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txtbeomi · 7 days

Text

ice on whiskey ─── hwang hyunjin.

✰ pairing : assassin/hitman!hyunjin x fem!reader (she/her pronouns).

✰ genre : mafia au, nsfw+18, strangers to lovers, kinda slow burn

✰ warnings : lots of profanity, guns, violence, character deaths, kidnapping, rampage, reader almost drowned, felix got injured, mentions of drugs and other weapons, black market, crimes such as arson, murder and illegal businesses, blood, kissing, unprotected sex, oral sex (f.receiving), cunnilingus, breast play, hyunjin stroking himself (slightly mentioned)... MNDI semi-proofread. lmk if i missed one :'>

✰ word count : 25k (the longest so far)

✰ notes : wooyoung from ateez made a cameo in here lol and i’m not expecting this to get a lot of interactions but if you do read this, DO NOT FORGET TO REBLOG, COMMENT AND LEAVE TAGS after reading so i’ll know what you think of this long-ass fic. please separate fiction from reality. inspired by — freeze and give me your tmi by skz, too sweet by hozier, a few scenes from the k-drama queen of tears, vincenzo and 365 days trilogy

✰ tags : @notastraykid , @ameliesaysshoo , @l3visbby , @reignessance , @lix-ables , @skzfelixlove , @rachabreathing , @hyunverse , @minluvly , @starseungs , @sleepyleejii

masterlist | taglist

members’ characters and roles.

Hwang Hyunjin.

His name echoes as the sounds of crackling flame and a huge—thick black smoke escalate to the sky. He stood on the rooftop across from the building that was burning down as the fire trucks and cops aligned on the road beneath.

With a zippo in his hand—he closed and opened the lid, making a small flame that caused chaos. A click sound is heard after he closes the lid, shoving it inside his black coat’s pocket. A smirk is plastered on his face upon hearing his name being cursed by the family of a notoriously corrupt politician. He doesn’t need to take a glance at who it was—he already recognizes those names being listed on his murder list. Too bad, the body burned along with the building.

“Good job, Hyunjin,” He heard his boss say on his earpiece while removing the black gloves as he exited the building.

It is his job to murder whoever it is when his family gets provoked. A role that he is trained to do so.

“Get back home, we have another target,” Hyunjin stopped his car across the street as he took a few looks from the burning building. Some employees were weeping, firefighters were trying to calm the fire, the medical team was on search and the officers were investigating.

His name will never be revealed in the media. Who knows? He’s part of the Mafia.

“Fuckers,” He said under his breath driving away from the crime scene.

Arson may be one of his crimes, yet that’s not the only way to do his job. The next target is set on another date.

It was another usual night at the hotel when the sound of a gunshot was heard across the room as a body fell on the floor with a loud thud. Hyunjin stood there, a gun in his hand—eyes filled with no remorse and other emotion. He stared at the body while hiding his weapon in his belt underneath his black coat then a sigh of relaxation escaped his lips as his footsteps echoed on the marble floor—taking his way out leaving the man he just killed covered with blood.

He always didn’t understand why Chan sent him alone to negotiate when Seungmin should be the one doing this instead. But the latter is too busy to read and win cases. Hyunjin could’ve taken a signal from Seungmin after failing to negotiate with the bastard.

“Dispose of him.” He said to the two bodyguards waiting for him outside.

He continued to walk by the hall as he headed towards the elevator—pressing the ground floor’s button. The door closed slowly as he leaned back on the handle while fixing his suit through the reflection. It was a waste to wear such expensive clothing only to be assigned to kill someone. He would have screamed and cried if there was blood that managed to paint his suit, even though it wouldn’t be visible since he’s wearing all black from top to toe. Still, he treasures this kind of clothing as it is the representation of his identification.

He couldn’t say no to the boss.

Frustrated as he was, it was getting late. The elevator reached the ground floor and his phone kept ringing inside his chest pocket in his blazer. Another urgent call. He’s been getting one ever since his morning started, probably another errand to run for Chan. His footsteps echoed once again on the marble floor through the main hall of the hotel as he made his way toward the entrance where his car was waiting. It looked like nothing happened when he had the guts to act normal and conservative with his job but he got used to it.

A man bowed at him while giving him the keys as he took his phone out—answering that damn call.

“Did you kill him?” A voice from the other line asked.

“Yes,” Hyunjin answered as he opened the car’s door and sat comfortably. “I’m heading back now,”

“Okay, be quick, we have another one on the loose,” said the man on the phone. Hyunjin didn’t respond and went to drive away.

It is supposed to be a day off which he wanted to spend in his guesthouse near the beach on that one island. But damn Bang Chan and his list of names for murders, Hyunjin couldn’t even take the private jet to their island because for sure, he has a feeling that Chan has another mission for him or something urgent to make a meeting out of it.

He pushed the accelerator to full speed as he drove on the highway making it like his racing track. His engine roared, earning everyone’s attention. Some cursed the shit out of him, some were amazed by his violation of traffic laws, Hyunjin felt defeated—he didn’t even get to take a sip of whiskey while trying to negotiate with that man at the hotel. He was irritated, to begin with. Imagine your day off became a business day just because someone wants to get murdered.

It’s valid.

His hands tightened their grip on the wheel, maintaining the speed of his Mercedes Benz as it traveled through the road by the cliff where you could see the ocean and the city lights. The thought of taking some days off just to walk by the shore would be a luxury in his crucial job. He doesn’t even remember when was the last time he had a vacation and how exactly he landed on this kind of work when he was supposed to be a professional shooter as a sport. Hiring him was probably Chan’s best decision.

“You’re late,” He said.

“He had a lot to talk about,” Hyunjin reasoned, taking a seat beside Felix on the couch. All eight members of the family gathered in the main living room with Chan in the middle—slamming folders on the coffee table followed by Hyunjin’s gaze. “What are these?”

“Our next person,” Minho said, making Hyunjin sigh in response.

“Another murder for me?” He asked cocking his head.

“No,” Seungmin answered. “She’s a different case,”

“She?”

“Yes,” Felix interrupted as he took the main folder, making Hyunjin read the details. It was a profile. “Y/N Jung. She works as a publisher at Park’s Corporation. Her parents died when she was 5 and raised in an orphanage until the age of 18. Top of her class in high school and graduated Summa Cum Laude at ***** University. Mr. Park hired her a year ago and got promoted 6 months after,”

“Impressive but what’s with this person?” Hyunjin asked who seemed not interested if it was not someone for him to shoot.

“We found out that she’s the only daughter of the Godfather of the Jungs who died decades ago, they’re our family’s rival. She probably has no idea since she’s living a normal life but her relatives are after her since she’s the only heir. They wanted to kill her,” Seungmin said—now he is intrigued.

“What if the Jungs will find out that she’s with us?”

“It will provoke them of course. They still have a debt to pay after all,” Chan said, taking a sip of his whiskey. “They can’t have her that easily,”

“So,” Hyunjin paused, pointing at himself. “I’m going to kidnap her?” He was unsure about his assignment but it will probably go that way. “And where do we keep her? Here?”

“Your guesthouse,” Chan chuckled. “Take this mission as your days off from work, I will make sure no one finds you,”

“Hyung, give me a break. I’m supposed to leave for Colmar this weekend,” Hyunjin argued.

“You can’t,” Chan said firmly. “You know how your job is unpredictable so either you do this or leave?”

“Oh, I’m supposed to be your assassin now, a babysitter?” Hyunjin scoffed. But he knows he doesn’t have a choice. Again.

Hyunjin finds himself inside his room after the meeting in Chan’s heavenly huge mansion at the top of a mountain that was rendered for residency. He thought about the case thoroughly this time and this is the very first mission that Chan asked him not to kill anyone. It is unusual for him of course, as he is not used to the concept he’s getting into. A lost princess that everyone is looking for. She could be Rapunzel in some sort. But anyway, this could help him rest for a while. It would make his status crumble in this family if he declined the offer.

He ran his fingers through his black long locks as he sat on his bed, taking off his blazer and loosening his tie. The gun was already placed inside the drawer and took a glass of whiskey sitting on his side table. He stared at nowhere and drowned in his deep thoughts while his back rested comfortably on the headboard along with the pillow while reading your profile and other personal documents attached to the folder.

A lot will be planned for this exhibition.

“Fuck,” He hissed, slamming the papers on his side table.

Days passed and you arrived at the party’s venue five minutes before it started. Mr. Park already requested your presence the moment you walked in. It is supposed to be a night to enjoy but little didn’t you know that you’re being watched. Being not a fan of this kind of event, you didn’t want to be here in the first place. With tons of people and the intoxicating smell of alcohol and cigarettes, there is a reason why you didn’t party when you were still a student.

A heavy sigh escaped your lips—you admit that your life sucked by then, an orphan who managed to survive the challenges in life. You raised yourself well with the use of your late parents’ insurance money, which is quite A LOT. Yet you stopped using them when you got a job. Growing up in a tough environment, not that many friends, no social life, and a pile of money made you survive like a castaway on an unknown island. Yet you were thankful for being responsible and a few guidelines from the headmistress of the orphanage who is supposed to be a mother to you but she never did, maybe once she was.

These thoughts never leave your mind. It was an experience to grow up independent. It hurts you sometimes that you grew up having no parents to call on, no house to go home to during the holidays, just you in that lonely—godforsaken apartment. You got used to it anyway.

And who are you to judge the life that the heavens gave you?

You sat by the counter after a long conversation with Mr. Park regarding his business. It was tiring to speak corporate on your day off. You should be at home watching your favorite local drama and crying with a bucket of popcorn. But hell, one of the most important people in the company should be here. Another sigh was heard from you as the bartender placed a glass of champagne on the counter, indicating it was your drink.

“Thanks,” You smiled.

The loud music, the blinding lights, the smoke, and the smell of cigarettes being mixed with the air-conditioner are choking you. It was bad—you could’ve coughed so loud until your throat dried. Champagne won’t be a lot of help either.

Hyunjin was there.

White v-neck long-sleeved polo, black blazer, black slacks, and black shoes. A handsome tall man, who smells expensive, who looks expensive, and a bit dramatic at times but the people who see him can’t deny he is so damn attractive with that suit with a few strands of wet hair styled on his face for elegance.

He walked slowly after seeing you settled by the counter wearing that black long dress with see-through sleeves. You were beautiful.

Felix followed him as Han and Changbin were on the lookout—watching some members of the Jungs trying to locate you in the venue. Hyunjin ordered a drink as he sat on the empty high chair beside you which you had to raise your glass as a form of greeting him. He just gave you a small smile and moved his chair to watch the crowd dancing instead of the bunch of drinks on display.

It’s safe to say that he caught your attention. Who wouldn’t when he’s tall, short wolf cut, a black suit with a white top within, a glass of whiskey in one hand—a face of a model, siren eyes, a great physique… he’s totally your type. It would give you a reason to stay in the party for a while. You hang your head low on the counter as Hyunjin notices you getting consumed by the alcohol while sipping on his whiskey.

“You shouldn’t drink that much,” You heard him say. Damn, he’s concerned, that thought made you blush.

“I know,” You paused between the hic. “It’s just, it’s my first time having to enjoy a drink outside,” You smiled. “I’m not a party girl, you see. I’m a home buddy,” But Hyunjin just smirked.

You didn’t leave the counter an hour later and kept on drinking the same drink. Mind you there is only 12% of alcohol in a bottle of champagne but your tolerance doesn’t give a fuck. You don’t usually get drunk easily but this time is different. That’s what they say, drink your problems away. It is not in your life mottos. A drink wouldn’t make you decide to die.

The person beside you, will. Not the one you greeted with the glass. He’s too handsome.

“Incoming to Ms. Jung’s left side, Hyunjin,” Said Han from the earpiece.

Hyunjin cleared his throat as he moved—facing the bar while turning his glass from side to side.

Being independent meant you could sense danger in one glance but you were too dizzy to identify the man beside you. Unbeknownst to your actions, your hand landed on the man who smiled at you earlier and looked at him. He was confused as to why but it is a plus that you trust him, which you shouldn’t. Maybe because he’s not provoking you or anything. You tried so hard to stay quiet and not embarrass yourself in front of your party crush.

Hyunjin was alerted as he craned his neck a bit to observe.

“Such a beautiful face,” You heard the other man from your left while tightening the grip of your hand on Hyunjin’s. The unknown man was about to caress your cheek when Hyunjin suddenly let go of the grip—spinning your chair to face him, having his hand on your waist, pulling you closer to him as he planted a kiss on your lips. It was so sudden and unexpected yet it was good. Felix was surprised as he witnessed it behind Hyunjin.

“Dude, what the fuck?” He exclaimed.

The kiss lasted longer. His delicate plump lips were soft as it tasted like he just had a glass of whiskey now being mixed with champagne you just had. His kiss was so gentle to the point that it was so sweetーyour knees felt weak and blood rushed through your veins. Unbeknownst to the events, he pulled his gun out from his belt, aiming at the man’s forehead. His eyes were looking at him as he was kissing you.

The man raised his hands in surrender and yet he had this dirty smirk plastered on his face. Han and Changbin were already standing on both sides, hooking their arms around the person of interest. You were so captivated by his kiss that it felt like having a live makeout session in front of the barista and Felix but Hyunjin had to stop before it got deep.

“Fuck,” The man grunts.

“Don’t turn around,” Hyunjin whispered to your ear as you could feel your heart going insane and your mind blank. Did he just kiss you? Yes, what the fuck. His left arm was still around your waistーpulling you closer as if he was hugging you. But why is it that he won’t allow you to turn around when you’re a blushing mess and the urge to scream in happiness is strong?

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” The man with blonde hair spoke behind him. What?

“Are you working for the Jungs?” Hyunjin asked. You didn’t understand what these are all about and tried to get away but Hyunjin’s too strong to let you go. “Babe, don’t move,” He whispered again. I am going to ascend to heaven if he’s going to be like that for a while.

“You could say that,” The man behind you answered.

“You better pay your debt to the Wolves,” Hyunjin answered. “I’ll make sure you will never get your hands on Y/n,”

How the fuck did he know my name?

“You will never know what will happen next if you kill me, Hyunjin,” The man stated. “They will find the heiress no matter what,” And with that, Hyunjin pulled the trigger, and a loud gunshot was heard through the whole room. The body collapsed as everyone panicked while making their way out of the venue leaving you, Hyunjin, his brothers, and a group of men who were probably the dead man’s accomplices. You were also surprised, flinching at your spotーconfused about what was happening.

“Get her out of here,” Said Han. “Now.” He added before he ran upstairs to catch the assigned person to take you to the Jungs along with Changbin. Hyunjin nudged Felix before turning back to you.

“What’s happening?” You spoke in panic but at the same time, you couldn’t move.

“Look, Miss, we have to go.” He said. Little didn’t you know that the crush you’re supposed to have made your night turn unexpectedly?

“What? You’re a stranger, I can’t trust you!” You argued but Hyunjin didn’t have enough patience to talk back right now and just went to pick you up like a damsel in distress.

“Let’s go, Felix!” You heard him say as he walked out of the venue. Han and Changbin decided to stay back for a while unless they captured the spies who were watching you the whole time when you were with Mr. Park and Hyunjin. Everyone was panicking and managed to get out, even your boss who was assisted by his guards.

“Hey! Put me down!” You exclaimed trying to get down but Hyunjin didn’t even bother to listen and you were way too drunk to stand on your own. “We kissed but I don’t even know your name!”

“It’s fucking Hwang Hyunjin,” He said, making you sit on the passenger’s seat as Felix went to his car parked beside Hyunjin’s.

“Okay, Mr. Fucking Hwang Hyunjin, take me home,” You said as you heard his engine roar.

“I don’t even know where you live but you’re coming home with me,” He answered as he stepped on the gas making the car accelerate with Felix, tailing him.

“Is this kidnapping? I will sue you!” You exclaimed but Hyunjin just tried to put up with your shit. “God, I’m fucking stupid! First, I got drunk from that stupid champagne! Second, I kissed a stranger and got traumatized and third I’m letting this motherfucker take me somewhere,” You cried while holding on to your seatbelt. “I don’t even know who Fucking Hwang Hyunjin is, the fuck?!”

“Will you shut up?” Hyunjin hissed, making you whimper instead.

I’m going to die, no, I can’t die yet. I won’t allow them to kill me, I still have strays to feed, I want to get married and have kids, and I still need to meet the love of my life and grow old with them. Fuck, I’m going to die. I am being kidnapped and Mr. Fucking Hwang Hyunjin is absolutely unknown in my entire life. I am so dumb, so stupid letting my first kiss taken— You thought when you heard someone was calling.

“Hyunjin, we’re being followed,” Felix said through the call as soon as Hyunjin accepted it and took a glance at his side mirror.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin said in frustration.

“I’ll stall them, get on the freeway,” Felix said.

“No, fuck! They know that Y/n’s here,” Hyunjin answered.

“What are we going to do?” Felix asked, feeling anxious from the other line.

“Go back and get Changbin and Han,” Hyunjin said as you were listening to their conversation. The car ride is making you sicker and wants to puke, but Hyunjin’s car seems so expensive that you’re just trying to hold it in and yet it seems impossible. This is an unexpected turn of a Saturday night.

“What about you?”

“I’ll lead them astray, then,” Hyunjin said.

“Fuck, alone?” Felix reacted.

“Just go, Felix!” Felix sighed heavily as he made a sudden U-turn making the following car halt in response. You stopped crying upon listening to their conversation and when Felix left, you could see how angry Hyunjin was. “You better hold on tight,” You heard him say when you are already holding on for your dear life. Forget about the damn kiss, this man is crazy!

He’s already violating traffic laws now with his friend and fuck, what’s the worse that could happen? Getting arrested or killed after being kidnapped? And the car following us is not even the cops. Forget about the damn kiss, this man is crazy!

“What’s happening?” You asked for the second time, tightening your grip on the seatbelt.

“You’ll find out later,” He said as he made the car engine roar—speeding through an unknown road.

You could feel how unusual the speed of his car was, it was faster than a few minutes ago. Vomiting would be the worst that could happen inside right now. Not in this expensive car, not in this expensive black dress that you bought from your favorite brand, not with this hair and makeup you’ve spent hours to make yourself presentable after 5 days of being stressed.

“Can I at least know where you’re taking me?” You asked, trying not to make puking sounds. “I think I’m getting sicker at this speed,”

“Don’t you dare vomit in my car!” He exclaimed, trying to focus on the road and at the same time, glancing at his side mirror. The car is still there and Felix is nowhere to be found now. Hyunjin kept on taking turns and you’re getting sicker. In a few seconds, you won’t be able to hold it in.

“Can you slow down a bit?” You begged but there’s no way Hyunjin is doing that.

“Do you want to live or not?” Hyunjin hissed, hands tightening their grip on the wheel even more.

“I want to if you won’t kill us,” You said, almost crying again.

“I’m a skilled driver,” He argued.

“I’m not doubting you,” You answered, shaking in fear and sickness. “But I would like to apologize in advance,”

“What? Fuck—no!” Hyunjin exclaimed as he was too late. You already vomited on his mat— coughing after feeling like you were being choked. “Motherfucker! I told you not to let it out!”

“But I suddenly feel better! Don’t worry, I’ll wash your car,” You said as you leaned back on the passenger’s seat leaving Hyunjin more frustrated.

“Fuck,” He sighed as he continued driving at the same speed when suddenly a truck was heading through the go signal from the right side at full speed as well. It gave Hyunjin an idea that he made the clutch go forward as the engine roared even more, wanting to go through the stop signal.

“Wait!” You exclaimed, followed by intense screaming while covering your face with your hands as Hyunjin stayed quiet, brows knitted together, hands tightened their grip on the wheel even more—speeding through the highway and the car that was following you, crashed on the truck making a loud impact as the cars lined up got delayed to go through the traffic. Your heart was beating faster—panting, as you sweat from all the vomiting and a reckless driver beside you. Thanks to them, you are probably getting sober from the series of events. “What the fuck was that?”

“I told you I’m a skilled driver. But you have to clean my car tomorrow morning,” He said, sighing in relief as he glanced at his rearview mirror, watching the car burn as it stood still, glass shattered and crushed.

“So I’m not going home, then?” You asked, watching him with those terrified eyes.

“Do you think after what just happened I’ll let you go home? You vomited in my car, my brothers are out there trying to capture those who wanted to kill you, and I just saved your life from those bastards and that fucker at the party,” Hyunjin said, getting back on the car’s usual speed while loosening his tight grip.

“Why do they want to kill me? And how did you know me?” You asked, being confused, to begin with in addition to fear and doubt.

“Long story short, I was tasked to take you in because of your family affairs.” He answered.

“Family affairs? I’m an orphan! Nobody came for me when I was at the orphanage!” Your exclaimed, brows knitted together.

“Y/n Jung, a publisher at Park’s Corporation, the daughter of Mr. F/n Jung and Ms. M/n Kim, the Godfather. Orphaned at the age of 5, was sent to ***** University and graduated Summa Cum Laude. You have lived alone since you were 18,” He said, making your eyes widen in shock.

“Stalker much! How did you know?” You shouted, attempting to kick him. “And Godfather? What the fuck is that?”

“You are the only heir of the highest mafia leader who died years ago. Your relatives are coming to kill you so they can get your parents’ properties in all of Korea. That explains why they left you a great sum of money,” Hyunjin explained, which became too much for your sober brain to catch up and take in.

“So you’re saying that I’m part of this gangster shit?” You laughed. “Dude, I barely even know my parents and my family background, and then someone like you just appeared out of nowhere, explaining this crazy stuff,” You answered, resting on the passenger’s seat like a stubborn little child. “I want to go home,”

“You owe me and my car. My boss will kill me if I let you go,” Hyunjin argued but only sighed in response, just letting an unusual stranger earn your slight bit of trust.

He knows you have so many questions at the moment and he’s not sure he can answer everything. That is why he is taking you to Chan’s enormous mansion at the mountaintop. The streetlights became rare the moment you entered the road by the cliff, nervous about what was going to happen shortly. It was dark—you didn’t even know what to feel. Being terrified is an understatement, you have no idea what you are going into.

Hyunjin became quiet as soon as you stopped talking yet the disgusting smell aroused his irritation. He tried not to get upset with it since you were already on the premises.

“Clean yourself before we see Chan,” You heard him say as you gave him a nod. Hyunjin parked his car and walked around it to open the door for you.

“Thanks,” You said as you followed him inside.

The stories you’ve read about these kinds of families weren’t exaggerating when writers say that Mafias are filthy rich with huge mansions, expensive cars and furniture, business booming here and there, and money coming and going. Being a bookworm and a movie lover helped. Your mouth gaped at the sight of the interior. It’s probably more expensive than you. But learning the fact that you’re an heiress made a small stretch on your net worth. Of course, if it’s not a prank or whatever.

Your eyes wandered around the main living room through the hall and the stairs as Hyunjin led you inside his room. Even his room is bigger than your apartment.

“Your clothes are placed on my bed, the bathroom’s on your left. I’ll be outside,” He said as you gave him a nod but before you could take a step away from him, you felt a hand wrapped around your wrist—pulling you closer. “Don’t even bother trying to escape,”

“Even if I did, you’ll capture me eventually,” You said, rolling your eyes—unhanding yourself away by harshly removing your wrist from his large hand.

“If you don’t want to be killed of course,” He smirked as he went out of the room. A heavy sigh escaped your lips as your eyes landed on the pajamas he prepared for you.

“Is she here?” Seungmin asked the moment he saw Hyunjin standing outside his room.

“Inside,” Hyunjin answered, motioning his head to the door.

“Good,” Seungmin sighed in relief. “Felix said they’re on their way. They got the accomplices. Chan said they will be taken to the island tonight and you killed someone out there,”

“I didn’t,” Hyunjin breathed. “The rest of them were following us, I have to make sure Y/n’s safe,”

“I know,” Seungmin said. “You did well,”

Thankfully, Hyunjin’s door wasn’t soundproof. You heard their conversation when you were about to knock. The sage green pajamas were comfy as they were made of silk, your hair was wet after taking a shower and the other products you used were immaculate. They must’ve prepared for your arrival that he already has those products aligned in his bathroom.

You leaned closer to the door and knocked a few times just to make Hyunjin unlock it, making Seungmin intrigued to see you too.

It took a while as you cleaned everything, making yourself sober up. This was a lesson not to drink a lot—you don’t even like drinking. You need to be presentable at least, but the aftertaste of champagne didn’t feel good staying inside your mouth. Yet this wasn’t that important to you right now as you have questions to ask and answers to collect.

“Hi,” Seungmin beamed. “I’m Seungmin, the family lawyer, nice to meet you Y/n,” He added, reaching out his hand for a handshake. You hesitated at first, but it seems like he’s a bit friendly.

“Hi,” You said, giving him a quick smile and shaking his hand. He looks too cute to be part of this gangster family but at the same time, extremely attractive.

“Let’s go see Chan now,” Hyunjin said as he walked away first with Seungmin gesturing his hand to follow the former as he stayed behind you.

You have no idea who Chan is, and you get even more nervous that you are a few steps into meeting him. The information about your parents became unexpected because no one knew and no one even came to the orphanage to tell you anything. Not even your relatives who unfortunately don’t care about you and now want you dead. The idea led you to come with them to earn information and flee when you get the chance. Thoughts of escaping would be impossible at this point since you are being surrounded and watched. There are a lot of surveillance cameras from the gate to the mansion. It’s hard to find a blind spot.

Hyunjin and Seungmin’s footsteps echoed through the hall while yours remained quiet because of the fluffy Cinnamon Roll slippers Hyunjin gave. It was almost cute but you remembered he kissed you without permission, hypothetically let the driver of that car who followed you, get into a terrible accident and shoot a man in the same night. May they rest in peace, in hell, if they deserve it.

Your lips formed into a thin line as you walked downstairs, earning the attention of six other men—probably living in this house—especially that big, scary-looking man, sitting in the middle. You recognized Felix, and the two who were standing behind the couch he was sitting at were probably Han and Changbin. They’ve got cuts and bruises from all the trouble earlier. Damn. And the rest, you don’t know.

Everyone stood up and faced you the moment you got down, Seungmin gestured to you to sit down on a single couch to begin the meeting but you couldn’t even move. You were intimidated and yet they bowed to show respect.

What the fuck is happening?

“Please don’t be scared, take a seat,” The man in the middle spoke. You were hesitating at first but eventually gave in. It’s too dangerous to provoke someone this scary. “I know you probably have a lot of questions about all of this, but before anything else, I would like to introduce this family. I’m Bang Chan, the boss. You just met Seungmin, our lawyer, Felix is our Intel, Han and Changbin are our Capos,” Chan said, then he immediately gestured to the next person. “Jeongin, my apprentice, Minho the consigliere and Hyunjin, our assassin,”

“A-assassin?” You spoke.

You were stunned by how everyone has a role in this family and yet remained confused. Eight men with acceptable roles in the family and the one who took you away is apparently an assassin. He could’ve killed you the first time. You were deceived by that handsome face of his but who knows what job he has? A fucking assassin. It keeps repeating in your head.

“Uhm, not so nice to meet you,” You said, you mean it anyway. “I think I don’t need to say something about myself,” You added, taking a deep breath to avoid being nervous and scared. Everything feels off in the first place too.

“You don’t need to. We know who you are,” Chan said as you sighed heavily, biting your lower lip.

“Okay, why am I here?” You asked. “Hyunjin mentioned something about my late parents. Did you do a background check on me?”

“Yes, it is part of our job,” Chan answered, gesturing to Seungmin to hand you a file. “He may have mentioned you being the sole heir of the Godfather, Mr. F/n Jung,”

“That’s fucking absurd,” You retorted.

“It’s the truth,” Chan said firmly. “Your relatives have been tracking you down for years, that explains what happened and why you’re brought here. All information about you and your late parents is in there,” He added as Seungmin offered you a thick folder. Licking your lips—your hands reached for the folder and flipped a few pages.

The first one you saw was your profile, next to that were papers from the orphanage—articles about the car crash and the insurance money, your university application, land and property ownerships being signed by your parents, contracts, and other confidential documents. It took you a while to skim and scan everything. It felt surreal as if your life was written in a book—the missing heiress of a freaking wealthy family of gangsters. And now, some unknown relatives are coming after you.

“I really don’t know anything, and so what if they want to own my parents’ property, I don’t care at all,” You said, firmly.

“That is not what we do, Y/n,” Chan retorted. “Loyalty is important to our family and you have a rank in the Jungs so either they will let you live to rule for them or kill you to take everything you’re supposed to own. Your parents built that empire so you could have a normal and comfortable life but they ended up being killed in the crash many years ago. It’s a miracle that you’re even alive,”

Then it made you remember—the crash. Suddenly, a child’s voice echoed through your memory as the sounds of ambulances were all over the place. The front side of the car was crushed as you sat there crying with your head bleeding from the impact. You were taken to the hospital and later found out that your parents died before they could get them out of the car. A social worker and a lawyer came by to assess your papers and live in an orphanage. It was discussed that you can get the insurance money after you turn 18. It was enough to sustain you and yet, everything still felt bitter. Your life was never the same after that. Maybe your life got a little bit better after you moved out and lived on your own. Yet it became lonely and sad. Having a job doesn’t fix a broken heart either. Everything messes with your head.

No one from your family visited you because of the hatred. The headmistress didn’t even help you that much and the other kids were getting foster parents except you. It was tragic. You didn’t know what was wrong and longed to have a family too. Maybe Chan is right about one thing, you’re lucky to be alive but instead of living happily out of it—the sunshine turned into rain and the light switched off to dark. It was sad knowing no one came to your graduation or any parent-teacher meetings, no one would sign school documents other than your landlord. It was a fucked up life for you to thrive on.

Tears suddenly streamed down your cheeks while looking at Chan. Felix caught it immediately and passed the box of tissues. You were surprised by it that you didn’t hesitate to respond to his actions. Maybe these people are not bad after all or they’re just being polite. You wiped your tears after taking a few sheets and massaging your temples. Being sober doesn’t help to indulge such information but you are getting there. You don’t need to drink again in the future.

“You think it’s a good miracle, huh? Do you think it’s good to be alive? After everything I’ve been through?!” You exclaimed standing up from your seat but they didn’t flinch a bit, except Felix.

“This is not the place for you to be emotional,” That was a damn red flag to invalidate you.

“Y/n, calm down, take a seat,” Felix said in his most gentle voice, handing you a glass of water. “Don’t worry, it’s pure, not poisoned,” He smiled like an angel in disguise. You sit down as you take the glass and drink it, still giving that glare to Chan who has no remorse plastered on his face.

“You and Hyunjin will go to his guest house first thing in the morning. No one will be able to find you there,” Chan said.

“What?” You asked, shocked by what Chan just answered.

“We have to stay here because of the Jungs, but we’ll accompany you to the island tomorrow. Hyunjin needs his day off too,” Seungmin said.

“Yeah, he will take care of you, but don’t worry, we will make sure no one finds you so call us when you need us,” Felix interrupted.

“Why are you doing this?” You asked.

“They owe us big time, your family is the reason why our parents died. All of us,” Chan answered, which made you caught off guard. So you’re not alone after all. “My parents were second to yours, Ms. Jung. They’re the co-founder of this empire but after being betrayed and murdered along with the entire family, the kids were forced to grow up in a secluded mansion, trained and studied—chosen to continue their legacy.” He added as he stood up from his seat and walked slowly around you.

“It was a hard life,” Felix butted in.

“Hyunjin grew up to be a shooter so I hired him as my assassin. Seungmin studied law, and he became the family’s lawyer. Minho is my advisor, Han and Changbin were trained to fight, Felix became our intelligence because of his skills and Jeongin is still learning from me. I was forced to lead an empire, Y/n, the Jungs are the rats. You’re lucky you didn’t grow up in this environment or you are already long gone,” He said as you stayed quiet. “Your family has a debt to pay and a relative to kill. It’s either you want to go out there and be killed or stay here until we settle everything with them. Your choice,”

“I don’t have a family,” You answered as you balled your fists in anger.

“We know,”

“How did you find me?” You asked.

“Felix,” Chan answered. “We have connections so when we knew you were alive, I sent Felix to spy on you,”

“Stalking is my job but legally,” Felix said with a sheepish smile plastered on his face making you sigh in response.

“I guess I have nothing to tell you about myself,” You said. “But if you’re going to keep me locked up, what about my job? My apartment? My laptop? The stray cats and dogs I’m feeding?”

“The strays were already taken to a shelter. Your apartment won’t be touched but we had to get a few things for you to use and of course, your laptop,” Seungmin answered. “We have someone to replace you for the meantime in your job. But don’t worry, Mr. Park works for Chan Hyung yet he cannot let you work for your privacy,”

“Unbelievable,” You sighed. “You mentioned that I’m supposed to inherit everything they own as what these documents have stated and yet no one told me. I don’t know anything about bullshit and my so-called relatives are after me to kill me so they can name these properties and businesses under themselves. Why do they need to dispose of me when I don’t know anything?” You asked.

“The last page is the will of your parents,” Seungmin answered. “It got notarized by my dad. Unfortunately, he passed not long ago after your parents did. The Jungs have copies of the will so to be able to take the properties, they will kill you first since you’re the first in line, second is your uncle, their temporary boss. As long as you’re alive, they won’t be able to touch it,”

“What?” You reacted. This is way too much information to take. Your brain is foggy from all of that drink and you don’t know if taking a shower would make you feel a bit sane.

“These documents belong to you now,” Seungmin said. “So please understand that we can’t let you go out there,”

“Why are you helping me?” You asked—head hang low.

“We know it’s shocking to hear all of this in one night, but you are a crucial target,” Minho said. “We used to live in harmony once,” You nodded in response.

“So your parents used to work for them?” You asked, looking at them.

“To the Godfather,” Minho nodded.

“Fuck,” You hissed washing your face with your hands with the folder laying on your lap.

“It’s already getting late, we will continue this conversation tomorrow,” Chan said out of nowhere, dismissing everyone as they left for their rooms while you remained in the living room with Hyunjin taking a seat on your right—sipping on his glass of whiskey.

“You’re not sleeping yet?” He asked.

“How could I?” You asked back. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea,”

“I didn’t say yes to this plan either. But it’s my job and the moment I took you out of that party, you became my responsibility. Call me your babysitter,” He smirked while drinking.

“Shut up,” You said, rolling your eyes.

“Go sleep in my room, you had a long night,” He said, standing up from the couch as he shoved his hands inside his slacks’ pockets.

“What about you?” You asked.

“I’ll sleep with Seungmin,” He said casually. “Let’s go,”

You couldn’t sleep a wink that night even though you had to leave first thing in the morning. It felt weird sleeping in a house full of men and laying on a king-sized bed owned by someone you just met. You admit he is handsome and all got mad driving skills and loves whiskey, which makes your heart leap. Not to mention the kiss. What a bastard. He’s not as what you thought he would be, although you are so guilty of vomiting in his car he has the very right to be upset. But the thing is, you’re being held hostage. You also have the very right to be mad. Yet at the same time, their reasons are valid to keep you here. It explains why Han and Changbin got beaten up when Felix arrived way back at the party.

The bed is comfy after all and you have a lot of information to process at once. It’s unbelievable to have this kind of life being kept a secret from you for years. Damn family affairs.

It was already morning when you were welcomed by a loud knock outside Hyunjin’s room. It made you groan in frustration as that was the reason why you woke up. You had to make your way towards the door and open it while half-asleep. Hyunjin’s face was the one that welcomed you outside causing you to be wide awake. You admit you fell in love at first last night but it didn’t last long when you knew he was taking you with him somewhere you didn’t know. And now, you’re here inside their mansion, inside his room and he is standing three feet in front of you between the door of his bedroom.

“Good morning?” You said.

“Get dressed and have breakfast downstairs, we’re leaving in 2 hours,” He said, handing you a set of clothes and a pair of shoes to wear before he left.

“Fuck,” You said under your breath and hurried to do your new routine. You packed your backpack shoving your laptop, the folder, and some of the necessities the guys had prepared for you from last night. Obviously from your apartment, how did they manage to have these?

Hyunjin went downstairs and headed to the dining room where everyone settled in. You were left out for a bit and rushed down almost an hour after Hyunjin came by. Everyone looked at you wearing that white top with a gray cardigan and white slacks. They wouldn’t deny the fact that you’re pretty and it’s their first time having a woman in the house. Chan cleared his throat making Hyunjin snap out of his thoughts after staring at you. His thoughts remained unknown but he was captured by your beauty although you are stupid. Being drunk Y/n, explained it.

“Take a seat, my dear,” You heard Chan say. Felix saw how amused Hyunjin was as he smirked, teasing the older one the moment you sat down on the empty seat beside him. “Eat,”

“You sound like an old man, Hyung,” Seungmin butted in making everyone snicker.

“Shut up Seungmin,” Chan retorted.

“Thanks,” That’s all you could say in between the conversation. What an awkward situation to be dining with them.

“Did you sleep well?” Seungmin asked, turning to you who was just sitting on the other side.

“Not really,” You answered, taking a bite of your sandwich.

“That’s normal,” He answered. “I hope you’ll get used to us being around, we can’t take being separated unless there’s an important matter,”

“Really?” You asked.

“Yeah, we grew up together under one roof, we’re not blood-related but we treat each other like brothers, family to specific,” You heard Han say.

“Good for you guys,” You said. “I was alone,”

“You could be family—aww!” Felix exclaimed when Hyunjin smacked him.

“Y/n’s not our family,” Hyunjin said grimly.

That made you look down and eat in silence while the rest did the same. Chan obviously didn’t care, Minho couldn’t even look at you, Changbin and Jeongin didn’t bother talking to you, Hyunjin seemed cold, and only Seungmin, Felix, and Han were a bit warm. You couldn’t blame them for feeling that way but you’re innocent with all these family dramas going around. You tried to be friendly despite the situation, but they couldn’t trust you and the same goes for how you felt.

Why on earth did the heavens give you this life?

You left the mansion an hour after having breakfast as Hyunjin was driving you somewhere. It was a different car from last night. The boys were having a convoy with 4 cars, 2 in each and 3 in the last car. You settled beside Hyunjin a few minutes ago with your things at the back of his new car. He might’ve disposed of the one he used after the little incident happened.

“Where’s your car?” You asked.

“I left it,” He said. “The caretaker will clean it for me,”

“I thought I was supposed to clean it?” You asked again.

“We don’t have time,” He said in his monotonous voice.

“I’m sorry,” You said. “Can I do something to make it up to you, at least?”

“Nothing,” He said, making you sigh.

“Okay, why did you kiss me last night?” You asked. Oh, so you’re finally making a conversation right now? No one spoke about it, not even Felix who looked disgusted when he saw it. Maybe because they were too occupied last night—it slipped away from their minds. Hyunjin also got upset about how things turned out as if he didn’t call you some pet name.

“Do you want to see that man being shot in front of you?” He asked. Well, he has a point. “And don’t act like you didn’t like it, you kissed me back,”

“Because I thought I was finally getting a life,” You argued.

“I’m not sorry about it,” He smirked. Motherfucker.

Your eyes met the scenery outside as you were drowning in your sea of thoughts. The so-called abduction, the intoxicating kiss, relocating you to an island? What kind of fate is this? But He’s right, you liked that kiss. It made your heart go insane, he kissed you like a lover who finally found the love of his life when it was supposed to be nothing but a kiss between fucking strangers and it’s making you crazy. A coincidence even. At first, it’s just crushing on a stranger who turns out to be an assassin. Stupid Y/n.

Hyunjin continued to drive but took a few glances at your gloomy face, being reflected by the car’s window.

“My guesthouse is on an island that Chan owns,” He said, earning back your attention. “One can get in or out by plane or yacht, we need to travel there by air,”

“Chan must be rich huh,”

“He’s the pillar of this empire after everyone got murdered. All the properties are named after him,”

“Ah,” You nodded.

“The island is secluded so no one except us can enter. The roads are limited so it’s hard to do car racing,” He added as you continued to nod.

“You guys decide what my fate will be,” You said. “I have no family to worry about me so I can be dragged around, besides, you got my replacement at work,”

“Are you that sad?” Hyunjin asked.

“Of course, who wouldn’t? Imagine you’re a little kid who grew up alone with no one to look up to. Then one day she lived alone to thrive for herself, got a job years later, and got abducted, witnessed a murder, and a stranger stealing a kiss all in one night for the first time she ever decided to go to a party,” You huffed. “At least you have your brothers. I don’t have one with me,”

Hyunjin shut his mouth after that.

“Look, this isn’t my plan on spending my days off. I’m supposed to be in Colmar,” he said.

“Well, I’m sorry to ruin your vacation. As if I expected to be with you in the first place when I should be sleeping in my apartment the whole day because I have work tomorrow,” You argued.

Hyunjin gave up.

After a while, everyone parked their cars by the airport as you followed Hyunjin to the private plane that was prepared for the departure. Your hair danced with the wind along with the excess of your clothes. The others followed and you’re being stuck with them again. It was awkward that you decided to sit at the back as they continued their conversation. Felix saw you alone while Hyunjin slept on the other row. A smile formed on his face and decided to take the seat beside you, hoping he’d feel welcomed.

You were just waiting to depart as your eyes fixated through the window and didn’t even notice that Felix was already there. He didn’t bother to take your attention in the meantime and just sat quietly—taking a magazine and started to read while you looked outside, not until the flight attendant announced the take-off.

“Hi,” You greeted.

“Hi! I hope you don’t mind me sitting here,” He said.

“Not at all,” You smiled. “You’re probably the only one who wants to be my friend,”

“Force of habit, since I tend to gather information about you,” He answered while fidgeting his fingers. “We’re about to take off and it will take an hour to arrive so get some rest—poke me when you need anything!”

“I will,” You chuckled. He’s cute. Not long after, the private jet took off and you stared again through the window. “How long do we have to stay on the island?” You asked, not taking your eyes away from the scenery outside.

“It would depend on how long it would take for the Jungs to stop looking for you,” He answered. “All of us won’t be consistent on staying there, it’s just that Hyunjin is the best one who can protect you since he grew up being a shooter. It’s easy for him to kill someone. I mean, we all do, but he’s the best one,” He added as you finally looked at him.

“That’s cool. I thought he’s just another reckless driver racing on the road,” You answered which made Felix chuckle.

“I mean he’s a skilled driver,” Felix said, making a pause between your conversation. “The thing is, our job starting from now on is to go in and out of the island, except for Hyunjin, of course. He’ll stay with you. It’s his guesthouse anyway, and the rest of us will take off the Jungs,” He explained.

“Isn’t it dangerous though? You’re risking your life for a mere stranger like me,” You said.

“Like what Chan Hyung said, they owe us and we’re not doing this solely because of you,” Felix answered. “And once they find out that you’re with us, which is what they already know because of last night—I’m afraid that you’re not the only one on the murder list,”

“That means…”

“Me, Hyunjin, Seungmin, Han, Changbin hyung, Jeongin, Minho hyung and most especially, Chan hyung,” Felix said. “If he dies, what will happen to us? To you? And with everything that our parents have left us,” That statement made Felix look gloomy as if the sunshine hid behind the clouds to provide rain and you’re standing somewhere without a roof—letting the rainwater shower you.

“God, I’m so sorry,” You sighed trying to hold back your tears as you leaned on your seat. It makes you feel a sense of guilt even though everything is still new.

“It’s not your fault. What are you apologizing for?” Hyunjin said still not moving from his position—arms crossed on his chest, legs gapped—his head rested on his neck pillow with sunglasses on his eyes.

“Don’t mind him,” Felix excused. “He even kissed you without permission so I’m sorry about that,” He added when you just gave him a sorry smile.

“I’m not sorry about that too!” Hyunjin butted in making Felix sigh before turning in his direction.

“You’re being a jerk,” Felix scolded him as Hyunjin rolled his eyes inside those expensive glasses.

It was a new sight the moment you stepped out of the private area and headed toward the mini-airport, specifically built for this island. The family is filthy rich that you cannot even comprehend how it works. From afar, they look like a normal bunch of businessmen working together to provide a better economy for people to work but once you enter the circle and observe them, they only serve one master—the boss who is the brain of everything. They fight for the good although they use violence and crimes just to have a peaceful atmosphere. Being involved with them came to be unexpected. From a normal, innocent human being to a wanted daughter of a late criminal lord.

It is the season of summer and everything happens in the blink of an eye. The night changed too fast—not even 24 hours. That’s what everyone says, you don’t know what is going to happen in the future. All eyes darted on you and they’re all armed. Apart from the brothers, there were also guards walking along as you headed to cars prepared to head to Hyunjin’s guesthouse. It was a big island when you got an aerial view as it was separated from the outside world. You were assisted when you sat beside Hyunjin as he drove away. The island is obviously surrounded by water which would be harder to escape. They don’t need surveillance cameras anymore when you’re on the loose just to find you. No boats, and planes to be used—unless it’s urgent.

Being surrounded by water is a genius idea since it is already summer. You have the freedom to explore around and maybe read by the shore if the guesthouse wouldn’t be too far from the sea. Another convoy was set to travel heading on the limited road Hyunjin was talking about. You didn’t even expect that the guesthouse would be enormous just like Chan’s mansion on the mountaintop.

It was located a few meters from the shore—surrounded by trees and a garden with a small pavilion for afternoon tea, a swimming pool, and of course, high walls and gates.

“This is your guesthouse?” You asked. “It seems like a real house,”

“Let’s say this is a vacation house where I’m supposed to relax, away from all the chaos,” Hyunjin said.

“You even had an outdoor shooting range a moment ago,” You added.

“Chan Hyung had it built 2 years ago,” He said, parking the car as soon as it entered the guesthouse grounds. “Your things will be carried to your room so feel free to look around. Felix will attend to you in a bit,”

“Okay,” You said, letting yourself out of his car as you watched him going to Chan. They walked inside the house as Felix remained with you. The latter was smiling until his ears made you awe. He’s the only sweet one around. A total ball of sunshine.

When Chan and the rest of his brothers gathered in the main living room while discussing the terms and conditions with Hyunjin, Felix got busy touring you around like a professional tour guide yet you couldn’t help but notice the gun being displayed on his belt. Everyone has.

“Why do you always carry that?” You asked as Felix stopped explaining some things when you got distracted.

“Oh, it’s for emergencies,” He said as you walked around the guesthouse.

And while you were occupied, Chan received a distress message written on his phone. Han was alerted that accomplices from last night were already lined up in the shooting range after they were brought to the island and needed confrontation. Hyunjin stood up immediately and left the premises as he hurried to the shooting range, not far from the house. Everyone followed him which caught your attention and Felix’s.

“Emergencies like that, probably,” You heard him say.

“What’s happening?” You asked when Han came.

“Felix, Chan wants you there. Take Y/n with you,” He said and ran to catch up with the guys—leaving you confused. You followed Felix out from the gates and headed to where they were. It didn’t even take 10 minutes of the tour and now you’re standing here with them with those unfamiliar faces kneeling down in front of the brothers. You hold on to Felix while watching them. Those men have bruises, obviously after being beaten up. Their hands were cuffed and blood was dripping from their heads. If this island is only for the brothers, why would they bring them here?

“Baby, come here,” Hyunjin suddenly said, to which everyone was caught off guard. He was gesturing to you as he reached out his hand—fingers motioning you to come closer.

“Baby? What the fuck?” Seungmin said in disgust.

Your heart started to beat faster—of course, you remembered Hyunjin became your crush for a few minutes during the party, kissed you, and killed some people. Now you are not surprised if he’s going to have another shooting activity. Everyone was quiet and next to him was Chan with a gun in his hand. The others stood on the side, waiting for something to happen. This family never fails to make surprises within the first 24 hours, especially Hyunjin.

It is breathtaking to witness eight handsome brothers wearing formal attire—either black or white. Hyunjin was wearing all black, from his long-sleeved polo to his pants and belt, silver rings adorned his fingers, and a black bracelet. His ears were pierced. You didn’t even notice how good they looked on him the first time you laid your eyes on him during the party. The broad daylight caused you a thorough observation. He’s so damn attractive.

You didn’t notice you were staring at him for a while now that he turned to you—lowering his Versace sunglasses, cocking his head.

“Baby,” He called again. You placed your hand above his as he pulled you gently closer to him. “Now, look,” He added, wrapping his left arm around your waist while pulling out the gun hiding on his belt.

“What?” You asked, turning your eyes to those men.

“They are accomplices of the man who tried to assault you last night,” He said.

“Are you going to kill them too?” You asked, trembling under his touch.

“You may want to cover your ears for this, love,” He whispered as his hand covered your eyes while yours came to cover your ears.

“How did you get inside the Park’s Foundation?” Chan asked them.

“That’s none of your business,” One of them spoke when a gunshot was heard making you flinch. Hyunjin made you turn around as if he was hugging you, again. You buried your face on his chest, hugging him tightly.

One down. Three to go.

“You will never make us speak about the Jungs,” Another one said.

“I know you won’t. We don’t need anything from you,” Hyunjin said, cocking his gun before aiming it at the man’s forehead, making the man flinch in response. “I don’t like people who meddle with my business. She’s mine to take, motherfucker. Any last words? Any of you?” It seemed like Hyunjin was worked up but managed to keep his cool.

“Fuck you, Wolves!”

Hyunjin pulled the trigger as continuous loud gunshots were heard through the island. You flinched at the sound and wanted to walk away but you couldn’t move, again. The same scenario happened twice within the first 24 hours. Why would they want you here?

“Dispose of them,” Chan ordered. “Take Y/n back to the guesthouse. We’ll investigate further of this,”

“Yes Sir,”

“Are you okay?” Hyunjin asked, turning to you while removing his sunglasses as he felt you were shaking from what just happened.

“Y-yeah,” You stuttered while holding his forearms for support.

You admit that was cool of him but who the fuck would shoot people in broad daylight?! And Chan too?! You weren’t sure about the baby call sign but it made your heart leap. It was unexpected of him to say that you’re now confused about what kind of treatment you are getting from him. It’s either he’s concerned, hot-tempered, nonchalant hot motherfucker, or what.

Hyunjin doesn’t understand how he feels about you. Maybe he felt sympathy because you had the same tragic stories to tell. You are one of his rare cases. Maybe the first when he is supposed to be out there killing someone—just like what happened a few minutes ago. Felix came to take you back to the guesthouse leaving him alone on the shooting range, watching the guards cleaning up the mess he just made. Seungmin patted his shoulder before walking away—following Chan back to the guest house. It wasn’t even 10 in the morning.

“Tsk,” And at that moment, he left.

“I hope you won’t hate us for what Hyunjin just did,” Felix said as he made you sit on your bed.

“They probably deserve it,” You said, hanging your head low.

“He does,” Felix smiled. “But hey, don’t worry, we’re doing this to protect you,”

“I know,” You smiled bitterly. “It’s just that, I wasn’t expecting that my life would change in a snap. Everything is new to me,”

“I know,” Felix answered. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not, I’m scared,” You sniffed, hugging your knees closer to your chest as Felix sat in front of you.

“I apologize for making you witness everything of this,” He sighed. “We can’t do anything about it, Y/n. If anything happens to you, this rivalry will continue to grow,”

“I know,” You cried. “Hyunjin and Chan don’t need to show me. I mean, I didn’t see anything but it’s scaring me,” Felix saw you shaking at that moment and hugged you immediately trying to calm you down.

“It won’t happen again,” He added, hugging you tighter. “You should take some rest, my brothers and I are heading back to Seoul after lunch,”

“What? I thought you were staying for a few days?” You asked, looking at him.

“Can’t,” Felix smiled. “You saw what Hyunjin did right? We’ll do the same once we get back to Seoul. The Jungs are making offenses now so we better do something. Those men were brought here to be punished. Don’t worry, Hyunjin will take care of you and there are a lot of guards around. We’ll be back soon to check up on you,”

And so, they did. You hugged Felix tightly before he could get into the private jet. Such a shame that you didn’t get to spend some time with him when he’s only the one who made you feel welcome and comfortable. The others didn’t seem to grow on you at the time and left after saying goodbyes and reassured that they’d come back. Jeongin didn’t say a word to you ever since you came—even Changbin.

“They don’t like me that much, right?” You asked Hyunjin as you stood together far away from the runway.

“You can’t force someone to like a person who you just met,” Hyunjin answered with his hands in his pockets, watching the jet take off. “But Felix is already fond of you and maybe Seungmin,” He added and waited for the jet to disappear from your sight. You made sure you waved at them goodbye even if they wouldn’t be able to see that anymore and Hyunjin was assumed. “Let’s go,”

“Will you kill someone again?” You asked making Hyunjin to stop when he was about to leave.

“Not unless someone we don’t know comes in here, or a traitor,” He said as if it were nothing. Well, he’s an assassin for a reason.

“You scared me back there, and last night,” You said, making Hyunjin turn to face you.

“It is my job,” He said. “I do what I am asked to do. Don’t tell me you’re thinking that I’ll kill you too?”

“No!” You answered immediately. “Just… just don’t drag me again when you shoot someone. Even if you ask me to turn around, I don’t want to be in the actual scene,”

“I can’t promise you that,” He said. “You won’t survive alone unless you know how to use a gun to protect yourself,” And with that, he started to walk away leaving you sniffing on the verge of tears.

You stayed inside your room during the early days ever since you got here. Hyunjin only sees you during breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then you disappear. He often spends his time at the shooting range—still practicing his skills (you could hear them) or sometimes you see him taking a stroll by the shore alone, from your bedroom’s window. It felt like living with a stranger. Which it is, to begin with. You don’t talk a lot, no Hi’s and Hellos, Good mornings and Goodnights, just a single nod and silence.

How could you talk to him again when you dislike him? After all that happened and he’s being a bitch sometimes. You can’t understand him either.

Hyunjin didn’t even wonder why it felt like you were his prisoner who voluntarily locks themself inside when you’re allowed to walk around. Of course, he knew how you feel about him. One apology wouldn’t heal your trauma.

It felt lonely for him—it felt different way back to how he was living with his brothers in Seoul. But he asked for a vacation and this is it, minus the fact that he has to watch over you and you’re not amused with the situation. No WiFi, just old movies being downloaded that are on repeat, no calls and messages, except for Hyunjin, and just a bunch of books being piled in your room, some are found in the main living room. It’s like spending your summer at a summer camp where you’re supposed to reconnect with nature but the difference is, you’re always inside your room and living with a skilled assassin.

Your phone is useless, your laptop is useless, and you are helpless. Sleeping is not an option anymore. You are bored and you are fighting the urge to speak to someone. You can’t even trust the staff working around here, how come you think about Hyunjin?

It was a Friday afternoon when you decided to drag yourself out of that prison and made your way toward the gate—heading to the shore. You were wearing a canary long-sleeved polo and beige shorts as you walked barefoot with a book in your hand. Unbeknownst to your presence, Hyunjin was walking at a distance. You sat on a small bench letting the gentle sunset warm up your skin and provide the bright rays to let you read. It is just a random book that caught your attention while walking around the house this morning.

You started to read while crossing your legs, letting the wind play with your hair as you flipped the pages. Words to words, sentences to paragraphs, chapters to chapters. Hyunjin saw you at that time and just walked past by. And the same scenario keeps on happening every other afternoon until one Wednesday afternoon, he finally sat down beside you—making you startled.

“Is that book entertaining?” He asked.

“Barely,” You sighed. “There’s nothing much I can do around the house,”

“For you, but I’m happy I’m here,” He said. “A break that I need,”

“Good for you,” You sighed again. “Why are you talking to me?”

“Because I’m bored?” He asked, being unsure.

“You? Bored? Beats me,” You scoffed.

“I am,” Hyunjin answered, rolling his eyes. “You’re bored, are you?” He asked.

“Obviously,” You answered, closing the book. “I don’t spend my free time that well without an internet connection,”

“Had to cut it off so they won’t find you,” Hyunjin answered.

“I know,” You said, looking at the calm waves crashing on the shore. “Those men you shot the other day, what was their motive?”

“They work for the Jungs. The man at the party was a spy. They probably shared your profile with everyone so they’d find you easily,” He started. “They were brought here after it was revealed that they’re the rats and came to the party with him,”

“You were showing off when you killed them by the way,” You said which made him chuckle in response. “And if I didn’t know what you do, I would have sued you when I get out of here. You even called me Baby and kissed me. It made my heart leap. You shouldn’t do that,”

“Oh, I did?” He smirked. “I just don’t like my property being touched by anyone else,” It made you want to jump into the water. How could he say that just like that?

“I’m not your property,” You hissed. “I am my own person,”

“Baby, as long as you’re here, you are labeled as mine,” He said without removing that fucking attractive smirk on his face before leaving you alone and walking back to the gate. “Don’t stay out late, sweetheart,” He winked before he could even go in.

“What a jerk,” You said under your breath—being a blushing mess.

Dinner happened quietly as you sat across from each other. Only the steak knife, spoon, and fork were forced to make sounds along with the glasses being half-filled with wine. You tried to focus on your food and yet Hyunjin’s facial features made you take glances at him. It was hard not to look at him—remembering the fact that you find him attractive, that actually became the case. The crush thing wasn’t that serious—it only faded after it occurred.

Hyunjin pretended as if he didn’t notice how you looked at him and when he caught you staring, you’d look away. He smiled to himself while munching his food while your head hung low.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” He asked, taking a sip of his wine.

“I’ve seen them,” You answered, shoving a piece of steak in your mouth.

“All of them?” He asked, being amused.

“There are only a dozen,” You said. “I can watch 4-5 movies a day,”

“I guess it’s true that you’re a home buddy,” He chuckled.

“I am,” You answered. “There’s nothing for me to watch anymore,”

“A night stroll?”

“Too cold,”

“Read a book?”

“I just finished a trilogy, I’m tired,”

“Sleep?”

“Hyunjin, I don’t have anything to do the whole day, what makes you think that I won’t sleep if I’m not reading?”

Hyunjin eventually gave up.

“What do you want to do then?” He asked.

“I don’t know…” You answered, making Hyunjin sigh.

“Alright, we’ll figure out what else we can do,” Hyunjin said then it made you notice a sudden change of attitude.

“You know what scares me more?” You asked.

“What?”

“I know you murder people as a job, and that scares me, but you being hospitable and nice, scares me more,” You said, leaning onto the table and making him laugh. That’s unexpected, he’s cute. His eyes disappear as his mouth opens to laugh. He’s like a laughing weasel, but louder.

“I’m not a bad person, Y/n,” He said. “I don’t do shits without a valid reason, I kill criminals. Not civilians. If I’d been careless, I would die without a gun,” You didn’t say anything after that, but you thanked him for dinner, and just like any other night, you went back to your room.

It started raining a few moments after you got inside your room. It’s the first time you have ever experienced such a phenomenon and it’s scaring you too. It was unexpected to rain that night with thunder and lightning—they were all visible from your window, knowing that you were facing the ocean. The curtains don’t help to turn a blind eye out of it. You can’t even sleep, not even a blink. It was also cold despite your navy blue long-sleeved pajamas.

Meanwhile, Hyunjin settled in his room, finishing the bottle of wine from dinner while scrolling through his phone—the data is only limited for him and does not let you know his connection to the outside world. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Emails kept on flooding his inbox, some came from his brothers and others were invitations to parties. There’s one of them where his presence is a must. But that doesn’t take place in two weeks. Who knows what will happen before the party? He doesn’t even know how to entertain you after all that happened during the past few days. And just like how you felt, you are strangers living under the same roof because of your family affairs.

Hyunjin sighed in defeat as he placed his phone along with his glass on the side table, preparing to sleep—not minding the roaring sounds from the sky when he heard a knock on his door. You are terrified of the storm and can barely sleep. Having the lights on doesn’t help when the loud sounds of thunder make you flinch underneath the duvet. You don’t usually feel like this when you are still living in the city but being placed into a new environment makes it hard to adjust. Especially when they sound like the shots being fired.

“Come in!” You heard Hyunjin say.

It was also a hard decision. No one in this house can be trusted and the maids and other staff were dismissed after 8 p.m. He’s the only choice. You hesitated to go in, but you heard him—he’s probably waiting and not expecting you to be there. Either way, you opened the door with a pillow in one hand as you entered his room, feeling embarrassed and awkward.

“What do you want?” He asked as you hesitated to speak up—biting your lower lip, Hyunjin saw the pillow in your left hand and landed his gaze on your face, waiting to say something. “What?” He asked.

“C-can I sleep with you?” You asked as you felt your cheeks burning. Hyunjin stares at you for a few seconds before the thought of it sinks in which makes him smirk. You realized he was wearing a black tank top and gray sweatpants. His collarbones were highly visible, hair disheveled for what reason? And that broad shoulders, damn—his arms made you want to experience being head locked. “I can’t sleep with the storm outside,” You added, trying not to be distracted.

“Are you checking me out?” He asked, making you shake your head violently.

“Deny it all you want. I can tell that you’re lying,” He said, cocking his head.

“Okay!” You exclaimed. “I was,” You sighed in defeat as Hyunjin scoffed.

“Come here baby,” He said, motioning his head—lifting his duvet for you to slide in.

“Don’t call me baby!” You hissed at him.

“Then, I won’t let you sleep with me,” He said, crossing his arms on his chest.

“No! Wait,” You said. “Just tonight though,”

“Just lay down,” He ordered as you slipped in under his covers—hugging your pillow with your body facing him.

His bed smells like him. That strong intoxicating perfume he had at the party and the one he had the moment you arrived here. It’s kind of soothing.

“Don’t mind me and just go to sleep,” You said but there’s no way that Hyunjin’s going to ignore you. “Good night,” You added, shutting your eyes—covering your face lightly with the pillow.

“Good night,” Hyunjin said.

He won’t be able to sleep for a while.

Morning came as the gentle sunlight peeked through Hyunjin’s window. It woke you up as you were lying a meter beside the window—fluttering your eyes open as you made a small stretch. The pillow you had last night was already lying on the floor and you found Hyunjin’s body facing you. Your hand landed on your chest, clutching it to stop your heart from racing. He looks innocent when he sleeps, like an angel—half of his face is buried in his soft pillow, like a dumpling being squished. A handsome and cute young man, with a great body, veiny arms, and a tattoo on his right arm. A wolf’s head?

The sunlight touched his skin which gave you a more detailed observation of his features. He looked so good up this close. You wondered if he ever dated anyone. It’s probably hard and dangerous, knowing his career at that.

You sat up slowly trying not to wake him up. The sunlight was directed to his face which made you lift your hand a bit higher to cover him. Your eyes didn’t leave him and continued to stare, not like a creep, but someone who is mesmerized by his ethereal beauty. His plump lips that you want to kiss—shut up Y/n. You already got to taste his lips. Fuck. His long bangs resting on his cheek down to the bridge of his nose—your fingers gently pushed the strands behind his ears. Hyunjin felt as if he was just pretending to be asleep.

“You’re beautiful,” You said softly.

“I know, right?” He said in his morning voice. Fucking deep, and hoarse. “Don’t lie when I ask you if you’re checking me out,”

“I’m not,” You denied, cheeks burning from the sight and feeling. Hyunjin opened his eyes and sat up.

“I said, don’t lie,” He answered.

“I said, I’m not,” You denied again making him look at you and leaned closer, whispering something to your ear.

“You’re a bad liar,” He said and walked straight to the bathroom leaving you dumbfounded and red. Meanwhile, he heard the door shut when he was about to take a shower. It made him smile to himself. Cute.

