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kokonomi · 3 years

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Vivi | URL: stayinzencity

“ i have a heart, i swear i do” (ca. 2021)

One shot on Tumblr blog post

i have a heart, i swear i do

member: jennifer check/incubus! taeyong (feat. doyoung)

pairings: taeyong x reader, doyoung x reader (fem! reader insert)

genre/AU: horror, angst, a dash of fluff/comedy, love triangle, Jennifer's Body AU, idol AU

warnings: horror, suggestive, swearing, major character death, bullying, hate, unhealthy relationships, knives, violence, blood and injury, food and eating, smoking, unrequited love. mind the warnings. this is fiction.

synopsis: Taeyong used to destroy hearts, and now he devours them. Heartbreaker got a whole other level of meaning.

WC: 4.5K

collab: NCT Halloween (Monster AU) Collab hosted by @minimultiestfandoms

a/n: check out the teaser below for more info on Misfit (Taeyong, Doyoung and you) and City 127. not necessary to read though. happy halloween!!

Teaser (exclusive article on Misfit)

Prologue:

You walk down the aisle that’s nothing more than an old rug laid out in the lush green backyard of Taeyong’s house, not a hint of uncertainty as you gaze into the eyes of your soulmate.

Doyoung is five, Taeyong is six and maybe age doesn't matter at all. Not when you're playing pretend.

Doyoung kisses your cheek and lets you take your place. He moves to a corner and glowers at everyone- everyone being the audience of stuffed animals and dolls patiently waiting for the wedding to end, and the tea party to begin.

It’s typical of Mr. Grumpy who would come out victorious in a staring match with a chair. Doyoung spends most of his time frowning at, well, just about everything.

Taeyong is the exact opposite. He smiles, laughs and giggles all the time. He has a way of turning even the dullest of days into adventures. Sometimes he goes a little wild and lands your trio into trouble, though he almost always finds a way to get you out of it too.

You exchange flower rings with Taeyong, and quickly peck his lips. Doyoung nods and announces that the two of you are married. Tea time can commence.

The two boys may be as different as night and day however that never gets in the way of their friendship. They mean the world to you and they would do anything to keep you safe and happy, your sunshine and moonlight, and you would do the same for them.

Later that day the three of you sit under your favorite cherry tree. Taeyong carves a heart with your name and his inside. Doyoung draws another heart linked to the first with his name in it. Underneath you engrave Friends Forever.

Years later and the three of you haven't grown apart.

“You look like you want to eat him,” Doyoung comments as he drops into the seat next to you.

“I would.” Taeyong has his eyes on the boy and you know it’s time to give up on this one. It isn’t any fun once Taeyong steals someone away, only to leave them behind soon after. “You’re lying to yourself when you say you wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t say that though.” Neither you or Taeyong fail to hear the words Doyoung mutters and you share a smile.

Doyoung has evolved to the point where he could admit his desires, even if he’s yet to act on them. It’s a drastic change from how he used to be a year ago. Taeyong and you have been the bad influence he needed, and he's finally let himself linger close to the dark side.

People comment on how strange it is that Taeyong spends his time with Doyoung. They find you so forgettable that they don't even mention you.

It’s hard to abandon the friends from your early years if they are always around and all you've ever really known.

All three of you miss classes, though Doyoung is the only one who bothers with formalities like getting permission first, while Taeyong and you simply bunk class and sneak off.

"Kiss boys. Break hearts. Fuck life." Taeyong holds up his imaginary drink. You pretend to clink yours against it.

"Cheers."

Of course, you find Taeyong passionately making out with the boy later that day. When he meets your gaze without stopping his performance, you want to rip him apart. Instead you show him a finger. He responds by slipping his hand under the boy’s shirt and pulling him even closer. Fuck him.

“I’m prettier,” Doyoung says with a huff as he walks up to where you’re leaning against the tree. He takes his spot on the ground beside you and places his head in your lap. “And you’re the prettiest.”

You pat his hair. “Is baby jealous?” You smirk.

Doyoung snorts. “As if you aren’t.” He closes his eyes.

I. Taeyong's Body:

Everyone loves Taeyong- including Taeyong, especially Taeyong.

"With a face like mine," Taeyong smiles. "I deserve to be a star, don't you think?"

Doyoung says if people got to know Taeyong they'd not like him, and maybe it's true since the only friends he actually has are you and Doyoung.

Even Johnny didn't stick around and he was the closest Taeyong ever got to making a genuine friend besides you two, although Johnny continues to hang out with Taeyong enough for the publicity.

"Say you love me," Taeyong whispers when you lie next to him.

When you say you do, he smirks and turns away. You haven't heard him say that he loves you, and probably never will.

He has the face of an angel, but behind that lies a demon.

“Am I supposed to sell my soul so that the masses love me?” Taeyong asks. He empties the water bottle by pouring it over himself, then throws it straight into the trash can. “I mean if I were you I’d think about it.”

You ignore the jab.

Taeyong goes on about how you are a disappointment, a failure, a fucking waste of space. You tune out the rest of it.

Doyoung walks into the room, mumbling about something he’s seen on his phone.

Taeyong snatches Doyoung’s phone out of his hands, ignoring his protests. “The fucking hell?” Taeyong’s eyes light up with fury. He flings the phone out the window, and starts cackling. “If anyone needs to sleep their way to fame you know who it’d be." He points in your direction. "What a joke.”

With Doyoung mourning the loss of his phone, you’re the one who has to figure out what's up with Taeyong.

He’s being a colossal jerk with no regard for anyone else including his supposed best friend- and all that’s relatively normal these days. There’s still something off about him, and you’re determined to figure out what.

"I think something's wrong with Taeyong," Doyoung says one morning, about a week later.

"Obviously," you agree. "It's Taeyong."

"No, that's not what I mean." Doyoung waves his hands in the air as if that makes things clearer, when it actually does nothing to help. "Yeah, well, you weren't the one who walked in to find him shoving a cake into his mouth with his bare hands. Which wouldn't be scary if Jungwoo did it, since that happens every time there's a party- but this is Taeyong. Our Taeyong doesn't stuff food into his face with both his hands like a barbarian at two in the morning."

"Why were you up at two anyway?"

"Fuck, that's the least important thing that I've said. I'm almost always up around two. I have trouble sleeping."

"Oh. Maybe he's going through something too? Should we talk to him?"

"I guess. When I tried, he grinned at me with his mouthful of cake. I think I saw something dark oozing out of his mouth. But it wasn't a chocolate cake, was it? Might be imagining things." Doyoung rubs his forehead.

"You know what? I bet this is just the culmination of all your sleepless nights. You need sleep." And that's that.

Except that night you spot Taeyong devouring raw meat straight out of the freezer. You sprint to Doyoung's room and storm into the room.

"There's this thing called knocking, you know?" Doyoung's voice comes out muffled from where he's buried in his blankets. "Would be nice if you'd try it sometime?"

"Yeah, well. Taeyong being depressed or deranged isn't the problem here. For fuck's sake, he's demonic."

Doyoung’s head pokes out. "The hell are you on about? Demonic? Are you sure you're fine?"

You waste no time in narrating what you saw.

"Okay. So, eating things you're not supposed to be, well, that's called pica. Not sure if there's a cure though."

"Yeah whatever, professor.” You scoff. “That's helpful."

II. Interlude:

There have been a lot of things that had to be buried when it came to you three, especially Taeyong and you.

The rumors and scandals have gotten frequent enough that it’s turned into a running joke your fans like to call Misfit's ‘scandal of the week’.

Yours are mostly about who you might be dating, Taeyong's tend to involve City 127, the idol group he was almost apart of, and Doyoung gets caught smoking.

Your fans are quick to come to your defence. You are adults allowed to make your own choices and deal with the consequences- just because you’re an idol that shouldn't have to change.

For all the people that support you, there are those who spew words of hatred and venom which turn into shards sharp enough to pierce through your skin.

It isn’t doing anything besides making you feel worse, but you can’t keep from checking what people post about you. Their comments start getting to you when Taeyong interferes and pulls your phone out of your grip.

On the days when you bleed insecurity, Taeyong's arms hold you and his hands heal the invisible wounds. He keeps you distracted so that you forget about the terrible thoughts that creep around your mind.

Taeyong softens around you. Those little actions of his show that he does care about you, somewhere deep inside. When he playfully snatches your phone away after he notices you scrolling through and letting the hate get to you, not giving it back until he’s managed to drag you out of the spiral you'd been sinking into. When he pushes a plate of food he's prepared in your direction when you sit down for breakfast, and it’s your favourite made just the way you like it.

But then he does something that ruins it, and leaves you wondering why you even like him.

You’ve barely locked the door when the clearing of a throat draws your attention to the man seated on the couch.

"Back so late, huh? Let me guess- you were with Ten?"

He doesn't deserve an answer if he is going to be like that. You storm past him down the hallway and into the safety of your room.

"Sure. Hide away," he calls out. "Real mature."

You toss your clutch onto the bed, quickly changing into comfortable clothes and throwing the door open.

"It's none of your fucking business," you hiss. "You can't demand that I stay away from him."

"He's an asshole. Did he seduce you? Is that all it took to-"

"One, he's less of an asshole than you. Two, just because you have to seduce people to keep you company doesn't mean everyone does the same. Three, you're an asshole. Fuck you."

III. Taeyong's Body:

You aren’t unfamiliar with spilt blood. It isn't the first time you've driven a knife through a man.

But whatever's seeping out of Taeyong almost seems sentient- something stranger than anything you've ever seen before.

Yanking the blade out of his back, you let it drop from your hand as you back away from Taeyong who is grinning at you. A grin that once would have promised pleasure is now an omen, the promise being of pain.

You're a backstabber, literally, but Taeyong's a demon and that's the greater of evils. Sometimes you need to back off, and this is one of those moments.

Your adrenaline levels spike, heart thumping in your thorax, and you become more conscious of your breathing with each passing moment. Your feet won’t budge, frozen in place like they’re nailed to the floor.

The nerves- or perhaps it’s Taeyong’s doing- let go of you, and you stumble away to put a door between him and you.

"Save me," Taeyong gasps. "I don't want to die again."

You slam the door shut on his clawed hands. It won't stop him, not even do much to buy time really. Taeyong doesn't seem eager to attack you though, and that’s the reason you are alive- for now.

You pull Doyoung into an empty room and lock the door.

