturing you on why you couldn’t have stopped what had happened.

Then you said something that made even the sweet girl in the room with you’s blood boil, “It is to my brother.”

And just like that, Yangyang went from being heartbroken to being pissed. What kind of brother would ever let their baby sister who had just watched their mother die feel like it’s her fault? The world’s biggest jackass, that’s who. The angry growl that pushed passed his lips wasn’t one that he could have controlled even if he wanted to.

“Well he’s wrong!” Yueguang declared with the stomp of her shoe that vibrated the floor boards to the wolf sitting on them with superhearing.

“None of it matters anymore. What’s done is done. The past is the past,” You brushed off the older girl’s annoyance and your willingness to comply with your usual sad giggle that Yangyang determined you must’ve always done when you found a situation hopeless, “I’d rather just talk about something else.”

“O-Okay. Like what?” The hesitation in his sister’s voice about changing the subject was obvious but she went with it because it’s what you wanted. Not that the pup could blame her, he would’ve done the exact same thing. In fact, he was 99.99999% positive he’d do just about anything you wanted him to if it made you happy.

“Has that pink haired boy been sitting outside my door the whole time I’ve been here?”

Yangyang all but shit himself when you acknowledged his existence so easily. Here he had been jumping through hoops to keep you from finding out he was your mate before you were ready. But you already figured out he was staying outside your door the whole time you had been staying with the pack.

The started Yueguang probably wanted to lie to protect him, but in the end, the only thing she could muster out was, ��Um… just about yes…”

“And why has he been doing that exactly?”

“Well… uh- Because he’s just… a very empathetic boy and he’s very concerned for you.” As Yangyang listened to his sister spout off a sorry excuse for a coverup, he couldn’t help but mentally face palm himself.

“Uh huh,” You continued, increasingly unimpressed with the taller girl’s answers, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bad liar? Do you guys seriously think I dont know what’s been going on?”

You knew about wolves. Of course you’d put two and two together, you were super smart after all. Yangyang just wished he hadn’t spent all that time away from you when he could’ve been by your side holding you hand instead.

“Okay maybe I’m not the best liar…,” Yueguang defended herself, “But it was at least half true! He really is very concerned for you!”

Yangyang should’ve probably felt more embarrassed at the whole situation, but in the end, all he could do was laugh. He definitely had his work cut out for him having you as his mate.

“Yeah yeah whatever. Can you just tell him to get in here so i can meet him already? At this point, it’s gonna end up just being plain weird if i don’t talk to him soon!”

So, as per your request, he lifted himself off the spot he had become so well acquainted with over the time you had come to live with them, dusted off his pants, turned the knob and opened his bedroom door.

“Hi…” Yangyang said with a shy smile as he met your icy gaze for the first time.

You let out something that resembled a school girl giggle as you felt the familiar feeling of your heart pounding in your chest, “Um… Hi there!”

(Last Updated 7/26/22)

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