A few moments later, he found you eating alone at the dining table. A chicken sandwich and a glass of milk—it is a luxury. Hyunjin came in his white robe with his hair still soaked from the shower. It almost made you choke on your food—but okay.

“You’re not going out today?” You asked him.

“Good morning, Y/n,” He said, walking past you—settling down on the seat from the other side of the table.

“Good morning,” You replied with a mouth full of bread. “So are you going out or not?”

“Not this morning,” He answered, taking a bite of his food. “Why? Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I’m lonely and you’re literally the only person I talk to,” You said, taking a sip of your milk.

“I’m taking the cabin cruiser this afternoon. Want to join me?” He asked.

“You have a mini yacht?” You asked, amused at how rich this family is.

“Of course, Minho Hyung lent it to me,” He said as if it was nothing.

“Can I go? Pretty please? I’ve never been on one,” You asked again with puppy eyes and pouty lips. Hyunjin looked so done with the expression and made a side-eye. But he doesn’t want to be bitch so there he goes.

“Sure, you might die if I leave you,” He chuckled as you rolled your eyes in response.

The afternoon sunset is the most beautiful scene on this island. It is breathtaking that you never get tired of looking at it every day. You barely witness this kind of phenomenon knowing that you work like a dog during the weekdays and sleep on your days off. It’s a waste of being alive not to enjoy the life of being an actual adult.

It is indeed a nice place to spend your summer with a book in hand while in the middle of the sea and going with Hyunjin could be one of the best times you’ll ever have. You don’t know the rest and you’re not expecting anything good after that. He already hopped inside the cabin cruiser as you were assisted by one of the bodyguards. He said it will only be you and him to the sea while they wait by the shore.

The wind got stronger when you settled inside as Hyunjin was driving it. Black high-waisted shorts and a white polo top, brown sandals, and sunglasses on the crown of your head—Hyunjin thought you were cute but he didn’t need to say that. You sat down at the back, admiring the view while feeling the summer breeze. It was a delicate warmth that touched your skin as it boosted your serotonin—almost making you decide not to leave.

“Are you in for a swim?” Hyunjin asked.

“No! I can’t swim!” You answered.

“What a bummer!” He said.

“I know!”

Not after a while, you felt the boat stop in the middle of the sea as Hyunjin made his way toward the deck.

“What are you doing?” You asked, standing up from your seat—taking your small bag (which holds your sunblock and an unfinished book).

“Swimming,” He said and started unbuttoning his blue-striped polo. You had to look away before attempting to climb on deck. “Are you sure you won’t join me?”

“Hyunjin, if I knew how to swim then I would,” You answered.

“Suit yourself,” He said before jumping into the water as you climbed up—taking a seat on deck catching him rising above water while wiping his face. “The water is so nice! You’re missing out!”

“I’m fine right here!” You defended, taking the book out from your bag and started to read, not minding how long he’d take to swim the entire ocean if he wanted to.

He caught you taking glances at him as he swam around the boat while you were trying to read. The wind kept blowing your hair away as the book flipped its pages on its own. Your head hangs low as you avoid any eye contact Hyunjin would randomly give each time he rises—running his hands, brushing his hair upwards. Which is hot, especially with that body—that washboard abs being molded by the heavens—damn you Hwang Hyunjin. He never fails to make you blush.

You managed to read a chapter without getting distracted but were surprised when Hyunjin decided to get back up through the swim platform, heading to the deck. He was soaked and droplets of water from his clothes and hair were making you wet, including the pages of the book. You tsked at the sight of it as he picked up his shirt with a towel at hand before sitting down next to the empty spot beside you while drying his hair.

“You smell like seaweed,” You said. “Had enough of the ocean?”

“It was just a quick swim,” He defended.

“I read an entire chapter so it was quite a while,” You shrugged. “Thanks for asking me to join you by the way. I could’ve died in boredom back there,”

“You’re welcome,” He smiled for the first time which made your heart warm.

You didn’t know what to say after that and just let him dry his hair, not minding how he kept sprinkling seawater on you. But some things were bothering you at that very moment—his tattoo and the gang war that is currently happening. You haven’t heard from his brothers for a week now and you’re worried. Maybe Hyunjin still have connections with them but at the same time, you don’t have any contact with the outside world. You don’t know what’s going on as you sit there, watching the sunset.

Hyunjin didn’t say a word too but he kept on making noises about how bad the seawater affected the smoothness of his hair. It became frizzy after all the salt it consumed. He hasn’t changed his clothes either and is still topless. You shoved the book back into your bag, putting it away as you sighed—eyes wandering around the horizon. Such a beautiful view.

“Can I ask you something?” You started.

“Hmm?” Hyunjin hummed in response.

“What’s going to happen to me after you get rid of the Jungs?” You asked, looking at him as he stopped drying his hair.

“That would depend on you,” He answered. “We kept you heir to continue the legacy and when everyone’s gone, it’s either you give everything your parents left behind to us and forget about this, or be part of us.” He added as you sighed heavily—looking back at the horizon. “It’s a hard decision since we dropped a bomb on you but still, it’s in your hands,”

“Seems like a big responsibility, Hyunjin,” You answered.

“You have a lot of time to decide, Y/n. It doesn’t matter how long,” Hyunjin smiled.

“I wish someone told me sooner,” You sighed. “What about that tattoo on your left arm,”

“Ah, this?” He chuckled, showing you a wolf’s head as if it was howling—imprinted on his forearm. “It’s an emblem. All of my brothers have one. We identify as Wolves since we don’t share the same surnames. It’s Chan Hyung’s favorite animal,”

“Oh, so that’s why those men you killed called you Wolves?” You asked as he nodded in response. “You guys are cool,”

“You think so?” He chuckled.

“Yeah, and the other clan is simply Jungs. Basic,” You shrugged. “Did your brothers tell anything that they’re visiting?”

“Not yet, they’re busy,” Hyunjin sighed. “So it will be just you and me on this island for quite some time,”

“That’s fine. I just hope they’re okay,” You smiled before standing up to get a closer look at the water. Hyunjin followed you, peeking down below where the anchor was. Then, an idea came into his mind where he playfully tried to push you off the railings making you squeal in shock, but his arms were wrapped around your waist to pull you closer. “Hey! That’s not funny,” You scolded as he laughed in response.

“Your reaction was so cute,” He said making your cheeks heat up.

“Was it?” You chuckled in response. “I would kill you if I fell,”

“You won’t,” He said.

“Oh yeah? Try me,” You smirked as Hyunjin let you go and started chasing you around, laughing at each other when you slipped because of the excess seawater he brought after swimming and fell.

“Y/n! Fuck!” He hissed under his breath and dived in while you were trying to keep your head above water with your arms splashing and flapping around. Hyunjin caught you with one of his arms as the other one made the effort to take you to the swim platform at the back of the cabin cruiser. You were out of breath when Hyunjin took you out of the water—coughing in between. “Shit, are you okay? I’m sorry,” He said being worried as fuck. He didn’t mean to.

“I’m fine,” You coughed, taking a seat as he sighed harshly.

“I’m sorry,” He said taking an extra towel to wrap around your wet body.

“It’s fine, Hyunjin, stop it,” You said, hugging yourself. “Thanks,” Hyunjin sighed again and sat beside you—taking all the strands of hair that were covering your face. You were watching him do it, not realizing you were staring at his lips and remembered how they felt when they were on yours. It was an intoxicating one. You gulped at the thought. He was also drying your hair, slowly twisting the water out of it when his eyes caught where you were looking at.

“Y/n,” He called but you didn’t budge. You were too focused on how his lips quiver when he is worried and how they move when he speaks. “Y/n!”

“I’m sorry, what?” You asked, coming back to him.

“Did the seawater clog your ears?” He chuckled. “You were staring,”

“I’m sorry,” You said as a smirk painted on his lips. You felt his hands on your cheeks as he looked into your eyes, slowly leaning closer which made you freeze on your spot—closing your eyes just in case he’d kiss you. Your heart is racing again. What is happening to you? But instead of expecting a kiss, you heard him laugh instead, making you push him away.

“Don’t tease me like that,” You sighed, not until he moved closer crashing his lips onto yours.

Your hand reached his jaw as your thumb started caressing his cheek while you felt his right arm pulling you closer to his body. The kiss was so hot and intimate that you forgot about falling from the cabin cruiser and as Hyunjin deepened the kiss with your lips molding together, and your arms were already around his neck. Your bodies were pressed together—his plump lips were soft and warm, just like the first time but without the alcohol leaving an aftertaste. Your lips parted slowly allowing his tongue to slip in as your noses brushed against each other while tilting your head to the sides. Your heart never stopped racing.

Hyunjin felt weird. It wasn’t like this during the first time. That kiss was sudden and no lingering feelings unlike what you have right now. Maybe it was how you opened up to him slowly the puppy eyes you showed this morning, or the fact that he once kissed you and that he couldn’t take you out of his mind even though he shouldn’t be feeling any emotions after that. He finds you attractive, that’s a plus—or was it the way you hugged him when you got sacred or the fact that you buried your face against his chest and hugged him while you were sleeping which you are not aware of? Or maybe that time when he woke up first and stared at you this morning and the other day when you slept in his room during the first night. It can be the way you looked at the party or how stupid you were when you got drunk, blabbering nonsense inside his car. He’s confused.

He felt his heart racing too as you hugged him tightly, not knowing how many seconds that have passed when your lips were against each other. It was filled with astonishment for the both of you but it felt more than that, not until you pulled away for some air—leaving you all red and hot. Hyunjin was left hanging as he looked away. He thought it was a good move the second time.

“I-I’m gonna go and change,” You said and was about to stand up when Hyunjin grabbed your wrist.

“You didn’t bring any clothes,” You heard him say. Stupid!

“Right,” You said, looking at his large hand, wrapped around your wrist. “Can you let go now? Dry yourself,”

“I hope that kiss won’t change anything,” He said as you stood there.

“I will,” You said.

“What?” He asked, looking up at you.

“My feelings,” You answered as Hyunjin finally stood up. “You did it the second time without warning,”

“And that’s a problem?” He asked. Bitch.

“The first one was,” You argued. “I mean…”

“You mean what, do you like me?” He asked, grabbing your shoulders for you to look at him.

“You need to try harder,” You said, locking eyes with him.

“So am I allowed to kiss you even without permission?” He asked again, brushing some strands of your hair behind your ear.

“You did them anyway,” You answered. “But I’m still not sure about how I feel about you. I’m still scared, Hyunjin,”

“Y/n, you can trust me,” He argued.

“I know that!” You sighed. “But let’s take a raincheck, shall we?”

“I can wait,” He said, letting you go, and left for the wheel to take you two back to the island.

The awkward atmosphere came back as you two became distant again. It feels the same during the first days you lived together but with the knowledge that you two are interested yet unsure about each other’s feelings. Hyunjin came back to his usual routine by being in shooting range while you stayed by the shore every afternoon to read. No words were exchanged, just glances and awkward dinners. Yet, it wasn’t long enough that another storm came that one night. This time, more terrifying. The trauma that the brothers have left you didn’t go away even if Hyunjin was able to get inside your walls and be friends with you (with a kiss as a tip).

You found yourself outside his room again, knocking on his door with a pillow in hand. Hyunjin didn’t even expect a lot of you to come here after what happened yet it seemed like the storm was getting inside your head. You couldn’t sleep—you couldn’t sleep properly ever since what happened at the cabin cruiser. It’s hard to go to sleep when your heart is racing, your cheeks burning, and having an unsure situationship with Hwang Hyunjin.

He became vulnerable ever since he saw you that evening and it became worse when you slept with him, much worse when you kissed, and now this.

He was wearing a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up onto his shoulders showing his muscular arms and black shorts. His black hair was messy and his eyes were tired from not being able to sleep during the past nights. Same reason though, but with more feelings. He forgot about himself being an assassin but a lover boy.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked as he stared at you, wearing that white long dress and barefooted.

“Yes,” You said softly, closing the door behind you.

“Lay down,” He answered, cocking his head to the empty spot beside him.

You walked slowly as you reached his bed, lifting the thick duvet—slipping inside, and laid down beside him. Hyunjin just watched you move as he stayed still on his spot—sitting on his side of the bed. The wind is cold as it enters through his window being left ajar. His room was dim and only the two lamps from each side of the bed were the ones switched on. Still, you could see his handsome features which you thought were perfectly molded by the gods. A son of Aphrodite with a great body, almost like Poseidon. His eyes fixated on you as you were looking back at him.

Nobody said a word—he wanted to, but nothing came out of his mouth. He became different. So different from the first time you met. He was a man who curses a lot and was hot-tempered, now he’s quiet and distant. This island is supposed to bring you two closer, that’s what you thought after being stuck here with him. But the thing is, the brothers brought you here to protect you—not seducing Hyunjin.

You weren’t used to it and that fucking kisses you shared were special—you thought about it a lot. It was immaculate, one of a kind. He’s a good kisser to be exact. It was out of the plan that you two should fall in love. But after days of having to deal with each other’s presence, apparently, you two grew closer. You just don’t know how to continue this relationship by ignoring the changes in the atmosphere.

“Have you dated anyone?” You asked. That was a stupid question. Really? That’s the first thing you’re going to ask him?

“Hmm, maybe when I was in college but it didn’t work out,” He said. “Nothing worked out, it’s too crucial for my job,”

“So you’ve been doing this since then?”

“Since I turned 20,” He said. “Not really long ago. Why do you ask?”

“Nothing, just curious,” You answered as he laid down, covering his body with the duvet—facing you. “Were you sad?”

“No,” He said, not breaking eye contact. “There’s a lot of fish in the sea and I’m waiting for you,” He added, reaching out his hand to caress your hair.

“I gave it a thought,” You said softly while watching him. “I like you is an understatement. Everything happened so fast and I’m not sure if I’m being valid or not. You fall in love with strangers even without knowing their names, you hook up with someone you just met because you have a lot of feelings, and you’re reckless with someone you don’t know so why does it feel like you’re in a rush within two weeks of getting to know each other after you kissed?” Then Hyunjin stopped as a smile formed on his face.

“Do you want it that way?” He asked. “Rushed?” You shake your head in response.

“I want to date you, so bad,” You told him. “I’ve been lonely for a very long time and spending time with you made it bearable. I’m not used to having someone around and I’m not sure how to handle these feelings. I don’t care if you kill people for a job, you make me feel important even if it’s part of your job too,” You added as he watched your lips quiver as if you were confessing under the influence of alcohol. “I’m a newbie in everything, I don’t know how to have fun. I hope you don’t find me weird, I am stupid I know that but I’m thankful that you managed to put up with my shit the first time we met. I used to think you’re a jerk but you ended up being a different person to me and yet you’re still that Hyunjin I had a crush on that night of the party,” Then, his smile grew bigger as he started feeling giddy about it. He leaned closer to kiss your forehead which lasted for a few seconds as he pulled you closer to his body—hugging you tight.

“Let’s not rush, baby,” He said as you buried your face on his neck. “But things will work out for us, I promise,” He added, kissing your temple.

“You won’t let yourself be in danger because of me, right?” You asked, looking up at him.

“I’m here to protect you, okay? Nothing will happen as long as I’m with you,” He reassured which made you a bit emotional.

Getting attached to him in a short period is between a mistake and a good choice. Letting your guard down was easy but having to think about the consequences of this situation, you will either cry or suffer. No positive outcomes.

“Just… don’t die,” You said, making him laugh in response.

“I won’t,” He said as he gave you a peck on the lips. “I will kill them first,” It tugged a smile on your face.

Who knew that someone you once thought a jerk and a murderer became dear and precious to your heart?

Ever since that night, you and Hyunjin grew closer than ever. You’d take a stroll by the shore before sunset and throw stones—the person who gets to throw the shortest distance gets to be flicked on the forehead. He would hold your hand—interlocking your fingers together as you swing them back and forth while taking a stroll by the shore on a sunny afternoon. Kicking sand, building sandcastles, or just talking with wine and whiskey for a picnic as you watch the sunset together.

Sometimes he’d join you reading under the shade of a large tree in the garden where he lays his head on your lap as you read. There were also times when he would trash his space a meter away just to paint you while you were reading—or if you two got bored, he’d invite you to the shooting range trying to teach you how to use a pistol.

“Focus on the target!” He’d say as you were standing meters away from the shooting target. “If you manage to shoot the red spot over there, then you’re almost like me,”

It was fun—dangerous even. You were unsure about the idea but Hyunjin was persistent to teach you. He offered earmuffs and ballistic glasses for you to use. Your hands were shaking as the bullets hit the spots far from the red spot he’s been talking about.

“Not that, Y/n,” He sighed. Hyunjin already taught you how to disassemble and assemble the pistol, and also elaborated on the parts, how many bullets to fit in, and how to reload. Now you’re here as he stood behind you—arms aligned with yours as he held your hands to take them into the right position. You could feel his hot breath on your neck as he instructed you what to do and you tried not to get distracted by it. “Focus, love,”

“I will if you’re not breathing on my neck,” You said.

“You’ll get more than me just breathing on your neck when you do a good job,” He answered. “Now look at the target and shoot,” Then suddenly, continuous sounds of shots being fired were heard through the island. Even the birds flew away from the trees in disruption. His lessons lasted for days until you were able to shoot the red spot in the middle. A kiss would do as a reward.

You’ve spent your days without the thought of what was actually going on. You forgot why you were sent here and being with Hyunjin felt like you’re finally having a life out of work. You didn’t mind watching the movies being piled on the coffee table all over again as the two of you would cuddle on the couch, laughing and crying from the same plot. I’d take you until 4 am and fall asleep in each other’s arms. He didn’t mind them at all—in fact, he enjoys his time being with you—which he is, in the first place.

Kisses were given at random times.

A peck on the lips when you wake up and before going to sleep—you two sleep together in his room now. He’d kiss your forehead when you fall asleep while watching a movie as he caresses your hair—staring at you as if you’re the most precious treasure in his life. Long kisses when you sit on his lap while you are talking about how your life was crazy as he’d stare at your lips moving nonstop—a hand on your waist as he tackled you down, hovering above you as he presses his lips onto yours, feeling his hot breath and tasting the recent drink he had. Bodies pressed together with your hand around his nape—his tongue pressed on your slightly parted lips leaving ticklish licks making you giggle in between, hearts racing and adrenaline rush.

It came naturally.

“Let’s not rush,” That’s what he said. It was crystal clear but you are acting like a couple during the early phase of a relationship. But that didn’t matter to you anymore. It felt rushed, that’s the point but who cares? After letting your guard down, it’s hard to stand up again. Hyunjin got you wrapped up around his fingers. One small argument would lead to a kiss and make-up afterward. That’s one idea of how you easily give up.

“Love,” He called as you both lay on his bed on a Thursday night.

“Hmm?” You hummed in response as your head placed on his chest, listening to his calm heartbeat while his arms wrapped around your back.

“I got invited to a party,” He answered—kissing the crown of your head.

“You’re leaving?” You asked, lifting your head to look at him.

“Yes but you’re coming with me,” He said, leaving a peck on your lips. “You know I can’t leave you here alone. We’re going home to the mansion,”

“When are we leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning,” He said.

“That’s so soon,” You answered. “Are we coming back here?”

“Depends,” He chuckled. “We can spend the night in your apartment after the party. I’ll make sure no one will know,” He added, kissing the tip of your nose.

“Okay,” You said, giving him a peck on the lips. A small smile formed on his lips as he locked eyes with you with his fingers tracing your bottom lip in an attempt for a kiss.

Your faces lean closer as your lips meet—feeling your noses brushed against each other. Hearts racing once again and blood rushes through your veins. Hyunjin made you lay down flat on your back, meeting his soft mattress covered in beige-colored bed sheets fresh from the laundry. Your heads tilted on different sides as he hovered above you once again, with a hand on your cheek—deepening the kiss. His lips tangled with yours, feeling each other’s hot breaths sending electric shocks all over your body. His kiss felt different from the other ones you’ve had. It seemed hungry and desperate.

Your eyes closed, bodies pressing together then a soft sound was heard from you when you felt his lips on your neck, leaving wet kisses and biting your skin gently.

“What are you doing?” You asked as his kisses traveled down to your collarbones yet you could not still make eye contact with him.

“Shh,” You heard him say before his lips met yours again to shut you up. You felt his fingers slip inside your shirt, tracing your bare skin—slipping them inside your heart-printed pajamas to your black laced panties while never leaving your lips alone. It sent butterflies in your stomach and it became worse when you felt his fingers rubbing against your wetness. “I didn’t do anything that much yet and you’re already this wet?”

It was awkward, you that but how can you blame yourself?

Hyunjin pulled away as he yanked off his tank top, revealing his physique—giving you a closer look. His legs were parted as your hips lay between them. You could feel your cheeks burning at the sight which he finds cute. His lips met yours again, slowly lifting your shirt which you willingly let him. You started breathing faster against his lips when he started removing your pajamas, only leaving you with the black undergarments.

He started sucking and biting your lips as he went back on tracing his fingers from your chest, traveling down inside your panties, feeling your wetness. You let out a soft sound as a reaction to his touch. His long fingers touching your slit are already leaving your mind blank. You are confused and don’t know what to feel. You’ve read about this a lot but never get the chance on having to apply it to yourself. His lips never left yours as you let him take your panties off, not a long moment after because he was annoyed with the feeling of the fabric—limiting his actions.

He parted your legs as you exhaled when you felt his kisses travel on your inner thighs—it drove you crazy when his tongue reached your wet pussy licking and kissing it emphatically. Arching your back as a response, the sounds you make are like music to his ears. It felt so good and hot at the same time. His eyes were watching your reactions as your mouth gapped when started eating you out. Your hands traced his bedsheets, crumpling them for you to hold on tightly.

“God, you’re so wet,” He said as his fingers were dugged into your bare skin, leaving nail marks—slowly pushing his tongue inside.

“Oh!” You breathed out, feeling his tongue inside your walls—your heart was pounding above rate as he never stopped pushing in and out. He felt your hand grabbing his hair making him go deeper with his tongue. It was a weird feeling as your toes curled at the sensation and you loved it. Hyunjin noticed you’re taking it well and he didn’t stop sooner.

One of his hands slipped inside your bra, squeezing your breast against the thick fabric. It fits his hand well. His lips kissed your dripping cunt as he went up to your stomach until he reached your neck, biting down lightly—sucking it, trying to find your sweet spot. You felt his hands on your back, unhooking your bra and getting rid of it on the floor. He was amused with your body, it was perfect. It fits perfectly for him.

“You don’t just have a pretty face, but this body too,” He said in between his kisses on your neck, leaving marks as he heard you moan. His growing bulge is pressing against your hips through his sweatpants. You were panting heavily when he found your sweet spot, causing you to curse him which let out a soft chuckle before taking your lips again. Your nipples hardened when his fingers accidentally brushed them after unhooking your bra—you whimpered softly when he pinched them, slowly pulling your sensitive buds just to tease you out of it.

“Fuck,” You hissed under your breath.

He couldn’t take it anymore. His dick is throbbing inside his pants, upon seeing you fully naked. Hyunjin pulled away as he shoved his sweatpants down on his knees and pulled your hips closer to his. Your face turned red upon seeing his hardened dick up close—you licked your lips biting it before seeing the smirk being plastered on his face.

“Do you want me to continue?” He asked.

“Please,” You pleaded.

Feeling the adrenaline rush, Hyunjin rubbed his cock against your cunt—feeling the friction. Your back met his soft mattress again as he slowly slipped his length inside you, hissing when he realized he was the first one to touch you.

“Fuck,” It hurts, now he knows what to do. Your arms wrapped around his neck as he started to thrust himself inside out as gently as he could yet it caused your eyes to roll back—making sinful sounds. You gasped at the feeling as you were breathing faster. He brought his lips to your nipples as his tongue swirled around the buds before sucking them making you moan in response. “Oh, God,”

He suddenly moved a bit faster which made you go insane. The continuous lustful sounds you make urge him to change his pace. Your legs spread wide indulging the pain and pleasure between them as tears started forming in your eyes—nails dugged into his bare back making red marks visible. Hyunjin growled in response as he went faster making you cry. His lips met yours again, devouring them like no other man could.

Hyunjin sweats easily, making his bangs soaked from all the movements he did. His lips became hotter and plump than before. It’s intoxicating as you could taste your wetness in his mouth with your tongues tangled. He had to turn you around as you were on your knees with your face buried in the pillows—screaming his name feeling high when he started fucking you from behind. Hands tied on your back as your skin slapped against each other. One hand around your neck as the other one locks your wrists together. You are being railed for the first time.

The bed was creaking and he never stopped. He loves it as you were taking his cock so well that it drives him crazy. Your screams were all over the place as you moaned his name repeatedly cursing along with it. But not long after, he started to feel his orgasm coming so close that he had to pull himself out—stroking himself before spilling them out on your back. You lay on your back again realizing his sheets were already wet. It sent butterflies in his stomach seeing you fucked up as you pant in exhaustion.

“Are you good?” He asked, planting a soft kiss on your lips as you nodded in response.

“Just tired,” You smiled.

“Did it hurt?” He asked again, making you red as a cherry.

“It did,” You sighed. “Did you do this before?”

“Maybe,” Hyunjin chuckled. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” He said, kissing your forehead before lifting you as he made his way to the bathroom.

“Love?” It was Hyunjin’s voice that woke you up after a deep slumber. The fact that you got tired from what happened last night made you fall asleep in his arms quickly. Sadly, you didn’t want to get up and stay in bed the whole day but for sure he’s going to drag you out any time now.

“Hmm?” You hummed in response—fluttering your eyes open.

“Get dressed, we’re leaving in an hour,” He said softly as he caressed your cheek. His body was blocking the sunlight that entered through the window as he sat down on your side of the bed. It was a sweet good morning—the way you kissed his palm for a response while closing your eyes, Hyunjin’s heart fluttered inside. “I’ll have your breakfast ready, okay?” He added, kissing your forehead.

“Okay,” You smiled.

“Okay,” He answered—leaving the room, and closing the door behind him.

You let out a heavy sigh and got up to do your morning routine then it led you to some thoughts. Doing things like what couples usually do and yet Hyunjin and you didn’t put any labels until now. You love him, that’s a fact. This is probably because of the things he does—maybe his job or whatever. It is hard to commit and he thought that maybe having a blooming relationship without any labels yet, could be considered as a reassurance that he will pursue you.

Like what you said, like is an understatement. It doesn’t sort everything in place. Like is not enough and flings are just trash.

You found yourself again at the mansion. Felix welcomed you with a tight hug and Seungmin plastered a smile on his face while wearing those glasses on the bridge of his nose which you didn’t notice before. Chan was waiting in his office and Hyunjin left you there with them. Felix had a lot to talk about when he brought you to the main living room. There were no changes for almost 3 weeks that you were gone. The same Seoul City where you grew up but the life you once had disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Hyunjin sat in front of Chan’s desk as Seungmin placed a pile of papers in front of him. Minho on the other hand placed a small envelope on the top of it. Those were signs—signs that he had to go on a mission again and the party that he was invited to is one. They were discussing something important inside as Felix tried to entertain you. It feels good to have him around, you missed him too even if you just talked for less than 24 hours when you left. You also wondered why they didn’t come to visit you on the island.

“So, how did your break go?” He asked. It wasn’t a break, for sure. It was called hiding and falling in love with his brother.

“It was fine. I got a little bored but Hyunjin and I got along,” You answered.

“I’m happy to know!” He beamed. “Ah, there’s a party tomorrow night. Hyunjin is invited,”

“He mentioned it,” You answered.

“It will be an ambush for sure,” Felix said. “That’s why we’re going too, unidentified,”

“Felix,” You called. “My parents didn’t do something illegal when they were alive, right?”

“As far as I know, they knew about the money laundering and corruption circling the city. Even illegal businesses such as human trafficking, exploiting endangered animals, and sponsoring people who use illegal substances. There are big names involved so they were tracking them down, unfortunately, your relatives support these crimes and turned their backs on the organization. They also knew about property ownership and businesses your parents ran to help big companies provide jobs, sponsor children’s education, and donate to schools and other institutions. But you know how this economy works right? There are big names on the list who put the money in their pockets and invest them in the black market,” He explained. “The Jungs wanted to take our properties away so they can make more money out of it and they’re planning to flee the country once you’re dead and take the money with them. Then these businesses and land ownership will be handed down to their right hands and just wait for a large sum of money to be delivered to their bank accounts,”

“That’s worse, huh,” You sighed in defeat.

“You have so much to learn once we get rid of them. You will inherit everything,” He said.

“That’s a big responsibility, Felix,”

“I know,” Felix answered. “But we’re here to help. Seungmin can make them yours one order away, he’s going to be your lawyer once everything is done, and Minho Hyung, your adviser. That’s what we do in this family,”

That’s what we do in this family.

That’s all the reassurance you need. Maybe Hyunjin, taking you here the night of the party isn’t bad after all.

Meanwhile, at Chan’s office, the rest of the brothers have gathered.

“There will be an ambush waiting for you,” Minho said as he sat down on the empty chair beside Hyunjin.

“Felix got the list of names for the party the other day,” Chan added. “Those documents have their profiles along with the list,”

“And the Jungs will be there?” Hyunjin asked.

“We are expecting them,” Seungmin said.

“Now, what do we do for this type of occasion, Jeongin?” Chan asked the youngest.

“Ms. Jung’s uncle will be there and the rest of his family. He got a few men to join him at the party. Some will be undercover so the rest of us will come unidentified,” Jeongin answered. “Ms. Jung will be our bait, so you need to bring her as your plus one,”

“Good, and?” Chan asked.

“We’re going to wait if Mr. Jung will take the bait. He will recognize his niece for sure. You just need to be alert, Hyunjin hyung,” Jeongin said. “Changbin hyung got the blueprint of the venue for the event, there will be surveillance cameras everywhere, however, there are a few blind spots so we can enter the venue without getting caught. We just need to blend in, afterward,”

“The party is tomorrow night so we still have time to prepare,” Changbin said. “Our target is Mr. Jung,”

“What about his men, the wife, and the kids?” Hyunjin asked, rubbing his chin.

“Terminate them all, the wife and kids will be sent to another country, and they will be banned from entering Korea,” Han added. “Seungmin already prepared the documents to file a case against them,”

“Okay,” Hyunjin exhaled.

“Seungmin, tell Felix to bring Y/n here,”

“Yes Sir,”

The night fell as you were studying the documents Seungmin gave you inside Hyunjin’s room. Felix and he were there to explain everything and help you identify who’s who, their crimes, their work, who they work for, and what type of business they run underground. It was A LOT and it’s dizzying.

It’s okay, you graduated top of your class and with flying colors, this is nothing more than your thesis and practicals.

Hyunjin was nowhere to be found at that moment and you were just listening to Seungmin and Felix talk. It distracted you for hours until they left, late at night. Hyunjin suddenly appeared before midnight. He entered the room with a large box and a translucent garment bag with his black suit in it.

“Where have you been?” You asked, standing up from the bed—approaching him.

“Shopping,” He said, throwing his suit on his bed as he handed the large box to you.

“You didn’t invite me,” You pout, making him leave a peck on your lips.

“Chan said you were busy,” He smiled. “That’s for you, open it,”

“Really?” It was a silver mermaid floral spaghetti strap long dress. Your mouth gaps upon seeing it as it looks more expensive than the dress you wore at the first party. It was silky as it shone when the light touched the fabric. “It’s so pretty,”

“Ah, I know, I have the best eyes,” He said proudly. “I knew you would like it,”

“I do!” You exclaimed. “How did you know my size?”

“I read your profile, remember? I didn’t forget,” He answered as you kissed him.

“Thank you,” You said as he stood there frozen on his spot making him a blushing mess.

“You’re welcome,” He was flustered, yes and you find it cute because he is.

Fast forward an hour before the party, the brothers waited for you to come down by the main living room. They were all wearing suits, all black as usual and you were nervous about how they would react when they saw you like this. Surprisingly, you did well in taking care of your hair and make-up. It’s always been like this so you study them yourself. Hyunjin was excited and the rest were anticipating—taking a deep breath, you reached the top of the stairs, slowly walking down on each step because of those damn heels.

Han was the first one to notice you and stood up making everyone do the same. Chan thought it wasn’t bad, Changbin and Minho thought you were good while Jeongin was surprisingly stunned by your beauty. Hyunjin was about to go crazy leaving Seungmin and Felix noticed something, most especially Felix, he’s an intel for a reason and Seungmin can sense a special connection.

“You look beautiful, Y/n,” Han said.

“Thank you,” You smiled at him, feeling flustered as Hyunjin took your hand, kissing the back of it.

“Charming as always,” He said.

“Save you flirting on a later date Hwang,” Seungmin scolded.

“Yeah, also, try to keep it inside your pants for the whole evening,” Felix laughed, making Hyunjin glare at them.

“What the fuck?” He hissed.

“We know something happened on that island but we won’t ask,” Seungmin shrugged as your lips formed into a thin line out of embarrassment. How did these guys know? Ah, yes, the guards.

“Let’s go,” Chan said out of nowhere as they all obliged to take their way out. “Hyunjin, you know what to do,”

“Yes, Sir,” Hyunjin bowed as he assisted you to his car.

“What is it?” You asked, taking a seat as he locked your seatbelt.

“Nothing, just enjoy the party—alright?” He smiled, leaving a peck on your lips as he started driving. “You’re aware that your uncle would be there right?”

“Yes,” You answered.

“Whatever happens, I want you to leave immediately. Jeongin will take you somewhere safe but as long as the party goes on, stick with me the whole time unless I tell you otherwise, alright?” He instructed as you nodded in response. “Good,”

You and Hyunjin entered the venue while Chan and the rest of the Wolves parked a block away. It was to avoid being noticed by the Jungs as they used a secret passageway. The blueprint Felix had was helpful enough to find blindspots around the area, guns being loaded—hidden behind their blazer as they patiently waited to be used.

Minho was right, there was an ambush waiting for Hyunjin and your uncle saw you with him unbeknownst about the bait. His eyes were checking the place discreetly as the other Wolves scattered around the area—exchanging voice messages to their earpiece and mics. Felix walked past behind your uncle upstairs as he was on standby looking at his precious niece and Hyunjin.

“Target locked, he’s by the railings watching Hyunjin and Y/n,” Felix whispered to his mic.

“Copy that,” Jeongin answered as he was standing by the counter. “Two men are here, they have tattoos with Jung’s emblem, Snakes,”

“I got four men here by the pool,” Changbin answered.

“Stay close,” Chan said, walking on a blind spot, cocking his pistol secretly as he observed Mr. Jung’s wife and two kids.

“Hyung, I think we’re outnumbered,” Han said, walking by a group of guards who were obviously from the rival gang.

“Fuck,” Minho hissed from the other side.

“Hyunjin stay alert,” Seungmin said, taking a glass of whiskey beside Jeongin.

“Copy,” Hyunjin answered, before turning into you. “Do you want to drink, Love?”

“No,” You said, immediately refusing. “Remember the first time we met? I vomited in your car and it smells so bad,” You added, making Hyunjin chuckle in response.

“Okay, okay,” He said. “I’ll get something for me on the counter, alright,” He added before leaning closer to whisper something. “You know what to do,” You just hummed in response as Hyunjin left you in the middle of the dance floor, Mr. Jung signaled one of his men to come closer and whispered something before going downstairs.

Felix stood behind them and heard the conversation, immediately sending a distress message to everyone.

“Incoming to Ms. Jung,” Felix said. “He’s approaching the bait,”

“Jeongin, stand close to Y/n,” Hyunjin said, cocking his head at the youngest as Jeongin immediately left.

The moon is shining bright in the sky along with the luminous stars twinkling like sparkles. You stood in the middle of the dancefloor aware of Jeongin’s presence. The party is like a ball where the people who were invited are filthy rich—Hyunjin was invited because he donates money to fashion institutions and charity events. The host used to be a family friend but Hyunjin only came here for the sake of Mr. Jung’s undeserving life.

The ball is glamorous indeed—it is the theme of the party, and the lights are dim as they rely on the moonlight and lanterns surrounding the dancefloor. It was packed. Most of these people are unknown to you and the only target you should focus on is your uncle. But then, he was out of sight.

“Ah, cousin!” A stranger’s voice was heard as he came in your direction. You tilt your head upon seeing the person who became familiar after reading about the family members of the Jungs.

Wooyoung.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?” You asked.

“Felix, I thought Mr. Jung was going to take the bait! Not his son!” Han half-yelled to his mic.

“I’m following him as we speak, he’s going to the basement,” Felix whispered in an attempt to follow the target without being noticed. “Send me Changbin hyung,”

That came unexpectedly—Wooyoung has a big smile on his face right now while clapping his hands in amusement with two bodyguards behind him. Jeongin was alerted.

“Hyunjin hyung, Wooyoung is here,” He said.

“Fuck,” Hyunjin hissed, leaving his whiskey unattended by the counter leaving Jisung on the lookout. “Tell Y/n to go,”

Changbin left his spot and went to follow Felix. The old man is becoming more suspicious.

“You think it’s a trap?” Seungmin said from the other line.

“They don’t know Y/n’s coming,” Chan answered. “Tell her to leave! Jeongin, take her away, and Hyunjin stall Wooyoung for a bit,”

“Noona, we have to go,” You heard Jeongin say, which caught Wooyoung's attention.

“Oh, you’re with one of the Wolves? I thought the only Wolf invited was Hyunjin,” He asked, being curious when he read all the names invited for the party.

“Noona we really need to go,” Jeongin said again. It wasn’t even 10 minutes ever since you arrived and now you’re being asked to leave.

“Maybe some other time,” You told Wooyoung as you were about to leave with Jeongin but he was persistent.

“Hey, we have a lot to catch up on,” He said but only it would take a second to steal one of Jeongin’s guns from his belt, cocking it before turning around to point it at Wooyoung’s forehead. His bodyguards immediately took their weapons pointing at you, making Jeongin raise his hands in surrender. Wooyoung wasn’t amused but it was unexpected.

“Leave her alone,” Hyunjin suddenly came out of nowhere pointing his pistol at Wooyoung from behind.

“Hey, hey put those guns down! I just want to talk,” He said.

“Where’s your father?” You asked, still not moving from your spot. Jeongin couldn’t do anything but stand still, whispering something on his mic.

Meanwhile, Felix and Changbin were following Mr. Jung—it was out of plan that he’d be down here when he was supposed to take the bait. Not Wooyoung. Chan, Minho, and Seungmin came to join the party while Han started to look for Felix and Changbin discreetly.

“I don’t know, probably somewhere,” He said with a cocky smile plastered on his face as he is currently surrounded. “You brought her here, so hand her over then nobody gets hurt,”

“Bitch,” You murmured—raising your right hand as a loud gunshot was heard.

“Noona we need to go!” You heard what Jeongin said. Everyone panicked and ran outside leaving you and the Wolves along with your so-called relatives. Chan and Minho shot his bodyguards as Hyunjin was about to take Wooyoung hostage, he suddenly took his gun out pointing it at him. Everything happened so fast that you didn’t realize Jeongin was already leading you outside the venue.

“Wait, Hyunjin!” You said—letting go of Jeongin’s grip before you could even get out and go back inside.

“No! Noona come back!” You heard Jeongin call but ignored him.

You were welcomed by gunshots being exchanged as you hid under a table—you realized you still had Jeongin’s gun with you, checking how many bullets were left. This will be enough. Wooyoung already ran away as Chan, Minho, and Seungmin were left on the dancefloor, reloading their guns as they hid behind the bar counter. I need to find Hyunjin.

“Fuck,” Jeongin cursed under his breath as he took the other way back to the venue. You looked around trying to find a blind spot so no one would notice you coming through—by taking off your heels, you hurriedly transferred to the table next to where you were hiding. Chan fired a shot and noticed you behind the guards.

“Seungmin cover me,” Chan ordered as Seungmin fired with Minho. He managed to shoot one down as Chan fled the counterbar by hiding behind the columns.

Chan followed you until you reached the stairs that led to the basement. You ran downstairs barefooted as you saw a glimpse of Hyunjin running to a hallway—probably chasing Wooyoung. Unfortunately, it was a trap and Felix, Han, and Changbin were held hostage by Mr. Jung who tied them into a room, guns pointed at their heads by the rest of his bodyguards. Hyunjin was also led to the trap. They were outnumbered.

You couldn’t get inside and peeked through behind a large vase with huge leaves. Chan was able to grab your arm—pulling you towards a blind spot.

“What are you doing? You were instructed to leave with Jeongin?” He asked, having his grip around your arm tightened as it was hurting. The way he stares could kill you as they were ice cold yet, burning of anger.

“I can’t leave Hyunjin alone,” You reasoned out when someone from behind hit the back of Chan’s neck, causing him to pass out, making you scream in terror when they grabbed you to the room with him. “Let me go!” You yelled at the man but he doesn’t give a fuck and even if you tried to let go of his grip—he was too strong to pull you back again.

Your voice was heard throughout the basement until you reached the room. You saw the Wolves kneeling—hands tied behind their backs as you stood there in front of them. They were surrounded and a man was holding your arm, preventing you from escaping. Chan was unconscious. Felix got a bruise on his forehead and a busted lip. Han and Changbin were also beaten up, and Hyunjin had a gun directed to his temple by Wooyoung as he licked his inner cheek in annoyance—blood dripping from his forehead, a cut at the side of his brow, a busted lip. What the fuck did they do?

“Where are the rest of the Wolves?” Mr. Jung asked.

“I don’t know,” You answered firmly. You could see your uncle having that smile plastered on his face while sitting down with a glass of wine in one hand. Fucker.

The only ones missing were Seungmin, Minho, and Jeongin.

“Find them!” Mr. Jung ordered.

His wife was there, standing beside her bastard husband. It was a trap after all. The Wolves couldn’t say a word, but you are sure that they’re worried about what’s going to happen. Nobody expected this and you were dumb to follow Hyunjin, but if you didn’t, what could happen? Your eyes wandered around the area to find something to make a solution or a way to get out. But you can’t do this alone.

Fuck, these are all walls and there’s only one entrance and exit.

“After all these years of looking for you,” You heard your uncle say. “You came straight to the mouse trap,” He added as he stood up—walking towards you.

“Sir, we found them!” But not long after the chase, Seungmin, Minho, and Jeongin were brought into the room and were forced to kneel beside the rest of the Wolves. Grunts were heard from them and after that, they were quiet, but their faces were saying that they were not happy with the setup.

“Ahh, the rest of the orphans are here!”

Motherfucker.

“Your parents had a great legacy, too bad it was cut short because of the incident 20 years ago,” Mr. Jung laughed. “It didn’t hurt when my father chose my brother to be the Godfather when I’m capable of doing the business. Money was tight but cheers to the black market and soon, your properties and businesses,”

“I’m not giving them to you!” You argued as he sighed in response while shaking his head.

“I know you would say that,” He answered. “But let me make you a deal, each time you refuse, one of them dies,” He added, pointing to the brothers. “Who was it Wooyoung? Hyunjin is it?”

“Yes, her boyfriend,” Wooyoung answered.

“Ahh, you thought we didn’t know what happened,” Mr. Jung said. “I have someone who has access to the mansion and Chan’s private island. You thought you killed everyone from the party a month ago?”

It was probably one of the guards. Sigh… come on, think Y/n, think.

“Kill him,” You said, making everyone jump into surprise.

“Are you nuts, Y/n?!” Seungmin exclaimed.

“Shut up, Kim!” Wooyoung scolded.

“If plan A won’t work, we have a plan B,” Hyunjin said the night before as you two sat on the floor with the documents Seungmin left you to study.

“Obey them,” You answered.

“Yes,” He answered. “My brothers and I have secret pockets in our sleeves so we can still use small weapons if we struggle—they will take you from us for sure and if we get captured, buy their time. We know how to act,”

“Hold it,” Mr. Jung said, raising his hand. “What are you playing at?” He added, looking at you.

“You said that every time I refuse to give you rights to my parents’ properties, you’d kill one of them, which I am. I won’t give it,” You smiled at him.

Meanwhile, Hyunjin was playing with his zippo trying to get loose from the rope being tied around his wrists—slowly making a small flame. Minho was able to slip his pocket knife inside his sleeve and did the same—cutting the rope slowly for anyone not to notice his movements.

“You killed my parents so I’m sure killing my boyfriend won’t make any difference. Shoot him,” You said, leaning closer to your uncle’s face—gritting your teeth at him.

Your uncle raised a brow and seemed like finally getting the actual bait as he signaled Wooyoung to pull the trigger when Hyunjin was quick enough to dodge it—sweeping him off of his feet by swinging his legs to his ankles. The shot was fired at his bodyguard making the Wolves free from the knots, taking their guns out as they formed a circle—backs against each other. Unfortunately, the man didn’t even bother letting you go, instead, a gun is already at the side of your head.

Wooyoung got up wincing from the pain in his shoulder after he fell. It was embarrassing. He picked up his gun and pointed it at Hyunjin again.

“If you think you’re so clever to make them out of the ropes, you’re wrong, girl,” Your uncle said. “Any last words before I kill you?” He asked as he signaled the man to hold you tighter—your left hand managed to snake inside your dress as you hid the gun behind your back before firing the man’s feet making him push you away. After that, you shot your uncle in his chest before he could even react.

Good thing your gun was hidden inside your dress, assisted with a leather garter on your leg.

The Wolves started firing those men as Wooyoung ran away, his mom didn’t even make it out alive.

Gunshots were exchanged, as Felix got behind your back, firing.

“Hyunjin, get Wooyoung!” You heard Chan say, “We’ll cover you!” Hyunjin immediately fled from the room as he chased Wooyoung out of the basement, and back to the main hall.

“You need to follow Hyunjin,” Felix said.

“What about you guys?” You asked, aiming the gun at whoever tried to come closer. Bodies were already on the floor, some had the guts to hide and dodge the bullets from the Wolves.

“We can manage, just go!” Felix commanded, making you exhale harshly, and left the room—running back upstairs, barefooted. You saw a man lying down on the floor before you could reach the top and grabbed his gun, checking if there were bullets left.

“4 bullets?” You sighed as you checked yours too. “4, okay. 8 bullets will be enough,”

The coast was clear when you got back up to the main hall. It was a mess, tables and chairs had been turned, holes in the walls and fabrics from the bullets, some of the lanterns were broken, even the huge banner. No one was there except you and you’re worried about where Wooyoung has been leading Hyunjin to. It won’t be the basement of course.

Could it be at the parking lot?

Lifting your dress, you ran outside to the parking lot not minding how painful it is to rush out of the venue without your heels—but they’ll slow you down if you haven’t got them removed. And you’re right, Wooyoung and Hyunjin were still there, holding each other’s gunpoint. You hid by one of those parked cars and slowly took your way closer to where they were.

“It’s dumb how it took you 20 years to find her,” Hyunjin said.

“They did,” Wooyoung answered. “But we needed a motive to kill her. Not just her being the first in line,”

“She didn’t know anything until we told her!” Hyunjin argued.

“You put the idea inside her stupid little brain,” Wooyoung said. “She was easy to kill before then,”

“She will never give it to you,” Hyunjin answered with his arm firm enough to shoot him. You were able to sneak a few meters behind Wooyoung. Hyunjin pretended not to see you as he kept buying your cousin’s time. “Your father’s dead! She shot him,”

“You Wolves killed my mother too,” Wooyoung retorted.

“Your parents made us orphans. All of us!” Hyunjin said. “You don’t deserve the Godfather’s empire. It was built for a good cause and that’s not for you to make dirty. How does it feel to be alone now?” Hyunjin asked, cocking his head with a sly smirk on his face as you pointed the gun at your cousin’s head—shaking from anger.

“You deserve to die,” Wooyoung said, clenching his jaw, and was about to pull the trigger to aim at Hyunjin’s head when a loud gunshot was heard, making him kneel on the ground—collapsing a few seconds later.

Your pistol was hot as white smoke escalated from the hole. Hyunjin immediately moved away in case he got hit before you ran up to him—embracing him tightly.

It’s over.

The rest of the Wolves came to the parking lot after hearing the gunshot only to find you hugging Hyunjin.

It’s over—it’s finally over.

“Are you okay?” You asked—looking at him as you examined his face. “You didn’t get hit right?”

“I’m good,” He said, hugging you again. “You must be terrified,”

“No… but, I can’t believe I shot them,” You sniffed, burying your face against his chest.

“Baby, you did good, okay? They’re bad people,” He answered, caressing your back—kissing you on the forehead. “Let’s go home, you must be exhausted,”

“Are you guys okay?” Minho asked out of worry as you turned around to look at them. Felix seemed to be injured as he was assisted by Han and Seungmin.

“What happened?” You asked, hurriedly approaching the three of them.

“He got shot on his leg,” Seungmin sighed.

“God,” You cried, hugging Felix tightly which made the man chuckle in response. “I’m sorry,”

“Y/n, I’m fine,” He reassured, patting your back while painting a smile on his face.

“Yeah, she’s fine, we’re fine,” Hyunjin answered Minho.

“He’s dead?” Chan asked, pointing at Wooyoung’s body.

“Y/n shot him,” Hyunjin answered. “And the rest?”

“No one survived,” Changbin said.

Everyone felt relieved that night except Felix who struggled to walk because of his injured leg. Minho carried him like a bride as the younger one winced in pain as they left for the car. You were tailing them as Seungmin noticed your dress got ripped and you were barefooted.

“You’re a mess, girl,” Seungmin said, making you shrug in response—mascara being smudged.

“I wasn’t expecting to be like this but thank you for noticing,” You chuckled, reaching out your arm as Seungmin smiled, letting you wrap your arm around his broad shoulders although he’s a bit taller than you.

“Let’s go home, we still have a business to discuss,” You heard Chan say but Hyunjin begged to differ.

“Hyung, can’t Y/n just rest for tonight?” He said but Chan’s eyes landed on the two of you and said; “Are you tired, Y/n?”

“No,” You shake your head. “Let’s talk about the ownership,” You added, letting go of Seungmin— walking towards Hyunjin’s car making Chan smirk at him.

“You heard your girl, lover boy,”

“You got a fighter,” Changbin said, making a fist bump with Hyunjin making him cocky.

“Noona stole my gun,” Jeongin sulked as he got inside Chan’s car.

“You have a wall of guns in your room, a pistol is not that big of a deal,” Chan answered, making the youngest sigh in defeat.

You all went home after that and let the cops get to the venue a few minutes after you left. The news was all over the place and all of Korea was watching. No names were dropped except from the Jungs who died. There will be no problems now—unless there will be another list of names to shoot.

Meanwhile, everyone was inside Felix’s room as Minho was treating him—the man got a master’s degree in medicine. Unpredictable.

“He’ll be sent to a hospital, I already called an ambulance,” He said.

“Are you good, bro?” Han asked Felix who was obviously in pain.

“Do you think I’m good, Han?” Felix hissed at him, making everyone laugh.

“Now, Y/n, time for your decision,” Chan suddenly butted in as he signaled Seungmin to hand over the documents you need to sign for transferring your names to the ownership. “You can leave this all behind and let us handle everything or you want to continue your parents’ business and be our partner,” He smiled for the first time.

And without hesitation, you signed it.

“The latter, Chan, I will work with you,” You smiled at him—reaching out a hand for a shake. The boys didn’t have the time to react that they were happy with your decision. Especially Hyunjin.

“Wise choice,” Chan said, shaking your hand. “We’ll contact Mr. Park tomorrow so we can schedule a meeting, alright?”

“Welcome to the family, Y/n!” Seungmin said, hugging you tightly.

Family.

You finally have a family.

Hyunjin cleared his throat as Seungmin rolled his eyes, letting you go out of the hug.

“She’s going to be my sister-in-law, anyway Hyunjin,” Seungmin said.

“Shoo,” Hyunjin said as he pulled you closer to him.

The rest of the evening was not a surprise anymore. Felix was sent to the hospital with Minho and Chan with him, while the rest of the Wolves were ordered to stay and rest. You found yourself on the rooftop wearing your pajamas. Sitting there alone as the cold breeze of the wind dries your hair feels so calm. It was a very long day and a very long night—you’re glad it’s over but you knew you still have a lot to do starting tomorrow. A meeting, negotiations and maybe getting a new job.

Your life changed in the blink of an eye.

The heavens finally gave it to you and it is more than you could ask for.

A man who suddenly showed up and became the love of your life, a profession that would put a lot of things on the table, and the most valuable, a family. You’re not lonely anymore.

Although there is still one thing to be finalized…

“Love?” You heard Hyunjin’s voice as he walked upstairs to the rooftop. “I thought you were with Seungmin for notarization,”

“No, he said we can do that tomorrow,” You smiled. “Sit here, we have to talk,” You added, patting the empty space beside you. Hyunjin sat down immediately as he took your hand, kissing it before he placed it on his cheek to feel your warmth.

“Is this about us?” He asked.

“Do we still need to slow down?” You asked him as he smiled gently, placing a soft kiss on your lips.

“No,” He said. “You’re officially mine now,”

“Can I say it?” You asked him as your foreheads rested against each other, Hyunjin was confused.

“What is it?” He asked, tilting his head to the side like a curious puppy but you think he’s more of a weasel. It took you a few seconds before answering as you made sure that the eye contact was still there with your hands placed on his cheeks. He was waiting.

“I love you,” But instead of answering, Hyunjin pulled you to sit on his lap, crashing his lips onto yours—bodies pressed together as you hugged him around his neck with his arms around your waist.

“I love you more,” He answered it between, breathing heavily as your lips collided against each other.

Your heart’s racing again and so does he.

It’s one heck of the night after all but, he is the best part of it.

©️ 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐌𝐈𝐍 , 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒.

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txtbeomi · 9 days

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Love Said To Soul | lmh

❝𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮?❞

↳ When the God of Love is tasked with humiliating a beautiful mortal girl, he finds himself much vexed to discover her immune to his skills. Determined to discover the root of the problem, he takes to mortal form and embarks upon a dastardly ruse that requires his getting close to her. The God of Love thinks he knows all. The God of Love knows nothing.

↳ Lee Know x female reader

↳ Enemies to lovers romance trope. A retelling of the Greek myth Eros and Psyche. College au, angst and conflict, developing romance and yearning, quest and high stakes, Greek mythology and frequent reference to gods/goddesses etc, fantasy and myth meets modern day, mild drug use, smut throughout.

! Explicit content, adult themes, 20.1k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Final part of the skz tropes collab w @yoongihan」「main contents list」「© April 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」

“Thus, my dearest son, I charge you with this quest.”

Minho knelt reverently before his mother, head bowed low. Rarely did he question her whims or ways, for what the Goddess Aphrodite coveted, the Goddess Aphrodite claimed, and may the Fates help anyone who stood in her way, kin or otherwise.

Still; this all felt too bizarre.

“May I ask why, mother?”

Aphrodite smiled gently, her eyes—an infinite silvery galaxy of lovers’ souls—trained to him. As self-assured as he was, even Minho’s composure wavered under the gaze of the most apocalyptically beautiful of the twelve Olympians.

“It just seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a mortal girl,” he hastily added.

“You are correct, dear child. It is awful trouble. Trouble that I would not have you go to if it had not been ordained that this girl’s beauty will inspire a cult of worshippers that will revere her as the most beautiful creature to ever have lived. As more beautiful than even the Goddess of Love herself. They will make to her sacrifices and votive offerings and pray to her as though she is divine. I cannot have that, child. There is a natural order to things, and we must maintain it.”

Minho supposed that was answer enough.

“Relay to me again what you must do,” Aphrodite said.

“I am to go to her bedroom while she sleeps, and take with me a hog.”

“The hairiest and foulest you can find,” Aphrodite added.

“Yes, mother. I am to shoot her with one of my arrows and ensure that the first thing she sees when she awakes is the beast.”

Aphrodite smiled, her golden skin shimmering under the vast, heavenly sun. “She will fall in love with the monster, thus disgracing herself and ensuring that her Fate shall never come to pass. No mortal shall ever worship a pig-lover!” She laughed, melodic and triumphant.

Compassion in his very nature, Minho could not help but feel a sliver of sympathy for the girl that, for all intents and purposes, was innocent. She could no more control the beauty she was born with than her Fate— now it would be a sad and lonely one. She would be reviled by other mortals and mocked by the Gods, and spend her life in misery.

But an order was an order.

“Go now, my son,” Aphrodite commanded. “Take your bow and quiver, and make without delay to the girl.”

“Yes, mother.”

Minho stood, bowed, and from his divine palace retrieved his golden bow and quiver of enchanted arrows. Forged by Hephaestus and blessed by his mother, the arrows could pierce the heart of any mortal or deity with true, unbreakable love.

Such was his onus, his purpose, his charge as Eros.

Minho always enjoyed visiting the mortal world.

It was true that his reason for spending much of his time there pertained to the never-ending demands of love’s machinations, but even on the days when he sought to take a small break, he lounged in the warm waterfalls and on the snowy mountains and near the pellucid oceans, marvelling at the luscious spectacles of Mother Gaia— a different sort of ephemeral elegance to that of his heavenly home.

Mortals entertained him endlessly; such funny, flighty creatures. They warred and fucked and loved and killed and worked so hard for ultimately trivial reward. He often wondered what would have become of them, had Prometheus never gifted them fire. They certainly wouldn’t have built up centuries of civilisation and developed what Minho now overlooked from a wisp of cloud: the University of Oxford. So far as he understood it, this was a place where mortals gathered to learn— a little like the Mouseion, which he was admittedly less familiar with than he ought to have been. More importantly than any of that, however: this was where his charge resided.

Securing his bow and stepping off the cloud, he drifted down and over the sprawling campus on plush, white wings. The cool midnight air flowed through his onyx hair; starlight kissed his deep, rich complexion. A peaceful glide to the ground it would have been, had the ghastly pig strapped to his back not squealed for the duration.

Landing softly on the dewy lawn, Minho wriggled his naked toes on the grass and looked around. The building ahead, domed and Victorian in grand architecture, was signposted ‘Goodhart’. Being the dead of night, there was no sign of life from any of the single-paned windows; just as he had hoped. Invisible as he was to mortal eyes, the pig remained very much discernible. Nothing like a floating farm animal to incite panic.

With a short, sharp hop he glided gracefully up and away from the grass to the top floor, three stories up. Through each window he peered into dark rooms in which girls softly slumbered, until he came upon one that wasn’t: she was sat at her desk, illuminated by the amber glow of a tabletop lamp. Before her was spread textbooks and notepads, pencils and post-its, an open laptop and cold mug of coffee. Minho watched for several moments. She scrawled something to a cluttered page, tapped her laptop and scrolled. She dropped her pen and raised her arms, stretching out her spine and shoulders with satisfying cracks. She yawned and checked the time, then groaned: “Oh, god.” Her head fell to the desk with a heavy sigh.

Minho had counted on her being asleep. This was due to take much longer now that she wasn’t. Resigned to a wait of indeterminate length, he perched on the rooftop ledge above her window, pig tucked between his legs as he laid back and gazed up at the stars and constellations that decorated the now cloudless sky. There was Hercules, favourite son of Heracles, raised up to the heavens by the Cloud Gatherer himself in honour of his father’s legendary labours. There was Aries, the ram to whom the most coveted Golden Fleece once belonged. There was Andromeda, the wife of the great hero Perseus, who saved her from an unthinkable fate at the hands of the foul sea-dwelling monster Cetus. And in admiring these constellations and recounting the tales of ancient times gone by, Minho drifted into a contented sleep.

It was warmth on his skin that stirred him to the twitter of birds and chatter of mortals. Opening his eyes and rubbing them of their crust, he—for a moment—forgot entirely where he was. Indeed, it was the sore twinge to his skin that firstly informed him he was on Earth, and secondly, that he had Helios to thank for the sunburn. Immortality does not equal invulnerability. With a mean glare skywards, he clambered to his feet and stretched out his joints, possessively checking his bow, relieved to find it still where it should be.

It was at that moment that a wailing screech pierced the air, most alarmingly offensive to Minho’s sensitive ears. More commotion stirred and drew him closer; he crossed the ivy-laced rooftop of Goodhart House with nimble proficiency, peering down at the lawn where it seemed a dozen or more students had gathered.

“What do we do?!” He heard a girl cry out.

“Kill it!”

“We can’t kill it, idiot. It’s huge.”

“W— Well, just, get rid of it!”

“How do you suggest we do that?”

“Call security! Call someone!”

Intrigued, Minho hopped from the rooftop and fluttered to a nearby oak on whose thick branch he gently perched. From the gathering of girls, a familiar squeal and snort erupted: Minho froze. With a stroke of bewilderment, he looked down between his legs, then back to the lawn.

Shit.

The girls screamed and parted from their tight cluster as a splotchy, hairy hog barrelled towards them, slavering drool that splashed them as it passed. Over the lawn it charged and across the campus to yet more cries of distant fear and panic, until it disappeared entirely from view. Aflutter with confusion and fright, the girls drew back together, as though expecting yet more horrid creatures to spring from the ground. Luckily for them, Minho was fresh out. In fact, he was just considering where he might obtain a second beast when from the Goodhart building lobby, a girl strolled out. Confidence in her stride and an easy smile on her face, she was rushed by the gaggle of girls, every one of them relaying to her with varying degrees of dramatics what had just occurred. Minho watched intently; she laughed and hugged them, offered assurances and validation. By no small feat she managed to calm them, after which she took her leave, jogging across the lawn and towards the path with books bundled in her arms. Minho followed, from treetop to rooftop across campus until she entered where he could not, disappearing from his sight into a grand school building.

His mother had been right, he thought. She was beautiful; that was, for a mortal girl. After all, Minho had indulged with deities and nymphs the beauty (and flexibility) of which mortals could not utter into words, and so yes; she was beautiful, for a mortal girl. Rather astoundingly beautiful, for a mortal girl. But that was neither here nor there. He had a quest to complete, and was now distinctly lacking the beast required to complete it. He would just have to find another and bring it back. If not a hog, then something equally as detestable.

Something that would appease mother.

In the small and dark hours, Minho returned once more to Goodhart.

Pleased this time to see that the girl was slumbering soundly, he braced himself on the sill of the window and pushed it carefully. It gave with no resistance, as did all things he impressed upon. He climbed through it and into the girl’s room, and found himself immediately taken with what he caught wind of: the sweet and tantalising scent of honey— a substance that had something of a catnip-like appeal to Gods and deities in all forms. Minho paused, his mouth watering. The room itself was of no remarkable make: he had visited the habitats of mortal girls before, their comforts and wants manifesting in soft things, light things, warm things, pink things.

In his hand the creature he plotted with stirred and unsettled; he opened his palm and hushed the spindly tarantula softly. Besotted, it twitched its mandibles and allowed Minho to place it at the foot of the bedspread, where it waited. With a grace of movement unique to the Goddess of Love’s offspring, Minho drew his bow from his back and prepared an arrow, aiming at the sleeping girl. This was usually his favourite part; the anticipation, the thrill, watching how his efforts panned out in those few and rare seconds after his arrow struck and the love searched for a home. Perhaps that was why his heart hung heavily as he took a deep breath and loosed the arrow; in this, there was to be no thrill. He acted solely in service to his mother, and while other deities would surely press that that was ample reward in itself, something inside him ached.