“Oh gods, what if you’re the killer? Is this how-” Your hand over Doyoung’s mouth halts the rambling.

"Taeyong's evil." You blurt it out before you realise the words are rolling off your tongue.

Doyoung nods slowly like he suspects this is a trick question, despite it being neither a trick nor a question. "Yeah." He rubs his chest which you pretty much headbutted.

"No. Like straight up demonic evil," you clarify. Not that it's helpful or believable. Then again, you've said stranger stuff before that Doyoung had no problem going along with. "He's possessed or some shit."

"Oh. Okay." Doyoung looks torn between disbelief and relief and horror. "There's something I need to tell you."

You wait for Doyoung to continue but he stays silent. You'd like to say you're patient, but you're really not. You clear your throat, prompting Doyoung to break out of the trance he seems trapped in.

"Well, give me a minute, alright? I saw things that I brushed off as nightmares and now I'm processing that all of it was real. Shit." Doyoung's nervous energy was peaking.

"Yeah. We're fucked."

"So Taeyong showed up one night covered in blood," Doyoung recounts. "And I don't think it was his, either? He looked perfectly fine the next morning so I assumed it was one of my nightmares-"

"You dream about Taeyong often?"

Your comment is ignored. "And he was puking this weird ass dark goo and it was gross and he slammed me against the wall and growled and leaned in close and-" Doyoung takes a breath. "Then he backed off. Left the building."

"Oh fuck. Doyoung, I'm sorry." You're glad it wasn't you. "How the hell did I sleep through that shit?"

"A marching band wouldn't wake you up- you're basically Sleeping Beauty who can't wake up until the curse is dispelled. Lucky you don't have to wait for a kiss when your alarm clock does the trick."

IV. Interlude:

"So," Doyoung starts slowly as if he’s thinking over what he's about to say and whether it's worth the potential punch he’s going to get. "How come you hang out with Ten?"

If Taeyong had asked the question, you'd have gotten defensive and it would have ended with you ignoring each other for half a day at the very least.

Except it's Doyoung.

"He's cool," you say. Not really an answer but open-ended questions allow for this kind of reply. It's not like you could be honest with Doyoung. Or maybe you could if you avoided specifics. "It turned out that we have common interests."

Doyoung hums. He's not entirely satisfied. However, he doesn't push further. Unlike Taeyong he respects boundaries.

It bothers you though, that he doesn't want to dig deeper and discover the truth you’re trying to hide.

"Ask me,” you say. “What's on your mind?"

"Why don't you ever take me along? I don't hear much about Ten from you. You don't have to tell me, of c-"

"It's one of those things where I'd probably have to kill you if I told you."

"You're an assassin? Don’t tell me you started a fight club?"

"First rule of fight club- don't talk about fight club. So yeah, I won't tell you I started a fight club."

You burst into giggles. Doyoung stares at you in disbelief, before a smile slowly forms on his face.

"You can have your secrets. Just know that I'm here whenever you need me."

"I know." You kiss his cheek. "Thank you. You're more than I deserve."

He swats at you, but he's also blushing and unable to meet your eyes. He's really not subtle. It's a little sad.

You can't force feelings that aren't there. It'd be perfect if you fell for Doyoung and left Taeyong, but life doesn't work that way and hence you’re trapped where you are.

V. Taeyong's Body:

"You're killing people?"

"No," Taeyong says. "I'm killing sasaengs. And it's for a good cause." He gestures to his face. "It's part of my new beauty routine."

You really don't know what to say to that. Doyoung doesn't either, if anything, he looks close to puking.

For once, Taeyong actually volunteers information and tells the two of you a bit about what happened to him. But he's Taeyong which means he finds pleasure in making you squirm, of course. Doyoung gets up and leaves midway, leaving you alone with the monster. Which is kind of shitty of him, but Doyoung's always been more of a scaredy-cat and you can't hold it against him.

You are three organisms in a symbiotic relationship- though Taeyong insists you are a parasite leeching off the success of him and Doyoung and your other acquaintances.

Yet it's Taeyong who needs the blood and flesh of others to survive, so who's the parasite now?

"It's still you," Taeyong says with a mouthful of, well, you don't want to know. "I'm a predator. Top of the food chain. You can't beat that."

Even predators get eaten up when they're dead and decaying though.

Taeyong's dead. And if he isn't consuming human flesh, he's decaying.

He isn't invincible. Nothing ever is. Taeyong is no exception.

Doyoung thinks that too. He also thinks a lot of things that are useless outside of his head, as far as you’re concerned. Like when says, "I guess he's like Dorian Gray except he has to feed on humans instead of a portrait absorbing all of his sins."

"Dorian who?"

"Oscar Wilde? The Picture of Dorian Gray?” Doyoung says it like it’s a crime not to know the Oscar guy. “We even had to read it for Literature class- oh right, never mind. You never bothered."

"Not everyone can be a goody two shoes, Doyoung."

"Please. You were a delinquent."

"You were boring. You only have one life. Live a little?"

"Some people have goals and want to be successful."

"Well look at us now. We have the same job. Congratulations,” you scoff. “What use is your degree now? I didn't even graduate high school."

"Well if this doesn't work out then I have a backup plan. Can you say the same?"

"Ugh. Stop saying things my parents would tell me. I hardly talk to them anymore for a reason." Your mood falls momentarily.

“Ok. I figured it out," Doyoung announces. "We’re stuck in a horror movie and Taeyong is the monster, I’m the protagonist and you’re the supporting character that dies halfway through.”

“Fuck you, Doyoung." You can't hold back your laughter. "That’s you.”

If Doyoung was the hero, could you be the love interest? You shouldn’t Doyoung or yourself hope, yet sometimes you let yourself wonder.

“You started smoking again?” You snatch the cigarette from Doyoung. “Even if it keeps Taeyong away, it’s still killing you.”

“I wasn’t using it as a Taeyong repellant.” He pauses and eyes the cigarette you're holding, probably trying to figure out how to get it back. “Though that does sound appealing now," he concedes. "If I have to choose my poison, I’ll take cancer over being brutally ripped apart to be devoured by a demon wearing my best friend’s face.”

You put out the cigarette and pull Doyoung close. You lean near enough to whisper in his ear, then you turn so that your lips brush against his jaw.

Doyoung shifts so that his lips hover over yours. He doesn't go further than that. Where Taeyong does whatever he wants, Doyoung waits for things to fall into place.

It's tempting, being so close.

You move away, taking a moment to catch your breath. “Stop smoking,” you call before pushing Doyoung aside to go back inside.

Smoke isn't enough to keep Doyoung safe from Taeyong.

VI. Interlude:

Arguments with Doyoung are usually over Taeyong. There's a bitterness you can't wash away no matter how hard you try.

“We already got married when we were like six.” You groan into your pillow. “And you two exchanged rings ages ago. Why are we arguing over this?”

“This isn’t an argument! That’s not what I meant.” Doyoung runs a hand through his hair in frustration. “It’s just that we, you and me, never did anything special. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”

You roll onto your back. “Hey, come here.” Doyoung climbs onto the bed, and you pull him onto you. “What we have is special, and it always will be. You know what Taeyong is like. He might go easy on you, but he’ll destroy me. He already does.”

“He’s a fucking asshole. You deserve better.”

“He’s your fucking best friend! It’s not like you tried to stop him.”

“You think he listens to me? You were his best friend too and look what happened. He’s a selfish bastard.” Doyoung's voice rises, and suddenly he's choking on tears. "I can't pretend anymore. It bothers me more than you realise. I-"

"It's between me and Taeyong. You've stayed out of the way all this time. Keep looking away, acting like nothing is wrong. That's all you have to do." You huff and move towards the door. "Perform."

"Wait," Doyoung calls weakly. "I love- I'm in love with you."

You don't stop walking away, though it makes you falter. "I know," you whisper. "I'm sorry. You're the prettiest," you laugh through the tears. "It's just-"

"You don't love me."

"No," you insist. "You mean so much to me. I love you, but my feelings aren't the same as yours."

If you could stay and say what Doyoung desperately hopes for, you would. But you can't bring yourself to lie to him anymore than you already do. He deserves that much.

VII. Taeyong's Body:

Ten is still asleep when you step out of the bedroom. Barely a moment after you leave the room you find yourself shoved against the wall with a hand closing around your neck.

“Are you having fun without me?”

"No one could replace you," you gasp when he loosens his grip. "Not even Doyoung."

Doyoung. You miss Doyoung.

"Wow. You've come a long way for sure. Lying to my face. How bold of you." The hand tightens, leaving you struggling to breathe as Taeyong watches with a grin. “I could snap your neck now, but that wouldn’t be fun, would it? Ah, I’m hung-”

She drives the blade into him, however he's fast enough for it to miss its mark. It's left sticking out of his shoulder.

"Ouch." Taeyong winces as he yanks out the knife, dragging it out to mock you. The wound doesn't take long to heal itself. "Well that hurt. Looks like our friendship isn't going to work out after all. I hope you're ready to be torn to bits. I'll swallow you and regurgitate you. Surely my stomach can't handle something as disgusting as you."

"Nice to see you're still a dick."

"A dick you love, darling. Weren't you in the middle of confessing your undying love for me a minute ago?" Taeyong flashes his teeth. "You're such a masochist. Guess we're lucky that I love to see you suffer. Although I think I've let you live too long already. It'll be nice to finally get some rest, hmm? Enjoy your last breaths, bitch."

"Undying love is going to be dead love soon."

"Too late. I'm already dead."

"Undead, actually. But you won't be for much longer."

"Oh yeah? What are you going to do? Bore me out of existence." Taeyong rolls his eyes. "Seeing as you're no good with a kni-"

Taeyong peers down to see the stake sticking out of his chest. “Ouch.” This time it's gone straight through his heart. Even a hydra has a limit when it comes to regeneration. Taeyong's Achilles heel happens to be his heart.

As the life- or whatever was animating him- left Taeyong, he reaches a hand to caress your cheek. You could have flinched away, maybe you should have, yet you didn't.

"I love you," Taeyong rasps. "Forever."

He traces a heart on your cheek. You grab onto his hand as it drops. Cold and limp it may be, but it's the hand that held onto yours through the good and the bad and the worse.

Sandbox love never really dies.

"As much as I support young love with all its flaws and faults," Ten drawls. "I think someone called the cops with all the ruckus you made. We're short on time, sweetie. You can meet him in hell or when you reincarnate or whatever."