Ever sure in its path, the arrow struck the girl in her breast, setting upon her a heat that woke her immediately. She gasped and made a sound akin to a moan: Minho stiffened, struck by it. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, her sleep-warm skin and bed hair appealing to him in ways he had erstwhile made fun of mortals for admiring. Groggy but seemingly able to perceive enough, she blinked at the end of her bed; at the patient tarantula that sat there. She shook her head, rubbed her eyes again, grimaced and took another look. The tarantula shimmied its eight legs. Certain that his mission had been a success, Minho could bear to watch no longer; he moved to the open window, braced himself upon the sill.

“How on earth did you get in here?”

He turned back. The girl rose carefully from bed and retrieved the glass of water from her bedside, rushing to the window where he stood. A mere inch from him and yet completely unaware, she tossed the water over the sill, the streaming moonlight briefly bathing her face. Minho swallowed and watched as she grabbed a slip of paper from her desk. With care and precise technique, she slipped the paper under the spider, poised the glass atop it, and trapped it.

“You don’t belong here,” she said softly, moving back to the window; back to Minho. “Here, little one. Go home safely now.”

Stretching across him, she leaned out to a gathering of strong ivy that crawled across the close facia. She released the creature onto it, smiling as it clicked its mandibles and scuttled away.

Several things crossed Minho’s mind as he held his breath and waited for the girl to move away. The first was that something, somewhere, had clearly gone awfully wrong. What just happened was not the work of a woman obsessively in love with a horrible spider, but rather that of a pitying Samaritan. The next thing he considered was perhaps more confounding than his failure: he had broken into a clammy sweat, his heart pounded, his vision swum with her nearness. The God of love loves all, loves unconditionally, loves fairly. He does not fall in love.

Thirdly and finally, he thought the worst of all.

He had failed his mother.

Aphrodite was not to be failed.

“What is it that you mean to tell me, exactly?”

Aphrodite sat poised on her regal throne of curved ram’s horns and silk, her infinite beauty radiating beneath her golden skin and through her calm, silvery eyes. Her hair, braided intricately and woven with wildflowers, seemed to throb and glow with the very essence of life and love. Minho knelt before her and summoned his courage.

“I mean to say, mother, that I failed.”

Aphrodite brought her palm to her chin. “I do not understand, dear child.”

“I failed to curse her, mother. It just... It didn’t work.”

“So you said. Therein lies my perplexment. You said your arrow struck her?”

“Yes, mother.”

“And yet she remained unaffected?”

“Yes, mother. She didn’t fall in love at all.”

“You must have missed.”

Minho looked up, about to voice his protest when Aphrodite spoke again, “The arrows of Eros cannot be defied. Whomsoever is struck by them must fall in love with the first creature they then see. That is, and always will be, the way of things.”

“But, mother—”

“You must go back down to Earth. Back to the girl. Make sure your aim is true this time.”

“Mother, it wasn’t my aim that was off, it was something else—”

“Are you suggesting there is a defect in Hephaestus’s weapon?” she asked. “Should we visit your uncle together and put this to him?”

Minho swallowed. “No, mother.”

Aphrodite smiled. “Very well then. It is decided. You shall go back to Earth and do a thorough job of things.”

Minho stood from his kneel, anxiety turning over in him. Whatever help he had sought to gain from his mother clearly wasn’t his to take, and so he would have to figure this one out on his own.

“And, darling?”

“Yes, mother?”

“Do not come back until the deed is done.”

Minho nodded dutifully, his heart sunk low.

“Yes, mother.”

Now, things were personal.

Not only had the mortal girl somehow resisted his arrows, embarrassed him in front of his mother—a woman whose opinion mattered to him above anyone—but she had also earned him effective banishment. There was no doubt in his mind that his mother’s warning was to be interpreted literally: he would not be allowed to return to heaven or his palace until his task was complete, and so what had begun as a run-of-the-mill task was now a quest of redemption. Minho simply despised working harder than he had to.

So, yes. This was personal.

The more he thought on it, the more he supposed his mother to be right. He must have missed. Yes, it looked an awful lot like he struck her clean in the breast— before this he’d have sworn his immortality on it. And yes, he had never been known to miss a shot, ever. And yes; she reacted as he had witnessed every other mortal react in the afterglow of the landing shot. But still. He must have missed. There could be no other explanation.

Resigned to a third attempt, Minho returned at night to Goodhart. This time, he would watch a while longer. He most definitely wouldn’t take to the (rather comfortable) rooftop and admire the constellations; this was serious business, and he ought to treat it as such. Gliding up to her window and perching on the exterior sill, he was surprised to see the room empty. It was late: late enough for most mortals to be going about their quaint evening routines, such as they were. The desk lamp was switched on and a gathering of clothes was strewn about the unkempt bed alongside an open, transparent toiletry bag. A closed laptop balanced atop the bedside table, where also rested stacked books of romance fiction. White, fluffy slippers peeked out from beneath the bed’s skirt, the small wardrobe door had been left ajar. It was curiosity that drove him to crack open the window, and from inside he once again caught the delectable scent that had so tempted him the night before: honey. It warmed him and made his mouth water, the sweet notes inspiring a rumble in his gut that he mentally hushed—as though it could be heard—when the door opened and the girl walked in. Robed in merely a thin towel, her hair wet about her shoulders, he held his breath and gawked. Something about her—something he couldn’t explain but most desperately wished to—was inexplicably appealing. On her entrance the smell of sweet nectar strengthened, and Minho widened the gap in the window to steal a stronger whiff. She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself, glancing to the window that, to her mind, was swinging loosely.

“Thought I’d closed you,” she mumbled, crossing the room and leaning again into Minho’s space. His heart thumped as she reached out to close it: confoundingly annoying, but what good was it to deny?

And then, something quite unfathomable happened.

She froze mid-reach, and stared at Minho.

You had never been the type to much believe in fairy tales, myth or folklore.

Being a student of the arts, you were aware enough that such tales were always a product of their time and culture, born to serve one purpose or another. Urban legends to keep folk from the woods at night, fables to sow the seeds of conformity, myths to elevate men to the status of Gods, for hubris and ambition does much to produce good literature.

So does insanity, for its part, and that was precisely what you felt to be stewing in as you looked upon the barely corporeal form of a creature—a man? —perched daintily on your windowsill. He was naked save for a thin white skirt that seemed not to touch him, but float about him. A broad and firm chest tapered to a svelte waist and thick, muscled thighs. Hair of impossible black framed features that you could not entirely comprehend for their beauty, and as though to that end, his face remained a blur save for the shimmering silver of eyes that stared back. A pair of feathery, white wings closed around and under him, and this, you promptly decided, could not be real. If you were to touch him, he would disappear. And so you reached out, hand trembling and warming the nearer you got, as though pushing your arm into a pocket of hot steam. The angel(?) watched, statuesque, and as the very tips of your fingers grazed the smooth upper chest that you were sure you would simply pass through, a pop erupted, as though piercing a vacuum. An extraordinary bout of colour bloomed and spread across his skin, the opaque veil giving way to an iridescent, dazzling gold that shimmered and sparked under the moonlight, yet where your fingers had touched was a deep, purple blotch— a scar on perfection. His features cleared and you saw him with perfect clarity: sharp yet feminine, strikingly gorgeous with plush lips and strong brow. Like nothing you’d ever seen; nothing that ever should be seen. Despite your wants you cried out in shock, recoiled, and slammed the window shut. The angel flitted from the sill, great wings beating gracefully as it hovered for but a moment, spun around, and darted away into the night.

Sleep did not come that night.

Nor did the angel, ever again.

She saw him.

She tried to touch him.

Never in all his centuries had Minho experienced such a thing, and were he not on such frosty terms with his mother, he would have turned to her for advice, for he found himself utterly confounded.

A mortal girl saw him.

Had a part of him somehow broken? Was she not mortal after all? Had there been some cosmic imbalance that simply happened to allow for the veil between worlds to thin with comically inopportune timing? Minho had no answers, and knew his frantic worrying would produce none. Thus, he resolved to a plan. The way he saw it, all attempts made so far had depended on his stealth and gentile as Eros, God of Love. Therefore, perhaps a different approach was called for; an approach that would put him in direct contact with the girl that he might work her out— he would have to if he hoped to curse her and appease his mother. Working in the shadows had earned him nothing but a headache.

It was time to step into the light.

The Oxford university cafeteria was not a place one went to eat their lunch.

No; the cafeteria was a grand old affair more fitting the pages of Hogwarts, and was treated as such. A hub of activity for passing students that would meet between lectures or seminars to spread the campus gossip like Burberry-clad town criers. It amused you to play a small part in it; you would listen when the girls from your house clucked and fussed over the slightest thing that, if nothing else, distracted from the general stresses of undergraduate life. Ever aware of the way you carried yourself—mother had made sure to drill that one down since birth—you received all news with a complacent smile, unaffected.

Such was the plan today— to pass through on your way to your next class, touch base with the latest triviality, and carry on your day. Yet as you stepped into the high-ceilinged cafeteria and looked around, something struck you as distinctly different.

The whole place was abuzz, humming with chatter and the excited exclamations. Students gathered tightly around the benches and tables, those newly arrived being swarmed upon by peers that sought to be the first to tell them the great news: news you would soon come into possession of.

“Hey!” Your good friend and classmate, Gina, called to you. “Over here!”

You rushed to her, backpack tight to your shoulder. “What on earth’s going on?” you asked. “Half the student body must be here.”

“Girl, you haven’t heard?”

“Haven’t heard what?”

“Oh my God—” She turned to the girl behind her, tapped her shoulder. “She hasn’t heard yet!”

The girl gasped. “You haven’t?! Everyone’s talking about it!”

“Talking about what?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t—”

“Gina.” You pinned her with a stern glare. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Gina drew closer, her voice no lower despite the closed distance as she said, “There’s a new student.”

“A... What? Is that it?”

“He’s not just any student,” she added.

“I heard his biological mother owns Gucci,” a nearby girl added.

“I heard he’s a self-made billionaire,” said another.

“You’re both wrong. He’s the Dean’s son,” Gina tutted.

You held a hand up, head spinning. “Wait. Time out. All this fuss is over a new student?”

“Gucci heir.”

“Billionaire!”

“Dean’s son—”

You rolled your eyes at the objecting chorus. “Whatever. He’s still just a student.”

Gina shook her head. “You clearly haven’t met him.”

“I don’t need to meet him.”

“Oh yeah?” Gina stared over your shoulder. “That’s too bad, because you’re about to.”

You followed her gaze, as did every other student present. The cafeteria burst into a fuss of noise, whispered elation and an air of giddy delight that infected even you with the way your heart pounded indiscriminately. Through a convenient gap in the crowd you looked across to the gently swinging double doors where a person had just entered: a man. A man that met your eyes as soon as yours did his, through tinted sunglasses that utterly failed to conceal the liquid mercury beneath. Under your skin bloomed a molten wanting unlike anything hitherto felt, and in the next breath, a dizzy spell of desire. Mid-length hair the colour of onyx and skin near unsettlingly flawless, it felt merciful to look away from him; to right yourself and steady your feet. Leather jacket tight about his broad shoulders, the man grinned and with no more than a single stride attracted to him the swarm of students that each sought to introduce themselves and make friendly, Gina included. At home amongst the chaos, the man took it all in and with apparent gratitude, unphased by the riot he incited. It took all possible strength to turn and briskly cross the cafeteria, the more distance put between you and them, the better.

Outside and with the summer sun offering a calming warmth of clarity to your head and shoulders, you diverted from the path to the lawn and stopped near a willow tree for breath. It had been all too much. All too reminiscent of your own experience as a naïve Fresher— how the ‘hottest girl on campus’ had been so violently hitched to her pedestal.

“Hello.”

With a shriek you whirled around: there he was. Sunglasses removed and sitting backwards on his head, silver pools of liquid metal pinned you from under strands of thick black.

“Wh— What?”

The man smiled; white, dazzling. “I said hello.”

“Hello?”

“Isn’t that what people say when they meet for the first time?”

You shook your head, scrambling for sense. The shadow of the leafy canopy above danced over the grass, disorienting. As though nature itself responded to his very presence as your peers did.

“But this...” You swallowed, summoned the nerve to look at him. “This isn’t the first time we’ve met.”

Minho’s ichor ran cold— a first for a man whose heavenly blood was perpetually warmed by divinity.

“We’ve never met,” he said flatly, as much to convince himself as her.

In truth, he thought she’d be purged of the memory of that murky evening by now, humans so fickle in their recollection. It had been over a week ago. She blinked, the dazzlement in her eyes such that it made Minho wonder if his mortal shell was sufficient in containing his glorious beauty.

“I know you,” she muttered. “I know your face.”

Minho’s heart throbbed.

“I thought it was a dream, but—”

Seeing an opportunity, he leapt at it. “Funny,” he smarmed. “People do like to tell me I’m the stuff of dreams.”

And just like that, she appeared to snap to herself. She grimaced and turned away, starting over the lawn.

“It’s rude to walk away from someone without even asking their name,” he said, keeping up with her.

“I already know your name.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. It’s all anyone in the cafeteria was saying.”

He laughed. “You sound upset about that.”

“Not nearly as upset as I am about being followed.”

“You could always ask me why I’m following you.”

She stopped abruptly and huffed, “Why are you following me, Minho?”

Never had a mortal addressed him by human name— it felt somehow more intimate than the acts he’d indulged in a hundred times or more.

He cleared his throat, stood tall. “You’re the student superintendent for Goodhart, yes?”

She cast a wary eye over him. “I am.”

From his pocket, he retrieved a small, silver key with a wooden tag attached. The number on the tag read ‘307’.

“I’m moving in,” he beamed.

It was her turn to laugh; melodic and bright. Somehow cutting. “Goodhart is a girl’s only house,” she said.

“It was.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was a girl’s only house. Up until about six hours ago.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Cool. You don’t need to. I just need you to show me to my room. It’s this way, right?”

He started off over the lawn, hands in jacket pockets, thoroughly pleased with himself. With a little luck (and maybe an offering or two to his mother), things would continue to go according to plan. He’d have this mortal worked out and trussed up in love with a snake before teatime.

How pleased Aphrodite would be.

It was all so wrong.

How was it that a centuries-long tradition could be so readily abandoned for the sake of a rich boy that apparently possessed more connections than the London underground?

Walking briskly down the halls of Goodhart—halls that you had come to love for their quirky colourings and touch of lived-in neglect—you nursed the mortification that swirled about you. It didn’t help that every girl you passed looked on Minho with abject delight and warm welcomes; he was already at home in a place he had no business calling home.

You pointed down the third-floor hall from the top of the connecting staircase.

“Your room is down there,” you said. “On the left.”

Minho hummed. “Cool. Let’s go.”

“I have a lecture.”

You spun on your heel and started down the stairs, only for the man to jump into your path.

“Don’t you have to give me some kind of induction?” he pressed. “As the superintendent, it’s only right you tell me where the fire exits are.”

A hot whirl of irritation barely suppressed the urge to tell him where he could stick his fire exits: you forced a smile instead, and nodded.

“Right. Sure. This way, then.”

Heading down the third-floor hall with him in close pursuit, you began upon a cold realisation. Perhaps the onslaught of emotion had befuddled you enough that you completely missed what was easily the most horrifying thing of all this: room 307 was next to yours.

Minho was your neighbour.

You stopped outside 307’s door. “This is it.”

Minho grinned. “Excellent.”

He took the key from his pocket and unlocked it, stepping inside what was a typical space for university accommodation. A modestly sized room with nothing more than a desk and bed supplied. It fell to the students to make it theirs, so to speak. The white-framed window looked out to the summery lawn, just as yours did. He strolled inside, hands in his leather jacket pockets, peered out of the window and inspected the ceiling, the bed and then you.

“Fire exits are at both ends of the hall,” you quickly said from the door. “And there’s an emergency escape connected to 301. Got it?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“There’s no curfew and, uh,” you cleared your throat. “No rules on who you can bring back and such. Just remember you’re not the only one who lives here.”

He scanned you coolly. “I’m well aware of that.”

“Good. Well, then.” With a curt nod, you went to leave.

“You’re 306, aren’t you?”

You stopped short, seized with disbelief. “What?”

“You live next door,” he repeated. “We’re neighbours.”

“H— How do you even know that?”

Minho shrugged. “Am I not supposed to know?”

Confounded, you were lost for words. He strolled leisurely around the bed.

“You’re popular on campus,” he said. “I hear people talking about you.”

“Really?” You scoffed. “I’m shocked you could hear anything beyond what everyone seems to be saying about you.”

“It’s funny,” he continued, ignorant of your remark.

“What is?”

“That they say so much about you without actually saying a thing.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well,” he sighed, perching on the bare mattress. “They say you’re beautiful. Gorgeous, even. That you’ve got an ass to die for and a killer smile.” He raked his gaze over you. “You’re the hottest girl on campus.”

“They can say what they want, I really don’t care. I’m used to it.”

“Right. But it’s all so... vapid. Don’t you think? There’s no substance to it. Seems to me like not a single one of them actually know you. They just know you for what they see. They’re not interested in peering beneath the tight ass and lovely smile.”

You stared at a patch on the brown carpet.

“Is that their fault, or yours?” he asked.

“I’m done with this conversation,” you snapped, turning back to the door.

“I heard about the Fresher’s ball.”

You stopped and swallowed, heat warming your face. “The Fresher’s ball was a mistake.”

“Yeah. You would say that. Getting so drunk you made out with the entire rugby team?”

“That’s not true,” you snapped. “I got drunk, yes, and I know I made a fool of myself, but nothing like that happened. It’s just a nasty rumour.”

Minho shrugged. “Not for me to judge, darling.” He pursed his lips, then added, “Regardless, your peers seem to adore you. The way you look, anyway.”

“Are you done? I don’t know who the hell you think you are but my life is not a soap that you can just tune into for your own amusement. I don’t care what people say about me; I never have.” You turned away from him. “Leave me alone.”

And with an abrupt slam of his door, you left his room to rush to your own. In the solitude and quiet and after deep breaths taken to ease the dreaded panic that had begun to sink in, it was to your own irritation that tears pricked and streaked your cheeks. Nothing he had said was new; you were aware enough of the reason boys smiled at you and girls flocked to you, somehow hoping your acclaimed ‘beauty’ might rub off on them in however shallow a manner. Such had always been the way of things, ever since you were young. Overfamiliar uncles cooing at your pretty face, jealous aunts shunning you. High school friends lost to petty crushes that turned eyes on you, strangers that stared and whispered. You had hoped for a new start with the chapter of university, and for a while, things had been better. You’d been just another student of low profile, had kept to yourself, had protected your peace.

All until the damn Fresher’s ball.

One moment of weakness and indulgence in excess had ruined it: all eyes had a reason to turn to you as you revelled and danced with more suggestive intonation than you would ever have otherwise dared, and they hadn’t turned away since. Rumours abounded of your state and activity after the ball, ranging from those Minho had heard and of far more explicit affairs, none of them true. Unwilling to dig to the root of the whispers, you simply turned away from it, choosing above all else to carry yourself the way you had always done under lustful eyes: with quiet dignity.

Who was this man to throw all that in your face? To so brazenly trample on your boundaries? Whether Dean’s son or Gucci heir or self-made billionaire, it was clear he possessed an appalling level of entitlement, and was someone to be avoided. Just what he hoped to gain from such rash treatment of a stranger, you couldn’t be sure, but promptly decided it was not worth your energy to work out.

You would carry yourself the way you had always done.

The mystery of Minho’s identity prevailed for longer than you cared to acknowledge.

He hefted his wants around campus with reckless abandon, and by now it was certain that you were the only one mourning the all-female occupation of Goodhart House, for the other girls were nothing but pleased by the male addition.

Indeed, neither an eye was blinked nor a question asked as to his means of securing a place at Goodhart, much less Oxford on the whole. The man seemed to don the shroud of myth— every word passed around and about him painted a thrilling picture: he was everything the students wished him to be and more, for never once did he deny a rumour. An image forged in gossip is one susceptible to warping, and if Minho played into that, it was lost on the student body. Rather, he was welcomed with more abject favouritism than you had ever witnessed; you might have drowned in the second-hand embarrassment of your peers if not for the glowering contempt you stewed in upon for the fact that the detestable man was now your neighbour.

And yes, you were self-aware enough to admit a pull of attraction that you kept as close to your pride as your dignity. You’d rather be seen dead than join the gaggle of groupies that worshipped his every move and hung on his every word.

Thus far, you had done a stalwart job of avoiding him. A fortnight with no run-ins had confirmed that, inasmuch as you could tell, you had no classes together nor crossover seminars, no reason to interact. Yet through all this, the glimpses you would catch of his jet-black head and the trill of his laughter from next door provoked an unease: what was this familiarity you felt? Why were you the only one that seemed to notice how his eyes shimmered with the light of a cosmos?

Best to put it out of your mind, lest your mind put out of you.

On the Friday evening you nursed your well-loved copy of Wuthering Heights, contemplating between long paragraphs just what Heathcliff’s redeeming qualities were intended to be. While all for reading between the lines, it seemed to you that any virtue of character should not be so difficult to find.

Situated comfortably on the inner sill of your bedroom window and looking out, it was another fair night. The moon hung bright and clear over the distant woods and town of Oxford, the sky utterly clear of a cloud. Perhaps it had been a cloud that night, that you saw. A cloud in the form of an angel, sent to you by sleep deprivation and an overdose of caffeine.

A knock on your door drew your attention; supposing it would be one of the regular girls stopping by to regale you with their Friday night antics, you rushed over and threw it open.

How your heart seized in your chest.

Eyes of mercury assessed you from under damp raven strands.

“Good evening,” Minho said.

Too bewildered to much reply, he breathed a soft laugh at your dazzlement.

“May I come in?”

“What?”

“Can I come in?” he asked again, emphasising a glance into your room that reared a bout of self-consciousness.

“N— No. Go away.”

“I come with offerings,” he said, tapping the plastic Tupperware box tucked under his arm that had somehow gone unnoticed. “Fudge brownies. A little birdie told me they’re your favourite.”

You folded your arms defensively. “Did they now?”

Minho cocked a brow. “They were wrong?”

“N— No. I suppose not.”

He grinned, utterly disarming. “I feel like you and I got off on the wrong foot, so to speak,” he said gently. “I’d like to start again. Get to know each other. Clean slate. We’re neighbours, after all.”

“I don’t think—”

He held the Tupperware box up. “Please?”

You huffed an indignant sigh.

Might have to strangle a birdie or two.

Minho had no experience with human narcotics.

Indeed, the closest divine equivalent was the concoction of ambrosia, and that—if the Sky Father’s behaviour was anything to judge by—induced the sort of buzz that mortals gained from an excess of wine. There was no substance in heaven or on Earth that could so impact the Gods the way he had seen man-made narcotics impact humans; though he desired no such extremity tonight. He had simply taken the advice of those keen mortals that surrounded him, given when he had subtly enquired as to the real nature of his target: “She’s uptight, man. Super hot, but uptight. She needs to relax, smoke a little. It’ll help her unclench. Man, can you imagine her high? No, yeah, I know she doesn’t smoke, but like— She likes brownies, right? She always buys those little fudge ones from the cafeteria. I’d love to see her eat a moon cake. I bet she’d get totally wild, just like that one time at the ball.”

Thus, a plan emerged.

Stepping into her room was the first hurdle overcome: he had been fully braced for a door slam to the face. Instead, he found himself pleasantly surprised, and then somewhat concerned, for it was clear by now that that not even his mortal disguise could completely conceal his divine appeals from her. Where other mortals saw a dark and handsome man, she saw beyond it. The way she stared and how her heartbeat quickened told of it all. Worse still that he seemed to respond in kind— but no, he could not even entertain it. His visit carried a purpose, and that was to get to the bottom of what made her so special.

“Nice place,” he said as he looked briefly around, not to impress discomfort upon the girl.

“Thanks. It’s the same as every other in this building.”

Minho chuckled. She was possessed of a sense of humour, at least.

“You were reading?” he asked, idly flipping the cover of Wuthering Heights that sat on the bedside table. He hadn’t read it himself, but recalled the sister Muses’s boasts from the time of its inception: what promising devotees they claimed those Bronte’s would be.

“Yeah.”

“A touch on the heavy side for a Friday night, no?”

She shrugged, arms wrapped around herself. “I like it.”

“You read a lot?”

“I mean; yeah. English Lit student.”

“Ah. A romantic, then.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“All arts students are romantics, darling.”

He sat at the foot of the bed, Tupperware box in his lap, quietly pleased with how her heart sounded to have skipped a beat at the endearment.

“Join me?” he asked, tapping the space at his side.

She cleared her throat and swallowed, moving stiffly to the desk where she pulled out the chair. Minho watched in amusement, but did not contest. He snapped open the Tupperware box to the velvety rich scent of chocolate, humming in delight: a deity he might be, but just as susceptible to the serotonin of indulgent food. Neatly sliced brownies sat on paper towel, and he offered the box to her first. She eyed it warily.

“They’re just brownies,” he lied.

A purse of her lips and she contemplated something: whatever it was, it quickly passed.

“Thank you,” she sighed, dipping into the box and retrieving the topmost brownie.

“You’re welcome, darling.”

Minho helped himself to one, wishing almost that he could join the girl on the trip she was about to take. It’d be fun to witness, nonetheless. With inhibitions lowered and her true state of mind brought to the forefront, he’d surely discover what it was that blessed her so. What it would take to make her fall in love with the most horrible thing he could find. What he had to do to—

“Mhm.”

A small but sure groan of appreciation made Minho’s fine hairs stand on end: he paused his own consumption to watch her, her face aglow with warm delight. Chocolate on her lips begged to be illicitly removed; Minho swallowed, yearning thrumming under his skin.

“Is this why everyone on campus adores you?” she asked after a moment.

“W— What?”

“You bribe them,” she said, pointedly glancing to the Tupperware box.

Minho scoffed. “I don’t need to bribe people into liking me. It comes naturally.”

“Does your modesty come naturally too?”

“You know; you’re awfully abrasive with me. Did I do something to offend you?”

She shrugged, took another bite of brownie. “No. You’re not that powerful.”

He smirked. “Then what is it?”

“I suppose I just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“You.” She licked her lips. “Nothing about you seems real. There are so many rumours about you and you don’t deny or correct a single one.”

He quirked a brow. “You think I should?”

“I think anyone that puts any value in their identity should, yes. I have a past. A home. I know where I came from and who I am. If I heard people saying otherwise, I'd want to put them right about it.”

She licked her fingers, one by one, the sweet and tempting chocolate coating her tongue. Minho crossed his legs.

“Tell me about them,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me about your past. Your home. Where you came from and who you are.”

“We weren’t talking about me—”

“We are now.”

She blinked, swallowing the last bite of brownie and, once again, darted her tongue out over shiny lips. Minho followed the movement of it slowly, wondered how sweet she’d be to kiss, drew his attention back to her eyes where she, too, had been watching him. She cleared her throat abruptly.

“I, uh...” She shrugged a shoulder. “Well. I was born in a small village. There was nothing much to do growing up, so I read a lot. Too much, my mother used to say. She never really understood why I liked it, and I never really had the energy to explain.”

Minho nodded. “What did your parents do?”

“Mum was an artist. A sculptor, mostly, though she did paint too.”

“And your father?”

“I never knew him.”

“Never?”

She shook her head.

“Your mother didn’t tell you anything about him?” he pressed.

“Nothing I could have believed.”

“Such as?”

“It’s not even worth talking about—”

“Humour me.”

She hummed. “Well, she... I mean, you have to understand that Mum wasn’t a well woman. She had strange beliefs. Acted oddly. It got worse as she got older. Towards the end, not a thing she said made sense. She told me that...” She hesitated.

“Go on,” Minho encouraged.

“She said that my father was a god. As in; an actual god. He pursued her relentlessly, apparently. Sent her gifts and showered her with affection. Was obsessed with her. Eventually she caved and fell in love with him, then they made me, but he had to return to... wherever the hell he came from. I don’t know.”

Minho’s palms grew clammy; he set the Tupperware box on the bed. “I see.”

“I told you; she was completely delusional.” She stood and reached for another brownie, breaking a piece off and popping it into her mouth. “The story changed every time. Sometimes he came to her as a man, sometimes as a snake, or a stallion. For all her berating of my reading, she had a wicked imagination of her own.” She swallowed the brownie piece, broke off another. “I’m pretty sure he was just someone from the village. I really don’t care either way.”

Minho did not hear much of what was said after— he couldn’t over the rush of ichor that deafened him. It could not be true: it made no sense to be true.

“As for who I am,” she continued, oblivious. “I’m nothing special.”

“I very much contest that.”

She scoffed, breaking off yet more brownie and eating it. “You don’t know me even nearly well enough.”

“I’d like to,” he said.

She eyed him. “Why?”

“Why not? Can't we get to know each other?”

“Alright then,” she smacked her lips, set the brownie chunk aside and dusted her hands against each other. “Your turn. Dispel the illusion for me.”

Minho chuckled. What earlier cold dread had settled on him began to thaw.

“I could just feed you a pack of lies,” he said.

“You could.”

He held her gaze, the dim moonlight streaking her features.

“Swear that you won’t,” she muttered.

Swear? To swear was to forge an oath; to forge an oath was divine. Under normal circumstances he would shy away from such a hefty obligation, but this...

“Alright.” He nodded. “I swear.”

With a slight smile, she asked, “Where’s home?”

“Far from here.”

“Where do you come from?”

“I was born in the mountains.”

“You swore you wouldn’t lie.”

“I’m not.”

She pursed her lips. “Okay... Who are you, Lee Minho?”

“I am the God of Love, sent to Earth by my mother Aphrodite to curse you for being too beautiful.”

She blinked, her shoulders drawn tight. A moment of tense silence passed, and in the next instant, she burst into laughter, doubling over herself on the chair. She cackled and guffawed until she cried, and Minho found himself not only enraptured with the sound of her joy, but elated at being the cause of it. If indeed, he truly was.

“It’s a zero for originality,” she whimpered on a laugh. “You can’t just steal my stories like that and twist them!”

Minho watched in amusement.

“Also— you promised no lies. That’s an even bigger zero.”

She picked up the last chunk of brownie she’d set aside, pushing it past her lips with a giggle that carried for long minutes as she chewed contentedly. She swallowed and sighed, brought her legs up to cross under her, swivelling gently in the desk chair.

“Imagine being the God of Love,” she mumbled. “Must be bloody awful.”

Minho hummed. “You think so?”

“Yeah. For sure. Imagine being surrounded by love all the time— every second of every minute of every day.” She shuddered dramatically. “Couldn’t be me.”

“But you are surrounded by love,” he said. “It takes many different forms, you know. Friends, family, faith.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Fornication.”

She coughed suddenly, looking anywhere but at him. Endearing warmth pooled under the simmering yearning that resided in Minho; how much longer he could keep it wrested, he wasn’t sure.

“I imagine being a God of Love to be great fun,” he said. “I imagine they might get into all sorts of mischief.”

“I don’t like mischief.”

“Everybody likes a bit of mischief.”

She shook her head. “Not me. I’d much rather—” She yawned. “I’d much rather live a quiet life.”

Minho hummed, watching as she wilted on her seat. She sat bolt upright on feeling herself sag, blinking rapidly.

“I don’t, uh...” She put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t think I feel very well.”

“What’s wrong, darling?”

“I...” She slipped her legs from under her, made an attempt to stand that ended futilely; Minho quickly rose and caught her weight. To restrain what burned in him; what the God of Love so easily took when the urges presented, was a goliath task.

“S— Sorry,” she mumbled, and tried to move from him, only to stagger once more.

“I’ve got you,” he said. “Want to lie down?”

“No. I just—” She gripped his arms tightly, let herself lean into his strong frame. The thin cotton of clothing under her hands seemed to fascinate her; she released the grip and, transfixed, began to stroke softly, her touch wandering from bicep to shoulder to chest. Minho hoped she could not feel the way his heart throbbed under her hand; she looked up at him, eyes glassy and rounded with adoration.

“You are... so pretty,” she mumbled, touching softly his cheek, his jaw. “So, so pretty.”

Heat flared under his skin, singing what sense he possessed.

“I thought you—” She grinned lazily. “I thought you were the angel. It came to me, you know. Right to my window. It was the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Then I saw you.”

He sucked in a sharp breath; much more praise and the swelling in his groin would not be so ignored.

She cupped his face with warm hands. “I don’t really like you. But I do like you. You make me—” She narrowed her eyes, blinked slowly. “You make me want to do things I’ve never even thought about before. Bad things.”

“Bad things?”

She nodded, then pressed a finger to his lips. “I’ll never admit that to you, though. Just so you know.”

The already abused thread of Minho’s self-control frayed and worried; he gently removed her hand, took her wrists in hold. To remove himself was the wise thing to do; she was not herself, and he was not so virtuous as to resist much longer.

“It’ll be our secret, then,” he said.

“Mhm.”

“Why don’t you lie down for a bit, darling? You’re not feeling well.”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course. Just try it. For me.”

She shook her head, about to protest when in the next instant, a sallow and sickly look of panic came over her.

“I— I think I’m going to be—”

And with a short, retching heave, she threw up over Minho’s slippers, sweats and the rest of the brownies in the open Tupperware box.

There was hardly a shred of grace to be found in the rest of the evening, the responsibilities of caregiver taken on board. Minho cleaned both of them up, set the girl to bed with surprising lack of resistance on her part, and once sure that she was free of cramps and convulsions, retired himself to the roof of Goodhart.

Wired and utterly unable to sleep, he watched the constellations until he could think without the red mist of lust impeding him. In doing so, the cold realisation he had earlier felt on hearing her mother’s story returned to him. He would not have entertained it had the finer details not rung so true to a certain Olympian King and Cloud Gatherer’s famous behaviour. Indeed, it would certainly explain her invulnerability to his arrows and her uncanny intuition as to Minho’s nature: not much would escape a daughter of Zeus.

But then; if true, how had it gone unnoticed by Aphrodite? Surely she would know of the girl’s lineage. Surely all Olympians would know, for Zeus made no secret of his bastards and indeed, cultivated a long line of offspring from mortals, demi-gods, minor deities and nymphs all, much to Hera’s (equally as famous) wrath.

He would think on it, he decided. If nothing else, he was further along in working her out than he had been several hours ago, and with no thanks to the moon cakes. A stupid idea, to attempt to relax her through such unpredictable means in the hopes she might talk or reveal some mystery.

He would apologise tomorrow. Perhaps find her a gift.

All for the quest, of course.

You awoke feeling distinctly like a beaten piñata.

Your head throbbed steadily and a nausea lingered, rolling dangerously on your attempt to get up and out of bed. Trudging to the window, you threw it open and gulped in the fresh mid-morning air, warmed by summer’s sun and redolent of the nearby woods, earthen and faintly floral. A musk hung about your room; not one that was generally familiar to you, but it was reminiscent of the night before; of a sudden drowsy warmth and hands touching things they most definitely shouldn’t have. With a grimace and under the chill of mortification, you got dressed and tried to make presentable, quietly leaving your room and heading next door.

A deep breath preceded your soft knock: for a moment you thought it too soft to be heard, but it quickly opened to reveal a shower-fresh, modern-day Adonis— not even your sickly state could perturb the way you stared. A wet towel was slung over his sloped shoulders, the twisted ends hanging over curved pectorals. The rest of him was entirely naked, his skin still wet and catching the gentle light of the morning that shone in streaks through the half-drawn blinds. Dripping, dark strands framed rosy, handsome features. Veined biceps flexed as he held the door, and following the line of his body, you saw a wave of slight abs, svelte waistline, shapely hips, a fine dusting of hair that crept from his groin to his navel; a happy trail, so delightful as to make your mouth water.

As for what hung between his legs— well, it seemed to you on first glance that he possessed three of them.

Minho cleared his throat, apparently as mystified as you.

“H— Hi.”

“Sorry—” You snapped back to yourself. “Jesus. Sorry. I, uh— I’ll come back.”

“No, don’t. Just give me a second?”

He quickly disappeared, though left the door ajar, the sounds of rummaging and changing heard. When he reappeared, he was mercifully clothed in sweats and a black shirt.

“Come in,” he said.

“I... I really can come back if it’s a bad time—”

“It’s not. Come in.”

Compliance came courtesy of his authoritative tone, and in stepping into his room, you were surprised to see it so sparse. Aside from the wardrobe and larger than average bed, there was nothing that denoted even an ounce of personality; no posters, no books, no belongings. Nothing to suggest it was even lived in at all, if not for the presence of the man himself.

“I haven’t had time to decorate yet,” he said intuitively.

You nodded, though quietly doubtful, and wandered to the open window where at least you could call on the fresh air to keep you grounded. While clothed, he was no less dazing to be around.

“I just wanted to—”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

You shrugged. “Not great.”

Minho, holding position at the other side of the room, looked downtrodden.

“Nothing a few paracetamols won’t fix, I'm sure,” you added lightly.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“What? I’m the one that should be apologising, I behaved like a—”

“You have nothing to apologise for. You were only like that because of me. It’s my fault.”

Confused, you watched as he came closer, raked a hand through his slowly drying hair.

“There was, uh...” He licked his lips. “There was marijuana in the brownies.”

Dumbfounded, you could only blink.

“I thought they might loosen you up,” he continued.

“Loosen me up?”

“It was a stupid, ridiculous idea. I know that. I’m so sorry. If I'd known how badly you’d react to it—”

“You drugged me!?”

Minho flinched. “I... I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

“That's what it is, Minho. You drugged me. You fed me drugs without my knowledge or consent. I’ve never taken any kind of drug, let alone eaten it. You—” Too enraged to find the words, you gesticulated wildly. “Fuck. You.”

Storming past him with a succinct shoulder barge, Minho caught you by the wrist, an earnest apology on his gorgeous face.

“I’m so sorry, darling. It was never my intention to hurt you.”

A wave of bitter resentment accompanied the heat; you snatched away from him, summoning your courage.

“I’m not your darling.”

He caught your other wrist, persistent.

“You could be,” he said.

“Let me go—”

“You like me."

A concoction of embarrassment and want swam around you. “Looks like you can’t keep a secret, either,” you muttered.

And with that, he released you, his silvery gaze dropping in something finalistic; something defeated.

“Stay away from me,” you said flatly.

He did not stop your third attempt at exit, nor did he call on you for the rest of the day.

Nor the rest of the week.

It was difficult for a God to experience guilt.

Minho, being a creature of compassion and with love built into his very existence, found that it tarnished everything he hitherto enjoyed about the mortal world. As though being forced to swallow his pride and admit that he had made a mistake was not bad enough, there was the added realisation that he had acted detrimentally to his own quest— she would not even look at him, let alone allow him to get close enough to make amends, to lower guard, to give him opportunity to strike.

And so ensued a cold war of sorts, her avoidance of him going to such lengths as to involve her temporary removal from Goodhart House to stay with a friend on the other side of campus. This ‘Gina’—the girl upon whom she’d imposed—struck Minho as a fickle creature, susceptible to gossip and vapid trends and student body politics insofar as their theatrics. Not a good influence, he ultimately surmised, but nonetheless his target appeared fond of her. Trusted her. To that end, Minho saw an angle. A new opportunity. One that he somewhat wished to have happened upon before he decided on the use of narcotics, but hindsight would do him no good now.

It was as Gina left her last class of the day that Minho sought to introduce himself.

“Hello, darling.”

He was met with the typical starry-eyed wonderment, the blushing and quickening of heartbeat that all betrayed her delight at being so approached by trend #1— if Minho played into that, he was no sorer for it. Neither was he spoiled for choices, which posed his reasoning for offering to escort her to her dormitory, whereupon the worst simply had to happen.

On the stone steps of the grand, old building waited his target, her beauty seeming more so dazzling since he had been denied the sight of her. On seeing him, however, she rolled her eyes and muttered a curse, storming towards her friend.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed at Gina.

“Lovely to see you too,” Minho smarmed.

Gina startled, seemingly offended. “What is with that tone? I know you two aren’t on the best of terms—”

“The best of terms? He drugged me, Gina.”

“Right, so you keep saying, but like...” She glanced at Minho fondly, then shrugged. “He hasn’t drugged me.”

Dumbfounded, she stared at her friend, then at Minho. What pain he saw there perplexed him— it shouldn’t have felt like a betrayal, for there was nothing so intimate between them to betray.

“Minho was actually just offering to take me out for drinks tonight,” Gina said. “You can come if you want.”

“No way.”

“Alright, well, I’m not going to stand here trying to convince you. We’ll be at Cherub’s if you change your mind.” With that, Gina whirled on the spot and started off. Minho lingered.

“Aren’t you going with her?” she snapped.

“You should come.”

“And third wheel your date? No thanks.”

“There’s enough of me to go around,” Minho grinned, more amused than serious.

“What a gentleman you are.”

“I like to think so.”

“Do you like to think you’re the kind of gentleman that drugs the dames before he has his way with them, too?”

Minho flinched. “That’s not how it was. I just wanted to—”

“Loosen me up. Because I'm such an uptight bitch. Yeah, I get it.”

“No. Because you confound me. That’s all.”

She almost laughed, clutching her books so tightly the skin of her knuckles drew thin and tense.

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? It makes no sense—”

“Come for a drink with me. I’ll make it make sense.”

She huffed a deep breath. “I can’t. I have plans.”

Minho quirked a brow. “With Heathcliff? How exciting.”

“It— It’s infinitely more exciting than spending a second longer with you, actually” she stammered.

Minho laughed. “That’s simply not true, darling.”

“How many times; I’m not your darling.”

“But you want to be.”

“Oh my god.” She spun on her toe, marching back up the steps. “I’m going inside.”

“I’ll see you at Cherub’s, then,” he called.

“Leave me alone, Minho!”

“Never,” he whispered as she shoved into the building.

And suddenly, things looked up.

Not your finest moment, to tiptoe into a bustling Cherub’s with your proverbial tail between your legs, dignity waving you off at the door.

He said he’d make it make sense: that’s what you clung to the entire way here, for there was so much about him—the things he did and said—that didn’t add up. You imagined what it might be like to understand him instead of loathe him as you peered between gatherings of students in search of him and Gina. About as typical a student union bar as one might imagine, Cherub’s was home to beer-soaked carpets and sticky seats, outdated seventies décor and mismatched lighting. Cheap and (not so) cheerful, it did just the trick for instilling a quick buzz, yet its nearness to accommodation meant that said buzz devolved to debauchery more often than not.

Heathcliff was, you rather thought, far more exciting.

You had vowed after the Fresher’s ball never to drink unless circumstances were dire enough to call for it, and so your detouring to the bar should have said something as to the state of your nerves, whereupon you ordered a vodka and tonic. With a weak smile at the tender, you gratefully took the almost-cool glass, a sip of the fizzy concoction neither unpleasant nor particularly enjoyable. It would take the edge off, in a moment.

“Drinking alone?”

The voice behind your ear startled, the glass slipping from your grasp only to be caught deftly by another, not so much as a drop spilled. Minho smiled warmly, ever radiant against the surroundings. Almost unsettlingly so, for all near eyes were trained to him, and in turn, you.

He brought the rescued glass to his glossed lips, a perfunctory sip followed by a sharp grimace. He set it on the bar and slid it away, out of reach.

“Excuse me, I paid good money for that—”

“My condolences,” he sighed, raking slim fingers through silky, dark strands that framed shadowed eyes of liquid silver.

He flagged down the tender with a wave. “One pornstar martini and a Glenfiddich, straight. No ice. Make the martini virgin.”

“A virgin pornstar martini?”

“I am a collection of paradoxes, darling.”

Your heart pounded; hopeless as it was.

The drinks arrived promptly, and Minho took them in hand.

“Where’s Gina?” you asked, realisation of her absence coming perhaps a touch too late.

Minho smiled. “Come on.”

He led you through the student bodies and to the rear of the venue, where a booth table went unoccupied. A folded piece of A4 card with ‘RESERVED’ scrawled on it adorned the polished table; you poorly stifled a laugh.

“They reserved a table for you? At Cherub’s?”

Minho nodded, sliding into the opposite seat and setting the drinks down. “I asked them to, yes.”

“It’s a student bar, not a five-star restaurant. Honestly. Who are you?”

Minho settled, a serene smile on his lips. “I believe we’ve had this conversation.”

You rolled your eyes. “Right.” And took the cocktail glass. The pink concoction finished with a half pomegranate slice smelled sweet and fruity, yet distinctly lacked the tang you wished it had.

“This didn’t have to be non-alcoholic,” you weakly complained.

“Mhm. Well. I’ll not be guilty of the same thing twice,” he replied, swirling whiskey around his own short glass. “Besides; you don’t strike me as a drinker.”

“Do I strike you as the drug taker?”

Minho’s gaze fell. “No.”

You hummed and sipped your drink. In truth, giving him a hard time was beginning to lose its novelty. Not only did you wish to move on from the whole thing, but it was getting harder to withstand the clear guilt in his mesmerising eyes. Whatever his intentions had been, they most certainly were not malicious, which ought to count for something, you thought.

“I’m still sorry,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’d very much like to make it up to you.”

“How?”

Minho opened his mouth to speak, but in place of his alluring tone came a high-pitched screech of your name; you startled and looked to Gina, who was barrelling towards the table.

“You came!” she cried, shoving hastily into the seat beside Minho; he scooted aside as best he could, but was already trapped. She linked an arm through his, settled into his side, utterly at home. She looked you over incredulously.

“I didn’t think you’d show. You know; I actually can’t even remember the last time I saw you out,” she said, her thick, glossed lips sticky with reflective residue.

You forced a smile. Ignored how their apparent familiarity made your stomach twist. “Yeah. Me neither.”

“I’m always telling her she should get out more,” she continued, this to Minho. “It’s like she’s allergic to socialising.”

“I’m not allergic to it, G. I just prefer to—”

“Sit in and read, I know. Hey— I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You do you, babe. I just find it funny that the only time you actually make the effort to come out is when you know a hot guy is going to be around.”

Your face flamed with heat— why did this martini have to be so horribly prudish? You stared into it, adequately mortified, for she wasn’t entirely wrong in her observations, and that only raised questions as to your character too difficult to answer in the light of day. Or grunge of bar, for that matter.

“You’ve got it all wrong, darling,” Minho intervened lightly. “I insisted on her coming so I could buy her a drink in apology for the... incident. The timing happened to be right for her. That’s all.”

Gina rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever.” She unlinked her arm from his, fanned out the ends of her short hair from the collar of her leather jacket. “I’m going to get a drink.”

She planted a brief kiss on Minho’s cheek, and slid gracefully out of the booth. Your heart catapulted to your throat, where it stayed until Minho spoke.

“We, uh—”

“I don’t want to know,” you quickly said.

“There’s nothing to know, darling. She’s just... exceptionally forward.”

“Don’t call me darling—”

“I call everyone darling.”

“I know,” you hissed. “Why do you think I feel so bloody stupid that it makes my heart race every time?!”

A moment of comprehension crossed you both, and where your realisation of emotional confession brought him to a slow smile, it brought you to cold despair.

You stood quickly, gathering yourself. “I shouldn’t have come; this was such a bad idea—”

A swift grip on your wrist stopped your panicked exit.

“Don’t leave.”

“Minho—”

“There’s so much I have to know about you,” he said, pinning you with a softening gaze. “So much that I don’t understand. So much that infuriates me, so much that intrigues. You’ve caused me so much trouble, but even so, there’s something that I... Something about you that makes me just—”

“Everything okay over here?”

Gina’s flat question javelined the moment; you looked to her, saw her unimpressed eye trained to where Minho held you still. She upturned her lips in a sneer, the three drinks in her hand trembling.

“You couldn’t just let me have this, could you?” she snarled at you.

“Gina—”

“Every single fucking time, it’s you. It’s always you. Every boy I've ever liked or that’s ever shown any interest in me— They always fall for you. It’s like you can’t stand to see me happy.”

Gutted with guilt and confusion, you snatched your wrist from Minho.

“It’s not what you think, at all. We were just—”

“You might be beautiful on the outside,” she spat. “But inside, you’re a fucking monster. Everyone will see that one day.”

Minho rose from his seat. “That’s enough,” he snapped, glowering. “She takes no blame in this. She takes no blame in anything you accuse her of. It’s her fate to—” And he stopped himself short, as though stumbling back from a precipice. He straightened himself and took a deep breath.

“It’s not her fault,” he said acerbically.

Gina pursed her lacquered lips. “Right. So, it’s yours then? That's what you’re saying?”

Minho shrugged. “Perhaps I manoeuvred in such a way as to ensure you got me close to her, yes.”

Your gut turned over with hot nausea.

“What does that even fucking mean?” Gina balked, anger wrinkling her. “Sometimes you talk like you’re from a different planet, I swear to God.”

Minho sniffed, then smiled. He licked his lips, and said plainly, “I used you to get to her, darling.”

Gina’s jaw slacked, then tightened. It seemed she understood, this time, and perhaps you saw the next thing coming from a mile away: she swore and brutally tossed the three drinks she held straight at Minho, soaking and swilling his head, face and chest with sticky, sweet alcohol. The man took it well, for all his surprise, and swept his hands down his face stoically.

“You two are made for each other,” she hissed, and with that, turned tail and stalked away.

All eyes in near vicinity watched in tense silence as you, unable to even think beyond the molten mortification of it all, did much the same. Perhaps Minho called after you, and perhaps a small part of you wished to stay and console him, yet the larger part of you seethed with disappointment, for he had once again demonstrated himself to be less than half the man you ever wished to be so attracted to.

Minho, for all his obvious and daunting appeals, was not a good man.

Minho was starting to believe that the Fates had something against him.

Every attempt he made to get close to her ended in unmitigated disaster, and as if that wasn’t headache enough, he was now forced to acknowledge that what burned in him when he thought of the mortal girl was not simple curiosity: he craved her.

This called into question everything he knew: his quest, his mother’s wishes, his own existence as the God of Love, for as has been established, the God of Love loves all. He does not fall in love. Until he does.

Perhaps it would simply be easier to out the truth of it all. Yes, it would shatter her mortal logic and push her to the limits of her comprehension, but what was the alternative? To continue wresting his own desires until such a time as he imploded? There was only so much one could take, even for a God, and Minho felt the tether of his patience rapidly diminishing.

Whatever he decided to do, he could not do it under these circumstances. He would have to, once again, make amends. Somehow.

What small silver lining there was to this whole mess came in the form of her moving back to Goodhart House, presumed discomfort between she and Gina resulting in such separation. Minho knew well what part he’d played in that, but in truth, couldn’t bring himself to feel entirely bad about it.

Two nights later—he had learned that mortals valued their space—saw him timidly knocking on her bedroom door, an uncharacteristic bout of nerves swirling about him. Moments passed before she answered, her vacant expression drawing grim on the sight of him.

“What do you want?”

The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window appeared to halo her, a warmth resonating from her person and within her room that set upon Minho a steady yearning; he could take her in his arms so easily, make her feel things no mortal man could.

Instead, he licked his dry lips, and from behind his back, produced the object he’d been concealing. She glanced at it, brows knitting together.

“What the hell is that? A twig?”

“I couldn’t find an olive branch.”

Just like that, the subtlest of curves to her lips ignited hope. She quickly reset herself into a deep-set frown.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“I am.”

“Gina and I aren’t speaking because of you.”

“I know.”

“You used her.”

“I did.”

“I mean; why did you have to be so—” she huffed. “You could have been nicer about it.”

“She knew what was happening,” Minho shrugged. “Sugar coating it would have only wounded her further.”

“You can’t just use people, Minho.”

Minho quirked a brow. “But it worked, didn’t it?”

“What?”

“It worked. You’re talking to me again. You’ve done nothing but talk to me since the minute you saw me with her, in fact.”

She dropped her gaze, wrapped her arms around herself. “You let her believe you liked her.”

“I do like her,” Minho replied.

“Oh.”

“Just nowhere near as much as I like you.”

A small puff of breath from her sweet lips seemed almost to indicate disbelief, and Minho supposed that until now, he’d made no such clear indication of his feelings. Suggestion and vague inference, perhaps, while he tried himself to understand what he battled with, but such roundabout behaviour was not in his nature.

“I like you a lot,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “Stop.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not— I don’t know. I can’t do this.”

She moved to shut the door, but Minho caught it quickly, stepping inside.

“You won’t even give me a chance to explain?” he pressed.

“I can’t. You don’t get it. Gina likes you. She was so upset about the whole thing, and you’re just— You don’t care at all. If anything, you seem proud of it. I can’t be with someone like that.”

Minho crowded her, for while her mouth said one thing, her body said another. Against the near wall she shrank, the rampant thump of her heart so alluring as to draw him near until barely a foot of space rested between them.

“You’re lying to yourself,” he said. “You claim that you can’t be with someone like me, but you know it as well as I do, darling; there is no one like me. I am the epitome of what you’ve always craved, and pretending otherwise will only push you to madness.”

“Minho—”

“As for the girl,” he interrupted softly, still so near. “She was a means to an end, yes. And you are correct; I am proud that my course of action bore fruit. I would do the same thing again, given a choice.”

She shook her head. “That’s the problem. I told you already; you can’t just use people.”

“I can do whatever I damn well please, and so should you. You have that right.”

“Not if it hurts other people.”

“And what of hurting yourself? Why sacrifice your own happiness for someone that doesn’t value you? Calls you names? Thinks you no more than a heartless monster? You might consider her a friend, but I assure you darling, she holds no such fondness towards you. Who do you think it was began the slanderous rumours that circulated after your Fresher’s ball?”

Pain flashed in her watering eyes; a truth that perhaps she had always quietly known brought to the surface.

“This abstinence from me only serves to hurt you.”

She cast a contemptuous glare cast up at him. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she snapped. “You don’t know the first thing about me or what I'm feeling.”

Minho pressed in close, strong arms either side of her head. He hummed softly, “I hear how your heart cries out to me. See how your womanhood swells the closer we are; I only wish you’d give it to me, darling. I’d take such good care of it.”

He felt a shiver barely suppressed as she relented, melting by the second. Words of honey in her ears warmed her from within; Minho might die if he couldn’t taste.

“I wish to undo you and put you back together, one delicious, wet molecule at a time,” he said gently, nosing her soft lobe, then along her jaw. Her breaths devolved to soft pants, each one redolent of sweet nectar that further maddened him. “I’d defy the heavens themselves if it meant I could spend a single night with you.”

Minho had once said that arts students were hopeless romantics: he seemed none removed from the vagaries of waxing poetic himself.

You would have given it more thought if not so tightly strung with desire for the man that had, by some cosmic or divine will, worked his way into your bedroom. You knew nothing about him— that much had not changed. Neither had it changed that you detested how he carried himself, how he seemed so aloof to the most basic of kindnesses, how confidence and self-assurance came so naturally to him while it constantly evaded you.

It made no sense that a man like him could desire a woman like you, yet here he was, in your space, hot and firm, whispering such sweet and magical words as to make your head spin and your heart throb.

“Your desire for me is so strong, I can taste it,” he said breathlessly; a statement of fact offered as such, and you weren’t of the mind to deny it.

“Will you admit it?” he pressed. “Return my sentiments?”

Your weak nod told it. “Yes.”

He drew his lip between his teeth, a quick glance cast down your frame. “Am I permitted to touch you?”

“Yes.”

He held a cautious hand over your heaving chest. “Here?”

You nodded; his hand swept to your tummy, still at a hover. “Here?”

“Y— Yes.”

He hummed, then held over the curve of your waist, no contact made and yet electricity flitted between the inches. “Here?”

“Anywhere,” you breathed, defeated, a wreck. “Touch me anywhere. Everywhere. Please.”

Minho grinned, the silver ripple of his eyes flashing smug victory. A hand under your chin tilted your head back to present wanting lips, and when he kissed you, all else faded from existence. Near painfully soft was the first explorative brush, the man inclined to feel out your acclaimed desire— when you curled a grip to his shirt, he indulged you deeply, locking plush lips with yours and taking what he—unbeknownst to you—had already decided was his to covet. Bursts of white-hot delight rendered you breathless and dizzy, and when he broke off, you thought only of more.

“Swear to me that you’ll be mine,” he said, voice a thick and husky rasp.

“Minho...”

“Swear it,” he pressed. “Or this goes no further.”

The quiet promise was made in all but an instant, “I swear,” but even tight in his arms it was akin to stepping from a cold and slippery cliff; you felt to be falling, rescinding all control and handing it to this man that you knew nothing of, but craved like water to a dying man.

With a groan of delight, Minho swept you from the wall and about to the bed, where he laid you down and followed your form. Having no such experience with intimacy save for what the pages of your novels told, your expectations were none. The wanton urges held dominion, your chastity looking on in resigned approval as he smothered your neck and throat with attention, lavished your body with his touch, stripped you of all that hindered his touching your skin. In the warm light of the late afternoon, you laid naked beneath him, bared and as vulnerable as ever a soul may be. Minho looked at you, his gentle eyes seeming more so infinite with the awakening of intimacy; soft, patient hands canvassed your skin— waist, hips and thighs. Gentle, moist lips worshipped you at fingers, toes and lips, such reverent attention that swelled your heart to near bursting.

“You’ve never laid with a man before?”

A giggle bubbled out before you could stop it. Minho cocked his head questioningly.

“S— Sorry,” you mumbled. “No. I haven’t. But…” You hesitated, wondered on the timing, then asked anyway. “Did you have to ask me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like a nineteenth century suitor,” you laughed.

Minho grinned and shook his head, seemingly embarrassed. “Sorry,” he chuckled. “I forget sometimes.”

You ran your hands over his. “Forget what?”

For a long moment, he merely admired how your fingers slotted together. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but instead took a deep breath, and smiled once more. “Nothing.”

His kiss this time was insistent, but gentle. The exchange soon forgotten, work was made of stripping him, the act itself seeming dreamlike the more of him was revealed. Skin smooth and flawless, the complexion of which was so deep and rich a healthy glow, it made you shy to touch it. Clothing removed and tossed aside, the naked sight of him was entirely reminiscent of something— something you could not quite put your finger on, but that nagged at the back of your mind.

He returned to you, all silken warmth and firm in the right places. Between your open legs he settled, your inhibitions melting with his attention— kisses and careful touches, each one further devolving until he could no longer exact patience. He touched you where most you ached, assessing your every expression.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he whispered, lips to lips, soft ministrations over your naked centre eliciting groan after whimper. Slow and controlled, he rubbed you, then parted you to run a finger through the wetness. He shuddered and drew tight, a firm kiss pressed to your mouth.

“So beautiful,” he mumbled, wet digits circling you once more. “You’ll make the perfect companion.”

Too far gone to give much consideration to the perplexment his words instilled, you could only cling to him and wave the ride of euphoria as it flooded you, one molten lash after another. Was it normal to be so immediately aroused by so minimal a touch? Normal to feel like body might split from soul after only minutes of such stimulation?

“Don’t fight it. I’ll guide you through it, darling.” He kissed your bared throat. “Mhm, just like that. Give yourself over to it—”

“Ngh, Min, please—”

“Yes, fuck.” He quickened his motions, a gentle but rapid flurry of sensation against your throbbing centre. Thighs parted wider still for yet more of what he gave, you writhed in desperation, panted like a possessed creature, gave in to what he beckoned out of you. With a cry of delight and no shred of a complex, you trembled violently through the orgasm, felt yourself coming undone on the man’s fingers. Minho hummed and kissed your cheeks, your chin, your forehead, ever patient until the violence had subsided and only your tender panting remained. He ran a soft, light finger through your dripping sex.

“You’re ready for me,” he muttered, and closed the gap between your bodies.

Spent but still yearning, it seemed almost too natural to open to him and trap him between your thighs. Minho smiled as though with pride, angling himself just so that the formerly observed ‘third leg’ could be seen from your laying position— a most intimidating sight, but one that had you clenching around air. Minho took himself in hand, the girth such that even he struggled to maintain a whole grip. A slow drag from his base and over thick, smooth shaft to blushed tip, and he sucked in air through his teeth, let slip a gravelly groan.

“Can you take me, darling?” he asked softly. “All of me?”

Your weak nod in place of words seemed somehow to dissatisfy him, but all the same, he kissed you tenderly. Tracing the line of his body with trembling hands as he aligned himself, the breaching prod stretching you, you drew tight with a gasp. Minho hissed and the silver of his eyes swirled intensely, each inch that he sunk seeming to exacerbate it; pebbles to rock pools.

“S— Slowly,” you pleaded, the warm soreness of his entrance only just beginning to turn dull ache. “Please.”

“I have you, darling. Trust me.”

Fully sheathed and with his hips cradled tightly to your body, he began to move a slow pace. Such bizarre sensation to feel so thoroughly full, almost sated, on the brink of being driven mad.

“Okay?” he breathed, weight on his arms to better assess you.

You nodded. “Yes. K— Keep going.”

Drawing his lip between his teeth, he maintained the motions, the mattress beneath you creaking its rhythmic complaint. Transfixed to where your bodies connected, Minho’s attention diverted, you explored the curious shimmer to his skin as he moved— perhaps it was the fading sunlight, the evening rolling in with its tricks. It seemed as though tiny rivers of silver moved beneath his skin and through his veins, each one snaking beautifully up his arms, over his shoulders, down his chest to— His chest. How had you not noticed it until now? Amidst the otherworldly perfection there sat the smallest of blemishes, faded purple and gently rounded. Proof that he was indeed real, for over the latter minutes you might have begun to doubt it.

Heart pounding and rapidly approaching yet another crisis of heavenly delight, you brought your middle and index finger together, and by instinct, pressed them to the spot that was now not only familiar to you, but that joined the fragmented pieces of puzzle.

It was a perfect match.

Minho, seemingly oblivious, grunted your name, his rhythm now devolved to a frantic rut. He collapsed atop you, held your warmth close, the smooth drive of his thickness made blissfully easy by the second orgasm he gifted that in turn brought on his own— he shivered and clung to you, words of praise and nonsense both flitting from his bitten lips.

The afterglow was as intense and intimate as the act itself, for Minho gently attended to you, putting you together as he so expressed a wish to. He kept you near to his side, curled up, and whispered stories that you soon forgot in contented, restful slumber.

What you would not soon forget, however, was the truth newly discovered.

The angel had returned to you.

Minho now profoundly understood what it was the mortal poets clamoured so desperately to capture.

It was with alarming clarity that he realised he had undertaken his duties as the God of Love with no real concept of what love actually was or could be— such a spectacular thing could not be wrested into something simple; something bite-sized and digestible. All his life he had been casting his arrows and looking on warmly as mortals embraced and made love. He heard their romantic declarations and loving promises with the sort of fond understanding a parent might have for their babbling toddler, and gave it no more consideration than that.

How naïve and foolish he had been. How much he’d missed out on! He dreaded to even think of it now, and cursed his aloofness to the power of what he so easily commanded. Love, he had realised, was the whole point. Powerful enough to fell entire kingdoms, but gentle enough to soothe the most septic of wounds. Wondrous and warm yet cutting and cold, the faces of love were mortally unpredictable, and therein laid its allure.

Minho looked to the future; he had failed in his quest, that much was without question, and could not return to heaven if he wanted to. His mother’s wrath would be terrible, and he was aware enough of his own strengths to know that a conflict with Aphrodite would sign off on his demise, blood or not. And all of that was without the terrible considerations of what she might do to his beloved.

There was nothing for it. He had to do something, and there was no way around it being drastic.

No way around any of it, now that the God of Love was in love.

Had you been informed several weeks ago that you’d be engaged in an illicit affair with a man you started out detesting, you’d have cried insanity.

Still; that was the truth of things, and waking next to him after what constituted your first night with any man was not half as terrible as you might once have believed. You had marvelled, mostly. All over again. That he had wanted you at all was mystifying, but when he awoke to find you right where he’d left you, he had proved his want all over again.

A week continued just like this, with not so much discussion as heated, stolen moments. You pleaded that what you were doing be kept under wraps, for the attention he commanded was not something you sought. Begrudgingly, he had acquiesced, but made it known that one day he would show you off to all who came within distance.

This night, he reposed under the stream of pale moonlight that shone through your window; following exertions you had slept straight through the evening and to the small hours. The smooth curve of his lean back disappeared beneath your sheets, his muscled leg hung out and over the bed. Plush lips utterly relaxed and face framed by silky strands of raven black, it struck you once again just how—while unthinkably beautiful—very normal he looked like this. Only when he opened his eyes and mouth did it become clear that he existed on a plane above and beyond other simple people, and while unsure of the finer details, the quirky qualities he possessed had begun to vibrantly outshine those things about him that once irked. He was boastful, yes, and terribly proud. He spoke before he gave much (any) thought and had little regard for consequences, both for himself and those around him.

But he was the very spirit of adventure. Thrillingly spontaneous and occasionally reckless, he dragged you out from under your books and away from your comfort zone, making it so that he instead became a security blanket, for wherever he was, there was safety. The wild promises he made ranged from a lifetime of wealth and happiness with him to taking you around the world. Well intended, of course, but ultimately too fantastical to ever truly believe. Whatever this was and for however long it would last, it wasn’t so wrong to enjoy it.

Led by the hand of desire, you reached out to touch him. A gentle trace down the slope of his shoulder and over the curve of his smooth back, firm under your fingers. You thought of the first time you touched him, before you’d even spoken so much as a word to each other. How he seemed the most beautiful creature your dreams had ever chanced to conjure, for that was what you’d believed him to be— a being born of pure gold, floating on magnificent white wings.

But this man was no dream. He was something else entirely.

A soft murmur of breath, and Minho’s eyes cracked open slowly. Calm pools of silver looked upon you, stirring with love. He smiled softly.

“Who are you?” you whispered.

His smile faded, yet he did not move. He blinked sleepily, slowly.

“You know who I am,” he said quietly. “I told you.”

“The God of Love?”

He nodded, just barely.

“Sent here to curse me for being too beautiful?”

He nodded again.

“By your mother?”

“The Goddess Aphrodite.”

The room was silent. There was no urge to laugh. No stroke of cold disbelief. No terrible fear or suggestion of mockery or anything other than a wave of acceptance, bathed in cold, silver light.

A God.

He was a God.

“Why me?” you whispered.

Minho puffed a soft breath through his nose. Amused, perhaps, by your immediate acquiescence.

“I’m nobody,” you added.

He lifted his head from the pillow, propped himself up by elbow. “Do you truly believe that, or are you being modest?”

You blinked at him, the truth of it in your eyes. He sighed gently, took your hand across the bed.

“You are the most beautiful woman to ever have lived,” he said quietly, running his thumb over your knuckles. “Kind of heart and exquisite of soul, you outshine everything and everyone around you. You were born of a God—”

“What?”

“So I suspect, anyway. I intend to find out for certain. But I do not think your mother was entirely mad with her stories.”

You balked at him. “You’re saying she was telling the truth?”

“Perhaps. A version of it, as she remembers it. Mortal memories are ephemeral things. Regardless, your beauty is divine, and that cannot be disputed.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m not,” he chuckled. “Had you lived several thousands of years ago, it would have been you that all of Greece warred over and that the Trojans bled to defend. You are fated to be revered and worshipped for your beauty, more so than even that of my mother’s. This is why she sent me. To shoot you with my arrows and curse you to love something so foul it would disgrace you and push you into a solitary life.”

You swallowed over the disbelief— for all your readiness to hear him out, you found yourself stumped.

“You are invulnerable to my arrows. You see beyond the veil of my mortal disguise. You were able to touch me in my true form. Only divine blood could grant such boons.”

“How do you know I'm invulnerable?” you asked, and on his torn face saw the obvious truth of it. You mumbled a quiet, “Oh.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Talk about a lucky escape.” You tried to laugh, though it was a bittersweet reveal. He was only doing as instructed, you supposed. Things were different then, too. He didn’t know you. Didn’t love you.

Keen to change the subject, you did just that.

“Your mother—”

“Aphrodite.”

“R— Right. Aphrodite.” You cleared your throat. “Why would she want to curse me like that? If what you’re saying is true, it’s hardly my fault.”

Minho shrugged. “The Olympians care little for semantics. I love my mother, but she is as susceptible to vanity as anyone. It wouldn’t be the first time that jealousy has driven her hand.”

“But—” You leaned into him. “This is the twenty first century. Things like that don’t happen anymore. I mean; revering and worshipping, or whatever.”

“Don’t they? What are celebrities and influencers if not modern-day Gods? Politicians if not modern-day kings? Wealth and fame might no longer be measured in cattle and heroic deeds, but it is as attainable today as ever it was, and the power it bestows can be terrible. Armies rallied at the tap of a button. Lives ended at the publishing of a post. Times are different, yes, but fundamentally, mortals will never change.”

An element of truth to his words, you shrunk back against the pillows, head spinning. To suppose that it was all real was one thing— to suppose that it was all happening to you, was another.

Minho kissed your hand softly. “Don’t fret, darling. You are perfectly safe with me.”

“How can that be true? You just told me that Aphrodite has it in for me. That Aphrodite is real. That all the Gods are real.”

Minho hummed. “It’s a lot to absorb, I know. But it is fact. As the world changed and mortals developed beyond what even we predicted, we were lost to them. They turned from us. Nobody prays to us anymore. There are no sacrifices or festivals. Our names are told in stories and that is our legacy. We—our flesh and blood and everything that makes us—are myths.”

He whispered the last word, a sadness in his eyes that tugged insistently at your heart. You leaned back to him, pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

“You feel real enough to me,” you mumbled.

Minho smiled slightly. “I am glad of that.” And turned into you, a palm on your cheek bringing you back for a firmer kiss. With a soft gasp that turned moan on the sensation of his slick tongue slipping into your mouth, you fell willingly into the hazed content that the God of Love seemed so exclusively able to invoke. Dragged across the bed until tucked underneath him, he shadowed you from the moonlight, raven locks tickling your cheeks. Keen hands slipped down your body to tenderly part your legs, the suggestion of his arousal prodding thigh until he, quite familiarly and with a chaste kiss to your throat, sunk inside you. Clinging to his broad shoulders and moving with the man, for you had come to know the paces he enjoyed, Minho filled you gently and slipped away with each controlled thrust. Silver eyes told a maelstrom of truths and sadnesses that his long years of life had portended, and by the gradual incline of coming undone at his ministrations, you saw them all. He watched your descent into euphoria, and you saw them all— the lovers, the souls, the stories, the worlds that had been touched by Eros’s arrows, generations of lives built on their enchanted tips, civilisations birthed and ended by the snap of his bow string. An existence spent between heaven and Earth of unspeakable loneliness propelled by gratification of servitude brought you to hot tears amidst the release of crisis.

And you saw that he would have been alone in perpetuity, were it not for you.

Minho had a plan.

The beginnings of a plan, anyway, which he thought ought to count for something.

He could not call on any of his aunts or uncles for aid without alerting Aphrodite to the state of things, and so he turned his thoughts to what he could do. The things he possessed. After only moments of consideration, he broke into absurd and near hysterical laughter. How foolish he had been, once again! How could he forget?! Of all the things to slip his mind and fall into obscurity!

He had a palace.

Eros’s famed sky palace of jewels and gold— that was what he possessed. That was where he could go, for it was too removed from heaven for Aphrodite or any of the other Gods to be bothered making the journey. They would be left alone there. It was perfect.

The idea had come to him at high noon— a most inconvenient time for ideas to spring upon one. Unable to bear a second’s delay, he burst out of Goodhart and sprinted across campus, drawing heads and attention from all he passed. When he reached the lecture hall, he swept from room to room, offering breathless apologies to the bewildered occupants for his intrusion on finding her in none of them, much to his irritation. It stood to reason that the last he checked should be the place he found her: she looked up from her notebook, mortification freezing her from neck to forehead.

“Excuse me.” Minho flashed a dazzling smile at the Professor, who for all his usual nettlesome temperament, stood flabbergasted.

He strode confidently across the hall and through the projector’s beam, his shadow casting over the bullet point analysis of Austen’s pathetic fallacy. All eyes followed as he approached her and made quick work of closing her notebook, plucking her pen from her hand and grabbing her backpack.

“I’ll just be taking this one,” he said to the Professor, taking her wrist with a gentle tug.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, the eyes of her peers scalding her back.

Wordlessly, he stole her from the lecture hall, and said not a thing until they were out of the building and on the sun-warmed lawn, where he yanked her into a strong embrace.

“M— Minho!”

“I have it worked out, darling,” he said excitedly. “I have it all worked out!” He relinquished her to arm’s length, her flustered state inspiring urges that he swallowed down. “I know where we can go.”

“Go?” she repeated, confused. “Why would we go anywhere?”

“We can’t stay here. We spoke of this last night. My mother is—”

“You said you’d protect me from her. You didn’t say anything about needing to go anywhere.”

“I thought that was implied, darling. I assumed you understood.”

“Understood what?”

“That yes, I will do my utmost to keep you safe, but not even my power can match that of Aphrodite. If she discovers my betrayal, she’ll stop at nothing to hunt us down.”

The fluster of her condition gave way to dreaded realisation; Minho saw it in her eyes, the panic.

“There is one place we will be entirely safe,” he quickly said. “Somewhere she nor any of the other Olympians can set foot.”

“Where?”

“My palace.”

“P— Palace?”

Minho nodded in earnest. “Yes, darling. It is protected, its gates open only to me. We will want for nothing there. We can be together, undisturbed.”

She looked around, as though lost. “But I...” Her voice was weak. “I can’t just leave everything. This is my life.”

“I am your life now, darling. There’s nothing here for you.”

“Nothing here for me?” Her features drew tense and she stepped away from him, shrugging off his touch. “You're saying all this is pointless? Everything I've tried to achieve is worthless?”

“N— No, I simply mean that—”

“I know what you mean. I have no-one to miss me if I should disappear.” Her bottom lip trembled, she wrapped her arms around herself. “And what if I stayed? Would all those worshippers you promised me show up? Would I have something then?”

Minho’s heart ached impossibly; how careless he had once again been. One would think him used to the fragility of mortal hearts by now.

“It’s too late,” he said sorrowfully. “My love for you is a betrayal to my mother. If you stay, she will subject you to terrible punishment before anything ordained for you ever happens. If you come with me...” He reached out to her tenderly, a hand on her trembling shoulder. “If you come with me, I can spare you that fate. You do not have to engage with me or love me in return, but I hope that you will at least allow me to make reparations for taking you away from all you know. I can give you a most beautiful life. I can show you such things as your books will never describe. I can dedicate myself to you, soul and all, and be whatever you wish me to be.”

Tears streaked her cheeks, each one a dagger to Minho’s composure.

“You will never be alone again,” he whispered. “This, I swear to you.”

Why were you even thinking about it?

The earth-shatteringly handsome God of Love—Eros himself—loved you. He wished to take you away to his sky-dwelling palace, where he would serve you until your mortal days gave out. He wished to dedicate himself to you. How many women could claim to be on the receiving end of such implacable devotion? How many women turned away from it, especially when the love was reciprocated?

Thus you asked yourself the question again— why were you even thinking about it?

The conflict that raged within you was that of head and heart. On the side of romance and such emotion as brought you to tears, your heart cried out. ‘Go with him,’ it pleaded. ‘See all that he’s promised you. Take a chance on the extraordinary. Be the main character, just this once. You can never go back to life without him now— how it hurts to even imagine it. Only immovable darkness is left in place of such radiant light, and his light is what you must stay in forever. You love him, foolish girl. Go with him!’

On the side of reason and familiar doubt that was in some ways easier to hear, your head told other truths. ‘Run from him,” it commanded. ‘It is madness to believe any of this. What you saw that night was a hallucination; you were overtired. Overworked. He lies to you. Recall what he did to you. He plays on your vulnerability and would have you tripping over yourself for some impossible fairytale that cannot be real. It cannot be real. Screw your head back on, foolish girl. Run from him!’

With a night spent alone you hoped to come upon some form of clarity, but instead spent the long and empty hours tossing and turning, floating between despair and joy. You were at a crossroads, and the next decision you made would forever change the course of your life.

Go, or stay.

Live, or suffer.

Love, or mourn.

By the guiding, formless hand of the West wind, Zephyrus, Minho always found his way to his sky palace.

It would be a fruitless task to try to explain, in mortal terms, just where the palace was located. Not even Minho could, had he tried. That was why he needed gentle Zephyrus. Rather, it existed on a plane between those of heaven and Earth, in a pellucid sky of cloudless wonder that cycled through dreamy days and starry, moon-filled nights. The palace seemed always as though to be drifting along, warmed by streams of hot, shimmering air that kept it afloat. Its jewel-encrusted and gold-plated high walls caught the brilliant peaches and pinks of sweet Eos, Goddess of the Dawn. A reflective moat of the clearest still water kept the palace enclosed, magnificent fish and regal sea creatures having made their homes there. Great birds with feathers of virgin white and onyx black soared the length of the battlements and swooped through the palace arches, attracted by the glittering structure. It mattered not how many times Minho visited. It always took his breath away.

He looked at the girl bundled in his arms, her eyes still tightly closed, her head still buried in his chest. His white wings enclosed her safely, kept her from Zephyrus’s inherent chill.

“Won’t you look, darling?” he asked softly.

“No.”

He stifled a chuckle; how endearing she was.

“This would be one of those wonderful things I told you about.”

She cracked open one eye, just barely.

“You’re perfectly safe,” he assured her.

With a swallow and a timid nod, she turned her head out to the view, and Minho saw immediately how her eyes welled up with tears as they caught the rising light. He dared to imagine Eos might be making a special show of things, just for them, for the sky was ablaze with a rich and vibrant beauty the likes of which he’d never seen. Oranges and deep pinks melted into variegated crimson, the horizon seeming as though to glow. The palace was iridescent with life, it walls and towers reflecting and refracting the dawn in such a resplendent spectacle of colour, Minho was sure she would never forget this moment.

She maintained silent awe until Zephyrus had safely escorted them to the palace steps: the West wind twirled and whirled around them, hugging her warmly before departing, much to her delight. She kept close to Minho as the joy wore off, her fear of the near edge demanding it, yet it was her resolve that warned her from holding his hand, from taking comfort.

Such were her terms.

Such was Minho’s pain.

Take a chance on the extraordinary, your heart had said.

So it was that ‘extraordinary’ fell catastrophically short of describing what it was you now looked at: an opulent crystal palace at home in the sky, a testament to all things fantastical and impossible. The majesty of it was almost enough to take away from the inherent unease of being so high up; if this was even high, for it hadn’t escaped your notice during the journey that you hadn’t so much travelled up as through. Through what, you were surely unqualified to say, but what was certain was that this place was so removed from what you knew to be true of physics and gravity—indeed any temporal rule—it was pointless to think on it too much.

Minho had indeed promised to show you incredible things, oblivious that he himself was one of them. His feathery wings closed on his back, his raven hair fluttered in the warm breeze. He led you up the crystal steps to a vast arched gateway manned by—you rubbed your eyes—floating spears?

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said intuitively. “They will do you no harm. They’re here to protect us.”

As you passed by them, adequately mystified, the spears hopped and jerked as though in salute, their steel tips polished to a fine, sharp edge. Over the glass drawbridge he took you, a river of water so clear running beneath, you could see every pore of your own reflection in it. Creatures swum in the calm currents, fish and eels and octopi, their scales and skin of such stunning purple and deep green, it amazed you to look at. As you approached the tall and gilded palace doors, they opened before you, a swarm of floating brooms and mops and hat stands and trolleys and all other manner of furniture descending upon you with swift elegance.

On your fright, Minho held a hand up. Everything stopped, and sprung to attention in a neat, formal line.

“Darling.” He turned to you. “These are our attendants.”

You blinked at him; your head was beginning to hurt.

“They are invisible to our eyes,” he added softly. “It was my wish that we be left to our own devices. Entirely undisturbed. Just the two of us.”

“So there are... people? Holding those?”

Minho nodded. “Of a fashion, yes.”

You looked around him to the patient line, where mops fluttered and trolley wheels spun in anticipation. You weren’t sure you wanted to know what ‘of a fashion’ even meant.

“I would have had us here alone, but the palace takes some looking after,” he said. “Not to mention your own needs to be attended to.”

“I can look after myself. I don’t need—”

“Please.” He moved as though to take your hand, but stopped himself short. The strength with which such a small thing smarted seemed ludicrous, yet you held no grounds for complaint. He was only doing as instructed.

“I would like to make sure the very best care is on hand for you. Allow me that,” he said quietly.

At your small nod, he turned away, wings unfurling gently as he entered his palace. The peach light that so radiantly streaked the sky haloed him and made him a breathtaking vision. Was a God truly so different from an angel?

The palace interior was as extravagant as the exterior, its vast halls encrusted with sapphires and aquamarine, pearls and diamonds, emeralds and topaz all trimmed with gold. Wall sconces of blue flame bathed all in a glorious light, the high ceilings finished with intricate murals so lovingly painted, it made your heart ache to simply look upon the heavenly scenes they depicted with Eros at their centre.

Escorted dutifully by the same two floating spears that had seen you inside, Minho guided you through the winding halls. He held them at the door he had led you to with no more than a look.

“These are your private chambers,” he said once inside. They were homelier than what you’d thus far seen, finished with soft furnishings, blankets and comforts and a more natural tone of light offered by long windows and an open fire. It was the fire that you were in the midst of admiring, when a dainty teacup flew up and in front of your face, bringing you to a shriek.

“Your attendants will keep you here,” Minho laughed. “Forgive them. They’re excited.”

The teacup rattled on its saucer, as though in agreement.

“It has been some time since anyone’s resided here,” he added.

Residing here. You were to live here. In this place between places, with a thousands-year old God. It seemed that only now this fact began to dawn on you, for a chill realisation swept over and extinguished the bewilderment that hitherto kept you together.

Minho watched you carefully, distance maintained as he stood at the door. You looked through the grand window, out over the endless sea of multicoloured sky.

“You promised me an answer,” he eventually said.

Your heart sank.

“I know.”

“Will you give it?”

You chewed your inner cheek, tracing the lines of wispy cloud that floated by.

“I have shown you the palace,” Minho said. “I have respected your boundaries of affection, despite how it pains me to act as though we are no more than friends. I have revealed my true form to you. I have done everything you’ve asked.”

“I know.”

“And so? Is your mind decided?”

Exasperated, you turned to him. The God of Love with so sorrowful a look of distress on his handsome face, it made you want to weep.

“My mind has been decided all along,” you said simply. “How could I ever say no to you?”

His silvery eyes lit up. “You mean...?”

“Yes,” you laughed. “I’ll stay.”

Without a second thought, the God of Love on his great, white wings surged across the space and caught you in his strong arms. He braced you against the pristine glass in an embrace of ignited passion, the gasp you emitted was devoured by his hungry mouth.

“How you infuriate me,” he mumbled between kisses, the slick of his tongue wetting your lips. “You have no idea the depth of the madness you would drive me to.”

“I needed time,” you breathed. “To get my head straight, to process it all.”

“I know, darling. I would have given you all the time that time itself possessed if I could.”

You kissed him gently. “Liar.”

He grinned, and with a low chuckle enclosed you in his magnificent wings, the feathers reaching around and curling under you to lift you from the ground. Poised on them as the most comfortable of elegant chairs, the God so close in your space and stood between your open thighs, it became soon apparent the type of mood that descended on him. An inferno of want tainted the silver of his eyes, his deep, gold complexion shimmering with the lust that made Eros so feral as to tear your shirt open and relieve you of your jeans, all that he might touch your skin— finally. Secured in the space of his heat, helpless but to succumb, the dainty cloth that hovered about his hips was torn away to reveal the intimidating girth of what he offered, sprung proud and hard. Lightheaded and too aroused to think much of consequence—you weren’t strictly here alone, after all—you clung to the slope of his shoulders as he aligned himself and with a sharp intake of breath, steadily sunk inside you. Groaning through the sensation of fullness, your delight was caught by his mouth on yours.

“You were made for me, my love,” he whispered. “It is you and I, until the end of time.”

“Minho—”

“Hush, dearest girl. Let me pleasure you the way your tender heart so deserves. Let me serve you as I crave to. Nothing makes me feel so alive as when you allow me inside you like this, sweet thing. Feel me, darling. Feel all of me.”

Sealed with a kiss, the God of Love thrust himself upon you, the slick drive made so much easier by your own steeped arousal. Yet it was not simply lust that brought you to gasps and the stinging tell of tears— to accept such pure and unconditional love, to accept that it was offered so readily, to accept that a creature so objectively perfect as him could be possessed of affection for you— sky palaces and jewels and divine landscapes could not compare to that impossibility.

So it is, the start of your new life.

So it was, in years to come, that the Goddess Aphrodite forgave her errant son and welcomed the mortal girl, gifting to her immortality on her wedding day.

So it ever shall be, that the tamed Eros and his beloved spend their sun-warmed, endless days reigning over love’s intricacies, granting to mortals the divine bliss they themselves found in one another.

One precious heart at a time.

thus marks my last offering for the skz tropes collab! i really hope you enjoyed. this was by far my favourite of the bunch. if you could be kind enough to comment or even buy me a coffee as thanks for the 20k read, i would be super grateful. mica x

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >

𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙯 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 ♡ >

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txtbeomi · 16 days

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Forsaken : ̗̀・❥・ ੈ✩‧₊˚

[Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader] [Series] [Masterlist]

Pairing(s): Sorcerer!Taehyun x Royal!Reader [Ft. other txt members]

Genres: Romance, fantasy, supernatural, royal!au, enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, action, strangers to lovers.

Contains: Will be stated each chapter.

Summary: With your throne ripped away from your hands and on the run from your brother, you have no choice but to enter the Woods of Mors to escape the royal guards.

On the brink of exhaustion and hopelessness of having lost everything, you meet an arrogant sorcerer who seems to not respect your status whatsoever. Learning about his past, you realise, he’s exactly what you need to perhaps have a chance at winning back your throne and protecting your people from your tyrannical brother.

It’s all smooth sailing until you realise, you’ve caught feelings for the prideful sorcerer who despises royalty. Oh, it’ll be fine, right?

Note: Chapters will be varying length 4-5K words depending on chapter content. This will attempt to be an immersive experience! Rated PG-13.

————••————

Story Masterlist:

1. Chapter I: An Ode to Betrayal

2. Chapter II: A Plea to the Sorcerer

3. Chapter III: One’s Own Misgivings

4. Chapter IV: Bounties & Temptation

5. Chapter V: A Cry of Two Broken Hearts

6. Chapter VI: Keep Your Enemies Close

7. Chapter VII: Fluttering Feelings

8. Chapter VIII: A Door to the Past

9. Chapter IX: Trust Me, Sweetheart

10. Chapter X: Forlorn Reunion

11. Chapter XI: Home, Sweet Home

12. Chapter XII: An Ode to Romance

13. Chapter XIII: A Ballad of Two Lovers

14. Chapter XIV: Confessions & Treachery

15. Chapter XV: To Die is to Lose

16. Chapter XVI: [Finale] The End is a New Beginning

> I will be opening a taglist for this series! If you wish to be added to the taglist, please comment below. First come first serve basis!

Taglist: [closed]

@royallyjjk @wolfytae-exe @rencarnationofangel @sirenla @matcha-binz @beomies-world @michinri @parkweylyn @kvshzj @hanniehaeeeeeee1004 @elara828 @wonioml @onima-chan @moonekth @glossykai @jjunielvrs @beargyuuzz @cathyun @hanstarrs @m3chigo @vanicogh @baekberrie @nap-of-a-starr @ur-mother-realnotclickbait @sunpov

Coloured/pattern dividers are from @cafekitsune (amazing work!)

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txtbeomi · 21 days

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glitter. ☆ : ･ﾟ✧ *

synopsis: as you find yourself stuck on a deserted island, you meet five boys who happened to be living there. you begin to notice something different about the boys as you attempt to find a way back home. with no sense of boundaries and strange glitter all over their bodies, your curiosity of who or what these boys are peaks. you begin getting close to the strangers, them helping you on your journey, but it leads you into a spiral of your own thoughts and emotions. now feeling some sort of connection to the five boys, the question begs: will you even end up leaving? if not, which boy makes you stay?

or: landing on a stranded island, you find yourself surrounded by five strangers who happened to be covered in glitter.

pairing(s): txt ot5 (individually) x gender neutral!reader

rating: pg 13

genre: fairy au, deserted island au, multiple endings, strangers to (potential) lovers

featuring: bts v, kepler huening bahiyyih, + more to be added.

warning(s): will be stated in each chapter.

status: started 03.01.23 - ongoing

update schedule: varies; trying to get back to regular updates!

taglist:open! send in an ask/comment to join c: [ @isitthemoon @jdopes-recorder @djdudjdjkw @devilsmatches @tehyunnie @taedeco @amethyistheart @reverbtunes @luveill @ghouerry @lexneedscoffee @wo-ai-ni-yong @foxsunoo @spagettae @goldennika @eclecticeggknightpsychic @soobin-chois @run2seob @sunoooism @tatanbin @hipsdofangirl @0kiwisalad0 @bluebearybeom @be-argyu @nayutalvr @hearts4csb @blackhairedjjun @yvrikoo @forever-in-the-sky2 @k1ttylvr @inarizqkis @cherrypeeking@beoms-sugar@yumilovesloona @rosie-is-everywhere @huckleberrykai @akemiixx01 @suzirumas @gyuspeach @yangwaa @chocorenchin @beomieboi @megururus @tynvm @nightlyawnzz @beomfrost @razsberrie ]

note: inspired by the sugar rush ride music video heh i'm so excited for this fic aahhh ^^ remember this story is fiction, do not associate any actions in this work with the idols themselves.

story masterlist

✧ teaser & mood board

✧ preview

part i

✧ 0 :: prologue

✧ 1 :: gold necklace

✧ 2 :: sparkly water

✧ 3 :: shining star

. ✧ 3.5 :: glitter theories

✧ 4 :: glistening strawberry

✧ 5 :: sky blue sparkly wings

✧ 6 :: white golden wings

. ✧ 6.5 :: theories part two

✧ 7 :: twinkling eyes

✧ 8 :: flickering lights

✧ 9 :: glowing iv bag

✧ 10 :: glossy looks of concern

part ii

✧ 11 :: warmth and brightness

✧ 12 :: decisions and discussions

more coming soon...

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txtbeomi · 21 days

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AN EVENING IN THE WOODS !

CHARACTERS ! werewolf!bang chan, human!reader

GENRE ! horror/thriller but barely, smut [minors dni]

WORDS ! 3.3k

SYNOPSIS ! on a drunken game night, you're dared to take a little stroll through the woods after rumors of a werewolf lurking through the town.

THIS FIC CONTAINS ! more thriller than horror i think. mentions of alcohol. being chased/stalked; mentions of being 'kept'. reader desc. wearing long skirt + called 'good girl'. smut [dubcon(?)—reader is basically being used. d/s dynamics—predator versus prey. possessiveness. [rough] sex in the woods. monsterfucking ig. large cock channie <3. pussy eating. facefucking. cumplay + creampie. belly bulge oops. dumbification(?) growling..] used the word 'beast' a lot oops. it gets weird idk

💌 ngl...i think i forgot how to write smut u guys... this is partially inspired by a brief part in house of leaves by mark z. danielewski, but like, not really at all iykyk. anyway, as u kno, i always appreciate feedback <3

There’s a big difference between vampire hunters and werewolf hunters. The creatures are different from each other in both ferocity and nature; thus, the study and hunt of them will differ based on several factors. Hunters of said creatures are expected to know what to do in situations in which they are faced with such foul beasts. You, quite frankly, are neither a vampire nor a werewolf hunter. Inexperienced to the point where you couldn’t begin to imagine what you would do if faced with anything that is such a monstrous terror, let alone a werewolf. Yet, here you are, prancing around the cold forest like a delicious piece of meat, praying that you don’t cross paths with anything—man or beast.

About a month ago, men and women alike began disappearing from town in the late hours of the night, not to be seen or heard from again. In the following weeks, numbers of missing people have only risen, leading many to believe that there might be a serial killer on the loose. That, however, was only until word got around that a town drunkard had seen what he could only describe as a ‘terrifyingly large rabid dog’. ‘It had to be about six feet tall just standing there’, he said, swearing solemnly, even vowing to quit drinking in an effort to portray his seriousness. The man wept, “It was one of them werewolves. I swear by it.”

Only from there did word travel through the town. Though, no one believed the drunk old man, laughing at his testimony—‘A werewolf? In this town? That’s impossible’—some treating it as some fable, or a game, even. Which is what leads to you, alone, in the woods tonight. A fun game of truth or dare with your friends—being a chronic truth picker, tonight (with a little liquid courage) you decide that you want nothing but to humor your associates, you chose dare—turns into you blindly making your way into the dark forest with nothing but a lamp, pocket knife, and a few neon stickers to help you make your way back; and that’s only if you’re not murdered.

By the looks of it, the surrounding forest is empty. The only sounds come from the rustling of tree leaves mingling together due to the wind, the sounds of birds squawking in the far distance, and the snapping and crunching of twigs and leaves beneath your shoes. You trek your way through the trees and dirt extremely unnerved. Nothing has happened at all, and although you’re thankfully still alive and breathing, making your way through the clutter of trees and dead wood, you cannot help but be a bit frightened about the dreariness and uncertainty of the situation.

It’s a cold night, predicted to snow a bit; temperature dropping lower and lower with each hour that falls. The sun had set a while ago and the purple-orange hue leftover has now faded from blue into black. And while the stars are beginning to show themselves—pristine and beautiful—the dark sky only adds to the dreariness of your walk through the forest. The sudden additional silence is eerie, nature has stilled completely. Although the echo of stillness is inexplicable, unusual; it comforts you—knowing that you would hear your assailant coming, should you come close to being attacked.

When looking at your watch, you find that you’ve only been in the forest for fifteen of the required thirty minutes—it’s very possible that you can go the distance, turning on your heels and deciding to make your fifteen minute walk back to the edge of the dark forest; and most importantly, to safety. After all, your friends must be worried about you by now; maybe even surprised that you’ve really stuck to the dare. In a matter of minutes, this will be all over and you will be resting at home.

You had to have been walking in one straight direction, right? Maybe because it’s dark, and you, admittedly, have drunk quite a bit, but the placemarkers you remember sticking to the trees along your path are nowhere to be found. The light of your lamp shines against tree after tree, but they remain in their natural state, unchanged. Your eyes widen, heartbeat increasing as you look at the leftover placemarkers you hold in your hand, only six remaining of your original twenty—so you know you’ve used them.

You stop in your tracks, not willing to venture any further than you already have. Mind racing, scanning and assessing all the possible things you can do, slowly slipping into a panic. You could scream as loud as you can, vocally expressing your need for rescue; but how likely is it that you’ll be heard, especially given how deep into this unchanging landscape you are. Perhaps you can continue walking ahead, only praying that you make your way out unharmed—after all, safety should have been just a fifteen minute walk ahead.

As you lift your foot a few centimeters off of the ground to make your first step, through the darkness of the forest and out of your peripherals, you swear you see a large shadow for just a split second—lurched over and next to a thick tree to your right. A chill runs down your spine and you shudder as you realize the presence of this creature; intimidating and dominant. Taking no chances, feet hitting the ground hard as you sprint through the woods, doing your best to escape this nightmare; real or otherwise.

The action of running when you feel like you’re being chased, versus running because you are being chased, are quite similar. It’s all instinct, a gut feeling that you jump on, increased heart rate; it’s choosing to flee rather than to fight. The difference, in this moment, you realize, is the definite risk of getting caught. The consequences could prove to be unsatisfactory, at the very least, if you were to be caught by whatever it is that may be following after you. Although, looking behind, there’s nothing in sight—no sign of disaster nor danger. You continue along, albeit a lot slower than before, attempting to catch your breath a bit. Walking off trail just a bit to slow down and assess your next course of action.

The snapping of a twig within your vicinity has you darting from the temporary hiding place. However, the predator is right on your trail, persisting in its hunt for flesh. You weave your way through the woods, brain firing off about escaping quickly without harm. The chase does not last long, though. One misstep taking you down, tumbling. Briefly, in your panic, you appear to meet eyes with the foul beast. Fear lodged in your throat, dry and brittle—crumbling into tiny little pieces that pester your insides like a million tiny beetles finding a dark, cavernous home. Stomach clenching, seizing as you cower in submission to your terror. Hands buried into the freshly fallen snow—previous footsteps already blanketed over and long gone. Never have you thought you would give up so easily; unsure if you’ve got it within you to fight back in the absolute worst case.

Body stuck in place, paralyzed with fear once you hear the snow behind you crunch, a sign that the creature is inching closer to you. It’s like your life flashes before your eyes once you feel the snout of the creature pressed against the back of your neck, heat blowing against the back of your neck, followed by a short, deep snarl emitting from within the beast. The large presence behind you is undeniable. The way the creature towers over you is horrifying—a domineering and overbearing sense of power, exuding pride and strength in the form of body heat. It circles you, though you are too terrified to look towards it, despite the daring growl it emits. Heart racing, nearly about to jump out of your chest and run away itself. The creature begins to circle around you, and out of the corner of your eye you can see its feet—huge black paws. Oh great! You’ll be eaten alive.

But then the feet of the beast turns into man, and slowly you raise your face to get a good look at its true face. He starts off as a blur initially, but the longer you look at him, the more recognizable he becomes. A face you’ve always seen lurking around town. Though despite the area being rather small, you’ve never formally interacted—only stared at each other from a distance then kept it moving. Tonight, however, you finally decided to walk up to him at the local bar whilst with friends, only for him to walk away without a word. ‘Oh, him? Yeah, Chan is just like that.’

“Mmm. What’s that smell?” Chan asks while humming. Arms caging you in against the tree as he presses his nose against your neck, right near a particularly sweet spot. “Smells heavenly. So sweet and delicious.”

He continues to sniff you out, planting a small kiss to your neck before traveling lower, nose now pressed to the fabric of your clothing. Face pressed in between the valley of your breast, Chan takes a long, deep inhale. His eyes are closed as he pulls back, slightly smirking with clear contentment. Chan takes the material of your shirt pinched between his fingertips before tearing the shirt down the middle, groaning at your now exposed chest. His hands cup your tits, thumbs teasing at your nipples, as he runs his nose down the valley, before swiping back up with his tongue.

Chan isn’t done, nose still pressed against your skin as he sinks down to his knees. Rough hands cupping your ass, squeezing, as he stops—nose pressed against your mound, breathing you in while trying to pull you closer, finally finding the source of that sweet, heavenly scent. He’s breathing heavily to the point that you can feel his hot breath against your skin through the thin material of your skirt; snarling as he takes in your scent. And he’s mumbling something down there—pussy hungry words about how fucking delectable you smell. Perfect to devour.

Contrary to the petrifying circumstance, the rush of adrenaline you get in the moment is euphoric and exhilarating. Chan’s touch is hot against you, almost scorching, and leaves you wanting—no, needing more of him.

He hikes up the long length of your skirt with ease, throwing your leg over his shoulder to force your hips towards his face, diving face first into your cunt. Tongue lapping up hungrily at your wetness, moaning and groaning without a care in the world as he gets the first taste of his meal. Plump lips sucking your clit, vibrating when he moans, causing you to shake and squirm, but Chan has a strong grip against you. He’s messy as he eats you—occasionally breaking free, not for air, but to spit against your cunt—as the lower half of his face is covered in your nectar; which he hopes never washes off, absolutely frenzied by your scent, cock hard and leaking cum, jumping at the thought of finally getting to fuck his cock into this sweet little cunt.

While Chan is usually a patient man, having no problem in waiting—stalking his prey and then teasing them for hours upon hours on end—he finds himself struck with need. A particular need to feast. To fuck and destroy his prey. Days and days of stalking you, taunting you from afar, and you played right into his palm—obviously fated to be found afraid and lost, deep in his territory. It is at this point he thinks to keep you. Perhaps hide you away somewhere cold and dark where only he’d be able to find you. Keeping you bound to him until he gets sick of you—or until you cease to exist. Aching to fuck you over and over and over again until it becomes too difficult for you to even think about moving a muscle, succumbing fully to his torturous pleasure. He stops himself from thinking too far ahead all too soon, clearly entranced by the sweetness of your cunt.

Chan springs to his feet; cock heavy, hard and curving to the right, tip swelling red with need and dripping with precum. Your eyes are glued to his cock as you watch him massage his right hand over it; even in his big palms his cock is huge. The excitement to take him spreads from the pit of your stomach and up your chest, visualizing into the form of goosebumps all over your arms. He just laughs at the look on your face; how equally intrigued and dismayed you appear. A perfect little lamb stalked and caught by the big bad wolf, unable to flee due to their own fascination despite their fright.

Chan leans in, his lips against yours briefly. A hand curling into your hair to bring you down to your knees, you follow suit. His hand stays tangled in your hair, pulling harshly against your scalp. With his other hand, Chan strokes his cock, running his thumb over the tip; then pulling your head towards his tip. Eagerly, your tongue slips from your mouth, ready to taste everything he’s giving you. You swirl your tongue around him, but Chan has other plans, slowly sliding his cock into your mouth; helping you savor the slightly salty taste of his seed. Fixing your mouth open as wide as it can go, with both hands now tangled into your hair, he thrusts his cock in and out of your mouth, slowly increasing the speed of his thrust.

“You just take it like a good girl, huh?” You don’t say anything, but that dazed look in your eye and the moan that escapes from deep in your throat tells Chan all he needs to know.

“Perfect little mouth, but I bet that pussy is even better.” Chan frees his cock from your mouth with a trail of spit. His hand around his cock once again, the slick sound like music to your ears. Though, it’s at this point that the cold air is starting to get to you—the snow is light but still continuous—yet you power through it for just another taste of Chan.

“Want you so bad,” You bite your lip, looking into his eyes, eyebrows furrowed together. You stand and stretch to turn your back to him, looking over your shoulder as you wiggle your backside towards him like a bitch in heat. Chan smirks at you, a small laugh erupting from him at the sight of your shamelessness.

In the heat of the moment, Chan licks the palm of his hand before bringing it down to rub at your cunt from behind. He doesn’t say anything, but you can hear a long, deep snarl come from within his chest. The closer he gets to you, the louder the growl echoes, and the more he warms you with his body heat—caging you in against the tree. You grind into his hand, greedily taking anything he gives you. While Chan is steadily becoming just as impatient as you, he always spares time to play with his food; teasing the tip of his cock against your slit. Chan slowly slides into your cunt—a rough hand clenching onto your hip, nails digging into your skin; not nearly enough to keep him from losing his cool as your wetness encases his cock, wet and tight.

You’re barely taking half of his dick before the stretch of it nearly becomes too much—but he’s one step ahead of you; arm snakes across your belly and down to your cunt, two wet fingers ready to play with your clit. Chan works his fingers against your clit slowly winding you up, all while planting a quick kiss against your shoulder; tongue drooling out to lick a long wet stripe against your neck. It’s only once he receives a moan from you in response that he starts thrusting into you slowly; the thrusts of his hips syncing with the movement of his fingers.

It isn’t long before you’re taking more and more of his cock, being stuffed and stretched deliciously. Cunt leaking and begging for more of him. Chan lets out these harsh growls and grunts that contrast with the pitch of your moans. His nails dig into your hips, using a minimal amount of strength to pull your hips back against him, making you meet his thrusts. His hips smack against your ass roughly, cock stretching you further, but your cunt swallows every inch perfectly. That’s only until he slides out of you, wordless, yet, still letting out a snarl. He pushes you onto the ground, hands and knees crashing into the new layers of snow. You yelp out in response, but Chan can only laugh at you.

“Just letting me push you around like this? I think I should keep you,” He follows you, kneeling onto the ground, cock in hand. Laying a quick smack at your ass, he hums. “How would you feel about being my little plaything, huh?”

His free hand kneads against your ass while he plays with his cock. “Keep you locked up with me ‘n only let you out in these woods at night, hmm? All cute ‘n naked for me to hunt down and fuck again.”

“And you can’t even hide cause I’ll always find you, pretty.” He finally slides into your cunt, still not letting you have all of him, yet. “How does that sound? Do you like it?”

His words are filthy and so are his touches but somehow he’s got you entranced. You let out a loud, cracked sob of a yes in response to his inquiries as if he bullied it out of you. “Good girl.”

Chan finally allows himself to break—hips snapping harshly into yours. Not caring if you go limp from the way he’s fucking into you, instead his hands are once again clenching your hips, grinding his hips against your ass whenever he thrusts his cock back into you. Your fists clutching onto the snow as you take his cock, unable to do much but drool and mewl for him.

He presses his chest across your back, caging you onto the cold ground. His tongue once again flat against your skin, licking every inch of what exposed skin he has access to. Still pounding into you as he chases his impending orgasm. Then he sinks his teeth into the skin of your shoulder, letting out a whine rather than the usual growl as he fucks his cum into you. It’s hot, sticky, and heavy—and it seems like it’s unending; seemingly producing more and more as he pumps his cock into you. Slowly Chan reaches a hand down to press against your lower abdomen; feeling how your belly swells with all the cum his cock is feeding your cunt.

You moan at the feeling when Chan pulls out of you with a sigh of exhaust. Cum coating his cock and spilling out of your cunt, staining your thighs. So much of his seed has spilled out and he’s no longer stuffing you with his cock, but yet you feel so full. Chan continues to incite, two thick fingers dip into your cunt to scoop up and play with the excess cum that’s dripping from your hole.

Chan pulls you back to him by your arms, caging you against his chest. He whispers to you. “What if we played a fun little game, hm?”

He grips your chin and those same two digits that were once inside of you, force into your mouth, offering you another taste of Chan’s cum. There’s a hint of a smile in his voice, “Let’s say, I give you a ten second head start to run.”

Chan kisses the back of your neck and a chill runs down your spine. “The ten seconds start now.”

He frees you from his hold, and springs to his feet leaving you dumbfounded. But by the time you stand and face the direction of Chan, legs weak and cold, he’s no longer there.

It seems his fun little game has officially started.

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txtbeomi · 22 days

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A Work Proposal Masterlist

Pairing: O8T x reader Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff Warnings: 18+, MDNI, Explicit Content All parts of this piece are strictly 18+ and contain explicit material reader discretion is advised and the author will not be responsible should prior warnings be ignored.

You had been working with Stray Kids for a while now and after a long day at work turns into a very unexpected but intriguing proposal. Will this change your world or end your career.

Intro Part 1 (Chan x reader) Part 2 (Chan x reader x Changbin) Part 3 (Hyunjin x reader) Part 4 (Han x reader x Felix) Part 5 (Jeongin x reader) Part 6 (Seungmin x reader) Part 7 (Lee Know x reader) Interlude (Chan x reader) Part 8 (Felix x reader) Part 9 (Changbin x reader) Part 10 (Hyunjin x reader x Felix) Part 11 (Seungmin x reader x Lee Know) Part 12 (Changbin x reader x Han) Part 13 (Chan x reader) Part 14 (Han x reader) Part 15 (Changbin x reader x Felix) Part 16 (Jeongin x reader)

Taglist is now closed xx

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txtbeomi · 29 days

Text

A Midsummer Love | hhj

❝𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐲?❞

↳ Much taken with the romance of finding a husband, you have looked excitedly to this season since you were a girl, only to find all you thought it would be ruined by your overprotective brother. Enter the handsome Duke of Hastings, who possessed of his own ulterior motives, presents you with an arrangement to yield you a love match. This season shall be the most scandalous yet.

↳ Hwang Hyunjin x female reader

↳ Bridgerton au. Fake relationship romance trope. Period piece, early 19th century. Angst and tension, conflict, mild violence, sexual tension and budding romance, yearning and pining, a sweet and happy ending.

! Mature content, adult themes, 17k, suitable for 18+ readers only !

「Part of the skz tropes collab w @yoongihan」「main contents list」「© March 2024 by jl-micasea-fics」

‘Twas the Regency era’s fifth season of courtship that bloomed upon the ton when you came of age.

The whispered stirrings of anticipation bewitched ladies and lords alike as early as the first thawing of spring’s chill, and to say you had counted down the days towards it would be to vastly understate your enthusiasm.

Last season you had watched your elder sister make her debut with awe, enraptured by the gowns and balls and romance that seemed to glow rosily over all of society for the summer months that were, in your young eyes, all too painfully brief. Now they began again, bringing hope after dream, and you felt it not too soon to proclaim that these months would be yours. How wistfully you had dreamt of the day you would be whisked off your feet by a wealthy, handsome gentleman that would make of you a blushing bride and (though the logistics escaped you), a doting mother to many, many children. How beautiful a life you would live, making a home of a quaint country house— it need not be so opulent, of course; perhaps ten or so rooms in which to repose would be ample. Taking tea and hosting friends would fill you with much delight, as would turning in with a good book to the view of gardens clustered with flowers and exotic posies of the most stunningly vibrant ilk.

Such were the romantic musings you lost yourself to amidst the surrounding clamour of house servants that fussed about your bedroom.

“Come, come Miss!” One such servant entreated, her arms full of colourful satin ribbons. “We must get you dressed! Time is upon us!”

When the work of the servants was done and you had been made presentable, you admired yourself in the looking glass, whereupon your breath caught. Surely the modiste had outdone herself; you hardly knew your reflection. The white chiffon gown fell flatteringly to the shape of your body, trimmed as it was with dove’s feathers and silver. Satin white gloves and a gossamer shawl about your shoulders kept you modest, yet a generous neckline did plainly put on show your decolletage and the long column of your throat, teasing at the swell of cleavage your snug corset so amply bestowed.

“My goodness!”

Your mother’s breathless exclamation drew your attention to the doorway, where she flustered and fussed. She breezed over as though to take you in a hug, yet caught herself for fear of rustling what perfection had been achieved.

“My darling girl, look at you,” she cooed, her kind eyes teary. “Should the queen not immediately proclaim you the diamond of the season on first sight of you; well! I shall proclaim her mad on the spot, and off shall be my head!”

“Mother, please,” you laughed, warm with her affection. “I can hardly take credit. If anything, I rather think I should be thanking you.”

“Nonsense!” She waved the sentiment away. “The finest gowns are but rags on those unfortunate young ladies without the poise for them. You, my dear, will be the most refined debutant of the social season.” She pressed a soft kiss to your cheek. “Now, then. Are you ready?”

“To face the queen and have her exact judgement upon me before all the ton?”

“Yes.”

With a deep breath, you nodded. “I have awaited this day for longer than I care to admit, mother. Yes. I am ready.”

“You shall dazzle, my dear.” She turned to the orderly line of servants still amassed. “Fetch the carriage, please. My second born is to debut today!”

Never had you seen so much beauty in one place— surely such gatherings upset the balance of things, temporally or spiritually.

Most everywhere you looked was a young lady dressed in her finery, attended to by their mother or other such family member to which they afforded responsibility of chaperone. The keen tingle of giddy nerves hovered about the royal lobby, the vastness of which was almost enough to overmaster your own anxiety— how high the ornate ceiling loomed above your head! From the first you had been utterly awed, having heard only tales from your sister of the rich grandness the royal family possessed, the gold and the white and the floral; her stories seemed to fall utterly short of where you now stood, waiting your turn to parade yourself before the queen, who in the next room reposed with her retinue and all those noble men and women of court. An intimidating affair no matter which way one sliced it, to have one’s name called out in invitation to a lion’s den, but so excitedly were you anticipating what might come after the formalities had been dispensed with, you found yourself rather clearer of mind than those that shared your plight. The opulent double doors at the far of the room were opened and shut by the pages, yet another young lady admitted with a fanfare.

“Now, remember dear,” your mother said softly. “Be only what you are. The queen will know if you appear before her with ill airs and graces. She has a nose for such things.”

“Yes, mother. I shall be fine.”

“Naturally, dear. Naturally. Just— Well, do take care where you tread, yes? Your frock is so delicate. Should I have instructed the modiste to take it up an inch? Will you be—”

“Mother.” You took her hands. “I shall be fine.”

Just then, the clear pronunciation of your name suffixed by ‘of the house Bridgerton’ was heard by all, your heart lurching with the blare of horns that accompanied it. Your mother flustered yet stood aside for your entrance, maintaining several paces behind as you stepped from the lobby and into the queen’s chamber. Lords and ladies and courtiers of unthinkable wealth and astute reputation looked on, gathered either side of the central aisle where you walked demurely, head held high, heart pounding all the while. The queen, so widely known to be benevolent and fair, awaited you at the end, throned and wrapped in a grand gown of striking purple that complemented her dark, silky complexion. It was difficult to tell much of her expression: her lips were pressed thinly, her brown eyes focused. Behind her stood her retinue of ladies-in-waiting, each of them cradling a bundle of white fluff that you understood to be the queen’s dogs— the small irony made your lips twitch. Just as the tinny shrill of the horns faded and died, you stopped and gave as most courteous a curtsy as your mother had trained you to do.

“Your Majesty,” you said reverently.

Still, it remained nigh impossible to intonate anything of the queen’s feelings through her drawn features. She looked you up and down, and after a moment, rose from her throne. A quick gasp shocked all in the room, and though composed in appearance, your insides twirled with worry.

She took an elegant step towards you, and all at once it seemed too bold to look so directly and so closely at the queen, force of nature that she was. And yet the queen reached out to tilt your chin up and right your posture, looking you squarely in the eye. She smiled warmly.

“Flawless, my dear,” she said.

So it was that the diamond of the season had been found, and within the hour the news had swept across the ton and into every household of note, eliciting from those bachelors keen to seek a wife this season a most enthused and determined course of action, for the young lady that possessed the queen’s endorsement was unquestionably proper and pretty in every way a young lady ought to be, and therefore coveted the attentions of the finest men.

During the carriage ride home you listened to your mother speak excitedly of all this, in truth too giddy to much consider that you might attract the wrong attentions.

“And so, mother, you understand why I must take over as her chaperone and representative, yes?”

The eldest Bridgerton brother meant well. He, like all men, simply lacked the trait considered widely to be feminine, but that to your mind (perhaps naïvely) ought to be considered par for the course of simple conversational etiquette in high society: tact.

“I’m afraid I do not, Anthony,” your mother replied, her stitching set aside. “In fact, if I possessed a more hysterical mind, I might think that you mean to insult me.”

Anthony rolled his eyes, pacing about the warm sitting room. “I mean no such thing.”

“You imply that my judgement in the matter of your sister’s matching is inferior to your own, do you not?”

“I imply that your knowledge as to the men of the ton is inferior to mine, mother,” he said. “My sister has been proclaimed the diamond of the season. You know well the attention this will draw to her.”

Your mother smiled. “Indeed, I do. The more, the better for her.”

“And that is precisely why I should be more involved,” he sighed. “She should not indulge just any man that approaches her, mother. It might not be gossiped of in your sewing circles, but I assure you, the things I know of these men remove more than half of them from eligible courting.”

Your mother blinked. “And how, dear son, did you come to possess such information?”

Anthony ceased his pacing.

“Would it be because you too frequent the gentleman’s clubs?”

“I am a man. It is normal to—”

“Normal for you, but not normal for those men that may show interest in your sister?”

With a start, he roughly cleared his throat. “Am I not the man of this house?” he asked sharply. “Is my word not final? I shall accompany her to every ball and event of the season and take responsibility as chaperone. I will know who intends to court her. This, I have decided. We shall speak no more of it.”

Your mother sighed wearily and picked up her stitching. “As you wish, dear.”

“I merely wish the best for her, mother.”

“I know, dear.”

Anthony nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Well, then. I have business to attend to.”

He strode across the room as though to leave.

“Anthony?”

He turned back to where his mother reposed in a stream of summer sunlight.

“Your word is final on matters of the Bridgerton household. That is the duty left to you by your dear father,” she said gently. “But mind your words on your sister’s heart. You cannot speak for her when she sets it, and she will do so of her own volition.”

Anthony pursed his lips, indignance flaring.

He would see about that.

The first ball of the season was thrown by the esteemed Lady Danbury, a close acquaintance of your mother’s. You knew her to be a rich widow, her husband having passed when she was middle-aged, and the vast fortunes she now enjoyed were those left to her by marriage.

When the carriage pulled up outside Danbury House, you were much awed by what you saw. The grand country manor had been set for the event, vines of colourful wildflowers wound about the stone pillars that propped the awning. Gemstone encrusted braziers blazed hot with open flame, tincturing the summer night with the excitable scent of burnt charcoal. They aligned a wide red carpet that lords and ladies walked arm in arm, and it was this that you stepped upon as you climbed from the carriage.

Anthony, first to disembark, offered you his arm.

“Come, sister.”

Entering the manor to the bustle of partygoers, you returned greetings and well wishes to those that you both knew and didn’t; indeed, the heft of the queen’s issue of you soon became clear. All eyes were trained to you as though expecting you might grow a second head, and though flattered by the attention, you were inwardly flustered and consequently glad that your brother had decided on accompanying you, despite the initial perplexment.

In the main ballroom, a central dance floor was marked off by high standing bouquets of white and lilac lilies— such appeared to be the theme of the night. Soft violet hangings of chiffon and lace formed stunning tapestries along the smooth, curved walls. Bows and ribbons and elegant arrangements of dove white fabric concealed the darker corners of the ballroom, so that all appeared bright and soft. Suited servants made the rounds with flutes of fizz and bites to eat. Young ladies stood near to their chaperones, their coy eyes wandering to those men whose attentions they most hoped to attract. The gentle tones of violin and cello floated about the ballroom from the concentrated band, soon to play a tune that would have all involved in the customary baroque dances.

Your conversations with the other ladies were congenial and light; pleasantries exchanged on your dress and your apparent luck at being declared the season diamond. Three quarters of an hour passed much like this, and having yet to be approached by a suitor with an offer of conversation or dance, you began to worry. Was your dress not so appealing after all? Was there something wrong with your hair? Did you have something in your teeth?

“Anthony!” called a voice from across the ballroom, so loud as to startle you from your thoughts.

“Lord Berbrooke!”

Somewhat solemn until now, your brother’s face lit up as he warmly greeted the stout gentleman that had entreated him. He was rotund around the middle and at least two heads shorter than Anthony, his cheeks puffy red and chin abused by a scraggly ginger beard. Too long did his bloodshot eyes linger on you, much to your discomfort.

“How goes it, Viscount?” Berbrooke asked gruffly, his breath hot around his words. “Not married yet?”

Anthony shook his head. “No. God forbid I ever should be.”

“Tosh! It comes to us all in the end, Bridgerton. You shall be no exception; especially with a fortune such as your father left.” He licked his chapped lips. “I imagine you've suitors simply chomping at the bit to get a foot in the door, so to speak.”

“Not as many as one would like,” you muttered.

“What was that, young lady?”

Anthony laughed, and in a bid to change the topic, said, “Lord Berbrooke, this is my younger sister. She makes her debut this season.”

You smiled and curtseyed politely. Berbrooke’s eyes rolled over you greedily.

“A fine young flower, indeed,” he slathered. “What a delight it is to meet you, my dear.”

Revulsion twisted your gut, yet you smiled all the same.

“Might I steal her away for a dance, Anthony?” he asked.

“You flatter me, sir, but I—”

“She would be delighted,” Anthony stated flatly. “Wouldn’t you, sister?”

Berbrooke looked on eagerly. Horrified but unable to voice it, you strained a smiled and nodded, suddenly coming to understand what it was had made you so entirely unapproachable this evening— or rather, who.

“Please excuse me a moment.”

Not wishing to remain a second longer, you quickly departed the conversation and hurried across the ballroom, heart in your throat. You were loath to believe that Anthony’s insistence on chaperoning could be based on such overzealous reasoning as protecting your virtue, but how else was it to be interpreted when all evening he had stood sombrely at your side, repelling all who might hope to approach save for one? And that one, of all!

“Sister!”

Catching your elbow and halting your escape, Anthony quietly manoeuvred you aside.

“You will apologise to Lord Berbrooke for your rudeness,” he said plainly.

“Apologise?” you hissed, for your relationship with your brother was none delicate and could well withstand the brazenness of sibling conflict. “How could you ask me to dance with him?”

“Lord Berbrooke is a fine man. He has business in many quarters of the city and his reputation is solid. Above board. You could do much worse.”

“I could do better, brother. He is thrice your age and ten times as foul. I will never marry him.”

“You would do well to remember yourself. The matter of your marriage is as much my affair as it is yours. You will be matched well, and by my hand.”

“Then I shall not be matched at all,” you said, tears pricking your eyes. “When I marry, it shall not be in the name of convenience or business. It shall be for love.”

“Oh, do grow up, for heaven’s sake.”

“Mother shall hear of this.”

“Mother already has. She has agreed to my terms.”

“If that were true, you would not have insisted on her residing at home tonight,” you said, snatching your arm from his grip.

“Sister—”

“I require air. Do not follow me.”

You stormed away before your tongue could much more loosen, weaving through the crowd that had begun to amass on the spacious ballroom floor, positions taken up according to the music cues that you hardly heard for the anxious pounding of your heart.

Anthony could not do this to you. You would not allow him to do this to you. To marry that detestable man would be the most unthinkable fate—

Just then, you were promptly winded by a force of collision to your chest, solid enough to have you reeling from your feet. Strong arms caught and steadied you, and you soon realised that the fault was all your own— in your distress you had rushed with haste into the broad back of a man you’d never before seen, but that now held you near to him and looked upon you with soft hazel eyes and a grim expression of bewilderment. Light blonde, shoulder-length hair framed his features that, in the ballroom light, seemed almost feminine in their soft curvature, yet the tell of masculinity held in his strong jaw and sharp nose.

“M— My apologies,” you quickly offered, straightening yourself and stepping from him; he released you easily.

“The apology should be mine,” he said in a most pleasingly smooth voice. He bowed courteously. “Curse my foolish body for getting in your way, my lady.”

You laughed lightly, somewhat relieved. “Indeed. Curse my eyes for not seeing your foolish body.”

The man grinned, his perfect white teeth on show. Breathtaking.

“I do not believe I know you, sir,” you said. “You are from the city?”

“Ah. Well, yes. I am not long returned to the ton. My business demands I spend much of the year overseas.”

“And you are back for the social season?”

He cast his eyes over you, a wry smile forming on his plush lips. “At the request of my aunt, yes.”

About to throw yet another question at the man whose name you had yet to even discover (for that was simply how enthralling he was), your endeavour was disturbed by the boom of your brother’s voice.

“Hwang!” He approached quickly and took the man you were addressing in an embrace that was spiritedly returned. “I had not heard you were back!”

“Then you pay as little attention to the gossipmongers of this city than I, old friend,” he laughed.

“Business allows you the break?” Anthony asked.

“Business flows as busily as ever, Bridgerton.”

“I see. We have the esteemed Lady Danbury to thank, then?”

“My aunt can be...” He flicked a gaze to you. “Persuasive.”

On your congenial smile and the acknowledgement of your presence, Anthony finally turned to you.

“I see you have met my sister,” he said, tone markedly flat.

“Your sister?”

Anthony nodded. The man blinked, his smile disappearing.

“Sister, allow me to introduce you. This is the Duke of Hastings and a personal friend of mine. Hwang Hyunjin.”

A duke. Goodness. Though he himself seemed none taken with the formality, grimacing at the exchange.

“It is wonderful to meet you, your grace,” you said, looking determinedly into those sweet eyes.

“The pleasure is entirely mine, my lady.” He returned the gaze.

“Yes, well—” Anthony cleared his throat. “She debuts this season, and it is my endeavour to find her a suitable match.”

“I am capable of deciding for myself, brother. Shocking though it might be for you to discover, I am possessed of a brain.”

Hyunjin scoffed a laugh.

“I have already introduced her to the esteemed Lord Berbrooke,” Anthony said, quite ignorant. “I rather think him a strong candidate.”

“Berbrooke?” Hyunjin repeated. “Surely you cannot mean—”

“Mean what? You do not agree that he would make a reputable husband and provide for my sister well?” Anthony snapped.

Hyunjin nodded. “If that is where your concerns lie, I suppose.”

“I know well the reputations of all these men,” Anthony continued, casting a disapproving glare about the ballroom. “Not one of them has anything to recommend them to my sister as suitor, let alone husband. Their very names inspire scandal.”

“I think that a margin harsh, Bridgerton,” Hyunjin said. “Those in glass houses should not throw stones.”

“You think me like them?”

“I only hope that when the time comes for your search of a wife, you will not be beholden to the same kind of persecution. If visiting the gentleman’s clubs and such propensities are enough to deem a man unworthy of marriage, then not one in all of London shall ever wed!”

Anthony’s nostrils flared, his ego clearly struck.

“I merely think you worry unduly,” Hyunjin then added gently. “Your sister, like you, is a Bridgerton. Trust in her to make the right decision.”

How quickly you were growing to like this man— stunning beauty aside, you easily felt yourself warming by his glance and soft smile, his words so affirming. With a sigh and shrug, he patted your brother on the shoulder.

“If you would kindly excuse me, I believe I am quite spent for one night. We shall catch up, Bridgerton.”

He turned to you and bowed courteously, taking your hand to which he pressed a soft, reverential kiss.

“A pleasure,” he said.

With that, he strode off through the crowd, bodies parting for him and longing eyes following where yours too went.

Hwang Hyunjin, Duke of Hastings.

A pleasure, indeed.

The days that followed Lady Danbury’s ball were, by your own declaration, a torrent of misery.

Lord Berbrooke, spurred on by your brother’s approval, sought to court you every day, calling on the house to regale you with tales of his business and of his youth as a military man. Listening to the tales was not so painful as merely sitting with him, for the man seemed to possess no ideals of bathing or the benefits of pleasantly scented herbs to ease the eye-watering odour which he seemed to carry always— how vehemently you insisted on extra sprigs of lavender in the sitting room.

Your mother, adequately horrified by the entire affair, made her displeasure known to Anthony on multiple occasions and with increasing strength, and you might have found relief in it if you believed he would in any way relent. As it stood, there seemed no sign that he would budge on the matter of your betrothal to Berbrooke, and with such little power as you possessed, there appeared nothing to be done about it.

“Must I promenade with him, mother?” you asked wearily.

“Oh, my dear.” Your mother patted your cheek gently, affixed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I know this weighs heavily on you, but do as your brother says for now. I have not given up on changing his mind on all this.”

“I was declared the diamond of the season.” Your voice caught, breaking with tears. “Does that mean nothing to him?”

“It is difficult to see it now, but he simply wishes the best for you. For the family.”

“If he truly wished that, he would marry himself. He speaks of duty and honour, yet I see no such demonstration from him.”

Your mother looked on you sadly, her sympathetic eyes reflecting all you already knew— that when your emotions got the better of you, there was no assuaging to be done.