You're not sure if you feel relieved, enraged or disappointed that you weren't the one to put an end to the terror that was Taeyong. Ten's right, there'll be time to think later.

The sound of sirens in the distance is your cue to leave.

Epilogue:

Doyoung slowly pushed open the door and stepped into the flat. It was unnaturally quiet, besides the sound of steady dripping.

It had to be a faucet that someone forgot to close properly. Doyoung didn’t want to think about the alternatives.

That's probably when Doyoung should have walked away. Fled out of the house and never looked back. Maybe then things would have ended up differently.

Taeyong wasn’t supposed to survive and limp home, but he did.

Doyoung screams and writhes in pain. Your head is pounding, your sight fading and you’re left gasping for air. Taeyong cackles and watches the two of you suffer with glee, before he goes out to feast on unsuspecting souls.

“He bit me,” Doyoung whispers in horror. He tries to grab the knife but you get to it first. “You need to kill me. I can’t turn into a monster.”

“We don’t know that yet.. You’re still alive. It isn’t the sa-”

“That’s the thing. What if-“

“No.” You don’t want to consider the possibility that Doyoung has died. But you’d believed it until he’d gotten back up.

You’ve already lost Taeyong. You can’t lose Doyoung as well.

If you could go back in time to the days when you didn’t know bloodlust and Taeyong’s heart hadn’t been ripped out and Doyoung hadn’t gotten caught in it all, you’d keep resetting until all three of you got out intact.

You'd been scratched however there haven't been any changes since then.

It’s possible it was like a disease where the symptoms hadn't showed up yet, and will appear later. Or perhaps you have a natural resistance to demonic possession, if that’s even possible. It is unlikely you’re that fortunate though, so you assume it’s the former and you'll show changes any day now.

It’s not fair if Doyoung succumbed to it, yet you survive.

Life’s not fair.

You are in love with Taeyong.

Doyoung is in love with you.

Taeyong is in love with himself.

News articles pinned on the rotting wall of a musty, old room in a broken down house:

Yuta's gruesome death at the hands of the Idol Killer

City 127's Johnny: the Idol Killer's next victim

Misfit and its miserable end

What really happened to Misfit?

Misfit- 2 dead, 1 missing

Kim Doyoung's corpse goes missing

Violent deaths, vanishing bodies- what's next?

City 127 disbands

Taeyong sightings- hoax or haunting?

To this day, no one's sure what truly happened with Misfit and how they met their mysterious end.

#stayinzencity #kokonomi #fuyu #subject: taeyong #movement: angst #movement: horror #pantone: jennifer's body! au #pantone: idol! au #pantone: love triangle #warning: horror #warning: cursing #warning: character death #warning: bullying #warning: violence #warning: blood #warning: injury #warning: unhealthy relationship #medium: one-shot #dimensions: <5k

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Brooke | URL: lebrookestore

“rhyme scheme” (ca. 2021)

Teaser on Tumblr blog post

rhyme scheme (kim doyoung) — teaser

Pairing: Kim Doyoung x female reader

Themes: celebrity! au, enemies to lovers, hollywood!-ish au, singer!Doyoung, famous!Doyoung, lowkey fuckboy!Doyoung, rapper! Taeyong, new singer reader, angst, comedy, swearing, reader is a bit of a hot head, sexual tension

Warnings: swearing, coffee, more tba for the full fic

Wc: (for the teaser) 0.65k

Summary: After a setback in his career, singer-songwriter Kim Doyoung is forced to work with the upcoming pop star Y/n L/n as she begins her journey in the music industry with her first album

Taglist: @danishmiilk @radiorenjun @channoticedmeuwu @chicksung @jenosslut @kisshim @mrkcore @intokook @kkakkdugi @rouiyan @kiri-ah @kariskwn @019127 @imdamnconfused @armysantiny @subhyuck @aprilpari @nuoyi-city

Send an ask/message to be added to the taglist!

Authors Note: hello! I’m finally writing a doyoung fic and its based off one of my favorite books, which I’ve twisted to fit the plot! The reader in the story grew up in Korea, and is why she knows Korean. And yes, this is my third celebrity au but i love writing them so<3 hope you enjoy!

“Jesus FUCK-”

You cursed wildly, dropping the now empty cup of coffee and shaking your hand about. It hit the pavement with a soft thud, the sound lost to the buzz of Manhattan. Unfortunately, the car engines did not cover up the colourful spew of words that left your mouth.

Keep reading

#lebrookestore #kokonomi #natsu #subject: doyoung #movement: angst #movement: humor #pantone: celebrity! au #pantone: e2l #pantone: hollywood! au #pantone: fuckboy! au #warning: cursing #warning: food #medium: teaser

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Bar | URL: rrxnjun

“all is on my side” (ca. 2021)

Oneshot on Tumblr blog post

all is on my side ; lee jeno

pairing: lee jeno x fem! reader genre: exes to lovers, angst, comfort, fluff word count: 7k (7.168) warnings: swearing, mention of a break-up, mentions of alcohol and food/eating behaviors a/n: WHAT ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO FUCKING DO SO THIS WILL SHOW UP IN THE TAGS

this is a part of the @/kokonomi ikanaide event

synopsis: your college years have passed and when you finally decide to move back into your hometown, you’re met with a certain someone you had cut off 4 years ago. moving into a new apartment with your ex-boyfriend helping you is surely not how you imagined your return to act out, but with more and more time passing, you realise you can’t keep doing the same mistakes in the same town-- all is on your side when he’s on your side, after all.

i. in a club you despise. but you go where all your friends are

The dirty haze of drinks with cannibal eyes. That’s the reality around you as your head spins just the slightest from the daze of the alcohol, your face a little too flushed and your eyes glossy from the effect the few drinks had on you. Your friends have made it their quest to make you feel welcome back in your hometown again, the group around you getting along just as if you never even left, the four years gone, but never forgotten.

You despise the club and the dirty smell of the spacious room around you. You despise everything about it and the drunk teenagers screaming all around the humongous hall, but it’s okay because you have your dear friends around you. You go where all your friends are, it’s only natural for you, because once your heart has finally settled at home, you don’t feel like dragging it away.

“How did you even manage to live with her for so long? She’s a pain in the ass!” you hear one of your high school classmates, Ryujin, call out and laugh at your roommate’s face.

Lia only shakes her head in disbelief, her glossy eyes drifting all around the club as she smirks. “I know, right? She never once helped with the cleaning. I almost kicked her out once, because she forgot to lock the door after she came home at midnight and someone broke in and wanted to steal our TV!”

Your brightly red booth resonates in laughter as Yeji bends over and smashes her hand against the table, not containing herself with emotion. You notice just how similar your friends from college and your friends from high school are. All of them now mature, knowing you better than anyone ever could, bright smiles illuminating all of their faces. It’s almost like God blessed you in every single time-space of your life. You were never once left alone.

“No way! Y/N, you’re a terrible roommate,” Chaeryeong screeched, pointing fingers at you as her face flushed with redness and her eyebrows furrowed in another fit of laughter.

“How would you know? I never lived with you!” you try to argue, playfully glaring at Lia for exposing your past mistakes in front of everyone. Not that you minded anyways.

“Well, thank god you didn’t,” Chae snickers, nudging you with her elbow.

“All you do is bitch about me, but did you forget that it was you who left the water in the tub running and flooded our apartment just a week after living there?” you burst out, offended, “I don’t hear you mentioning that to the table!”

“Woah, ladies, don’t fight here, we don’t want any hard feelings before you move in together again,” Yeji giggles, trying to calm both of you down.

“She could never, she depends on me too much with the shopping,” you snicker, rolling your eyes as you take the glass of your drink into your hand, raising it to your lips and taking a sip before the whole table follows you.

Your eyes drift off the ladies at the table and towards the full club, searching for no one in particular, as you don’t recognise a single soul. You’re much older than everyone enjoying their lives in the small bar of your town, but once your eyes meet with someone familiar, you choke on your drink.

The alcohol is going through your nose quicker than you imagined it to, coughing and making distressed Chaeryeong trying to calm your body by smashing your back, getting the liquid out of your lungs and laughing in the process, making a ruckus.

Your eyes never leave the gaze of a familiar face, the reality disappearing for just a second as you see the figure slowly moving towards all of you, the pit in your stomach deepening with the glorious smile of your ex-boyfriend meeting the table you’re sitting at, his slim figure dressed in all black making your heart thump just like many times before.

Something sitting at the back of your head is screaming at you to disappear. But at the end of the day, graduating college with a degree doesn’t always mean you’re actually smart. And so you continue to sit there, cursing at yourself in your brain for ever letting the man in front of you go.

“Having fun, ladies?”

ii. whether any of this still real

Moving into a new apartment is always a hassle. It’s exhausting and it’s boring, it makes your head spin and your thoughts fill up with piled-up stress, but with your roommate Lia-- the person you’ve spent all your college years living with-- and your ex-boyfriend Jeno, who somehow, after getting drunk with him in the club on the night of your return, is now back in your friend circle, everything seems a little easier to do than if you were all alone.

The presence of Lia’s best friend from college, Donghyuck, that came to visit just so he could see your new apartment and make fun of how small it is in his eyes is the only thing eating up your nerves as you crack open a can of white paint and sit in the middle of what’s going to be your bedroom as of now, sighing.

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up, Hyuck, I swear I’ve never heard you complain so much about a thing that doesn’t even affect you before-” you mourn, scowling as you roll your eyes at the male standing in your doorway, snickering.

“I’m just taking up all of your attention before I have to go back again, give me some enthusiasm! I’m not going to stay here forever,” he whines, shuffling his feet outside of your bedroom and meeting Lia in the hall, hugging her tight around her shoulders.

“Yeah, thank god you’re not,” you roll your eyes, making the male fakely cry.

“Tell your roommate off, she’s being rude again.”

“Don’t hurt Hyuck’s feelings like that, Y/N, you know he’s fragile,” Lia dotes, throwing you a paintbrush so you can finally start painting the walls of your new room white, covering the ugly yellowish colour that’s been sitting there since only God knows when.