“It falls to you, my dear,” your mother said. “Show him that there are other men in the ton able to make for you an honourable husband. His prejudice blinds him, but if he sees how you try, perhaps he shall bend. There is nothing else for it.”

You sighed and blinked through the tears. Your mother wrapped her arms around you gently, the comfort of home so reassuring for its part.

“A diamond glitters no matter how dense the darkness,” she whispered. “This all shall pass. I promise.”

The summer morning was light and warm, the park in full and colourful bloom. Lush lawns of trimmed green dipped to embankments that circled the calm lake, where lords and ladies took tea and sweets as their chaperones and families looked on. Pastel parasols bobbed along the paths like buoys seeking land, the gentle breeze rustling their fringes redolent of freshly cut grass and sweet wildflowers; the essence of rosy, romantic summer.

Shame that it did not quite reach you, however, tucked under the shade of a tall birch where you stood sombrely and watched the enamoured couples promenade. Your brother lurked at your right-hand like the gargoyle he had taken to becoming, while your mother poised at your left.

“Perhaps we should walk a while, Anthony?” she asked. “It is such clement weather, it would do us good to—”

“We wait for Lord Berbrooke.”

Your heart sank.

“Anthony, please,” your mother entreated. “I am sure Lord Berbrooke shall find us. We look quite the lark, standing here uncomfortably. People are watching, you know.”

“Let them watch,” he sighed. “They shall see nothing of interest.”

And it was at that moment that a stroke of luck happened upon you.

“Lady Bridgerton?” A smooth, feminine voice said, puzzled. Your mother turned quickly, her face alight when she saw her good and old friend.

“Lady Danbury! How good to see you!”

Lady Danbury was, as ever, turned out as though the day might be her last. Deep purple satin made her frock, and her eccentricity shone through in the smart top hat wound with ribbons that perched on her head.

“Indeed,” Lady Danbury said, her look quizzical. “You are here to promenade?”

“We are,” your mother replied, and then quickly added, “We sought some shade from our walking. How hot it is today!”

“Walk with me, then. I am in need of good company.”

“We are awaiting someone—”

“Thank you, my lady,” you hastily took her on the offer, linking your mother’s arm before your brother could much more ruin things for you. Several steps out of the shade after her felt an immediate relief.

“You do not join us, Viscount?” Lady Danbury turned back to ask.

He shook his head stiltedly. “I shall see you on the way around.”

“As you like, then.”

With that, the three of you took to a delightful stroll about the lake, the clack of Lady Danbury’s cane timing your pleasant pace.

“How fares things, Lady Bridgerton?” Lady Danbury asked.

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

“Much the same. I must say; I did not expect to see the viscount in attendance at my ball. He so seldom involves himself in the social season. He is chaperoning this time?”

Your mother nodded. “He is.”

Lady Danbury laughed, gravelly yet soft. “He is giving you a time of it?”

“I do not wish to speak out of turn, Lady Danbury.”

“Nonsense. We are all women. Lord knows we cannot speak to the men of our strife— they are so often the cause of it!”

Your mother sighed. “Indeed. Well. I dare say he is—”

“He is forcing me into a marriage with Lord Berbrooke,” you said.

Lady Danbury quirked a brow. “I see.”

“He says the other men of the ton are unsuitable. That he knows their reputations and pastimes and that their names would invite scandal.”

“He is in search of a saint, then?”

“It certainly appears so.”

Your mother intervened. “He means well, Lady Danbury.”

“Of course. He takes the duties of his father seriously. One cannot resent him that.”

“But should he not trust my judgement on the matter of a husband? I wish to marry for love, Lady Danbury, as my parents did. As my sister did. Not for business. I have told him as such, yet he frightens all the men from me. Not one dares approach!”

Lady Danbury hummed. “It is indeed unfortunate that he has made the matter of your marriage his first course of business. Though it is not unheard of for such marriages of convenience to bloom in love. I can speak to this myself.”

“Lady Danbury.” You stopped. “I sooner see myself declaring madness than falling in love with that foul ogre of a man. I should rather live alone and spend my days as a spinster than—”

“Aunt!”

All eyes turned to the approaching gentleman that jogged gently across the lawn, his light blonde hair like silk about his shoulders. Yet more breathtaking in the glow of summer than the first you saw him, something felt as though to twist in your chest as the Duke of Hastings embraced Lady Danbury warmly, a kiss on each of her cheeks.

“I did not think to see you here, your grace,” she said.

“You may dispense with the formalities, aunt,” he laughed, then looked up to the sky. “I thought I might soak up the sunshine whilst it lasts. So rarely does it visit.”

“How agreeable. Walk with us then.” Lady Danbury turned to you and your mother. “You have met the Bridgertons?”

Hyunjin bowed courteously. “I have not had the pleasure of the matriarch,” he said. “How lovely to meet you.”

Your mother blushed scarlet when the man took her hand gently. “Y— Yes. Lovely.”

“And I believe we met at Lady Danbury’s ball, did we not, miss?” He directed the question to you, his eyes alight with something you could not read.

You nodded graciously. “We did, your grace.”

“Excellent. Let us walk, then.”

And so the promenade began again, with your mother and Lady Danbury taking to a leisurely pace ahead of yourself and Hyunjin. A respectable distance was maintained between you, and even so, you felt the warmth of the man through his smart navy two-piece that happened to fit him as though he had been birthed in it.

“I do not see your brother in attendance,” he said, hands clasped behind his back as he walked.

“He is here.”

“Ah. I shall see him later, then.”

A cluster of ladies gathered on the embankment giggled loudly— they were watching a fierce rowing competition on the lake between the men.

“Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?” Hyunjin asked.

“I did.”

“Good. I am glad to hear it. Only, you seemed rather out of sorts, is all.”

“You would have my brother to thank for that,” you sighed.

“I see. The matter of your matching?”

“Yes.”

“He still insists on Lord Berbrooke?”

“He does.”

Hyunjin shook his head.

“I do not wish to speak of it any longer,” you said. “Such grim topics spoil the day. Tell me of yourself, your grace. You are Lady Danbury’s nephew? By which side?”

The concern on his features did not so much abate, but he entertained you regardless.

“By neither. I call her my aunt, and she entreats me as her nephew, but we are not kin. She raised me just the same.”

“I see. And your parents?”

His brows drew together, a visible swallow bobbing his throat. “Gone.”

“I am very sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry?” He quirked a brow. “You need not be. All transpired well, and I owe all I have now to Lady Danbury’s kindness. She is a good woman.”

A moment of silence elapsed, where the many questions you could pose to him rattled around your head like skittles. How many hours you could spend simply conversing with him!

“I understand your father is also passed?”

You nodded. “The memories I have of him are fond. My siblings and I were much too young to understand what happened at the time, but Anthony...” You swallowed. “He recalls all of it, but he does not speak of it.”

“Naturally. Such tragedies are better left to collect dust. We must move on.”

“Agreed.”

“Start our own families and begin new legacies.”

“Quite.” You chewed your inner cheek. “May I ask something, your grace?”

Hyunjin stopped, for the path had directed over a small, raised area that bridged a trickling stream. “Of course.”

“You are not married?”

“I am not.”

“Why?”

Hyunjin looked out to the larger lake, head tilted back for the sun to kiss his handsome features and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

“I have never felt the need,” he said simply.

“But what of starting your own legacy? Your own family?”

“I am all the family I need. And at the risk of sounding pompous, my legacy is already well established. There are not many that do not know the Duke of Hastings and all he owns.”

“And what will you leave behind? What of an heir?”

“My estates and assets shall be donated on occasion of my death.”

“What of love?”

He opened his eyes, the almond flecks of hazel catching in the sunlight. So unthinkably stunning was he, your own breath caught short in your throat and seemed as though to seize. Such strange sensation made you flush with heat— Hyunjin smiled softly.

“Might I speak freely, my lady?”

You merely nodded, awestruck.

“You might think me mad, but it strikes me that we might be able to help one another.”

“H— Help?”

“Your brother is insistent on this arrangement with Berbrooke, yes?”

“Yes.”

“He will only relent to a man whose reputation he can respect? Whom he knows well?”

“I suppose.”

Hyunjin stepped closer, his voice a hush over the breeze. “As you know, it was my aunt that ordained my return to the ton for the season,” he said. “I could not well refuse her. But she is with motive. She hopes to secure me a wife, and now that the idea is upon her, it shall remain. Like you, I have tried to reason with her as to my feelings on the matter, but she is not to be convinced.”

“I see...”

“I propose we work together,” he continued. “Allow me to court you, and not only shall it satisfy my dear aunt that I am making attempts to marry and thus keep her eyes from me, but it shall assuage your brother’s worry as to your match. He and I are old friends; he cannot dispute that I am, for my part, a good man. He shall have no choice but to call off this arrangement with Berbrooke.”

“B— But, surely if you are seen to be courting me, I shall be kept even further from the attentions of other men?”

“On the contrary, my lady. There is nothing men covet more than that which his wealthy neighbour possesses. Once the ton hears of my attentions toward you, men will come from every constituency to court you. They shall clamour for your hand whether Anthony approves or not.”

It made sense. Oh, how much sense it made, but how much scandal it might provoke! To partake in a ruse such as this was unheard of, unthought of, entirely unlike you in most every way. And yet here you were, considering such proposition from a man you knew scarcely, save for that his face was carved by angels.

“What say you, my lady?” he asked softly, gloved hand discreetly offered.

What had you to lose, save a fate of spinsterhood and destitution?

“Very well.” You slipped your hand into his; he squeezed it tenderly, and your heart did something most bizarre. “You have a deal, your grace.”

“Excellent,” he smiled. “Though I must make one thing abundantly clear.”

You quirked a brow, still clasping his hand.

“This is an arrangement of business. We must not let our emotions interfere.”

“Meaning what, your grace?”

“Meaning...” He released your hand. “You must not fall in love with me, my lady.”

Your laugh was as forceful as the weight that sank your chest; he told you nothing noteworthy, for you knew how he spurned marriage and love. Yet to hear him say it seemed so sad. A waste of so much.

“You flatter yourself, Duke.”

“Perhaps. Just so long as we are clear.”

“We are clear.”

He nodded graciously. “Very well then. I look forward to working with you.”

“The Duke of Hastings is here to call on Miss Bridgerton.”

Your mother leapt up from her knitting, the ball of yarn rolling across the floor as her needles clattered.

“What!?” she cried. “My goodness! Say again?!”

The servant cleared their throat, and once more said, “The Duke of Hastings is here to call on Miss Bridgerton, my lady.”

What ensued was nothing short of a flurry of hysterical panic; servants ordered to furnish the sitting room with tea and refreshments and fetch the nicest doilies should the duke wish to set his teacup on any near surface. Such effort was neglected for the visits of Lord Berbrooke, and as you watched the chaos with a smile, it felt that the season of romance you always wished for might finally be starting. Such thoughts you really ought to have kept in check, for as you too often forgot: all of this was a pretence.

“Good morning, ladies.”

With a grand bouquet of lilac lilies—the favourites of his aunt, you noted—the duke was welcomed into the sitting room. Never had he looked more dashing, his three-piece suit of stone-grey clinging most pleasingly to where his frame betrayed lean, toned muscle. He was so tall as to stoop when he greeted your mother, his long legs stretching the britches that themselves seemed to struggle to contain the elegant length.

“What a wonderful surprise!” your mother gushed.

“I hope I do not impose upon you, Lady Bridgerton.”

“No, no! You are most welcome, your grace! Come, sit! Would you care for tea? Perhaps a sweet? Or anything else at all?”

After the frantic attendance of your mother had eased and you were left to the man’s company (inasmuch as ‘left’ occasioned; your mother merely retired to the other side of the sitting room, where she knitted and pretended not to listen), you thought of what to talk about. Indeed, it all seemed rather contrite when the arrangement bore an expiration date.

“You are radiant this morning, Miss Bridgerton,” he said graciously from beside you on the chaise longue.

“You need not flatter me, your grace.” Though the flush of heat up your neck betrayed your inward delight. “No doubt news of your calling on me has already begun to travel over the ton. The servants do miraculous work.”

“It was no attempt at flattery, my lady, but as you wish.”

While you clawed your heart back from your throat, he looked about the room, his eyes falling to the book that rested on the table; an encyclopaedic work on native birds.

“You read, my lady?”

“I like to.”

Hyunjin smiled.

“It amuses you that I like to read? Should I sit before the window and vegetate from sunrise to sunset instead?”

“I am not the sort that finds intelligent women distressing, my lady. If I thought you ill-educated, I would not have approached you in the first.”

You cleared your throat. “I see.”

“You doubt me?”

“No, your grace. You strike me as a sincere man.”

“Good. I am glad.”

“Though I do wonder why you prefer to partake in such ruse with me,” you whispered, “when you could simply do things the right way, as your aunt wishes.”

“The right way?”

You shrugged. “Meet someone and fall in love.”

“I have addressed this already. I do not wish to marry.”

“I was not speaking of marriage. I speak of love.”

“I thought you believed the two not mutually exclusive?”

“I do not, but why would one ever refrain from marrying the person they love? Such a course of action must be madness.”

“Love is a childish affair that makes hapless fools of better men and hysterical crones of good women. I have no need of it.”

“I dare say anyone has need of it, your grace. It is hardly a lame horse. I am rather inclined to believe it simply... happens. Whether one wishes for it or not.”

Hyunjin blinked, the muscle of his jaw feathering as it tensed, then relaxed. He held your gaze, almond eyes focused.

“I find it rather lovely, actually,” you added. “That there exists an emotion powerful enough to make one wish to change the course of their life. Love should be celebrated.”

“You speak as though you yourself have felt it, my lady.”

“I have not,” you sighed. “I know only what I have read of and seen, in my sister and in my parents. But I most desperately wish to feel it. I wish that all those I care for will one day feel it.”

“You have been surrounded by goodness, it seems,” Hyunjin said. “You should count yourself lucky.”

“Oh, I do, your grace. I am most grateful for all my parents have provided my siblings and I. They have raised us well, in love and luxury. I should be eternally grateful.”

“Indeed. Not all are so blessed.”

You searched his face, for he had averted it to the window, and what you could make of his expression had drawn sombre.

“Your grace?”

He shook his head and smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. “My apologies. Pay me no mind.”

He rose from your side, and on sight of him doing so, your mother rose too, setting her stitching aside.

“You are leaving, your grace?” she asked.

“I have taken up quite enough of Miss Bridgerton’s time,” he said with a bow. “Thank you for entertaining me, my lady.”

He took your hand and with the pillowy lips you had so vehemently thought to ignore, pressed a chaste kiss to your gloved knuckle. So reverent and tender was the suggestion, you could not help but wonder if the show was entirely necessary when only your mother was in attendance to see it— you ought to have spared your heart the misery.

“I shall call again tomorrow, if I may?” he asked, directing the question to your mother, who watched the exchange with delighted quiet.

“Of course, your grace. We should be honoured to have you again. Any time.”

“Very well, then.” He bowed once more. “Until tomorrow, ladies. Good day.”

With that, he availed himself of your company, and for the coming hours you suffered the titillated chatter of your mother to the servants and your siblings, to all who would listen of the wonderful, wonderful news that ‘the Duke of Hastings is courting my darling daughter! What beautiful children they shall be blessed with! Oh, but I knew how it would be! What happy days!’

What happy days, indeed.

The next most prominent event of the season was to be the observatory ball— an affair organised by the dowagers of the ton, long since removed from the formal romance of the social season and with nothing more engaging to occupy them.

Chaperoned by your ever dutiful brother, though his presence did more to harden your heart than bear assurance, it was with some misery that you entered the stunning glass building, unable fully to appreciate the opulence that dripped from every pillar and awning in shows of white flowers and delicate lace. A great mural of intricate symbols had been painted white on the dance floor, where several couples had taken to spinning already. Spirits seemed to be high, infecting the evening air with a great buzz of anticipation. You felt it yourself, despite your brother’s attempts to act the aegis. Something would happen tonight. Something that would change everything.

“I see no sign of Berbrooke,” your brother huffed from your side, casting focused glances about the guests. “He assured me he would be in attendance tonight.”

“I should rejoice if he fails to show up entirely,” you sighed.

“Such pessimism is most unbecoming of a lady, sister. You ought to be more congenial.”

“I could have until judgement day and not muster enough congeniality to offer that man even a single smile, brother.”

Anthony blinked at you, his dark eyes in astonishment.

“I should like to say hello to the other ladies,” you said, starting away from him. “Do not follow me.”

For what reason your brother this time chose to comply, you could not guess at, but you indeed considered that the occasional speaking out of turn impacted men more than you initially believed.

In crossing the observatory and passing under white wreaths of berries and flora, you sought the lemonade stand, in truth none thirsty for a drink, but possessed of some hope that a gentleman might spy you alone and summon the courage to approach for a dance. Minutes passed where no such thing occurred, and it was just as you began to sink into depths of sadness, that a rash clearing of throat from behind you caught your attention.

“Miss Bridgerton.”

The Duke of Hastings stood before you, most dashing in a red velvet suit finished with black trim. His light hair tucked behind both ears seemed comprised of silk itself, and his countenance most relaxed, yet strong and firm, brought you to a smile.

“Your grace,” you curtseyed politely, despite the weakness of knees. “How wonderful to see you.”

He cast an eye that might have been interpreted as critical over you, a smile caught on the curve of his lips.

“You look lovely,” he said.

“Thank you, your grace. As do you.”

“I look lovely?”

“Quite lovely. I thought velvet a dated material, but I appear forced to reconsider my opinion.”

“Did I not have the measure of you, Miss Bridgerton, I might be inclined to believe that a veiled insult.”

“I am not in the business of veiling my insults, your grace. Should I ever mean to insult you, you shall know it.”

His eyes glimmered with amusement. “Noted.” He offered you his arm to take. “Shall we dance?”

“Can you dance, your grace?”

“I am educated in formal baroque. So, yes.”

“Very well, then.”

You took his arm, a wave of unhindered delight threatening to outweigh your sensibility as he walked you to the floor, turning curious heads as you went. The instrumental band played an upbeat melody, one that had the occupants of the floor dancing the menuet in two lines of ladies and gentlemen. Joining the end of the respective lines, you fell easily into the steps, swaying both away from and towards the men that captivated your attentions. By now it was no wonder that most eyes in the observatory were on the two of you, your brother’s included. Smiling through the bout of anxiety, it was in taking Hyunjin’s hand again that the melody changed to allow for a slower, closer dance, which was of no small relief. It felt better to be close to him.

“Do you possess such strong opinion of all fabrics, Miss Bridgerton?” he asked quietly, the arm floating about your waist hardly touching.

“I am educated in textiles, your grace. So, yes.”

He smiled wryly. “I see. Allow me to consult you on the matter of my attire from time to time, then.”

“If it pleases your grace.”

“It does. Are you inclined to fashion, my lady?”

“Not particularly. Mother insists on engaging me with the modiste for gowns and the like, and I am able to appreciate a pretty dress as much as the next lady, but I much prefer the employment of a book or my sewing. Such stimulating things brings me great peace. The fancies of fashion seem only to bring me a headache.”

“In that, we are in agreement, my lady.” His smile widened to a grin, and in the lingering eye contact you went through the steps of dance, his smile gradually diminished to more serious appearance.

“All eyes are on us, your grace,” you whispered.

“Indeed. That is the point. Your name shall be on every gentleman’s lips for the remainder of the eve; the remainder of the season. You recall our bargain?”

“I do.”

“Then you understand why I thought it prudent to attend tonight. To dance with you before all the ton.”

You nodded gently, the heat of his hand in yours a most distracting sensation. He led you easily and without too much thought, the coming together of your movements a most natural and intimate event. Too intimate to be watched by those present, you rather thought.

“You do not seem pleased.”

“What?”

He searched your face. “I thought the prospect of your popularity renewing would delight you.”

You shook your head. “It does. I just… I fear that Anthony shall not take this well.”

“Be assured, Miss Bridgerton. As I have already explained, Anthony is a good and old friend of mine. He shall find no objection to our courting, and if by some means he should, it matters not. We are pretending. The fruits of our labours have already begun to yield. Look there.”

With a careful glance to your right, you saw the cluster of gentlemen that looked eagerly on at your prance with the duke, curiosity lighting their eyes. Nowhere, however, did you spy your brother.

“They already covet what belongs to another,” Hyunjin whispered, voice low above the shell of your ear. “They are none deterred by your brother, nor by me. You shall have your love match, Miss Bridgerton, and I shall be left in blissful peace from the naggings of my aunt.”

A cool unease set upon you, though you smiled as though in gratitude all the same. What it was in aid of, you could not say; only that you felt it, and not even the warmth of the man that imposed upon you so closely could ease it.

The dance gradually ended and you ruefully stepped away from the viscount, and near immediately were you accosted not by the gentlemen that had watched you from afar, keenly counting their chance, but by the footman that manned your carriage.

“Miss Bridgerton, forgive the interruption—”

“Whatever is it?”

“The Viscount has sent me to escort you home, my lady,” he said.

“Home?” You looked about the observatory. “Where is my brother?”

“He has already retired, my lady, in another carriage.”

“What for?”

“I could not say, my lady. He did seem…”

“He seemed what?”

“W— Well. Upset, my lady? I could not well say why—”

You turned to the duke, who until now had listened sombrely. He met your gaze, and though his smile was meant to offer reassurance, it did no such thing.

“It seems you are required elsewhere, Miss Bridgerton,” he said quietly. “I bid you goodnight.”

“Y— Yes. Goodnight, then,” you said, quite bewildered by your thickness of voice.

“I shall call on you tomorrow.”

“Very well.”

With a curtsy, you began away from him, following the footman through the gathering of lords and ladies that parted for your exit. It did not so much feel like a fall as a long, drawn-out dive into ice cold water.

One from which you might never surface, if you could not find your feet to swim.

“The Duke of Hastings is here to call on Miss—”

“Show him in at once!”

This time prepared for the duke’s visit and much inflated by the tale of your dancing with him at the observatory ball (though painful were her lamentations on not witnessing said event), your mother had the sitting room so immaculately arranged with flowers and garlands and refreshments more than anyone present could eat. It was no wonder the man stopped short and broke composure with an inquisitive smile in your direction. One that you could not well return for being awed by his smart dress and handsome composure.

Your mother first approached, greeting him warmly. “You are most welcome, duke. Good morning to you.”

“Good morning, indeed, Lady Bridgerton. How does it find you?”

“Very well, your grace. Very well. There is something of the summer that inspires a skip in one’s step, do you not agree?”

“Quite. I find the season most agreeable.” He turned to you. “I thought I might accompany Miss Bridgerton on a walk about your courtyard, actually. If it pleases her.”

“It most certainly would please her!” Your mother gushed. “Wouldn’t it, my dear?”

You nodded graciously, taken with the suggestion. “I would love to, your grace.”

And so, your mother watched from over her book, under the shaded terrace as you and the duke took to a congenial stroll through the greenery of the courtyard. Bowing willows and hedges aligned flower beds of daises and sunflowers; favourites of your mother to nurture.

“I must thank you for last night, your grace,” you said when out of your mother’s earshot. “The dance was most effective. Though I regret I could not speak to any gentlemen afterwards, I dare say I shall not be lacking for choice at the next social event.”

“You need not thank me, Miss Bridgerton. I am simply upholding my end of the bargain.”

“Of course.”

A moment of silence passed, where you thought of how to word your next question.

“I thought you might have begun to reconsider, in truth.”

“Reconsider?”

“Our… bargain.”

He chuckled. “Why should I reconsider that?”

“Ideas of gulling are often more agreeable in concept than practice. One would be forgiven for having second thoughts. You owe me nothing, after all.”

“I act not out of the goodness of my heart, my lady,” he said. “As I have said, this arrangement benefits me also. Why; after the ball my aunt visited the manor to express her delight on the news of our apparent involvement, and this morning I was subsequently spared from the ritual of rejecting her many offers of introductions to eligible matches.”

“Goodness. One forgets how quickly news travels about the ton.”

“Indeed. So you see, our ruse yields results. I should have no reason to withdraw.”

A quaint, white pagoda nestled at the back of the lawn, its benches warmed by the sunlight that bathed it. Hyunjin gestured to it.

“Shall we sit?”

With a nod, you followed him to the structure, taking up a seat. Hyunjin paced a moment before sitting near, his composure unsettled.

“Is there something on your mind, your grace? Mother is still able to see us, you may rest assured—”

“No, my lady. Apologies. It is not that which vexes me.”

“You are vexed?”

“Since hearing of your brother’s plans and how Lord Berbrooke might fit into them, I have felt unsettled.”

You laughed unceremoniously. “In that, we are the same. He is a most detestable man.”

“You know something of him?”

“I know less than nothing, your grace, and I could not wish more for matters to remain that way.”

“Then, your revulsion—if that is not too strong a word—”

“It is not.”

“Comes from where?”

You wrinkled your nose and thought on it, then simply shrugged. “A feeling.”

Hyunjin narrowed his eyes. “A feeling?”

“Yes. I become quite uneasy when he is near. Something of his manner offends me, and though I speak baselessly, he strikes me as the sort of man that would have no qualms conducting himself improperly. He makes me most uncomfortable.”

“I see.” He crossed his legs, his foot bobbing as he thought, and then said, “His reputation is quite astounding, you know. To speak to other men of him is to listen to them sing his praises. He is known for being kind and wealthy. Of good repute. It is no wonder Anthony approves.”

“And yet?”

“And yet, I am inclined to echo your sentiments, my lady. There is an air of foulness about him. The thought of leaving you in his company unchaperoned irks me greatly.”

So simple a statement, and so rapidly did your heart flutter to it. You pinched your wrist, an effort to ground yourself.

“Make assurances to me that you shall not put yourself in such a situation,” he said firmly.

“Your grace?”

“I do not wish for you to be left unattended with him.”

You scoffed through the thumping that rose to your throat. “I— I can hardly control such a circumstance.”

“Then if you find yourself in such a one, remove yourself from it swiftly. Find me. Find anyone. I cannot emphasise enough how strongly I feel on this. I do not jest.”

He held your gaze, the determination there enough to convey sincerity in his words, for you felt it rolling from him in a great wave of warmth.

“As you wish, your grace,” you said quietly.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied. A moment of silence passed, where the blackbirds from their perches tweeted their melodious tune as they basked in the sun, and the clean, fresh breeze swept your skin. Natural it was that thoughts should wander to the impossible future; how pleasant many more days like this would be, spent in his company, be they silent or not.

“May I ask something, your grace?”

He nodded, his hands clasped as he reposed on the bench.

“When last we spoke at Bridgerton house, you seemed troubled.”

“Troubled? I do not recall.”

“We were discussing family. How I was raised to the example of a loving marriage, and how grateful I should be for that.”

Hyunjin’s jaw set firm. “I see. Yes. It comes back to me now.” He swallowed. “I suppose something of the topic did trouble me, if I am to be truthful.”

“Why, your grace?”

“It is hardly a tale for such a fine day.”

“Then should we wait for it to rain? I believe autumn to be a long way from now, your grace.”

He rose from the bench, shoulders squaring as he strolled to the balustrade and looked out over the green.

“You may speak freely,” you said. “I would not have asked if I did not wish to hear it.”

“And I am grateful that your curiosity implores you to ask anything of me at all, my lady,” he sighed. “But all I would have you know at this moment is that…” He turned to you, golden strands drifting about his face. “Is that I was not so privileged as you in my upbringing. Lady Danbury did her best for me, and as I have already stated, I am eternally grateful for her kindness, but mine was not a loving childhood. My father was possessed of firm expectations and did not suffer fools easily. He bore no love for my mother. Theirs was a transactional marriage, and it costed my mother more than she should ever have had to pay.”

To hear him speak so candidly did more to move you than you had hitherto thought it could, and this was none aided by the pain in his eyes.

“Your grace…”

“That is all I wish to say of it,” he said, voice thick. “You understand.”

And though burning with so much more than curiosity as a result of his opening the door, albeit only a crack, you could not well press him further.

“Of course,” you smiled.

He nodded, took a deep breath, looked out over the green and up at the sky, where the sunlight warmed his face. What pain he lived through shaped him, you supposed, and though it could have made him cruel and cold, he did not seem so.

“We should return indoors,” he eventually said. “Before the heat sends us queer.”

“Yes. Let’s.”

Slowly you returned to the house, shoulders brushing innocently, steps taken in time. You were in no rush to be done with his company, and by his gait, neither was he.

“Done already?” your mother called when you were near. “I suppose it is thirsty work! Come, we have lemonade prepared!”

“You are most kind, Lady Bridgerton.”

Lemonade was taken in the sitting room, deliciously fragrant and refreshing, cooling your sensibilities that always seemed to warm beyond reason when the duke was near. Too easy was it to forget that this entire charade was precisely that when he acted with such dedication.

“Hwang? What on earth are you doing here?”

Hyunjin rose immediately, lemonade set aside.

“Viscount. Good to see you.”

Anthony’s expression stern, he hardly returned the sentiment. His question hung in the air unanswered, and so Hyunjin cleared his throat.

“I thought to call on your sister,” he said. “Lady Bridgerton has been a most gracious chaperone—”

“A word. Outside.”

Hyunjin hadn’t much considered that Anthony might protest his courting of his sister. He had rather been counting on the opposite. Silly, really, that it only struck him as he exited the Bridgerton house to the rear courtyard, where the viscount paced strongly back and forth.

“Explain yourself,” he said. “Immediately.”

“I have given you explanation.”

“You call on my sister? What for?”

“What do men call upon women during the social season for?” Hyunjin scoffed.

“I forbid it.”

“What?”

Anthony stopped, his stance stiff. “To dance with her last night was insult enough, but to now call on her at our family home is an abject act of mockery. You make a fool of me. You will cease your attempts to court her. I forbid it.”

“Anthony, old friend, you have lost yourself. Surely you cannot object to—”

“I have every reason to object,” he hissed, now stepping closer. “You think I do not recall the days of university? How loose you were? How the life and soul of the party and all its debauchery begun and ended with you? And that is to speak nothing of what ‘business’ you have been engaging in abroad these last years. I will not have such improper affairs connected to my family.”

Hyunjin’s jaw ticked. “I was hardly alone in the days of our youth, Anthony. As I recall, you were as much partial to the liquor and women as I. I could say the same of your present day conduct.”

“Do not attempt to turn this back on me. My virtue is not the one in question.”

“Perhaps it should be.”

“You walk on thin ice, Hwang. This is my sister we are discussing. She is my responsibility. She is family. Do what you must with whatever women take your fancy of the eve, but do not come into my family home with pretences of doing right by her. I know you.”

“I do not profess to being without fault,” Hyunjin said. “But is a man not allowed to change? Do you not think I would take the greatest care imaginable of her? Even more so for the bond that exists between us?”

Anthony’s nostrils flared. “You have no interest in marriage. Have said as such since I have known you. That cannot have changed with but a few chance encounters. There is something afoot—”

“Anthony, for heaven’s sake—”

“There is something afoot.” He said resolutely. “And I shall not allow you to drag my sister into scandal and discontent. Keep your distance from her.”

With a final glare, he about-faced and stormed across the courtyard. A gathering of darkened clouds drifted across the pellucid sky, blotting the summer sun.

“You shall not keep me from her, Bridgerton,” Hyunjin called, his voice clear and unwavering.

Anthony stopped, turned back.

“Then we shall settle this by our honour. Friend.”

Next day, the Duke of Hastings endeavoured to call on you once more, this time without himself making an appearance.

His horse and carriage trotted up to the steps of your home, where a page disembarked with clear instructions that he read aloud to you and your flustered mother.

“The Duke of Hastings cordially invites Lady Bridgerton and Miss Bridgerton to take tea and refreshments at his manor this morning until noon, and if it pleases your ladyships, would be most honoured to host them for dinner.”

So it was that your mother accompanied you in the duke’s carriage for a journey that lasted three quarters of an hour, the duration of which she chatted excitedly and showered praises on the duke for the ‘most proper’ occasion. Indeed, it stopped only when you arrived before the grand entrance of a stunning country manor— a quintessential summer home surrounded by blooming nature.

Escorted by servants up the steps and into the lobby where you were received by yet another entourage of house staff, you were much awed by the state of the place— while indeed impressive and grand on most every imaginable scale, it radiated something of a cold loneliness. Perceptible only to you, perhaps, for your mother’s delight was none dampened.

“What a beautiful home!” she gushed adoringly. “How the duke must love to spend his summers here, don’t you think, my dear?”

As though invited by mention of his rank, the duke stepped out from an adjoining room, his dress casual in light of residing at home. The white shirt that was tucked loosely into black britches hung open at the neckline, revealing a slope of skin that to your starved mind, seemed most illicit.

“Lady Bridgerton,” he beamed, stepping forward to greet your mother. “I do hope you will allow my state of dress; I measured that making this a more casual affair might help us get to know one another better. Formalities so often stiffen things, I find.”

“Of course! Naturally! How honoured we are by the invitation, your grace! We thank you most kindly.”

“Nonsense. You honour me with your presence, my lady. You have hosted me graciously before now. It seemed only right I return the favour. Please, come through.”

To the sitting room you were shown where tea was served, and expecting that the duke might lavish on you the attentions you were (perhaps foolishly) becoming accustomed to, you were disappointed to feel somewhat surplus to requirement, as he instead made your mother the focus of discussion. They talked contentedly of their interests, and covered most topics you yourself would have liked to unravel with the duke, but your mother seemed none perturbed by your stoic silence and occasional input in the form of a forced smile here or there. When conversation moved to that of your late father, so directed by the duke, you found the role of wallflower had rather overstayed its welcome.

You set your teacup aside and rose from sitting. “Might I be excused, your grace?”

Hyunjin blinked. “My lady?”

“I would very much like to walk the grounds, if I may. It displeases me to be cooped up indoors on so lovely a day.”

Nary a second did you wait for his answer, making a swift exit out the room and through the luxurious reception. Outside, the summer sun warmed the stone and grass, its radiant caress doing something to ease the discomfort that appeared to have driven you to such impatience.

You began to walk, neither direction nor destination in mind. Quickly at first, as your inward distress dictated, and then slower as you approached the hedgerows that formed a snug path into a winding maze. How odd you felt; at such unrest but unable to pinpoint why. Was it that Hyunjin’s attentions had been solely for entertaining your mother? Was it this place, that exuded such outward beauty but felt so void of joy or hearth? Was it simply your own mind endeavouring to play tricks?

These thoughts you mulled over as you walked the narrow paths of the maze, sunlit corridors shaded by keen, leafy branches that had grown beyond their remit. Gravel crunched beneath your feet, the air warmed your skin, and after a while of strolling, it seemed your nerves began to settle.

“Miss Bridgerton!”

Until they spiked once more. From around the corner of a hedgerow, the duke appeared, concern etched to his face the like of which you’d never seen. A jacket had been thrown about his shoulders, but did little to conceal the thin cotton of his gaping shirt and toned planes of skin beneath. You cursed your fluttering heart.

“I searched all the grounds for you,” he said breathlessly, stopping a foot from your person. “You had me worried.”

“Whatever for?” you laughed. “I am quite safe here, am I not?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Concern yourself none, your grace. Return to my mother. No doubt she awaits your undivided attentions.”

With a curt nod, you rounded the man and walked beyond him.

“You are upset,” he said pointedly, following.

“I am no such thing.”

“Have I neglected you this morning, my lady?”

“That you ask at all means you are aware of the answer. Do not toy with me, your grace. I find no amusement in it.”

“My apologies. It was not my intention to offend.”

“Your apology is unnecessary. You owe me nothing. This is a business deal. My frustration is my own; I am the fool for allowing emotion to become me.”

“Is one not allowed to become emotional over business?”

“You were the one dictated that we must approach this rationally, your grace.”

“I dictated on the matter of love, my lady. I spoke nothing of other emotions.”

“Well, then. This being my first business venture, I am none equipped to answer your question. You should be the one to tell me. Have you ever wept for a deal gone awry?”

Hyunjin bounded several steps ahead, putting himself in your path. Narrower still the natural corridors became, and unable to circumvent him easily, you stopped. His eyes softened, yet the concern held firm. So able to take your breath away with a mere look.

“You have been weeping?” he asked softly.

You shook your head. “No, your grace.”

“Good. There is no need. I have my reasons for tending to your mother so closely.”

“Such as?”

“Such as ensuring our deal does not go awry,” he said. “Lady Bridgerton’s approval may yet sway Anthony to us. Her support is important.”

“I thought you were assured that Anthony would approve of you?”

Hyunjin’s jaw ticked. “Yes. Well. I was.”

“And are not now?”

“Circumstances have changed. It seems he does not hold me with the regard I presumed upon.”

You cocked your head. “And why would that be?”

“It matters not.”

“Do not withhold from me, your grace. If there is something I should know—”

“You need know only what I share with you,” he said sternly. “I am loath to have one more Bridgerton persecute me by their astute moral compass.”

Taken aback by the outburst, you folded your arms, confident in the face of his glare.

“Might my brother disapprove because you are, in truth, no better than the men he is so prejudiced against? Because you too visit the gentleman’s clubs and gallivant your affections listlessly? Because you, just like my brother, have a violent discontent for the honest institution of marriage that you thought you could well conceal, but have inevitably failed to?”

Hyunjin blinked as though struck. His glare faded, his stance easing.

“Honestly.” You shook your head. “To be spared from the ridiculous egos of men for just a day would be too grand a wish.”

With that, you moved to dismiss him, rounding his side closely, and as though your proximity awakened him, he swiftly turned and caught your wrist.

“Your grace—”

“You presume much about me,” he said, an edge to his voice that felt near sinister. He took a step closer; you retreated to feel hedge at your back. Your heart pounded, pulse leaping about your throat. “I will not suffer such insult of character from a girl fed by silver spoon. You know nothing of me— nothing of what I have suffered or the lengths I must attend to warm my bed when sleep eludes me every single night.” He leaned in, so close as for his breath to fan over your lips. “But I imagine you should like to find out, my lady.”

Such vitriol laced the address as to make your stomach turn over, yet it was not with fear. A heat had begun to bloom in the lowest recesses of your belly, and even lower still, a region of your body as yet utterly sheltered.

“Do I speak falsely?” he asked.

Never had you experienced the sensation of standing on a precipice. The meagre shake of your head betrayed your wants, for truly, you did wish to find out. Hyunjin smirked, his gaze dropping to your lips.

“When I am alone in my bed, and all is dark and the world has left me, I am haunted by demons that whisper of my mistakes. They come to me when I am vulnerable, and I am ill-equipped to drive them away, so I indulge them— some of them. Those of them that promise to sing me to sleep should I give them just a moments’ attention. I drift with them, and they take me to where I might find comfort in the quick warmth of flesh.” He lifted his hand, brought his fingertip to your throat. Barely a touch, yet you could not breathe. “I chase pleasure, my lady, exerting myself in the act until my limbs give out and my mind is a chasm of emptiness.”

Your chest heaved for breath. His finger ran down your neck, to your decolletage, along the seam of your bodice that pressed tightly to your bosom.

“If that condemns me as a wicked man, so be it,” he muttered.

Over your breast and to your stomach did his finger draw a tender line, his attention solely focused on your every miniscule reaction. If inside, you felt to combust, he surely would have known it.

“But I assure you— to be condemned feels unlike anything you have ever experienced, sweet girl.”

Faces so close you could make out the pores of his skin, it was a mortifying whimper that escaped you when the man wrapped an arm around your waist, propping you against the hedge well with his thigh wedged snug between your legs; so forceful as to liquidate your bones, and you were helpless to resist, honour and virtue be damned. A flex of the muscle—even cushioned by your frock and petticoat—was felt distinctly, and the heat in your belly sank and gathered, quivering with anticipation. You ran hot under the skin, unable to grasp a lungful of air, for the man was so close that all sensation was of him. Him— so unthinkably beautiful and strong, wealthy and good.

Him. So utterly unattainable.

“Is this good enough, my lady?” he whispered.

“I... What?”

“Have you enough of my affection to curb your jealousy?”

You could hardly think rationally, unable to make sense of the words.

“This shall be the last time we find ourselves alone together.”

Too cruelly did he disentangle himself to leave you collapsed on the grass. With his jacket rearranged and a surreptitious pull of his britches (for what reason, you knew not), he stalked off through the maze.

How intemperately your heart thundered as you gathered yourself.

How hopelessly you were falling for the man that spurned love.

The duke had made a terrible mistake.

What sort of a fool betrays his own values so spectacularly as he? To scheme a ruse that would fool the ton and his aunt was one thing. To fall into it himself was quite another. For he was adamant on the matter of love and all its facets; he needed it not and would reject it until the day he met his end, grisly as it would probably be. He would not be the man that repeated his fathers’ mistakes.

She was just a girl. A Bridgerton girl, yes, and thus generally set apart from the wider female populace for good reasons pertaining to her beauty and wit, but still— just a girl. Diamond or not, she knew nothing of the world or its evils, nothing of life beyond what existed in her small and sheltered bubble. She could offer him no excitement of culture or music, language or arts beyond what she had read of in her books, and yet she excited him greatly; more so than any other woman he had yet met, and among those ranks stood singers and actresses, designers and poets, women of real repute.

What possessed him to impose upon her like that? Had he lost the last of his wits? Was he so frustrated in desire that he simply moved for the nearest outlet? Somehow, he knew better. It was neither in his nature nor his want to objectify so blatantly, heated confession as to his proclivities notwithstanding. He kept company through the darker nights when madness threatened his door, and if for that, Anthony was intent on shunning him, there was little he could ultimately do. He could only pray that her lingering in his thoughts would pass, and was due to stress or some other such imbalance of the mind— the sooner this season was over and he could return overseas to normalcy, the better.

Thankful that Lady Bridgerton deemed it best they return home for dinner for reasons pertaining to the youngest of her brood, the duke sat in his study and made work of his third whiskey. Try as he might, he could not stop his thoughts from wandering. The softness of her gaze tormented him; how closely her eyes seemed to plead for something she knew nothing of but would weep with pleasure to discover. What care he would take of her, so soft and sweet and delicate. What delightful sounds she would make, akin to the small whimper she let slip when he exacted just a meagre tenth of the desire that frothed inside him. She was perfectly untouched, as pure as winter’s first snow, begging to be undone by his hand though she spoke not a single word. With her, it would be so much more than a means to an end. He might even enjoy it. No— he would.

The swelling in his groin betrayed his lust— a first for him that such thoughts alone were capable of rousing him to occasion, but so was all of this new. Never before had he craved to corrupt such innocence. Never before had he felt such innocence craved it just as much, for there was no pretence of want in her eyes that morning, and he knew it well. He knew it awfully.

He knew it would all end in pain.

Several days passed with an absence of the duke. Your lamentation was quiet.

Not so concerned were you with the matter of your virtue, for by conventional standards and as far as you understood it, nothing tangible had occurred between you in the maze. A closeness of proximity could hardly condemn one to spinsterhood. Rather, you found yourself much yearning for the man. Missing him. Ludicrous, for he was naught but a business partner, and an effective one at that.

Gentlemen called on you sporting bouquets and gifts of sweets, all of them most preferable to the ogre that was Lord Berbrooke— whom coincidentally, you had neither seen nor heard from since the duke had made his ‘affections’ for you public. Sometimes as many as five gentlemen a day made their introductions, and you found yourself quite spent by dusk.

“They are all most pleasant suitors, I do not dispute that,” said your mother over supper. “I merely observe that they do not have much to recommend them compared to the Duke of Hastings. I dare imagine there is a man that would!”

And so in the matter of your mother’s approval, it seemed the duke had excelled. A shame that it would ultimately come to nothing, and doubly shameful that you could not bring yourself to sway her to thoughts of one of the many men that had imposed upon you, for you could do no such thing yourself. Try as you might, it seemed not one of them was able to rid you of thoughts of the duke. Perhaps the right one had not yet come along, you reasoned. It seemed not so mammoth a task to be turned from a man that did not even want you, after all. Your heart could not be long for him, if it even was at all, for you knew not what love felt like and could just as easily draw these sensations up to a peculiar turn of health— which would certainly explain the bouts of fever and giddy breathlessness you experienced in his presence.

All this you considered during the carriage ride to the midsummer ball, hosted at the queen’s own residence in the country. Last year it had been the topic of much excitable talk about the ton, and this year stood to be no different. Arriving at dusk to the mansion that boasted four separate wings and enough rooms to accommodate each guest of the party and then some, you marvelled at its majesty. To think that one person could possess such riches!

The structure rose high, illuminated by sconces and tall, standing braziers of coloured flame; dancing plumes of blue, pink and purple cast their shadows on the stone walls, and would have been eerie had they not been scented so sweetly. A red carpet had been rolled out across the neat gravel that itself circled a grand, running fountain, its centrepiece that of a marble woman in prayer. Lords and ladies made their excited entrances quickly, keen to discover the marvels of what lay inside; and a marvel it was. The queen had spared no expense on decoration or entertainment, the ballroom inside transformed to an elegant take on the Cirque du Soleil— from the great domed ceiling were suspended rings wound with wildflowers on which gymnasts twirled and performed. About the crowd mingled entertainers on high stilts dressed with parlour tricks and glamours that delighted ladies and challenged the men. Great and regal birds perched contentedly on the gloved arms of their masked hosts, who encouraged those curious enough to come closer, to take a look. Colours and sounds and exotic scents such as you had never before experienced accosted your senses to much wonder, driving from you all nerves you had inherited during the journey.

On your entrance flocked a number of gentlemen keen to secure from you a promise of a dance, and how happily you fell into conversation with them, feeling ever more like the potential for romance might finally bloom. You felt light, as though suspended on one of the ceiling rings yourself.

Lady Danbury made herself known to you and your mother, clad (as was traditional for her) in a colourful array of satins.

“Might we be expecting the duke in attendance this evening?” your mother asked her, ever hopeful. “We have not seen him at Bridgerton house for several days.”

Lady Danbury’s face drew solemn. “Speak not to me of my nephew. He does his utmost to bring me despair.”

“However could you mean?”

“For many months I have had words with him on the matter of courtship and marriage. I was well prepared for my pleas to be ignored as they have been, but imagine my delight to see him making efforts with you, Miss Bridgerton! I thought, perhaps, his mind had changed.”

“He is against marriage?” your mother asked, shocked.

Lady Danbury shook her head. “His heart is hardened by the years of his youth. Such a difficult time he had of things. His mother passed during childbirth and his father was none suited to the task of fatherhood, utterly without love for the boy. I have never known such a cruel, cold creature. I shudder to imagine what might have become of him had I not taken him in, and it awes me every day to know the man he is now. I am endlessly proud of him, Lady Bridgerton, but he suffers the sins of his father as though they are his own. It saddens me greatly.”

You listened to the conversation, breath caught. He had alluded to his upbringing on your enquiries, but had kept much of it from you, for reasons that you supposed pertained to his pain. How much pain indeed! Could it be that this explained his aversion to love, to marriage, to wanting children? Such was the urge to take him in an embrace and assure him that all would be well— if only you possessed the courage.

“His mind must be changed, Lady Danbury. He has courted my daughter with clear intention; I have seen it myself, the way they alight one another when they are together. Whatever is responsible for this distance, we must fix it. Perhaps he has been repelled by the other gentleman that have called on her?”

Lady Danbury scoffed a laugh. “I find that highly unlikely.”

“Then there is nothing for it,” your mother turned to you sharply. “Seek him out, dear. Assert yourself upon him and assuage his worries.”

“I shall do no such thing, mother.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because he is not the only man in the ton. There are many other gentlemen here I should like to get to know.”

Your mother laughed. “Nonsense! I have watched numerous gentlemen court you these days just gone, and not a one of them has titillated you as the duke did!”

“What would you know of it?” you snapped, so emotional as to forget yourself. “What would anyone know of it? I am positively sick of being told whom I must and must not entertain, what I can and cannot feel. I should rather prefer to be left well alone so my own mind might be decided.”

Lady Danbury smiled wryly. Your mother blinked in shock.

“Please excuse me.”

With a curt bow you departed from them, as adequately mortified by your own outburst as by the fact that your mother seemed so easily able to read you. Through the gathering you navigated as best you could, stepping out to a veranda that overlooked the mansion’s rear courtyard. It was quieter here, the din of partygoers and shrill of the brass band reduced to a pleasant background buzz. It allowed for a catching of breath, where you settled yourself and decided an apology was probably due to your mother. Later.

The courtyard stretched out before you, its lush green lawn lit by standing sconces that emitted haloes of amber light. Arrangements of flower beds and animals shaped from the rose bushes were much delightful to look upon, and not a soul thought to disturb you.

“It is disrespect of the highest degree, Hwang. You must see that.”

Your heart seized as a raised voice floated to you.

“Then I cannot win, Bridgerton. I am damned if I am too close to her, I am damned if I retreat. What would you have me do?”

Looking over the veranda’s balustrade and down to the courtyard, you saw the silhouettes of two strong frames you knew well cast over the stone, though they themselves remained just out of sight.

“I demand that you make your intentions clear. Assure me that you intend to ask for my sister’s hand, and I shall grant my blessing. A man’s word is his bond.”

“The whole ton knows of my intentions. Have you not heard the gossip?”

“I know better than to alight any credence to the rumour mill that drives this society. I know you, more importantly. Why can you not simply offer promise of marriage to my sister when you have made a show of courting her to that end? Why do you find such difficulty in so simple a thing?”

“I find no difficulty in it. I find insult.”

“Insult?!” Anthony laughed hoarsely. “You jest, surely!”

“You call into question my integrity. My honour.”

“Then take action, Hwang. Make me the fool, prove me wrong. Convince me that your courting of my sister is not some ploy, the ends of which I can only speculate to.”

Silence fell. Fire in the sconces crackled. Your skin tingled with anticipation.

“You cannot,” Anthony said.

“I will entertain this conversation no longer.”

“You are a coward.”

“Careful, Bridgerton.”

“You are the one should be careful. You have toyed with my sister, dragged her into your affairs and pressed upon her expectations.”

“She has no expectations of me, Anthony. Of that, I can assure you.”

“Do you find it amusing to make a fool of her? Of me? Of my family? Would not any young lady from the ton have sufficed for your games?”

“That is enough.”

“Shall I tell you what it is wounds me most, Hwang? Of all this?”

A beat of silence passed; Anthony spoke again.

“I was at first outraged to learn of your calling on my sister. We exchanged cross words, and my anger continued still, until the family dinner that eve. Never have I seen a woman glow such as my sister did that night. It seemed as though a flame had been ignited under her skin, and that all was hope and excitement. I was forced to reconsider my prejudices. Could a man that brought her such joy truly be as roguish as I hitherto perceived? I struggled to comprehend it, and so I thought I would allow you to continue. Perhaps I was wrong to indulge my curiosity, but I acted from the goodness of my heart, and furthermore, saw yours. I kept myself scarce and allowed things to take their course, objected not when you invited her to tea. I know I detected sincerity about you. The truth of the matter cannot be concealed when it shows so abundantly in your eyes.”

Another beat of silence.

“I am informed you have not called on her this week. Why?”

“The other men of the ton have kept her occupied.”

Anthony laughed. “And yet, it is not other men that she wants. You have seen well to that.”

You heard footsteps, the silhouette of your brother wavering.

“I neither know nor care what games you play, Hwang, but from this moment on, you shall play them with someone else. Leave my sister be. I beg you. Please.”

With that, his shadow disappeared from sight, your eyes so blurred with the makings of tears miraculously able to see it. There was the huff of a deep breath, and measured footsteps as Hyunjin appeared from under the veranda, his state of dishevelment such a shock as to bring you to gasp. He whirled around and looked up, your eyes meeting in the dim light. What grief struck his expression surely matched your own.

“Go inside, my lady,” he said, voice gruff. “The evening draws cold.”

A whirl of indignation possessed you.

“Is that all you have to say, your grace?” you called.

He hung his head, his demeanour so unlike what you knew. He shook his head, raked a hand through his silken locks that caught the golden light of the nearby brazier.

“It seems I am unable to trust my words this eve,” he said. “They irk all who hear them.”

“That is because they are dishonest.”

He looked up at you once more, his jaw feathering as his lips pressed thinly.

“Come down, my lady. I should like to speak with you.”

“Come up here, your grace. The view of the courtyard is most agreeable.”

With something resembling a smile, Hyunjin nodded. He buttoned his jacket as he began into the mansion, once more disappearing from your view. How the minutes seemed to prolong as you awaited him on the veranda, each second weighing heavily on you until he called your name—

“Ah! The fair Miss Bridgerton!”

A shiver of revulsion possessed you— that was not how he called your name.

It was with a bout of horror that you turned and saw Lord Berbrooke barrelling towards you, his suit too small for his podgy frame and his beard as wildly untamed as what little hair yet clung to his bonce for dearest life.

“You are all alone out here!” he exclaimed, draining the flute in his hand and tossing it carelessly aside. “A lady so dainty as yourself should not be left unattended.”

“I was in need of some air. I am quite content to be left alone.”

“No, no. You mustn't be,” he drawled. “All manner of horror awaits the unsuspecting young lady.”

“As I am coming to learn,” you muttered.

He came closer still, near enough that the reek of liquor spoke for him.

“I must confess dear, that I eagerly await the day of our nuptials!”

“Excuse me?”

“Perhaps it is gross of me to admit, but I am not so cold-hearted a man! I am as susceptible to love’s pinch as any other! Miss Bridgerton—” He stumbled and caught himself on the balustrade. “You shall make for me, a most pleasing wife.”

“Lord Berbrooke, you presume far too much. You have made no such proposal to me, and if I may speak frankly, I should decline if you did.”

“My dear,” he cackled, throaty and vile. “The proposal is not yours to decline. The viscount is in hearty agreement with me! The deal is made! You are already mine!”

Icy trickles of fear seized your limbs with a wave of nausea. Lord Berbrooke guffawed louder still, and made as though to reach for you, his grubby hands keen in their search. “Come, my dear. We need not pretend any longer. Let us get ahead of the consummation—”

What happened next was so utterly quick you might have blinked and missed it. Lord Berbrooke lunged with delight in his eyes, and yet his advances were short. He was dragged backward by the collar and thrown to the ground in a heap, where the sole of a firm foot pinned him by the chest. Above the man did the Duke of Hastings loom, his expression thunderous.

“If you value either your reputation or your life, Lord Berbrooke,” he snarled. “I suggest you leave here and never again darken Miss Bridgerton’s door.”

“Get your damn foot off me—”

“You will relent in your attempts to marry her and leave her be. Am I understood?”

“What?! How dare you—”

“Else the entire ton shall know of your improper advances on the young lady by morning light, and you shall be shunned from all you know, dropped from all deals of business, exiled as a vagabond and a villain. How do you think the viscount might take to such information?”

Hyunjin pressed his foot into Berbrooke’s chest, resulting in a hog-like squeal.

“Am I understood?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Say it,” Hyunjin snapped.

“I will leave the girl alone! Consider it done! Release me! Please!”

The man removed his foot; Lord Berbrooke scrambled to his feet, clutching his chest and panting. With a glare of immeasurable hatred, he stumbled from the veranda and into the mansion, scarcely looking back. Had you known that was the last time you would ever see Lord Berbrooke in your lifetime, you might have mustered a smile. As it stood, you were too horrified to much move or speak.

Hyunjin collected himself and turned to you.

“My apologies, my lady. I wish you had not seen that.”

You shook your head. “Thank you.”

“You need not thank me. Any decent man would have acted the same.” He stepped near. “Did he put hands on you?”

“No. I do not think—”

Hyunjin reached out, and from the waistline of your dress caught a thin strip of ribbon that seemed as though ripped loose. He ran it between his fingers, his eyes narrowing sharply.

“I should have made haste.”

“It is nothing the modiste cannot mend.” You took his hand, entirely thoughtless in doing so. “Truly, I am fine.”

He hung his head, strands of gold falling about his features. His hand stilled in yours, warm skin doing nothing more than brushing softly.

“I fear I have made a terrible mistake, my lady,” he whispered.

“How so?”

He looked at you, his hazel eyes warm, yet sad.

“It would appear that... in my efforts to assist you with the matter of your finding love, I have myself fallen.”

You swallowed. “You have found someone?”

“Indeed, I have. Foolishly, I have. I have attempted to distance myself from her, but she invades my every thought. Her name carries on my every breath. There is nothing I can do to avail myself of this torment.”

“Have you confessed as such to her, your grace?”

“I cannot. She believes me dishonest, I am sure, among other things.”

“You might be mistaken,” you whispered. “One must always account for intent.”

“My intentions were selfish.”

“And are they still?”

He searched your face, the fire light from the near brazier dancing on his flawless complexion.

“Yes,” he breathed.

The background lull of music from the ball seemed to cease. The man flicked a gaze from your eyes to your lips, the suggestion such that your heart lurched and drove you the step toward him that closed your bodies near; he drew tense, his hold on your hand firming as he slotted his fingers between yours. His other hand found your cheek, sure yet afraid, and it was by your unrelenting gaze that you drew him in to kiss you.

His lips were as tender as to break your heart, and in the embrace did your sensibilities unravel like tumbling yarn. One kiss, then another just as soft, and by the third you clutched his jacket as though he might disappear.

When he broke away, it was with a high flush on his cheekbones. He licked his full bottom slowly.

“The taste of a diamond,” he whispered. “How painfully I have longed for it.”

“Your grace...”

“You must think me a monster.”

You took his face in your hands. “Do not presume to know my thoughts. I shall tell you them myself. You need only ask.”

“I fear I am not so brave as that, my lady.”

“You were brave enough to kiss me just a moment ago. Brave enough to face my brother in the name of upholding our bargain. Brave enough to aid me when I believed all hope lost.”

“I acted in my own interests.”

“As did I.”

“There is... much you do not know of me.”

“Much that I look forward to discovering, when you are ready and the time is right.”

He sighed as though exasperated, yet the weight of it was light.

“You vex me, my lady.”

“I should say the same of you, your grace.” You swept your thumbs over his cheekbones, his lids fluttering. “You insisted so strongly on the goodness of your character, and yet when faced with acceptance, attempted to paint yourself a villain. Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but I must have you know— you are not the man your father was, and neither are you doomed to repeat his mistakes.”

Pained was the expression that crossed him, his breath catching sharply.

“Do you truly wish to spend all your days alone?” you asked on a whisper.

“Not anymore, my lady.”

“Then do not attempt to push me away with talk of your devils. I shall accept them all, horns and wings alike.”

He turned into your palm, revelling in the touch. He clasped your wrist and pressed plush lips to the warm, soft skin.

“You have altered all I thought I knew,” he said. “I am utterly taken with you, Miss Bridgerton. I am in love, and you were quite right; it is to be celebrated. I wish to tell all who attend this ball that you are the woman that has bewitched me, mind and soul, such that I do not even know myself or these things I say. I feel driven mad, and yet never has a course of action been clearer to me.”

With another a kiss to your palm, he dropped to his knee, clutching your hand with both of his.

“Marry me, my lady. If you can return even a sliver of my feelings, make of me an honest man and I shall take care of you for all our days. You shall want for no comfort, long for no affection. It shall be all I can do to satisfy and delight you.”

Choked with the onset of emotion, it hardly seemed true that such a thing could be happening; that the Duke of Hastings could be proposing.

“What say you, my lady?”

You squeezed his hand tenderly, your heart so full of warmth. How reminiscent it all seemed, and to that end:

“You have a deal, your grace,” you said, utterly giddy.

Hyunjin laughed, his eyes crescent with joy that alighted him. He rose from his kneel, took you into his embrace.

“Excellent,” he said softly. “Though I must make one thing abundantly clear.”

“Oh?”

“I am of the belief that keeping separate bedrooms is a terribly archaic practice.”

“Meaning what, your grace?”

“Meaning...” He kissed you once more, and spoke against your sweet lips. “There shall be no rest for you tonight, nor the next, nor on any night to come, my lady. You are mine, forevermore.”

𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚, 𝙧𝙚𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙜, 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙚 >

𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙣𝙞𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙? 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚 ♡ >

𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙠𝙯 𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 ♡ >

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txtbeomi · 1 month

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ENHYPEN OT7 || BRIGHT SUN MASTERLIST||

genre(s) -> angst, fluff, non-idol, fantasy au, poly au, dark moon reference paring(s) -> enhypen o t7 x reader warning(s) -> angst, light cursing, violence, etc

abstract -> with the merging of several schools, the councils will learn to work with each other. what happens when the reader has seven soulmates in the Decelis Academy council, and she gets rejected by them?

-> uploading will start december 15, 2023 -> taglist open !!

PROLOGUE chapter one || rejection

ACT I chapter two || yang jungwon chapter three || kim sunoo

ACT II chapter four || announcements chapter five || burnt chapter six || square one chapter seven || nishimura riki

ACT III chapter eight || soulmate rejection chapter nine || park sunghoon

ACT IV chapter ten || bento boxes chapter eleven || questions chapter twelve || jay park

ACT V chapter thirteen || human chapter fourteen || monster chapter fifteen || sim jake

FINAL ACT chapter sixteen || lonely chapter seventeen || riverfield chapter eighteen || lee heeseung

EPILOGUE extra || maknae line headcannons extra || hyung line headcannons

if you would like to be on the taglist please send an ask or comment under this post. If you message me there might be a chance I don't see if and if you ask on another post such as in one of the chapters it'll be hard to keep up with.

taglist -> @sunus-sun @loumin908 @on-1ce @shinkenprincess-oh @b-a-nshee-blog @bnnyniky @sakuxxi @chiiiiiiiiis @cncreams @pre1ttyies @justanunstablefrog @graythecoffeebean @starzniiky @singlepringle4you @chirokookie @kthstrawberryshortcake-main @imtoanonymousforyou @lovgfrd @ilovecheese09 @sousydive @pink-but-rosie @kyleebob @jihyosgf @in-somnias-world @jilxxasu @bee-the-loser @mitchikeli @cyberpunksunwoo @lhspeachie @loafsunshinesworld @vixensss @zhenya109 @luumiinaa @rosas-in-the-garden @b3tt7boop

please don't be a silent reader !! reblog, comment, and like <3

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txtbeomi · 1 month

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𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒚 𝑲𝒊𝒅𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕

Welcome to my masterlist! I hope that you enjoy 💕 I write a bit of everything and all of the readers in my work are people of color and/or chubby or plus size. I think it's important to provide this representation for my community! Of course everyone is welcome to read my work but I just wanted to note how I view the reader when I write my work! Thank you ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

Also Here are my request/ ask guideline! → Guidelines

Legend:

🔥Smut - MDNI (Explicit Sexual Content)

⚠️Angst - MDNI (Emotionally Strong or Violent Content)

☁️Fluff - Sweet and Sugary Content

🔥Fan Fiction - Dom!Bang Chan x Sub!Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥Sunset - Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥 Car Tease - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Drabble

🔥Studio Time - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Drabble

🔥Voice Notes - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Good Boy - Sub!Bang Chan x Dom!Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Surprise - Bang Chan x Fem!Reader x Hyunjin - Fake Texts

🔥Sweet & Spicy - Bang Chan hard thought/ headcanons

🔥Take Care of me - Bang Chan hard thought/Imagine/Drabble?