Letting out an airy laugh, you only shake your head and stare at Jeno in front of you, sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor. He is wearing grey sweatpants and a white shirt, an outfit casual enough for the event that is helping his ex-girlfriend and now a new friend move into her new apartment, but still worthy enough of a few stares as you notice the muscles poking outside of his sleeves. Jeno hasn’t changed one bit in the past four years, so it seems-- only his face has gotten more mature and structured. Thank god the eye smile stayed with him, though. You can’t help but still see him as the fluffy ball of a samoyed when he flashes you his award-winning grin.

“And you’ve been living like this for the last four years?” he asks, voice coated in disbelief.

“Yeah,” you faintly nod, snickering, “well, Hyuck’s only gotten more and more annoying, but I think it’s mainly because it’s been four years and he still hasn’t grown balls to ask Lia out yet and now she’s slipping through his fingertips. Other than that, it’s been pretty chill, actually.”

“Didn’t hear that when we were out in the club,” Jeno notes, looking at you with a playful smirk.

“Don’t buy into Lia’s bullshit. She is faking it for attention,” you laugh, getting up and taking some paint onto your brush, sliding towards the wall and starting to work on the corners, making the wall your canvas-- ready to be filled with a thick coat of paint with a paint roller later.

To have Jeno here like this, helping you move into your new apartment, was a strange concept. While the two of you broke up on good terms, it was no secret that you two didn’t keep in touch after you told him the news that you didn’t want to continue the relationship anymore. It’s not like it was hard to do in the first place-- unfollowing him on Instagram to keep your heart safe was just a click away and you only ever came home for holidays. You spent those with your family and friends anyways; there was no time for Lee Jeno in your busy, college packed life.

“How have you been, by the way? We haven’t really caught up,” you ask, taking a short glance towards him, seeing him sitting in the corner and working on the space right next to your window.

He hums a little before responding, a silent sigh escaping his lips. “Just the usual. Decided to drop out of college after an associate degree. It wasn’t for me, but at least I have a paper in my hands now,” he snickers, making you hum in understatement.

It’s not like you didn’t know this information. You may have not talked to him, but there’s no way at least something regarding your infamous ex-boyfriend hasn’t caught your ear when you visited your dear hometown over the course of the last four years. “So you work now?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he says, nodding, “I have a nice job, though, so you know… it was at least good for something.”

You’re not going to comment on the fact that he doesn’t sound as cheerful about his life right now. For some reason, and even though it breaks your heart, it’s too hard for you to talk about the misery of others, for you don’t want to sound like you pity them when the intention is not that at all. You guess you lack the skills to make one feel understood and accepted. It’s something you promised yourself you’ll work on after you broke it off with Jeno, but you guess you were too caught up with studying to actually make some self-improvement. It’s no excuse, not even a poor one, to say the least, but at least it’s an explanation.

“You don’t sound too happy about that,” you let slip past your lips, lost in thought.

“It’s not something I find fulfilling,” he shrugs, “but you gotta do what you gotta do.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, furrowing your brows. “What about that… business you wanted to open? With animals and stuff?” you asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. It’s not every day you talk about busted dreams and heartbreak with others. You don’t want to sound insensitive. “It’s always been your dream.”

“Ah, that?” he mumbles, redness creeping up his neck. Something about you remembering such a trivial fact about him makes him feel just a little better about the whole situation-- you leaving, you acting like you forgot all the years you had together-- and even though it’s silly, it makes him feel at least a tiny bead of hope. “It’s still just a dream, yeah.”

“Hm,” you hum, “well, I hope you can make that dream a reality soon,” you say, smiling at him with what you hope comes off as support, quickly averting your gaze back to the white wall in front of you to complete your quest of renovating your new bedroom.

It seems like silence is what eats the both of you up from the inside the most it can, when Jeno decides to break it just the second it happens in fear of being awkward. Being awkward with your ex is perhaps the worst thing that could happen and even though you two haven’t talked in years, Lee Jeno refuses to let that happen now, that you are back and still looking like home to him.

“How were your college years? Wild? Just as you imagined them?” he asks, grinning at you with the memory of the conversations you two had just before you left, dreaming of the big city and big experiences, living freely and having fun.

You snicker at his words, shaking your head at how reckless you were when you were nineteen. “Not at all,” you let out, “wild, yes. Just as I imagined? Not at all. There was more studying than my teenage self predicted, and even though I went to a few parties and had some fun, I regretted it more than anything the next morning.”

“It’s not fun being hungover in class, right?” he teases, making you giggle.

“Speaking from your own experience?”

“Perhaps,” he dotes, walking over to the can of paint in the middle of the room to take some more of it on his paintbrush and smear it over the opposite wall. Your words resonate in the empty room, making them ring a little in your ears as you listen to the stable tone of Jeno’s voice, reminding you of the many times when he talked you to sleep, making you abandon your weak thoughts and broken cries.

“Well, then you must know that drinking on Sunday is a definite no-no. Or any other day except Friday, that is,” you laugh.

“You just have to manage your time better, that’s all. I was an expert at that in freshman year. Drink in the afternoon, let yourself cool off until night and then sleep it out. Fresh in the morning and ready to start my day like the good scholar I was,” he explains matter-of-factly as if drinking in the afternoon was the most normal thing to do in your college dorms.

“Freshman year? Kids these days,” you snicker, clicking your tongue against the roof of your mouth in a teasing manner. The most memorable memory of your freshman year quickly creeps into your brain-- the night you broke up with Jeno over Facetime, crying and hiccuping with guilt and shame-- making you wonder if that’s what you made of him. You wouldn’t know, and you dare to say you wouldn’t even like to know. Sometimes, it’s better to live in blissfulness.

“Oh my god, Donghyuck, if you don’t put that down right now, I’m going to kill you-” you hear your roommate yell from the other room, cutting off your stable conversation and making the both of you snicker at the loudness of her voice. Lia is not the one with a short temper, but when it comes to Lee Donghyuck, you guess no one is safe in this world.

The yell is followed by a loud bang on the floor, silence creeping into everyone’s bones as you halt in your movements, awaiting what’s next. Just when you think everything’s okay and nobody died, you hear your roommate yell out in frustration, her voice close to a cry as you can visibly imagine her with her hands in her hair, ripping them out.

“You told me to put it down, so-”

“Put it down, Hyuck. Put. It. Down! Not throw it to the fucking ground, oh my god, you fucking prick. Those were my favourite cups! If they’re broken, you’re buying me new ones and I don’t care that you got student loans!”

“Chill, woman. I’m pretty sure those were just Y/N’s boxes full of useless stuff anyway-”

“What did you say?!” you yell out, temper rising with the visit of your college friend. You remember him being a total menace to society, but if he really broke the last bit of your tapestry from your dorms, you’re not going to tolerate him anymore.

You hear Jeno laugh at your banter from somewhere behind you, making you turn around and take in the sight of his pretty smile. It’s been a while since you last got the chance to appreciate it. You guess you were too selfish for letting it go all those years ago.

“I don’t know how Lia can tolerate him, he’s so-” you start, but finish your sentence with a sigh, not opting to even look for a word worthy of the annoying ball that is Lee Donghyuck currently standing in your kitchen.

“Love is blind, you know,” Jeno says, making you giggle. You wonder if he loved you as blindly as he speaks of Lia and Hyuck now-- you think that it must have been that way, for there was no way he would have loved you with your flaws. He must have overlooked them, too blinded by the love; it was only a matter of time before you opened his eyes for him with the cruel reality of your break-up.

“Well, Lia’s really fucking blind, then,” you sigh, shaking your head.

“What about you?” he asks, quirking up an eyebrow. Once your eyes meet, he averts his gaze to the wall, too shy to look you in the eye.

“What about me?”

“Is there someone you were into in college? I mean, you were all about that fun when you were leaving, so…” he says, words like daggers in your heart as you listen to his question.

You lick your lips in nerves, shaking your head in disapproval. “No. I was too busy for all of that shit,” you respond.

Coincidentally, that’s a lie. You’ve just never quite gotten over Lee Jeno.

“I see,” he nods, mouth opening to say something more, when the sound of footsteps cuts him off and a pissed-off Lia appears in the opened door, face tired and a box in her hands.

“I think this is yours. Please look after it before Hyuck smashes it to the ground again,” she lets out before she puts the cardboard box to the ground, a big sign written in sharpie on the left side saying ‘Photos’, making you grin. Of course, it's a little too big of a box with all the polaroids you’ve taken in the last five years.

Your friend Ryujin got you the camera on your birthday and you have refused to let it go ever since. Even the worst of pictures were treasured inside of this box, because, as you told everyone, the film was too expensive to just casually throw away. That, and you actually held too much attachment to the pieces of paper you call memories.

“You still collect those?” Jeno asks, smiling at you widely when he notices the box sitting in the middle of the room now, making you grin.

“Of course I do! You know I’m sentimental,” you dote, rolling your eyes at your own ridiculousness, shuffling closer to the cardboard and opening the box, the paintbrush long forgotten and your ex-boyfriend quickly joining you by your side, looking from behind your shoulder and laughing at the silly pictures you show him, taking them out one by one from the box.

“This was from last Halloween,” you say, showing him the picture of you and Lia dressed as Anabelle and the girl from the movie The ring, making Jeno snort and shake his head at the two of you.

“I thought you hated horrors.”

“Oh, I do,” you nod, showing the picture back to the box, “but the theme of the party was gore and my classmate Chan said that whoever had the best costume on his party will get free drinks to take home, so the two of us couldn’t miss the chance, you know.”

“Did you win?” he asks, raising his brows at you.

You furrow your brows, expression fakely offended as you scowl at him and playfully smack his shoulder. “Of course we did! What do you have us for?” you shake your head in disbelief of his mistrust in you, “we had those drinks in our fridge until like Christmas, though,” you mutter, making the boy laugh.

Pictures upon pictures, all showing different memories of your college years. Jeno listens to all of your stories and admires the smile on your face when you mention an old friend or when you think of the atmosphere of a chilly night you spent with your coworker from your part-time job, Seungcheol. You look as if you never even left. You wonder if Jeno feels sad for not sharing memories with you for the past few years. You wonder if he blames you; it would be fair, considering you were the one who cut off his chance anyway.

Jeno wonders if you ever missed him in the moments when you smiled at the camera.

When the pictures get older and older, Jeno starts to recognise your longer hair and your younger face. It’s the face he knew too well, the face of his girlfriend at the time; the pictures from the high school years hitting different in his heart when he recognises the numerous photos of you he took without you looking, making you mad for wasting your film on selfies you never wanted to keep in the first place, but did nevertheless, because each one has a memory behind it that’s filled with Jeno and his utter admiration for your features displayed on the paper.