🔥Pure Bliss - Bang Chan Drabble

🔥4:26am - Best friend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥Bad Girl - Dom!Bang Chan x Sub!Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Curfew - Mafia!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader -Fake Texts

🔥Paralyzed - Incubus!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥3Racha - Boyfriend Bang Chan Drabble

🔥Don't Go Insane - Neighbor!Bang Chan x afab!Reader - Imagine?

🔥☁️Free Time - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

🔥☁️First Time - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

⚠️My Savior? - Sadodere!Bang Chan x Yandere!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine

☁️⚠️Jealousy, Jealousy - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - One Shot: Ask

⚠️Meltdown - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Autistic!Fem!Reader - Imagine

⚠️A Feeling - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine

☁️Missing Wolf - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️Big Mouth - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️Come Home - Boyfriend!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️My Rules: Part 1 , Part 2- Dom!Bang Chan x Sub!Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Tease - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Drabble

🔥Pleasure & Power - Hard Dom!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader x Dom!Felix - Imagine

🔥Surprise - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader x Bang Chan - Fake Texts

🔥Please, Mommy - Sub!Hyunjin x Dom!Fem!Reader - Fake Texts: Ask

🔥Planting Seeds - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Hard Thoughts Drabble

🔥Encore - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine (VMA's Special)

🔥Caught - Dom!Hyunjin x Sub!Fem Reader x Soft Dom!Felix - Fake Texts

🔥New Kink - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

🔥Let Me Show You - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

🔥Mindlessly - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Drabble: Ask

🔥Tell Me - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Sunday - Dom!Hyunjin x Dom!Han x Sub!Fem Reader - Imagine

🔥Call me, baby - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine (Eyebrow Piercing Inspired fic)

🔥I Dare You - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

🔥A Ride & A Show - Uber Driver!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Hard Thoughts

⚠️🔥Ex - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine

⚠️My Savior? - Yandere!Hyunjin x Sadodere!Bang Chan x Fem!Reader - Imagine

⚠️A Scream to the Gods - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Imagine

⚠️Another Chance - Boyfriend!Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️Snaps w/ Boyfriend!Hyunjin - Social Media AU - Fake Snapchats

☁️Midnights: Part 1 - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Note: OT8 appearance -Imagine

☁️Poetry Series - Hyunjin x Fem!Reader - Masterlist (On going)

🔥Pleasure & Power - Dom!Felix x Fem!Reader x Hard Dom!Hyunjin - Imagine

🔥Caught - Soft Dom!Felix x Sub!Fem Reader x Dom!Hyunjin - Fake Texts

☁️Missing You - Boyfriend!Felix x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️Hide & Seek - Felix x Fem!Reader - One Shot

⚠️ Grief - Felix × Fem!Reader - One shot/Drabble

🔥Subspace - Boyfriend!Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - Drabble: Ask

🔥Attitude Check - Han Jisung x AFAB!Reader (Poly!SKZ) - Drabble

🔥Sunday - Dom!Han x Dom!Hyunjin x Sub!Fem Reader - Imagine

⚠️You & Me - Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - One Shot

⚠️I Promise - Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - One Shot

☁️⚠️Manipulation - Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - Imagine

☁️Confession - Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

☁️Sun Shower & Golden Hour - Han Jisung x Fem!Reader - One Shot

🔥Good Pup - Dom!Seungmin x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts: Ask

🔥Emergency Stop - Dom!Seungmin x Fem!Reader

🔥Masochist? - Sex Worker!Seungmin x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

🔥Backroom - Seungmin x Fem!Reader - Fake Text

🔥Puppy's Punishment - Dom!Seungmin x Sub!Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥What are you looking at? - Dom!Seungmin x Sub!Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥Mine - Kim Seungmin x afab!Reader - Drabble/Hard thought

🔥☁️You're So Pretty - Seungmin x Fem!Reader - One Shot Imagine

☁️🔥Good Pup + Bad Pup - Seungmin hard thoughts/ headcanons

☁️Sweet Talk - Text Conversations with your boyfriend - Fake Texts

⚠️Close Your Eyes - Boyfriend!Seungmin x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Brainless - Dom!Changbin x Fem!Reader - Drabble: Ask

🔥Stretch - Seo Changbin x afab!Reader - Headcanons

⚠️🔥I'm Yours - Seo Changbin x Fem!Reader - Imagine

🔥Sexy Evil - Lee Know x Fem!Reader - Fake Text

🔥Needy - Lee Know x Fem!Reader - Fake Text

🔥Taste - Boyfriend!Lee Know x Fem!Reader - Drabble

🔥God of Love - Boyfriend!Lee Know x Fem!Reader - Drabble: Ask

🔥Stuck In The Moment - Boyfriend!Lee Know x Fem!Reader - Imagine: Ask

⚠️One Shot - Mafia!Lee Know x Fem!Reader - One Shot

⚠️Seventeen - Lee Know x Reader (A sweet type of angst)

🔥Paris - I.N x Fem!Reader - Fake Texts

🔥Spicy Accident - BFF!SKZ - OT8 Fake Texts

🔥Naughty or Nice -Boyfriend!SKZ - OT8 Fake Texts

🔥Wet Dreams - Boyfriend!SKZ - OT8 Fake Texts

☁️🔥Valentines Day - SKZ!Fake texts - OT8

☁️Who told you? - BFF!SKZ - OT8 Fake Texts

☁️Christmas - Dad!SKZ -OT8 Fake Texts

2K notes · View notes

txtbeomi · 2 months

Text

Orders.

genre. mafia au. bodyguard!lee know x fem!reader

desc. your father is an elite, high ranking official in a mafia family. after your first kidnapping, a bodyguard was hired to ensure your safety.

warnings. nsfw. fingering & sex. torture. kidnapping. murder. violence.

wc. 10k

✉️ : this is my first writing after a 9 month hiatus. i apologize for the unannounced break and i will be answering and writing again shortly. enjoy! :)

You sit in a wooden chair, wheezing and thrashing from days of sleep deprivation and torment. Your body aches, wrists bruised and bloody from the ropes, and you almost feel like giving in and spilling Daddy’s secrets— allowing them to kill you and the family.

But you knew better than that. You knew that you'd be saved.

The gunshots and cries for help weren't unexpected from above the dark bunker.

With an ear-piercing creak, the door swings open and the shadow of a man emerges through the doorstep, shoes squeaking with fresh blood underneath.

He doesn’t let out a single word as he kneels to grab your face and examine it. Your attention follows the ring on his finger. An insignia that he is part of the family. You can depend on him.

But still, you wince, sharply inhaling as his fingers aggravate your wounds.

“Don’t get their blood in my wounds, I don’t know what kind of freaks they are,” You grumble, voice husky from days of screaming.

You let him turn your head, retaining eye contact with the floor as you grit your teeth.

“Relax,” he mumbles, “I don’t bite.”

He leans closer to examine your wounds. “You took a lot of hits. How many people are here?”

He draws back as you reply, “Can’t tell you exactly.”

“About four of them grabbed me while I was leaving the house— stupid on their part, no wonder you were here so shortly,” You trail off before catching yourself back on topic.

“But I’ve only seen three different men since I’ve been here. Only to beat me and interrogate me. Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything to put Daddy at risk.”

“I heard two other unrecognizable voices. That would make nine people in the building that I know of. Of course, there could always be more. How many did you shoot?”

“Six,” he responds before looking down at your scrapes and wounds again.

You feel him caress your cheek once more, his cold skin sending shivers down your spine.

“You’re in bad shape.”

“If there’s more here, we need to get out as soon as possible. We can worry about my wounds as soon as these people aren’t on our ass.”

You struggle in your bounds, the ropes burning your already bloody wrists, “Could you untie me, first?”

“Don’t move.”

You obey his command, halting as he unties the ropes, uncovering the painful burn marks and blisters.

“That fucking hurt,” you rotate your wrists, “I could’ve gotten out without your help eventually, though.” Your voice is rough, breath coming out in harsh, sharp drags.

“Sure, you would’ve.”

You stumble to your feet as he pulls you into him for safety. He reeks of gunpowder and high-dollar cologne— presumably something that Daddy has made sure that he has the money for.

“Stay close to me, when we get to the front, you go out first and then I’ll leave right after.”

You follow the unfamiliar man out of the maze, almost slipping on the floor blanketed in blood.

You adjust to the bright sunlight— and it feels gentle against your damaged skin. It seems like time has stood still while you were captured. “Did Daddy order you a car?”

“Yes,” he answers, “Some men are waiting out front to take us to the closest hospital— which isn’t too far.”

“I’m being hospitalized?” You follow him into the backseat, finally slacking for a moment ontop of the fresh leather.

“It’s not my choice to have you taken to the hospital, it’s the orders.”

“Do I have a statement to tell the nurse?” You look at him in concern.

“Am I supposed to say, ‘Oh, I was kidnapped by Daddy’s enemies! By the way, he’s in the mafia! Who wants to arrest Daddy?’”

“Tell them you fell down the stairs.” His flat tone contrasts your own, remaining unfazed.

“How would that cover up my wrists' burn marks?” You hold up the bloody and bruised dents, “Nobody gets these from falling down the stairs. There's way too much blood— and some of it isn’t even mine.”

He raises an eyebrow, looking over to the burn marks on your wrist and then back to you.

“Then tell them you accidentally burnt yourself while cooking.”

“Are you even listening to me? Are you stupid?”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, not seeming to care about the situation.

“It’s not hard to pay them to be silent.”

“How about I tell them that I was heavily bullied at school and a couple of classmates did this to me? I think that could work.”

You two arrive at the front entrance of the emergency room, he follows behind you, strolling through the automatic door.

“I’m fine, really, I was just beaten by classmates,” You lie through your teeth to the front desk, “My boyfriend took me here to get it checked out.”

He raises an eyebrow.

You comply with the nurses as they check your weight and interview you.

“I don’t have any stab wounds, at least I don’t think so— I don’t remember what they did to me. I was held captive for a few,” Your voice trails off as you wince at a sudden pang.

You glance down at your bleeding side and are unexpectedly whacked with all of the distress that you had been repressing at once.

Your vision starts to fade, face pale as a ghost.

The man rushes over as they carry you to a bed, and he kneels beside you to review your condition. Your body is pale and cold, breathing jagged and rapid.

You hear the whispers of the staff panicking. One nurse checks your pulse, and another elevates your legs.

“I need my blood sugar up,” the first words that come out of your mouth sound weak and painful.

You look over at the man beside you.

You need to lie. But you don’t even know his name.

“Boyfriend,” you determine, “please get me a sugary drink from the vending machine.”

A subtle smirk forms upon his lips, but it vanishes as soon as it appears.

“Fine,” he rises to his feet.

You hiss as the nurses sterilize your wounds, shrieking and thrashing on the mattress at the sting. You try to stay still, but the pain is intolerable.

Footsteps echo and you find the man returning with a chocolate bar, which he holds out to you. He brings it close to your lips and holds the chocolate against your mouth for you to take a bite, “Slowly.”

“I told you to get me a drink,” You disregard his command, biting the chocolate quickly, almost aggressively.

His lips turn up, amused by your action.

The nurses finish stitching up your deep gashes and bandaging your wounds, recommending that you stay the night.

“Pay for the bill with Daddy’s cash and let’s get out of here,” you state coldly, “I need to shower and get all of this blood out of my hair. I don’t want to stay here.”

“As long as you can walk by yourself, we can leave right away.” He replies. The man takes out a wad of bills quickly counts the money and pays for the bill.

You stay speechless until entering the car.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your bodyguard. Your father hired me to look out for you after the kidnapping.”

You nod in acknowledgment. “Will you be staying at the estate with me? Or is it a ‘only when I leave the house’ kind of deal?”

“My primary duty is to protect you from anyone or anything that could harm you, whether that be outside or inside the house. I could go wherever you wish me to follow you, and I will be there.”

“You won’t sleep in bed with me though, right?”

He stays silent for a moment.

“You are correct, I am here to protect, nothing more. I will not sleep next to you. I am merely your bodyguard and take your orders.”

“Good boy,” you grin, “I bet Daddy will pay you very nicely. Why else would you take this job? How much does he give you? Either way, I’m sure you have enough to buy a mansion.”

The bodyguard holds back an eye roll. “I will have more than enough money. Not only that but he also provides me with a home.” He adds with a smirk.

“Good.” You reply.

You fall silent, allowing him to drive, taking in the past few days.

You were never worried about surviving, You understood that Daddy would handle it. But you didn’t expect to be as hurt as you were.

He could’ve saved you sooner.

“When we get home, order the chef to make me something sweet, I deserve a treat,” you state, “I’m going to shower and you are not allowed to enter my bathroom under any circumstance. Even if I’m dying.”

“You would die before letting me enter your bathroom? I get it.” He retorts.

Once you both arrive at the estate, you stumble out of the car. You don’t linger for him.

You’re welcomed by a handful of workers as you enter the home, but ignore them as you make a beeline up the stairs and towards the bedroom.

The door locks behind you and the room is silent. You feel the weariness creep on as your wounds sting. You lean against the door, sliding down.

After a moment of peace, you head towards the shower to comb the dried blood out of your hair.

You scrub your face carefully, avoiding the stitches above your eyebrows.

You wash your body entirely, removing the blood stains with soap, water, and a wash rag. Then you comb out the dried blood.

Once you finish, you dry yourself off and dress in a plain, silk nightdress.

Leaving your bedroom, you turn to look for your guard. He is at the doorway of your room when you walk out. His eyes roam around your body for a brief moment, examining the nightgown.

“Do you require assistance?”

“Did you place an order for something sweet, like I asked?” You peer at his suit, moving in to adjust his tie.

He follows your hand as it moves, eyeing you for a few moments before he utters, “I did, the chef will be bringing it to your room once it’s prepared.”

“Good boy.”

You look up at his face once you are pleased with the positioning. You grimace at his sharp, cold face. The blood was dried, brown, and unpleasing. The man’s hand relaxes on the gun holstered on his hip.

“I order you to come into my bedroom.”

His eyebrows crease. He understands his role as your bodyguard— nonetheless, he doesn’t get a kick out of being ordered around in this tone.

He takes a deep breath. “Your wish is my command.”

The room is massive, a silk-covered canopy bed sits in the center of it. He pays no mind to looking around, concentrating on the job at hand.

“Sit down on my bed,” you demand, steering towards the bathroom and pushing open the double doors.

He obeys your orders without question, crossing his legs, and keeping his hand resting beside his gun.

The bodyguard keeps a close, attentive eye on the doors, supervising the way that you soak a washrag with warm water, squeezing out the excess.

You sit beside him, grabbing his chin and leaning into his face. He tenses.

“Relax, I don’t bite,” you smirk, reiterating his first words from the moment he met you back to him, massaging the dried blood off of his face, “No guard of mine will have a messy appearance.”

You can tell that he feels uneasy, but he can’t reject you. If you wish for him to relax, he will make an effort to relax.

You can’t help but notice his complexion when he isn’t scowling. The apathy melts away as you wipe the dried blood, giving you a new perspective on his appearance.

“You’re handsome,” you state bluntly, “Especially without blood covering your face.”

You toss the rag into the laundry basket carelessly, waiting for a maid to take care of it.

“Thank you.”

“What is your name? You never told me.”

His eyebrows arch slightly at the question.“It’s Minho.”

“I am Y/N,” You reply, holding out your hand to shake his own. His grip is firm and warm.

He keeps a stoic face as he glances at your face and back at your hand, as if he is searching for an ulterior motive behind this handshake.

The food.

The bell rings and the sound of it shatters the stillness of the room. Minho’s head jolts towards the door, hand back on his gun.

He rises instantly, opening it to reveal the maid with a tray of sweet snacks.

He takes it from her. “I will bring it in.”

“What a good boy, Minho,” you praise, clapping your hands together as he sets the tray on your lap.

“I don’t take you for a man who enjoys sweet food much. Do you like sweets?”

“Sometimes.”

You unwrap a piece of high-dollar chocolate, “I command you to open your mouth.”

Minho can’t deny you, it would be disobeying your orders.

He opens his mouth as the chocolate is positioned between his lips.

You relish in the chocolates with Minho and once finished, you set the tray on the floor for a maid to pick up at sunrise.

“I don’t think I mind you being around all that much, Daddy makes good decisions.” You lay down on the mattress.

“Your father does make good decisions.”

His gaze wavered on your face until you drifted off to sleep. Only then did they slowly trail down to your body.

The way your body was built captivated him. Minho was glued to your sleeping form.

He stayed in the room, taking a seat on a chair in the corner to watch you.

He didn’t know how long it had been since you had dozed off, but by the way that the room was now pitch black and noiseless aside from your figure rising and falling, he would imagine that it had been a couple of hours.

“How long are you going to sit there?” Your sleep-filled voice questions him, causing him to snap out of his daze, hand reaching for his gun out of instinct.

“Do you sleep? Are you allowed to sleep?”

“I will only remain in the room as long as you order me to. I do sleep,” He replies, “Now is there anything else you need my assistance with? Or can I return to my duties?”

“So you’re only staying in the room because I ordered you two hours ago?” There’s a tinge of dismay in your voice, but it was masked by sleep, “You can leave if you want, I don’t mind.”

Minho felt a sudden pit in his stomach. You sounded disappointed by his statement.

Your words are perplexing him, and he can’t conclude what you want from him. To stay or to go?

“Should I stay for a bit longer?”

You were already asleep again once he had responded.

You and Minho both wake to a maid opening the blinds and ringing a bell. You groan, stretching your body.

“Miss, let’s get you dressed for today.”

She pulls your nightgown up above your head as Minho’s eyes wander toward your laced underwear.

“What’s on my schedule for today?”

He quickly forces his gaze to look away and stares back at the maid.

“We want you to heal from your injuries, miss,” she answers, “we will start with a nutritious breakfast to encourage recovery, and attend to your injuries, and then you will speak with Daddy about your incident.”

The maid buttons your fitted dress, glancing in Minho’s direction, “Your bodyguard will need to be there for your conversation with Daddy.”

“He will?”

“He needs to tell Daddy what he witnessed from the facility.”

You nod, following her lead down the stairs and towards the breakfast table.

Minho follows suit, remaining at your side the entire time and he watches you eat, staying observant and cautious.

“Are you hungry?”

This question catches Minho off guard.

“No.” He adds in a dull tone— but in actuality, he is starving. He was entrusted to watch over you. He shouldn’t eat on the clock.

“Maid, go order,” You look Minho up and down, “A side of crepes. Blueberry crepes. And two cups of coffee.”

The maid hurries to the kitchen to place the order, and it is brought out a couple of minutes later.

He stares at the crepes being placed on the table, and his belly grumbles. “Thank you.”

The maid carries the mugs of coffee to the table. But it doesn’t take Minho long to catch sight of her cunning smile and the perplexing liquid that the maid slipped into the mugs of coffee.

He stares quietly, calculating his next action.

“Don’t drink it.”

“Why not?”

Minho’s sight narrows as you bring the cup of coffee to your lips.

This time, his tone is warning and direct. “It’s better that you don’t.”

You halt your sip at his harsh command.

The maid pulls out a handgun swiftly after realizing that she has been caught, aiming it at you.

A switch swiftly flips inside of him.

He lunges forward, grabbing the woman’s wrist and twisting the gun to the right, snapping a couple of fingers in the process.

It’s a rapid movement, and he had little time to think before shooting her in the head, watching the life leave her body. His face is apathetic and almost casual.

The maid’s blood spilled onto the floor as the others ran to clean it up.

“He passed the test, we can keep him. A promising guard so far,” Daddy compliments from behind you, “Urgently acting to protect. He knew that she was mindless and weak. He comprehends crises well.”

The older man slips a wad of cash into the breast pocket of Minho’s suit. “Good on protecting her. That was a setup with a stupid maid who was just aching to betray us. You will have the same fate if you are wavered by another team.”

“I think he’s a good boy. He won’t betray me.”

“Y/N, meet me at my office. Guard, follow her.” He swiftly turns away to lead the two of you as you eye Minho.

“You can relax now. No more tests.”

He nods in understanding, heeding silently towards the office.

“Tell me about what you saw at the facility.”

You nod. “Four men had taken me from our garden entrance and used Chloroform to knock me unconscious. I woke up in their van, where my hands and legs were tied. I heard them talking about what they planned to get out of me. They had intentions of murdering me if they got to a week of no answers.”

Minho listens to your explanation with hawk-like eyes, paying close attention to all the details and descriptions.

You clear your throat, running your fingers across your bruised wrist, “I was tied to a chair in their questioning room, and they used forms of torture for me to open up.”

“I was deprived of sleep and beaten if they caught me closing my eyes— trying to get my lack of sleep to cause me to open up about your activities.”

Daddy nodded solemnly, leaning into his chair.

“Waterboarding was their favorite method, but they enjoyed beating me. I assume that was mainly for fun.”

You continued, “Minho appeared and killed a couple of them and saved me, but most are still alive.”

“Still alive? You didn’t find and kill them, bodyguard, why?” Daddy’s intense eyes moved toward Minho, who appeared unbothered.

The fact that he missed a few guys is enough to drive him crazy.

“I had to get her to safety as soon as possible.”

Daddy merely nods. “I will send my men after them. Y/N, did you get any names?”

“They wouldn’t tell me anything about themselves, but I saw a couple of signs of their rival gang.”

“Guard,” he veered towards Minho, “Describe the faces that you saw. I need as much information as possible.”

“They look to be between the ages of 20 to 30, their faces covered in scars. One man had dark skin, and his facial scars were faded. His most notable feature was a slit across his brow. He wore a dark suit. I left him alive but with a bullet in his arm. The other man had a lighter skin tone and his scars were similar to knife wounds. He had gotten away.”

The boss nods.

“Good. I can work with that. Never let my little girl get into trouble like that again, alright?”

The second the words ‘my little girl’ leave his mouth, Minho can’t help but gaze at you. He observes your reactions and motions.

His heart beats by hearing his boss call you that, and his attention is now focused on every single twitch that you make.

“The nurses will be waiting in her bedroom shortly. Be good and do as they say.” He adds, snapping Minho back to him.

“Guard, do not let her go against any of the nurses' rules. She can be convincing. Do not give into it.”

“Yes Sir.”

You roll your eyes, turning away to leave the room.

“Stay safe.” That is the last utterance of the boss before you drag Minho out of the room and towards the bedroom.

“Sit on the bed,” a nurse commands you, and you quickly obey.

She dabs at your abdomen stitches with antiseptic soap and your eyebrows furrow.

“You can’t move around much, got it? No exercising for three weeks until we get these stitches out.”

You agree as she moves on to your wrists, rubbing cream into them, “You’re going to visit us twice a day for six days until the healing is almost complete.”

She yanks a bandage off of your face, causing you to groan in pain. She rubs another ointment on it before substituting it with fresh dressing.

Minho supervises each step that the nurse takes, noticing how she takes care of your body as if it’s her most precious gift.

She turns to Minho, “I need you to make sure that she’s well rested, drinking enough water, and not doing many straining activities. Take her back here once again in the evening, and then we will see her again this time tomorrow morning, got it?”

“Yes, I will take care of her.”

“What about him, nurse?” You eye the small cuts across his face and hands.

She smiles and leans over to you. “He is well trained. Trust me, he’ll survive a few scratches.”

Your eyes narrow. “I order you to treat his wounds to the best of your abilities.”

She sighs. “Yes ma’am.”

She moves towards Minho and checks his wounds, patching the ones that were newly caused. She brushes his face softly with an ointment.

“I don’t like it when my guards don’t keep up a good appearance,” you try to explain away your worry for him, “and being injured will only slow you down when protecting me.”

The man stares straight ahead, listening carefully. “I’m fine. I’ll recover just fine. I don’t need much care as you do.”

“Let her rest now,” the nurse tells Minho, “order the maids to bring her a glass of water and have her sip on it until lunchtime.”

Once she leaves, Minho turns towards you, “I’ll make sure the maids bring you water. You need to stay hydrated”

Once water is on your table, your gaze returns to Minho

“Now, I order you to sit down on my bed with me.”

He examines you with a neutral expression and waits for you to say what you mean, not wishing to assume or take anything wrongly.

“Sit down with me,” you demand again, patting the spot beside you, waiting for him to follow suit.

As soon as you ask him to, Minho does not waver. He sits down beside you, body brushing your own.

You turn to meet his cold expression with intensity. “Do you like your job so far?

Minho is taken off guard by your switch of topic. He stays where he is sitting, but turns his body as well and faces you.

“I enjoy my duties.”

“Good. Because I’m fond of you. You’re handsome, and you are good at your job.”

He stares at you with slight surprise. “Thank you.”

Your hands grab for his, playing with the ring on his finger.

Then, you reach your hands higher, tugging his sleeve up to reveal a cluster of scars littered across his forearm.

“How long have you been in the business?”

“Since I was fourteen. I was trained from a very young age.”

“Have you always been in Daddy’s family?”

“I was loyal to your Daddy from the moment I knew what this life was like. I haven’t had a moment of doubt.”

“Good. That means you won’t leave us, right?”

“I will serve your family until my last breath. You have nothing to fear about that.”

“What a good boy,” you reach to ruffle his hair, landing a swift kiss on his sliced cheek. “That’s exactly what I like to hear.”

Minho stiffens.

“I order you to take off your jacket. I want to see your body. To see if you’re strong enough to be a good guard.”

Your words are sharp as a knife and they cut deep through his defense system. His jaw clamps and his breathing accelerates.

Minho swallows his breath, nodding his head. His movements are rigid, starting to cautiously peel off his jacket. It takes him a moment to unbutton it, but once his jacket is off, he stays there, waiting.

You slide his jacket to the floor, touching the muscles of his bicep through his button-down. “You’re fit. That’s good.”

Minho yearns for you to keep feeling him. To keep praising him. He swallows. Your words sound like a honey trap to him, and it’s working as intended.

“I order you to take off your tie.”

“Yes.”

That is all that he says, slowly slipping his tie from underneath his collar and tossing it aside.

Unexpectedly, you’re climbing on top of his body. “Take off your button-down.”

He unbuttons his shirt as your eyes sear into his chest. He is now only wearing a black undershirt.

“So many clothes,” you sigh out, groping his bare arms. You run your hands across his biceps, listening to him shudder underneath the touch.

“Take off your undershirt now. I want to see your chest.”

You can feel the heat radiating off him as he shivers. His body is now sensitive, and your hands are making it worse for him.

Your orders are evident, and he hastily lifts off his undershirt, waiting for what is next.

You can see his whole chest with all of its blemishes, with every muscle covered in sweat, exposed for you.

Your hands travel down his chest and abdomen, feeling each ragged scar with your bruised fingers. The delicate contact causes his breath to catch and a soft groan leaves him, fighting to not show that he relishes in your touch.

“Let me kiss you.”

He stares at you for a moment before his eyebrows slightly shift— his way of showing you that he approves of that request.

Minho leans in slightly and closes his eyes, gently placing a timid kiss on your lips.

You smirk against him, pushing him to lie against the bed frame and deepening the kiss. Your hands reach for his dark hair, clasping a handful in your grip.

He kisses you deeply and wraps his arms around you to pull you in closer, offering full control to you. His breath speeds up.

You pull away after a moment, lips brushing against his as you catch your breath, but only for an instant before moving towards his jaw, sucking marks onto his skin.

Minho quivers at your touch, his breathing speeding up once more as you leave red and purple blemishes on his skin. He bites his lip to stop himself from groaning.

Your mouth moves from his jaw to his neck, leaving kisses and hickeys all across him, making sure that he is covered in them.

Your hips grind against him, breathing heavily with anticipation as you make your way to his chest.

Your hands and mouth are touching all of him, and each sensation triggers a reaction that he tries to conceal.

Your lips hover back to his lips, staring at him longingly. “Do I have to command you for you to do anything to me? You don’t have to ask. You have my permission. Do whatever you want.”

You can see his gaze shifting from your eyes to your mouth, to your neck, and then towards your chest.

You swiftly lift yourself off of him to let him remove your dress, leaving your body as bare as his own.

You grasp onto his neck, bringing him in for another deep kiss. Minho remains silent as he kisses you, allowing you to leave him as many marks as you desire.

“What are you thinking, Minho? Speak to me.”

He takes a moment, letting out an unstable breath. “I’m thinking of what you are doing to me. I,” he stammers, “I want to make you feel good.”

“Then do it. Please.”

“I don’t want to harm you,” he breathes out, “you’re injured.”

“The nurses said to not do,” Minho presses his eyes shut as you bring your hips up to meet his, “fuck, anything straining.”

“Remember what Daddy said? I can be convincing.” You sneer as your bodyguard fails to keep his cool composure, but the aching cock pressing into you is giving his true desires away.

You eye his internal struggle between following your orders and his cravings, or the nurse and his boss.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I can go relieve myself in the bathroom.”

“I like being hurt.”

You notice his lip twitch at the comment, and you decide to provoke him further, grinding into him, and set a steady rhythm with your hips.

He groans as his head drops back, tugging onto your hair and trying desperately to control his breath, “Please, Y/N, I just want to take care of you.”

“You can take care of me in another way.”

“I need to follow orders.”

“Then I order you to fuck me.”

His eyes pinch shut as he tries to clear his head and reason with himself.

Perhaps if he were gentle, it would be alright.

But how long could he remain gentle when you were splayed out in front of him, willing to take anything that he gave to you?

He made his decision, gripping your shoulders gently and flipping you, pinning you to the bed, and surveying your face for any discomfort.

When he finds none, he impatiently unclasps his belt, throwing it to the floor along with his dress pants, leaving him in just his boxers.

You hold yourself up by your elbows, thighs pressed together and mouth watering at the man in front of you.

His hands were delicate, although they could easily snap you in half, as he unclasped your bra, leaving your top half bare.

Minho stopped to take in the view for a moment before grabbing at one of your breasts, his mouth attaching to the other.

Your whines were like music to him— something that he wanted to hear more of.

Your back arched in pleasure as he moved one hand down to your thigh, caressing it for a moment before slowly slipping his hand into your panties.

“Try to stay quiet, darling, I don’t want any staff checking on us,” He hushed you with his lips attaching to your own once again, feeling your wetness all over his calloused hands.

His thumb brushed against your clit and you whimpered into his mouth, clenching around nothing.

Minho then plunged two fingers deep inside of you and curled them. He was becoming lost in pleasing you, overlooking his own ache between his legs.

Your thighs shook beneath him, feeling him brush against your g-spot brutally. “Minho please, please just fuck me. I want you inside of me so bad.”

At your request, he slipped his fingers out, feeling your cries against his lips from the loss of friction.

“Yes ma’am.” He pulled away from your lips, replacing them with his now dripping fingers, lapping it up with his tongue.

Next, your ruined panties were yanked off of you, with his boxers soon to come after.

One hand gently relaxes on your hips, cautious to avoid aggravating your injuries as he uses the other to guide himself inside of you, a deep groan followed by your whines.

He gives you a moment to handle the stretch, but you hardly need it, already begging for him to move.

Minho cautiously thrusts, taking in a deep breath and furrowing his eyebrows in concentration.  This is the ultimate test of patience for him. He needs to be as gentle as possible with you.

Ultimately, he sets a slow pace, hands locating themselves on either side of you, letting out uneven breaths as he tries to control himself from how good you feel around him.

“You really do care, don’t you?” Your hand reaches to cup his face, gazing into his eyes that are hazy with pleasure.

He keeps his response short, too concentrated on the waves of bliss through each thrust, “I do care.”

“Is it because you’re my bodyguard or something more?”

You study him, watching his adam’s apple move as he swallows deeply, inhaling sharply. He halts his thrusts for a brief instant.

“Both, maybe. I can’t tell.”

That was enough for you to continue, grabbing another handful of his hair and bringing him in for another hungry, deep kiss.

With each deep thrust, Minho’s mind got hazier and hazier, losing himself to pleasure bit by bit. You could feel it by the way his rhythm became rough and desperate, and his pace picked up.

One of his hands left your side, creeping towards your throbbing clit, causing you to let out sobs, all of which he ate up with his mouth against your own.

“Are you gonna cum for me?” He coos, knowing that you’re too lost in bliss to respond.

He takes your whines as a ‘yes’, his thumb rubbing circles faster, coaxing your orgasm out of you.

Your walls fluttered around him, squeezing your eyes closed and letting out a lengthy, drawn-out moan as his pace picked up even further.

“Just like that. You’re so good for me, so, so good, fuck,” he talked you through your orgasm between his thrusts, chasing his own high.

His brows crease, hips stuttering at how good it felt to have you gripping so tightly onto his cock. Finally, he let go, his load spilling inside of you and seeping out.

Both of you took an instant to catch your breath, coming down from your highs.

His hands slowly traced your curves in contentment, paying attention to the way your chest rose and fell.

Finally, he has a justification to gape at your body up close.

From your jawline to your hickey-covered chest, down to your bruised sides and stitches near your abdomen, and— Oh fuck.

Your wounds.

Minho slowly pulls away, feeling a sense of post-nut clarity and fright.

His hand slides away from your body, staring at you with concern.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, your own anxiety suddenly displayed on your face, “Do you regret it?”

“No! No,” He panics, “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?“

Back in reality now, your wounds ache and your head pounds with exhaustion and overexertion.

His mind calculates the solutions to the situation— ways to explain to the nurses, to fix you, to help you feel better.

It was his shortcoming, after all. He let his urges get to him.

“Let’s run you a bath.” He pulls himself up, tugging on his boxers and heading towards the bathroom.

You hear the tap turn on, lying in bed trying to catch your breath. Your breath is harsh from both adrenaline and pain, but you can’t help but feel as though the latter is more of the cause.

You had slept with a small handful of men, primarily Daddy’s men, but none of them were quite like Minho.

He was tough but breakable. He was still kindhearted at his core— something that wasn’t all that common in the business.

You could tell from the way that he ran the bath, bare muscles glistening from sweat, running his hand through the water to make sure that it was the ideal temperature. How concerned he was about your protection, even through his pleasure.

Not many other men that you’ve met throughout your life have been the same way.

You’re quite fond of the man that you have just met.

You hear the water shut off and footsteps coming towards the room. He holds a faint smile as his steps come towards the bed. Your gaze slowly wanders to his physique.

“It’s ready for you.” He says in a slight whisper.

“I order you to pick me up and bring me to the bath.”

He nods at your order, hooking his arms underneath your thighs and back, his strong grip securing you.

You inhale the powerful stench of gunpowder stuck to his skin, finding comfort in your bodyguard’s presence.

“Will you wash my hair?”

Studying his expression, it’s hard to read, but you let him carry you and place you into the water.

‘I do care,’ you recall his words.

‘Is it because you’re my bodyguard or something more?’ ‘Both, maybe. I can’t tell.’

Perhaps you had feelings for the man, especially while he massaged shampoo into your scalp with tough hands, making sure to rub your temples.

“Have you ever been a bodyguard before?”

When Minho hears your question, he hums while he proceeds to wash you, working on scrubbing the areas where he touched you earlier. “No, you’re the first one I’ve been a bodyguard for.”

“I did things for your father before this. Not as a bodyguard, a more, I guess, dangerous role,” he dismisses the question.

“Is that so?” You fall to silence as he continues to wash you, taking his time and guaranteeing that he gets every part. He hesitates when he washes around your injuries— every stroke and movement of his hands is smooth and temperate.

“Let me relax for a minute alone,” you murmur, “You should put your clothes back on, the maids should be here any moment to take my order for lunch. They won’t find it suspicious that I’m bathing, but they will question why you’re with me.”

Minho nods and pulls away from your body.

He stands up and his feet splash on the wet floor. He takes a double take at your closed eyes.

The way your body floats in the bath is something that catches his attention. You look very pleasing in such a vulnerable position.

He leaves the room, cracking the door to make sure that you are safe.

Minho buttons up his wrinkled shirt, pulling the jacket over it and smoothing it out to ensure that nobody suspects anything.

Minho’s eyes turn to the maid who enters the room with the ring of a bell.

His demeanor is unfazed, a hand on the gun in his pocket once more. He holds eye contact, his stare intense.

He would make sure that there wasn’t another incident.

“Where is Miss Y/N?”

“She is bathing at the moment.”

She nods, walking towards the bathroom and knocking on the door.

You hum, allowing her to enter.

“What would you like for lunch, ma’am?”

“I don’t know, surprise me.”

A few seconds go by as you immerse yourself entirely in the water before rising back to the surface.

“Minho,” you call out, “What would you like?”

You hear the faint sigh that Minho gives as a response back to your question.

“I’ll just have a sandwich or something, whatever you have is fine.” He replies to both you and the maid as she exits the bathroom, fulfilling her duty of reporting your lunch choice.

The bedroom door shuts behind her.

“Minho!” You call out once again, “I order you to take me out of the bath.”

A few seconds pass before you hear Minho’s footsteps come near the bathroom once again. He grabs a towel as you stand, body bare and dripping with water.

His eyes have an intense focus as he reaches out his hand.

Minho pulls you up from the bath wraps the towel around you, making sure to cover all of you, and begins to dry off your hair.

“Minho,” you begin, “Daddy can’t know about what happened. He’d shoot you dead on the spot.”

Minho pauses for a moment, his eyes darting across the floor.

He is silent for a moment. “I won’t reveal anything to him.”

“Good boy,” you cling to the towel covering your body, “Go fetch a maid to dress me. While she does so, I want you to change out of that suit and shower before lunch.”

“Then I’ll go shower now. I’ll be back.”

You hum in agreement, stepping towards your bedroom as a maid rings the bell.

You drop your towel, letting her sift through your drawers to find decent clothing.

She eyes a hickey on your breast, along with the other injuries across your body from the kidnapping.

“Your injuries look agitated, Miss Y/N, are you sure that a bath was the best idea for you?”

“Don’t question me,” you grumble, “I took a bath because I wanted to.”

“Yes, miss.” She pulls the dress above your head smoothes it out, and clasps a necklace behind your neck.

“You’re all set for lunch.”

The moment that you come out of your room, you can feel his presence. He is leaning against the front door of the room with an unreadable expression.

He has another suit on, a fresh one. Minho’s previously muskier, dark scent has been replaced by a new, sweeter fragrance.

“First shower at the estate?” You question, “Our soaps are quite lovely and mild on the skin. You smell wonderful.”

Minho’s lips curl at the compliment, looking you up and down, “Seems that we both are putting our best foot forward.”

You look around to see if anyone is watching before leaning to ruffle his damp hair and leave a kiss on his cheek, taking the man by complete surprise. He makes an effort to regain his composure, but you can see that his cheeks are blushed from the touch.

As soon as you lean in to lock arms, you feel him lean over to you to whisper something.

“I would love to do that with you again.”

You froze in your spot, heat rushing to your thighs.

You must regain your composure, caught off guard by his blunt words, something unlike the ordinary nature of Minho.

He takes a seat across from you, watching every move that the maid makes to be sure that she doesn’t try anything— he has learned his lesson.

“Pressed Italian Picnic Sandwiches and tea,” The maid states, setting the plates on the table.

You scrunch my nose up. “What’s in it?”

“Artisanal prosciutto, aged provolone, and sun-dried tomatoes inside of a crusty ciabatta,” She doesn’t hesitate to list the ingredients, “and a fragrant blend of rare loose-leaf teas with fresh cream and sugar cubes.”

She sets the teapot and cups out, along with a carton of cream and a bowl of sugar cubes.

Minho’s hand rests on his gun, waiting for her to leave before taking a sip of tea.

You follow his action, dumping a couple of cubes into your tea and bringing it to your lips.

I finish my lunch with Minho.

“Let’s go back to my room now. I'm exhausted.”

Minho nods his head and you both finish up the meals quickly.

You both leave the dining area and stroll back to your bedroom.

As soon as you get back into the room, you feel Minho close the door behind you.

You don’t hesitate to climb into bed and lie down.

The guard looks over at you, observing the way that your chest rises and falls as you breathe. He notices every movement that your body is making.

“I command you to lay down with me.” You lean back against the bed, your body still and eyes focused on his unmoving body.

He slips off his shoes silently, slipping into the canopy bed.

You grin, curling at his side, pressing against his body.

His breathing is deep and steady as he struggles to get into a more comfortable position.

Your mind began racing with questions about the mysterious man that you were slowly falling for, burying yourself further into the sheets.

“Minho,” you start slowly, “How did you become tangled with our family?”

Minho stays silent for a few moments and you feel his body shift a little against yours.

“I didn’t have a lot of money or family growing up,” he kept his answer short and simply, “the moment that this job came my way, I took it. The people connected to this business have always stayed on the down low, so this is an easy job to keep."

“Daddy seems to like you,” you grit your teeth.

Minho turns to you on the bed and sits up a little. He looks at you from top to bottom, reading the worry on your face with ease.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“He will kill you on the spot if he finds out. He’s done that to almost every man who has flirted or slept with me.”

You pause for a moment. “God forbid the one he hired as my bodyguard.”

“I am not so easily killed.” The words leave his mouth with a tinge of arrogance.

“I trust you.”

“Good.”

There is stillness between you both for a time, but he breaks it by grabbing your chin and leaning in to kiss you. You soothe into his touch, smiling against his lips briefly before he pulls away.

“I order you to stay here. Like this.”

It’s not difficult for you to drift off to sleep beside him, and as always, Minho pursues your request, keeping a close eye on you. You relax, your breathing slow, and he notes all of the occasional twitches and movements that you make in your sleep.

A couple of hours later, the door is knocked on by a maid.

“Dinner order?”

Minho jolts awake from the knock on the door, a hand swiftly placed on your shoulder to protect you from any threats before turning his head towards the noise.

His voice is full of sleep. “Repeat that?”

As she opens the door, there is a look of inquiry on her face, one that she won’t ask to ensure her job and health.

“Is she asleep?” She questions instead, glancing over at your peaceful figure.

He turns his head towards you to double-check, observing your napping body.

“Yes.”

“Alright. I’ll advise the chef to prepare her dinner later tonight.”

She gives a sharp nod to the guard and scurries out of the room, quietly shutting the door to not disturb the girl.

Minho’s eyes rest on the door for a moment, fully alert now with a hand resting on his gun.

Eventually, he turns over to you. He has his eyes on you for a few seconds before leaning down to kiss you on the forehead, letting out a small sigh.

You stir at the warm touch, scrunching your face up and stretching your body.

“What time is it?” You ask groggily before burying your head into his neck.

“Dinner is in about half an hour. You hungry?”

“Not really,” you pull yourself up and rub your sleep-filled eyes.

He notices your body shiver as you pull yourself up. Minho lets out a short exhale.

“Did you sleep?”

“A bit.” He doesn’t look away or turn his head as he admires the way you stand and stretch your body, smoothing your dress of its wrinkles.

You walk towards your vanity mirror, plopping down in the chair to readjust your necklace to the center. A few marks on your collarbone catch your eye.

“The nurses will be in shortly.” You grit your teeth. “I hope they don’t notice.”

“They won’t notice.”

His figure can be seen from behind you in the reflection of the mirror. His lips are turned upwards as he watches you fix your appearance.

You pull out a couple of foundations and concealers, working on concealing the marks left from earlier.

“The maids wouldn’t, but the nurses will tell the difference between a hickey and a bruise. Especially since these are fresh.”

Even though you are busy with your makeup and covering up the bruises, Minho’s eyes are never off of you. It is a feeling that you will have to get used to— always having a watchful eye on you.

Once you were satisfied with the coverage, you rose from your seat quickly.

“Get up, we’re going to dinner.”

“So bossy.” He retorts. “What will you have?”

“I want to go out, let’s go somewhere fancy. Daddy will pay.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You want to go out when you have had a beating just two days ago?”

He asks it like he thinks it’s an absurd idea, almost condescendingly, yet his tone of voice is soft and full of concern for you, causing your stomach to flip inside out.

“I’m tired of staying inside already. This estate is suffocating,” you pull on your slip-on shoes.

“That’s how I got myself into this mess in the first place. I left the house and got kidnapped. That won’t happen with you here.”

“I guess you’re right. We’ll go somewhere nice.”

“Good. I’ll go tell Daddy.” You leave the door open for Minho to come after but don’t wait for him, yet you can tell that he follows behind silently, attending to the way your body moves in the dress as you make your way down the halls.

The door is slightly ajar, so when you knock, it pushes open with a creak, revealing your father inside.

Minho stands behind you like a shadow, his lips pressed into a straight line, gaze locked on your father, keeping his distance from the both of you.

“Come inside,” the older man invites both of them with a welcoming grin, “sit.”

You can sense that your father has something on his mind, which is never a good sign.

“I was going to call you to my office shortly, anyway.” Instantly you assume the worst.

You sit down, taking a seat in front of him. Minho is still standing in the back, his priority on you and your father.

The man looks over at Minho. Their eyes lock for a moment. “Guard, go lock the door. There is a conversation that needs to be had.”

Minho nods and he turns his head, locking the door behind him.

He turns his attention back to you, who is frozen in your seat, breath hitching.

The elite man fiddles with a pen at his desk, clicking it to drown out the tense silence.

The silence in the room seems so heavy that you wonder how neither you nor Minho is feeling sick. Judging by the thick atmosphere between the three of you, it is easy to tell that he isn’t pleased right now.

He fidgets with the pen and you wait for him to finally speak.

“Do you find my daughter to be precious, Guard?” He addresses Minho with a stern voice, finally setting the pen down at his wooden desk with a smack.

“Yes sir,” Minho replies flatly.

“Are you willing to protect her at all costs, even at your life?”

After moments of silence, he answers back confidently. “Yes sir. I am.”

A hand comes to rest at his side, toying loudly with a handgun, which he eventually pulls out of his pocket.

Tears begin to well up in your eyes, yet Minho stays concentrated. There isn’t a single sign of fear on his face. He is unshaken, calm, and collected as if he had been foreseeing this exact scenario.

“Do you know why you were assigned to guard my daughter, Minho?”

“I know the reasons.”

“There was a leak to the rivals from a previous staff member that I had a precious daughter in my life,” He turns towards you, “the one that I had climbed to the top of my career to protect and assure her safety and security.”

He cleared his throat before darting back to Minho, “It took less than a day for her to be taken from my hands and placed in the hands of one of my greatest enemies.”

Minho pays attention to every word that he speaks and clears his throat, waiting for your father to continue.

“I care for my daughter more than anything in the world. Which is why I had appointed the most valuable, honest, and competent man in the family to ensure her protection.”

Minho nods.

“Please don’t kill him, Daddy.”

The boss meets you with cold eyes, disregarding your words to proceed with his lecture. “You are my most prized possession. I would hurt anyone or anything to make sure that not a single person touches you. The men who kidnapped you are all taken care of, wiped out by my command.”

He continues. “I know everything that goes on in your life. Every meal, every kiss, every injury, the staff must report every minor thing that occurs in your day. I have eyes on you at all times, and you’re more than aware of that.”

Your shoulders stiffen. He knew.

“Minho,” his stare is burning into the other man, “I’ll get to the point. Did you sleep with my daughter?”

He doesn’t blink. His body tenses up and his voice remains neutral.

“Yes.”

The boss turns the safety off of his firearm and you dig your head into your hands, unable to observe the scene that is about to unfold.

The gunshot is fired, but the man deliberately aims to the left of Minho, grazing his cheek with the bullet before standing up instantly from his seat. The guard doesn’t react with more than a blink as the blood pools at the cut.

“I trust you, Minho. You are a good man. If there is a single person who I would choose to give my daughter to, it would be you.”

Finally, Minho takes this as a sign to let his guard down for a moment as his shoulders drop, lip quivering slightly. It was evident that there was more emotion that the guard was holding back, especially when he took a moment to look away.

“You have my approval.”

Your eyes widen.

“Take care of my daughter. If you break her heart, I’ll feed your own heart to her for supper.”

“Understood.”

“Take her to dinner,” a wad of cash is pulled out from one of the drawers, “buy her flowers and anything else that she asks for.”

“Yes sir.” He responds, “I’ll make sure that she gets the treatment that she deserves.”

You run to embrace your father, to which he places an arm around you, rubbing your back before pulling away.

“Get yourself dressed more sufficiently, I will have a car ready for you soon.”

Minho follows you out of his office, letting out a breath that he had been holding in once the door was closed.

“Did you hear that?” Do you know what this means?” You beam at the man before grabbing at his cheeks and pulling him in for a kiss.

He lets out a surprised noise, hesitantly wrapping his arms around your waist and kissing back.

When you break the kiss, he stares back at you with the first big smile that you’ve seen from him displayed on his face.

“Let’s get you ready.”

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txtbeomi · 2 months

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Pieces of My Heart Masterlist

OT8 Straykids x reader, Soulmate AU

Meeting your soulmates was like finding the missing puzzle pieces to your heart. But life is complicated, and love isn't easy. Slice of Life fic about being in love with 8 members of your favorite K-pop group, and what it takes to be a part of their life.

Full Masterlist

Act 1 - First Meetings

Chapter 1: May the odds be ever in your favor Chapter 2: Perfect Surprise Chapter 3: Ready or Not

Act 2 - The Concert

Chapter 4: Nighttime Surprise Chapter 5: Double Trouble Chapter 6: Jealousy, Jealousy Chapter 7: The One With Friends Chapter 8: Sleepy Affection Chapter 9: Tough Times

Act 3 - Away and Back

Chapter 10: Longing Chapter 11: Late Night Reunion Chapter 12: Finally Together Chapter 13: Soft Morning

Act 4 - Dating

Chapter 14: Will you be my girlfriend? Chapter 15: Bamboozled Chapter 16: Date Day Pt. 1 Chapter 17: Date Day Pt. 2 (coming soon)

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txtbeomi · 2 months

Text

Royal Sacrifice | S.JY

prince!jake x maid!fem reader warnings: fluff, angst, smut (mdni), unprotected sex, cream pie, heartbreak, my attempt to write posh-ish, anti-monarchy vibes throughout, mentions of violence, petnames (my love, sweetheart), not proofread, anything else lmk! wc: 7.1k synopsis: your secret relationship with prince jaeyun is all you could have dreamed of, however, you're rudely awakened when your lover tells you some devastating news. a/n: surprise! you're all sick of me i know, but i wanted to post this before it sat in my drafts too long and i overthought to the point of never posting it </3 i changed up my writing style a little to fit the aesthetic of it all and idk if it worked but enjoy anyway! also, this is for the people asking me to post more jake <3

"Tonight demands nothing short of perfection from each and every one of you. Not a single mishap or slip-up will be tolerated. Should I catch so much as a hair or button out of place, rest assured, I will personally request your head." The Chamberlain's voice, firm and commanding, spreads through the grand corridor, her gaze penetrating the maids and footmen.

As she paced back and forth, the bright torch cast a soft glow against the polished marble floors, illuminating the intricate patterns etched into its surface. Each uniform was meticulously inspected, and every seam and crease was subjected to intense scrutiny. The weight of the impending event hung heavy in the air, thick with anticipation.

Tonight, within the confines of the castle walls, the royals and social elite would congregate for the year's largest gala. It was an exhibit of greatness, with the chosen guests flaunting their rank and power.

For the last seven months, you have wandered the castle's hallways as an insignificant maid to the Royal family of Glengyre. Your hands were battered from hours of labour and your spirit dwindled to the hardships of the job, but you had to do it.

You weren’t exactly invited into the castle, in fact, you had snuck your way in through the war tunnels underneath and begged the head housekeeper, Miss Son, to place you on her team.

Being born into a working-class household, you were all too familiar with the misery of poverty. With your parents absent and your siblings relying on your meagre earnings from the bakery, you carried the burden of duty from an early age. Survival had been your main priority, with every move controlled by the never-ending search for food and security; this was the job you needed.

Once you convinced Miss Son to give you a position, you were mindful to keep a low profile, sticking to your duties and never causing trouble. You dare not even breathe too loud next to the monarchy, each of them vicious and gruel in their own ways.

Yet amidst the icy family, there existed one beacon of warmth and compassion - Prince Jaeyun, the only heir to the throne.

He was the kindest man you had ever met, his values and ideals so drastically different from his fathers; all he ever wanted was peace and equality for the kingdom of Glengyre. His opinions echoed your own, his vision for the kingdom a testament to his noble character.

Everyone adored him, captivated by those puppy dog eyes and his wide, wholesome smile. Jaeyun had a magnetic charm that drew people to him effortlessly.

And yet, amidst the throngs of admirers, he reserved his heart only for you.

Jaeyun was familiar with all the staff, each face and name etched into his memory. So, when you suddenly appeared to clean the Library, he took immediate notice of you.

“I don’t believe we have met,” Jaeyun bows his head slightly to you, causing confusion to spread over your face. Men of his status shouldn’t be talking to you, let alone show you this level of respect, “Has The Chamberlain begun to hire new staff for that god-awful ball already?�� he chuckles.

You’re transfixed by his question and his beauty, it’s not every day a Prince speaks to you, let alone so casually.

With this being your first job at such a level, you don’t know what to do. Typically, all maids get training and lessons on how to approach any member of the Royal Court, however, due to the nature of your employment, that part was skipped.

Jaeyun raises a brow, “Miss, are you alright? You look dreadfully pale,” he shows concern for you, even when he has no need to.

Quickly, you bow, “I am so sorry, Your Highness. I-I have been here for a while. Perhaps I have just blended into the background,” you offer as an explanation.

“A woman as beautiful as you could never blend in with this dreary decor” he smiles, holding out his hand, “Can I push you for your name?”

He waits expectantly, his palm outstretched as it waits for you to place your delicate hand into his. You didn’t need training to know you should never touch a member of the Royal Family, so you stay stagnant.

Noticing your apprehension, Jaeyun smiles and reaches his hand down to grab yours. You don’t want to say you felt a spark as soon as his hand graced yours but between you both, you could easily power up the castle generators.

He feels it too, the pull you had on him has been cemented by this moment, “I’m Prince Jaeyun,” leaning down he kisses your knuckles, maintaining eye contact with you as he does so.

The Prince is mesmerising.

“Y/N, Your Highness. My name is Y/N,” your voice is wavering as your body is shaken by his act. You aren’t scared of him, you’re just shocked by his kindness.

“Y/N…a name as breathtaking as its owner.”

Since that day, Jaeyun hasn’t left your side, his presence constant as he finds any excuse to be in the room you’re working in, his conversations tailored to draw out your thoughts and passions.

To him, your background was irrelevant; he saw the depth of your character and your mind's brilliance. Every exchange deepened his admiration for you, weaving an unbreakable bond between you both.

Secret notes and clandestine meetings became the norm, each encounter is a stolen moment of shared laughter and intimate conversation. Jaeyun was captivated by your wisdom and fascinated by your unique perspective on the world.

In your second month at the castle, on the moonlit balcony of his bed chambers, he kissed you, declaring his love for you in the same breath. From that moment on, he was not just a prince but your prince, devoted entirely to you.

The Chamberlain gives you all one final check before sending you out, her excitement palpable as she practically squeals, "Places everyone, this is a big night!"

As far as you and the rest of your team are concerned, tonight is just another ball, one hosted nearly every month. But The Chamberlain's demeanour suggests otherwise - someone vastly important must be attending. The air crackles with anticipation, and whispers ripple through the servant ranks, speculating on the identity of the esteemed guest.

As you all fall into line at the entrance, you wait for the party to begin.

The sight of everyone's extravagant gowns and suits is awe-inspiring. Each guest seems to sparkle, adorned in riches that could feed your family for years. It serves as a striking reminder of the kingdom's vast disparities. Meanwhile, the servants stand in their modest uniforms, hardly visible amid the sea of finery.

It irks you to know that these people, who all have some power in ruling your home, could not care less about the people within it.

“You two, come with me,” The Chamberlain beckons you and the girl beside you to follow her, snapping her fingers as she hurries you along to the kitchen.

With little instruction, she thrusts a tray full of champagne into your hands. “Once empty, you come right back. I do not want to see one moment where you are not serving some form of beverage. Understood?”

“Yes, Madam Chamberlain,” you both say in unison as you bow and make your way to the Great Hall. The palace is now teeming with people from all corners of the kingdom, the room resonating with laughter and chatter. You'd find it enjoyable if you deemed any of these people tolerable. Drinks disappear and reappear from your silver tray, and not a single word of gratitude is uttered.

Finally, the Royal family enters the hall, with the King standing strongly at the front and his Queen elegantly alongside him, their presence commanding attention as they survey the gathering with royal poise, looking for the most important person in the room beside themselves.

However, Jaeyun is not like the others. Amidst the pomp and its beauty, his sight is drawn to a person considerably less notable.

In an instant, his attention falls on you, a delicate smile gracing his lips as he lifts his brow in discrete acknowledgement, a silent greeting in a noisy environment. The difficulties of being in a secret relationship with someone so far above your social status weigh hard; even in the same area, being seen with Jaeyun is a luxury you cannot afford.

Excusing himself from his family, he greets people on his way over to you, captivating the whole room as he does so. To everyone else, he appears to be merely working the room, exchanging pleasantries with ease, but you, standing in quiet anticipation, know better.

In that moment, it's as if the entire hall fades away, leaving only you and Jaeyun in your own private world. He moves closer, each step filled with purpose, each smile and gesture meant only for you.

As he approaches, his every move exudes royalty. It’s impossible to deny that Jaeyun was born to be king.

"Can I take one of these to lighten your workload?” Jaeyun asks with a playful glint in his eyes, already reaching for a flute of champagne.

You dip your head in a respectful curtsy, mindful not to spill the drinks as you balance the tray precariously. Miss Son's strict instructions echo in your mind - no engaging with royalty at events, let your body speak for your tongue.

But sometimes, Jaeyun takes that directive too literally.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Jaeyun says, his voice low and intimate. You hear a collective sigh from some nearby girls, their attention momentarily diverted from their own conversations to admire the Prince and his effortless charm.

Walking to stand next to you, his arm brushes yours as he looks in the opposite direction to you, he whispers just loud enough for you to hear, “Should I tell them I’m happily taken or would you like to put them in their place after hours?” his tone is laced with playful mischief.

“I would much rather occupy my time after hours with someone else,” you reply with a smirk, keeping your head facing forward to maintain composure.

You can't see it, but you feel the shift in Jaeyun's expression, a flicker of excitement, a hint of anticipation. His eyes dart briefly to yours, a silent exchange of mischief passing between you.

“Well, tell him he’s the luckiest man in the world,” Jaeyun responds, his voice tinged with amusement.

“Doesn’t he already know that?” you retort, a lively glint dancing in your eyes.

Jaeyun's hand lightly grazes your back, “Believe me, he will never forget,” he says wistfully as he turns away, seamlessly slipping back into his role of mingling with the guests. The lingering warmth of his touch leaves you breathless, your heart pounding with excitement at the thought that despite the separation now, he will be tangled in your body and soul later on.

The rowdy girls behind you giggle, their voices rising over the bustle of the hall as they discuss the Prince's past escapades with their cousins and sisters, whispering about how they hope they could spend just one night with him.

Jaeyun's reputation spread beyond the castle gates. He was renowned as a charming playboy, a Casanova whose dalliances sparked chatter across the kingdom. Every week, a new maiden appeared, talking about their alleged "hot affair" with the heir. It was enough to make anyone apprehensive, and you were no different. You maintained your guard up at first, rejecting his advances, refusing to become just another conquest in his succession of women.

But the more you spoke with him, as you shared moments and secrets in the quiet corners of the palace, you came to realise that the instant flurry of admiration you felt was not one-sided. Jaeyun's heart beats for you and you alone.

You discovered in him a love that went beyond gossip and whispers, a love based on trust and understanding. With that realisation, your reservations vanished, replaced by a deep assurance that Jaeyun was yours, and you were his, now and forever - or for as long as you could keep this illicit affair going.

The bell sounds, its loud chime cutting through the murmurs and whispers of the gathered guests, signalling you and the others to proceed to the main door of the castle.

"May I please introduce King James and Queen Elizabeth of the Lethamhill Kingdom, and their daughter, Princess Mia," the Master of Ceremonies declares, his voice full of power.

The announcement strikes like a thunderbolt, bringing the audience to a profound silence. Nobody had expected the arrival of the Royals of Lethamhill and the astonishment is evident as you look around to see a sea of stunned faces. Whispers spread like wildfire across the crowd as each visitor grapples with the implications of this unexpected situation.

Lethamhill and Glengyre are currently involved in delicate discussions about the possible unification of the kingdoms, a topic of enormous political importance. According to what Jaeyun has told you, these conversations have been stressful, with no definite agreement reached so far. The presence of the Lethamhill Royals at this gathering signifies a historic point between the two kingdoms.

The struggle between the two kingdoms has caused irreparable destruction, including starvation, poverty, sickness, and a staggering loss of life. It would take something genuinely extraordinary for both parties to put aside their differences and work together in peace.

Your eyes meet Jaeyun’s across the room, and you can see the fury simmering beneath the surface of his composed facade at the sudden intrusion. Yet, even as anger flashes in his eyes, you can sense the weight of responsibility pressing down on him.

No one knows quite how to react to this unexpected turn of events, each guest grappling with their own thoughts and fears as they await the next move from the Lethamhills.

“Please, do not stop on our account, continue the festivities,” King James proclaims, his voice carrying a jovial tone, a vibrant smile gracing his features.

As the party continues and dinner is served, guests settle into their assigned seats, laughter and conversation filling the air as they merrily drink the castle dry. Surprisingly, the presence of the Lethamhill Royals doesn't disrupt the flow of the event, instead, it seems to enhance it. Many see this as a reconciliation party now, eagerly awaiting the announcement that could potentially solidify peace between the two kingdoms.

Your role for the evening is clear: shut up and stand to the side, only interacting if called upon. It's undoubtedly the most tedious part of the night. Being on your feet for hours on end, catering to the whims of the guests is exhausting enough but enduring the occasional push or intentional spillage of drinks on your uniform from some of the more unruly guests adds insult to injury.

The other worst part of the evening was the sight of Princess Mia draped all over your lover, her hands roaming possessively over his chest and arms as if they were hers to claim. Each touch felt like a dagger to your heart, stirring a tumultuous mix of jealousy and hurt within you.

Jaeyun attempted to gently remove her, pushing her away with as much politeness as he could but she stubbornly refused to listen. Occasionally, his eyes would flicker to you with a sympathy, silently communicating his regret at the situation and how you must be feeling. He would never wish for you to be hurt.

Telepathically, you reassure him that it's okay, that you understand and trust him implicitly. After all, it's not his fault that another woman - a tall, beautiful, rich, and powerful woman at that - feels entitled to touch him. His efforts to remove himself from the situation already speak volumes, and you take some solace in his unwavering loyalty.

But despite your attempts to rationalise, the bitterness lingers, a bitter pill that's difficult to swallow.

Standing on the sidelines affords you the opportunity to observe the dynamics of the entire top table, not just Jaeyun. The Kings engage in whispered conversations and the Queens gossip amongst themselves. It's as if no blood had ever been shed between their kingdoms.

The casual camaraderie displayed by those responsible for the devastating conflicts between their kingdoms makes you sick to your stomach. How can they be so chummy, so nonchalant, when their irresponsible fighting has caused so much pain and suffering to countless lives? It's a reminder of the callousness of those in power, their indifference to the consequences of their actions leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

Suddenly, you see your King rise and tap Jaeyun on the shoulder, ushering him into an undisclosed location. The urgency of the gesture sends a ripple of apprehension through you, and you can only presume that he is finally letting Jaeyun in on the reason for the Lethamhills' unexpected presence.

“Why do you suppose they are here, Y/N?” Heejin, the girl to your right, asks in a hushed breath, her voice tinged with concern.

“I can’t say for certain, but I fear it won’t be for the champagne and escalope,” you reply, turning to face her, your expression mirroring her worry.

And when Jaeyun re-enters the hall, you know that your apprehension was not unfounded. His face is devoid of the charismatic expression he had worn for most of the night.

The king wears a stern expression, clearly unamused with whatever his son has to say in rebuttal to his conversation.

Something is deeply wrong

You scream at him with your eyes, silently urging him to look at you, but he doesn't, his gaze fixed straight ahead. It's clear that whatever transpired in that conversation has deeply unsettled him, and you ache to know what happened.

“Excuse me, Miss Son, but may I please go to the lavatory?” you ask your head maid, hoping to slip away unnoticed. Her disdainful scoff is the only response, urging you to return quickly.

With a bow of gratitude, you glide towards the exit, silently willing Jaeyun to notice your movements and follow you. Your eyes briefly meet his, and he nods, understanding your need for a private conversation.

You arrive at your usual secret spot - the Council Chamber - a place where every decision is made and policies are signed. It's a room steeped in history and power, but also secrecy and intimacy. Old men come here to dictate the fate of the kingdom they supposedly love.

Jaeyun recommended this particular room as a defiant ‘fuck you’ against societal norms of hierarchy and privilege. It's ironic, considering he's made love to you on every surface of the place, turning his statement from metaphorical to literal.

Tracing your fingers over the spine of the old book laid on the desk, the door swings open suddenly, causing your heart to race with surprise. You quickly straighten up, trying to compose yourself as Jaeyun strides into the room.

“Did I frighten you, my love?” he asks softly, a hint of amusement in his voice as he approaches you.

You shake your head, “No, not at all,” you say trying to ease yourself, straightening your uniform and brushing the dust off your front. He always laughed when you tidied yourself for his presence, a habit when you’re faced with Royalty. You’re hardly unacquainted, the portraits hanging on the room walls can testify to that.

Finally reaching you, Jaeyun's hands find their way to your hips as he traps you between him and the oak desk. His eyes glance behind you to see what you were looking at, his chin resting on your shoulder.

“Ah, the old laws that have kept this country from falling apart. To be lived and breathed by,” Jaeyun's voice carries a mix of sarcasm and despair.

“Laws that keep the rich rich and the poor poor,” you respond bitterly, your thoughts drifting back to your family and friends struggling back home.

Jaeyun's hands move up to your back, offering a reassuring rub. “I hate it too, Y/N,” he admits, his heart heavy with the weight of his people's suffering under his father's rule. He hugs you tighter, a silent reassurance of his solidarity and commitment to change, commitment to you.

Leaning back, he strokes your face adoringly with his middle finger, “You look so delicate tonight,” his voice conveying his love for you. Even dressed in rags, he still thinks you’re the most beautiful girl in the world.

“More delicate than Princess Mia?” You don’t mean it to come across as bitter, yet, it does.

Jaeyun shakes his head disapprovingly, a tiny glint of amusement in his eyes, “My darling love, are you jealous?”

“She is ravishing,” you reply. Princess Mia is everything you are not, it wouldn’t be misplaced for you to be slightly envious of her. You know the Princess could have anyone she desires, and if circumstances were different in which Jaeyun wasn’t hopelessly in love with you, she could probably have him too. That information would unsettle any lover to know.

Jaeyun places a feather-light kiss on your forehead, “She doesn’t hold a flame to your light, Y/N,” he says with such genuine love that you might believe him if you weren’t clad in a spilt-on uniform and tired eyes that reflect the brutality of being a measly servant.

But Jaeyun would never see you that way.

His lips swoop down to yours, capturing you in a breathtaking kiss, planting his deal of assurance on your lips. The way his mouth is melting into your own is enough to make your knees lose their strength. Jaeyun’s thumb rubs your hips tenderly as he deepens the kiss, trying to make the taste of you last the rest of the night.

Pulling back for a breath, you recollect yourself, smiling at him happily but as you gaze into his eyes you see something sorrowful hiding behind him. It wasn’t until this moment you forgot why you even snuck away to see him in the first place.

“The King seemed displeased,” you state the obvious, hoping he will enlighten you somewhat to the reason for the private discussion.

“He is an idiot, nothing more,” he spits back, eyes avoiding yours as if he’s scared of you suddenly. You have never seen him so angry yet sullen.

Reaching your cold palm to his warm cheek, you begin to pry further, “Jaeyun-”

Your query is cut short by his lips once again enveloping yours, the intensity of his kiss a silent plea for you to cease your questioning. It's unlike Jaeyun to keep secrets from you; usually, even the most classified information finds its way past his lips and into your ears. So naturally, his reluctance to share the details of his conversation with the King sets off alarm bells in your mind.

But as his touches grow more insistent, his lips trailing fiery kisses along your neck and his fingers daringly inching up your skirt, your thoughts become increasingly muddled. It's difficult to focus on anything other than the intoxicating sensation of his tongue against yours, the warmth of his body pressed against yours.

You hate that he won’t confide in you, that he's keeping you in the dark about something so significant. Yet, at this moment, you find yourself unable - and unwilling - to complain. Not when every touch, every caress, sends sparks of desire coursing through your veins.

“Jaeyun, I don’t have time,” you manage to groan out amidst a wave of pleasure, the urgency of the situation gnawing at the back of your mind. Miss Son could come looking for you at any moment, and you've already pushed your luck by leaving your duties unattended. There's simply no way you can disappear for long enough to satisfy Jaeyun's desires.

But he seems determined to ignore your protests, his fervour only intensifying as he continues to explore every inch of your body. In this stolen moment of passion, time seems to stand still, the outside world fading into insignificance as you lose yourself in the intoxicating embrace of your forbidden.

With each caress, each whispered endearment, you feel yourself falling deeper under his spell, unable to resist the magnetic pull of his affection.

But as much as you crave the blissfulness of his embrace, a nagging voice in the back of your mind reminds you of the consequences of your actions. You can't afford to be caught in such a compromising position, not when the stakes are so high and the dangers so real. Just down the hallway is a room full of people who would kill either of you for this affair.

"Jaeyun, we can't," you finally manage to gasp out, your voice tinged with desperation as you push against his chest, trying to put some distance between you. "Someone could walk in at any moment."

For a fleeting moment, Jaeyun's passion seems to falter, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features. But then, with a determined glint in his eyes, he pulls you closer, his lips claiming yours in a desperate kiss.

"I don't care," he whispers against your lips, his voice husky with desire. "I need you, Y/N. Now more than ever."

The tone of his voice dings your attention, it’s pleading and needy which would be normal if his words didn’t waver, lip quivering slightly. The conversation with his father had affected him more than you know, and he dared not confess what it was regarding.

With a sense of urgency in his veins, Jaeyun hoists you onto the desk, his hands promptly pushing your skirt up and yanking down your underwear, revealing your core to him in all its delicious glory. His breath stops in his throat at the sight, and his need for you becomes stronger than ever.

He licks his lips hungrily, wishing he could taste you, savouring the wetness that gleams between your thighs like morning dew. He wants to drink you in and lose himself in your folds.

But time is not on his side, he knows this, nonetheless, the throbbing between his thighs, the thumping want for release, is too strong to ignore. He was so desperate for you to suck in his cock with your heat, he didn’t think he had the restraint to wait for it any longer.

His need for you is mirrored in your face and body as you edge yourself closer to the end of the desk, spreading your legs as he undoes his ivory dress trousers and lets his shaft spring free of its constraint.

“Can I please?” he asks softly but with urgency, the tip of his member already primed to enter you, the question just a matter of formality at this point.

His thrusts are pointed, to make this quick while also giving you both the release you desperately needed. Your tight pussy grasps every inch of him deliciously, accommodating his size yet giving him just enough resistance to squeeze the tip of his cock.

“Please, Jaeyun, have me,” you whisper into his mouth and with a low groan of need, Jaeyun surrenders to his instincts, his desire overwhelming as he slips inside you with effortless ease. No matter how many times he makes love to you, the sensation of being so intimately connected to you never fails to amaze him. It's as if you were made perfectly for each other, two souls destined to intertwine. He thanks God every day for bringing you to his side.

Gripping his shoulders tightly, you anchor yourself to him as he picks up the pace, his movements becoming more frantic with each passing moment. You moan loudly through your bitten lips, trying your hardest to stay quiet; he was pounding into you so good you just can’t help the noises leaving your mouth, completely rending you dumb to his touch.

The sound of your gasps and mewls fills the air, a symphony of pleasure that drives Jaeyun wild with desire. Each cry, each whimper, only serves to fuel his drive, pushing him further into the depths of ecstasy as he loses himself in the rhythm of your bodies moving together as one.

Arching your back leaves the nape of your neck exposed, inviting Jaeyun to sink into it with his teeth, easily leaving a red mark. It’s the first time he has ever done something like this, to leave physical marks on your body that aren’t the bruises from his tight grip; those were easy to hide, but this one wouldn’t be.

“Ah, Jaeyun, what are you doing?” your bated breath whisps past his ear yet he doesn’t hear you, lost in the feeling of fucking you silly. He sucks and licks at the base of your throat, possessed by his need to claim you as his.

“My love,” he brings his face up to lock your eyes together once more, his cock hammering into you still with force, “Tell me you'll be mine forever," he begs, his words hanging in the air between you like an urgent vow. The intensity of his stare and the sheer emotion in his speech leave you breathless, your heart racing in your chest as you try to find the words to answer.

Tears fill his lashline, and his eyes are unexpectedly vulnerable. In that moment, you can see the depth of his love for you and also his sudden fear that he might lose you. The sudden change in emotion takes you by surprise, your Jaeyun who is usually confident and strong in moments like this is now yearning for confirmation of your love.

"Yes, Jaeyun," you say, your voice barely audible as you completely yield to him, "I'll be yours forever,” It’s a truthful answer, the only one who you can see yourself being with for the rest of your life, long or short, is him. Your Prince Jaeyun.

He shakes his head and screws his eyes shut, seemingly shaking his internal thoughts out of his brain to make way for your reassuring ones. “I can’t lose you, my love. I can’t…I won’t,” he rambles, the rhythm of his thrusts depleting, signifying that he’s close to the edge.

To distract him from his inner monologue, you cradle his face, kissing all over his lips and cheeks. If you can do one thing for him, it’s to instil in him the fact that you will always be his love, until death do you part.

“Y/N, my sweet love,” he whispers sadly, “Don’t let me go,” his plea is muffled by his lips kissing your palms.

You have no idea what could cause this sudden cast of doubt in his mind.

Jaeyun’s right hand moves to your sensitive nub, circling it with his thumb as he tries to coax you to completion. His hips buck sloppily, overwhelmed with the raw emotion and need to cum inside of you.

The bubbling heat between your tummy and pussy consumes you, the climax Jaeyun has worked so hard out of you finally spilling over his shaft and down yourself. Your legs shake violently as he continues to rub your clit in earnest.

The way your body contracts and walls clench around him also sends him to the brink, his seed filling you up quickly, each spurt dripping down your canal and onto your inner garments. The Prince keeps himself stuffed inside you as he pants, unsure of when he will finally be done.

Resting his head on your shoulder, he breathes out softly, trying to calm his panting and heart rate down. He knows he shouldn’t have asked you to stay with him forever, to promise to love him for eternity, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed to hear it almost more than he needed to find his release.

With a final kiss on your lips, he removes himself from you, retrieving his handkerchief from his pocket to catch the cum falling from you. While he does so, you can see his mind shouting so loud you could almost hear it, or maybe it was just because you are both so attuned to one another.

You have to find out what is happening and why he is acting so strangely.

As Jaeyun tucks himself back in and discards his handkerchief, you watch him closely, your heart heavy with concern. There's a weight in the air, a silent tension that hangs between you like a thick fog, and you can't help but feel the ache of his unspoken fears.

Jumping off the desk, you fix your underwear and approach him slowly, your movements deliberate as you reach out to straighten his jacket. Your touch is gentle, “Please, Jaeyun,” you implore softly, your voice barely a whisper as you search his eyes for answers, "Let me in. What are your worries?"

But Jaeyun remains silent, his gaze averted as he avoids your questioning eyes. You can see the pain etched into every line of his face, the fear and uncertainty that threaten to consume him whole. And yet, he can't bring himself to speak the words that weigh so heavily on his soul, scared that if he does. It’ll all be too real.

You can sense his hesitation, his reluctance to confront the truth that lies buried deep within him. But you refuse to give up, determined to stand by his side no matter what challenges may come your way.

Gently, you place a hand on his cheek, guiding his gaze to meet yours as you speak from the depths of your heart. "Jaeyun," you whisper, your voice filled with love and understanding. "You don't have to face this alone. Whatever it is, we'll face it together. I promise."

“That’s just the thing, Y/N,” he begins, voice trembling, “the King has put me in a predicament I cannot get out of,” he leans into your touch, craving your comfort.

Tilting your head, you stroke your thumb over the flushed apple of his cheeks, “What are you talking about?” you ask nervously.

Swallowing the thickness of his turmoil, he speaks lowly, “He has arranged my marriage to Princess Mia of Lethamhill.”

As Jaeyun reveals the truth of his arranged marriage to Princess Mia of Lethamhill, a heavy silence descends upon the room. Your heart sinks at the revelation, a knot of pain and disappointment tightening in your chest. This isn't the news you wanted to hear, the realisation crashing down on you like a wave of icy water.

"Oh..." The word escapes your lips, your mind reeling with the implications of Jaeyun's confession. It's a bitter pill to swallow, the knowledge that your secret love is soon belong to another, bound by duty and obligation.

Retracting your hand from his face, you take a step back, the distance between you a painful reminder of the barriers between you. But before you can retreat any further, Jaeyun reaches out to stop you, his eyes pleading for your understanding.

“My beautiful girl, I told him no,” he implores desperately, hoping you don’t think that he didn’t fight against this preposterous idea, “How could I ever marry her when my true love is already by my side?”

His words offer you a sense of relief, however, you know the King wouldn’t let him away with a simple ‘no’ in regards to this marriage, “I surmise he did not take it well?”

"Of course, he didn't," Jaeyun's voice is bitter and cold, his body tensing as he recalls the conversation with his father. "If I do not marry her, the proposed treaty between our kingdoms will be broken, and there will be conflict."

He was the glue to bond the kingdoms, it was all on him to marry this woman he didn’t know in the name of unification. He is being used as a pawn in this game of power and manipulation and it makes you wonder whether Princess Mia is also going through the same distress, although, with how she was groping Jaeyun earlier, you doubt it.

“A conflict, you mean a war?” you dare ask.

He nods shallowly, remorse etched in his features, “And our King has made it perfectly clear that I will be on the front line.”

Your heart shatters into a million pieces, the pain of it like a dagger to your chest. How could the King do this to Jaeyun, to offer him up as a sacrificial lamb in a game of politics and manipulation? It's cruel, it's unjust, and it's utterly heartbreaking.

"Your father cannot do that," you say slowly, your mind reeling with the enormity of the situation. "It's... it's unthinkable."

But Jaeyun shakes his head, his expression filled with bitterness and resentment. "That man is no father of mine," he declares, his voice filled with anger and defiance.

Opposite to his anger is your sadness, eyes leaking salty tears at the thought of losing your love. No matter the choice Jaeyun makes, he will never be yours. That is something you should have known from the beginning of your relationship.

You and him can never live in love or peace, it will always end in heartache and loss.

The Prince sees your sobs and pulls you in, circling his arms around you tightly, “My love, please don’t shed tears, I hate to see you cry like this.” he mutters into your hair, kissing the crown of your head gently.

But how could you not cry? You’ve just in this instant lost the love of your life.

The room is so silent all you can hear is the raucous laughter and music echoing from the grand hall. It gives you the opportunity to think about how the war would pause all laughter for every citizen of Glengyre, how the only sound you will hear is guns and screams of those desperately seeking escape and safety. You cannot allow that to happen.

“Marry her.”

“Excuse me?” Jaeyun pulls away, disgusted that you would even dream of proposing such an idea. He was yours and only yours, he wouldn’t even dream of lying with another.

You know that you must make him see reason, that there may be no other choice if you are to prevent the looming catastrophe that threatens to tear your world apart.

"It is the only noble thing to do, Jaeyun," you insist, your voice trembling with emotion, "We cannot allow our love to stand in the way of peace, of saving those people from the horrors of war. If marrying Princess Mia is what it takes to prevent bloodshed, then it is a sacrifice we must make.”

He doesn’t register your words, only hearing his heartbreak at the thought of you not being by his side, “But I will lose you, it will be impossible to be together if I marry her,” he begs you with his eyes to change your mind.

“You will lose me either way, Jaeyun,” you release yourself from his grasp, taking a step back to create the inevitable distance that is about to become your reality, “The people of this kingdom need you, Jaeyun. You are the only one that can make a difference to those less fortunate,” you begin, your eyes locked onto him as you portray the seriousness of your words, “If you go to war then there is a certainty you will die and you are no use to the cause of change if you are dead.”

The words get stuck in your throat, the idea of uttering such horror makes you feel sick to your stomach but the lives of hundreds must take priority over your love, no matter how painful.

"But-" he begins, his voice tinged with desperation.

"You cannot be selfish, Jaeyun," you interrupt firmly, your gaze unwavering as you meet his eyes. "I couldn't look at you the same if you sacrificed the welfare of our people for the sake of our love."

The truth of your words lands heavily between you, a painful reminder of the sacrifices that must be made in the name of duty and honour. And though your heart may ache with the prospect of losing him, you know that it is a sacrifice you must be willing to make.

Jaeyun ponders your words, recognising that you are correct: his people are his primary concern. He wishes he could do more to keep your relationship alive, to make you his Queen. As he stands before you, staring at you with loving eyes, he wishes you were the ruler of Glengyre, for your qualities and ideals already shine as if you are.

Suddenly, the bellow of your name echoes the castle halls, Miss Son shouting erratically to find you. It brings Jaeyun to realise that his fantasies of you being his queen are just that - fantasies.

Clasping your face in his big hands, he shakes his head, signifying his defiance to the idea but succumbing to his duties, accepting this fate, “I will always love you, and I will do everything in my power to make it back to you. Even if it’s in another lifetime,” he whispers the words onto your face, sealing them with a final kiss, his tongue now craving to remember you for a lifetime, rather than just a night.

You curtly nod, trying to bottle the emotions you are feeling, scared that if even one drop overflows, you will take back everything you have just said, sacrificing the people you love for the man you love. You could never win in this situation, and neither could Jaeyun.

“I love you too, my sweetheart,” you confess for the last time.

Miss Son’s footprints are right outside the door, putting your own feet into action as you leave Jaeyun to return to your post as a maid, the delusions that you could ever be with Jaeyun for a lifetime are crumbling away with each patter of your feet on the marble floor.

“Ah, there you are! What on earth are you doing in the Council Chamber?” she shouts at you while still being mindful of the guests only a hallway away.

You bow, offering no explanation and slip back into your role, smoothing yourself down to seem presentable. The togetherness of your exterior is the complete opposite of the shattering of your interior, your heart shattered in fragments as you stand back, overlooking the people you made an eternal sacrifice for. And none of them would ever care. The promise you made to love Jaeyun forever is the only peace of your heart left in place.

Jaeyun comes back into the hall a few moments later, poised and stoic, the only change in his face is when he looks at his father with an angry glare and a nod to follow, much to the delight of the King.

Abruptly, the King stands, “Ladies and Gentlemen, my esteemed guests. I have some exciting news to share!”

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txtbeomi · 2 months

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tides of regret | heeseung

summary: in the year since heeseung first rejected your love confession, you've tried everything to get over him. a trip to europe makes you realize you miss your former best friend more than anything, and it makes heeseung realize he's got it all wrong.

notes: aaand she's here! this is 24.4K words worth of my heart and soul. consider this a token of my appreciation for welcoming me on enhablr. i sincerely hope you enjoy it. <3

warnings: angst/internal self doubt, playful banter, dirty talking, praise, slight degradation, oral (m and f receiving), dry humping, fingering, mentions of exhibitionism and face sitting, nipple sucking, spit, brief moment of anal (tongue only), condom removal, unprotected sex, creampie.

For @enha-stars – may this story rip you apart and stitch you back together.

masterlist

Incheon feels lonely at three in the morning.

The overhead lights being turned off because of the lack of travelers at this hour makes the airport feel bigger than it actually is. It’s too quiet without the familiar sounds of luggage wheels on the linoleum or overhead speakers announcing flight changes every ten minutes. You don’t think you’ve ever been to an airport so early in your life.

It’s quiet enough to leave you alone with your bothersome thoughts. In the years you’ve been away from home as you studied abroad, you can’t help but feel a gravitational pull towards life in Seoul and the people in it. The familiarity of your home outweighs the adventure you once yearned for in your youth, and now you’re left with the exciting notion that, this time, you’ll know when you’ll be coming back.

The terminal has an abundance of seating. Your backpack rests on the seat beside you as Jay double checks the gate number while the rest of your friends find a spot on the seats next to you, attempting to find an ounce of comfort in the dimly lit area.

“I know leaving early saved us hundreds of dollars, but I need sleep,” Sunghoon says from beside you. His usually well kept hair falls in all sorts of places like he woke up without a second thought and hailed a taxi the minute he opened his eyes.

“You’ll thank me later,” Jay says. “We can sleep on the plane.”

“Our flight doesn’t leave for another two hours,” Jake whines from beside him as he yawns. “How am I supposed to sleep on these god forsakes chairs?”

“Quit whining and try,” Jay retorts. He looks behind him to see the rest of your friend group approach before glancing over to you. “Doing okay?”

“How come Y/N gets preferential treatment?” Jake beckons.

“Because she isn’t a nuisance like you,” Jay immediately fires back before diverting his attention towards you again.

“I’m alright,” you say, stifling a yawn behind your hand. “Just cold and sleepy.”

“Hopefully they turn off the damn AC,” Sunghoon says as he pulls his sweatshirt over his head. “I feel like my veins are being injected with ice.”

“It’ll warm up when more people come,” Jay reasons. “I wish there was a coffee stand that was open. I need a cup.”

“I could go for one,” you agree. “I’m trying to stay awake for the next couple of hours so I can sleep on the plane.”

The rest of your friend group appear behind Jay and you look down to check your phone for any notifications when Heeseung catches your eye. It takes you by surprise and you abruptly look back at your screen and busy yourself by aimlessly scrolling through social media as he attempts to occupy the empty seat beside you, but Jake beats him to it.

“I’m gonna freeze to death and then all of you are gonna have to deal with my frozen body.” Jake dramatically slouches down onto the seat until his head finds your shoulder, nuzzling his cheek as if trying to find comfort in you. “Jesus, Y/N, you’re so warm.”

You laugh. “I wore layers.”

“You’re gonna regret that when we get on the plane,” Jake mumbles.

Heeseung, from the corner of your eyes, opts to move to the seats in front of you. You try not to pay him any mind.

You snort. “Yeah, well I can take these layers off while you freeze until you become an icicle.” Jake hums when you let your head fall onto his.

“You know I’m not built for the cold. Australia’s my home.”

“And yet you moved to Korea,” Sunghoon provokes.

Jungwon and Riki are rummaging through the bag of snacks you’d brought for an early breakfast until the restaurants and coffee stands around you open up. Jake’s right, it’s far too cold to stop shivering, but you suppose you’re grateful that the discomfort distracts you from sleeping too early.

“I can’t believe we’re finally going on this trip,” Sunoo says from above you. With your head still on Jake’s, you turn to look at the boy speaking. “I’m really excited for you to show us where you’ve been for the past four years.”

A tiny smile graces your lips. “I’m excited to show you around London and Paris. The latter is a two hour train ride. My friends and I would go every few weekends or so to explore the city. Pictures and videos don’t do them justice.” You sigh as you reminisce. “I really did think that I’d end up living there when I graduated.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Missed home too much, I guess.” You shrug. “Though, I can’t believe Riki went through a growth spurt in the last two years that I was gone.”

“You went back to Okayama before Y/N came back for holiday break, right?” Jungwon asks, looking between the both of you.

“That’s right,” Riki says. “I was sad that I couldn’t see you before you went back to school.”

“Now he’s twice my height.” You gesture at the younger boy. He’s too shy with the sudden affection and chooses to bury his head in Jungwon’s shoulder. “You were so little.”

“Shut up,” he mumbles.

“I can’t believe you’re fluent in English now.” Jungwon pushes Riki off of his arm. “You, Jake, and Jay are kind of scary when you speak English.”

“It was a little hard at first. I used to watch a lot of American cinema so I could understand it better than I could speak it. But I can’t lie, it’s fun being able to talk to them in English.”

“You were so cute trying to string phrases together during your first summer back,” Jay coos. “Texting her in English was funny because she couldn’t understand the difference between spelling.”

“Poor Jake.” You pull your head from his and look down at him. “You probably had aneurysms looking at my grammar.”

You lift your head to see that the aforementioned has fallen asleep amongst the conversation with his mouth slightly ajar and soft snores echoing past your ear. You don’t move when Jay asks if you want Jake off of your shoulder, but you shake your head.

Conversation falls flat when the group unanimously decides that sleepiness is overtaking the need to socialize. Jay keeps checking his watch to look out for the time while your eyes try to look anywhere but at Heeseung.

It’s odd, the way two people can lose a friendship overnight. The heartbreak that came with romantic rejection wasn’t nearly as bad as realizing texts and phone calls were far fewer in between the moment you had arrived back in Europe to finish your studies. It hurt to know that neither one of you felt comfortable enough to see each other when you were back in your hometown unless the two of you were invited to hang out with mutual friends.

Still, seeing Heeseung after he had rejected your confession felt like a punch to the gut.

Long gone were the days of being able to send him unimportant updates about your life abroad or what you were doing at any given summer day back home. You couldn’t ask him to go to the restaurants you used to frequent near his house or yours. You certainly couldn’t call him at random hours because you were bored and missed his voice.

It wasn’t for the lack of trying. It felt like things might've gone back to normal after a short period of not talking, but your texts going unanswered and your calls going to voicemail was all you needed to know.

Perhaps it’s why you’re comfortable spearheading this vacation with Jay, who had made it a point to visit you in London when you’d chosen to stay behind instead of going home for the holiday break. The two of you had never spent time alone prior to then, but it touched you that he’d go out of his way to dedicate an entire day to visit you when he was there for a family vacation.

Coming back to Korea the summer after graduating felt like you were making the right choice, even if your head was telling you to find a home in Europe. Still fresh from your unresolved rejection, stepping off of the plane and knowing you wouldn’t be returning back to your university’s town made the uncomfortable reality of coming face-to-face with Heeseung sink in. You’d have to live with the consequences.

But it’s been eight months since you returned, six months since Jay’s dad was gracious enough to offer you a position on his marketing team, and five months since he encouraged your entire friend group to take a trip to your old stomping grounds.

The proposition felt too sudden, especially with how little experience you had working with his team, but you’d spend an evening with the Park family for him to consider you an honorary member. Though, you’re sure Jay might’ve told him something happened between you and Heeseung, especially after telling everyone you wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays.

To this day, you haven’t uttered a single word to your friends about what happened the night Heeseung rejected your love confession. If you know him as well as you think you do, you don’t think he's told anyone either.

“Cafes are opening up,” Jay notes. Sunghoon’s ears perk up. “Three of us should go get food and drinks while the rest save our seats.”

The airport overhead lights must’ve turned on while you were deep in thought. Jay’s right, the coffee stands have opened and it’s likely due to the new influx of travelers who’ve arrived at the airport. Foot traffic is still light and you know Jay wants to get ahead of the crowd.

Jake has woken up because of the growing murmur around him and lifts himself off of your head to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. He yawns once more but tries his best not to fall asleep again.

“How long was I out?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take,” Sunghoon answers.

“Sorry for sleeping on you,” Jake apologizes.

“It’s okay. You needed it.” He scrunches his face, not used to the new lighting. “Jay, I’ll come with you to get coffee. I need to stretch my legs.”

“I’ll help as well.” Heeseung speaks for the first time in a while and his voice nearly catches you off guard.

“Sure.” Jay gathers everybody’s orders before the two of you follow him around the terminal.

The line isn’t unbearably long, but with Heeseung towering behind you, it feels like you’ve been standing for hours. You shift from one foot to the other in order to find a happy medium to no avail. Jay orders for the group and you pay attention to him more than you care to when you realize Heeseung is now standing beside you to make room for more people to wait in line. He’s considerate like that and you hate it.

When the baristas are finished with your order, you reach for the bag of sandwiches in your haste to escape Heeseung. But your fingers touch the steam and you drop the bag into the counter with a hiss.

“Careful,” Heeseung says. “Don’t get hurt, please.”

Your clumsy nature was always something he teased you for. Heeseung sounds so sincere about his worry that you think you’d rather him pour all of the hot coffee on you instead.

“Thanks.” You grab the bag with so much as a single moment of eye contact before realizing Jay has started walking back.

Breakfast is eaten in silence. Everyone is too tired to speak, save for Jake whose twenty minute nap has rendered him a little more awake than the rest of you. You and Sunghoon share your egg sandwich and chocolate croissant respectively without a word spoken between the two of you.

Meanwhile, Heeseung is staring at the way your thighs are close to Sunghoon’s. He had shifted his body closer to yours in order to form a makeshift table so that sharing pastries wouldn’t result in crumbs on the floor. You can feel Heeseung's gaze on your kneecap and it makes your face flush.

Sunoo and Jake offer to throw everybody’s trash away when you’re all done eating. The airport is in full swing by now and everyone has said their graces and apologized to Jay for giving him a hard time with how early they arrived.

It seems that sleep has threatened to overtake you. You’re waiting in line to scan your plane ticket and board the aircraft, but the sudden warmth of the airport has caused you to yawn a few too many times. Riki’s standing in front of you and his height makes for a perfect makeshift wall to lean on. Or, that’s what your tired brain is telling you, because you slouch forward and let your cheek rest against his back as you close your eyes.

“Sleepy girl,” you hear him chuckle. You merely nod in acknowledgement.

Your comfort is short lived when he softly nudges you because the line has moved. Soon, you scan your ticket and give the airline agent a smile as thanks before waiting to set foot on the aircraft.

Sunghoon notices your dropped shoulders and wordlessly takes your backpack off of you.

“You don’t need to do that,” you say with a frown when you see Sunghoon carrying your belongings with him.

“Let me hold it,” says Sunghoon. “You look like you’re about to fall over with the extra weight.”

“If you insist.”

“Let us take care of you, yeah?” Jay interrupts, bumps his shoulder with yours. “You’ve been running all over Europe these past four years and we’ve only seen you a handful of times. You deserve to relax on this trip.”

“I can’t believe you guys are being so sweet on me. I know that’s ending the second we get back to Korea.”

The two boys laugh. “Well, it’s only fair, I guess. You’re like, the mom friend.”

“Jay is the mom friend.” The aforementioned doesn’t argue.

The squeeze of the aircraft is tight and you’re desperately trying to look for your seat. It seems that Sunghoon is sitting in your row, which excites you, but you’ve come to realize that you’ve obtained the ungodly middle seat. You make peace with it for a brief moment before Heeseung clears his throat awkwardly.

“Let’s switch seats,” he says from behind you. His ticket shows the window seat right next to yours. “I know you hate middle seats.”

“No, I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking.” He says it with a smile and it makes you cower into yourself. “You should move to your new seat so we don’t hold up the line.”

Heeseung suggests it in a way that is reminiscent of the days where he’d give up his sweet treats because you wanted a taste. It tugs at your heartstrings but you don’t have time to think about that when you notice how the plane is starting to fill up.

Reluctantly, you slide into the window seat while Heeseung and Sunghoon follow suit. Your seat belts are buckled and in no time, the aircraft takes flight.

For the next hour, Heeseung looks like he wants to say something to you. The headphones you've brought do well to cancel out the noise, for the most part. You can see from the corner of your eye that he glances at you from time to time, but you ignore it and choose to get comfortable for the long haul.

When you notice the flight attendants come with the beverage cart, you take it as a cue to get comfortable and try to get some sleep for the next few hours. Likely due to the lack of sleep from the night prior, you fall asleep as soon as your head rests against the plane.

You don’t hear Heeseung requesting an extra bottle of water for you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

When you come to, you’re barely able to register that it’s time to eat the first meal on the flight. You take your headphones off and put it in your backpack as you blink the sleep out of your eyes.

“Chicken or beef?”

Heeseung looks at you, expecting an answer.

“Hm?”

He laughs softly. “Chicken or beef?”

Your eyes dart between him and the flight attendants when you realize they’re about to approach.

“I heard them asking people which meal they want,” Heeseung explains. “So, chicken or beef?”

“Beef.” You clear your throat.

“Beef it is.”

Sunghoon requests chicken when the flight attendant arrives. Heeseung orders beef for the both of you before you get the chance. If he notices you looking at him strangely, he doesn’t comment on it.

The food comes quicker than expected and the meal tastes decent, though you’re trying your best not to elbow Heeseung as you cut away at your portion. He seems engrossed in the movie in front of him while you peek at what he’s watching—Iron Man, to no one’s shock.

You soften a bit at the nostalgia that comes with Heeseung and Marvel, namely the rainy days in your youth spent marathoning the superhero movies. There had been one year in high school when he’d dressed up as Tony Stark and you as Pepper Potts despite a few girls your age whispering behind your back at the matching costumes out of jealousy. You don’t think you can think of the franchise without thinking of Heeseung.

The memories almost bring a smile to your face. Heeseung seems to notice you glancing at his screen in between bites. You avoid eye contact when you realize he caught you staring and focus on cutting your meal, praying that Heeseung will stop looking at you and watch the movie instead.

But he takes one earbud out and holds it to you.

“Do you want to watch it with me?” He’s halfway through. You tell him such but he doesn’t care.

“I don’t want to jump in halfway through.”

“Come on, it’s not like you haven’t done that before.”

Heeseung says it with such nonchalance that it makes your stomach drop. He sees the way your eyes falter for a moment and the way you glance between his hand and the screen. You try to come up with excuses to refuse his offer, but you’ve got eight more hours until you land.

“Sure,” you settle. Heeseung gives you one headphone and resumes watching.

Between the meals being picked up and tray tables being put away, you manage to fall asleep in your seat. Sunoo sits in front of you and upon coming back from a quick bathroom trip, sees your head resting on Heeseung’s shoulder with his cheek propped on your head. The two of you are fast asleep despite the credits rolling and he can’t help but snap a quick photo.

You wake up some hours later when Sunghoon says your name. The cabin lights turning on temporarily blinds your vision as you wake up when you realize you’d managed to push yourself back enough to rest yourself against Heeseung’s arm.

“Oh God,” you say in shock, pulling yourself and the seat upright. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s okay,” he replies, like he means it. “Sleeping on planes is uncomfortable. But I know you know that.”

You nod. “Yeah. It's too hard to get comfortable.”

“I can’t believe we’re spending two weeks in Europe. I’ve never been outside of Korea and Japan before. You’ll have to help me with my English.”

“Jay or Jake can also help with that.” You say it with a yawn and Heeseung’s eyes cast to the floor for a brief moment. You barely notice, gathering your own belongings as the flight descends.

“Yeah, I guess they can.”

When you land, the familiar disorientation of the time difference truly wakes you up. It’s eleven in the morning when the plane door finally opens and Jay’s moving a step ahead of you as he occupies space in the aisle way to grab his belongings. You follow suit and wait for your turn to exit amongst your friends and other travel goers.

Stepping out of the plane and into the familiar terrain of the Heathrow Airport reignites your attentiveness and you smile at the fond memories of being greeted by your university friends upon arriving. The familiar atmosphere of English travelers milling around the gate warms your chest with nostalgia.

You wait for the boys to emerge before signaling Jay, who follows beside you as you walk towards the baggage claim area. You lead him with little trouble down the escalator as the rest of your friends follow suit, yawning in an attempt to wake themselves up.

“It’s weird seeing you in your element,” Jay comments as he stands beside you, periodically checking the turnstile for his luggage. “A good kind of weird.”

“This airport might as well be my second home,” you tell him. “It feels routine to wait for my luggage at this point.”

“I’m tempted to sleep when we get to the hotel but I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule more than it already is.” Jay pulls his luggage.

“Yeah, that’s smart. I think we should take an hour to freshen up and find a place to eat before we go exploring.”

“I can already hear Jake whining about it.”

The two of you share a laugh. “He’ll just have to get used to it. We can have an early night and rest up before we explore tomorrow.”

“He slept on the plane, for the most part,” Jay informs. “Surprisingly, he didn’t snore as loudly as he usually does.” He spots your luggage and takes it off of the belt for you.

On the other side of the carousel, Heeseung and Sunoo are standing together to find their own luggages.

“You guys looked pretty cozy,” Sunoo comments. “It was nice seeing you two like that again.”

“It felt nice,” he mutters. “I really missed her.”

Heeseung doesn’t have to tell Sunoo what happened between the two of you for him to know that you two aren’t as close as you used to be. The older boy feels nearly ashamed that his own friends have caught up on his awkward demeanor.

“Well, she’s back for good and we’re here on vacation. Try not to dwell on whatever it is that’s making you think too hard.”

Heeeung laughs. “I’ll try, Sunoo. It’s just hard when we’re not as close. How can I compete when we’re in her college town and how will I talk to her in Paris?”

“Well, you never know,” Sunoo says as he picks up his luggage. “Anything can happen in the City of Love.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The hotel itself is modest in size. Quaint, old cobblestone surrounding the entryway like you remember it. The people are busy walking in and out of the meeting rooms in the lobby as you walk to the concierge to sort out the rooming situation. Jay stands beside to help distribute the keys and the employee behind the desk bids you a good stay.

The view from the fifth floor is spectacular already. You catch glimpses of the streets of London below you, street lights decorating the sidewalk and flowers surrounding the city. This feels like the London you remember and it adds a slight pep in your step.

“Alright, it’s decided that three of you are gonna share,” you say as you reach the first room. “The other four will be split into two rooms and I’ll get a room for myself.”

“That’s not fair,” Jake huffs.

“I refuse to share a room with any of you.” You pocket the key to the single bedroom. “Plus, Jay’s mom helped me make the arrangements when we planned the trip.”

“Favoritism,” Jake coughs. You nudge his side.

“To make it fair, everyone will pick up a key card without knowing the room number and flip it. That’ll determine who you room with.”

“Alright,” Jungwon says. “Fair enough.”

One by one, your friends pick their key cards and discover their roommates. Jake, Sunoo, and Riki are the unlucky three who will be rooming together for the duration of the week. Jay and Sunghoon are in the room directly across from theirs while Heeseung and Jungwon share a room.

“Let’s meet at the lobby in an hour,” Jay suggests. “We can get some lunch and do some exploring before deciding on dinner.”

“We can take it easy and sleep early tonight,” you add in. “I know that flying internationally is always a bitch and I try to time my sleep when I need to.”

The eight of you part ways. Your suite has a beautiful view of the sky and the room itself makes you feel like the main character of a romance film. The bed is just to your liking with pillows stacked to the nines. It feels nice to have a moment to yourself. With your friend Yunjin backing out of the trip at the last minute due to family conflicts, you hadn’t had time to think about anything other than arriving at the hotel safely.

You busy yourself with a shower and freshen up, pulling out options for you to wear for the rest of the night. You settle with something stylish yet comfortable and put enough makeup on your face until you’re satisfied with the person staring back at you in the bathroom mirror.

True to your word, you enter the lobby when you said you would. Jay and Sunghoon are already downstairs by the seats. Sunghoon stands to offer you the loveseat but you decline politely and sift through your phone until the rest of the guys arrive.

When they do, it’s like all eight of you collectively agree that hunger has overtaken you. You know of a nearby cafe that serves sandwiches from your days in university. You lead them to the quaint restaurant that has your friends staring at the art on the walls as you greet the cashier and order.

It’s a slow moment for the eight of you as you all eat in relative silence, the sound of quiet slurping audible from the coffees everyone has chosen to drink.

“Did you spend a lot of time here?” Jungwon asks.

“Around the area, yeah,” you say, looking around. The outdoor seating area is just towards the edge of the street with the weather being a cool, cloudy day. “I loved coming to cafe’s like these with my friends after class. We’d study until they kicked us out and then go for a drink or two.”

“We should go to a pub while we’re here,” Jake suggests. “I’ve always wanted to see an English pub. We have a few back in Australia.”

“I know just the place! My friend’s brother owns it and they know I’ll be in town for the next week. It would be nice to catch up with them.”

“Hopefully your friends here kept you out of trouble,” Sunghoon teases. You flick him with your fingers.

“I’m the most responsible one out of you seven and don’t you forget that.”

“Do you miss being here now that you’re back?” Riki asks in between sandwich bites. “God, I love London already.”

“You’re going to choke if you don’t slow down.” He apologies and takes a single bite. “Well, I think I miss my friends a lot. I don’t necessarily miss being in university, but I miss the freedoms that come with it.”

“I still can’t believe you spent four years of your life here,” Sunghoon says. “That’s insane when you think about how you cried when your aunt took you to Tokyo for a week when you were in middle school.”

The boys laugh and you frown. “I was twelve, okay? You wound me. But yeah, I think I grew out of my shell in high school and had this urge to travel but didn’t know how to do it. I was surprised when my parents encouraged me to apply to King’s College, even more so when I got accepted.”

“You’ve always been too good to stay in one place for too long,” Jake says. “We got close until halfway through our first year of high school, I think. I always got the sense that you wanted more than what our hometown could offer.”

“I always wanted to move to the heart of Seoul eventually. But I think I needed to come here in order to figure that out.”

“Would you really have stayed in London if you had the chance?”

You avoid looking at Heeseung, whose attention averted from his phone to you.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “But what I do know is that I’m happy to be back in Korea and I’m happy to be traveling to Europe.”

“You always did have that sense of adventure,” Heeseung says. “I remember you were the one who always got us in trouble when we explored a little too far.”

“Your mom was pissed that time I walked a little too far down the shoreline when we went to Jeju.” The memory feels warm despite your discomfort at having Heeseung’s eyes on you. “I didn’t know who she wanted to kill more, me or you.”

“Definitely me. You could do no wrong in her eyes.”

“What happened?” Sunoo asks.

“My family and Heeseung’s took a trip to Jeju Island when we were around seven, if I remember correctly. I’d taken swimming lessons and thought I could show off my new skills at the beach we were at, but there was a wave that was a bit too much for me to handle.”

“She was nearly swallowed by the ocean.” Heeseung hits his knee with his palm as he recalls the memory. “I mean, I was seven and it seemed like the wave was gigantic but to my mom, it must’ve been just tall enough that she could see over it.”

“She yelled at him for the rest of the night because she had to pull me out from under the water,” you add. “I was fine. My parents laughed it off but his mom was so pissed at him for not telling me to come back to the shore.”

Echoes of laughter fill the space. It feels nice to be able to laugh like this with Heeseung, temporarily forgetting why you were so awkward around him in the first place.

When the check is paid, you lead the group around the area. Sunghoon takes out his camera and captures everything that inspires him while Sunoo and Riki are off to explore the shops around. It brings warmth to your chest to see your friends enthusiastically exploring the space you once called home. It had been a dream of yours since Jay came to visit and let you drag him around town for the day. Having them with you feels like you’re healing a part of yourself.

You duck into the quiet bookstore you used to frequent while you were a student. Filled with novels and trinkets from floor to ceiling, it feels familiar to you.

You get lost in thought when you glance at the books in front of you and you don’t notice Heeseung approaching.

“Still love books?”

“Jesus,” you gasp, clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he laughs. “Seems like you still scare easily.” You hate that he knows you so well. Clearing your throat, you put the book back.

“Yes, to both. I used to come to this bookstore a lot when I had free time.”

He looks around. “It looks like a nice place.”

“They have a reading nook in the back. The owner is this sweet older woman who was the first person to help me with my English when I first moved. I think she let me read books for free because I used to bring her sweets.”

“That sounds like something you’d do.” You cast your eyes to the floor. “It’s crazy that there’s parts of you that I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” you mumble solemnly. Heeseung’s eyes bore into the side of your face as you pretend to look at the titles of the books.

“Do you talk to your college friends often?”

“All the time. My closest friends live all over the place. Two of them are from the area, one went to live in the States, and a few live in Busan.”

“I’ll bet it was nice to have some Korean friends when you moved. I remember you used call me to tell me about your first semester here.”

You can’t help but think about the first few months after you moved when you would call Heeseung for a bit of comfort when things felt too overwhelming. With Korea being nine hours ahead, you always felt a little too bothersome phoning when it was the middle of the night for him, not used to the time difference. But he always answered you or called back when he had the chance.

You’d spend hours on the phone, talking to him about how difficult it was to learn English and how making friends was not as easy as you thought it would be. Navigating the city felt lonely and isolating because you’d barely made friends in your classes in the first few weeks. Heeseung was there through all of it, reminding you that being eighteen years old in a new country made you brave despite feeling like you were a failure for not grasping a hold on life like you thought you would.

Falling asleep on the phone with him became a routine, too. Whether it was you who fell asleep after a long day or Heeseung, who had stayed up listening to your worries, the sound of his breathing made it feel like you were back home in Korea instead of exploring a grand new world.

Soon enough, you could talk your way around and piece together conversations with your classmates until you’d found friends who shared similar interests. Heeseung was the first person you told and the first person to tell you how proud he was that you extended your roots to learn about yourself away from home. You always thrived off of his praise as if making him proud was something you never sought out to do, but appreciated when it happened.

But that was four years ago. Whatever friendship you had with him then is not the one you have with him now.

“It was nice,” you settle. “I miss my college friends. You might get to meet some later in the week.”

“Nice,” he mutters to himself when you walk past him. “That’s really nice.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The rest of the week is spent in your old stomping grounds, from touring your campus, to shopping, to sightseeing. The eight of you split up more often than not to explore different areas based on mutual interest. You find that Heeseung tends to gravitate towards you and you aren’t sure if it’s because he feels guilty for rejecting you or because he genuinely wants to explore what you want to do.

Still though, at least one other person joins you. It feels nice to have a buffer to avoid any awkward conversation or moments, especially when Heeseung trips over his words trying to talk to you.

The week goes by too quickly for your liking. Spending time in London has felt like coming back home, in a way. You’ll always have your memories here and this city will remain the same when you return in the future. Now, it no longer feels like the place you escape too because things got too hard back home.

Even with Heeseung next to you more often than not, you’ve found a happy medium The awkwardness dissipates when you set aside your indifference to show everybody your favorite places, watching them explore the city for themselves.

As expected, Riki and Jake have spent a little too much on clothing with the hopes that they can fit it into their luggage on the way back. It fits miraculously.

Your friend Leo, the one whose brother owns the pub you used to frequent, tells you he’s excited to see you after all these months. It’s a Friday night when you arrive, seeing it well populated. But it’s rather early in the evening before the rush hour, so you enjoy the relative quietness before people rush in.

Heeseung, on the other hand, has been in a stupor for the latter half of the week. It began when he managed to talk to you in the bookstore, but blossomed when he watched you navigate your way around the city. You barely looked at your phone for directions and had no problem switching to English when you greeted shop owners. Hearing you speak fluently in a language you once struggled with in your childhood made him feel somewhat removed from your life. The two of you used to joke that he was always better with English. Now, the tables have turned.

The fear that you’d told your school friends about what transpired between the two of you plants itself in the back of Heeseung’s mind. He worries that your friends won’t like him and that you’ve scorned his name, but he chides himself just as much as he worries because he knows you and how deeply you care about people.

Heeseung wishes he could go back in time to change what happened. He wishes that he’d admit his mistake and confess to you before you left. It had taken him a long time to confront his own feelings, but seeing you back in Korea made him realize he didn’t care if the relationship was long distance or not. He didn’t care as long as you were in his life.

The months spent apart without phone calls or texts were agony. He loathed hearing what you were up to from your mutual friends or when he accidentally watched your Instagram stories. Seeing you happy without him made his heart lurch, not out of possessiveness, but because he wished you were comfortable enough to share those moments with him.

To boil it down, Heeseung hopes this trip can undo a year’s worth of his ignorance.

But before he can think about that, your exclamation pulls him towards a strange man before you.

“Leo!”

The sheer volume of your voice doesn’t go unnoticed by Heeseung, who eyes the bloke the second you make a dash for him. His heart winces when your arms wrap around the stranger’s neck and as he spins you around, squeezing you for good measure. He isn’t pleased when Leo settles to let his arm rest around your waist instead of letting you go. He’s even less so when you don’t attempt to separate yourself from him.

“Hey, pretty girl,” Leo says with a boyish grin, accent making Heeseung nearly roll his eyes.

“This is Leo.” You let your head rest on his shoulder for a brief moment. “He’s one of my friends from university. I think we met in, what, second year?”

“Second year, auditing class with Professor Donahue on Mondays and Wednesdays,” he says. “God, that class was so boring.”

“He’s the friend whose brother owns the bar,” you explain to them. You introduce Leo to each friend respectively. “Jay and Jake are my friends who are fluent in English.”

“You can speak it and understand it as well, right?” Leo asks as he shakes Heeseung’s hand.

He nods while giving him a tight smile. “Just a little. I’m practicing.”

“Nah, you sound perfect already.”

Heeseung feels indifferent to see you in your element with people from your past. The bartender, who is Leo’s brother, tells you the first two rounds are on the house after he checks IDs. Riki and Jungwon are excited to have their first pub experience after you make them promise to take it slow and drink lots of water in between.

“It’s a bit weird seeing her be like that,” Leo says to Jay with a laugh. “When we first got to know each other, it was me who had to tell her to watch how much she drank.”

“Y/N, drinking?” Jake asks. “No way. Back in Korea, she got drunk maybe twice a year.”

“She and a mutual friend, Elizabeth, were as thick as thieves. They were like a package deal before we all graduated and until she moved to the States. They’d always go a little too hard after exam season was over or if people invited them out on a Saturday night.”

“Y/N’s always been the responsible one out of the bunch,” Jay adds. “In high school, there was one time she got so drunk that she nearly scaled the roof of my friend’s house. Heeseung nearly fell off trying to get her down. After that, she swore off alcohol.”

Heeseung makes a few comments in the conversation as he watches you catch up with Leo’s brother and as you facilitate conversation between the rest of the guys. There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realizes there’s a lot he doesn’t know about you.

The two of you talked less as you became more comfortable in your environment. At first, Heeseung took it to heart and made the assumption that you’d chosen your friends in England over him, but a stern conversation with his mother made him realize he was being juvenile. He could only comfort you so much when he was oceans away. It was probably a good thing that you were talking to him less because that must’ve meant you were as overwhelmed or scared like you were when you first moved to England.

You’d still call him a few times a week before bed–when Heeseung was getting ready for the day–to update him on everything that happened in the past week. You two texted more frequently than you conversed, sending him pictures of new places you’d discovered or him sending photos of your mutual friends with sad faces at the notion of you not being able to be there with them.

Heeseung had always felt a bit jealous of your time abroad. He loved Korea, but he yearned for the same sense of adventure you once had. Only, he hadn’t figured it out until halfway through university when it was too late to transfer or apply for a semester abroad. When Jay had proposed this trip and that his father would expense half of it, he jumped at the opportunity to go.

Although, he didn’t know it would hurt him this much.

Hearing you talk about your life here made him feel like it was his fault that he barely knew your life in England. It was so easy when the two of you lived a few blocks from each other; he’d run into you with your other friends on the street or know exactly where you were likely to be at any given moment. He knew you felt the same way about him too, as you always knew where to find him if you really needed him.

But it feels like this is the first time he’s seeing you for who you are as an adult, not the child that he grew up with.

Surely, Heeseung always knew you had a good head on your shoulders. You were always the more outspoken one who stood up for what you believed in, no matter how big or small. You never backed down if someone was giving you a hard time and it was one of the reasons why Heeseung had struck up a conversation with you as you two played in the sandbox after a few kids had stolen the toys he was playing with. That sense of responsibility and gratuity followed you into your adolescent and teenage years, too. Not once had Heeseung heard anyone say a bad word about your character. He’d like to think he had something to do with it, but deep down, Heeseung knows it was all you.

When you confessed nearly a year ago, Heeseung felt like his heart might’ve ceased to function properly. Truth be told, he’s never taken his daydreams about being your boyfriend too seriously. He always wondered if it was normal to develop small crushes on your girl-friends at a young age and wondered if those butterflies in his stomach was because of how often his other friends at school would playfully tease him until they stopped. Jake and Sunghoon had been people who teased him for having a girl as his best friend until they befriended you too, and Heeseung was satisfied when they stopped with their comments. They, too, could understand why Heeseung was so keen on keeping you around.

But the butterflies never quite left him. Your smile was too bright. Your voice was too angelic. Everything about you and how you fit into his life felt a little too perfect; Heeseung hated cliches in his youth and this felt like one big cliche joke. He knew his mother didn’t approve of the girls she’d see him with, even in college when he got into his first serious relationship. She wasn’t as enthusiastic about her as she was with you. At the time, the frustration seemed too biased until it ended in a way that made Heeseung realize his mother truly knew what was best for him.

Heeseung never considered the possibility of dating you until you confessed your feelings for him.

As much as he plays off being the spontaneous, go-with-the-flow type of person, Heeseung gets scared when things go unplanned. He backs away from courage and from moments that make or break his character. He likes to play it safe unless he can make a calculated risk in his favor, choosing to let others fall flat on their face and learn from their mistakes. Heeseung had never considered the possibility of you having feelings for him either. That fateful summer night is one he will always remember, especially in the way the light in your eyes dimmed when he told you he didn’t feel the same.

He remembers your quick apologies and the way you backed away too quickly for his liking. He had tried to reach for your hand to tell you it was okay and that he didn’t feel awkward about it, but you’d shook your head and merely told him you’d see him later. Heeseung had never seen you leave so abruptly. But he figured you’d get over it, as you typically do when things don’t go your way. You’re resilient like that.

Heeseung assumed you needed time to heal from the awkward encounter and hadn’t reached out to you for a week. He didn’t think much of it at the time and hadn’t made plans with you until he realized you’d be leaving for Europe the week following. By then, it had been too late, because he stopped by your house the morning after you left.

Getting together with Seulgi after you left felt too easy. He knew she’d always had a thing for him but brushed her off for reasons he couldn’t fathom until he bumped into her a few weeks after you’d left without so much as a text or a voicemail. Feeling a bit irritated at your wordless departure, Heeseung took Seulgi out on a few days to take his mind off of you.

Except, it didn’t work. Heeseung found himself fantasizing about what it would be like to go out to dinner with you when she was sitting in front of him. When she’d texted him to thank him for his time, Heeseung imagined the kind of things you would say after your first date. When he kissed her for the first time underneath the twinkling lights of a local fair, Heeseung pictured you as he closed his eyes. The fantasy was ruined when Seulgi’s perfume touched his olfactory senses, pulling him back into reality. The guilt of kissing somebody who wasn’t you ate at his chest the moment he saw Seulgi smile at him from where he stood.

He tried his best with her but broke it off when the unrest overtook his mental wellbeing. It was amicable, for the most part. All Heeseung knows is that his parents (along with all of his friends) were happy that he hadn’t continued with that relationship.

“Y/N used to talk a lot about you, Heeseung,” Leo says, bringing the aforementioned out of his thoughts. “We’d be out at dinner or something and she’d always run outside to answer your calls.”

“Really?” Heeseung says out of surprise. He didn’t know you did that.

“You bet,” Leo replies. “She talked a lot about Korea when we’d hang out with our friends but she seemed to talk about you the most.”

Heeseung wonders if you told him about what happened between the two of you the summer before you left.

“I’m flattered.” Heeseung honestly doesn’t know what else to say. He chooses to tell the truth. “I missed her a lot. I grew up with her living a few blocks away. It felt weird not to be with her when I went to college.”

“Y/N said the same thing. Every time she’d be homesick, she’d tell us she needed to call you.” Leo’s words bring a warm flush to Heeseung’s face but he chooses to blame it on the alcohol.

“I heard my name,” you say as you walk to where they’re sitting. “Not talking shit about me, my dear Leo?”

“Never,” he teases. “Although, I’m sure I still have some pretty photos of you and Elizabeth at this very pub.”

“Oh God, please don’t.” You push his shoulder when he moves to reach his phone. “Those do not need to see the light of day and you definitely need to delete them.”

“How else am I going to blackmail you?”

“You’re the worst.” You look cute when your nose is a bit red from drinking. You always did suffer from redness to the face when you drank. “I can’t believe Elizabeth and I let you into our friend group.”

“Hey! I was the one who introduced you to her in the first place.”

“I’ll bet if I texted her right now, I’d have it in writing that she’d choose me over you.”

“Okay, you don’t need to do that because she definitely would.”

The group laughs and conversations flow nicely as a few other friends from your university days join you later in the evening. It feels like a reunion, of sorts. It feels especially wonderful to have most of your favorite people under one roof despite the slight language barrier. But everyone seems to get along well enough, especially Riki, who has taken a liking to your Japanese friend you met on your first day of orientation.

When the room gets too hot, you make your way outside where you’re fenced in by a metal barricade. It’s cold outside, but the alcohol running through your veins keeps you warm enough that you decide not to go back to ask for a jacket. Heeseung wants to follow you but stays still in his seat when he sees Sunghoon exit the door after you leave.

The wine in your hands is still halfway full. You’ve decided that you’ve taken the lead far too many times this week and that Jay can handle getting everyone home. It’s your fourth drink of the night, just enough to keep you buzzed for the duration of your time at the pub.

You register the door sliding open and make room for Sunghoon when you spot him over your shoulder.

“Your friends are really nice,” he comments, leaning on the railing next to you.

“They’re the best,” you say with a fond smile. “I owe them a lot. I only started enjoying my time here when we became friends.”

“You know, I was a little worried that you wouldn’t be happy when you moved to London for the first time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I think a lot of people would describe you as brave and as someone who will dive in head first to things that scare you, which is true for the most part. But I think people rarely pay attention to the vulnerable side of people like you because it looks like you have it all together.”

“I was a total wreck when I first moved,” you said. “I don’t know if you remember the few times I called you when Heeseung wasn’t able to pick up.”

“Oh, I remember. That was the first time you cried to me and now you have no issue getting your snot on my sweaters.” You swat his arm at the joke but he dodges you just in time. “I remember Yeji getting worried about you too. She was so young and always said she wanted to be brave like you.”

“Sweet girl,” you say.

“The two of you are similar. I watch out for her a lot, you know? Our relatives always think she puts on a brave face and don’t think twice when she talks about her fears. They always tell her she’ll be fine, but it’s hard to actualize that when you don’t believe it.”

“I thought about coming home a few times when things got really hard,” you confess. “I was out of my depth because I couldn’t speak English very well. I could only speak fragments and getting my way around campus was so hard.”

“I don’t know how you did it, if I’m being honest. But I’m glad that you stuck around long enough to see what your life would be like.”

“Me too. I’d really love to think I’ve become a better person now that I’ve gotten the chance to know myself beyond the comfort of my home, you know? I love you guys and I love my family, but sometimes being back in Korea felt like I was listening to what was expected of me instead of what I wanted.”

Sunghoon laughs. “Yeji said the same thing a few weeks before we left for London. Part of me thinks she’s considering studying abroad. I found a few college brochures in her room.”

“Don’t you know better than to snoop inside your sister’s bedroom?”

“Yah,” he says. “Yeji steals too many of my sweaters and she said I could get them back.”

“You’re just too easy to make fun of, Hoonie.”

A comfortable silence passes over the both of you. The audible sound of people talking amongst themselves and the beautiful lights of the city illuminate what makes London so beautiful. It isn’t until Sunghoon speaks that you pull yourself out of your daydreams.

“I heard you that night,” Sunghoon confesses.

“What are you talking about?”

“The night of the bonfire.I know you told Heeseung you liked him.”

You turn your head to him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I figured you’d tell me whenever you felt ready,” he says with a shrug. “You went back to London a couple of weeks later and I wanted to spend time with my friend. There never seemed to be a right time.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and balances from one leg to another. “You looked really sad, Y/N. I’ve never seen you look that way before.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Sunghoon listens as you sigh and you push yourself from the railing. Your back touches the cold metal as you look beside yourself to see him.

“I deluded myself into thinking Heeseung might’ve felt something for me too,” you admit. “It’s not that girls and boys can’t be friends, but towards the end of our friendship, it was like something shifted.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d…touch me longer. Hugs, pulling me by my waist at parties, lingering near me at Riki’s bonfires, that kind of thing. He started playing with my fingers a lot more. Heeseung never used to touch me like that. He’d interrupt conversation with guys to pull me away. I always knew what he was doing but I liked him so much that I didn’t care if he interrupted a good thing between me and someone else.”

Sunghoon purses his lips and watches as you look ahead at the glass doors to see your friends laughing. “I noticed that too.”

“When we were alone, it felt like he was one sentence away from telling me he loved me more than a friend. Not that platonic crap that the eight of us tell each other, but the deep shit where that kind of love comes from kindred souls.”

“Heeseung’s too stupid to see what’s good for him anyway.” Sunghoon pulls a laugh out of you and he’s glad to hear it.

“But then I confessed to him the night of that bonfire.” You bite your lip at the memory, willing yourself not to tear up. “I mean, you heard him. He told me he didn’t feel the same way and didn’t want to ruin our friendship because it was perfect as it was.”

“And then you heard he’d gotten together with Seulgi.”

“Yeah.” You nod once and look down at your drink.

“They weren’t together long,” Sunghoon says. “She wanted more but he didn’t want to give that to her. The boys were confused because he seemed to be really happy with her until he broke it off so sudden. I always thought it was because he felt too guilty after rejecting you.”

“What did the guys think?”

“Riki hated her. I have a feeling it was because she wasn’t you, though. I think Sunoo, Jungwon, and Jake were surprised when he’d gotten together with Seulgi after you left and were trying to be nice about it. Jay was indifferent, but then again, you two weren’t as close as you were with the rest of them until he visited you while you were away.”

“Did his opinion change?”

“Definitely. Heeseung had a period of time in the new year where he went on a couple of dates with her, telling us he might’ve made a mistake by breaking things off too soon.” Sunghoon shakes his head as he tells the story. “Jay was unbelievably pissed.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how he gets when he’s angry. He’s quiet and doesn’t talk until he’s calm. But it was like a volcano erupted, or something. Jay came back mid January to find out Heeseung had been seeing Seulgi for a couple of weeks and completely lost it on him. He said things about not knowing a good thing if it spat in his face and how he ruined every chance of happiness because of his own doing.”

“Wow…I didn’t know Jay said that.”

“It was scary. Heeseung tried to fight back and say it was his life and that Jay didn’t have a right to say what he could and couldn’t do, but the poor guy never stood a chance. Jay asked him if he would be happy if you came back to see him dating Seulgi and that shut him up real quick.”

“What do I have to do with it?” you ask. “He rejected me before I left.”

“I don’t know,” Sunghoon says truthfully. “I always thought that Heeseung was trying to redeem himself through Seulgi. But I guess we’ll never truly know.”

“It’s been almost a year,” you reminisce. “You’d think I would’ve gotten over him by now after spending time in Europe with, well, other boys.”

“He’s not just any guy who rejected you,” Sunghoon says. He looks out at the street, finding the words to say. “You two had been best friends since before me or the guys got to know either of you. There’s a special kind of bond between people who grew up together, you know?