“Look, this was our anniversary,” you say shyly, showing him a picture of you two in his car, the smiles on your faces bright and cheerful. You don’t remember when you last smiled like that-- sure, your college years were fun, but you doubt anything will ever top the feeling of freedom and love you felt when you were beside Jeno, carefree and in too deep to think of anything else.

You hear your ex-boyfriend hum in response, your heart quickening just a little at the sound. You pick out another picture, a photo of him at the driver’s seat, flash illuminating his sharp jawline. You don’t remember where you went, hell, you don’t even remember when it happened, but the memory of his favourite song playing in the background and the smell of his car lingers in your mind; the mix of citrus and the obnoxious car perfume you buy at the gas station accompanying your every memory of the rides you had with Jeno.

“Everyone was jealous of me when I dated you in high school,” you snicker, making your ex-boyfriend grunt and roll his eyes.

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious! Look at yourself,” you click your tongue against the top of your mouth, smiling. Teenage Jeno was truly a blessing to the eye, and with passing years, so it seems, it’s only gotten better. You’d be cheesy to say your ex-boyfriend aged like fine wine, but there’s truly not a better correlation to say as you momentarily shoot him a look and admire the never-changing jawline, although his cheeks have gotten more slender and his features more defined.

Jeno takes it into his own hands as he rummages through the cardboard box, now recognising most of the places you took pictures of, taking out a particular photo of the two of you standing next to each other in formal attire, your hair tied up in a pretty bun.

“Look! Prom,” Jeno grins, bringing back a memory of him meeting your parents for the first time. You haven’t been dating for that long, but it was still long enough for him to meet your parents; almost like you always knew he wasn’t just someone you’d take to prom once.

“You were so nervous,” you giggle, making him laugh out loud.

“Well, your mum was scary,” he shrugs, “you can’t blame me for wanting to make a good first impression!”

“You were adorable,” you note, placing a nonchalant hand onto his thigh, not even thinking of your actions, “my mum actually told me how much she liked the polite young man I brought home and told me that I chose well. I was convinced she fell in love with you for a few days, she couldn’t stop talking about you.”

“Well, what can I say,” he shoots you a smug look, “I am just that charming.”

“Right, right,” you roll your eyes at him, making the both of you break into laughter, looking at more and more pictures from your relationship, trying hard not to notice the lump in your throat and the emptiness in your stomach telling you just how much you miss the times when his hand was free for you to hold and his heart free for you to take.

You missed Jeno. There was no denying that.

There was no denying that when you first got into college, when you Facetimed him every day and told him all the news. There was no denying that when you cried your first hot tears in the middle of the night because he was too far away to comfort you and make you feel better about the distance. There was no denying that when you broke up with him just for that sole reason-- for the distance killed you and you had to focus on your studies more, and there was no denying that when your roommate held you in your sleep just so you wouldn’t feel as alone without his calls and good night messages.

The said roommate is now standing in the doorway of your room, smiling fondly at both of you with two glasses of wine in her hands. You wonder what she thinks of Jeno’s visits. She’s the one that helped you through the heartbreak, after all.

“What are you two doing? I thought you were getting some work done,” she teases, squatting next to you and showing the glasses to your hands.

“Well, we’re surely not getting any work done if we drink those right now,” Jeno says, but takes a sip nonetheless, making you furrow your brows at him as you clink your glass with him in cheers even though he’s already raised it to his lips.

“We have all the time in the world now, there’s no rush,” Lia says, taking a photo into her hands from the pile and taking a look at the smiling couple, the soft tugging of the corners of her lips coming unnoticed to the two of you, opting to stare at different pictures sprawled out on the ground.

“We were a good couple, you know,” you note.

The sinking feeling in Jeno’s stomach doesn’t go unnoticed, chewing on his lips as he silences it out with another sip, nodding.

“Yeah.”

iii. at a spinning wheel. it's sitting in the back of your head

The mattress of your dorm bed isn’t the softest thing you’ve felt under your body and the walls feel even colder in your room tonight. Somewhere between the piles of books and questions running through your head, the homesickness overpowered most of them and you had no other choice than to cut them all off.

It was a selfish choice. A cruel one, to say the least. But what else could you do to protect your heart and focus on your studies?

The Facetime call is your only source of communication now. It’s not fair to do it so suddenly and over the phone, but the weight of your decisions is sitting on your shoulders and even though you feel like suffocating, and you don’t actually think what you’re about to do will make your breathing come and go easier, it’s your only lifeline-- the last resolution, although it’s just as hopeless, if not more than all the other ones.

Jeno picks up after a few rings. He’s not busy-- never busy for you. You may be a hundred miles away, but his heart is still as close to you as always.

“Hi,” he greets you, voice calm and mellow. His smile feels like a punch to your heart, a twist in your stomach as you try to smile back. You try to focus on some other things-- maybe if you managed to pretend some more, you would eventually change your mind-- but his voice breaks the disturbance and crawls into your skin.

“Everything alright?” he asks, voice coated in worry. Damn him for being so generous when you’re about to do the most selfish thing you’ve ever decided on. He’s making it so much harder for you by being just the best boyfriend anyone could ever imagine.

“Y-yeah,” you manage to nod. Just a few seconds.

You’re giving yourself just a few more seconds to take in Lee Jeno. To admire him through the phone screen, to look into his eyes as they create moon crescents when he smiles at you in encouragement, to bite down harshly on your lower lip to keep yourself from sobbing when you replay memories in your head and realise you’re never going to create another one. It’s been 3 years since you started dating him and truth be told, you could never imagine your future without him in it. Reality is what keeps you away from him, though.

Right person, wrong time, was it?

“We need to break up, Jeno,” you say, voice weak and faint. The look he gives you is close to the one he gazes at you with when you get too deep into your head and stutter anxious conclusions under your breath, bringing yourself down. Even in a moment like this, he tries to guard you. To build you up onto your own feet again, to give you the strength you’re lacking.

“Why?” he asks. It’s hard to read him now. You don’t know if it’s the wall you built up around yourself or the one he quickly made up right now, but you feel the distance between the two of you even more than ever.

You sniffle, the beginning of your most heartfelt breakdown. “It’s not working out right now. You’re- you’re too far away and I miss you, and I can’t just- I can’t just sit here and miss you when I have things to do and people to meet and lessons to learn…” you ramble, throwing your hands into your hair and tugging on it in frustration.

“Am I… holding you back?” he asks softly. You’re not too sure you see him breaking. Perhaps it’s not at its worst yet, perhaps the reality hasn’t sunk in yet.

“Not in the way you think,” you quickly shake your head, eager to explain yourself, “it’s not like I don’t want you anymore, or that I don’t want to date you anymore. You’re not holding me back dating-wise, because I’d never want to date anybody else,” you shakily get out, picking at the skin of your cuticles.

“It’s just that it pains me to have you so far away. I know I said I could do long distance, but when I said so, I haven’t tried it yet. I didn’t know just how hard it is and how much I would miss your presence,” you take a deep breath in, “and it’s holding me back, because I can’t stop thinking about you and missing you, and I really need to… move on,” you complete, waiting for his reply.

“Move on… from me?” he asks. His voice is suddenly breaking, and you can’t even see him through your tears anymore. The candle in the corner of your table is the only source of light flickering onto your face with the laptop screen as you sob, nodding at him and scrunching your face up in pain.

No one told you heartbreak can cause physical pain. You thought they were all lying. You can feel it in your soul, in the deepest, darkest pits of your stomach, in your bones and in your heart. It stings and it hurts and you don’t think it will ever get better, because you’re losing a part of yourself by your own account-- it’s your fault to be so selfish.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, waiting for him to be mad, waiting for him to scream at you and yell at you just as loudly as your conscience does.

Lee Jeno remains silent, though, he remains composed and just as calm as the time after the storm. You hear him sniffling a little from the other side, your own sobs shaking your body. You wish for him to be there to hold you, to make you forget all your pain-- you don’t want to miss him. You don’t want to miss him now that he’s gone, you don’t want to miss him when you’re here alone. You don’t want to miss him, because he’s supposed to always be by your side.

“It’s okay,” he says, trying to calm you down. The tone of his voice is unmistakably beautiful, deep and solemn notes trying to bring your breathing back to normal. “I understand. You… you need to focus on yourself and your growth. And your studies, and the woman you’re becoming. And who am I to stand in your way?” he says, trying to lighten up the situation.

“B-but I love you,” you mourn, hands helplessly wiping away your tears.

“I know, love,” he says, lightly chuckling, “but… you are more important than I’ll ever be. And if this will help you to have your life a little easier, I can understand. And I can wait-”

“Don’t wait,” you suddenly get out, shaking your head. Afraid of coming off the wrong way, you quickly take a deep breath in and explain your hurried plea. “I’d- I’d feel so guilty for making you wait. If you wanna date… don’t say no just because I’m here and I love you, okay?”

I don’t deserve you anyway, you think.

And just like that, you end your relationship. It was your decision, made in the dark of your dorm room, accompanied by the calming smell of your candle and the voice of Jeno lowly mumbling to you through the speaker of your phone. He tells you how it’s okay and how you don’t have to feel guilty. He encourages you to do your best and he tells you he will never forget you.

You almost regret your decision the moment you made it.

Jeno lets you go calmly, with a shaking pain in his soul. It’s like saying goodbye to much more than just a person-- it’s like saying goodbye to his youth, his love, all of his smallest fragrances of happiness.

As you hang up that night, he tells you a sentence you never let go off your mind.

iv. all is on my side when you're on my side

From waking up to his face shining at you from the other side of the bed, the early rays of sunshine illuminating his features in the softest, subtlest of lights, to making him breakfast and thinking of the actions of the previous night-- Lee Jeno feels more back in your life than he ever did; after sleeping next to you, drunk on the scent of love and red wine, making it feel like he’s helping you move into a shared apartment with him and not your best friend from college.

You don’t speak much when you reminiscence of the wrong choices of letting him sleep with you on the mattress you’ve thrown onto the floor in the middle of your living room, only opting to try to move on with no harsh feelings and no second thoughts that could make you even more confused and hesitant about the situation.

When he decides to build your bed with you (more like for you, because even though you have a degree and a good set of brains, physical capability is still not your best suit) and the flat falls silent after the departure of Lia and Hyuck- whom she decided to invite to a café nearby to take the thoughts of him leaving out of both of their heads. It’s not a comfortable silence, but you’re also not feeling too awkward. The air isn’t thick and you don’t feel embarrassed, no, but truth be told, the reality is that you’d like it more if you knew how to get your words out and articulate your feelings, after all this time.

“We’ll meet again,” he murmurs, catching you off guard. Your breathing catches in your throat as his words bring back the painful memory, the sentence being the last thing he’s said to you when you broke up with him before ending the call. He looks at you through his eyelashes, glancing up just for a moment from the manual sitting in his hands, chuckling. “Remember when I said that?”

You find it in yourself to nod, licking your lips to reply something, anything to soothe your nerves. Why is he suddenly bringing up your breakup?

“Guess I meant it, after all,” he says, looking back to the pieces of wood on your floor, taking a screwdriver into his hands and building up the wood together to form a bed frame. You watch him with curious eyes, the hesitance bubbling in your throat. Is this how you resolve a conflict that happened many years ago? In your new flat, the event long forgotten?

“Yeah,” you nod, ignoring what his words implied, knowing damn well he was still in love with you when he promised to wait for you to be finally ready. You hope he’s not still waiting. Perhaps you’d hate yourself even more after knowing that.

“I’m glad it happened,” he mutters, looking lost in thought, “I… I missed you a lot, you know,” he says, nodding to prove his point.

“I missed you too,” you dote, not a missed beat. Finally, there’s an emotion you can articulate clearly-- a feeling you long felt inside of your bones.

Longing. You long for Jeno, you long for the memories you created with him, you long for the ways he made you feel and his heart that once belonged to you. You wish to have it back in your hands, knowing you would treasure it more now, knowing you would take care of it and make sure no one ever breaks it just as much as you did-- with much regret and heartbreak, crying for the image of what the two of you could have been.

“I wasn’t sure how true my words were. It seemed like you were letting go of me for good, you know? I wasn’t ready for that, but I was ready to accept it. We were young, but even back then, you still had your priorities set,” he says, each word making you more and more speechless. You guess talking it out isn’t the best thing you imagined in this fine afternoon, but you don’t really blame him for the questions in his head. It’s only fair for him to get an explanation.

“Maybe you should have been my first priority, though,” you screech out, voice faint. You don’t want to sound weak, but that’s exactly how you feel under his examining gaze.

“And maybe I shouldn't have been. I mean, look at you,” he says, motioning to you with a nod of his head, softly snickering, “you’ve grown so much. I admire you a lot, actually. It must have taken you a lot to decide. You did well,” he says.

You don’t think there’s a person in this world more worthy of loving than Lee Jeno. You once said goodbye to him, thinking it was for good, yet, here he is-- making you realise that it’s always been him, and he promised you to meet again. After all, it makes perfect sense now. You’d be foolish to think you were meant to be, but your heart is screaming at you to believe it.

“I just… really didn’t want to fuck it up. Anything. So I escaped it,” you say, chewing on your bottom lip. It takes you a lot to look into his eyes, but when you finally do it, you think you could burst with emotion any time.

Jeno stands up from his place on the floor, done with screwing the screws in place and mending your bed together, taking the mattress from the living room and plopping it inside of the bed frame, admiring his work. You’re glad for the short distraction, allowing yourself to take deep breaths, training your brain to calm down and think of it as just a friendly conversation.

You’re just two adults, talking about the pain of your teenage years. It’s all okay- so why does it feel like you’re given a second chance?

“Shall we try the bed out?” he asks, looking at you with a smirk. Heat creeps up your cheeks at the suggestion, mouth opening to gasp something out when he snickers at you and shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it like that, you pervert.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” you laugh, playfully pushing him against his shoulder.

Letting himself fall on your mattress, his body sprawls out across the space. You soon follow him, laying next to your ex-boyfriend so you’re face to face, eyes bearing into his with a wave of fondness you still have for him, the feelings never truly leaving you even after all those years.

It suddenly starts to rain and the raindrops falling on the window remind you of autumn-- the season when everything ends, the time of the year when you once said goodbye to your first boyfriend. Autumn reminds you of goodbyes.

“I-” he starts, but cuts himself off, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. You gently kick him with your leg to make him continue, to which he sighs and cracks his knuckles.

“Would you want to meet again? After this?” he asks, voice hopeful.

Yet, something inside of you tells you that it’s not fair for him, that you hurt him once and fear doing it again. Something inside you makes you stop and think, the barrier you’ve built around yourself when you were young resurfacing with the pleading eyes he gives you, anxiety tying knots in your stomach.

“Jeno, I don’t know… It’s… I don’t want to mess it up again,” you say, head full of doubts and worries.

“We can’t keep making the same mistakes in the same town. I let you go once, and sure, maybe that was meant to happen, but look at us. We’re not young and scared anymore. We’re not hundreds of miles away from each other, we’re not busy with studying and assignments, we’re not dumb and impatient anymore. It’s different, it’s all different, except from our feelings,” he says, reciting like he’s practised it for several days, each word resonating in you like a spell, “don’t you still feel the same? Even now?”

Staring into his eyes, you feel the subtlest touch of his hand on yours, making your insides shiver and your mind hazy. “Of course I do,” you whisper.

“Then… let’s try again. If you want to,” he proposes, locking fingers with you and never leaving his gaze from your eyes.

Autumn reminds you of goodbyes. Autumn reminds you of Lee Jeno. Yet, goodbyes mean so much more to you now-- they mean a new beginning, a chance to start over, now that you’re finally ready.

With the right person, at the right time.

“Let’s try again.”

#rrxnjun #kokonomi #aki #subject: jeno #movement: fluff #movement: angst #movement: hurt/comfort #pantone: exes to lovers #warning: break ups #warning: alcohol #warning: food behaviours #medium: one-shot #dimensions: <10k

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Vae | URL: hvae

“ON TOUR: 9″ (ca. 2021)

Smau on Tumblr blog post

09 — ON TOUR

﹙SYNOPSIS﹚after breaking the 'no dating' rule in their band, y/n and donghyuck end up in a messy breakup right before their first world tour. as the ex-lovers continue to act like a couple in front of their fans, jeno decides to join the scene

﹙PAIRINGS﹚drummer!haechan x gn!reader, bassist!jeno x gn!reader

﹙GENRE﹚humor, angst, but mainly fluff :]

﹙WARNINGS﹚profanities, jaemin screaming

CHAPTER NINE : it's official

─── · · · · 08﹙🖇﹚10

A/N : YOUR FAVORITE SMAU IS BACK. i finally got the motivation to write this chapter (can you believe it took me two months to finally pick this up? and then managed to write this in an hour or two? not to mention i'm currently dealing with a massive migraine like wtf) BUT WOOHOO. unfortunately, on tour will now have staggered updates, meaning i will post chapters whenever i feel like it. also, on tour has reached a full taglist!! i can't believe this many people have been ever so interested in this idea, so i really can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me. hopefully this chapter makes up for the lack of content in the last two months <3

#PERMANENT TAGLIST : @wooyoung-a @kimaya2209 @hwallswrld @changminurheart @jiye0n0 @sunfics @fullsunfluff @lcvekdy : form

#hvae #kokonomi #natsu #subject: haechan #subject: jeno #movement: angst #movement: fluff #movement: humor #pantone: band!au #medium: smau

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Alicia | URL: daegall

‘‘ homesick lovesick. ‘‘ (ca. 2021)

Teaser on Tumblr blog post

homesick lovesick. (teaser)

pairing: lee donghyuck x reader

genre: strangers to lovers!AU, fluff, slight angst

warnings: (in teaser) none!! (in fic) swearing, breaking into a restricted area, and then breaking back out lol

word count: (in teaser) 344 words (in fic) around 4-5k i thinkk

a/n: this is a little snippet of a work im making to celebrate 300 followers!! i dont know if its gonna do well but eh lets just see!

networks: @knet-bakery @neoturtles @kokonomi @twozeronet

Donghyuck likes the warmth that you emit, he pushes his cheek closer to your leg at the nice feeling of it spreading through his cheeks. Or when you poke his cheek playfully, and tap a small beat on it, it's oddly affectionate.

Donghyuck finds no more interest in the drama, all his attention has shifted to you, everything about you. The tip of your fingers that drag softly along his scalp when you run your hand through his hair, the way your lips curl up at a funny scene, how they move when you mumble how his hair is incredibly soft.

"I use Mark's shampoo most of the time," He explains. "his mother wants him to use the best one, and often sends some to him." Donghyuck's eyes relax and close when you tuck a small piece of hair behind his ear, tingles spreading throughout his body at the action.

"And I just head over to his house and steal a bottle." A snort immediately leaves you at the end of his sentence, you find it very funny how he can just clock in just to go in his bathroom and steal a bottle and leave right after.

"Jeno uses it too,"

You're laughing the most you have in months, even if it was little chuckles here and there, it's the longest you've been happy without having to get stressed over an assignment or most probably grocery shopping because god your roommate has cooking experiments so often now.

Donghyuck finds a smile forming on his face at the sight of your beaming, almost sparkling eyes. He swears he can find his whole universe in there, stars and moons scattered for him to dive deep and explore in.

Suddenly, he finds his whole world swirling in your eyes, he finds your smile his sun, your laughs all the shooting stars he needs in life to have his dreams achieved.

Suddenly, Donghyuck feels such a different emotion settling within him, ready to bloom into something more.

Maybe, just maybe, you'll be his dream. Just for tonight.

#daegall #kokonomi #natsu #subject: haechan #movement: fluff #pantone: strangers to lovers #pantone: fluff #warning: breaking and entering #warning: profanity #medium: teaser

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Minnie | URL: armysantiny

‘‘Midnight Snack’‘ (ca. 2021)

Drabble on Tumblr blog post

Midnight Snack - SJN

An: This is adorable-

The apartment was quiet, the only sounds filling the space being y/n’s fingers brushing along the keyboard and his and Johnny’s breathing. With nothing to do, the older of the pair had taken to watching his boyfriend crank out the last parts of his essay, concentration seemingly unwavering. Finally looking away to check the time, Johnny gasped dramatically when he had realised that the clock had long passed midnight. Fully aware of the time, Johnny had quickly become very aware that he hadn’t seen y/n get up to get something to eat, and the 26-year-old was starting to get pretty hungry himself.