“I think a large part of you misses being friends with him. Sure, rejection always stings, but it’s knowing that you don’t have your best friend that hurts you more.”

“Jeez,” you chide. “You always know how I feel.”

Sunghoon laughs. “I’m just observant. I know that it’s hard to be on this trip because Heeseung’s trying to be that friend you once knew. He probably feels guilty for giving you the cold shoulder during your first few weeks back in Seoul.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, well he’s not doing a great job showing it. Life would be easier if he left me alone.”

“But do you want that?”

You cast your eyes to the floor. “No, I don’t.”

Satisfied with your answer, Sunghoon nods.

“You know, I knew Heeseung had feelings for you the night we played spin the bottle just before we graduated high school.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hoon. He never liked me.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Do you remember what happened that night?”

“Vaguely. I remember that being my first time trying alcohol and Jake having to cut me off when I couldn’t walk straight.”

He nods. “When you were sober enough to string a few sentences together, some girl suggested playing spin the bottle. When it was your turn to spin, it landed on me.”

You make a face. “Ah. I do remember kissing you.”

“Well you don’t have to look grossed out,” Sunghoon teases. “Everyone knew it was awkward because we’d been friends for like, five years at that point. We were both so flustered that the kiss lasted for maybe two seconds before everyone cheered.

“Heeseung was pissed. I saw him looking at me like I’d killed his family, or something. I swore I could see steam coming out of his ears. He wouldn’t talk to me for a week because I’d been your first kiss.”

“Seriously?”

“Dead serious.” Sunghoon laughs at the memory. “He wouldn’t answer my texts. In the group chat we were in, he’d acknowledge everyone but me. It wasn’t until a week later when we were all hanging out that I told him there was nothing between us and it was awkward to kiss you in front of our friends.”

You stand there, dumbfounded. “Huh.”

“I’ve never told anyone that,” he confesses. “I doubt anyone remembers us kissing except for him. I assumed this would be a story I’d tell you and the guys when you both eventually got together.”

He murmurs an apology. “It’s okay, Hoon. I’m glad you told me. I guess I’m just…confused. Why did he reject me if he allegedly liked me?”

“I wish I knew. He was miserable when you left and refused to talk about you moving back to Europe for your final year abroad. Heeseung was really sad when he found out you weren’t coming home for Christmas break.”

“I couldn’t bear to see him. I was so heartbroken and the friends here tonight were consoling me in the way they knew how. I knew I’d be a depressed wreck if I came back home.”

“That makes sense,” Sunghoon affirms for you. “I’m glad you met up with Jay while he was here, though. You got some kind of Christmas gift from home.”

“Me too. I feel like Jay and I got closer because of it. I knew he could tell something was off but he didn’t say anything about it. Something tells me he knows more than he cares to say.”

“You know Jay.” You both nod. “More observant and caring than the rest of us. Part of me thinks Heeseung’s jealous of your new friendship with him since the two of you basically planned this whole trip on your own.”

“Well, Jay has more international travel experience and his dad knows the right people,” you say with a shrug. “I spent four years of my life here. It makes sense.”

“To us, yes. To Heeseung? I think his feelings cloud his judgment.”

“He never used to confuse me,” you admit. “We used to talk about how much we hated when people made us guess how they felt or what they were thinking. We always said it was unfair if you make people you love, make you guess their intentions. But he’s doing that to me and it’s been driving me insane.

“Sometimes I wonder if I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I watched him date girls in high school. I watched him with what I thought would be his first serious girlfriend during our first year of college before he went through that short hookup phase. God, that hurt me so bad and I couldn’t say anything because it wasn’t my life.”

“For what it’s worth, I think it was brave of you to confess to him,” Sunghoon tells you. “I don’t say that as a cheap cop out to make you feel better either. You know me, I’m really sentimental about things even if I don’t come off that way. To confess your feelings to someone who you love…one can only hope to hear that someday.”

You nudge your shoulder with his. “You say that like you didn’t have girls begging for a date.”

Sunghoon laughs and you know what he means.

“You’ve always been the bravest of all of us,” he continues. “I think the reason why I wanted to be friends with you when we were kids is because you didn’t take bullshit from people. I was too shy to stand up for myself between my career as a figure skater while trying to be a normal kid. You and Heeseung offered that kind of normalcy. I could see you two in the bleachers at my competitions and then we’d go out for ice cream like it was any other day.”

“Well, now you’re going to make me cry.”

“I mean it, Y/N. You’re a great friend and a great person. I hope Heeseung hasn’t fucked things up too bad that you leave his life for good.”

You shiver. “Me too.”

“Talk to him,” Sunghoon advises. “Do it before we leave. You’re removed from your life back home.” You open your mouth to refute but he beats you to the chase. “If it doesn’t work out, then you’ll know your answer when you go home and you can resume your life without Heeseung in it.”

Sunghoon leaves you alone with your thoughts but makes you promise that you’ll join the group soon.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

When you walk back into the pub, Jake clouds your personal space before you can even think about ordering another drink.

“Jesus, Hoon. Couldn’t you have offered Y/N your jacket if you guys were gonna be out that long? Poor girl looks like she’s about to freeze to death.

Jake’s affinity for the dramatic never ceases. Your friends look at your goosebumps and the way you’re acclimating to the warmer temperature inside while Sunghoon merely rolls his eyes.

“I’m fine,” you say. “We only came in because I started to get cold.”

“Let me get my jacket for you,” Heeseung says as he rises from his seat.

“No.” You’re sure you say it too abruptly, but you can’t bear the thought of wearing his clothes after the conversation you just had. “I’m fine, honestly.”

“Stop being stubborn and wear a damn jacket,” Leo chides, wrapping his coat around your shoulders. “You have this habit of never bringing one when you need it and it drives me crazy.”

“But that’s what I have you for, don’t I?”

As you tug the material closer to your body, Sunghoon watches as Heeseung stares at Leo with a hard expression.

“Not when you’re back in Seoul, you goof.” Leo takes your empty glass. “I’m glad you have these guys back at home. They seem really good for you.”

“I love them a lot.” You say it so tenderly with your head tilted as you look at the boys you’d call family, only for them to coo at your clearly vulnerable, inebriated state.

“My mother, my older sister, and best friend,” Riki says with a hiccup as he engulfs you in a hug. “Seriously, I would be dead in a ditch without you.”

“I don’t know a better person,” Sunoo chimes in from where he’s seated.

“There was one time where Y/N had this lemon phase where she couldn’t stop drinking lemonade or eating lemon candy,” Jake tells the group. “Now I think of her every time I see something yellow.”

“That’s kind of fitting though, isn’t it?” Leo asks. “Yellow for sunshine.”

Everybody agrees and it makes your cheeks and neck warm up. You hide yourself in Leo’s jacket, but God, Heeseung wishes he could hide you in his arms instead.

Still, he can’t help but agree with Leo. If there’s any truth to his words, it’s that you are made of pure, unfiltered sunshine.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, all eight of you board the train for a two-hour ride to Paris. For the next five days, you’ll be acting as a tourist rather than tour guide, for the most part. Jay volunteers to take the lead since you did most of the heavy lifting in London. You do, however, chime in to give him a few recommendations from your prior visits to the city.

Sunghoon’s advice plagues your thoughts, so much so that Jungwon has had to guide you out of the hotel and into the cab before arriving at the train station. Both he and Sunoo look a bit worried about you, but you wave them off and tell them you had one too many to drink. You know they don’t believe you but you’re grateful they don’t press on.

Paris is much more beautiful than you remember it, and it’s likely due to the fact that you’re here on vacation, not because you wanted a weekend getaway to escape the stress of midterms and exams. The people are just as indifferent as ever. You’re able to practice some of your basic French to order coffee and pastries for everyone. It’s a feat that leaves Heeseung impressed and you try not to acknowledge him when you see his jaw drop.

The hotel itself is more beautiful than the last. You have the room with the balcony and double doors leading to a breathtaking view of the buildings and streets below. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen, even if the streets are littered with trash and the people are a bit too loud. It still feels charming.

The rooming situation is the same as London, with you in the single room and the rest of the boys to fend for themselves. This time, Jungwon, Jay, and Sunghoon are sharing the three bedroom with Heeseung and Jake sharing another, and Sunoo and Riki in the other double. The hotel must’ve miscalculated the rooming situation and put your single room at the end of the hallway away from the others, but you aren’t complaining.

The first few days are filled with happiness and dread, namely when you see Heeseung as you begin your day. He has a knack for making you laugh until you come to the notion that you really shouldn’t be finding his jokes very funny because he doesn’t deserve that kind of reaction from you.

In fact, he doesn’t deserve your attention after ignoring you for as long as he has. Seeing Leo again brought up memories of crying in his flat with Elizabeth and drinking too much wine to forget the pain temporarily. Your friends invited you to a night spent in the pub after Leo begged his brother to close it for the night so that you could have a free space to drink and talk about Heeseung until your voice gave out.

Your irritation carries over and Heeseung can tell when you move away from him when he tries to stand next to you. He’s hurt but he tries to understand that you have a right to be, even if he knows in his heart the reasons why he acted the way he did. He just needs to find time to talk to you, even if the conversation doesn’t end the way he hopes it will.

With two days left on the trip, you’ve eaten your way through the streets of Paris and have done your fair share of shopping. Each of the boys had bought you a small token of their appreciation (Heeseung paid for your latte, Jay purchased a small wallet from Prada, Jake gifted you new sunglasses, Sunghoon a charm for your bracelet, Sunoo a bowl of pasta for lunch, Jungwon a pair of earrings, and Riki a new jacket that looks similar to his from back home). It warms your heart to know you have people who care about you enough to show and tell you.

The Eiffel Tower calls your name one late afternoon and by the time you all manage to walk up, the sun is setting below the horizon. There are couples around Heeseung who are taking photos left and right, one of which asks him to take a few pictures for them. He can’t help but wish he was in their place, asking a stranger to take a photo of the two of you as he kisses the apple of your cheek. Heeseung snaps a few good ones before the couple thanks him.

It doesn’t help that you look like a walking goddess. Truth be told, Heeseung wanted to buy you more than just coffee when the boys agreed to each give you something as a token of their gratitude. Heeseung had come up with a list of ideas he wanted advice for, but it was Sunghoon who’d told him to keep it simple for your sake. He was right, as always, because you thanked him with a pleasant smile instead of ignoring him like you had in the days prior. Heeseung gets the feeling that you wouldn’t appreciate a grand gesture from him right now.

He hates that he can’t read you like he used to. He hates that the other friends know you better than he does, and he hates that he’s in the City of Love and he can’t call you his girlfriend.

Riki and Jungwon are more perceptive than they let on. Heeseung sees the way their eyes dart between the two of you and how they’ve been trying their best to navigate the new dynamic. Riki, especially, hadn’t been receptive of Seulgi the first time Heeseung invited her to a bonfire. Heeseung had overheard the younger boy telling Jungwon it wasn’t the same without you there and that he’d rather go home than spend another minute getting to know someone who wasn’t you.

At the time, Heeseung was beyond irritated and refused to speak to Riki for the rest of the night. Now, however, he understands why Riki acted the way he did.

You look so beautiful underneath a Parisian sunset. Heeseung knows he’s staring. He’s grateful that you’re too preoccupied with Sunghoon taking photos of you. But God, he wishes you’d laugh at him like that.

“You should talk to her,” Jake says from beside him. Heeseung jumps at his sudden appearance. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I want to.” Heeseung says it out loud for the first time. He wants to work it out with you and get his best friend back in whatever way you’ll allow. “I miss her, Jake. I miss being her friend and I fucked up when I rejected her.”

Heeseung doesn’t notice Jake’s eyes widen at the sudden admission. Jake had his fair share of theories and considered Heeseung to be his best friend, but even he knew there was a limit about what he was willing to share and what he kept to himself. Heeseung’s friendship with you was something he stopped trying to learn a few years after he got to know you; Heeseung had a soft spot for you and had no problem letting people know that. It wasn’t until you mentioned to Jake that you hadn’t spoken to Heeseung in months that he knew something was up.

“She clearly cares about you,” Jake says. “She wouldn’t be on this trip if she didn’t.”

“But she’s been ignoring me the past three days. And before you say it, yes, I know that she has a valid reason to, but I’m hurt and I want to make things better.”

“You have to let her take the reins and let her talk to you when she wants to,” Jake advises. “You know how she is. Y/N’s headstrong and she might not know how she feels right now, but she always knows what’s best for her. You’re good for her, Heeseung. Let her come to that conclusion on her own.”

Heeseung relinquishes his breath. “You’re right. I just…miss her. A lot. Things will never go back to the way they used to but I don’t think I want them to. I used to pray every night that I could somehow make everything like it was before that night but now I want more than that. She deserves better and I want to be better for her, not that coward who was too scared to try something new with the person he loves.”

His friend’s words bring a smile to Jake’s lips. “Well I, for one, believe in you. I think the rest of the guys do too.”

“I know,” Heeseung says softly with his eyes on you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

You can’t believe you leave Europe in two days as you sip your wine. Jay’s father was gracious enough to reach out to his friend at the hotel’s restaurant to negotiate having this meal compensated. It’s a gesture you hold onto and make a mental note to write a thoughtful note when you settle back in Korea. Jay sits next to you and partakes in the wine activities with you, namely picking out two different bottles to share with the table. Talking to Jay like this makes you feel otherworldly, like you’ve gotten more experience out of life since you chose to study abroad. You feel lucky, in a sense, that your life has given you more than you expected it too.

The younger boys head upstairs after dessert and bid you all a goodnight in case they don’t see you before falling asleep. For the next thirty minutes or so, it’s the five of you laughing away at the hotel bar like old times, reminiscing about embarrassing moments from high school or how difficult it was to hear Jake’s Korean when he first moved.

The Australian leaves as soon as he yawns. Sunghoon, a little too tipsy upon standing from the bar table, presses a gentle kiss to your head when he says goodnight to the rest of you. Jay gives your arm a reassuring squeeze and you understand for the first time that he always knew you better than he let on. He says goodnight and tells the bartender to charge his room whenever you two close the tab.

Now, you and Heeseung are sitting together, mere inches apart as the Parisian sky twinkles with stars above the two of you.

Neither of you know what to say. You fidget with the glass and contemplate on whether you should head up as well. Heeseung can sense your awkwardness and wish he hadn’t messed things up so badly that you can’t stand to be alone with him without thinking of an escape plan. He misses when the two of you could sit in complete silence and still feel comfortable around one another.

“Thank you for showing us around,” he speaks up before you can make the decision to leave. “I remember you talking about all of the places you showed us when you first moved here. I’ve always wanted to visit.”

“Really?”

Heeseung nods. “I used to be so jealous that you got the opportunity to travel abroad every time you talked about it. But I think I like it better this way, with you as the tour guide.”

That brings a laugh out of you and Heeseung can’t help but smile. He doesn’t care if it’s the alcohol allowing your walls to come down. He’s grateful for the chance.

“I used to write down places I wanted to show you,” you confess. “There were so many places that reminded me of where we’d used to hang out as kids. It always felt like there was a part of you with me.”

His heart melts. “I wish I could’ve visited you while you were here. Your friends seem pretty cool.”

“They are.” Heeseung watches you smile. “They’ve been with me through a lot and helped me get over this fear of failing in a different country. My friend Suki, who now lives in Tokyo, was the first person to really get me out of my shell and convinced me to go out. Awkward Y/N? Going to clubs?”

“You know how to dance, though. I bet you killed it.”

“A little too much, perhaps. I didn’t date or hook up much, but there were a few times that I did.” Heeseung’s heart begins to sink as does his hope. This is not where he wanted to lead the conversation but his ears perk up at your next point. “But I wasn’t happy doing that so I stopped making out with random guys on the dance floor.”

“If only thirteen-year-old you could see you then,” he teases. You bump his shoulders with yours and he feels electricity running down his arm.

“I think I did a good job adjusting and learning. There were times where I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing with my life because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to stay in London or go back to Seoul. That burden felt too much.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came back home.”

Your head whips to look at Heeseung, who can only sit and watch as your eyes begin to water.

“Why didn’t you say anything when I texted and called you?” you ask meekly, your voice barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t you see me when I came back?”

“I know.” He gulps. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so, so sorry.”

You sniffle and Heeseung wants to cry too. “Everyone came to pick me up at the airport. I kept looking for you but you weren’t there. Jake had to pull me away from baggage claim because he said you weren’t coming but I didn’t listen. I told him he was wrong. You always come.”

Heeseung’s soul breaks with every crack in your voice and with the way your lips quiver. He sees your mascara beginning to smudge and resists the urge to wipe it away so that your eyes may look fresh and dry.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I have no excuse.”

“I wanted my best friend but you never showed up for me. You didn’t call or text me when you knew I was home and I had to wait until Riki’s bonfire to see you.”

“I was an idiot and stupid,” is the only answer Heeseung can come up with. “I used to be so scared of change. You left the country and I had to start thinking about what I wanted to do with my life but it was so hard without you in it.”

“Then why did you leave me?”

His heart shatters.

You’ve turned away from him in an attempt to walk back to your hotel room. However, Heeseung has learned his lesson. He doesn’t let you stray too far and gently tugs your wrist to pull you into his chest and is surprised when you don’t fight him off of you.

He doesn't care that your tears have stained his shirt or that you’re hiccupping into his clothes. All Heeseung wants to do is let you know he’s here for you now, despite his past mistakes and clouded judgment. Heeseung loves you for your bravery and vulnerability. He can only hope you understand that.

“Let’s go to your room, yeah? I can help you take your makeup off.”

Whether from the alcohol or your need to be near Heeseung, you let him guide you to the elevator. He digs in your purse for your room key and coaxes you to sit in the bathroom while he locks the door. This routine feels a bit familiar; in his youth, he learned how you like to take your makeup off and get ready for bed after a particularly rough night drinking. He could never understand why he hadn’t minded taking the extra step and to keep himself sober when you were in the vicinity, but he understands it now.

Heeseung meets you in the bathroom and washes his hands before putting your hair in a ponytail. He bites his lips when he sees your fresh tears and mutters another apology, forcing himself not to wipe away the tears with his fingers. Instead, he lets you blot them with a tissue before gathering makeup remover in his hands and gently smears it all over your skin.

“I didn’t like change,” he says after a quiet beat. “I was too cowardly to take what I wanted, even if the person I wanted said they wanted me too. I don’t know why I didn’t chase after you that night or why I thought you needed space before you left. I don’t have an explanation for any of it except to say that I was a coward who never wanted anything to change between us.”

Heeseung warms a wet cloth and wipes the balm away until he’s satisfied and moves on with your favorite cleanser, rubbing it between his hands until it foams.

“I think, deep down, I’ve always loved you more than I led on. I can’t think of any moment in my life where you weren’t there or times that I didn’t want you around. Even when we were in elementary school and everyone kept saying we would get cooties from each other, I wanted you with me.”

He lets you wash your face and applies the rest of your products on as you once taught him.

“I’ve always had this sense of pride when it came to being your friend. Everyone always talked about how cool you were because you always knew what to say and when to say it. I love that about you, you know. You have a way of making people feel like they’re really special. I don’t know why I was so afraid of that.

“I love who you are and what you believe in. You make the world a better place for everyone around you. How you treated me was a small fraction of why I love you. I love your passions and that you aren’t afraid to chase after them. I love that you stick with the same boba order even though you tell yourself you’ll try something new. I love that you hate the beach but go with us every time we ask. I love when you get a little drunk because you don’t fight me when I want to take care of you.”

Heeseung swallows. “But mostly, I just really love you.”

You open your eyes for the first time. Heeseung can only stare.

“You really hurt me.”

He glances down. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“What hurt the most was knowing you weren’t going to be there as my best friend, Heeseung. I could handle your rejection. I could find a way to get over you. But I could never get over losing our friendship. I never wanted you out of my life because it’s better with you in it.”

“Please don’t get over me,” Heeseung croaks. His own eyes begin to swell and he forces a choked sob down his throat, aggressively wiping his eyes to rid himself of tears. He presses his forehead against yours. “I don’t want you to get over me.”

You don’t say anything for a few moments. Heeseung swears he feels the blood rushing to his ears as he anticipates your response and he’s sure that even if what you say isn’t what he wants to hear, he’s happy to wear his feelings on his sleeve for once in his life.

“I don’t think I could even if I tried.”

Heeseung’s heart stops beating. He doesn’t kiss you even though he wants to. He doesn’t take your hand and pull you into him like his heart tells him to. Instead, he whispers a quiet thanks and is surprised when he hears you laugh.

“I can’t apologize enough. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to do or say anything.”

“I know,” you whisper. Heeseung's hands are dangling awkwardly by his side. He feels like pushing his forehead against yours was too much. But your hands reach for him and you give him a squeeze.

Heeseung throws caution out of the window and envelopes you in a hug. He feels your body melt against his and can’t help but look at the way you’ve folded into his chest in the bathroom mirror, with your head in his neck and his cheek on the crown of your head. Heeseung missed holding you like this–with your bodies intertwined as if you were two soulmates who were forced apart upon creation.

He stroked your back with his hand and kept the other secured around your waist. Your soft breaths touch his skin and it feels like he’s got electricity running through his veins.

“I’m sorry,” Heeseung whispers again. “I will keep apologizing until you know the depth of my regret.”

The boy feels like he’s floating when you press a soft kiss to his exposed chest, mentally thanking Jake for forcing him to let loose and unbutton a few.

“You could start by staying with me until I fall asleep,” you say. “Like old times.”

He tries not to punch the air. “I can do that.”

Heeseung waits in the bathroom until you’ve changed into comfortable clothing. He isn’t surprised when he sees you in shorts and an oversized shirt. It’s reminiscent of what you used to wear when you’d sleep in the guest bedroom in his house or vice versa, but now that he’s acknowledged his feelings for you, he can’t help but coo at how cute and sleepy you look.

You tuck yourself in bed with the blankets to your chin and he completely melts to the floor. You pat the spot next to him and he sits on top of the blankets.

“Under the covers, silly.”

“I don’t want to rush it,” Heeseung says in a panic.

“We aren’t rushing. We’re two best friends who got each other back.”

Heeseung has never been more relieved. Though, he knows you’re a stickler for outside clothes in bed, so he makes the decision to take your key card and change.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says when he notices you rise from your spot on the bed. He holds two key cards to prove it and leans over to press a soft kiss to your cheek. “I’m going to change and then I’ll be right back. I promise.”

He comes back ten minutes later. It warms your heart at the sight of him and you feel the comfort in your body when he slides underneath the covers.

You surprise yourself when you move to lay your head on his chest with your arm around his body. Heeseung doesn’t seem to mind, though, and he pulls you closer to him like you’ve done it a million times before. The two of you have wanted this for too long to make it feel awkward.

“What did Jake say when you came into the room?” you ask.

“He was half asleep until I turned the light on but he asked me if we resolved things. I told him yes and then he asked if I was staying the night with you when he saw me leaving.”

“Am I right to assume he was more excited about having the room to himself?”

Heeseung laughs. “That you are.”

“Deep down, I think Jake knew we’d find our way. I think they all did.”

“I’m sorry,” Heeseung whispers once more. You quiet him with a kiss to his cheek.

“I know, Hee. We can talk more tomorrow. For now, let’s sleep.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, Heeseung wakes up before you do and frowns when your body’s all the way on the other side of the bed. He leans over your sleeping frame and brushes strands of hair from your face, admiring how serene you look in your sleep. For a moment, Heeseung ponders if it’s too soon to wake you up the way he’d like to, but if last night was any indication about how you felt, he’d be willing to take the chance.

He leans down to kiss your forehead and both of your cheeks repeatedly until your eyes flutter open. Heeseung thinks he could listen to your laugh every morning with the way you wince at the sunlight and how his lips touch your skin. Still, your gaze finds its way to Heeseung’s and you can’t help but smile.

There was a brief moment before you fell asleep that you’d wondered if you’d been too quick to forgive him. But for as hurtful as the past year was, you can’t help but acknowledge the steps he took during the trip in an attempt to undo all of the contempt you had built for him. You owe it to yourself to be happy with Heeseung.

“Good morning, pretty girl,” Heeseung says with his morning voice that sounds a little too good for seven in the A.M. “Did you sleep well?”

“Slept like a baby. I feel like one too.”

“That’s because you are a baby,” Heeseung teases, kissing your cheeks and then the tip of your nose. “My baby.”

“I really want breakfast but I’m too lazy to get up from the bed.”

“We could always order in. I’ll pay.”

You shake your head. “I’ll be too tempted to stay in bed and it’s our last full day in Paris. Let’s just get ready and have breakfast at the hotel restaurant?”

The both of you are halfway done eating breakfast when the rest of your friends trickle in, joining your table and the ones next to you. It takes them a while to wake up, but it’s Sunghoon who speaks up first.

“I’m assuming you two talked?”

“And made up,” you say with a tilt of your head.

“That’s my girl,” Sunghoon says proudly, sipping on his coffee.

“I’ll let that slide since we’re all friends,” Heeseung jokes. You laugh and, for the first time in a while, you don’t feel guilty about it.

“I had the whole room to myself, too. I woke up and didn’t have to fight anyone for the bathroom,” says Jake.

Riki nearly spits his juice out. “You guys slept together?”

“Not like that!” you’re quick to exclaim. “He just slept over. Slept. As in, we closed our eyes and actually slept.”

“Both of us knew we needed our beauty sleep before dealing with the six of you asking us questions,” Heeseung adds. “But for your information, we made up. We still have things to figure out, but we’re back to being friends.”

“Hopefully more than that,” Jungwon coughs behind his coffee. He merely smiles when Heeseung looks in his direction.

“I think you two should spend the rest of the day by yourselves,” Jay suggests. “We can either meet up for dinner or whenever we have to check out.”

“I second that,” Sunoo agrees. “You two clearly need to talk.”

“I wanted to go shopping with Y/N again,” Riki says with a frown. Jake presumably knocks his shin with Riki’s, who clears his throat. “But you two should totally hang out without us.”

“I think we might,” Heeseung says, holding his hand out for you to take. He stands from his seat and encourages you to stand as well, leading you away from the table. “Thanks for the breakfast, Jay!”

“I’m choosing to be the bigger person because Y/N’s been through enough,” Jay mutters when Heeseung is out of hearshot, making the table laugh.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

“You know, I think the reason why I had such a hard time reaching out was because we’d never gotten into something that serious before,” Heeseung admits. The gelato in your hand isn’t as good as you remember it, but it does the job to cool you down on a particularly warm afternoon.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember when we were kids and how hard it was for me to talk to you about anything that was action movies or superheroes?”

“God, you and your Superman cape from fourth grade,” you snort. “You wore that thing to school everyday. Your dad had to wash it every night otherwise you’d refuse to go to sleep.” Heeseung shuts his eyes at the memory.

“You were the only person I felt comfortable pouring my heart out to, you know. You were always the first person I called when I needed someone to talk to, but then I was the reason why you got hurt…I think part of me didn’t know if I was allowed to reach out to you.

“It’s a stupid excuse, I know. But when I heard you were coming back to Seoul a few weeks before you did, I couldn’t help but think about how many times I could’ve texted you.”

“Yeah, you could’ve.” Heeseung merely nods at your agreement. “We’ve been through a lot over the years, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

“I just wish I had come to this conclusion when it happened. I was so caught up in graduating and focusing on how I felt that I didn’t consider how you must’ve been dealing with all of it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so selfish in my life.”

“I think the time you refused to let me be friends with Jake because you said you needed friends aside from me was your second most selfish moment.”

Heeseung rolls his eyes. “Quit it. I was thirteen, okay?”

Neither of you particularly care to do any sightseeing today. It feels nice to walk side-by-side without the company of your other friends. The juxtaposition of how you felt towards the beginning of this trip compared to how relaxed you feel surprises you a tenfold, but you suppose that comes with genuine apologies and forgiveness.

You’re willing to admit Heeseung looks criminally good in black jeans and a striped button down. He wears his clothes so effortlessly yet still looks like he could’ve taken his wardrobe from a magazine. You’ve always found it a bit unfair that Heeseung always manages to look so cool without trying too hard.

“You’re staring,” he mutters, looking at you from the corner of his eye as the two of you walk down a cobblestone street.

“I’m not,” you lie. You turn your head to avoid his gaze, but Heeseung thinks he likes seeing you this shy. It’s new territory for him, one that he wants to explore.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Go for it.”

“Why did you forgive me so quickly?” Heeseung asks. “I appreciate it, I really do, but a big part of me feels like I don’t deserve that just yet.”

It takes you a while to answer. Why did you forgive him as fast as you did? For a week and a half, being in close quarters with Heeseung made you feel nothing but anxious and on edge, so why were you able to allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of him?

“I’ve always held onto the idea that you’re a good person,” you begin. “I’ve always admired that you intend to care for the people you love and make them feel like they have a place in your life. You’ve always made me feel safe, like I could run to you when things got too hard.

“What you did was in poor taste, sure, but making bad decisions doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. I know you, Hee. I know how you get when you’re faced with a difficult choice and how long it takes for you to come around. I was justifiably hurt but I think a part of me always knew you’d fix it somehow.”

“I wish I could feel deserving of that kind of forgiveness.”

“You know me. You know I wouldn’t tell you that if I didn’t feel like what I’m saying is true. I’ll admit that I shocked myself with how quickly I let my guard down with you…but you’re Heeseung. You've been my best friend since the first grade and you’re the boy I happen to have a really big crush on.”

Heeseung bites his lips at your confession, willing himself not to be too forward as to kiss you in the middle of the street. He sees your bravery and the way you’ve put your heart directly in the palm of his hand, acting out of vulnerability even though the both of you knew he hurt you once before.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Instead, Heeseung grabs your hands and locks his fingers with yours, squeezing three times to tell you he loves you.

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The afternoon comes and goes with little to no plan. Heeseung’s a bit worried that he hasn’t heard anything from the boys and he’s rendered shocked that you’ve taken it upon yourself to let the day take you where it may instead of finding the next spot to visit.

As if on cue, Jay texts him with plans for the evening.

jjongcaprio: 20:00, Pétrelle. It’s a five minute walk from the hotel

jjongcaprio: I made reservations for you and Y/N tonight. Don’t worry about me and the boys, just take her out on a romantic date

jjongcaprio: The bill’s covered. The reservation’s under your name btw

heeseung: bro i cannot ask you to do this

jjongcaprio: You don’t have to. You and I both know Y/N deserves to be wined and dined

jjongcaprio: Plus I saw you looking at a few restaurants when we were on the train. I managed to pull some strings for you and got a last minute reservation for tonight

heeseung: thank you jay…i really don’t know what i’d do without you

jjongcaprio: It’s really not a problem, bro. Promise me that you’ll try to be happy with her. The guys and I are rooting for you two

“So,” Heeseung clears his throat as he looks up from his phone, “I think you and I should go out for dinner.”

“Where are you thinking of going? I can text the others and see if they’re done sightseeing, or whatever it is they’re doing.”

“I mean just us two.” He stands awkwardly when you’ve turned your attention to him, his feet planted on the sidewalk beneath him as if that’ll help steady his beating heart.

“Like a date?”

“Yes,” he says immediately. “Like I date. I, Heeseung, am asking you out on a date. Tonight. At eight.”

“I, Y/N, would love to go on a date with you. At eight.”

The twinkle in your eye and your coy nature makes him feel like a teenager again. He leads you into the hotel and walks you to your door before stepping back as you step inside.

“We’ve got an hour and a half before we need to leave. I’ll come by and then we can walk together. The restaurant is only a five minute walk, so you can wear those new heels I know you feel guilty buying.”

“They’re really pretty though,” you rationalize.

Heeseung nods. “Gorgeous, actually. Maybe you’ll be as tall as me if you wear them.”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

Heeseung bites his bottom lip as you disappear behind the door, locking eyes with you until you’re completely out of sight. Flirting with you like this is a completely new phenomenon for him. He’s only daydreamed about what you might say if he said something a little too suggestive or how you might act if he dedicated a wink in your direction. Heeseung had never considered that he’d be the one flustered, cheeks reddening to the point where he starts to feel shy.

His nerves are endless as he picks out an outfit for tonight. Heeseung sends a quick text to his parents, who had pressured him into bringing nice clothes for a fancy dinner, and spends a few minutes updating them on the events of the past few days. His mother is pleased, to put it lightly, and sends a handful of emoticons to display her happiness. His father tells him words of encouragement before making Heeseung promise to bring you for dinner as his girlfriend, not just his best friend.

With the last touch of his cologne, Heeseung looks at himself in the mirror and tries not to think too hard about how he looks. You’re Y/N, his best friend since he can remember, and you’ve seen him with snot dripping from his nose.

“I look fine,” he says to himself in the mirror. “Y/N will like the look because your mom picked it out and we know those two agree on everything. Absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Heeseung’s only regret is he doesn’t have a bouquet of flowers to present you with as he makes his way to your hotel room. He wipes his palms on his trousers and takes a deep breath before knocking on your door.

When it opens, he’s met with the sight of you in a short black dress that hugs your hips to accentuate your body. The dress itself is an elegant, spaghetti strap number with a flattering neckline paired with jewelry that makes your skin appear to be glowing. Your heels match well with the dress you’ve chosen, so much so that Heeseung’s jaw drops when his eyes rake over your body.

“Wow,” he mutters. “Just…wow.”

“I’m not used to you being speechless,” you say mildly, closing the door behind you.

“You look gorgeous,” he sputters. “I shouldn’t be seen with you tonight.”

“You’re dramatic, Hee.” You give him a once over and Heeseung thinks he wouldn’t mind you checking him out as you please. “You look handsome as ever.”

He beams at the compliment and holds his arm out for you.

“Shall we?”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

Heeseung knows the type of person you are and what you value, yet he still renders himself shocked when you allow him to take control of the evening. He knows you don’t need to have the expensive consequences that come with a first date or to be sipping the most luxurious wine to be happy, but Heeseung can’t help but feel like you deserve to feel as elegant as you look every once in a while.

The host leads the two of you to a table with the most gorgeous view of the Parisian scenery. The twinkling stars paired with the dimly lit restaurant adds a romantic touch to the evening. Heeseung mentally thanks Jay for preparing wine recommendations so neither of you have to think too much about it.

For a moment, he’s worried that he’s reached too far out of his depth. The fanciest thing Heeseung has ever done with you is eat ramen after prom in your best outfits because you both came to the conclusion that prom should be spent with someone you actually like. It’s funny in hindsight when he thinks about it now.

You look so beautiful like this, allowing yourself to be taken care of by him. Talking to you over the table feels like you’re back in Korea before all that transpired. The food is impeccable and Heeseung thanks his lucky stars that he and Jay got it right. You sing praises left and right.

Dinner ends much quicker than he’d like as the two of you finish dessert. The waiter tells him the bill has been taken care of and Heeseung sits in his seat awkwardly as you look out the window to see the view from outside. But he hears the live band in the background and sees a few older couples slow dancing from where he sits and makes up his mind.

“Do you want to dance?”

You pull your attention to him. For a moment, he thinks he’s asked the most absurd question known to man when he recalls all the times you refused to make a home on the dance floor until you’ve gotten at least four drinks in your system.

You surprise him.

“I’d love to, Hee.”

The room disappears when he leads you to the dance floor. He mimics the other dancers and takes the lead, swaying your bodies back and forth to the melody of the music. You smell of vanilla and cinnamon, a scent so distinctly you that it makes him grin like a man in love.

“Thank you for tonight,” you say against his neck. “I won’t lie when I say I feel like a princess.”

“That’s because you are a princess,” Heeseung says, kissing the top of your head. “You deserve to be treated like one.”

“I can’t believe you pulled this off so quickly. Don’t restaurants like these require reservations?”

He chuckles nervously. “About that…Jay helped me with the details. I was looking up restaurants to take you to if I got the chance before our trip ended. I guess he saw the list and chose the most romantic one out of the bunch.”

“I owe Jay a thank you.”

“We both do.”

“I feel lucky to have people in my life who care about me this much,” you say. “I’m so happy you’re back in my life.”

“I’m happy to be in it.” Heeseung squeezes your waist. “Deep down, it’s always been you that I’ve loved. There’s not a single person who makes me feel the way you do.”

“Yeah?”

You feel him nod. “I’ll say it until you believe me. I’ll even yell it in this restaurant right now.”

“Please don’t,” you laugh. “I believe you.”

The sound of the melody overtakes the conversation. You feel Heeseung’s steady heartbeat as he expertly moves your bodies together on the dance floor. When you close your eyes, you think of this moment and how badly you want to commit it to memory, no longer in anguish over the tribulations of the past year. It feels nice to let go of your worries, even better that you have Heeseung back.

“I really want to kiss you,” he murmurs under his breath. You pull your head back.

“Then you should kiss me.”

Heeseung wastes no time and pulls you into him, one arm around your waist and the other behind your neck. His mouth finds yours when he decides he loves the taste of red wine on your lips. It feels poetic to be kissing you for the first time as you’re both dressed to the nines in the middle of Paris. To him, kissing you feels like a breath of fresh air and the start of something new. For you, kissing him feels like coming home.

When he pulls back, you search for his eyes.

“Take me back to the hotel,” you whisper.

Heeseung feels his heart drop.

“I’m sorry. We can go back now.”

You grip the collar of his slightly unbuttoned dress shirt when he moves. It’s only then that Heeseung sees the want in your eyes and the pure lust that clouds your pupils.

“Take me back to the hotel.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

By the time your elevator reaches your floor, Heeseung’s dress shirt is completely unbuttoned with his toned chest exposed. You’re barely able to detach yourself from his mouth when he pushes you out of the contraption. Your hand reaches for his as you pull him towards your room, digging through your purse when you feel Heeseung’s lips on the back of your neck.

“You look sexy in my jacket,” he mumbles, pressing wet kisses to your skin.

“L-Let me find the key.”

“So sexy.” His hands slide up the side of your body until he grips your waist.

When the door opens, you pull Heeseung inside with you and lock it shut before pushing his dress shirt off of his body, exposing his muscular build and broad shoulders. You aren’t shy about hiding your lust, gazing all over his chest and abdomen as you feel your core drip with arousal.

“I like it when you look at me like that,” Heeseung says. He reaches for your hand and places it on his chest. You take the liberty to glide your nails down his abdomen, feeling the way he tenses underneath your touch.

“I’m really wet,” you say as you eye the tent that has grown in Heeseung’s pants.

“Are you?” he asks. “You won’t mind if I check?”

You shake your head and Heeseung takes that as a green light, his hands finding the soft fabric of your dress before pushing his hand underneath it. He whimpers when his fingers come in contact with your wet lips. It’s adorable, the way you push yourself against him to chase his lips while he fingers smear your wetness across the fabric of your panties.

“Bed,” you mumble against his lips.

He follows where you pull him, loving the way you take control when you push him onto the mattress. Heeseung distracts himself to catch his breath from the overwhelming sense of pleasure to realize that you’ve started to undo his belt buckle and take his hard cock out of his pants.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want your cock in my mouth,” you plead, looking him in the eye. “Please let me.”

You sit politely on your knees as you unbuckle Heeseung’s pants. His chest rises and falls in anticipation and he looks down at you to see that your mouth is watering at the sight of him.

He’s already fully hard; he has been since you started unbuttoning his shirt in the elevator. You spit directly onto the tip of his cock and he bites his lip at the sudden contact before watching as you swipe your hand up and down himself.

Heeseung doesn’t want to think about how you learned to do what you’re doing to him. He doesn’t want to think about the boys you’ve kissed or the people who got to see you like this before. What he does know, however, is he’s the only person from here on out who will see you on your knees if he can help it.

Your mouth envelopes the head and Heeseung emits a short grunt. The tension between you two begins to slowly dissipate as you fit more of his cock inside of your mouth. Your tongue expertly traces every ridge and vein as you push your throat down onto him, causing Heeseung to put his palms on the mattress and throw his head back.

You hum around him when he moans. He’s itching to put his hand behind your head but refuses the idea, letting you set your own pace. Heeseung watches as you switch your angle, sitting up to rest on your knees to push your head further down on him. He witnessed as you spread your legs, a choked moan coming from his throat in conjunction with a particular gag from your mouth.

There’s spit everywhere. It’s trailing down your lips and connecting to his cock when you pull yourself from his body. It’s seeping to his pants and he’s about to speak up when your motion attaches itself to his sensitive balls, licking at its warmth while your hand strokes him from atop.

“That’s it. Fuuuuck.”

He bucks his hips once and curses. Heeseung feels your mouth envelop one of his balls, the pressure of your mouth around it making him feel a kind of euphoria he didn’t know was possible. Your mouth moves to the other to give it the same treatment before retreating back to his cock. This time, your hand massages him from below as you suck on him.

When you look up at him and wink, he decides enough is enough.

“Baby,” Heeseung pants, attempting to push your head off of him. He thinks it’s so sexy that you’re turned on while giving him a blowjob. “Baby, please stop. I don’t wanna come yet.”

You oblige and take your mouth off of him with a popping sound. You sit back and Heeseung stares at you through drooping eyelids in pure shock and amazement at how you’ve managed to pull him to a near orgasm as quickly as you did.

“Come here,” he beckons with his fingers.

He attaches his mouth to yours and pushes his tongue inside of your mouth, exploring the warm, wet walls you have to offer. Heeseung decides that he loves the feeling of your tongue against his and lets you suck on the muscle.

You take your dress off to reveal sheer panties with nothing else on. Heeseung’s jaw drops at your beauty, but he also cannot believe how sexy his best friend’s body is. To him, you were sculpted from the hands of Aphrodite herself with great love and care. And it’s all for him.

“You are so fucking sexy,” he murmurs, hovering over your body to press kisses to the valley of your chest. You let his hands roam and spread your legs to make room for him.

Heeseung’s head travels back to your chest and you watch as he envelops your right nipple in his mouth. “Your tits are just perfect.”

He makes a show out of it, hands cupping your breasts to massage them as his mouth works on you. He pushes your tits together and shoves his face between them, inhaling your scent while his tongue gathers whatever taste your body gives him. Heeseung moves to your left nipple and uses his tongue to flick the hardened bud over and over again until you’re arching your chest into his mouth.

He grinds himself into your core with his pants still loose around his legs. It brings a moan out of your throat and he swallows it whole with his lips pressed firmly against yours. The friction feels delicious with the fabric of your panties against the hardness of Heeseung’s cock. He grinds against you with the help of your hips rolling into his, your natural wetness coating his cock in your essence.

Heeseung moves his head to kiss your jawline, moving his mouth all over the expanse of your neck until he kisses right below your earlobe. You let out a particularly loud moan when he does, and Heeseung curses.

“Shit. Yeah baby, make those sounds for me. Let me hear your pretty moans.”

His mouth attacks the area again and you aren’t shy about it. Your hands tangle in his hair as he kisses your neck and grinds his cock against the wet panties, which have by now molded to the shape of your pussy.

Heeseung groans at the feeling of a particularly wet gush and lifts his hips enough to elicit a whimper out of your mouth. He experimentally lifts his hips again to align himself with you as he did before. The pressure must feel so good because your mouth hangs open with your eyes boring into his.

“That’s it,” he encourages. “Does my baby feel good?” You can only nod and he doesn’t blame you. “That’s a good baby. Fuck, you’re so wet, it’s driving me crazy.”

Heeseung feels your legs wrap around him and the way your heel pushes his lower back into your core. He takes the hint and quickens his pace, wanting nothing more than to see you come for him.

“You gotta come for me now, pretty girl,” he coaxed. “You deserve to come. Won’t you do that for me?”

Heeseung is sure that he’s never seen or heard anything more erotic compared to the vision of watching you come. Your mouth opens with breathy moans as you focus on your pleasure and your eyes squeeze shut as if you’re trying to savor the moment in your mind.

“Atta girl,” Heeseung praises when your hips grind into his. He keeps himself still and lets your body take over.

You eventually come down and realize Heeseung has yet to come, but that’s the last thing on his mind. He sinks his body down to come face-to-face with your crotch and licks the come off of the soiled fabric of your panties. The sheerness gives him a sneak peek at your pussy, and he groans when he licks a slow, fat strip up your slit.

“You taste so fucking delicious, baby.” He licks at you again, faster this time. “Tastes like milk and honey.”

Heeseung kisses your wet panties over and over again, his soft lips providing jolts of pleasure. His hands roam around the soft flesh of your thighs and squeezes them as if he remembers you’re all his to touch. The feeling is one you want to commit to memory, but it seems like Heeseung knows your mind is working overtime because he reaches his hand to find yours and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

You let his hand go when he pulls it from you to slide the useless barrier down your legs and to undo the straps of your heels. He takes great care to kiss your skin tenderly, starting by your ankle and making his way down just shy of where you need him the most. Heeseung repeats the process on the other leg until he comes face to face with your glistening core, licking his lips as if he doesn’t know where to start.

“Such a pretty pussy,” he says before placing a soft kiss to your clit.

He repeats the motion, kissing your folds like they’re delicate antiquities that need to be handled with the utmost care. His lips become covered with your essence; he feels you squirm underneath him and uses the expanse of his palms to gently pry your legs open for him, soothing the soft skin of your inner thighs.

Heeseung tentatively licks your slit and decides he loves the sound of your moans when he has his mouth on you. He does it again, dragging his tongue to feel every ridge and crevice that he’s yet to explore. His mouth feels like a warm comfort with the slow pace he sets, licking you as if he’s trying to tell you how much he loves you without saying it.

“You taste divine.”

You look down below to see his hair covering his eyes and brush it away with your hands. Heeseung looks right into your soul and you feel your heart clench, causing you to roll your hips into his face. He merely buries his nose close to you until he bumps your clit with the tip, pushing his wet muscle into you deeper.

When your moans get lighter and your breathy sounds are the only audible thing in the room aside from his own moans. You open your eyes to see Heeseung humping the mattress below you. The sight is so erotic that you can’t help but let out a loud whine at the thought of Heeseung pleasuring himself while pleasuring you.

He brings his fingers to your pussy and sways his fingers back and forth until he foregoes his slow pace, favoring a faster one. He abuses your swollen clit while you can only lay there and watch him play with you. Heeseung expertly inserts his middle finger into your seeping hole and bites his lip to concentrate on getting you to come again.

“I need it,” he confesses, bringing his mouth to lick you as he adds another finger. “I need you to come for me again, baby. Can you do that for me?’

“Yes, Hee,” you pant. “I wanna come so badly.”

“You can do it, baby. You’ve been such a good girl tonight, giving me the best head and letting me make you come. I think you deserve to feel good.”

“I do,” you nod rapidly. “Fuck, I think I’m coming.”

“That’s right,” he coos, hammering his digits into you while his tongue laps up the juices leaking from your pussy. “So good. You taste so fucking good. Give it to me.”

He doesn't relent until he’s satisfied. Heeseung cleans the come from your lips as best he can while sneaking his hand to his cock, pumping himself as he tastes your orgasm on his tongue.

“You’ve crazy,” you mutter as you settle from your high, loving the feeling of Heeseung’s mouth tenderly licking you clean.

“For you.” He pulls his face away and wipes the back of his hand before pressing a kiss to your clit.

When he rises to take his pants and boxers off, he sees you with your arm covering your face.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Perfect, actually,” you sigh. You remove your arm to see him with his cock in his hands and motion him to come towards the edge of the bed as you crawl on your knees before sitting upright to pull him into a searing kiss.

“That might be the hottest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Heeseung says against your mouth. “It’s better than porn, if I’m being honest.”

You grab his cock and stroke him. “I’ll consider letting you take a video of me when we get back home if you fuck me right now.”

“Turn around,” he says after an open-mouthed kiss.

You follow his instructions and he groans to himself as you present your perfect pussy to him again. Heeseung sinks to his knees and smacks your ass before shoving his tongue into your hole. He spreads your asscheeks apart and digs his nose against you, licking up the wetness and remnants of your orgasm like it’s his last meal. His tongue licks up your body until he finds your wrinkled muscle and presses a soft kiss to your tightest hole.

The surprise comes to him when you moan softly. Your body doesn’t jerk away. Rather, you spread your legs further for him and Heeseung moans against your pussy before bringing his tongue to lick over the muscle again.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asks, dipping his tongue back in.

“Better than I imagined.”

“You imagined my tongue in your ass, baby?”

You nod. “I’ve always wanted to know what that feels like.”

Heeseung doesn’t give you a verbal answer. Instead, he spits into your hole and watches it dribble down to your pussy, licking his way from your incredibly wet folds to your hole once again. He licks over the expanse with the surface of his tongue one, twice, three times before you’re whining for his cock. He wastes no time tearing open the condom and hurriedly places it on himself.

The first stretch of his cock in your pussy makes him see Heaven. The sharp gasp that comes from your mouth is music to his ears and he’s careful to sink himself into you slowly, inch by inch until you’re telling him he can go further.

His cock impales you at such a perfect angle that it has you falling to your elbows, your back arched so perfectly that he’s sure you’d be the most popular pornstar if you really wanted to be. He keeps half of his cock in you to allow you to adjust, but he underestimates just how cock hungry you are because you back yourself until he’s filling you to the brim.

“Baby’s such a slut, isn’t she?” Heeseung wonders out loud. He grins when you nod. “I love you like that. So dirty for me.”

“Only for you,” you say, cheek pressed to the mattress when Heeseung thrusts in you.

The sound of skin slapping echoes throughout the room. It doesn’t take long for your wet juices to glisten over the back of your thighs and onto Heeseung’s. His hands find purchase on your hips as he pulls your body close to him, loving the way your choked moans become muffled by the mattress below.

“So. Fucking. Tight,” he moans with detailed thrusts. “So. Fucking. Wet.”

He climbs on the bed and plants his feet on the blankets, holding your body in place as he pounds into you from above. The angle has you seeing stars and rips moan after moan from you.

Heeseung grins wickedly. “Such a fuckable body. So perfect.”

His degradation paired with praise ignites a fire inside of you. You can only moan louder to let Heeseung know exactly how he’s making you feel and you can’t help but think you deserved to be fucked exactly the way Heeseung is fucking you.

The pleasure feels like an explosion of a thousand suns. Your body is warm from the hours you’ve spent in the hotel room and your neighbors getting a good night’s sleep is the least of your concerns. Heeseung’s cock drills into you from above like he’s a sex god and it nearly brings you to tears.

He turns you over carefully until you’re laying flat on your back with your head propped against the pillows. He steals one from you and puts it underneath the small of your back to create leverage before lining up his cock with your entrance and pushing himself in again.

Heeseung thrusts like he’s got to prove just how in love with you he is. Your wanton moans fill the room with his low grunts as his cock continually hits the one spot that makes you see stars, over and over again.

But you know he could do more to make you feel better. He must notice you in deep thought because he slows his hips.

“What is it, baby?” Heeseung asks when he notices your eyebrows knit together. “Is this okay? Do you need me to stop so we can take a break?”

“Take it off,” you whisper. His hips have faltered and his pace stutters at your words.

“Take what off?”

“The condom.” Heeseung nearly chokes. “Take the condom off.”

“Baby—”

“I just wanna feel you.”

Heeseung curses and his hips automatically drill into yours at the request out of pure shock. He can’t lie to himself. He’s thought about it multiple times since you left for Europe and as he’s come to term with his feelings for you. The cute fantasies about taking you on dates to dinner or drive in theaters transform into daydreams about dirty affairs in his bedroom with his seed leaking out of your perfect hole.

Still, he doesn’t believe it.

“Please, Hee,” you plead, arching your chest towards him. “Let me feel you. Don’t you want to come inside me?”

“Fuck,” he falters, his forehead on yours. “You can’t just say that…I can’t be risky with you.”

“Yes you can.” He watches you bite your lip and feels your hands push him off of you. Heeseung doesn’t put up a fight when he slips out of your warm hole and feels your hands grip his cock, desperately trying to tug the condom off of him.

Heeseung sees the pathetic rubber in your hands when you bring it up for him to see. It’s glistening and his mouth drools at the sight, lips parting enough as if he stares at it in disbelief. He groans lowly in your ear as he peppers a few wet kisses to your neck.

You spread your legs wider in the air and grip his cock in your head, pumping him a few times before letting his bare tip rest against your hole. His sharp intake is enough to make you bite your lip.

“Pussy’s so wet,” he says against your neck, pushing an inch inside of you. “God, I could come like this.”

“You can.”

“No, baby. Gonna fuck you the way you deserve before I come.”

With that sentiment, Heeseung pushes himself inside of you until he’s fully sheathed within your walls. He relishes the way you gasp at the sudden movement and he uses this angle to his advantage, positioning his ear next to your mouth to hear your delicious sounds.

He moves his hips at such a pace that it makes you feel like your body’s bouncing on top of the soft mattress below you. Heeseung presses his chest against yours to kiss you like his life depends on it, tongue invading the privacy of your mouth but you couldn’t care less where his mouth goes. He can feel your nipples on his skin and groans into your mouth when you clench at a particularly hard thrust.

“S-So good,” you stutter against his mouth with a breathy moan. Heeseung feels your arm around his shoulders, scratching at his back. “Fuck, fuck!”

“Mhm,” he coaxed. “Such a good baby. You look so pretty underneath me.”

With a new sense of purpose, Heeseung lifts himself to push himself into you at a deeper angle. He forces his hips into you harder, your hands coming to your chest to cup your tits to give you something to hold in the meantime.

“That’s right, beautiful. Squeeze your tits for me.”

You do, pinching and twisting your nipples until you hear Heeseung moan above you. It sounds nearly animalistic, the way his throat emits a groan that sounds so primal. He sees the dirty smile you paint your mouth with and leans his head down to press a kiss to your forehead before his hand comes to your cheeks, squeezing them between my fingers.

“You like it when I fuck you like this?” Heeseung asks, hips rolling against your own pelvis. When you nod, he gives you a nasty smile of his own and gives you a few harsh thrusts for good measure before pulling himself off of your chest with his cock still inside of you.

Heeseung sits on his knees and pulls out just far enough where his hot tip remains buried inside of you, relishing in the panty breaths you emit as he watches your chest rise and fall. You look so beautiful to him with your hair messed up against the pillow beneath you and with a few faint hickeys on your chest and neck. Heeseung thinks that all of his wildest dreams could never compare to how gorgeous you look when you’re positioned directly where he wants you.

You don’t complain when he pulls out to rest his cock on your wet, bare pussy. You wince at the loss and let him slide himself up and down, biting your lip when he grazes your swollen clit over and over again.

The man above you lifts your right leg so that he can grip you tighter. You relinquish any control left in your body as Heeseung curses and kisses the side of your ankle. He dips the head of his cock inside and thrusts shallowly as if to tease, but you know he’s exploring all the way his cock looks like against your own body.

It feels euphoric. The whole affair is dirty, but it’s the kind of dirty that makes you want to do it again. It’s the kind of dirty that makes this night an event you’ll want to remember for the rest of your night because Heeseung had poured his entire heart and soul for you to take.

For Heeseung, this pleasure is less about knowing you have him permission to put himself inside you. You’ve always been so sure of yourself and your body; it’s something Heeseung has always admired about you as a person. Growing up with your insecurities of relationships and dating might’ve made you feel like a late bloomer; to Heeseung, your tendency to keep your head straight has always been a testament to how knowledgeable you are about yourself and about others. You save yourself for people who are worthy of you, and god, does he want to be worthy of you.

“I love you,” Heeseung whispers from above you. His eyes are closed and he pays no mind to the feeling your pussy gives him. Flashes of your memories stitch together like a film reel with your laughter as the soundtrack. He doesn’t think he wants to hear anything else for the rest of his life.

Just for good measure, he whispers it again. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you.”

Heeseung opens his eyes to see your tender ones, cheeks flushed from the sudden compliment. He always liked that he knew how to get you to blush when no one else couldn’t. This time, a sense of pride blooms in his chest.

“I’ll never let you down,” he confesses. “And if I do, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“I know, baby.” Heeseung’s hand cups your cheek and caresses it. “I trust you.”

That’s enough for him to release your leg from his grip and pound himself into you like his life depends on bringing you to peak happiness.

Heeseung’s palms are planted firmly on either side of your body as his hips roll gracefully against yours, the hot, wet mess between the two of you splashing on both of your thighs. He watches your eyes close shut and as your back arches to relieve some of the pressure, feeling somewhat proud of himself when he watches as your hands grab at the sheets for stability.

There’s nothing that compares to watching you orgasm. Your eyebrows knit as if you’re concentrating while your mouth stands slightly ajar at the euphoric feeling of that single knot that’s threatening to come undone until it does. All of the girls he’s deluded into thinking he liked could never compare to the looks and sounds you’re making.

“That’s it,” he coaxes softly. “Cream my cock, baby. That’s a good girl.”

Heeseung feels you push and clench around him, gushing until there’s nowhere left for your come to go. He peeks down at where the two of you meet and groans when he sees his cock becoming painted in a sheer layer of white. It edges him on and the moment he locks his eyes with yours, his hips begin to stutter and he spills all he has to offer inside of you.

He comes with short breaths as if he can’t believe you’ve allowed him to do so. Your hips move up and down as if to milk him for all he’s worth while Heeseung’s trying his best to balance his body on top of yours, grateful that some of his gym workouts prevent him from completely collapsing on top of you to.

His come seeps from your bodies and he pulls out, a few droplets splattering on your pussy lips. He nudges the tip against it, smearing his paint across your canvas and marveling at the sight.

“My good girl,” he murmurs, eyes locked in at his handy work.

“I’ve never let anyone come inside of me,” you say with a fond expression. Your arm comes to brush Heeseung’s hair from his face before cradling his cheek when he looks at you in surprise.

“Really?”

You nod, biting your cheek. “Well, I always knew you were it for me. I didn’t want anyone else tainting what’s yours.”

“Mine?” he asks, catching his breath. “You mean it? You’re mine.”

“I’m yours, Hee.”

“All mine,” he mutters to himself in disbelief.

You still feel his cock working itself against you. He’s still hard, a wonder after your hours locked away in your hotel room. It makes you laugh.

“No one has ever compared to you either,” Heeseung says. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you as he continues toying with your pussy. “Even when I fooled myself into thinking I didn’t like you.”

You laugh. “Well that’s good to hear. I realized all the guys I went after while I was abroad either looked like you or reminded me of you.”

“I can confidently and stupidly say the same.”

Your laughs echo through the room. Heeseung pulls your body upright, not caring that your mixed come is leaking on his cock and his bare lap. He kisses you with tender care, lips moving at a slow pace while his hands roam over the expanse of your back while your hands are on his broad shoulders. Heeseung could live like this everyday if you’d let him.

You smile midway through when you feel his fully hardened cock against you. Heeseung apologizes quietly against your lips but feels you shake your head, pulling back to push him against the headboard until he’s comfortably seated.

He looks at your pussy when you hover above him, the white cream still sticking to you as you grip his cock. Heeseung can’t believe his eyes when he understands what you’re about to do. Before he can even think, you align yourself with his cock and sink until you’re stuffed with him.

“Shit,” he curses through his teeth.

“What good is coming inside of me if you don’t do it again and again, Hee?”

“That might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Oh, yeah?”

You don’t move just yet, opting to press small kisses to Heeseung’s face. You kiss his forehead, both temples, his nose, both eyelids, and the apples of his cheeks before placing a kiss to his lips.

“Before we leave, I want you to fuck me against that window,” you say, turning your head to the window that glimpses the city below.

“But people can see,” is Heeseung’s first comment.

“So?”

He chokes and when you feel his cock twitch inside of you, you can’t help but laugh at him.

“I’ve heard talk about your escapades, Lee. Why so shy with me?”

He smacks your asscheek. “Naughty girl. Didn’t know you were nasty like that.” Heeseung gives you that kind of teasing smile that has you folding for him all over again. “Alright then, humor me. What else do you want to do before we leave?”

“I’d love to give you a blowjob while we shower, too.”

“That can certainly be arranged. Anything else?”

You look around the room. “I kind of want to see you eat me out while I sit on the desk chair. Makes me think you’re some kind of secretary who’s desperate for my pussy.”

“I am desperate for your pussy,” Heeseung reminds you. “What if I’m the stone cold CEO and you’re the cute secretary whose ass I dream about?”

You seat his chest. “This is my fantasy. You can have yours when we get home.”

Heeseung raises his eyebrow. “Mm, you sure?”

“Positively,” you nod. Heeseung’s hands travel from your ass to your hips and guides you up and down his cock, letting you set the pace after the brutal first round from a few minutes prior.

“Gonna fuck you in and on my car, since you like being watched so much,” Heeseung teases. His words seem to make your pussy clench and hips move faster. He forgoes any shyness when speaking about his fantasies and spills his every thought.

“I always thought you looked so cute in your old school uniform. I’ve always wanted to take you in that skirt they gave you.”

“I’ll buy one of those sexy schoolgirl costumes and surprise you for your birthday,” you say, locking your eyes with him. “Oh, professor! Is there anything I can do to raise my grade?”

Heeseung laughs at your antics, but the images of you in the costume aforementioned makes his grip on your body tighter.

“I selfishly want to watch you suck me off while I play with the guys.” He says it in a way that makes him avert his gaze and you can see a faint blush on his face. “I-I saw this video on Twitter. It looks hot.”

“I can do that for you.” You kiss both of his burning cheeks.

“But mostly, I just want you to sit on my face. Mad at me? Sit on my face. Sad? Sit on my face. Happy to see me? Sit on my face.”

“Simp,” you grunt, thighs burning from pushing yourself on and off of Heeseung’s cock.

“And proud.” He smacks both ass cheeks again. “Now what do you say, baby? If you ride me until you come, you can blow me in the bathroom before I fuck you in front of the entirety of Paris. Can you do that for me?”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

The next morning, you meet Heeseung and the rest of the guys in the lobby while Jay checks out on behalf of all of you. Jake’s the first to see you coming.

“You’re glowing and I don’t know if I like that.” He raises his eyebrow at Heeseung, who has pulled you into him by your waist.

“At least some of us are getting laid,” you retort. “I don’t recall seeing anyone do the walk of shame even though you had the room to yourself.”

Riki and Sunoo don’t try to contain their laughter as Jake’s cheeks turn a shade of pink. He rolls his eyes when you look at him, but shakes his head and punches your arm with your first.

“Nah, I’m really glad you two got that out of your system and worked it out.”

“You guys had major sexual tension,” Sunoo comments.

“Thank God Y/N’s room was at the end of the hall,” says Sunghoon. “I don’t know how their neighbors felt but I can sleep peacefully knowing I didn’t have to hear all of that.”

“Okay, enough,” Heeseung laughs. “We get it, we had a lot of sexual tension and now we’re fine.”

“So you guys are boyfriend-girlfriend?” Jungwon asks.

“Y/N is my girlfriend and I am her boyfriend.”

“I will key his car if he hurts you again,” Riki tells you, looking at Heeseung after he’s finished speaking. You detach yourself from his waist and bring your arms around Riki to give him a squeeze.

“Thanks, Riki.”

“Okay, we should call the cabs right now so we can get to the airport early,” Jay says from behind you.

“Jay is such a dad,” Jungwon whispers.

He pays no mind to Jungwon’s words, instead focusing on the way Heeseung pulls you into his chest. It warms his heart in ways he can’t explain.

“Congratulations, you two. Let’s go home.”

*✧･ﾟ─────────── *✧･ﾟ

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