“Y/n-ah, come with me~!” Pulling y/n out of his seat – unaware of his actual strength – Johnny unwittingly yanked his now laughing boyfriend to put on a coat and some shoes. Stood at the door, y/n watched as Johnny zipped up his coat.

“Hyung, it’s midnight – what are we doing?” Still amused as they left the apartment, y/n could only laugh as Johnny excitedly bounced his head.

“A snack run!”

“Now?”

“Yes now!”

Keep reading

#armysantiny #kokonomi #haru #subject: Johnny #movement: fluff #medium: drabble #dimensions: <500

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Vivi | URL: stayinzencity

‘‘hold on’‘ (ca. 2021)

Series on Tumblr blog post

hold on

memories of magic series

member: park jisung

pairing: none (mentions of 00 line x fem! reader)

genre: angst with an ambiguous happy ending, hurt/comfort, hogwarts au, siblings au

warnings: blood, loss of consciousness, boggart, dysfunctional family, rumors and gossip, bullying, mentions of traditional pureblood ideology

WC: 1.8K

synopsis: Park Jisung isn't enthusiastic about life forcing them to live together as step siblings, and neither is she. Looks like they do have something in common, huh.

taglist: @taemin-jaemin

Just like that, life as she'd known it came to end.

A scandal that brought down a powerful pureblood family- and she didn't even know what exactly her father had done. Something horrific enough that no one dared speak of it.

Aurors showed up at their doorstep with a warrant and they invaded every corner, leaving no room for privacy. The Ministry of Magic confiscated various expensive and rare artifacts under the guise of dark magic activity, but she knew their true intentions were more along the lines of slipping trinkets into their pockets when they thought she wasn't paying attention.

She let it slide since the loss wasn't significant. As the sole heir to the family inheritance, there was plenty left to her name- though it wouldn't be hers until marriage, as per tradition.

With her father in Azkaban, she'd have to live with her mother's new family. A stepbrother who hated her. A mother who didn't care. A workaholic stepfather.

As she steps into the house, the floorboards creak and she decides she hates the place. It’s a matter of principle, more than anything else. She cannot like the place and the people her mother abandoned her for. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t even be here.

She spends the day unpacking in an attempt to make her room bearable to stay in. By evening she's temporarily satisfied, and she decides to send a letter to her friend.

Her door slams open, and her younger brother stands in the doorway. He's shot up in height since she saw him last- which was when they first met at their parents' wedding.

"Brother," she says. Her voice lacks emotion and she doesn't even look up from the parchment she's writing on. "What can I do for you?"

"You will never be my sister," he sneers. "I wish you were gone."

She lets a laugh escape, malicious, finally turning to Jisung. "Mother must have told you that if you wish with your heart on the first star you see it'll come true. Be careful what you wish for. Magic works in ways you can't even begin to imagine, brother dearest."

His scowl deepens. Jisung strolls away, door swinging shut after him with an uneccesary force.

“With a family like Donghyuck's,” Jungwoo says with a shudder. The dramatic effect is dulled by the breadstick that’s stuffed in his mouth. Luckily, he chews and swallows before continuing. “It’s no wonder how they all end up.”

Sungchan gasps, eyes filled with curiosity. “Death Eaters?”

“Worse. They’re the backbone of the wizarding community. You can lock up criminals like Death Eaters," Jungwoo explains with an eagerness rivaling that which he has for eating. "But good luck trying to turn the system against influential people who run it.”

A fork slams into the table, Jisung’s step sister scowling as she stares at it as though it had personally wronged her.

The system had turned against her father despite his influence and it was a sore spot. She did not take it well that the Lee family had gotten away scot free despite orchestrating the affairs her father had taken the fall for.

Besides that, it was her best friend and his family they were discussing. She had the Slytherin loyalty in her, even if she wasn't currently on speaking terms with Donghyuck.

Jungwoo, to his credit, goes on with his gossip unperturbed. “No pure soul ever existed in the Lee family that wasn’t crushed by the time they left Hogwarts." Jungwoo pauses for a moment to shovel and swallow a spoonful of mashed potatoes. "Look what happened to Taemin. Now it’s Taeyong’s turn. Next Mark, then Haechan. Honestly, Mark’s already showing changes. I'm convinced there's a curse at play. Like the legendary curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post ever since Dumbledore turned Oldy-Moldy-Voldy down, you know?"

"What about Jeno?" Shotaro inquires, while Jisung sideyes his sister. "He's Donghyuck and Mark's cousin, isn't he?"

She rises from her seat and storms off, Yangyang shooting them an apologetic glance before hurrying after her.

"He doesn't count since he's a half-blood,” Chenle says. “The Lee family doesn't recognize him as a legitimate heir."

“Pureblood supremacists,” a muffled voice grunts. Sicheng doesn’t bother to lift his face off the table it’s squished against. “Scum. That’s what they think of anyone who isn’t as inbred as they are. Not that you’ll ever catch them admitting it in public. Crystal clear rep, after all.”

"Isn't Jisung's sister engaged to Jeno? Yet it doesn't look like they're friends, let alone lovers.”

“Yeah,” Shotaro agrees with Sungchan. “Why are they together? What do they have to gain?"

“Money,” Jungwoo answers. “It’s all about money.”

Jisung scoffs. He knows his step sister looks down on him for being poor, not pureblood, and not as powerful as her.

"Fortunately for Jeno, his grandfather has a soft spot for him. He treats him like a treasure he found in the trash,” Jungwoo says. “There's less pressure on Jeno compared to his cousins, while he gets the protection of the Lee family. Jeno won't inherit anything. Jisung's step sister is the sole heir to the family inheritance after her father. Jeno may barely make the cut, but he's still a Lee. The name still means something even if he has hardly any say in the family affairs himself. She gets power, Jeno gets-"

"Stop gossiping and eat up. You're going to be late to class. I'll give you two minutes to finish eating before I leave, with or without you."

Jungwoo rubs his head where Sicheng whacked him, pouting at the other boy, not that it had any effect on him.

"The kids need to know about this stuff, don't you think? They’ve been out of the loop all this time while they lived among the muggles."

"They'll learn what they need to with time. Now hurry up," Sicheng says. "You have forty-five seconds left."

She’s reading through Renjun's essay, crossing out and adding lines with her quill, when she realises why it seemed so familiar.

With the note from her secret admirer and Renjun's assignment side by side, the resemblance was undeniable.

It'd been Renjun all this time?

He said he'd be near the Great Lake if she needed him, so that's where she decides to go.

She rushes through the corridors, ignoring the stares and scowls people sent her way.

But then someone steals her wand and shoves her into an empty classroom. They spell open the cupboard that stood in the center of the room. She tries to get out but the door is locked, trapping her inside.

She's horrible. She's the daughter of a criminal. She's a villain. She deserves it.

She'd heard the whispers, known they'd eventually attack her, yet she still fell into their trap.

The boggart steps out and she doesn’t want to turn around and face her fears, especially not while defenseless without a wand.

"Hey, look at me, baby."

No. Not his voice. Without venom, like he still loved her-

"Don't be shy, love."

She finds herself face to face with Jaemin. What’s scary is that she wants to believe it’s real, that he'd take her back and they'd be together again. Even after everything he'd done, she still loves him and it terrifies her.

"Riddikulus."

Boggart Jaemin turns into a cardboard cutout, and falls flat on the floor.

She turns around to Jaemin, the real one, holding his wand out, brows furrowed and a question forming on his lips. But then he simply sighs and walks away, leaving the room unlocked behind him.

The package her owl had delivered in the morning lies where she'd tossed it beside her bed.

She opens it and takes out its content.

Regret fills her as soon she realizes what’s dangling from her fingers. Someone thought it would be fun to give her a cursed locket.

She immediately flings the object, unfortunately it's too late. Her wand clatters to the floor.

She coughs up blood, stumbling to the ground while trying to reach for her wand that she'd accidently dropped in her haste. Her vision is fading in and out, and she feels like she's being torn from the inside. Blindly searching for her wand, she feels her consciousness drifting away.

She lets her head rest on the cold marble of the floor. The desperation has left her, only the desire to sleep left. Her eyes flutter close and she lies there, waiting for the pain to go away and leave her with peace.

There's the sound of the door swinging open and hurried footsteps, though she doesn't have the energy to open her eyes. Someone speaks and she can't make out the words, but she hears the panic, the concern, and wonders what it would be like to have someone care about her like that.

With that thought, she lets the darkness carry her away.

When she comes to, it's in a bed at St. Mungo's. There's someone hunched over in the seat next to her, and to her surprise, it's the last person she expected.

"Jisung?"

His head snaps up, and he looks as shocked as she feels.

"I-I-" Jisung stammers as if he was caught red-handed. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault. I didn't want you to die. I didn't mean for you to get hurt. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. I'm sorry."

Jisung is on the verge of tears after this confession, and she isn't sure which part of it she should focus on. He looks young and vulnerable, and this is the first time he's spoken to her without a threat marring his features.

"So you're behind the boggart and the pranks too?" She knows the answer but she wants to hear it from him.

"Yeah. I wanted to give you a fright, knock you off your high horse- but I never wanted this. I've said things I didn't mean before," Jisung admits. "But please believe me this time. I know you hate me. After everything you have every reason to, of course. But I realised I don't want to lose you, and I want you to know that."

"I don't though," she says after a moment. "I don't hate you. I thought you were a pest and you proved me right on that, yet I didn't think of you as the enemy. I didn't want to like you, but I couldn't bring myself to hate you.” And it's true, even after Jisung revealed what he’d done. “You almost killed me though, and that’s not something I can forgive just like that. If you really want to make up for it, then you’re going to have to work hard. I won’t make it easy, be warned.”

“I’m not as competitive as you,” Jisung laughs. “But I don’t hate challenges.”

“Great. Your first task is to go buy Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and pick out the unpleasant ones.”

“You’re not going to make me eat those, are you?”

“Well, I wasn’t. Now that you’ve brought it up, it sounds like a nice idea.”

Jisung groans as he goes to get the jelly beans, hoping that he won’t get booger flavoured beans or worse.

Jisung has heard she hardly ever forgives and never forgets. She's already plotting to make him pay. Jisung knows this, and he wonders how long they'll play at being siblings.

For now, he bickers, buys her things and enjoys acting like her younger brother while it lasts.

#stayinzencity #kokonomi #aki #subject: jisung #movement: magic #movement: angst #pantone: hogwarts! au #pantone: siblings! au #pantone: hurt/comfort #warning: blood #warning: unconsciousness #warning: rumors and gossip #warning: bullying #warning: racism #medium: series #dimensions: <5k

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kokonomi · 3 years

Text

Vae | URL: hvae

‘‘SIPPIN’ ON SUNSHINE’’ (ca. 2021)

Oneshot on Tumblr blog post

SIPPIN' ON SUNSHINE | H.RJ

SYNOPSIS : renjun's convinced you've fallen in love at the sight of the lifeguard with purple hair

PAIRING : bestfriend!renjun x genderneutral!reader

GENRE : this is literally all crack i'm sorry i don't even know i got second hand embarrassment writing this. slice of life but at the same time idek anymore because what?? did i just?? write??

WARNINGS : i literally stated them in genre, also sprinkled profanities and mentions of lifeguard eric from tbz <3

WORD COUNT : 1.8k+

NAVIGATION | NCT DREAM MASTERLIST

A/N : this is for the resonance beach collab by @amorajae !! also tagging @reniqt because it's renjun

“You don’t even surf, Renjun.”

“Shush, the board makes me look cool.” Your best friend shows it off to you once more before tucking in under his arm, skipping off in front of you while you’re left to carry both of your miscellaneous possessions.

In almost an instant, Renjun finds two white long beach chairs provided from the resort that sat far from the crowd, waving you over. “Over here!”

He stabs the surfboard into the sand before occupying one of the chairs, watching you struggle to walk across the sand with a shit-eating grin worn on his face.

“Never playing rock paper scissors with you again,” you grumble when you finally approach him, dropping the heavy bags onto the ground. “I don’t even know why we need this much stuff for the beach.”

“It enhances the experience,” he hums. Renjun kicks his feet out in front of him, bringing his arms behind his head with a content sigh leaving his lips.

While you’re getting comfortable in the chair adjacent, Renjun glances over at you before outstretching his arm, his grin making a reappearance. “Sunglasses.”

With a loud, exaggerated groan, you reach into the bag beside you to pull out the sunglasses he’s been keen on wearing all summer. You hand the heart shaped frames over to him with a huff.

He thanks you with a smile, putting them on before bringing his hand back behind his nape. His eyes fall shut while his face meets the sun, humming an unfamiliar tune. It comes to a stop when he hears ruffling from beside him, opening his eyes to glance at the disturbance.

You pull out a soda can from the cooler you’ve brought, popping it open. Renjun eyes you through the sunglasses as you grab a straw, dunking it inside the can. He doesn’t remove his gaze from you as you drink out of it, detailing your every movement.

His silence makes you look over at him, cocking a brow in his direction. “What?”

Renjun continues to watch before parting his lip, pointing to the drink in your hands. “Are you going to finish that?”

You scoff at his audacity, narrowing your eyes at his sprawled out figure while the straw in your soda stirs.

“Why? Do you want it?”

His face contorts into a joyful one as he sits up, reaching for the drink.

“Gimme gimme.”

You’re convinced you’re best friends with a toddler when Renjun makes grabby hands your way, a pout slowly forming on his lips when you don’t move from your spot.

The sight of a bratty Renjun elicits another scoff from you, and you reluctantly hand it to him. “You’re impossible.”

He holds back from squealing when his attempt is successful, taking the cold drink into the palm of his hands.

You yawn, stretching your arms heavenward before falling back into your chair. The calmness of the beach finally dawns over you, and you’re busy sound of the waves crashing until Renjun sips on his drink rather obnoxiously.

But due to wanting to remain in tranquility, you choose not to make a fuss out of it, letting your gaze wander around the surrounding area. Your eyes eventually fall onto a rather attractive lifeguard, unable to remove your eyes from his figure lounging in his tall chair. The purple haired man is busy conversing with another fellow lifeguard below him, a smile present on both of their faces as they talk.

The loud sipping comes to a halt and is replaced with shuffling noises. Renjun’s back to sitting up fully in his spot, tracing your gaze with his own.

“Who are you looking at?” He questions. His sunglasses lower themselves down the bridge of his nose as he waves the soda can in your direction, trying to avert your attention back to him.

“No one!” you rush out, covering the urgency in your tone with a cough. You look back at your friend with a smile that held all the secrets in the world before leaning over to take the sunglasses off of his face.

He squints at you skeptically before putting his brain to use, gasping loudly for all the surrounding families to hear.

“Were you looking at the lifeguard??” Renjun interrogates, taking another sip out of the soda meant for you.

You ignore his words by putting on the sunglasses, preparing yourself to block out his incoming spurt of words.

“You were!” He shoots up in his spot, splatters of the soda falling onto your skin. “You’re finally interested in someone, aren’t you?”

“Oh look, a kid just got pummeled by the waves,” you point out, voice dry of any expression. His obnoxious sipping returns, and you’re rolling your eyes.

“Don’t try changing the topic, Y/N. You’re attracted to him,” he accuses.

“I mean, yeah, but that doesn’t mea-”

“I knew it! This is revolutionary, you antiromantic.” The darts the straw in your direction. “You never look at anyone. Ever. Besides me, but that’s because I’m fucking sexy.”

“What’s your point, Renjun?” you groan.

“My point is-” he sets the drink aside before turning back to look at you. “You’re whipped.”

“That’s a very bold claim, Renjun.”

“Oh come on. When was the last time you’ve dated?” He answers his own question with the exclamation of a ‘never!’, joining you on your beach chair before shaking your shoulders. “This is your chance. This is your main character moment.”

You stare at your best friend like you had just encountered an alien, pushing his shoulder away with your index finger. “I looked at him for two seconds.”

“Two seconds too long!”

Renjun removes himself from your chair and rises to his feet, bringing you up with him.

“What are you doing?” you ask, fighting against his hold.

“I’m going to have you talk to that hot lifeguard.”

Your eyes bulge out of your eye sockets at his response, adjusting the crooked sunglasses on your face. “What?!?”

He doesn’t give you a chance to ask anymore questions when he grabs your arm, pulling you over to the chair. You’re screaming at him through hushed whispers, fighting against his grasp. Unfortunately for you, your friend is stronger, and therefore he is unfazed.

The lifeguard that stood next to the chair is long gone, leaving behind a yawning young adult to supervise everyone out in the ocean.

You two eventually make your way over to him, and Renjun keeps his ground when stopping in front of the chair. He cranes his neck up towards the remaining lifeguard, greeting him with a smile and your frantic figure.

At this point, you’re basically slapping Renjun’s shoulder to have him let go of you, but he doesn’t budge and his demeanor refuses to falter. Your aggressive attacks start to fade when you catch sight of the lifeguard’s bare abdomen behind his red vest, and it only widens Renjun’s smile further.

“Hi!”

The lifeguard finally looks down at the two of you after noticing the newly added presence, his tired expression turning into a curious one.

“Hey!” His greeting trails off when he sees you struggling within Renjun’s grip, tilting his head at the sight. “You guys good?”

“Oh yeah, we’re fine,” Renjun replies nonchalantly, sparking a conversation with the stranger.

It is then when you stomp on his foot, thankful that the action manages to evoke a reaction out of your friend.

Renjun’s crying for his life, and the lifeguard just watches the pure chaos when you cheer in victory. His purple hair begins to compliment the bright smile forming on his lips, entertained at the scene that was brought to him.

“Are you sure you guys are good?” he asks again, his whistle dangling from the string wrapped around his neck. There’s a playful smile on his face, and you easily catch sight of it.

“Not anymore,” Renjun whines, bringing his foot between his hands as he tries to rub it better.

You step in, deciding to speak to the lifeguard yourself. “Sorry, we really didn’t mean to bother you-...uh…”

“Eric.”

“Right. Sorry, urm, Eric.”

The now-named male moves to hop off his chair, standing in front of your hand before crouching down to inspect Renjun’s foot.

“I think you should be apologizing to your boyfriend, not me,” he hums, removing the flip flop from Renjun’s foot.

Funny enough, you're not the only one gawking at Eric’s claim. Renjun’s jaw seems to have dropped to the ground beneath him, leaving the lifeguard completely oblivious to your reactions.

Eric is too occupied with brushing sand off of Renjun’s foot, gently blowing at it before rubbing it. The look at your friend’s face clearly says ‘what the fuck’, and his puzzlement makes you burst out in laughter.

But even so, Renjun chooses not to retract his foot from the male, staying still as he allows Eric to do whatever he was doing.

“Does it still hurt?” the lifeguard asks, looking up at Renjun.

You swear you see Renjun’s face being washed over with a wave of embarrassment, his ears growing impossibly red. “U-uh, yeah- yeah wait no, no it doesn’t, thanks.”

“Are you trying to win over my boyfriend?” you blurt out as Eric goes to lean against his chair.

He’s laughing, playing along with your act when he nods. “Perhaps I am.” Eric looks over at the stunned Renjun.

You pick up Renjun’s flip flop and reach to hold onto Renjun, tugging him away from the lifeguard. “C’mon, babe. I’ll go kiss your foot better somewhere else.”

“It was nice meeting you two!!” Eric screams out, standing up on the steps of his chair in order to wave you two goodbye.

Although you’re dragging Renjun away at a rather quick pace, you manage to secretly reciprocate the goodbye, and the last thing you see is his eyes smiling from under his visor.

“The fuck was that??” Renjun asks when you both arrive back at your original spot on the beach.

“The lifeguard was trying to steal my boyfriend,” you reply rather proudly, and you’re not sure why either.

Nonetheless, your response renders Renjun speechless, mouth continuously closing and opening as if to find words to say. “...The fuck? Boyfriend?”

You hand him his flip flop back. “Yeah, boyfriend. Hurry up. We’re leaving.”

His face is met with your back when you go to pick up the bag and cooler, bringing it right back into your arms.

“We literally just got here,” he reasons, completely confused with what you were doing.

“And now we’re leaving.”

“Why?”

His endless questions make you turn around to look at him, huffing loudly at him.

“Because my boyfriend owes me a date after making me go through the five stages of grief in front of that lifeguard. Now get your soda, and let’s go. Someone stole your surfboard, by the way.”

#hvae #kokonomi #natsu #subject: renjun #movement: humor #movement: fluff #movement: slice of life #pantone: best friend #medium: oneshot #dimensions: <5k

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